Amateurs hoping to get one from duck dynasty. Its all going according to my plan. Really. Take your pants off. Take your pants off. And twerk it. Yeah. Im not twerking. That would be degrading. Yeah it might be degrading but we would be degrateful. Good morning, everyone. Its monday, september 23rd. Welcome to morning joe. With us on set, mark halperin. And former Communications Director for president bush nicole wallace. On capitol hill New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters. Theres only one thing to talk about and its not the emmys last night. Barbara oreilly you heard it. We had music for six years. Thats okay. Its nice. We have a lot of news to get to. Get over your happy talk. Lets go. No happy talk. Only thing to talk about. Whats that . Cranston getting screwed last night. Jeff daniels. I like the show. A lot of haters from that show. But hes a humanizing force. I love it. But giving him best actor last night over Brian Cranston, seriesly, in this season . Thats kind of like saying ringo made the second side of abbey road. We love ringo but it was paul. Im serious. Are you a breaking bad guy . Brian cranston is an absolutely rockable forunbreaka breaking bad. I lot of times these academies go after for a few years the contrarian award when the best thing to do is give it to the guy. Michael jordan was the mvp for so many years, lets give it to carl malone. Beatles didnt win a grammy. John lennon didnt get one after he died. That tells you about these award shows. Is that true . You got shut out of the peoples choice awards. Ill be hosting it this year. A tip of the hat. Is that cohost or solo joe . Nobody just wants me. No, they do. Oh, no. I understand why im here. No. Mika is gone and im out like a day and a half. Its just true. What else happened last night . Modern family won for best comedy. Breaking bad. Willie will have the highlights. We have other news to talk about. Wasnt supposed to do any of this. We have full highlights and some great ones. Well bring you up to speed on the latest from washington where ted cruz seems to be dead set on defeating obama care. But we begin with the latest on the mall massacre in kenya where this morning the hostage standoff there is winding down. Kenyas military announced late last night that most of the hostages have been rescued but in ten exchanges are still taking place with the terrorists. The latest death toll is 68 people dead. And 175 injured. Nbc newss ron allen is in nairobi. Reporter several explosions were heard at the mall. Government troops could be seen to be moving into aggressive positions. Al shabab is taking responsibility for the attack. Militants say they are attacking for kenya sending troops into somalia where the fighters are from. And the u. S. Is looking into whether americans are involved in carrying out the attack. Earlier kenyas president visited harry potters filled with the wounded where theres an urgent appeal for blood. And shared the grief of the nation revealing his nephew and fiancee died in the bloodshed. These are young people i love. Reporter president obama called the president to offer his condolences and support. Secretary of state john kerry represented this. It represents the seriousness and breadth of the challenge we face in ruthless and completely reckless terrorists. Reporter new video showing the terrifying attack in the mall was released. Capturing the moment when gunmen burst into the crowded mall around noon saturday. The video shows shoppers fleeing for their lives during a hail of gun shots lasting a period of several minutes. An american attorney who moved to kenya in july from North Carolina says she hid from the gunman for four hours. You could hear while we were back there methodically going from store to store, talking to people, asking yes, sir, shooting, screams and then it would stop for a while and then go to another story. Reporter tyler hicks a New York Times photographer who covers war zones and lives nearby raced to the mall when he saw the crowd trying the escape the mayhem. Every where you looked there was another body. Terrified people were crying, screaming. Reporter hopeful relatives and friends converged on a Community Center while they try to figure out what happened to the many still unaccounted for. Peter king says the u. S. Must find out if americans were involved in the terror attack and make sure al shabab does not strike in the u. S. Next. Its extremely deadly organization. Very well trained. And its one of the only al qaeda affiliates which actually has actively recruited here in the United States. Theres at least 40 to 50 somaliaamericans have gone from the United States to somalia to be trained. A number of them have been killed. Others are still alive. I assume the fbi and local Law Enforcement are looking into those somaliaamerican communities today for any leads or indicators using all their sources and resources to make sure theres no followup attempt here in the United States. Lets bring in michael ider. Let me ask you, is this about an al qaeda affiliate interested in International Terrorism or is this just a battle between kenya and somalia that spilled out in the most horrific of ways . Joe, i think it is more of the latter, but theres no doubt theres always a danger of it becoming the former. What weve seen from al shabab its driven by two distinct elements. One focused on somalia and another interested in transnational attacks and often westerners, americans who are part of the group are the ones driving that agenda. We saw them attack in uganda in 2010 after the world cup and this one is more in line in their regional agenda punishing those countries associated with somalia. I wouldnt go so far as peter king we have to worry about attacks here. But if there are americans involved in this attack this does bring this back to the forefront of peoples agenda here in washington for counterterrorism. It was a very coordinated attack as well. Talk about the detail of the planning beforehand. This group is pretty advanced in its small arms tactics. They obviously have been fighting in somalia for six, seven, eight years. We know somalia is not a garden spot. They are pretty good with small arms and grenades. Thats what it looks like here. Two teams of between 10 and 15 individuals with ak47s and grenades, moving in, killing very specifically, looking a little bit more for nonmuslims, but this looks most like what we saw in mumbai in 2008 which is this long drawn out attack which can be really effective for garnering the groups attention they grave. Thank you very much. We want to get to politics now because were counting down one week to go for lawmakers to strike a deal to fund the federal government and avoid a shut down but we appear no closer to a solution. As expected democrats over the weekend took every chance they could to hit republicans for obstructing a possible compromise on the debt all because of obama care. I call them legislative arsonists. They are there to burn down what we should be building up in terms of investments and education and Scientific Research and all that it is that make our country great. These guys have been running around the country, demonstra d. I dont think in america we should throw tantrums when we lose elections and refuse to pay the bills and shut down the government. Not really. Democrats lost elections in the house. The law passed. I know. I know. But, you know, were not great britain. We dont have a Prime Minister and one party doesnt win and the other party doesnt lose. Republicans won the house races. They won the house. They got the speakers gavel. Do you think this is a waste of their time . Do you think this is a good use of their time trying to defeat obama care . Of course i do. Heres the thing. Identify not been saying ted cruz is an idiot because hes on the wrong side of the issue. Ive been saying hes acting like an idiot because of the tactics hes using. Listen, theres not a republican that doesnt care that obama care is an absolutely horrible piece of legislation that is not good for this country. Yes it passed and yes its the law of the land. Americans dont like it. Its not been implemented yet. Lets stop showing ted cruz, okay. Can we just stop showing this guy. Im serious. Visceral reaction. Were building this guy up so much. Hes desperate not to look like the biggest fool in washington, d. C. Hes scrambling. Lets talk about something much bigger, obama care. Listen. If republicans just dont get in their way if we dont be the stupid party as weve talked about for the past couple of years, were actually on the side of the American People on this issue, and its not all these people over the weekend, nancy pelosi, they are arsonists, all these people saying obama care its the law of the land and Everybody Loves it and they no they didnt sweep barack obama into office because of obama care. He won because mitt romney ran one of the worst campaigns i ever seen in my life. Americans dont like obama care. Were on the right side of this as republicans. We need to stay out of way, do we not . We shouldnt shut down the government. I know some people like it. 33 like it. I know some young people who signed up for it. They get to stay on their parents. Thats great. The frustrating piece of this is that by the way after youre 37 barack obama is having you roll over immediately into guaranteed food stamp assistance until youre 73. Food stamps, middle class entitlement. Whats frustrating this issue nights all republicans. Our opposition to this law, we think theres something less intrusive into peoples lives and this big overreach and independents happen to agree with us. The problem were having as a party is this skirmish over tactics. Whenever the policy is lost in process it turns into a big political whats so offensive to me, youre a rhino if you dont believe we should shut down the government on an issue well lose. Im all for shutting down the government. Sometimes you actually get something good out of it. We balance the budget out of it back in 1995. But this is all about tactics. This is all about being stupid and not knowing how to win in washington, d. C. And so this weekend were having this battle and now they are talking about shutting down the government, defaulting on the debt. They could be a little smarter especially when the public is on our side when it comes to obama care. Its unclear from the beginning what ted cruz was doing strategically. How he thought going out and threatening a shut down that was never going to happen to get the money out, never pass in the senate, what he thought that was going to achieve to what end. My question to both of you is, if not this way, how do you get rid of the Affordable Care act . If youre a republican ted cruz admitted it the other day we need a couple of elections. Okay, thanks teddy. You said what we were all saying months ago and you raised a lot of money and you got a lot of names for your mailing list but you hurt the Republican Party brand. He helped himself. They ran those commercials. Are you against the obama care . Send us your money. Mike levi the other day goes oh, yeah obama care its not worth shutting the government down for. Calling us surrender monkeys. Today is the day and week republicans have to figure out what their message is for this fight. The fight is coming in the next couple of days and the white house and democrats know what their message is. The republicans message is we dont like shutdowns, we dont like obama care, we dont like the debt but we have to put something on the table. They have to put something on the table that says heres the outcome we want. Theres lots of things they can pick from where they do have support of the American People. On obama care American People right now are on the side of the republicans. On the policy. On the policy. You cant find a poll that doesnt show americans agree with republicans when it comes to being against obama care. So guess what . Frame it. Strategically for a while. Frame it in a way that you get something very significant out of it. Youre talking to the republicans at this point . Because the White House House republicans are passing this. Im talking to the surrender monkeys in the senate who were being selfrighteous three or four days ago. Im asking those surrender monkeys to get their heads together. All that money they raised pushing a strategy that was assinine. The messaging they are surrender monkeys. The republicans found a way to botch that. Heres Chris Wallace talking about the response he got just from booking senator cruz on his sunday show. This has been one of the strangest weeks ive ever had in washington. As soon as we listed senator cruz as my guest i got unsoli t Unsolicited Research and questions not from democrats but Top Republicans to hammer cruz. Thats because hes a surrender monkey and hes caved in and betrayed the House Republicans who were good conservatives who voted to defund obama care 43 times and as soon as they pass a cr he cuts them off at their knees. Hes got support from former republican Vice President ial candidate sarah palin. Okay. There you go. In an oped look at nicole. She and ted have lots of friends in common. They are really vocal. Thats great. Wow. Should i read this . She writes in part quote, following the will of the people apparently is a novel idea in d. C. These days just ask cruz and his libertyloving posse on capitol hill who have led the charge to defund obamas train wreck. The capitol hill cowards are rushing to anonymously can we end this. She could have been a good contender in 2008. I want to get to Jeremy Peters. Blank the teleprompter. Theres some serious republicans that want to win elections and not pose and be facebooklike. Lets talk about republican strategy. We know what the democrats will do. They will insult republicans. Call them arsonist, terrorists. All of this over the top language. Is there a group of republicans on capitol hill that is smart enough to take the bruise thats blowing behind their back and get something good out of it for conservatives . Well, i mean youre certainly hearing a lot of republicans including ones you wouldnt ordinarily loosen up the reins. Its come down to elements of the Republican Party that you ordinarily would not see fighting with one another kind of dragging it out here. And i think this points to in addition to the tactical fight that nicole pointed to is a generational and cultural shift in congress where you have these younger lawmakers who were elected in the Tea Party Wave of 2010 saying we were elected precisely because we promised not surrender not to compromise. Thats exactly what they are doing. They go back to their districts, talk to voters and voters say dont give in, repeal obama care. We dont like this law. You better carry out what we elected to you do. On the other side of that you have an older generation of lawmakers who, i had a long conversation with bob bennett the former senate from utah and he said, i think he summed up their frustrations very well when he said these people, this newer generation, they live in a world of their own experience and its very limited and very hard to reason with them. Jeremy, briefly what happens in the end, about eight days from now the house bill goes to the senate. Harry reid will strip out the defunding language and it goes back to the house. What is the house left with. With a couple of days or hours left attempt to shut down the government . Thats the big question you just dont know what john boehner will decide to do. Does he put a bill on the floor that the majority of his conference does not like and will not vote for or do they try to add in more provisions of their own and continue to drag this fight out to the point where we edge closer to a Government Shutdown. Theres one thing i learned in covering this institution is that you never want to try to predict what these 535 men and women are going to do because theyve proven themselves to be highly unpredictable bunch. It sounds like you have republicans that are coalescing together, that a couple of these surrender monkeys in the senate that made a lot of money and got a lot of mailing list names have actually succeeded in bringing together the Republican Party. The overwhelming majority back people like tom coburn, paul ryan, scott walker, Charles Krauthammer, conservative icons who are smart enough to know this is not how you actually win elections. And to point out theres more than nothing that republicans can do. Theres been 21 laws passed and signed by the president that have changed obama care as it was originally passed. Theres work we can do to passaic this law thats so unpopular and we believe is a bad policy better. Mika it sounds like we have a developing news story. Ron allen is crouching behind a car near the mall in nairobi. There was a hostage situation. Ron whats the latest at this point . Reporter well, we heard several loud explosions, the biggest weve heard in the two days weve been here. Theres a huge cloud of dark smoke rising above this maul. The government is launching a final assault. Theres been a concern that the hostage takers may have explosives. Everybody is laying flat down hiding taking cover because theres also sporadic gunfire in the neighborhood. Unclear exactly why thats happening. We think the military is trying to disperse some of the crowds the people watching and trying to keep tabs on whats going on here. Its a very intense situation. Has been since yesterday evening when helicopters arrived flying low and slow over the mall. Weve seen reinforcement troops running. The government is running out of patience. They tried to proceed as cautiously as possible because the best estimate is that there are perhaps 15 hostage, 10 to 15 still inside and about the same number of heavily armed gunmen. Again, another explosion. I cant hear it over the phone. But theres every indication this is coming to a conclusion and hope and pray the people inside are safe