Welcome back, everybody. Lets get a check on the day ahead before we toss it to morning joe. President obama will deliver remarks on the ebola crisis that u. N. Before returning to the white house this afternoon. And the man arrested in connection with the abduction of university of virginia student Hannah Graham is set to appear in a Virginia Court this morning. Thats going to do it for way too early. Morning joe starts right now. No reasoning, no negotiation with this brand of evil. The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force. So, the United States of america will work with a Broad Coalition to dismantle this network of death. Those who have joined isol should leave the battlefield while they can. Those who continue to fight for a hateful cause will find
theyre increasingly alone. For we will not succumb to threats and we will demonstrate that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy. The president addressing the u. N. Yesterday. Good morning, its thursday, september 25th, welcome to morning joe. My voice is not. No. She pulls it out of the closet every couple of weeks. I like it. Jump in for me. You xwknow. Morning joe economic analyst all right, very good. Its going to be a long morning. Let me read these. The president at the u. N. Vows to counter the extremist threat i ask the world to join. It talks about a muscular threat. Were going to be talking about that. A lot to talk about with the president s speech. Also willie geist bill simmons proving, once again, espn will buck tool the nfl whenever it suits them. I mean, what do you think . Simmons obviously he was suspended for a lot longer than ray rice was. He was suspended a week longer for criticizing the nfl on how theyre handling the Domestic Abuse policy and saying what a lot of sports fans believe. Hes suspended longer than the guy who beats up and knocks out his fiancee. Thank you, espn. Couple things. My sister and brotherinlaw work at espn, including bill simmons. I love everybody at espn. I love their management. I dont like this decision. That was just my disclaimer, but i will say that i think, espn has been very hard on the nfl. So, you know, from keith
olbermann has been destroying them. So, i think the bigger part of the suspension for bill simmons was the challenge he issued to his management that said, come and get me. I dare you to suspend me. I dare you to criticize me over that. It might be different. I dont think him criticizing the nfl alone was the problem because espn has been killing the nfl. And his language was ugly. He used some language that didnt help either. But it was the direct challenge. Espn opened themselves up to this direct comparison. Three weeks. Are you kidding me . It appears they sided with the hugely unpopular commissioner over their hugely popular employee. They were saying that goodell, i mean, they were tough on goodell but bill simmons came out and said what weve said. That hes lying. He called him a liar and, you know dont do it. Dont do what . I dare you to suspend me for i dare you to suspend me for three years, with pay, please. You get all these people like Jesse Ventura, he does one show and they pay him 2 million. Please, please suspend me with pay for a long time. The u. S. Presses for the world to act is our top story today. Were going to get to that. What joe is doing now is a deep tease and he is going way too deep. I am encouraging full and toetdal suspension. We will play the tape. One other thing, so, im thinking about, im excited about the prospect of getting suspended with pay. With pay, right . Thats all i want. Youve been there, done that. Do it, again. The president talking about this muscular response. It took me back to when i was growing up. My dad was in every sport he and my brother were in he coached. He was a great football coach. He won more championships than i could count and trophies all over the place. When i went back and Coaching High School football i asked my dad, whats the secret . And what he said was he never worried about filling the specific positions. He said, find talented kids who want to learn. Inspire them and the positions are going to fill themselves. Youll find your shortstop and find your third baseman if youre coaching football, youll find the safety. You know, this week, remember, we had eric schmidt on, they do the same thing at google. His strategy at google is you find good people. You dont freak out about, we need an engineer to fill this he said find good people. The slots will fill themselves. The projects will get done. Magic will happen. It got me thinking. What applies to football and what applies to Corporate Culture also iapplies to nation
building. After spending trillions of dollars after hundreds of thousands of deaths, including thousands of americans, we find ourselves on the other side of epic failures in iraq and afghanistan. Why . Nobody was there to fill the positions. We didnt have jefferson and madison. We found out that americas sons and daughters were fighting and dying for karzai and malaki. This is tragic. Its also a teachable moment. Were talking about a muscular response moving forward and today the u. S. Finds itself in another middle eaeast war and t are no heroes on the ground. Listen to me, this is what we said in 2009 when we warned against tripling the number of troops in afghanistan for a guy named karzai. We all said it around this table. As we move forward today in september 2014, we have an ugly choice and its between assad and isis. And any politician or diplomat who assures you there is a clean
third way in syria is lying. Its assad or isis. Now, does that mean we bury our heads in the sand and we ignore terrorists who want to destroy American Cities . No. But it does mean we go into this tragedy with our eyes wide open and with the high level of caution that this conflict requires and that the president is giving. So, take a deep breath before you start saying, we need to send even more troops into iraq, into syria. We have to be more sort of, we have to show caution because, you know what, as my dad would say or as eric schmidt would say, there are no good people to start this movement. And you talk about team building. It will be interesting to see how this coalition comes together. These 50 nations and what they really bring to the table because that could be the true test of the president s leadership. There is now no doubt president obama is fully committing the
nation to a new battle front in the long war against terrorism. As u. S. Bombs rain down on syria, americas commander in chief spoke of the global threat posed by militants of the Islamic State. Well aware of the potential backlash from the muslim world, president obama was quick to highlight the help of the arab allies taking part in the fight. In this effort, we do not act alone. Nor do we intend to send u. S. Troops to occupy foreign lands. We will train and equip forces fighting against these terrorists on the ground, we will work to cut out their financing and to stop the flow of fighters into and out of the region and already over 40 nations have offered to join this coalition. Today i ask the world to join in this effort. So, a big part of the money that they get, obviously, comes from Oil Refineries selling it on the black market. How does that work, steve . Essentially isis captured syrias oil field and they
pumped out the crude and they have some crude refineries that weve been bombing the last few days. Thats how we really, if youre talking to the president and we want to cut off the money flow. Because thats what concerns me the most. If they scatter into civilian areas, fine. I dont want them to sit there and make millions and millions of dollars to plant a bomb. They had two sources of revenue. And the other source of revenue they had, of course, was ransom money from the hostages they were taking. You saw france would not pay ransom in the case of the poor guy in algeria who got his head cut off. Thats really what we have to do, mika. Reports also this morning that missiles are striking, again. Well, the reports are that they struck a lesser known group with ties to al qaeda that killed at least one of the groups leaders. The new military mission marks a
sharp turn from the administrations planned pivot away from a decade of war in the middle east. It is an exacting position for the president whos embracing a new conflict while trying to keep the country from being defined by it. Its time for a broader negotiation in the region in which major powers address their differences directly, honestly and peacefully across the table from one another rather than through gun wielding proxies. I can promise you, america will remain engaged in the region and we are prepared to engage in that effort. I have made it clear that america will not base our entire Foreign Policy on reacting to terrorism. Instead, we waged a focus campaign against al qaeda and its associated forces taking out their leaders, denying them the safe havens they rely on. So the president is walking a
tight rope here. He is, but hes squeezing now the Islamic State isis financially with the resolution that was passed to the United Nations and all countries will stop their citizens trying to get there and this is a much more cuseeffort. This is a new departure for that region to sign up to backing american air strikes. It represents this is a monster they may have helped create but a monster nonetheless and it will come back and bite them. The question about this coalition, how long does it last . The president is talking about a struggle and the pentagon saying were in this for the long haul. After these initial rounds of air strikes, against saudis, how long does this coalition hold up . Interestingly enough we just got word i guess last night that the British Parliament is now going to vote on whether or not to join this coalition, which would, obviously, be a big deal. Bring europe into it. Only on the iraq question. Also interesting to note just a year ago at the president s u. N. General assembly speech, he said the world has not been this safe in my five years as president. Fast forward one year and look where we are now. Lets go to nbc news chief correspondent richard engel. Richard, can you hear us . Good morning. Whats going on there . I dont think we have richard. Well come back. Well come back to richard. Hes there it was a very compelling. Behind the scenes look. Lets move on and talk about bill simmons. What do you say . You want to do that now . Can we do that now . We can wait and get back to you. Global reaction, they iliked it. Well get to more on that and with richard in just a moment. But, first, of course, we heard all at the top of the show
about bill simmons of espn. He made some very controversial 4u1ujuj about Roger Goodell, called him a liar and also challenged his network to do something about what he was saying. Take a look. Goodell, if he didnt know what was on that tape, hes a liar. Im just saying it, hes lying. I think that dudes lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test, that guy would fail. For all the people that pretend they dont know [ bleep ], it really is, its such [ bleep ]. For him to go into that press conference and pretend otherwise, i was so insulted. Im going to go home and put up his picture and put up two candles and going to build an alter and put a lot of beads down. Bow to it every day. He said what everybody is thinking. Goodell is a liar. He should not have used foul language. You should not use foul langbalan
language because you never use foul language, mika. He also said in a different way exactly what espn reporting said a couple days ago. They put this whole report together. Did he use language that espn had to do . Threatened. But we didnt play the part where he challenges his employer. I want to hear that. Is he being suspended for the language that he used, specifically those two words that he used twice or im glad you asked. Heres the answer. This is espns statement out last night. Every employee must be accountable to espn and those engaged in the editorial operation must also operate within espns journalistic standards. We have worked hard to ensure that our recent nfl coverage has met that criteria. Bill simmons did not meet those obligations in a recent podcast
and as a result we have suspended him for three weeks. They are suspending him for three weeks because of what he said on the pod cast. By the way, they only made him more of a hero than he already i know. Number one trending topic freesimmons. Not just here, in the world. We know, willie that when espn was going to do that series that showed the ugly side of the nfl, the nfl called them up and said, if you want to be a part of our organization, if you want highlights, if you want to do, you know, i guess it was monday night football. Then youre going to kill that series. And espn said, okay. Here, what happened . Did you think the nfl called again and said, hey, they called him a liar, thats crossing the line. First of all, simmons is an opinion guy and this is a podcast. And they fine him for, they
suspend him for three weeks, a week longer than ray rice gets suspended for beating up his fiancee and knocking her out. I dont have any reporting on it, but i suspect the nfl called about this one because bill simmons is so popular and his words carry so much weight that him calling goodell a liar d didnt make them happy. If you go back and watch outside the lines. They have been destroying Roger Goodell. Espn has a Strong Partnership with the nfl. Hard to imagine that if he just said i dont believe Roger Goodell has been forthcoming or truthful, if the language was different. Bill is a real guy. He talks the way we talk and he said what everyone is thinking. He said goodell was a liar. Did we say goodell was a liar . No, but we said it sure seems that hes lying. Sure seems like hes not telling the truth, but you suspend the
guy for a week longer than the guy that beat up his fiancee. Three weeks versus two weeks help me understand this podcast. Is this a loosy goosy conversation . Its like a radio show. Its like a radio show. Have they used that kind of language before . Im sure he has. Its really not the language. It doesened sound from that statement the language, the words themselves there. I will say again the part we didnt play did not sit well with espn. Where he said, bring it on, i dare you to do something about this. All i have to say to that is, phil, bring it on. Suspend me for three years with pay. Four years. Stop. Four, four and a half years. I dare you to suspend me for four and a half years with pay. How great would that be . So, what do you think bill
simmons is doing this morning . I ink the hes watching his popularity go through the roof. Hes calling his agent, hey y want to do another book. I have a lot of people, thank you, espn. Can i just say, i love these guys. I love espn. I always have. They love us. Its sort of a mutual love fest. They come in and we all pat each other on the back and we love them. They have some of the best they have the best broadcasters. Theyre amazing. This was just a bad mistake on their part. The management. I think were going to play the other part before we judge, okay. No, judge first ask questions later. One other note. Bill simmons has a very Good Relationship with the very, very top of espn. They probably got in a room if you want to hear the other part because then youll find out how to get suspended. Well play that, next. Still ahead on morning joe one of the president s most
trusted Foreign Policy advisors, did you know she also juggled jumping up and down on one foot. Thats right, u. S. Ambassador to the United NationsSamantha Power will be here on set. She doesnt do that, but ill see if she does. Well ask. Also up next, reports behind the scenes of glitchy Software Updates from apple. Bad news. Just days away from the iphone 6 coming out. Apparently it bends. And if you sit on it, it will bend more. Thats just not good. Plus, michael the situation sorentino pleads not guilty of tax fraud. Could the jersey shore star be headed to prison. Before we get to that, bill karins. All eyes on jeter tonight in Yankee Stadium. Noreaster coming up to the coast and the question is, will they play the game or not . Were talking about 7 00 until 10 00 window. We need to get some dry weather in. Rain from jersey and back through maryland and
pennsylvania including philadelphia. The rain is arriving in new york city over the next hour and be with us low most of the day. The worst of it will be new york city area around noon today and probably a one to twohour delay and philadelphia minor delays this morning. As far as Yankee Stadium goes, lets time this out. Were starting at 7 00 a. M. The heavier rain is in the yellow and the reds. That moves up to the north. Right around 7 00 p. M. Or so, it should lighten up. So, in other words, a little soggy. The outfield grass will be wet, but i think they will get the game in. Maybe starting a little bit later. But i do think they will play him. Hopefully they will. Ticket price 800 bucks and as much as 10,000 to sit behind the dugout. Rest of the country, youre looking fabulous and all the great weather heads to the east coast as we go throughout the next couple days. More morning joe when we come back. Whos going to do it . Whos going to make it happen . Discover a new energy source. Turn ocean waves into power. Design cars that capture their emissions. Build bridges that fix themselves. Get more clean water to everyone. Whos going to take the leap . Whos going to write the code . Whos going to do it . Engineers. Thats who. Thats what i want to do. Be an engineer. [ male announcer ] join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring americas future engineers. Energy lives here. Hey i found my true love, livin in a sweet dream. What matters most should always come first. Thats why whole grain is first in every General Mills big g cereal. And why we never use high fructose corn syrup. General mills. Goodness first. So, willie you say bill simmons, he has Good Relationships with the guy he suspended. I think so. Probably just a challenge. They didnt like the chal