this time harry reid is involved with mitch mcconnell. what do we anticipate happening during the course of today. >> was we speak, president obama has been out making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with youngsters at this food pantry in d.c. to try to highlight some of the effects of the shutdown and to show many of the volunteers at this pantry are furloughed workers, folks who have not been working and using their time for a good cause. i think he's trying to kind of maybe some folks don't always have a ton of sympathy for government workers but he's certainly trying to show some there, as well. he will took this opportunity to really i think ratchet up a little bit of pressure on the house of representatives. he said there is some progress on the senate side. he said, but he also called the government shutdown completely unnecessary. he acknowledged, as well that there are certainly differences. and he said we stand a good chance, this is not a quote but just sort of broad strokes when he said we stand a good chance of defaulting

mitch mcconnell has seen the power of the tea party. i think what mitch mcconnell is doing. i don't think he is taking matt bevin lightly. i think mitch mcconnell is playing the only card he really has. which is that he is going the -- i'm a statesman, i can bring the money back to kentucky, i have the experience route. which he fields i think will be popular in the republican primary. because there are plenty of people over the year, now that he has been, he is a five-term senator. he has brought a lot of money back to the state. he has done a lot of favors for a lot of business people in the state. so he is counting on building a sort of backfire among what's left of the traditional republicans in kentucky. and there are a lot of them to win that primary. >> josh, you are not supposed to be able to run a poll on an incumbent senator that shows him in some kind of tie with the other party's challenger in this case allison grimes. an incredibly powerful poll for her. the incumbent is supposed to be polling ahead. challenger has to play catchup. she is there. >> i don't find

filibuster that mitch mcconnell. that's his contribution to the nation for getting what's good for the they would not have done all of this dirty politics practicing at a time politics of personal destruction if they didn't fear. in florida hello, greg. good morning. >> i think an investigation, not an investigation per se but digging into actual mental health issues is appropriate. kicked out a vice presidential candidate for basically exactly the same thing being institutionalized 20 years prior. i think if the federal government says you are not sane enough to own the gun, i think that's the proposal you are trying to make is people who have been institutionalized for mental health issues shouldn't be sane enough to own a gun, why should she be a candidate? >> bill: look, you raise a lot of issues here, craig. first of all, you were talking about thomas eagleton. i think thomas is his first name. eagleton. right? i think the democratic party made a huge mistake at that time. only because at one time, admittedly. i

case in point, mitch mcconnell. what did you really think when you heard him say the way he intends to get re-elected is to hammer anyone who might be talking about running against him? any newspaper that might cause him trouble along the way. does it surprise you, he, the senate republican leader who said his number one goal following president obama's inauguration was to detroy him, does it surprise you that he would be sitting there listening to an opp researcher talk about a possible opponent, ashley judd, being emotionally unbalanced? tonight we learn from yet another type -- yet another tape, rather -- what it's like to be in a room with a big name politician and to learn firsthand, again, that they're pretty much the way you figured them. i love these tapes, by the way. i hope they're legal because i think they're great. i'm joined right now by nbc news political director, chief white house correspondent, chuck todd, and the "huffington post's" howard fineman. i want to start with howard tonight. you've got t

also harry reid and minority leader mitch mcconnell. right now, the senate convenes, and these two huge players, mcconnell and reid, are expected to speak. we're watching very closely. we've been reporting this meeting, reid and mcconnell's office, the talking that's taking place, and what these two say could indicate the face of the country, really, at this point in time. fast-moving story. dana bash has been all over it. she's our chief congressional correspondent. i understand reid has been back in mcconnell's office. tell me, is this a good sign heading into this white house meeting in 60 minutes? >> it sure seems like a good sign. i just came to talk to you from standing outside of mcconnell's office which is kind of on the other side of the capitol, we expect both of them to leave there soon to speak publicly on the senate floor. but as reid was walking into mcconnell's office, ted barrett saw he was holding a piece of paper, which is a good sign, and he said we're going over the deal. the question is, are you there yet? he said,

and after nearly 30 years, mitch mcconnell was at the center of it. where once, congressmen and senators would come together to work together for the common good. we now have senator mcconnell, the proud grid lock, grinding the government to a hold. senator mcconnell has blocked legislation that could actually help kentucky and move this nation forward. and for the past few years, he has done it for the worst possible reason, a reason that my grandmother would tell you was no motivation at all. out of spite. >> senator mcconnell offered this welcome to president obama on the senate floor in advance of his visit to the hill. >> it really would be nice to see president obama work with congress for a change. to get some important things done for the american people. republicans have been eager to do this all along. but really, it is almost like there is a "gone campaigning" sign outside of the oval office. a "gone campaigning" sign outside the oval office. and on the rarest of occasions when he does come to the hill as he will today, you find out it is b

but mitch mcconnell knows that was wrong. he took a stand against mitch mcconnell. (laughter) mitch mcconnell, wrong for kentucky. vote change. vote mitch mcconnell. (laughter) i'm mitch mcconnell and i approve this message. no i don't! (laughter) (cheers and applause) >> stephen: folks, with an ad like that one one of them can't lose. (laughter) nation, you watch the show, you know my middle name is "danger." but my first name is "we're all in" and my last name is "run for your lives." this is the threatdown. (cheers and applause) folks, traditional marriage is under attack and this time it's not just from the gays-- although i've got to say, they're not helping. look at neil patrick harris' family halloween photo. (audience reacts) "come to my house, i have fun-sized snickers." (laughter) no, the real threat to marriage is threat number three: divorce. didn't see that coming, did you? now, divorce has never been great for a marriage, but according to a new study, divorce is contagious. which i've suspected for a long time. that's why i always did "larry king live"

mitch mcconnell, a record number of filibusters, mitch mcconnell, who made it his number one goal to defeat president obama, all of a sudden is going to turn around and be the good guy to the liberal left and cut a deal and are we going to get the numbers we want? i don't think so. remember to answer tonight's question at the bottom of your screen, share your thoughts on twitter at ed show and on facebook. we appreciate that. coming up, glenn beck, and oscar the grouch have a lot in common. we'll tell you why. >>> plus, paul ryan's new war on women. love your tweets. keep them coming. we're back, social interaction. [ man ] on december 17, 1903, the wright brothers became the first in flight. [ goodall ] i think the most amazing thing is how like us these chimpanzees are. [ laughing ] [ woman ] can you hear me? and you hear your voice? oh, it's exciting! [ man ] touchdown confirmed. we're safe on mars. [ cheers and applause ] ♪ hi. [ baby fussing ] ♪ help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can t

well done, mitch mcconnell. david corn of "mother jones" magazine. another scoop. congratulations, sir. >> thank you, martin. >>> coming up, the lionization of an american baroness. wait, sorry, she was english. stay with us. [ coughs ] [ angry gibberish ] i took something for my sinuses, but i still have this cough. [ male announcer ] a lot of sinus products don't treat cough. they don't? [ male announcer ] nope, but alka seltzer plus severe sinus does it treats your worst sinus symptoms, plus that annoying cough. [ breathes deeply ] ♪ oh, what a relief it is [ angry gibberish ] since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪ you got it! you got it! yes! aflac's gonna help take care of his expenses. and us...we're gonna get him back in fighting shape. ♪ [ male announcer ] see what's happening behind the scenes at ducktherapy.com. ♪ the middle of this special moment and i need to

mitch mcconnell did his job this week. it was a good thing for the country. >> mcconnell expressed confidence to the extreme republicans and learned the lesson in the showdown shutdown. there's no politics in the second kick of a mule. there will not be a government shutdown. we fully acquainted our new members what a losing strategy that is. john, i think that's true. but there's more likelihood that come january there could be a shutdown of some length. but i do think your party and the country got a wakeup call about screwing around with the debt ceiling. i think people who watch the finance pages, retired people. once you're 75 years old, the people watching know this, you can't get another job and make a ton of money. this is it. your kitty, what you've been able to save and build with interest rates, compound interest, you don't want that screwed with. >> john boehner and mitch mcconnell worked this out, there was never going to be a debt default, never going to happen. i said this on the show many amongst months ago

i realize that mitch mcconnell is trying to sort of make himself over into a scrappy guy, but mitch mcconnell is mr. magru, in terms of how he's conducted himself as the highest profile guy in the senate. the idea that he's a scrapping knife fighting guy, he may be canny, but i don't think anyone is going to identify with him in a kind of populist way. >> he might be mr. mugu in washington, but he's mr. majestic here in kentucky. the opponents that have gone up against him in the past, they -- he buries them and then he comes back to make sure he stays buried. he plays tough, plays for keep, and he's been doing that his whole career. he's a guy who wins inside the margins and that's where he likes to play. >> i've got to ask you, sam, this week we uncovered some reporting that senator rand paul has been giving speeches that are ripped off from wikipedia. your paper editorialized on the issue today in a sort of withering way, got a comment from a senior adviser to senator paul this afternoon, dismissing the whole thing. do you get the sense that rather this is troubling the rand paul camp, or

here is mitch mcconnell talking about his competitors: cenk: do them out. i don't know what that means it might be a kentucky thing but they were ready to get tough with everybody specifically ashley judd, because they had a lot of dirt on her. now, when you look at the different people who might have actually recorded this, that's where mitch mcconnell's team that gotten angry. they think it might have been a bugging of their office, making accusations. >> last month my wife's ethnicity was attacked by a leftwing group in kentucky and then apparently bugged my headquarters. i think that pretty well sums up the way the political left is operating in kentucky. cenk: well, when mother jones was confronted with these bugging charges, they said: cenk: all right now we are bringing in two guests, our epic political host, michael shure is back and kevin robolard is a reporter for politico. take things one thing at a time. first whether all this planning against ashley judd was fair game. i want to show you one more clip about that relating to her mental health wh

i don't intend to run to the left of mitch mcconnell. i intend to run straight over the top of mitch mcconnell and right into the u.s. senate. >> almost makes you feel bad for senator mcconnell, doesn't it? he may need a new priority, keeping his job. joining me now is michelle cottle and james peterson. thank you both for being here. >> thanks, rev. >> michelle, senator mcconnell rode the tea party movement, and now a tea partier wants to kick him out of office. >> exactly. you have increasingly on the senate side what you've been seeing on the house side. you know, the party has taken the tea party energy to gain some seats, but now their biggest concern is that incumbents are going to face an attack from the right. so this is what mcconnell is reaping, and it's going to be very interesting to see how he walks this line, because at the same time, he's got a democratic opponent whose getting him on the left. so this is a very kind of very fine line he's got to walk in order to pull it off. >> now, james, you know, bevin, the tea partier

and mitch mcconnell is the one who really wanted a deal because mitch mcconnell made the political calculation that the best leverage that the democrats and the white house had over them in this ongoing budget battle -- and let's remember, that's what we are in the middle of. and we haven't gotten rid of that. this ongoing battle of shaping the federal budget, who pays for deficit reduction, that the tax issue wasn't solved, that that would be a bigger sledgehammer against the republicans. so mcconnell was incentivized to do a deal, and so were all the senate republicans. that's why you saw such an effort in the last two day, particularly on mitch mcconnell to try and hammer out some sort of deal. the president wants a deal. he doesn't want to go over the cliff. now there are a bunch of other democrats that do. but the president didn't want to do it because he wants to be able to take this. he thinks that having a straight-up fight when debt ceiling expires in two months, and priorities about how to handle the deficit reduction and all these other things, that they will have a stronger leg to

in other words, it ain't easy being mitch mcconnell right now. not only is he unliked, but a poll shows him trailing a democratic challenger in a state in which mitt romney won comfortably. but it gets worse. because before mcconnell could even get to facing lundergan grimes in the general election, he has to fend off a primary challenger on his right. matt bevin, a small businessowner you've probably never heard of, but that doesn't matter because that didn't stop a marketing consultant named christine o'donnell from going after and upsetting representative mike castle in delaware's republican senate primary in 2010 nor did it stop a lawyer, joe miller, going after and upsetting senator lisa murkowski in alaska's republican primary that same year. conservative groups are already attacking mcconnell for not siding with them in their efforts to defund the affordable care act, despite what they call his carefully scripted anti-obama care speeches. >> take senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. on the issue of obama care, he says -- >> this law is

people's names -- everybody knows mitch mcconnell follows american politics. everybody knows probably lindsey graham. these guys spent 20 years building up their reputation -- no, they're afraid of losing to people that nobody's ever heard of. >> mitch mcconnell, in particular, he has won several elections in kentucky, but at really low margins of what you'd expect for a national political -- >> why is he afraid of -- >> because already his disapproval rating, mitch mcconnell's is -- look what he gets to do now over the past few months. when he wants to, he can say, i'm a deal maker, got the deal that ended the government shutdown. he wants to say, i'm against the budget bill, he can say that now. >> my question is, why is a guy a well-known politician by definition, in trouble? on the right, they don't like anybody they recognize. they like these unknown guys like little mike lee comes in from nowhere. vote for him, are they going to vote for this guy, stockman, who certifiable? he's a birther and nut case. if they vote for him, they want a birther and a nut

mitch mcconnell is like the tasmanian devil of politics. he's going to run a real slash and burn candidacy there. i think he's got about $10 million in the bank. you've already heard from his people talking about this new primary challenger, calling him an east coast con man. their i think approach is going to be essentially that bevin isn't from around here, he's not one of them. >> well, you know, nia, we were going with gabrielle union, not the tasmanian devil as the analogy tonight. but you can mix it up. joe, what do you say to that? and tell us a little about the entire strategy because he did get beat in his back yard by the tea partiers and a man named jesse benton and now he's hired them. tell us about that. >> yes. jesse benton is actually rand paul's nephew in-law. he ran rand paul's election campaign. he did not run the primary campaign. that was run by a different campaign manager. jesse only came in after rand paul had beaten mitch mcconnell in that race, trey grayson. but mcconnell's got a problem in that he likes to go hard

plus, rest easy, mitch mcconnell. actress ashley judd has decided not to challenge the minority leader for his senate seat. the kentucky tea leaves or the bluegrass just ahead. >>> if you love one, you can love two. what if all three people love each other and they want the benefits and all that. who among us should deny those three people their love? where does this freedom to do what you want stuff stop? you can have, you have one woman and two guys in a marriage and the woman could be impregnated by the two, and voila, you've got a family. >> what to do when you know you're wrong but terrified of being right. republicans can't quite figure out how to change with the country. reince priebus deduced that something is afoot. >> if you're basically losing for 24 years, something has to happen in our party. >> could that something be an embrace of marriage equality? >> my position is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but my other position is that you also treat people with dignity and respect and love and grac

this time it's mitch mcconnell's campaign manager, jesse benton, allegedly talking about mitch mcconnell. >> between you and me, i'm sort of holding my nose for two years because what we're doing here is going to be a big benefit for rand in '16. that's my long vision. >> holding my nose to work for mitch mcconnell? still seems like the greater sin here is the alleged bribery. paying republican politicians to switch their endorsements? but pretending you're committed to a candidate in public, being his public spokesman and in private saying you're holding your nose about it and you're in it just to help some other guy, and it's that other guy, ick. late this afternoon, in an attempt to make fun out of his miserable turn, the mcconnell campaign posted this picture of jesse benton holding his nose. see, it's just all good kentucky republican fun. seriously. fun. let's play: [ all ] who's new in the fridge! i help support bones... [ ding! ] ...the immune system... [ ding! ] ...heart health... [ ding! ] ...and muscles. [ ding! ] that can only be ensure complete! [ female announcer ] the four

but what do we know about mitch mcconnell? and he continues to be far to the right of where most voters are. not only that, he really demonstrates what is wrong with washington, the gridlock, the obstruction, the very clearly saying in his own words our number one goal is to try and defeat president obama. that was his stated policy goal. and so i think a lot of voters have just had it with washington as usual. and there is no one really who demonstrates washington as usual as much as mitch mcconnell. the fact that his own campaign manager can't get excited about him is really a symptom rather than a cause of where his troubles are going to be. >> sam stein, you are mitch mcconnell. i know this is a stretch for you. but i want you to put yourself into his mind and body. must you now fire this guy? >> no. you can't fire this guy. part of the reason that jesse benton was brought over to run the mitch mcconnell campaign was to give him the type of cache with the rand paul, ron paul crowd. he's ron paul's son-in-law. this is not s

mcconnell has claimed it to be. >> mitch mcconnell is the most unpopular senator in america according to public policy polling. only 36 approve of his job performance, 54% disapprove. joining me, karen finney that will soon host a new weekend program on msnbc and ana marie cox from the guardian. we expected they would be doing some kind of opposition research on ashley judd as ashley judd moved toward a decision on running, but these guys were obviously going to play it as ugly as could be imagined. >> oh, absolutely. and look, on one hand whereas i do not condone what they were doing and if i were part of a campaign, wouldn't feel comfortable with that line of attack, we know that's the way the game is played. we both worked in politics long enough to know that's part of the unfortunate reality. what i find priceless is the classic deflection. if you're going to sit in a room, say this is how we're going to attack somebody, be a man, have the guts to defend that, right, when you go out. don't try to deflect by saying oh, these nixonian tactics, which as far as i understand from this

>> well, i think what mitch mcconnell was saying, and mitch mcconnell -- let's back up. he's been a fierce advocate for the first amendment since the beginning of the campaign finance reform. he's fought against the idea of cracking down on political parties. he believes firmly in the idea that we should have a political party that has a strong political system. he believes, and i tend to agree with him, that the president has done his best to demonize his opponents, especially after going after the koch brothers, the tea party groups. i think mitch mcconnell said -- >> mitch mcconnell is accusing somebody on the other side of demonizing? it's about obama, getting rid of obama, exterminating obama. just again, is there any personal line, draw your line, anything you want, between the president and the people and his bureaucrats -- i'll use that term neutrally, over the irs. why would these brats respond to anybody? they're in there for life. they're headless nails. why would they do what the president said in some speech? >> we have plenty of evidence and this has come o

mitch mcconnell will be somebody who is going to fight for that. fight for that job and he is a tough political operator. and there is no other reason why you get to be someplace like being senate minority leader without having a tough skin. >> thank you. now let me bring in nbc justice correspondent pete williams with more. as i understand it, there has to be a formal request made to the fbi to investigate? you obviously know this better than anyone. what is the procedure here for the fbi or any federal investigators to get involved here? >> well, they've done it. they've called the u.s. attorney in louisville. and a federal official says that the fbi is looking into these allegations. tamron, there are three legal questions here. who made the tape? who disclosed the tape? then the question of legal liability for mother jones magazine. if nobody that was in the room engaged in the conversation, if someone else made that recording, then that would violate the federal, for want of a better term, the federal wiretap laws. if it was somebody in the me