now time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening. >> good evening. thanks for that report earlier about republican site convention for their elections. >> democrats should feel much better about ohio. >> this is an amazing string of facts. thank you very much, rachel. tonight, in texas, the president said that there are more border patrol agents and surveillance resources at our southern border than at any time in our history, but the president and texas governor rick perry agree that is not enough. >> a high profile visit to texas. >> president obama's in dallas, texas. >> texas. >> just had a good meeting with governor perry.

>> texas republican governor rick perry. >> one of his chief antagonist. >> he's stepping into a political quagmire. >> he's not visiting the border. he's not visiting the children. >> this is disingenuous nonsense. >> the real issue is republicans are standing in the way of meaningful immigration reform. >> $3.7 billion in emergency funds to deal with the crisis. >> we've got to do something about sealing the border. >> more than half goes to border security. >> obama said, we are a nation with borders that must be enforced. >> the fastest way to stem the crisis for congress to pass that emergency bill. >> congress needs to pass the supplemental. >> it's time for them to stop talking and start acts. >> let's just get that done. let's do the work.

>> air force one delivered the president to dallas-ft. worth airport this afternoon where he was greeted by governor rick perry. they then boarded the helicopter marine one for the short hop to another smaller dallas airport, love field named for the world war i pilot moff l. love. it was on the helicopter that they had their one on one meeting, which president obama called constructive. >> the bottom line is that there's nothing that the governor indicated he would like to see that i have a philosophical objection to. but what emphasized to the governor is, the problem is not a major disagreement around the actions that could be helpful in dealing with the problem. the challenge is, is congress prepared to act to put the resources in place to get this done?

another way of putting it, and i said this directly to the governor, are folks more interested in politics or in solving the problem? >> at love field, the president and the governor took their seats at a larger meeting with local government leaders and religious leaders. after that meeting, the president took a few questions from reporters and if you bet that the first question was, why haven't you visited the border, mr. president? you win. >> can you explain why you didn't visit the border and do you see any legitimate reason for you to do that at some point or is this more about politics than anything else? >> jeh johnson has now visited, at my direction, the border five times. he's gone for a sixth this week. he then comes back and reports to me expensively on everything that's taking place. so there's nothing that is

taking place down there that i am not intimately aware of and briefed on. this isn't theater. this is a problem. i'm not interested in photo-ops, i'm interested in solving a problem. and those who say i should visit the border, when you ask them what would we be doing? they're giving us suggestions that are embodied in ledge haitian that i've already sent to congress. >> the president said he told governor perry if the texas congressional delegation supports the president's initiatives, that bill would easily pass congress. governor perry urged the president to consider his executive action instead of seeking congressional approval.

>> as i indicated to governor perry, he suggested maybe you just need to go ahead and act and that might convince republicans that they should go ahead and pass the supplemental. i had to remind him, i'm getting sued right now by mr. boehner apparently for acting instead of going through congress. here's a good test case. this is something you say is important, as i do. this is an area that you have prioritized, as i have. no way for me to take executive actions when you have the capacity right now to go ahead and get something done. >> joining me now is the executive director of the law center and richard wolf. mary, what did you hear the president said tonight that gives you encouragement about what the possibilities are now going forward? >> thanks for the invitation, lawrence.

great to have you back. what i heard from the president is there's a need for a solution, that it's time to act now. one of the things that concerns us the most is this issue has been so politicized. what we're forgetting as a country is we're talking about children. we're talking about 3, 5, 7-year-olds that are making a perilous journey across the desert to come to the united states, because they're fleeing persecution and murder, violence, gang violence. and we really need to make sure that our policymakers, including the president, are seeking solutions, comprehensive solutions, that deal with the root causes in central america, as well as ensuring that we are using our legal system to come up with a compassionate, fair, and due process solution that assures these children have their protections, their rights protected. >> richard wolf, the rick perry issue, a statement with a list of things that he recommended to the president, most of which the

president has already said he's in favor of. and in the president's statement, he said he's not philosophically opposed to anything from rick perry, including the possibility of the national guard on the border. rick perry says he want also thousand. that's for over a 2,000 mile border. so that being the effectiveness is highly debatable. >> of course, it already is militarized already. maybe you can increase it here or there, move the border patrol closer to the border, but in the end, you do have a political dance going on here. the president saying i don't want people to play politics, but i would like you, governor perry, to play politics with the texas republican delegation, which could move the house for me. at the same time, i'm not prepared to do the politics oh of a photo-op because i think that's stupid, but i'm prepared to do the politics of the press conference here at love field. there's a dance going on, and

the dance is fine, but you've got hundreds of families putting themselves at risk. >> mary, the rick perry statement refs to this as a humanitarian crisis, a phrase a lot of republicans steer away from. and rick perry himself has a history with this subject that's caused him problems in the republican party. let's watch this moment that i think we'll all remember from rick perry as a presidential -- republican presidential debater. >> if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they've been brought there, by no fault of their own, i don't think you have a heart. we need to be educating these children, because they will become a drag on our society. i think that's what texans wanted to do. out of 181 members of the texas legislature, when this issue came up, only four dissenting votes.

this was a state issue. texans voted on it, and i still support it greatly. >> marie, the boos eventually one out in the republican crowd there. you don't see or hear rick perry now saying he wants to speak from the heart as he does here. he says, i don't think you have a heart if you don't see it his way. but he didn't jump out in some sharp, angry disagreement with the president tonight. >> right. and i think it's hopefully because rick perry, like even glenn beck understands we're talking about children, this can't be politicized. unfortunately we see the president and many republicans trying to appease an extreme wing of that party rather than trying to find a comprehensive solution to this problem. so hopefully rick perry has learned his lessons on immigration.

we know he has his own presidential aspirations again. >> richard, i thought it was a deft move by the president to say to rick perry, get the texas legislation to vote on this. virtually all of the spending we're talking about that the president wants would be in texas. that was the kind of thing that congressional delegations used to get behind. >> they don't buy the argument that the president is not going to enforce any of the border patrols that they all want so much. so from a political point of view, whether it's green dollars to your state or making your own base happy, it would be much more sensible for rick perry to get behind this and for the texas republican delegation to get behind this. you have a very peculiar political dynamic about this president and immigration, which means all common sense is thrown out of the window, including

humanitarian feelings as well. that's not healthy for anyone, especially for the people who put their kids at risk. >> to stick with the republican talking points, rick perry's list of what the president should do tonight begins with this. the president should go to the border. that's issue number one. the president should go to the border and take a look 59 -- witness the texas-mexico border to witness the border crisis. when you see washington, the politics of washington fixated and the media fixated on the question of, should the president visit the border and republicans insisting that he absolutely must visit the border, even some democrats in the texas delegation saying he should visit the border, what is your reaction to all that talk about the president going to the border? >> look, lawrence, one thing i do agree with the president on, this isn't about a photo-op. he is being briefed by secretary

johnson and his team about what is happening on the border every single day, but on the one hand, you can't simply get briefed. for the president to go to the border, it would transform him. i have no doubt that if he sat there and talked to a 5 or 7-year-old child and looked them in their eyes he would think twice about trying to deport them back to violence. that is one piece of it. on the other hand, this isn't again about a photo-op. this isn't about politics. we have to be acting efficiently and quickly and swiftly to make sure that these children get the protections they need under our current legal system and that funding is provided to agencies like the health and human services to provide the basic necessities these children need. >> richard, you've studied inside the obama white house. what about this decision resists going to the border, is it because it feels forced on him politically at the moment? >> yes.

there's a clue you can see right there on his lapel, which is a rehashing of this entire debate, you know, seven, eight years ago. that flag pin, he stubbornly said, i'm not going to do this, what does it mean? i'm a patriot, i don't need to do what everyone does. right now it's really hard to see this president in any situation without lapel pin. i suspect he has it on his pajamas. inside the white house, they're probably saying you need to do it, we understand why you're not. yesterday at the pool, he has a pizza with a bunch of people. some photo-ops are good, but if you make him do it, it's bad. >> a lot of empty photo-ops, so it's hard to say i'm too busy to do some particular photo-op.

but if we were to look on the southern side of that border, to what these people are working through, just look at the ten miles south of that border, what they have to cross before they get to that fence, i think that's a perspective that would be invaluable to the american president. richard wolf and maria, thank you very much, both of you, for joining me tonight. coming up, congress held another hearing about poverty today, and the strangest possible thing happened at that hearing. the strangest thing that could happen at a congressional hearing about poverty. an actual poor person testified. and what would it take for you to switch political parties? if you're a democrat, what would it take to turn you into a republican? if you were a republican, what would it take to turn you into a democrat? the head of a college republican group will tell us why he was a

republican last week and why he's a democrat now. vo: this is the summer. the summer of this. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. where memories will be forged into the sand. and then hung on a wall for years to come. get out there, with over 50,000 hotels at $150 dollars or less. expedia. find yours. the ambulance racing by you. the ambulance chaser... chasing the ambulance. a rollerblader with headphones who's oblivious to everything. the cab driver who's checking out the rollerblader. it's 360 degrees of chaos out there.

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a new poll by the huffington post asks, would jesus support universal health care? 80% of democrats say yes. 52% of independents say yes. and 23% of republicans say yes. then the question, would jesus support high taxes on the wealthy? 63% of democrats say yes. 43% of independents say yes. and 18% of republicans say yes. jesus actually had something to say about taxation according to the apostle paul, who gave us this version of jesus' thoughts about taxes. this is why you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of god devoting themselves to this very thing. pay too all their due.

taxes to whom taxes are due, toll to whom toll is due, respect to whom respect is due. honor to whom honor is due. jesus issued no warning about higher taxes hurting our precious job creators. coming up in our summer -- in summertime, our gaze often turns to the ocean and many of you worries about what lies beneath. jacque cousteau's grandson will join us to help us understand what's down there after he spent 31 days under water. they're cloudy.

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"action!" the palestinian health ministry tells msnbc news that 60 palestinians have been killed since fighting between israel and hamas began monday night. of those killed in gaza, 45 were civilians, including 12 children. no israelis have been reported killed. a defense spokesman confirmed over 600 targets in gaza have been hit since the beginning of the operations, while approximately 230 rockets and mortar shells were fired into israel. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu authorized the israeli

military call up 40,000 reserve forces and said the operation will continue until the firing at our communities stops and quiet is restored. it's the heaviest fighting between israel and hamas since 2012. israel credits its defense system known as the iron dome for its success in defending these attacks. earlier today, andrea mitchell questioned the israeli ambassador about the attacks. >> what is the endgame? this is a symmetric. you have iron dome and air defenses. so far they've worked. in gaza, they don't. how do you take out hamas' long-range rockets and take out the hamas leaders or the suspects without killing women and children?

>> well, it is asymmetric. but it's not asymmetric because we have the capability to defend ourselves. but we are facing a terrorist organization, committed to israel's destruction, that's fired thousands of rockets at israel, they deliberately target our civilians. >> david, two reuters reports today indicate this disproportionate casualty count on the palestinian side as opposed to the israeli side here. there's andrea mitchell trying to point out the asymmetry of that to the israeli ambassador, which he will not accept at all and trying to suggest that the assentor is the other way. is there any form of balance that can be achieved here? >> all politics is local, and

for israelis, they're saying they want to see more of these attacks in the gaza, and they don't see a problem -- >> israeli voters. the israeli public is actually, according to the polls, pushing the leadership on this one. >> they want more attacks to wipe out hamas from gaza. whether that's possible is debatable. hamas is happy to have these high casualty numbers. they're saying look, there's 45 civilians dead and no israelis. this is what happened in 2008. there were 1400 palestinians killed in gaza, and roughly 15 israelis. that was the last ground incursion. so it's a very difficult situation, but both sides have lots of political pressure to keep at it. >> steve clemens, how long can hamas keep at it under these circumstances? >> well, they can go at it for a

long time. i've talked to hamas officials before who, during times of great stress, have said look, israel can't destroy a nation. and they, as david just said, thrive off of this in a sense that they appear more legitimate in the eyes of palestinian citizens than their partners, fatah and others. so you have both sides, the israelis engaged in something that looks like massive retaliation, and hamas using what they have to basically escalate and neither side can back down. i think this could go on for a very long time. >> does the israeli leadership recognize the problem with the way they run these attacks? yes, they are effective and score many more kills than the other side does. but they serve the external information interest of hamas. >> i think again the domestic dynamic overrides this problem, how it's perceived internationally.

and it's a coalition government, there's pressure on netanyahu to punish hamas. israelis have a right to live without fear of these rockets landing. but it's more important for netanyahu to tell his voters, i will crush hamas. what to watch is the west bank. will there be wide scale protests in the west bank? in the past, fatah has kept the west bank calm, but there's talk again, and it's been said before of a third intifada in the west bank and gaza. >> steve, what should, what can secretary kerry and president obama be doing at this point? >> i think on one hand they should be trying to get the israeli government to ratchet down the rhetoric. it's very unfortunate, the horrible situation of three young israeli boys that were

kidnapped and killed. then a palestinian boy was kidnapped and murdered and burned to death. and in that, when prime minister netanyahu talked, he said the blood of these boys will be avenged. so when you're in a culture like this, where it's so easy to trip forward into an escalatory spiral, it's very important to caution them to show restraint. this is the time when people need to muster up magnanimity, to talk to each other, to show that this is not the future they want. and you've got radical minorities on both sides of this equation that are ruining the lives and aspirations of people on both sides of the israeli-palestinian divide. >> david, if the president was able to convince israeli leaders to ratchet it down, and at this point, just say enough is enough, and kind of declare victory and stop it here, would hamas consider that a victory?

>> they might. i mean, they're getting lots of support here. they have longer range missiles that can fire 100 miles into israel itself. but even if obama did get some peace process to start again, it's very clear from this last effort by john kerry that netanyahu and mahmoud abbas do not trust each other. they're not two leaders willing to make historic compromises for their own reasons, legitimate or not. this is just again very dangerous dynamic that seems to be getting worse. >> david and steve, thank you both for joining me tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. coming up, a political activist who was a republican activist last week and is a democrat now. he'll join me next. moderate to severe crohn's disease is tough,

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in the spotlight tonight, a stolen election that was the last straw. that's what tea party challenger chris mcdaniel calls his recent loss to mississippi republican senator thad cochran. he continues to dream of reversing the results of that republican primary election, claiming they found what they call thousands of voting irregularities. today, a real irregularity was revealed that senator cochran's

fec report shows $53,000 in cash going to one staffer on the cochran campaign. the cochran campaign tried to shrug off the revelation today with their campaign adviser saying our treasurer screwed up. people screw up fec reports all the time. that's true. people do screw up fec reports all the time, and it's also true that people illegally use campaign funds all the time. and the fec has never been, and will never be given the resources by congress to adequately investigate the possible illegal use of money in congressional campaigns. this is just the latest turn in a campaign that turned off some republican voters. for evan alvarez, the chairman of the mississippi federation of college republicans, it was the last straw.

last week, chairman alvarez submitted his resignation. he did not just resign from his chairmanship of college republicans, he changed parties. evan alvarez is now a democrat. joining me now is evan alvarez. he'll be a senior at mississippi state this fall. evan, i imagine -- i've watched people change parties, including when i worked in the senate. i watched a democratic senator richard shelby from alabama go from democrat to republican. i know it wasn't overnight or one thing. it takes at least months and months and in some cases years and years. when did your road out of the republican party begin, do you think? >> thanks for having me on. it began about last fall. i was taking some courses at mississippi state university in public policy and civil liberty

and i got to do research on the issues that matter to the nation and issues that matter to the people. i got to look at it from my perspective and instead of saying here's a platform by a party i have allegiance to, i will make my own choice. when i decided to make my own opinions on those issues, they really didn't line up with the gop and they more so lined up with the democratic party. it was more or less me saying -- doing research on the subjects and drawing my own opinion instead of blatantly coming out and saying i have an opinion just because somebody else does. >> it seems that the tea party helps drive you out of the republican party. i want to read from your resignation letter, in which you said, i ran to be chairman of the mississippi chairman of college republicans, not tea partiers. i believe that the republican party has allowed these groups to have too much of a voice and because of that, a platform of the republican party has shifted

too far to the right in my opinion. i simply cannot be a part of an organization that has members who support these far right extremist views. that's something a lot of other observers have made, especially observers from the democratic side of the aisle that the republicans keep moving farther and farther in the rightward direction. >> correct. the biggest issue that pointed me to the brink of changing parties was -- because it was an ongoing thing. it took a couple of months. i knew my stances were different, but i just kept quiet, didn't want to come and say i was a democrat in mississippi, in the most red state in the nation. the republican stance on immigration got to me big-time. my father was an immigrant from cuba. the tea party has influenced the gop stance to where it's put up a wall and don't let anybody in.

i don't understand how people can say that when we are a nation of immigrants. if it wasn't for immigration, our nation wouldn't have been founded. >> and evan, how has your resignation been received down there in mississippi and among your former colleagues in the republican organization in >> by the tea party, of course, they're not going to take it well and they'll say what they want to say, but i don't mind. i know what i did was right for me and what they say doesn't matter to me that much. but with my colleagues of the republican party, the ones that were understanding and see where the tea party is going and taking the platform, they have reached out and told me that they support my decision and wish i wouldn't have made such a drastic change but they'll always be there as a friend.

>> evan, you could have gone from republican to independent. i think that might be what some of your friends are doing. you didn't have to go all the way over to the other side. what pushed you the rest of the way? >> what pushed me the rest of the way is the stance on immigration. it is so far to the right that i can't even say -- i have to move to the democratic side because they want to have immigrants come into the country and make our nation what it is, which is a land of immigrants. >> evan alvarez, thank you very much for joining me tonight. >> thank you. have a good night. coming up, next in the rewrite, paul ryan's congressional hearings on poverty finally heard some testimony today from someone who has actually lived in poverty. that's coming up.

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repair my broken hip. so what i'm about to show you is a true marvel to me. especially when you consider that most people who have to use a walker previously at least knew how to walk. 2-year-old caden had to have his right foot and left leg amputated shortly after he was born. he's now been fitted with prosthetics, and on friday, july fourth, he walked for the first time using a little walker. behold this little miracle. >> good job.

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♪ the sheep and the frog and the kangaroo ♪ ♪ and they all went marching, marching in two by two ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the nissan pathfinder, with intuitive four-wheel drive. an adventure worth sharing. nissan. innovation that excites. in its history, congress has held what may be an uncountable number of hearings about poverty or some aspects of poverty. the most recent series of such hearings has been chaired by congressional paul ryan. the ryan hearings purport to be

"a progress report on the war on poverty." it is traditional for the chairman to choose most of the witnesses, and on committees not run by darrell issa, it is allowed for the minor to the choose witnesses also. so they have had to listen to a few experts saying things that do not appear in any of the republican's talking points about poverty. >> over the last 50 years, we've really made good, strong progress. >> issues of hunger in our country, figured out that on the house republican budget, the cuts in food stamps alone, that was last year's budget, would cause every church, synagogue, mosque, house of worship in the

united states, just on that issue alone, to each raise $50,000 every year for 10 years to replace the amount of service that was being cut. >> and today, chairman ryan allowed something truly extraordinary in a congressional hearing about poverty. testimony from a poor person. at the urging of democratic congressman barbara lee, they came face to face with the struggles of poverty when they listened to the experience of tiana gaines turner. >> this is a photo of my children. my children are everything to me. i would like to say that we need to break the cycle. we need to make sure that we all remember what the american dream is. values. family values. i am not a number. i am not a statistic. i am not a food stamp recipient. i am an individual who lives in the inner city who just so happens to be right now

struggling, just as so many americans are struggling. we need to get back to the core values of remembering that we are people. we do not want to be looked at as someone who's on welfare and who is lazy, who wants to sit back and collect benefits. i never wake up every day when my day starts at 7:00 a.m. in the morning and say that i want to be on public assistance. the food stamp program is very important to me and to my family. no one wakes in the morning and says, we want to be on poverty. we want to stand in a two-hour line at a food pantry to get to the front and be told there isn't any food. i know for a fact that food stamps is a very important part of my life. we want to make sure that we can feed our children nutritious and adequate food. my husband gets paid every week and he makes $8.25 an hour. after taxes, he clears about maybe $170 a week. >> $170 a week? >> $170 a week. >> okay. i get paid $10.88 an hour.

just recently in june, my hours were cut down to 12 hours a week, due to the budget. my paycheck was $222 for two weeks. so, you know, i'm always -- we're always trying to climb up. climb up. there's a constant climb. and that is the one thing that i think is important for me being here today is for people to understand. you just broke down my whole everything. could anyone live off of that amount of money like i do and me and my husband every day, every month, every week? it's difficult. it's not something that we choose to do. of course, we want to get a full-time job. of course my husband wants to go back to school. he has a masonary degree. i'm a very smart, intellectual, independent person. but unfortunately, my circumstances don't allow me to go to school and to also work and juggle a family. once you start working and once you get your foot in the door

and once you continue to work, there's something else that comes up. just because you contain a job and you have two people in your household like me that are working, that doesn't mean that everything is solved. that doesn't mean that you don't still need assistance. i consider myself to be very independent. i work just as hard as anybody in this room. meatball yelling c'mon, you want heartburn? when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast, with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact. and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum... tums! that's keeping you from the healthcare you deserve.

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newlywed discount. new college graduate and retiree discounts. you could even get a discount when you add a car. call liberty mutual for a free quote today at see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. nbc's peter alexander just interviewed texas governor rick perry moments ago about his meeting with president obama today. rick perry stuck to the republican talking point that the president should visit the border. >> two weeks ago, i was there. i saw what's happening to these children. that's one of the reasons the president needs to come and to see this himself. it is a powerful, powerful display of a human crisis that's occurring. and it's a symptom.

and it's a symptom of this administration not dealing with the securitization of the border. until the border is secure, until the message is sent to central america, they're going to continue to send child after child, individual after individual, putting them in harm's way because they think they can come into the united states and stay here. >> you can see that entire interview tomorrow morning on the "today" show. up next, if you stay on the beach afraid to go in the water, you might want to hear what fabian cousteau has to tell you about what's out there -- or you might not. it's a complete checkup of the services your vehicle needs. so prepare your car for any road trip by taking it to an expert ford technician. because no matter your destination good maintenance helps you save at the pump.

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[ imitates monkey ] stop stalling. cascade platinum fights cloudy residue 3x better than the competing gel and helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. cascade platinum. in 1963, academy award winning film maker jacque cousteau did something extraordinary. cousteau coordinated a mission in which six men lived below the ocean's surface for one month. he filmed the expedition with underwater cameras and his documentary "world without sun" earned him his third academy award. yes, his third. 51 years later, jacque cousteau's legacy lives on through his grandson fabian, who just spent 31 days living underwater.

fabian cousteau and his team photographed and studied marine life, large and small, 65 feet below the surface to raise awareness of marine conservation and reintroduce the world without sun to a new generation. joining me now is film maker and oceanographic explorer fabian cousteau. this is exciting stuff. where were you? >> we were in aquarius, nine miles off store and 63 feet done. >> is that a permanent facility? >> the facility is permanent and it's been the best-kept secrets in the ocean. it's been there for 20 years and no one even knew about it. >> how much room is it? is this one of those tight sub -- submarine? >> it depends on how many are in it. it's about the size of a school bus. i had about five of my friends. there's six total.

>> there's so much happening in our oceans now, including just things that have been, you know, untouched by time, that we continue to discover. but then there's all the modern damages that are happening to especially in sea lanes and to coral reeves that are anywhere near human beings, who just have a very bad way of destroying these things. >> unfortunately, human impact is a major factor in what we see today in our oceans. the oceans have changed dramatically over the last 50, 60 years. between climate change related issues as well as pollution and all those things. but it's a story of outreach and hope. and in order to be able to get people to understand the dire

consequences that we're facing in the ocean world that's an unexplored place, we need to be able to educate the public in a fun and interesting way. >> okay, there's nothing the public wants to be educated on more about the oceans than the shark threat. okay? >> of course. >> this is -- steven spielberg set this up for us. we've had a recent shark attack on manhattan beach, in california not far from where i live. and something like that happens and people just -- some people stay away from the water for years. >> right. >> what's the rational reaction? >> it's an emotional reaction. obviously, it's a dramatic thing that happens. by and large, sharks stay away from us. think about it. we have millions of sharks in the same waters that hundreds of millions of people bathe in every single day of the summer, and yet there are fewer than 80 shark incidents worldwide every year. you're much more likely to get hurt or killed crossing the street in new york city. >> what is your next big project? >> well, now that we've finished with the actual mission, we have three things on the agenda, that's chapter two of it.

number one, the documentary, which hopefully will come out at the beginning of next year. number two is the traveling museum, which will be based on mission 31 to outreach and connect people with what's happening. and third, and most importantly, the florida-based ocean learning center, which will continue that outreach to children around the world. >> what was your biggest surprise in 31 days underwater? >> how comfortable it was. >> okay, that's a huge surprise. that would be on my list of possible surprises. >> it gives us the luxury of time. and although there were constraints, the idea of being able to dive as long as you need to on the final frontier on this planet really gave us the luxury of insight of what's happening in our oceans while we're not there. >> wow. that is -- i never would have thought -- i just would have thought it would have been a constant kind of struggle being down there and staying down there. >> it is a challenge.

there are definitely issues with being down there fizz logically and psychologically, but in the long run, the payoff is much greater than the small inconveniences. >> fabian cousteau, thank you very much. thank you to your family, your grandfather. the cousteau family has taught us so much. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> what a dispute, let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews. the president is in the lone star state. he having a meeting with rick perry and other officials.