happened a long time before secretary mcdonald camelot for i came along, or jeff miller, or richard blumenthal. v.a. is making substantial changes. we are addressing the concerns that the place in denver, that by centralia, that took place in atlanta that took place in phoenix. one by one we are printing this things. -- correcting these things. we'll see a full response to all the things that have happened. it is an easy thing to find fault with, but when you have 314,000 employees to which is what the v.a. has, and you are 22 .5 million people, there is always a mistake you can find. but there are lots of people a in and dale -- day in and day out that are being helped. cites trump frequently numbers of veterans who died, specifically because of delays in service. what does your committee investigation show? how many deaths have you been able to pin point to service delays? many. death is too i have never looked to find out, one in arizona, that i know about, that is inexcusable. we need to have the number at zero. >> we are going to have a change of administration, no matter what. if your pa

pthe florida senator phil nelson pand richard blumenthal of pconnecticut wrote a letter purging president obama to pgreenlight a new study. pthey say too many children are laying on the new material. pit is officially called crumb prubber turf in their has not pbeen a study on the link to pcancer. pa soccer coach explained the pcancer, most of which are psoccer goalies. pwith more athlete fields being pmade of this rubber, it is only rudent to research the effect pof recycled material has on phumans. pthe white house said the pinitial study will include 50 pmillion. pit has been slated as an poriginal budget. presearchers will be conducted pjointly by the epa, the cdc, pand consumer product safety pcommission. pthe letter was not the first ptime the two senators urged the pgovernment to research this pcrime rubber turf. pthey asked last fall for them pto start their own independent pinvestigation. pthe cpsc said they would assist pin researching the health peffects. p>>> if you are watching, you pknow it. pit has been at deadly morning pon bay area roads. pit started round 2:30 with a pde

. >> thanks so much, senator richard blumenthal from connecticut. joining me is law professor tribe. thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> what do you make of the republican position which began before the chief justice had his last rites? i've never seen anything like that. a staffer had the hutzpah to say there will be no confirmation. i don't know how they -- i guess they know the dna of their bosses. >> they have pretended, i think ted cruz said this is historic precedent. in the last 80 years he claimed, this is the rule, when a president in the last year of his term is asked to fill a vacancy, the senate says we won't consider anyone. that's just not true. in the last 104 years, in the last 104 years, six times this has occurred, where there was a vacancy created by a resignation or a death. in the last year of the president's term, and all six times, the president nominated someone, and that person was confirmed. either in ten days or less, or in one case because of anti-semitism, it took months to get brandice confirmed. ronald reagan

senator richard blumenthal. thanks so much for coming on the program. >> thank you. >>> and a programming note for you, my colleague andrea mitchell will have the ranking member of the senate judiciary committee path leahy at noon eastern time today. >>> joining me in columbia, "washington post" reporter katie zizima. let's start with congress and how this fight will shape up. what's it going to be like in d.c.? >> it's going to be quite something. senator mcconnell says he's going to block whoever the president puts in. it's going to be quite a fight, people will be digging in their heels. >> is there any room for compromise that you see? >> not that i see. i mean, especially here on the presidential campaign, you know, you see people like senator cruz saying that we're not going to let anyone in. he's threatening to filibuster as well. i think that it's really going to be a knock down drag out fight and there's not going to be much room for compromise. >> that's going to be interesting to watch through all of