Well, looking very dapper. And joe and mika are away, but mommy and daddy, you look good. Fresh in from the hamptons. We take this job very seriously. We make sure we are color coordinated. There is bill deblasio, front runner for mayor, lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, born in cambridge. Nicole wallace, youre communications expert. You stand tall, you come off like mitt romney and change teams. Youve got to stand tall. Politics 101, anyone whos ever, on a bus tour, bus tour, anyone . Before you get off the bus, the last thing you ask your Communications Director is, whos the home team . Who do they all root for . What hats are they going to be wearing . This is, you know, so fundamental to feeling like the person we might vote for is someone that cares about the same things i do. And nothing unites people more than rooting for the same team. Its who he is, he cant deny it. Its like theres a history there. If you were his opponent, though, the ad agency guy, wouldnt you start running ads up the flagpole. If i was advising him, i would say, look, have some fun with this. I would say, cheer me on the streets and boo me at the stadium. Use it to your point, this is who i am, be the guy you boo at the stadium. If he moves sides, immediately youve got no core there, walk right into it and say, my hearts in new york. And he says hes going to celebrate any new york victory. But what happens if theres a red sox victory and he has to celebrate that too. I would actually, thomas, create a hat for him, down the middle, new york boston. You know, at the end of the day, new york voters are smart. You can be bi in baseball. You can be bi. I think opponents will have a field day. I think its a probable. Its like living in manchester and supporting liverpool. You cant do it. I, once again, bill, stand tall, bi in baseball according to thomas roberts. Correct. I stand firm by that. Lets get some news now. This is real news, of course, but lets get some other real news. The fight for control of the federal government, both in next years midterm elections and in 2016 is beginning to take shape around, yes, of course, the repeal of obama care. And last night at a Heritage Foundation defund obama care event in texas, senator ted cruz tried to rally conservatives. What happens next is president obama and harry reid are going to scream and yell those mean, nasty republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government. What has to happen after that is weve got to do something that conservatives havent done in a long time. Weve got to stand up and win the argument. Why is it that every reporter in the media and a significant percentage of republicans assume with an impasse that president obama will never, ever, ever give up his principals so republicans have to give up theirs. If you have an impasse, you want to know one side or the other has to blink. How do we win this fight . Dont blink by the way, cruz was heckled at that event by people saying they wanted health care as well, but there were more supporters, as he said, than there were hecklers. Earlier, though, former u. S. Senator jim demint and president of the Heritage Foundation said any Congressional Republicans who oppose their effort should be replaced. The debate over how to defeat the Affordable Care act has put a target on several republicans up for reelection next year, including senator minority leader, Mitch Mcconnell. In american slang, the chicken represents a coward. The coward is also representative of a new breed of republicans in washington. Take Senate Minority leader Mitch Mcconnell. On the issue of obama care, he says this law is a disaster and i want you to know, were not backing down from this fight. But when he has the chance to defund obama care, some say he is chickening out. Senator mcconnell, conservatives dont need a chicken when it comes to obama care. Leaders lead. But if you fund it, you own it. What an absolutely stupid ad. Am i the only one i watched the east side cruz up there and i kind of say, is he not getting the memo from Chris Christie as far as whats going to get you elected Going Forward. This party of no. This anger, this, im strong, youre a chicken, this, im strong, youre a chicken. Who is that talking to . Its so tone deaf, its so tone deaf, party of no. Kill obama care versus watch what christie is doing, time after time, decision after time, moderate, moderate, moderate. Nicole, am i missing thing here . Its not just Chris Christie. The problem with what ted cruz is doing, its intellectually dishonest. And theres a great piece this morning written by pete waner, a very thoughtful conservative who wrote pieces for president bush, he was also asked at that event, why dont we impeach president obama, and he said, because we dont have the votes. The true answer, the intellectually honest answer is because he has not committed an impeachable defense. Ted cruz is doing a whole lot of fearmongering and hes lying to the voters and presenting an untruthful case. The reason were going to lose this debate about defunding obama care is because we dont occupy the white house. We dont have the ability to pass laws and then sign them. Off of that point, we have an excerpt from commentary magazine about the dangers that are basically facing ted cruz. And in that article, the author writes, whats troubling, because its more revealing, is that senator cruz, rather than challenging the premise of his questions, pandered to the audience member. A more responsible and genuinely conservative lawmaker would have answered the question asked of him by saying Something Like this, impeachment requires an impeachable offense. The president has done many things i disagree with and im determined to fight and resist them, but that doesnt mean he has done anything impeachable. He is elected president , im an elected senator, we each have to do what we believe in. Its to lay the Foundation Brick by brick by running a successful national campaign. Were seeing republicans all over the country to weigh in on this and republicans on the state level, their opposition to obama care presents a different set of challenges, though. Texas governor rick perry is reportedly negotiating with white house officials to accept 100 million available through the Affordable Care act to care for the elderly and disabled. Perry has zounds tdenounced the law, but he would be helping about 12,000 texans during the first year of the program. There are about 900 governors who have opposed the federal care act, but say, we like the provisions, give me the cash as well. You have access to the money, whi why not take. Its kind of surprising from rick perry. Hes been so vociferous about the charges of maybe he forgot he was against it. What was that thing . There was another thing i was opposed to. Education. I want to just go back to forget even the obama care. To me, still the tone of going backwards on of no, of anger, of backwards, its just, thats not what obama care or not obama care, its just how many times do these guys have to learn, how many elections do they have to lose . There are plenty of elections out there saying, we have to offer alternatives, we have to propose things. And i think what were talking about a little bit, nicole, this relationship between primary politics and general election politics. And i think ted cruz is speaking to a base that would help him in a primarytype situation and not a general election. Its not an electable approach in a general election, but might get him a lot of support and a lot of attention and maybe sell a lot of books at some point. Let me debunk this notion that you have to be as crazy as you can be to win a primary. Primary voters are the most passionate conservatives, the most passionate participants in elections. They want to win. They want to win National Elections, ultimately. Now, a fraction of them are passing a purity test, a fraction of them, lateral in places like iowa, care a whole lot about social agenda. A vast majority of voters want to win in iowa. If you got up on the stump and said, guys, my first objective is, we need to win. I hear what youre saying in terms of some of these more fringe issues and some of the far right, were not going to get there. Come with me. Ill ask where we need to get to, but you need to trust like, people can do math. People can figure it out. If you say to a republican, look, you have two choices, three choices. One is a far right person thats never going to be in the white house. Two is me thats going to get in the white house as a republican and really, really hear and listen to you, or three, we lose like always, democrats here. And i dont think its either or. There are a lot of republicans, jeb bush, paul ryan, Chris Christie who really adhere to different swaths of truly conservative ideology while not forgetting that their primary function is to governor. But look at mcconnell, who has tried to paychey ed tied to if we basically shut down government in order to defund obama care, the voters will turn on us. This will be a colossal disaster for the american economy, for the state of this country, the markets would panic, Interest Rates would rise. We would all feel it if government were shut down. And weve been down the road and we happen to get hit by ads like this. Its a stupid, crazy ad, but he still gets hit with the notion the notion that their campaign, theyre not having to do something to respond to it, is ridiculous. Also, i agree with you, donny. Its this setting of litmus tests. If you decide youre not going to defund obama care, you should be primaried. If you vote in favor of Immigration Reform, you should be primaried. If you vote to expand background checks on gun control, you should be primaried. Its this setting of limits and this is what you can do if youre a republican. If you dont do things, youre outside the tent. Nicole, suspect that a problem for the party . It is. And i think its one the more thoughtful voices are trying to overcome. Thats why people are watching Chris Christie carefully. He, so far, hasnt done too many things to make people worried that he is governing in a way anything other than whats right for the people. After spending months and millions of dollars campaigning against a national gun registry, it turns out the nra has one of its own. A new story from buzzfeed reveals that the nra has compiled information on tens of millions of gun owners without their consent. The database has been built through years of acquiring gun permit registration lists from state and county offices, gathering names of new owners from the thousands of gun safety classes taught by nra instructors and buy lists of attendees at gun shows. A spokesperson says he was asked by buzzfeed, who replied, thats none of your wbusiness. By the way, im confused. Thats an nra registrar . But thats their business model. Thats good business. Why not know who owns a gun in the country so you can solicit them to be a part of your group. Isnt that Business Strategy . Isnt that unperson . Business, capitalism . Isnt that unamerican . If you buy a car seat, youre in a registry. If you buy a highchair but a central part of the nras opposition to expand is the federal governments zpr right. If youre an nra member, if youre opposed to gun control, your main fear is its the government the philosophical objection to all the nsa programs is that you dont want the government. Everyone knows that amazon has all of your information. So does, you know, your online grocer who takes your food order every week. This is about the federal government having too much information and too much control over their lives. Like they dont have it already. As a stout nra member, im upset to know they may know what im doing, how im doing, what im doing with i many guns. Where you keep them in your east hampton cottage. East hampton, its ammo city out there. Yes, i just heard from someone, a concerned viewer that when we say guns, were not talking about your biceps. Oh, there you go. Okay. Talking of surveillance. Government programs. We want to see them today. You have three hours for you to reveal your guns. No, no, no. This is marketing. Marketing is for the consumers needs. Obviously theres a consumer need out there to see the biceps. So we will, as marketers, as journalists. Yes, that will happen at 8 00. It wont. I promise you, it really wont happen. Not while im sitting here. Talking of government surveillance programs, we do have more revelation now hes going to take off the whole shirt. Its a dare. Its on. Alex, im sorry. Youre sitting in the big seat today. I want to see how you can read as as i start to disrobe. Nobody will see me disrobe. Donny, you disrobing would have no impact on me whatsoever. Lets go. Lets see what she can do. We have more revelations today about the nsas controversial surveillance programs according to the wall street journal. The agency has the ability to monitor up to 75 of all u. S. Internet traffic, retaining written content in emails and filtering domestic phone calls made over the web. Of course, thats more than we previously thought. Meanwhile, nbc news reports the nsa still doesnt know exactly how much information Edward Snowden took from the agency, saying officials are, quote, overwhelmed why would trying to assess the damage. Snowdens leaks have also raised a question of thousand media investigates and report observe the intelligence community. The guardians Glen Greenwald spoke about that last night. All of the best reporting involves journalists having classified information, the warrantless eavesdropping program, thats what Investigative Journalism. And if you want to start criminalizing that, youre asking as a citizen to be kept ignorant and to have people in power to have no accountability or transparency. Journalism is not a crime and its not terrorism. Hes right about that, but the comparison to the pentagon papers just seems different. Theres definitely more motive, it seems, in this type of situation. But when it comes to Glen Greenwald and what he does, it seems that people now commonly refer to Edward Snowden as a whistle blower in the culture now, which is strange, because thats technically not the case. I dont know if people i see the reference all over the place right now. Thats in the mainstream media. In the country at large, theres a more evenly divided debate between patriots who think hes a trader to his country or journalists or aggressives who oppose what hes revealed, who find him i dont think its that evenly divided, is it . I think people are overwhelmingly opposed to what Edward Snowden did in the country. All the opinion polls after that suggested that people felt that he should be prosecuted, that he should stand trial, that he had broken the law, and we have seen, ever since the attacks of 9 11 that people are prepared to relinquish quite a lot of freedoms, even perhaps including this level of surveillance. Im a progressive. Go through my phone records. If i called yemen 50 times in the last two days theyre already going through your phone records. We lack look at the big shiny object of Edward Snowden, what did he have access to as a contractor, but he had a security clearance as a contractor to be able to get all this information. So were looking over here at Edward Snowden. In bluffdale, utah, theyre building this ginormous place thats going to store all of our data. Which is so confusing, because isnt data little . Why do they need such a big like motorcades of data . This thing is a miracle and its so little. Why is it so big . Is it pages . Im so confused by this story. I feel like data is so small. Like jumbo shrimp. Like a cloud. Right, isnt it all on like an apple cloud. Its going to be an empty room. I dont know whats in that room. I think the big story is whats going on in bluffdale, utah. Whats going to be housed there, how theyre going to be able to have access to all this information, theyre going to be able to store it to use algorithms to figure out, what really is something that we should be looking at. Its not donnys phone records but if youre okay with donnys phone records, people would be okay with that. Its still the same thing. I think the question is still, okay, people trust the government generally to use this information in a way that is benign and protects our security. The question some people might have with it, what happens if the government is no longer benign and they still have access to all of our information. Where is this wheres darth vader. Lets play this out. The argument goes back, what happens to an evil government and theyre coming to take us away. How is that happening in our checks and balance government, we dont have clues this this country. Give me a scenario where dr. Evil or darth vader is in the white house . Are you serious, a lot of liberals thought dick cheney was darth vader. And now that the shoes on the other foot. Guy think that obama is evil. And he has imaged the surveillance state that exceeds anything dick cheney could have dreamed up in his wildest, most exciting fantasies. He understands what the world hes succeeded are we just presumed guilty . And they scan us and keep track of us and keep up with us until we do slip up, were all presumed guilty. You know the information is out there as soon as you log on to your computer, the cats out of the bag. Its so disturbing. Its orwellian. I think not 100 people are fine with it. Coming up on morning joe, the Washington Posts Kathleen Parker will be here with her new oped on congressman steve king. Also msnbcs joyann reid, jilian tett, and John Densmore will be here too. First, heres bill karins and he has a check on this hot, humid, sticky weather here. Its not quite hot and humid. Its word, cat. Its supposed to be august. Were supposed to be like sweating as you go outside this time of year, but its been so cool this summer, people are actually appreciating it and looking forward to these temperatures near 90 degrees. One thing tha