Hes going to deliver remarks on the economy this afternoon. And then later, the president will address the Congressional Hispanic Caucuses 37th annual. That will do it. Morning joe from d. C. Starts right now. How did this intruder get so far into the white house. Dont they have guard dogs. There were officers and they were concerned that the dogs might attack them instead. [ laughter ] sounds strange but makes more sense when you fine occupant a lot of secret Service Agents are cats. [ laughter ] all right. Good morning, everybody. Its thursday, october 2nd and with us on set in washington, d. C. , boy its great to be here. Busy night last night. Jeremy peters is here. Good to have you. Former White House Press secretary for president obama robert gibbs. Abc news political commentator and npr Senior AnalystCokie Roberts and on capitol hill the host and managing editor of tv ones daily morning show, news now roland martin. We have a lot to talk about. Cokie, i want to start with you. I was reading about the ebola virus and the gentleman thats in dallas how he contracted it. You know weve been hearing people, come to the show theres no reason to be worried unless you exchange bodily fluids. Youre thinking somebody has to spit in my face or have sex with them. This guy in texas got the disease carrying a pregnant woman by her legs helping a Family Member okay. They are yelling at me, we dont know thats how he got the disease. I read in the New York Times thats one of the things he did. A brother of the woman, alex talking into my ear, a brother of the woman who was carrying her by the other leg i believe contracted the disease and died. We dont know we dont know. I dont want to say anything disgusting at 6 00 in the morning, but we dont know what her situation was. Lets just put it that way. So from your im just trying to figure this out. How hard it is to spread the disease . You have a lot of people who dont have washed hands and look at the situation. Who are in a terrible, unsanitary situation. Then its much easier to spread the disease which is why youre seeing any of the medical teams covered up looking like they are in, you know, on the moon. If you look at the pictures in the New York Times even as an example you get a sense of the conditions for the victims and people suffering from it, and i mean i just got an email from the abc doctor who has been over there working with these kids and one of the kids he had followed died this morning and its heartbreaking, and he said if that child were in america that child would be alive. Really . Thats what were dealing with. Were dealing with totally gun prepared health systems. Totally unsanitary situations. In many cases no water or clean water. Right. So these are places were capable of dealing it here. It doesnt mean we wont see it again. We can handle it. We have the infrastructure. The ability to quarantine somebody. And we have units for it. Roland . Except for one thing, if our hospitals are following the proper protocol. Yesterday i talked to a medical doctor with the Dallas Morning News and one of the issues this hospital initially released him. Then he goes back out and so now you hear him going through dallas, now being around School Children as well so part of this is will american hospitals, how will they recognize it and follow the right protocols . Thats a real issue right there because the hospital in dallas released him and he gone for three days. Unbelievable. Exactly. So, lets move on the top story and boy the Washington Post has been doing an extraordinary job. I mean you know youre doing a great job when the head of the secret service has to call the president of the United States because they know the post is about to tell him something. Last time bill had to wake up hillary and Say Something will break in the newspaper. Can you believe first of all can you believe she didnt tell the president of the United States there was a guy with a gun in the elevator . Im going rewind back 24
hours and i just am surprised that the white house, you know, appeared on our show today, gibbs maybe you can explain this to be. Please explain to me how they could so vehemently defend. The morning josh earnest was on. We have to go to the video. And he was defiant. No we have total confidence in this director. And capture if you could based on our questions, i couldnt even think of another question to ask him because the conversation seemed so needlessly by the way, this is something, you cant talk to this because josh does. I once said this of Mccain Campaign person who lied to me the night before it was very obvious, i called the person up, okay, so let me ask you this. Did you not think the sun was not going to rise the next morning . Did you not think i wasnt going
to have a tv show to tell everybody that you guys lied through your teeth to me. Dont be stupid. Josh didnt have to come on yesterday beating his chest when they already knew that she had lost confidence by not telling the president. Members of the Democratic Party in the house of representatives were already saying she needed to go. Right. Losing confidence and resigning are two different things. Right. I think josh would probably tell you right now he did not know that she was going resign. He did not know thats not the question. The question that mika asked and thats why this was a confusing response from him. You asked do you have confidence, does the president have confidence they can still protect the first family. Why he would say yes. You almost wonder if he had spoken to the president about this at all. Jeremy, the question is he may not have. Thats a problem. But, roland were going to
go to you in a second but well run this clip and hopefully it has mikas mortified look. Are your telling me this morning the president of the United States and the first lady have confidence in Julia Pierson to run an agency thats supposed to protect her two daughters. Yes. For the reasons i laid out. These are men and women who wake up every day, professionals prepared to put their life i think the professionals actually deserve to have better leadership than they have. Theres a responsibility she takes very seriously. I can tell the white house staff and the president takes this very seriously. The president has articulated hes concerned about the security around his family as any parent would be. Okay. We dont have mikas face. I did ask four questions before joe asked that question. It was like that. What is this. So, roland, i dont know. That hurts his credibility moving forward. Actually it doesnt. Thats the only response they can give. Youre talking about when you talk about protecting the president you also talk about conveying confidence to the American People. The president and josh earnest cannot come out and say well we really dont know so you have to project that even though behindthescenes youre going what the hell are you doing. You have no other choice but to do that. The person that must be saying that is michele obama. Oh, my gosh. If i were she i would be so angry. My children are in there. Honestly, our own houses are better protected. The elevator incident is perplexing because ive been in plenty of elevators with the president. The only people in the elevator with the president are people that are either in the secret service or people that the secret Service Knows exactly who
they are. As carol leigh said she pointed it out yesterday, wall street Journal White House correspondent, it seems even more preposterous when we the media had to get there three hours beforehand, sit there. Then they let this guy everybody amble on with a gun. Thats what im hearing from sources close to the spouse. Julia pierson the director resigned yesterday telling Bloomberg News in quote, i think its in the best interest of the secret service and the American Public if i step down. Congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency. Media has made it clear that this is what they expected. Officials say ill tell you what they say happened. President obama lost faith after learning he shared an elevator last month at the cdc with an
armed man with a criminal record. Pierson told obama only moments before it was reported. I can tell you the white house first learned of that incident yesterday afternoon shortly before it was reported by a news organization. She did not tell him about that or the agency did not tell the white house about that until he didnt know about it until yesterday. Until shortly before it was reported publicly. Thats correct. Over the last several days weve seen accumulating reports raising questions about the performance of the agency and the president concluded that new leadership of that agency was required. So, what weve gotten from sources close to the white house and the secret service is that there were three options to replace the secret Service Director who was being removed. And it was an africanamerican, a man, and a woman. And they went with the woman because the optics would be good. Thats number one. Number two, the thing that
really led to this resignation was not the white house fence jumper but it was the elevator. It was the elevator. She didnt bring that up to him when they first met about the fence jumper. So theres supposed to be, when the president is in a room, or a contained space theres a manifest and everybody in that space with the president is supposed to be on it. And this guy with a weapon and a record. And a record was on a elevator in the cdc with the president. Shooting video. Oh, my gosh. Shooting video of the president. Thank god he was just shooting video. I do think look, first of all, having worked with the secret service for four years, they were, i always was struck by the utmost professionalism. These are people that sign up to stand in front of the president if something goes horribly wrong. I know joe clancy. I think joe is a fabulous interim pick. I would not be surprised, my apologies to joe and his family if he doesnt get pushed and pulled to stay on as a more permanent director. I think joe is going to have a lot of confidence among the agents. But lets just pause for one second on the resignation. A Security Apparatus is literally, has to be strong every where. Right . Thats right. Director pierson was not at the white house the day somebody who previously had been stopped at the white house, climbed the fence at the white house, ran through the grounds of the white house, got through the door of the white house, ran into the east room of the white house. So i think what we have to under i think joes first responsibility is to look at there clearly were a series of security lapses that september 19th. You had two guys that were down on constitution avenue, who said theres gunfire and somebody said no, no, it was just backfire. And they said, no, theres a shooting. Roland . I got to push back on that. First of all, she did not instill any confidence when she was before congress in that hearing. She couldnt give very clear and concise answers. I understand she wasnt there at the white house or in atlanta. The problem in atlanta was she had someone on the president ial detail stay back to do an investigation and then the post reported didnt report further investigation and didnt tell the president. Not only did she fail as a leader. Had she appeared before congress and been more forthright, more focused, more disciplined, more clear folks would have seen okay she has to hand tell situation. But not tell the president . That was it. I dont disagree im certainly not here to say i dont think she shouldnt have resign. I think she should have resigned two weeks ago or somebody should have made her resign two weeks ago. Im suggesting joes first job as interim director is to figure out what went wrong in 2011, what went wrong a few weeks ago. Lets be clear. You know, testified at the hearing that people observed this man again who had been stopped in august with a hatchet, small axe, on the south lawn. People observed him, recognized him, watched him for a while and notify anybody. That, again, i agree that there has to be and should be a change in leadership, but, again, this is somebody needs to be my dad told a story last night at ciss. When he first got his job. He said what about this threat
that were facing. We need to make sure the president can get out of here. We can get him out of here in two minute. Really . Lets do it. Right now. He called everyone on it. Everybody had to rally and the chopper had to get in place. Took them much longer than they thought. He did a drill completely unexpectedly. They put threefoot fences up. I start doing drills. Catch people with their pants down right and left and fire them and figure it out. I was struck by the fact in the hearing, 116 people over the past five years have climbed the fence. Now, im not a security expert and im not trying to be flip but the first thing i would do is build a bigger fence. Lets get jeremy in here. My colleague did some reporting on this and found the fence is actually a historic artifact. So you cant tear it down. Could you. But it would be problematic to tear it down. The secret services culpability here is clear. But what about the white houses
handling of this. Robert you could speak to the fact. This doesnt look to be the most adept crisis management. They are leaking things how this woman wasnt their first choice. Doesnt seem very professional. You have to live with the choice you make. I think this and one of the things in joshs defense all too often and i was in some of these meetings and i did some of these meetings specifically with joe. Theres a small circle of people that will get read into the security moments of a president for obvious reasons and josh may just not have known exactly what was happening at certain points with some of the security moments. That doesnt mean josh is uninformed by any means. I think if you look back at this, what, to read the story on saturday night or sunday morning about what happened with the shooting, to understand that we didnt know how far that person got into the white house until the eve of the shooting, its incumbent upon the secret service and josh said this in
the briefing. He lied to us about it too. Josh said this, think got to be much more transparent not in the way that compromises security dont need to lie. Start there. This mornings the Washington Post also mika has more details. It does about Julia Piersons time in charge of the security service. Staffing shortages under her watch and it called for 100 Surveillance Office towers patrol the would you say. She urged for far fewer. Pierson honored a request from d. C. Mayor to open up a street near Benjamin Netanyahus hotel. The mayor had traffic concerns even though the street had been closed for years to prevent a possible attack. And removed fencing when the president hosted the frances summit this year. Pierson who worked at a costume character at disney world as a
teen said we need be more like disney world. She didnt say that. No. I think they are making it up. Look. It is true sometimes the security drives you completely nuts and theres been a lot of overreaction in washington shutting down pennsylvania avenue and all that. Which shows you, shutting down pennsylvania avenue only do we need to be like have you ever been to disney world. Of course i have. Many times. I was there once and left immediately. Okay. Stop. Im sorry. Well be on pennsylvania avenue later today. She had a 30 year service with the secret service. So its not quite fair to talk about what she did as at that teenager. But the fact is that this was a major, major failure. All right. But we shouldnt react by closing down washington. We got a lot coming up including i want to talk to cokie about two polls coming in. One from kansas, pat roberts an independent may actually beat pat roberts and out of wisconsin yesterday we were talking about scott walker new poll comes out shows him moving ahead in wisconsin. A lot to talk about and more cross currents. Pretty incredible. Okay. In different parts of the country parties are doing differently. Still ahead senator Bernie Sanders says the u. S. Is wrong to go after isis in the middle east. He joins us in our 8 00 hour. Up next are you ready for the age of unlimited vacations . Yes, i am. Ill tell you why Richard Branson thinks thats what the workforce needs. Hes not alone. Burger wars. Well explain japans fascination with dark burgers as mcdonalds offers up a new item to challenge burger king. Well be right back. How much money do you have in your pocket right now . I have 40, 21. Could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement . I dont think so. Well if you start putting that towards your retirement every week and let it grow over time, for twenty to thirty years, that retirement challenge might not seem so big after all. If energy could come from anything . Or if power could go anywhere . Or if light could seek out the dark . What would happen if that happens . Anything. An Unprecedented Program arting busithat partners businesses with universities across the state. For better access to talent, cutting edge research, and state of the art facilities. And you pay no taxes for ten years. From biotech in brooklyn, to next gen energy in binghamton, to manufacturing in buffalo. Startupny has new businesses popping up across the state. See how startupny can help your business grow at startup. Ny. Gov
all right. We had a busy night last night. You know what . You know how when you have a lot of kids that are busy and running from event to event. Im going to show you retirement. Brzezinski style. This is my mothers bench. My mother did an event, talking about her new book the lord of the forest and her incredible body of work and we had a great audience and she was fantastic. And as you know, her work is unbelievable. Its on display right now at the phillips collection as well as at the krieger museum in wash