Transcripts For MSNBC Morning Joe 20130205

With us senior political analyst Mark Halperin. I was going to do a three thumb fight but willie wasnt up for it. Ill beat you that on any day. Msnbc analyst and visiting professor harold ford junior. Good morning. It was funny stuff last night. It was funny except its not fun funny. I guess he had to address all of David Lettermans jokes. I interviewed Chris Christie for my book coming up in may very seriously about his weight and about how much those jokes hurt him. I guess he felt he had to do that to sort of, you know, break the ice with letterman. What do you mean those jokes hurt him . They hurt his feelings. I want to see another clip and see how hurt he is . He handles it very well. Do you have family members who are also heavy . No. Im the guy. You are the guy. Im the guy. How is your health sxwlmpt if you went to a doctor today, what would the doctor say . Startlingly good. How is your cholesterol . My cholesterol is normal, believe it or not. Thats pretty good. What about your blood sugar . Blood sugar, also normal. Im basically the healthiest fat guy youve ever seen in your life. Crazy. Theres your Campaign Poster right there. Its good stuff. Well done. So youre saying its like the tears . Tears of a clown. No, stop it. My god, i cant believe you. No, hes addressing obviously an issue everybody jokes about with him but its a very he works out with a trainer four times a week. Hes on a diet, he works with a nutritionist. Ill say, one of the things he says for the book is do you really think this is about discipline . Because its not. Because im doing everything i can. I dont know what to do. Do you think i want to look like this . Do you think i want people mocking me night and day about my weight. Sorry. Thats fine. Sorry. No. Im good. Im good. Exactly. You are. Talking to him he had to do that, i guess. Do you think he recognizes the impact his weight could have on his political future, not just his own health, has he come to terms with the fact he needs to lose a lot of weight if he wants to be president . I think he will. My opinion save the rest of what he says for may. I think hes extremely approachable and relatable because much of america is overweight as well and dealing with this problem as well. I think it will be i dont want to say a positive force in his campaign but makes him relatable. Thats not bad. Hes dealing with something millions of americans are dealing with, obesity. Do you think having a relatively easier election makes it likely he will lose weight or less likely. He says he loses weight when things are going really well for him. He gains weight when things are going really well for him. I said, things must be really good. Haveing a great year. He has a high Approval Rating and normal cholesterol. Harold and i can both answer that. I dont know about you, campaigns, you lose in campaigns. Not me, man, i drive through the wendys. I eat on the run. I gain weight in every campaign. I do. I never stop moving. I eat the wendys an popeyes an kfc, i dont stop moving. Im like a grizzly bear about to move into hydration. I get nervous and gain 400 pounds, win the election and then sleep through. Like Homer Simpson with both hands. Exactly. I just saw yesterday this alabama story, on the front of usa today, this 5yearold kid was freed from a bunker. I wasnt following that really closely . What happened . For the kid, its the best case scenario. So this man about a week ago boarded a bus outside dothan, alabama, southeast alabama, demanded that the driver give him a couple of the kids and the driver said no way. This man allegedly shot and killed the bus driver, snatched two kids, one got away, one didnt. The 5yearold has a mild form of ah thames, maybes asbergers and autism, this guy built a bunker on his property had him down there almost a week. I guess it came to a head yesterday. The fbi, somehow, through a pipe, sneaked a camera in there, so they were watching what was going on this whole time. They thought the guy started to become erratic, took out a gun and the fbi went in yesterday afternoon, threw a couple flash bombs. The man was killed. We dont know how exactly but the kid was rescued and hes safe. Man, thats great news. Man. What a story. The front page of the New York Times, the u. S. Is going to sue s p for the ratings on these loans. Whats going on there . Can americans get money from that . Its unclear. It sounds as if the u. S. Does win, is successful, there would likely be some compensation or some monetary award. Explain this quickly. Theyre suing s p for giving high ratings, high marks to these companies that were on shaky ground, to say the least. Theyre suing theyre likely going to sue, according to the story of s p, because s p rated certain securities and certain packages of things that these Financial Firms had, gave them high ratings. Gave the federals actual instrume instruments the high ratings. Didnt deserve those ratings. As a result, Companies Either kept them on their books and they went out and tried to sell them. So the Justice Department is going to sue s p, going to get all this money, this pot of money youre jumping two or three sets ahead. Thats their hope. Who will get the money at the end . From the stories, i cant tell, likely go to the government and the government would disperse some of those dollars. One of the things i hope that happens is s p is forced and these ratings agencies are forced to be more transparent. Theyve been more transparent since the crisis and hope will be more so and hope we have standards in place if we have these kinds of challenges or problems there are easy remedies we understand that s p or any Rating Agency standard would be held to. Can i catch up with willie, everybody talking about the last pass, interference, holding this is a great segue. Im curious, were about to go to drones next. Like popping popcorn. I saw that. It was uncatchable. It landed out of bounds. No way, even if the guy had an unobstructed path, right . It looked uncatchable. He grabbed his jersey with two hands and held on. Maybe the determination was made that it was uncatchable but the ref didnt go like that. That wasnt what he was saying, im not going to make that call to decide the super bowl. Youre shaking your head, halpern. Theres contact both way, you have to catch the ball in the super bowl. Its kind of hard when the ref gets duct tape out and wraps it around your arms. The fact they never ruled that in four downs seems crazy. John harbaugh said his brother made the right play call on all four of those. Naturally. He won the super bowl. He said, we were blitzing them and they couldnt have run against us, they had to throw. He could have rolled out. Little harbaugh has nobody to blame but himself. Those were four stupid plays. I dont like just throwing it up there, give yourself some options. Roll it out. When will we get to the news . We get to eric cantor and, gosh, you talked so much, we probably wont get to the story about the white house not putting out a budget. That would be a shame. Conspiracy. You go blah blah blah about everything, super bowl and why dont we start, reshuffle, we can start with the white house not getting the budget out. Thats my third story. Well see if we get there. I challenge you. This are new revelations this morning involving the u. S. Drones strike program, in a six page memo obtained by nbc news the Justice Department makes the legal case for the killing of american citizens if they are believed to be senior operational leaders of al qaeda or associated force even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the u. S. Joining us now, nbc neuews National Justice correspondent Michael Isikoff, who broke the story last night after obtaining a copy of the memo. Take us through the significance of this memo. Of course. This memo sheds light on one of the most controversial and secretive policies of the Obama Administration, not just the secretive drone strike but using the right to use it against american citizens. This came up in 2007 when a drone strike killed awlaki and kahne, both u. S. Citizens and neither charged with a crime. And we have extra judicial killings by the u. S. Government without any judicial review and any right of the citizen to argue his or her case in court. These are very sticky issues. The legal basis for these strikes has been kept a secret by the Obama Administration. You may remember we had huge fights back in the bush era about the legal memos for enhanced interrogation tactics, the socalled torture memos. Ultimately they became public. This is viewed by some as an analogy for that, secret memos upon which huge u. S. Government policies, with grave consequences are being made. We got a copy of this memo, which is not the olc memo, the office of Legal Council memo but a white paper, 16 page white paper that mirrors and tracks it and gives us much more detail about what the legal basis for these strikes are. You draw a great analogy with the Bush Administration except for the fact there you may have been giving somebody intense in t tergation of picking it up off the field. Here, you have a situation where the u. S. Government is killing americans without judicial review, without any crimes being charged against them. As you said, without them having the right to defend themselves. And even without a right to have any specific actionable intelligen intelligence. Its hard to say how many stop signs were blown thawing here. But for those that were shocked at the Bush Administration quote torture memos, they must be really stunned by this. Americans can be killed, again, not charged with any crimes, no judicial review, no actionable intelligence, nothing, just suspicion. Right. Well, what the administration will say is more than suspicion, theyll say hard intelligence. We all know hard intelligence can be hard or it can be awfully squishy and horribly wrong. Like wmds in iraq. Excellent point. If you read the document. We posted it only, on msnbc news. Com now, you see that some of the definitions they lay out in this memo are open to fairly wide interpretation. Ill give you an example. The most exhow stiff Public Accounting of this was given by attorney general holder last year and gave a three part test when these sorts of killings can be lawful. The first one is when there is an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States, when the u. S. Has the intelligence of such. You read the memo and see that imminent threat is subject to a some what broad interpretation. In fact, they use the phrase broader concept of eminence. It does not mean, the memo explicitly says, that theres active intelligence of an ongoing plot. It may mean they have active intelligence of what the memo calls recent activities involve ing violent plots, but no ongoing plot, no active plot against the United States. And then, it says here also, that, quote, there is no evidence suggesting he has renounced or abandoned such activities. Right. Almost as though the burden is on the target. Right. To prove that theyve renoun renounced what they might have advocated or been involved in, in the past. They have to renounce something that there may be no acti actionable intelligence on. This is this is an absolute mess, michael. Thank you so much for bringing this us to us. Great work. Michael, thank you. This is so frightening. What it shows, democrats and liberals very critical and even called for extreme action to be taken against the Bush Administration, were now obviously seeing some decisions the Obama Administration may argue differently. Let me make clear, i support what the Obama Administration is doing here but it goes to show how difficult and messy, when the Bush Administration would make the point, those Senior Leaders would say its difficult for perhaps some to understand what were dealing with here when we talk about this level, all National Security decisions are serious, we talk about this kind of threat we have to make at times very messy and sometimes uncomfortable and oftentimes questionable decisions. My only point is democrats need to now think back how they conducted themselves and questions they raised about Bush Administration tactics. I didnt raise those questions as aggressively as some of my friends did and important everybody step back and take a breather here, particularly democrats. If this was happening and his name was bush, i think thered be a lot of criticism coming at this president. If george bush had done this, it would have been stopped. I think it would have been certainly a huge controversy that would have erupted. The question is how many questions will this administration face on this . I think it goes back to the point you made several years ago, when scarborough. When president obama becomes president , said when he becomes president and looks at classified documents things will change and he wont close gitmo and wont do certain things he is criticizing now and this is what will happen. That is what you said when he stepped in office. Noin the summer of 2008, he was running around george bush was going to change the constitution and he was going to close gitmo. And i laughed. And you had the roundtable i laughed, said, no, you wont. I think we should have a constitutional lawyer, not conservative but somebody down the middle. Get a group of people. Somebody who was very critical of the Bush Administration. Talk about how this sets new standards. Bush was talking about seizing a known terrorist like Khalid Shaikh mohammed, pulling them out and taking them to a black site. Here, were talking about dropping drones not just on one person, as we know, killing a lot of people around it, and killing americans, who have a constitutional right to have a jury of their peers, to kill americans who are not charged with crimes, have no judicial review, no actionable intelligence, and now in this me memo, that they have the burden, the burden is on them, before they are killed, to run out and yell, i am not a terrorist, i am not a treferrorist, as if they t out and yelled, i am not a terrorist, they wouldnt get a drone dropped on their head, too. This is just dangerous. For all the concerns about due process on guantanamo, i share a lot of those, people being held there for a decade without charge, this goes several steps further, this says, we can kill you without due process, we can kill you on suspicion youre a bad guy, were not going to bother to take you somewhere and offer possibility eventually there will be a trial, well just take you out of the game with a drone. At that point, i remember padilla reading the americans supposedly had the dirty bomb, i remember reading that, he had been locked up without a lawyer, i remember being shocked at that saying the guy has a right to a lawyer. Right. Here, they have a right to nothing, the right to be killed by an indiscriminate drone strike if somebodys suspicious in the u. S. Government. Michael isikoff mentioned the guy in yemen taken out, the american citizen who renounced his citizenship. A couple years later his 16yearold son was killed in a drone strike. At the time, the obama campaign, this was robert gibbs, when asked why this young man was killed, an underaged u. S. Citizen said quote he should have had a far more responsible father, talking about al awlakis father. Because of his suspicion of his father and where he was in yemen, he was killed with god knows how many people who should not have been killed. By the way, this happens, mark, if you are in forever you are in the company of somebody that the United States government suspects, and you are a young male, you are, in this world, now presumed guilty. You could be killed, again, for having quote the wrong father. This is so chilling. It is not being weak on the war on terror to not find this to be chilling and a real threat to our civil liberties. Theres some United States senators asking questions about it with no judicial review, i think its incumbent upon of senators with Michael Isikoff getting this memo, what else do we need to know about this program . The standard is brand new. It involves killing americans without any safeguards we suspected pre9 11. By the way, some people, and i think you said it, harold, was it john yoo. Yoo teaches at berkeley. Some people on the left owe an apology. The criticism ramped up thats what im saying, his torture memos, i was not fan of, didnt like a lot of conclusions they drew because they thought they were fog fagoing fast and in some cases, those things are childs play compared to what the federal government can do now and who they can kill without, again, let me say it again, no evidence, no judicial review, no ability to confront your peers. You want to pick a moderate to liberal, whomever, constitutional scholar who may have been against some of that. We are talking about people hanging out with terrorists. The question should be asked of the administration how Many Americans have been tashtd. If you happen to have a known terrorist on the cias Department Watch List in your living room, perhaps you have some issues, too. Dont get me wrong. No, you dont, harold. Did you go to law school . If youre an american, are you telling me if youre an american overseas and you happen to stumble into the wrong zip code, you could be killed because somebody is sitting in the living room of a guy who is a terrorist . Ive never had one in my living room. But you may not know the guy is a terrorist. Maybe you know him from the mosque youre going to. Maybe youre the only two americans. I dont know how to play this. All these questions have to be answered. Just because youre in the same proximity with a suspected terrorist, who has not been charged with any crimes, then you may be killed. Call me oldfashioned, i like checks and balances on the executive branch, even during war. I agree with you. The senate should ask these questions, i dont disagree with that. Heres my question. I get the hip poxcracy of it or disconnect previous administrations have received and this policy. Do you think this policy is their potential and might be necessary . No. You have to have standards. Hmm. You have to have some standards. I thought thats what everybody was screaming and yelling about as far as the bush enhanced Interrogation Program when those things were going on. They went in and seized one person who they actually had actionable intelligence on. Then took that one person out, and interrogated them and got information they felt would lead to the saving of other lives. You have to have standards there. You just cant grab an american citizen, like we said, and, willie, throw him into jail and keep him there for years without seeing a lawyer. In fairness. Its wrong. There is a group of progressives and have been for some time adamantly against this Drone Program and now their voices are getting louder and louder especially after this report comes out today. Coming up, well get to these other stories and talk to House Majority leader eric cantor ahead of his public rebranding speech today and congressman Elijah Cummings and peter orszag and frank bruni. Up next, the top stories in the political playbook. First, weasel bright National Weather person day. Big holiday what . Balloons and everything. Thats not true, is it . It is. National weathermans day, february 5th, every year. Wow. Wonderful. Wonderful support system i have here. Good morning, everyone. We are watching a little bit of light snow across long island, new york city, coastal connecticut, not going to cause issues on the roads, dusting on the roads about a halfinch. New york city you can see it about a half inch. Today is a good day for travel but new england is frigid. 2 in burlington and very cold in maine and new hampshire. The rest of the northeast is starting to warm up a little bit. Above freezing today. And d. C. You could sneak up to 47 much warmer than youve been lately and a warming trend in the middle of the country. Still cold in chicago but were heading near 30 in chicago but look to your south, what a beautiful day. Kansas city, 51. Still very warm from denver to dallas and much of the west. That will continue as we go throughout this week, washington d. C. , looks like we hold on to this war, 35 to 50 all the way through a sunny saturday, good things ahead in this mornings capitol. Youre watching morning joe brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] susan writes childrens books. When shes happy, she writes about bunnies. When shes sad, she writes about goblins. [ balloon pops, goblin growling ] she wrote a lot about goblins after getting burned in the market. But she found someone to talk to and gained the confidence to start investing again. And thats what you call a storybook ending. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Using Cloud Computing and mobile technology, verizon innovators have developed a projective display for firefighters. Allowing them to see through anything. Because the worlds Biggest Challenges deserve even bigger solutions. Powerful answers. Verizon. Lets take a look at the morning papers, Washington Post, something we can agree on i dont know what harold said the nations capit capitol i dont want to hear about it. The capitol has the worst traffic congestion. It is the worst. Spend 67 hoursnd 32 gallons of gas every year sitting in gridlock. You cant get anywhere. Thats the good news. The bad news projections say it will only get worse. I spent my entire childhood watching them rebuild and make new highways. I dont understand. Snow wi willie, whats in the parade of papers . Ill tell you. The archeologists have confirmed king richard the iii remains have been found under a parking lot in england. Been looking for that guy a while. Richard the iii whas been missing since 1835. And planning to kill a 30 million theme park in pakistan. Im going. Wait. Hold on one second. I was going to go to disney in july with the kids. What did that say . Go back. Im looking forward to that. A private company is planning to build a 30 million theme park in the same town where Osama Bin Laden was killed by navy seals. If things go well, investors hope the 50 acre park will expand to 500 acres and include mini golf, rockclimbing, water spor sports, jogging tracks and a zoo. Willie, whats the Baltimore Sun talking about today . This is a joke . Its not just National Weatherman day bill just made up, its also National Pancake day. I knew this. Thats exciting. Smells like syrup. From 7 00 a. M. To 10 00 p. M. , you can grab a complementary short stack. In return for a free breakfast theyre asking for donations for the childrens miracle network. I love pancakes but they dont have a lot of value. Except you can help kids now. Can you get ones that are wheat . I guess. Probably. Ihop gives away how many pancakes . The last time i looked, 14 million. I dont know if thats gone up today. Is that one of your counters on your weight. They need like a debt clock. Theres an ihop in Downtown Manhattan that just opened. You know where else there is one . Oshkosh. You know where i went sunday night friendlys . How great is friendlys . I went to five guys . Theres a lot of healthy tough. A veggie burger there. I had fries. They were really good. Did you finish them . Wow. Friendlies makes a mistake. I went to friendlies a couple years ago they have the calorie count on all of that stuff. You know, i dont obsess. No. Over what i eat . Why did you just eat four mun kins in a 30 Second Period of time. Disgusting. And they must fry everything at that place. Ask for the version without the calories or ask them to scribble them out. You know who else likes the version without the calories. Love those fries. Diamond jim. He has the executive editor at politico. You know that by now. Good morning. That was one heck of an introduction. I like that. Wasnt that great . You an ihop man . You want a short stack . I go to one in alexander and must admit take the kids there occasionally. Of course, you do. Everybody likes ihop. Going behind the curtains with congressman paul ryan after that run for Vice President in 2012. What are we looking at the next four years, maybe 2016 and even beyond that. We were surprised talking to his friends who he is consulting with since the election and how cool he is to the idea running in 2016. Our assumption is he was interested in running. What theyre telling us is he really wants to do this medicare plan he laid out a couple years ago and do big budget cuts. To do that, he sees his path to power more in congress and suggested to friends he might be open to running for leadership, majority speaker down the road something in the past he had no interest in because he wanted to pursue a policy path. I think it shows hes had the taste of the power of running on a National Stage and i think wants to be a bigger and bigger player internally for republicans. Youve seen it already. The guy who helped craft the debt ceiling plan. When he puts out that budget that is the document republicans have to run on the next two years because it has severe spending cuts on the domestic side because they have to balance the budget in ten years, a mighty task because they dont want to raise taxes. He has no interest in the sheer grind of campaigning. Its hard to see him having what it takes to run for president in 2016. Is that even in his mind . Is that a possibility for him . I dont think hes ever rule it out having been the veep last time and having national statutostature and i do think you have to wapt badly and willing to go for two years that state to state, talking to folks at the grassroots and i dont think he really likes that. Likes the idea of spending some time with his family and work the halls of congress. The next two years are about austerity for the Republican Party. That would be really tough to run for president trying to partially privatize medicare and cut domestic spending across the board. Quickly, paul ryan, does he have what it takes to run for president . I think his kids are too young. He has a lot of strengths and not really where his mind and heart is. We look at the playbook, thanks so much. Coming up, it was the best Super Bowl Ad you probably didnt see. Will ferrel and old milwaukee getting together for another instant classic. [ woman ] my boyfriend and i were going on vacation, so i used my Citi Thankyou card to pick up some accessories. A new belt. Some nylons. And what girl wouldnt need new shoes . And with all the points ive been earning, i was able to get us a flight to our favorite climbing spot even on a holiday weekend. Things are definitely looking up. 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With fifteen grams of protein to help manage hunger. Look whos getting smart about her weight. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. A smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. It was the best day it was the best day yeah it was the best day because of you [sigh] [echoing] we make a great pair. Huh . Progressive and the Great Outdoors we make a great pair. Right, totally, uh. Thats what i was thinking. Covering the things that make the outdoors great. Now, thats progressive. Call or click today. Thats really nice. You have to love spoon, or as the kids call them the spoon, do not fear the underdog. Lets talk about blackouts, shall we . I love blackouts. Infrastructure. Can we blame this on ray nag nagin . Blanca. Lets blame it on blanca. There have been concerns about an outage at the superdome as early as october. A memo from the stadium district said the electrical feareds hat quote some decay and chance of failure. Okay. Youre saying they may have had a little evidence. Whats a little decay and failure between friends . The company that supplies the superdome with power as well as the stadiums engineering staff also expressed concern about the electrical connection. Superdomes board did address these reports spending 600,000 bucks to upgrade the electrical system and it did not solve the problem. It did not keep super bowl xlvii from being the third most viewed program in history. 108 million viewers. Behind rhodas wedding. Number one, rhodas wedding. Flash episode of mash. And morning joe. And fleetwood macs rumors. Frampton comes alive. The two super bowls. Giants patriots. I have an update on ray nagin. Former new orleans mayor ray nagin indicted on corruption charges. I never saw that coming. The investigation at the superdome still ongoing. Super energy user beyonce. Who wrote that . I did. Thats why you dont do scripts. I wrote that. Beyonce was an early suspect in the power outage. Please. Shes off the hook. Reports are she brought her own dpen rater at the generator at the halftime show. Who doesnt. There was another blackout last night in the nba. Utah jazz and Sacramento Kings saw the start of their game delayed monday after the lights dimmed and had to be reset at salt lake citys ironically named enerenergy solutions are really . This time not 34 minutes, only a three minute delay. Whatever. I think everyone will enjoy this, if you dont like making out with the kids in the room, have them step outside just a second. Old milwaukee, will ferrel, you may have seen have teamed up for a Long Campaign together. The new Super Bowl Ad you probably didnt see because it only aired in select markets. Remember this one, this is a different ad that aired in last years super bowl only in a small nebraska tv market. This year, ferrel filmed another ad for the company and only got see it if you lived in small towns in texas, oklahoma and montana. Here it is. Thats it. Thats all that happens. 30 seconds of making out. Actually might have been a minute. They pushed back into the makeout. Old mule. Old milwaukee. Where did they run this thing . Texas, oklahoma and montana. They did a lot of research. Targeted. Microtargeting. Frank bruni joins us. Watching morning joe brewed by starbucks. Meet the 5passenger ford cmax hybrid. When youre carrying a lot of weight, cmax has a nice little trait, you see, cmax helps you load your freight, with its footactivated lift gate. But thats not all youll see, cause cmax also beats prius v, with better mpg. Say hi to the allnew 47 combined mpg cmax hybrid. In the middle of the night it can be frustrating. Its hard to turn off and go back to sleep. Intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you cant get back to sleep. Its an effective sleep medicine you dont take before bedtime. 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Intermezzo, like most sleep medicines, has some risk of dependency. Common side effects are headache, nausea, and fatigue. So if you suffer from middleofthenight insomnia, ask your doctor about intermezzo and return to sleep again. Live look at the white house. The sun has yet to come up in washington but the lights are on. Maybe theyre working on a budget. Here with us, from the New York Times, frank bruni, took a personal look at the central issue in the National Debate in his latest column. He wrote about his grandfather who came to the u. S. From southern italy and eventually lived out the american dream. You write in part this, about your grandfather who actually came here and worked up to own and run an italian market. Thats right. Like the 11 million Illegal Immigrants at the center of our current political debate, mauro bruni wasnt supposed to be here. He was trespassing in the country he came to love more fiercely than the one hed left, the country in which his children and their children would lead highly productive lives, pay many millions of dollars in taxes over time and get to be a small part of the decision as voters about how we were going to treat his spiritual descendants. My grandfather and grandmother a deckers lina indeed wanted to wring america for all it was worth. That was selfish but very fruitful. Their patriotism was all the stronger because america wasnt their birthright but their choice, their wager. They were invested in seeing it as the best possible decision, the only right call. Its an incredible story and there are millions and millions of those. When we say the phrase illegal alien a terrible phrase or illegal immigrant a lot of us arent recognizing how unusual that is in our past. I dont think im that unusual having an illegal immigrant being responsible for me being here years later. When we talked about my grandfathers story and how hard they worked to be successes and their children to be successes in this country we often glide over the part he came here without permission in 1939 and living off the books for 10 years. And the law keeping legal immigrants out figurative ly, they dont even know their own history, dont realize it was the germans hated and irish hated when they came here and assimilated. And on and on. We were once other. We were once other. You take that all the way through the middle of the 20th absolutely. I talked to some immigration historians when i was writing this to flush out family history. I was reminded in the 20s, if you were Southern Europe that was much less desirable than northwestern europe and they would make notations between 1899 and 1924 whether you were coming from the north of italy or south of italy. You were deemed that much less desirable if you were from southern italy. You were not quite white. How does this translate into what were talking about today. Most people see the value that immigrants bring to this country but now its a question how to get them here and be fair to the ones who do it illegally and incorporate some illegally. What do you see as the best fair path. I dont know what the legislation is theyre talking about, seems very prudent making sure they have connections here and some employment history, and all that. I just wish when we talked about all this, we were honest about who were talking about. What mika read before about my grandparents patriotism. When i hear people who oppose any sort of amnesty, isnt any sort of amnesty, they act like these people want to mooch off of us. Those i met, not just my grandfathers generation moving forward are among the most loyal patriots because they have so much invested in their choice coming here. And so many new to the United States i talked to seem to actually have a better understanding of the promise. Of the country. And the promise, most importantly, of america. They believe in the american dream, what we now take for granted and look at too cynically, they look at and dive straight in. It goes without saying that those who are recent citizens, newly admitted citizens know more about the history of the country and have a great understanding of traditions and culture and why weas celebrate e fourth of july. Many think its an excuse to have a burger. Can i correct you . Everyday is an excuse to have a burger. Even National Weather persons day . Especially National Weather persons day. How much have you talked about the less desirable certain parts of europe, how much does that play into this immigrant debate today . As joe talked about from the middle of the 20th century on, most of these people were not people of color. Does that exacerbate this conversation . I think a lot has to do origin. That just changes in time. The reason i brought it up is once southern italians were not seen quite right. And we have to realize our racism changes over time and standards change over time and we have to confront it honestly. When i talk about patriotic, people who have extraordinary drive and work really hard, i defy you to find people who work harder, have greater capacity to take risks than some immigrants that have come here because they really really have been up against odds many of us can only imagine. The New York Times, grange brugrange frank bruni. Thank you so much . Every time frank comes in, i dont think willie reads the New York Times. He doesnt realize that frank is on the editorial page now. He just knows im a good eater. I just know he knows where to eat in New York Times. Snow whats your recommendation . We were just talking about a restaurant we both love. Not a new recommendation but a validation of your tastes. I could not recommend it more higher. Perla. Down in the west village. Okay. Still ahead, we talk to House Majority leader eric cantor about his speech today on reshaping the message of the Republican Party. Keep it right here on morning joe. This is 100,000. We asked total strangers to watch it for us. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Ill be right back. They didnt take a dime. How much in fees does your bank take to watch your money . If your bank takes more money than a stranger, you need an ally. Ally bank. Your money needs an ally. [ male announcer ] want to make a great car interior . Stop looking at car interiors. Get inspired by other stuff. Yep. Yep. Ok. Sure. Why not . Woah. Touchscreens. Put that in your dash. Now, luxury stuff. Make your seats like that. That thing has wifi, why doesnt your car . You cant do that. Ignore that guy. Give it wifi. Yes make it fit 5 people. No, 5 actual sized people. Give them leg room, good. Destroy boring car interiors forever. And thats how you do it. Easy. If you or your family has been injured through no fault of your own look at this law firm coming up. If you dont get paid we dont get paid. Jon meachem always says, one of the best ambulance chasers in tennessee, if you dont get paid he doesnt get paid. When we come back, former white house director jon meachem and James Peterson and Washington Post, eugene robinson. Keep it right here on morning joe. All stations come over to mission a for a final go. This is for real this time. Step seven point two one two. Verify and lock. Command is locked. Five seconds. Three, two, one. Standing by for capture. The most Innovative Software on the planet. Dragon is captured. Is connecting todays leading companies to places beyond it. Siemens. Answers. Email marketing from Constant Contact reaches people in a place theyre checking every day their inbox. And it gives you the tools to create custom emails that drive business. Its just one of the ways Constant Contact can help you grow your small business. Sign up for your free trial today at constantcontact. Com try. [ ship horn blows ] no, no, no stop humans. One day were coming up with the theory of relativity, the next. Not so much. But thats okay youre covered with great ideas like optional better car replacement from Liberty Mutual insurance. Total your car and we give you the money to buy one a model year newer. Learn about it at libertymutual. Com. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. Splitsecond stats. [ indistinct shouting ] its so close to the options floor. [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ]. Youll bust your brain box. All on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. I just got started and im like hey, that first 20 came off, well it wasnt too hard at all. I love breads. You can still eat bread. I love my sweets. I can still have a cookie on Weight Watchers. I love the barcode scanner. Occasionally, ill use it at the bar. Of course thats what its for, right . Bar code. Oh i think im never going there again. I feel healthy. And just. Young again. [ female announcer ] Weight Watchers online. The power of Weight Watchers completely online. Join for free today. Thats not right. What was that. Dont worry. Its a new marketing for childhood toys. Pulitzer prize winning historian and author of thomas jefferson, jon meachem. Glue has to come from somewhere. And professor of english at lehigh university, James Peterson, welcome to the table. Hes actually qualified. Exactly. Director of the office of management and budget, columnist for Bloomberg View and vicechairman of banking. You have a long we will have to cut this down. Im here. It its time. That was the cutdown alex . From washington. Let me just tell something to our guests. Thats meaty. We will cut it in half. Cold. Joining us from washington, associate editor for Washington Post and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson. We will cut that, too. Genes great. These people at the table. Dont even have him from his gong show days where he was gene gene the dancing machine. That was good. I like that one. Well put that back in. Hey, gene, you saw what isikoff is reporting on these drone strikes and the legal justification, if you want to call it that. Its pretty shocking, no judicial review. They dont even have to have any actionable intelligence youre planning to do anything against the United States of america. It is pretty chilling. I looks pretty shaky, to tell you the truth. It speaks of you have to be planning an imminent attack. Imminent seems to mean maybe sometime in the future. Its a very flexible concept. Look, i think we all need to really look into this and there should be some accountability on this and it needs to be spelled out in greater detail and in detail that makes sense. Im not sure from what we heard from isikoff this is this is kosher. Let me say here and take it one step further, it doesnt even have to be an imminent attack, according to the memo. If an informed high level official of the u. S. Government determines that the targeted american has recently been involved in activities causing a threat to the United States, even if theres no evidence of an imminent attack, they can still be killed. American citizens can still be killed across the globe. Of course, willie brought up the time in the campaign where robert gibbs was asked by the son of the american son of an american suspect was killed after his father was killed, some time later, the 16yearold. And the answer from robert gibbs in the white house was, well, he should have had a better father. Well, this is this is something that we need to have some hearings on. That would be worthwhile, i think. Rather than hearings basically aimed at personal selfag rrrdis selfagrdisment. This is important stuff and was important with george w. Bush how we conducted ourselves against terror and the American People and important under president obama. George meein 2004 2005, whenn was not given access to a lawyer and i remember reading, he is an american citizen and has the right to have an american counsel according to the constitution and he should get it and that was shocking to everybody as americans. Everybody reacts as a yawn, you basically have no rights if youre an american citizen overseas, if the government targets knew overseas is interesting, too, does this mean it cant be done domestically. If in fact the logic is this is the ultimate manifestation, the ultimate product of what weve been living with for 11 years now, which is this blending of Law Enforcement, the ethics and tactics of war. Sn technology. And technology. I would love to know, im sure we will, what the debate was internally about this. Im sure the president given his disposition and having been a constitutional law professor, must have had some thoughts about this. But it is also interestingly something, at the risk of selfpa selfparity, something that began in the earliest days of the american presidency and is now continues to be an issue, which is to what extent is the executive power unaccountable if the executive power is acting in what it believes to be the cause of the survival of the country. Jefferson said that the duty of the chief mag straiggie strait the law but its not the highest duty. The highest duty is the highest duty is the survival of the country. President s throughout have made these decisions that have gone ever farther and this is the fartherest theyve gone, it seems to me. No evidence, no judicial review and no threat, no rights to face a judge and no rights to face a peer and again by this new standard, if your father was suspected of being a terrorist. Snow right. You can be killed. Just bluntly, the way things work these days, if you are within the vicinity of somebody who is suspected without evidence of being a terrorist. Thats a problem. You are now presumed guilty. You are presumed guilty in these new heinously low standards. Listen, if you look at the communities that have been under attack by drone attacks and what they had to experience with surveillance and fear they live in, we need not be yawning about these things, these are serious. We should challenge these kind of president ial powers in the hands of a president you didnt support. Thats the tlesh hold athreshol test we should be up in arms against having drones. No question if this were a republican president , the temperature and tone this morning would be even higher. Oh, my god. Jon, you, this morning, looks like an aclu lawyer. Im just saying, everybody that was so shocked and stunned by these quote terror memos, again, i talked about it an awful lot here, where you have u. S. Troops and pakistani troops working together, go through suburban pakistani neighborhoods, see somebody like Khalid Shaikh mohammed out of the house, making sure to kill nobody while seizing him, pulling him out, taking him out of the country and interrogating him. Compare that now to dropping a drone, peter, on a house and killing 15 people. What offender me s fends off so much for those against enhanced interrogation, they think its clean. Nothing clean about it. We saw this when bush was leaving office and people said they need to take him to the hague and tried for war crimes. I said, just wait if we ramp up the drone attacks, barack obama will not want to see the slides of the 5yearold girls dismembered by our drone strikes. We can pull it up. We need to pull it up. We saw this coming a mile off. This is a dangerous slippery slope. Fair enough . Im here to talk about the funds rate. I will leave drone strikes to the experts. Lets move to the budget. It is a slippery slope and at the end of the day, Everyone Needs to be paying attention to what the drone attacks are and doesnt matter whos in office, president ial powers unchecked is something we have to be concerned with. The problem is so much of this is classified, still classified. Michael isikoff managed to get this memo as senators are demanding more information. We should all demand more information. We need to know whats being done, again, in our name, because this is not clean, its not surgical. Its messy and its deadly. The Collateral Damage is awful. Okay, peter. We move on now to the budget. House republicans are taking the white house to task for failing to deliver a budget for the 2014 fiscal year. The Obama Administration claims it missed the february 4th deadline because of uncertainty caused by the fiscal cliff negotiations but house republicans. It was busy, though, you had the inauguration, right . Right . Snow uhhuh. Super bowl went four hours long. It was a long super bowl. It was. Come on. There are a lot of things you can kind of get worked up about. That deadline is n not shouldnt be one of them. The problem here, by the way, is the mechanics of putting together the annual budget are too antiquated so it takes much longer literally to put the numbers together and print it and blah blah blah than it should. Which means if you dont know what the law is until january 1st, you wont hit it. Nobody roads for the president s budget any way. It has zero votes. We can send drones Health Official way around the world do this but we cant print a budget. Snow thats my point. 92 is this fair . Thats very good, we can send a man to the moon theme. You updated it for us. 92 moving fast, man, internet age. I hear the webs is a big thing. I love the website. Republicans are blaming this on a look of leadership in the oval office. President obama missed a great opportunity today to help our economy. This was supposed to be the day the president submitted his budget to the congress. But its not coming. Its going to be late and some reports say it could be as long as a month late. I think thats too bad. Our economy could use some president ial leadership right no now. I thought it was you know, i thought that was very reasonable and rational. How many days has it been, alex, since the democrats have put a bed on the floor in the senate. 1,378. Look at that. Boom look at that he was so earring fger for t budget he was going to go through in detail. Peter, you want alex sitting next to you for any trivial pursuit game. Boo boom. You should see him on ag subsidies. Really quickly, peter, democrats dont want to show their hand. They havent wanted to show their hand for years. I think the problem here is both sides dont want to fill in the details. Republicans, too. Republicans have not put down specifically what they want to do. Paul ryan put out a budget and hes been killed for it for two years by democrats who havent put out a budget since 2009. Interesting, even the paul ryan budget i agree had more detail than other things. Most like the deficit in the ryan budget was we will save unbelievable amounts of money by turning medicaid over to the states and somehow they will figure it out. Thats more information than other people are putting out. Talk about missing deadlines, now this is a really low bar. What is the democratic plan in the senate, lets say, or in the white house, to save medicar medicare . Medicare actually actually interesting you focus on that. Medicare has been a pretty good story the past few years. My view is double down on things happening. Medicare grew only by 3 last fiscal year, unbelievable low by standards. Will you take that gamble for the next five years, i will take a 50 50 bet medicare will continue to grow at much slower rates than historically. Down to 2 1 2, 3 the next couple years. That will tick up a little bit as the economy picks back up but i dont think well see the 10 growth rate. So you dont think medicare is a problem . It is a problem but this is one area better than official projections. What about medicaid. Medicaid. Big problem is socalled dual eligibles, eligible for medicare and medicaid. 200 billion a year, completely, not completely but vast majority of unmanaged uncoordinated, theres a lot that could be done to improve care and value in medicaid. By the way, i dont think you will get there by saying, here, states, you do it. Right. So, gene, what do we do . What do we do as far as getting democrats, white house, republicans to figure this out. This isnt just an exexercise. One of the things that concerns me hearing from my Republican Party, we have to stop focusing so much on spending cuts. This is a party, by the way, ran the National Debt up from 5. 6 billion to 11 11. 7 trillion durg the bush era. Now, were up to 16 16. 5 trilli. I dont know that now is the time to say, hey, were going to be the party thats not going to obsess over spending cuts. Somebody has to obsess over the National Debt. Whos it going to be if its not going to be the republicans . What we actually do or should be done. What we actually do is we kind of muddle through with a few cuts here and a bit of revenue there and some more messy fights and we presumably we get out of this situation at some point. What we should do is lay out a program for growth in the short term and deficit reduction in the longer term and everybody agrees thats what needs to be done, but we dont do it. Gene, i want to read from your column in the Washington Post. This is on guns. The nras tonedeaf rhetoric. With so many members of Congress Already bought and paid for, its understandable that the nra would feel a measure of confidence. But i believe the progun lobby is seriously overplaying its hand and that the wind has shifted. The nra is powerful but not omnipotent. T polls show americans favor sensible gun control. If obama and other proponents of sanity keep the issue alive, we can achieve it from sea to shining sea. And the children from sandy hook singing america the beautiful. I havent talked to anybody that didnt tear up, certainly havent talked to any parent that didnt tear up. We see day after day the tragedies unfolding in chicago. On the same day that we see this remarkable scene, way in lapierre is getting deboned on fox news by Chris Wallace and going back on universal background checks that have a 91, 93 Approval Ratings among americans, you wonder what planet the survivalist wing of the nra is living on. Snow you do wonder that. Really, one of the better public arguments for sensible gun control, background checks and the like is Wayne Lapierre, whenever he goes on the air, i think he illustrates just how radical and crazy this wing of the nra is. I dont think that represents the actual view of the majority of nra members. It does not. I dont know, i dont know. Mika, 80 of nra members support universal background checks. A majority of nra members support getting rid of these high capacity magazines. Im telling you the overwhelming majority of nra members are hunters and people that want to support double the price and making them sell out. The survivalist wing of the nra. Theres a lot of them. You say theres a lot of them. A lot of gun owners and people buying guns. People want their Second Amendment rights. The clash were kind of not having the right conversation. This has to be about common sense gun safety and live and breathe in memories of people who died not just chicago or newtown and the last decade or so. Were too caught in Wayne Lapierre and rhetoric, to me nra is about buying and selling guns, not about Second Amendment and gun safety. We should focus on the issues. Trafficking of guns. The leadership of the nra represent the gun lobby and those folks invested in selling more guns. I dont think theyre interested protecting the Second Amendment rights. Obviously lapierre as spokesperson has not given enough compass nat narrative to the kinds of things happening in Mass Shootings and chicago, and at the end of the day we need a conversation sans nra. I agree their power is a little overstated and this is a moment to move the conversation forward towards gun safety. And we said time and time again, salcalia, Clarence Thoma alito and conservatives in 2008 gave americans the Second Amendment right that we always believe we conservatives always believe was contained inside the Second Amendment. Right. You dont need Wayne Lapierre out there now doing it for you. I wonder why they dont let david king go. Because lapierre is such such lapierre is such a nightmare. Almost make it sound dirty. Really, republicans are the party of Ronald Reagan who opposed assault weapons or do you want to be the party of way in lapierre . There are two points just been said i also heard the president say yesterday. One is twhhe weapon of war argument crystal put out there, these are weapons of war. The other is this very interesting shift you just echoed from a question about rights to a question about money, this is about gun lobbyists. Speaking about money. Reading peters piece in bloomberg, okay ill just turn this way. Nowhats happening . Its too soon to celebrate a recovery. Read it to me . You guys dont get into a big fight. Lets see if you agree on this. The crucial question about longer than expected effects from the financial crisis is what should we do about them . Passive despair after allthe. Thats what it support. Isnt an ideal strategy. Policymakers in washington should couple substantial up front stimulus spending with even bigger but delayed deficit reduction. Both ends of this barbell are crucial. The stimulus can help to reduce the lasting effects of the crisis and given the official deficit projections may be too sunny, the austerity will help prevent a firefight fiscal crisis. Furthermore, the combination is more politically feasible than either component alone. You see, peter, that seems so rational. Are you supporting stimulus, joe . Yes, i have wow. This is driving me crazy. Squljoe said this. I have said everyday for a year on this show you can take care of Long Term Debt while investing in seconds and r d. Even though i explain this, people cant follow it. What has the f. Scott fitzgerald quote . Two conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time without going crazy. Thats you. Were not even talking about that here, were talking about like a grizzly bear going about his daytoday activities and still being able to plan for hibernation. This is not hard. Look at that. We can take care of short Term Investment and Long Term Debt, peter, can we not . Absolutely. Im glad you share the frustration. This is the sensible thing. I think its more feasible than trying to do either one by itself. If its most tenable, why cant it happen if it make s s sense politically . Paul krugman was on the show and saying washington cant do two things at once. Eric is coming up and talking about how the doesnt want the Republican Party to just be the party of cuts. But everybody should agree we have to take care of that Long Term Debt or the markets will turn on us and it will be a vicious reaction. I am convinced if you did more delay ed deficit reduction paul krugman and others worried about undue fiscal austerity immediately the sole focus we will punt on delayed deficit reconstructir reduction is counterproductive. You send a message worldwide, we will take care of debt long term and take care of med kiica and Social Security and invest over the years. The markets give you more money to invest in education and these things in the short run. Joes new policy is active despair. Whats that, gene sxwrrchlt. Your new policy appears to be active despair opposed to passi passive. Active despair is saying it everyday for a year and people not hearing it. I am that train calling in a forest when nobody is around. Snow you have been heard. On the grizzly bear. I like the bear thing. Thats good. All right. Thank you, gene, be reading your column in the Washington Post. Jon meachem, stay. When we come back, House Majority leader eric cantor delivering a major speech how the Republican Party should change its message and redirect its focus. And all the people said, amen. Twins. I didnt see them coming. I have obligations. Cute obligations, but obligations. I need to rethink the core of my portfolio. What i really need is sleep. Introducing the ishares core, Building Blocks for the heart of your portfolio. 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Price is right no problem, they make you feel like youre a family. Get a Synthetic Blend Oil change, tire rotation and much more, 29. 95 after 10. 00 rebate. If you take care of your car your car will take care of you. Lets bring in congressman eric cantor. Later on today, eric will be delivering an address in the direction and message of the Republican Party. Eric, what will we hear . Good morning. I think we learned a lot of lessons from the last election. What i will see us do and demonstrating why we are for the things we are for. Joe, you talked about the need to manage down the debt and deficit. Weve been for that and we will continue to demonstrate our commitment to fiscal discipline and want the president to join us. We also in all of this, i dont think completed a sentence, were trying to do this to help people, trying to do it to help the moms and dads having a very difficult time right now. I get it. Im a parent and get what working parents are going through and trying to address the needs of educatiing childre and the needs of Health Care Costs rising and implementation of the president S Health Care law and we will talk about trying to make life work again for so many millions of americans. Let me ask you this, one of the great frustrations, i was on the panel of any National Conservative institute and people talking about not only the conservative movement but the Republican Party. One of the frustrations voiced by bill crystal and john pedoritz did i say it right . We complained about doddfrank but really didnt have a strong alternative to doddfrank. We complained about obamacare but unlike 93 we really didnt have a strong republican alternative to the democratic president S Health Care reform, this is coming from conservative leaders. Is part of the mission and our responsibility having stronger more viable alternative tos the president s specific policy plans . You know, i think, joe, honestly, it is more in that weve not explained why we take the positions that we do. I think thats one of the lessons we learned from this past election. We believe in selfreliance and faith in the person and accountability in government. These are tried and tested principles of conservatism i believe make life work for people. Wave got to put these ideas forward with proposals so we can say, look, were coming down on the side of the working people of this country and frankly those out of work and want a job. You mentioned doddfrank. Doddfrank is chock full of regulations that wont help people but design ed but if you keep that in mind, theres a lot of good things we can do in getting rid of bad regulations or putting in place good policies to make life work for people. I think one area you and i can agree, eric, a strong vibrant Republican Party is good for the country. Where do you think the party has fallen short in the past two or three years . It is trying to demonstrate why were for the things we are for. Yesterday, i went to an inner city school, a private school in the district of columbia. What i saw there was about 100 kids that benefit from the d. C. Opportunity Scholarship Program because frankly it gave those kids and families and opportunity to be part of a school that offered a safe environment in which to learn. Believe it or not, there are thousands, and more than that of kids in this city and many others that dont have that very basic opportunity. Weve not explained the fact were for this kind of development in our society so we can help people. I think where we have a lot of room to grow as party as conservatives to explain why were for the kind of fiscal discipline were for and what is the reality and how are we going to help people, because the continued direction this administration and washington is going in is not going to end up helping people and making life work. Thats what i think we should be focused on and ill talk about today. Congressman, Mark Halperin here, have you changed your view on issues like education or just trying to explain things differently now . No. Weve always believed as we know, funding of education comes largely from the states. There is 710 of education dollars that come from the federal government. Perhaps, if we can demonstrate good morning, eric, harold ford, hope youre well, brother. Two things, one, i love the idea about warning requiring unitsei universitying to guide and advise the students where the majors are most lucrative and profitable. I hope you stick by that. This morning, mika spoke about the administrations drone activities and question and use of drones. Due and congress have any intention of following up with arings . Whats your personal opinion of it and how do you see this issue going forward. I had a little trouble hearing the question. In the drones, what you said the memoir of the Justice Department. On drones. Okay. Certainly, you know, i think, harold, we are going to be active, in terms of the oversight function that we have in the house of representatives. I think all of us want to maintain our National Security and do everything we can to Work Together to try and effect that mission. Obviously, the president is commander in chief and hell hopefully be listening to the commanders in theater and on the ground to do what is necessary not only to protect our troops there but affect our mission f. Thank you very much. Sorry about the technical problems there. Good to see you. Good luck today. Thank you. Coming up, perhaps the first sign of compromise on gun reform legislation. We will talk to two lawmakers to introduce a joint solution. Elijah comings and scott rigell. Keep it live here on morning joe. Im lorenzo. I work for 47 different companies. Well, technically i work for one. That company, the United States postal service®, works for thousands of home businesses. Because at usps. Com®, you can pay, print and have your packages picked up for free. I can even drop off free boxes. I wear a lot of hats. Well, technically i wear one. The u. S. Postal service®, no business too small. They hatin patrolling they tryin to catch me ridin dirty tryin to catch me ridin dirty tryin to [ woman ] hi there. Why do we always have to take your moms car . [ male announcer ] the security of an iihs top safety pick, the 2013 volkswagen tiguan. Thats the power of german engineering. Right now lease a 2013 tiguan for 219 a month. A talking car. But ill tell you what impresses me. A talking train. This ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what its carrying, while using less fuel. Delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. After all, whats the point of talking if you dont have something important to say . Up next, what could be the first bipartisan bill on new gun legislation. And governor Chris Christie does letterman. Celebrity birthday today, chr Chris Christie turned 50, he blew out the candles on his cake and wished for another cake. I dont know if this is one of your best ones but i think its very top call given what went on yesterday, a billion dollars will be spent on potato chips for super bowl sunday and thats just at governor christies house. Humans. Even when we cross our ts and dot our is, we still run into problems. Namely, other humans. Which is why at Liberty Mutual insurance, auto policies come with new car replacement and accident forgiveness if you qualify. See what else comes standard at libertymutual. Com. Liberty mutual insurance. Responsibility. Whats your policy . Tdd 18003452550 tdd 18003452550 and the streetsmart edge Trading Platform from charles schwab. Tdd 18003452550 gives me tools that help me find opportunities more easily. 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With us now from capitol hill, democratic representative from maryland, congressman Elijah Cummings and republican representative from virginia, congressman scott ridgell. Theyre part of a bipartisan bill today to make firearms trafficking a federal crime and make it even harder for any buying guns from any prohibited from buying guns of their own. Good to have you on the show. Thank you so much. Scott, tell me, why do you think its important to support this piece of legislation . Well, what were treeing to dto trying to do, and this bill does, part of putting up an impenetrable wall on the Second Amendment. On one side of the law we have our lawful gun owners of which i am one and strong proponent of the Second Amendment and also to keep the bad guys, criminals from having access to guns. Thats basically what this bill does. It surprised me there was not a federal law on our books, federal law that addressed gun trafficking and made it illegal indeed to buy a gun for someone else and to traffic guns. Were addressing that. Its common sense and Common Ground. Elijah, talk about it. This is so very very important. You know, joe, Law Enforcement came to our committee a while back when we were dealing with fast and furious, as a matter of fact, it didnt ask for a trafficking law, they begged for it. They said they wanted to be more effective and efficient. There is no federal trafficking law. They want to make sure that the criminals do not get their hands on guns. What this legislation will do is it will make it much tougher, increase the penalties and actually create a law against trafficking of guns. So this is something, by the way, that just about every single Law Enforcement agency and organization, just about every prosecutor, they want these tools, pause they tell be us, you all are paying us a lot of money to do our jobs, now give us the tools to effectively do the jobs. I think this is what they will do. Im excited about the fact republicans and democrats, for the first time in the house, were coming together, not just on Common Ground, joe, but i say, we are on Higher Ground because thats what this is all about. Harold. Real, quick, elijah, good to see you. Tell us how this affects urban areas, you and i are from urban areas, baltimore respectively, mayor bloomberg trying to limit the number of handguns on the streets and this has an impact in urban areas, if it passes. Am i reading that right . Youre right. It will have a tremendous impact. Theres a georgia case that shows a fellow down in georgia whos a convicted felon, gets a neighbor, a girlfriend to buy a lot of guns, 64 guns in 2 1 2 mont months. He couldnt buy them, he gets her to buy them. What does he do . He sends all of those guns to oakland, which has a much stricter, much stricter gun regulations. The next thing you know, the police find those guns at various crime scenes. In other words, basically, what this law will do is say, look, anybody whos thinking about buying a gun for someone who is prohibited from having a gun, that is, criminals, they will be possibly subjected to a 20 year penalty. Those are the kinds of things we keep hearing folks say everybody agrees criminals should not have guns, this is a way to make sure it does not happen. Gentlemen, wondering what the vote count looks like to you all at this point. I know its early. What do you consider where are you starting on a bill like this . What to stay within the metaphor, how many ducks are there you have to hunt for in terms of democrats or defecting republicans . I think to the extent our colleagues really understand what this bill does, they will have enough support to get it through the house and get it over to the senate. I really think what we need to do is change the culture in america. We did this about 30 plus years ago with drunk driving. We got tired of all the deaths. Though we havent solved the problem completely. We did, in my adult lifetime change the culture of america d. What were doing with this bill is saying its not okay to buy a gun for somebody else. About 40 of all straw purchasers dont serve any jailtime at all. Again, im a lifetime nra member. I was well before i ever decided to run for office. A strong defender of the Second Amendment. But this does not infringe upon the rights of lawful gun owners in any way. So i think theres Common Ground here. It certainly is common sense. Congressman, you are one of the few republicans in the house to speak out publicly in favor any of measures at the federal level to deal with gun control. As you talk to other republican members of the dhourks you hear people say privately id like to talk out more but i feel pressure from the nra or local constituents not to . Well, this is going to be cosponsored right from the getgo by congressman pat meehan out of pennsylvania. Hes a republican. The key, as elijah and i were talking about before we came on air here, is folks need to really understand what the bill does and what it does not do. If were going to move to some type of universal registration and connecting gun owners with the guns themselves and the database and all that, im going to have some problems with that. But well address that another day. For now zee some Common Ground and need to move it forward. What about universal background checks, something that Wayne Lapierre supported in 1999 but now hes against it. Do you have any problems with universal background checks, scott . Well, i think the key is, you know, what were focusing on today is something we really can move forward. I do have a problem with the ability of the federal government to tie in a gun owner with a weapon. I think thats a real problem with me personally. Thats a more difficult issue, joe, to be very candid with you here. And well get to that and work through it. But this is Common Ground. Were excited about it. Its got bipartisan support. I think well have bicameral support, and i hope we can get it through. Joe, let me say this. One of the things im concerned about, a lot of times when we have disagreements we concentrate on the disagreement but we dont concentrate on the agreement. And then we end up doing nothing, absolutely nothing. Exactly. We cannot stay when you look at what happened at sandy hook, we simply it was a wakeup call to this country. Now hopefully well get this through and then well look at perhaps other things. But right now were concentrating on this because we know we can get it done. I understand that, elijah. Listen, i am so thankful for scott, that scott is stepping out. Its not an easy thing to do, even though hes a pro gun guy to do something common sense like this. In virginia it shows 92 of virginians support background checks. But there are concerns about, its one thing to have universal background check but then does that follow the gun owner and the gun wherever they go. Most virginians do not support a Registration System that would, again, trace gun owners to guns. Well just leave it there. Thank you. Congressman cummings, thank you. I think its important for all americans. Elijah, good see you again. Twowonderful to see you. Joe, thanks for speaking out on this issue. Elijah talked about coming together and rising above. Thats what elijah and i did when we worked together. We certainly did and passed some wonderful legislation. Longterm health care for federal employees. Were going to look at the complex relationship between two monumental figures in history. Boy, its complex. Plus, which generation is at the biggest disadvantage following the economic recession . Were going to reveal a troubling new set of numbers. Thats easy for you to say. Why . No, im having a hard time. Well be right back. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year. In that time thereve been some good days. And some difficult ones. But, through it all, weve persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. So why should our anniversary matter to you . Because for 200 years, weve been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. And the next great idea could be yours. [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles military families face, we understand. 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Were building the youngest, most modern fleet among the largest us airlines to ensure that you are more comfortable and connected than ever. We are becoming a new american. Looking ahead to tomorrow, do you guys get how cool this is . Jane pauley and tom brokaw will be here. It would be like having captain kangaroo with cher. That is fantastic. Up next, a troubling new Justice Department memo that finds legal justification for drone strikes on american citizens. Well talk to the man who broke the story. Michael isikoff next. How do you keep an older car running like new . You ask a ford customer. When they tell you that you need your oil changed you got to bring it in. If your tires need to be rotated, you have to get that done as well. Jackie, tell me why somebody should bring theyre car here to the ford dealership for service instead of any one of those other places out there. They are going to take care of my car because this is where it came from. 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Do not drive or operate machinery until at least 4 hours after taking intermezzo and youre fully awake. Driving, eating, or engaging in other activities while not fully awake without remembering the event the next day have been reported. Abnormal behaviors may include aggressiveness, agitation, hallucinations, or confusion. Alcohol or taking other medicines that make you sleepy may increase these risks. In depressed patients, worsening of depression, including risk of suicide, may occur. Intermezzo, like most sleep medicines, has some risk of dependency. Common side effects are headache, nausea, and fatigue. So if you suffer from middleofthenight insomnia, ask your doctor about intermezzo and return to sleep again. Bob will retire when hes 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. But hes not. Hes an architect with two kids and a mortgage. Luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. And with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. How do you feel about me . I love you, dave. No, no, a love that i have a difficult time really explaining. A deep and abiding love. Well, now we have a real problem. But i have made jokes about you, not just one or two. Not just ongoing here and there, intermittent, but i didnt know this was going to be this long. Good morning. Its 8 00 on the east coast. 5 00 a. M. On the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. Time to wake up, everyone. Back with us on set, Mark Halperin and harold ford jr. Funny stuff last night. It was funny except its not funny, but i guess he had to address all David Lettermans jokes hes made. Well, its not. I interviewed Chris Christie for my book coming out in may very seriously about his weight, and about how much those jokes hurt him. So i guess he felt he had to do that to sort of, you know, break the ice with letterman, but what do you mean those jokes hurt him. They hurt his feelings, but well see another clip and see how hurt he is by this. He handles it very well. Do you have family members who are also heavy . No, im the guy. You are the guy. No, im the guy. How is your health if you went to a doctor today, what would the doctor say . Starvingly good. How is your cholesterol . My cholesterol is good, believe it or not. What about your blood sugar. Blood sugar, also normal. Also normal . Im basically the healthiest fat guy youve ever seen in your life. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. Theres your Campaign Poster right there. Thats good stuff. Well done. So you are saying its like the tears of a clown . No, stop it. I cant believe you. Hes addressing, obviously, an issue that everybody jokes about with him, but it does its a very he works out with a trainer four times a week. Hes on a diet. He works with a nutritionist. Ill say one of the things he says for the book is you really think this is about discipline . Because its not. Because im doing everything i can. I dont know what to do. Do you think i want to look like this . And do you think i want people mocking me night and day about my weight . Sorry. Thats fine. Sorry. No, im good. Im good. Exactly. You are. Talking to him he had to do this, i guess. Do you think he recognizes the plight his weight could have . He needs to lose a lot of weight if he wants to be president. I think he will. I think its going to take a long time. I think, though, in my opinion, and forget what well save the rest for what he says for may, but i think hes extremely approachable and relatable because most of america is overweight as well and is dealing with this problem as well. And i think it will be i dont want to say a positive force in his campaign, but i think its something that makes him relatable, and thats not bad. Hes dealing with something that, you know, millions of americans are deal with, obesity. You think having a relatively easy elexs will make it easier or less likely hell lose the weight . He said hed lose his weight when thing oh, he gains weight when things are going really well for him. I said things must be really good. So yeah. Hes got a high Approval Rating and normal cholesterol. I think we can both answer that. I dont know about you, but campaigns, you lose in campaigns. Oh, man. I drive through the wendys and, i mean, i eat on the run. I gained weight in every campaign. I never stop moving. I eat the wendys and popeyes and kfc, but i dont stop moving. Im like a grizzly bear about to go into hibernation. I gain about 400 pounds. And then i sleep through the Homer Simpson. Eat with both hands. Yeah, exactly. What about this. I just saw yesterday that this alabama story. Its on the front of usa today. This 5yearold kid was freed from a bunker. I wasnt following it really closely, but what happened . For the kid, its the best case scenario. So this man, about a week ago, boarded a bus outside dothan, alabama in southeast alabama. Demanded the driver give him a couple of the kids. The driver said no way. This man allegedly shot and killed the bus driver. Snatched two kids. One of them got away. One of them didnt. A 5yearold who has a mild form of autism. This guy takes him in his bunker in his back yard that hes dug out, a bomb shelter on his property, and had him down there for almost a week. I guess it came to a head yesterday. The fbi had somehow, through a pipe, sneaked a camera in there. So they were watching what was going on this whole time. They thought the guy started to become erratic. He took out a gun and the fbi went in yesterday afternoon. They threw a couple of flash bombs. The man was killed. We dont know exactly how but the kid was rescued and is safe. Man, thats great news. Great news. And also, front page of the New York Times, the u. S. Is going to sue s p for the ratings on these loans . Whats going on there . Can americans get money from that . Its unclear. It sounds as if the u. S. Does win, is successful, there would likely be some compensation or some monetary award. So explain this really quickly. So if they are suing s p for giving high ratings, for high marks to these companies that were on shaky ground, to say the least. They are likely going to sue s p because s p rated certain securities and certain packages of things that these Financial Firms have. Gave them high ratings which so gave the firms actual instruments. The high ratings. They didnt deserve these ratings. And as a result, Companies Either kept them on their books or they went out and tried to sell them. So the Justice Department is going to sell s p. They are going to get all of this money. And this pot of money you are jumping two or three steps ahead. Who will get the money at the end . From the stories, i cant tell. It will likely go to the government and the government would disburse some of those dollars. One thing i hope happens is that s p and these ratings agencies are forced to be more transparent. Theyve been more transparent since the crisis, but i hope they are forced to be even more so and im hopeful perhaps we can put standards in place if we have these challenges again they are remedies that we understand that s p, for that matter, any Rating Agency, would be held to or standard theyd be held to. Okay. There are new revelations this morning involving the u. S. Drone strikes program. In the 16page memo obtained by nbc news, the Justice Department makes the legal case for the killing of american citizens overseas if they are believed to be, quote, senior operational leaders of al qaeda or an associated force. Even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the u. S. Wow. Joining us now, nbc News National investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff who broke the story last night after obtaining the copy of the government memo. Michael, take us through the significance of the memo. Sure. Good morning, guys. This memo sheds light on what is one of the most controversial and secretive policies of the Obama Administration. Not just its drone Strike Campaign but reserving the right to use drones against american citizen citizens and this came up in 2011 when a drone strike killed omar alaki and somer kahn. Both were u. S. Citizens. Neither had been charged with any crime. What we have here are what critics call extra judicial killings. Killings ordered by intelligence officials of the u. S. Government without any judicial review, without any right of the citizen to argue his or her case in court. So these are very sticky legal situations and the legal basis for these strikes has been kept a secret by the Obama Administration. You may remember we had huge fight fights back in the bush era about memos for alleged interrogation tactics, torture memos. Ultimately, they became public. This is viewed by some as an analogy for that. Secret memos upon u. S. Government policies with great consequences are being made. We got a copy of this memo, which is not the olc memo, office of Legal Counsel mem oh, but its a white paper, 16page white paper that mirrors and tracks it and gives us much more detail about what the legal basis for these strikes are. You draw a great analogy with the Bush Administration except for the fact that there, you may have been giving somebody intense interrogation after picking them up off the field. A play here you have a situation where the u. S. Government is killing americans without judicial review, without any crimes being charged against them. As you said, without them having a right to defend themselves, and even without a right of having to have the specific actionable intelligence. Its hard to say how many stop signs were blown through here. But for those who were shocked at the Bush Administration, quote, torture memos, they must be really stunned by this. Americans can be killed, again, not charged with any crimes, no judicial review, no actionable intelligence. Nothing. Just suspicion. Right. Well, what the administration will say is more than suspicion, theyll say hard intelligence. We all know hard intelligence can be hard or it can be awfully swishy and sometimes horribly wrong. Like wmds in iraq, right. Excellent case in point. But i think if you actually read the document and weve posted it online on nbc news. Com now, you see that some of the definitions they lay out in this moemo are open to fairly wide interpretation. Ill give you an example. The most exhaustive Public Accounting of this was given by attorney general holder last year. He gave a threepart test for when these sorts of killings can be lawful. The first one is when there is an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States. When the u. S. Has that intelligence of such. You read the memo and you see that imminent threat is subject to a somewhat broad interpretation. They use the term broader concept of imminence. It does not mean, the memo explicitly says, that theres active intelligence of an ongoing plot. It may mean they have active intelligence of what the memo calls recent activities involving violent plots but no ongoing plot. No active plot against the United States. And then, it says here also that, quote, there is no evidence suggesting he has renounced or abandoned such activities. Right, almost as though the burden is on the target to prove that theyve renounced what they might have advocated or so they have to renounce something that there may be no actionable intelligence on. I mean, this is an absolute mess, michael. Thank you so much for bringing this to us. Michael, thank you. Thanks. This is so frightening. What it shows is democrats and liberals whom were very critical and even called for extreme legal action to be taken against the Bush Administration were now obviously seeing some decisions the Obama Administration may argue different. I support what the Obama Administration is doing here. But it gs to show just how difficult, how messy and for when the Bush Administration would make the point those Senior Leaders would say, its difficult for, perhaps, some to understand what were dealing with when we talk about this level. All natural security decisions are serious. But when we are talking about this kind of threat, we have to make at times very messy and sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes questionable decisions. So i think my point is democrats seem to now think back about how they conducted themselves and the questions they raised about Bush Administration tactics. I didnt raise those questions as aggressively as some of my friends did, but its important everyone take a step back and a breather here, particularly democrats. New details on the endearing political relationship between Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. That was a straight one, those two. Yes. Our next guest explores the two iconic leaders. Also, in the aftermath of the great recession, new data reveals why the baby boomers are shouldering most of the burden during the recovery. Well talk about that. But first, here you know what today is . Its National Weather persons day. I think you just made that up to get attention. Ive seen no evidence elsewhere. Next youll tell me its not National Pancake day. Bill karins will do anything for attention. Bill . Just making up holidays. Yes it is National Weatherpersons day. We are trumped only by the pancakes. National pancake day. Ihop giving away free stacks of pancake. They are asking you to give away a little money for charity when you get your free pancakes. Its a rather quiet day today. Were watching temperatures warming up across many spots. Cold in northern new england. Kansas city, enjoy it. 25 today until this afternoon, much warmer. Up to near 50s. Snow showers are heading down, southern minnesota. Also light snow into new england this morning. So thats about it. Really the travel trouble spot across lake michigan, light snow. Chicago, snow showers heading your way. Whats going to happen over the next couple of days will get interesting. The possibility for like a noreastertype snowstorm in new england come friday night. That moisture is going to start down here in the gulf. Well watch new orleans to houston, through shreveport. Anywhere near the coast line will have chances of heavy rains. That moisture could get sucked up the eastern seaboard into a noreastertype storm friday night into saturday morning. That will be the time frame to watch. Definitely looks like its going to snow in new england, possibly 2 to 4 inches. If the scenario plays out, as one of our computers are showing, could get one of the biggest snowfalls of the season there in the boston area. Well keep you posted as the week progresses. We leave you with a shot of one of the beautiful places today. St. Louis, after pretty cold recent weeks, enjoy the warm ith while it lasts. Youre watching morning joe. Brewed by starbachs. Starbucks. I want candy i want candy the reason im still in this body feelin so good isnt because i never go out and enjoy the extra large, extra cheese world we live in. Its because i do. Introducing the new Weight Watchers 360 program. Join for free and expect amazing. Because it works. Join for free and expect amazing. [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. And that their Homeowners Insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesnt. Stop pretending. Only Flood Insurance covers floods. Visit floodsmart. Gov pretend to learn your risk. Looks like youre in a pickle. Yeah. Can you get me out of it . Just so happens i know a chap. Book any flight and hotel together and get access to our free personal concierge service. Any need, any question, were on call 24 7. Every republican politician wants you to believe that Richard Nixon is, quote, experienced. They even want you to believe that he is actually been making decisions in the white house. But listen to the man who should know best, the president of the United States. A reporter recently asked president eisenhower this question about mr. Nixons experience. I just wondered if you could give us an example of a major idea of his that youve adopted in that role as decider and final if you give me a week, i might think of one. I dont remember. Okay. Thats a political ad in the 1960 ad by president john f. Kennedy attempting to point out the strained relationship between Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. With us now, the author of ike dick portrait of a strange political marriage. You can go back the two elections before, based on your writing in here. Of course, 1952. Ike sent dewey, i guess, turnover get nixon off the ticket after the checkers speech, or before the checkers speech. And then in 1956, he tried to get rid of him again. And then in 1960 went after him. And then according to your book in 1964, ike didnt step forward and say, hey, maybe nixon is the guy. He said hes a twotime loser. What was with this relationship . Really complicated. Obviously, and i think it started off with eisenhower as a fivestar general and nixon was a lieutenant. The way he always regarded nixon was staff and never certainly won his trust. He thought nixon was loyal, he liked him well enough. He said once, i dont think dick is really president ial timber. And you saw pictures in this book. I mean, images in this book of eisenhower playing bridge with the most powerful men in the world at the time up in camp david and nixon being sent off to walk around the trails by himself. Yeah, Nixon Eisenhower had three great hobbies. Fly fishing and golf and bridge. Nixon learned golf, kind of. But he wasnt and he really wasnt welcomed in ikes inner circle. And it haunted him. We always talked about nixon being an outsider and having this resentment against the east coast establishment. It really started here. All he wanted to dwous be accepted into this inner circle. Even until the day he died, what a great scene in the nixon oval office. He finds out that ikes died and breaks out in tears. Not because of sadness. Because, as you said he realized he never would be in that inner circle. It was all over for him. And even the fact that he that eisenhower and nixon were family then. He was his fatherinlaw once removed. And ike didnt even want that to happen. He was against the marriage. He liked julie a lot. He basically thought david should have a career in law or medicine or something and was being derailed by this. They were teenagers. They were 18 years old when they got together. They got married when they were 20. One final thing they were still married, happyfully married. One final thing before i pass it over to the historian. It was tragic. It was shakespearean, Richard Nixon being forced to create his own farewell scene with ike. With ike moving his hand up and saluting nixon. He just made it up. Yes, theres a scene in the book, in nixons memoir, he talks about seeing ike at Walter Reed Army hospital just before he died. And he says to eisenhower, sir, you led us to victory in europe and eisenhower raises his head and salutes nixon. And it was just a scene that couldnt have happened. It just wouldnt have happened, and then eisenhower died a day or two later. Meant a lot to him. Talk about nixons own relationship with his father. This seems to be a replay to some extent of the distant father whom hes always trying to please and ultimately fails to. Im afraid to psycho analyze nixon. The last american who would. No, i mean, brody did it. Nixon always spoke with Great Respect about his father. No question his father really was a tough guy and he was argumentative. He was a difficult person. And very different from nixons mother hannah, a quaker. And nixons father was not a quaker. Nixon did save ike later on that he was quoted tough son of a bitch. Yes. And devious. The devious thing. He said that to his he said that in his memoir six crises. And he said, he had told the man he was working with, his collaborator, hes one of the most devious men ive ever known. Then he realized, i cant say that so he changed it to many people think that hes one of the most devious and complex men theyve ever met but in the best sense in both classic nixon. Did eisenhower like anything about nixon . Sure he did. He appreciated his intelligence. He appreciated his loyalty. He did he did everything ike wanted him to do. He was a pretty good Vice President. The only time he really displeased him, i think, was sort of a couple of times during his campaign. Ike pretended to be displeased by his campaign. I think he was not unhappy he was embarrassed by his campaign. Around his establishment figures. He was embarrassed by nixons campaign. Stop hitting on sort of the rough edge of it all. But you know, he benefited from what he claimed to dislike. A nice little contrast what happened then and whats happening with the tea party. Establishment republicans may not like the tea party but probably like Mark Halperin, controlling the house. Theres no doubt those themes are pretty comparable. Incumbent Vice President to be an antiestablishment figure. But that was nixons sensibility a lot more than eisenhower. And the party was very different then. My gosh it was different. No tea party. There were outliers, but very few of them. William jenner and joe mccarthy. But that wasnt the party then. The party was stable people. But eisenhower had to resent nixon some, did he not, for his work on the unamerican activities . He saw what had happened to the general that had hired him in world war ii. Ike was fine with that. He was fine with that because he actually had followed the alger hiss case and he thought nixon did a good job and did it fairly. You talked to a lot of people able to closely explore their relationship. I talked to almost 70 people. I was surprised to find some of them around. They were terrific. All of them were. Okay. So one explain things this way. Quote, there were times when i would find nixon literally close to tears after a session at the white house during which eisenhower humiliated him. Another one, and this is a confidante and doctor, i guess, psychiatrist. Eisenhower was always telling nixon to straighten his tie. This is like me talking to my daughter. Pull back your shoulders. Or speak up or shut up. I didnt talk to those two people. Lets be fair in a sense if we can, to ike and that even eisenhowers only son one of his sons said his father was not an easy man to know. And eisenhowers wife talked to the grandson david and david said, you think he has any inner life of his own . She said, wouldnt you think . She had no idea. But speaking of mamie, i thought it fascinating. Pat nixon came across as a tortured woman here where early on, before the checkers speech she turns to her husband and said, why are we still hanging around here . Lets just go. And then theres that cold scene after checkers went well and mamie and pat are driving away, and said something and pat turned and shot her a very cold statement. But in the end, mamie had a very warm relationship of the nixons. In fact, a big supporter during their darkest days. Very much so. Right to the end. The nixons were really good to mamie. Theyd have her turnover the white house. They really were good to her. She was very fond of them. She was particularly fond of julie. When david and julie announced their engagement it was mamie who stepped forward and said im all for this. Fascinating reading your book that eisenhower seems to be this funny kansas optimist and kind to all people but as you say, nixon was the man. Remarkable with small gestures, whether it was reaching out to mamie or whether it was reaching out to ted kennedys son. And he was going through the problems that he was going through. A lot of small gestures that nixon was wonderful with, with people. But he never really got the acknowledgment for that. No, also surprised. I always heard he was pretty good on civil rights. The republicans didnt like it. But he was terrific on civil rights. For a long period, he was very close to Martin Luther king jr. Jackie robinson was a friend. He was the sort of point man on the 1957 civil rights bill and he could speak up right after brown versus board of ed. Eisenhower was no civil rights champion. He didnt appreciate nixon going out supporting nixons civil rights. He didnt think it would help him in the south. Ike did not like that Supreme Court decision. He thought that it was things should stay as they were. It would disrupt the society to have this ike understood the constitution. Yeah, so there was no but he was made uncomfortable by it. He was. I thought it was fascinating because even lbj when he was running the senate got angry because he thought nixon was too far out there on civil rights and said nixon was running the propaganda arm of making the civil rights bill more than it was. Johnson was playing all sides of that point. Mark can tell you he was running for president. On the other hand, didnt want to offend the southerns like dick russell. They wanted a bill but there was a clause in the bill about Voting Rights which he did not want and it got through in a slightly weaker version than the republicans wanted but a stronger version than johnson and sam abram wanted. I want to say, one of the great things about this is you realize that another tragedy of Richard Nixons is that john kennedy represented the handsome, glamorous next generation which he didnt feel he belonged to and also didnt feel like he belonged to the older generation. He was a tweener. The book ike dick. You can read an excerpt on our blog. Jeffrey frank, thank you so much. Thank you. It was great to be here. Come back some time soon. When we come back, a surprising look at the generational divide when it comes to the economic recovery. The New York Times reporter catherine joins us next. Its not what you think. Its a phoenix with 4 wheels. Its a hawk with night vision goggles. Its marching to the beat of a different drum. And where beauty meets brains. Its big ideas with smaller footprints. And knowing theres always more in the world to see. Its the allnew lincoln mkz. I have obligations. Cute tobligations, but obligations. G. I need to rethink the core of my portfolio. What i really need is sleep. Introducing the ishares core, Building Blocks for the heart of your portfolio. Find out why 9 out of 10 large professional investors choose ishares for their etfs. Ishares by blackrock. Call 1800ishares for a prospectus which includes investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Read and consider it carefully before investing. Risk includes possible loss of principal. Welcome back to morning joe. Here with us now, writer for the New York Times my parents will be so glad. Prodigy. Is it rampell . Yes. She said shes worried about gray hair. Shes like 21. Catherine can you drink . Are you trying to kill me . No, im sorry. She said shes going gray. She works for tthe new york time times. Her latest article looked at the baby boomer struggle. I caught this on sunday. Yes. It was really good and it sort of gives a sense of why were having such a hard time moving out of this. She writes americans in their 50s and early 60s, those near retirement age who do not yet have access to medicare and Social Security, have lost the most earning power of any age group with their Household Incomes 10 below what they made when the recovery began three years ago. Their Retirement Savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time, just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed youngadult children earning themmy in inauspicious nickname generation squeeze. I know so many people in this situation. There are people who should have been okay. A lot of people think they did everything right. They saved. They improved upon their house. They thought that was the thing to do. They paid down their mortgage but theyve lost a lot of their savings as a result, anyway. So theres actually research that suggests that if you lose your job at that very sensitive time in your life, that is sort of in your 50s, early 60s, before you have access to medicare, can actually shorten your life span because you are not having the health care that you need. So, you know, there are a lot of reasons why different generations can lay claim to sort of the bottom of the barrel in this situation. But you can make a pretty compelling argument for why baby boomers have been hit the worst. By the way, look at that average duration of unemployment. For teenagers, 19 weeks. For older people, 53 weeks. And i have a couple of friends, i put myself in that category, who are a little bit older than me who are looking for work. You go in there and you feel like 20 years older than everybody because they are hiring younger. You are just completely were all 20 years older than its not what you think of hiring when you bring in a new employee. You think younger. Therein lies the problem. Somebody that has 20 years of skills but if they come to you and they are 51, 53. Incredible value. Higher expectations for salaries, or at least when they first become unemployed. A lot of times those demands drop as they rack up 53 weeks of unemployment. They have a shorter career horizon. So some people think this person is going to leave in a coupem of years. Why would i invest in training them as opposed to a worker in their 30s or 40s where i could get a couple of decades out of them. What ideas did people have, news you can use for these people . Who are the Success Stories who find themselves in that top position . How do they work out of it . A lot of it has to do with luck, frankly. Retraining doesnt seem to be the best route for a lot of Older Workers just because they dont have the same time horizon in order to get the return on that investment. Old dogs new tricks thing, too. To some extent that may be a myth but the fact they are putting out the money to pay for schooling and then they dont have as many years to recoup that investment is a very real thing, regardless of whether you think they can relearn. I think a lot of them can. In terms of Success Stories, i think a lot of it has to do with luck. Has to do with knowing the right people. There are proposals that ive heard for finding some sort of alternate safety net for these people. You know if they are 62, they can get Social Security benefits. Theyll get lower benefits than they would if they waited until full retirement age which is generally around 66. A lot of them are going into this sort of back door Social Security or unemployment benefit system and going on disability which is not a great solution. Once they go on disability, they are basically out of the workforce altogether. And thats become a big budget problem. Not so much Social Security but the disability side. John meacham . What sectors are most affected by this . Is this are lawyers looking for work . Is this more manufacturing . To what extent is the outsourcing driving this . I would say a few different things. So across the economy, less skilled workers in general of all ages have been hit a lot worse than higher skilled people. And that means, you know, people who dont have college degrees. People who have High School Diplomas or High School Dropouts have the highest Unemployment Rate of anyone. So less skilled workers in general across all industries. One of the reason yes you see these very long durations of unemployment for Older Workers, i would say is that Older Workers are like three have been employed in occupations and industries more permanently downsizing like manufacturing. So those industries, manufacturing companies, for example, have been sort of shrinking by attrition or by layoffs over time and if you get laid off from one of those jobs now, its very hard to find a replacement job. Its not coming back. Its not coming back. Hard to find a jobution those skills. If everyone else is laying off workers as well. So there are certain areas hit worse. We get the unemployment number and this is the story within it which is much tougher. Catherine rampell, thanks so much. Nice to meet you. Come back soon. Business before the bell is next. Keep it here on morning joe. Look at you, so dashing. Come on. Nowadays, lots of people go by themselves. No they dont. Yeah. Hey son. Have fun tonight. Prom [ laughs ] aint nothin to me back against the wall aint nothin to me keep you down and make you crawl ainothin to me cut you down when you feel tall aint nothin to me aint nothin to me aint nothin to me [ crowd murmurs ] [ cheering ] hey aint nothin to me aint nothin to me [ howls ] [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles military families face, we understand. Our Financial Advice is geared specifically to current and former military members and their families. [ laughs ] dad dad [ applause ] [ male announcer ] life brings obstacles. Usaa brings retirement advice. Call or visit us online. Were ready to help. Learn more with our free usaa retirement guide. Call 877242usaa. [ babies crying ] surprise your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises . Now you can get all the online Trading Tools you need without any surprise fees. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. Time for business before the bell with michelle carusocabrera. Michelle, where are you starting this morning . Big headline this morning is that the government is suing Standard Poors, mika, for a lot of these products that they rated back during the bubble saying that when s p said a lot of these products had subprime mortgages in them, they werent being objective about it. They were rating them because they wanted a better market share. They were doing it for profitability reasons and not necessarily for the core of what they are supposed to do, which is to tell you whether or not something is a good investment or not. S p says its absolutely not true. Theyve wrapped themselves in the first amendment. This is going to be interesting. Theyve only gone after s p. Even though there were other companies that rated those same products with the same aaa ratings. Really . Yeah. A lot of people are wondering if its because Standard Poors downgraded the United States so they are first to downgrade the Credit Rating of the u. S. Elevator music. Its called musak, but maybe not for long . Muzak. They are changing the name of the company because they dont think it reflects everything they sell. Theyre going to call themselves mood because it also sells things that you smell, that you see when you walk into a store. They are a sensory product and sensory display company now. An unwise rebranding. You know the song, can you identify this song . Is this the theme song to dream of jeanie . Can you tell me, a little fact here. What song did it beat out for song of the year . I want to hold your hand. Moon river. 1964, the beatles invade america and instead of beatles getting whats the german title of i want to hold your hand . Wheres your next trip . I have to be in rome for the elections. Can i go with you . Oh, yeah, that would be so fun. We could try to both interview Silvio Berlusconi who despite having numerous trials, might win again. Yeah. Thats unbelievable. We need to go talk to him. Figure that out. Michelle carusocabrera, thank you. One of the andrews sisters died. I know she did. A week ago. 94. She was still alive then . Shes in the army now. It was really pretty remarkable. 93, 94. Soundtrack of our lives. My mom would always play songs on the piano. Looking ahead to tomorrow the show is on again tomorrow . Yes. Jane pauley and tom brokaw. Legends. Hello, legends. So cool. The greatest generation. Well be back with the best of late night. Tdd 18003452550 this morning, im going to trade in hong kong. Tdd 18003452550 after that, its on to germany. Tdd 18003452550 then tonight, im trading 9500 miles away in japan. Tdd 18003452550 with the new global account from schwab, tdd 18003452550 i hunt down opportunities around the world tdd 18003452550 as if im right there. 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That could mean only one two of things. Either the launch was a dud or, and i think this is more likely, they have secretly built the first all primate orbital cosmetic surgery spa. So just come back from space. Cut me some slack. I didnt get anything done. But you know who this is going to be big with. Okay. Up next, what if anything did we learn today. Nothing. Nothing. Im jennifer hudson. I hate getting up in the morning. I love bread. I love cheese. Did i say i Love Chocolate . Im human and the new Weight Watchers 360 program lets me be. The reason im still in this body feelin so good isnt because i never go out and enjoy the extra large, extra cheese world we live in. Its because i do. And you can too. Because when a Weight Loss Program is built for human nature you can expect amazing. Introducing the new Weight Watchers 360 program. Join for free and expect amazing. Because it works. Now theyre getting responses. Will you invite me . Mika, what have you learned on National Pancake day . People are tweeting me saying that you, john meacham, remind them of Ruben Kinkade on the Partridge Family with faces that you are making. Very good. I like that. Meacham, i mean ruben. Thats pretty good. What did you learn . I learned thats disturbing. I learned that. But Jeffrey Franks ike dick excellent book about one of the most interesting relationships in american politics. I learned people that work on this show are magic. If food gets mentioned within the first hour of the show, it appears magically by the last few seconds. What have you learned . Its National Pancake day. Stop. Its not worth it. Seconds. Pat ridge family. Come on, get