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Roughed up va officials at a rare hearing on capitol hill last night. let's bring in white house correspondent my zell kosinski. michelle, few things as angry as a lawmaker who is not responsible. i'm sure they all had their hackles up last night. >> wow, this hearing lasted four hours. it was just anger, frustration, at times emotion, these members of congress toward representatives of the va. they were asking these great relevant questions and for some reason the va just could not answer. in part, it was concerning this new official report on the phoenix va where the scandal broke. and now r...

Noise around it. i think the president is dedicated and since the day he was a candidate for the united states senate, since he was running for president and became president, he thinks that the problems are serious. now that we've uncovered these new ones, he wants to fix it. and just imagine, jake, it's not like senate republicans are going to let you put some new head of the v.a. in to deal with the problem. they are going to, you know, extract their pound of flesh and make it as difficult as possible for him. so for the president, whether it's this issue or healthcare.gov where, you know, ...

Veterans within the very ambitious goal set by the v.a., which was 14 days, that is better, by and large, by the private sector. what they should have done is run the flag up the pole and made it very, very clear, we do not have the resources. and instead, what you had is people manipulating data, which is completely unacceptable. the other point that i would make, and i'm chairman of a subcommittee that deals with primary care, if you think we only have a problem in terms of waiting periods, within the v.a., you would not be right. we have tens of millions of people today in america who were ...

Care. >> and if you die waiting for your appointment you didn't exist? >> correct, they could just remove you from that list and there was no record that you ever came to the v.a. and presented for care. >> pretty convenient. >> pretty sad. >> the office of inspector general says it is still investigating if in fact any veteran died because of delayed care citing the need for medical records, autopsies and medical review. and in a damning conclusion, the v.a.'s office of inspector general calls the problem systemic throughout the v.a. while cautioning more investigation is needed. the embattle...

We need to also try to celebrate and elevate the good v.a. employees. there are a lot of them out there, who feel failed by this bureaucracy and are reaching out to us every single day. i hear from people in the last couple of weeks across the country, that this is the way we've been taught to do this. we've been taught to cook the books. >> that's the systemic nature. >> that's how far it goes. >> paul rieckhoff, thank you. >> joining us now, senator bernie sanders of vermont. senator sanders, thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> thank you. i want to ask you to respond to paul's ...