And relieve your other allergy symptoms. So you can breathe easier all day. Zyrtecd®. Find it at the pharmacy counter. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 Million People. [ mom ] with life insurance, were not just insuring our lives. Were helping protect his. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Transform tomorrow. Were sad. Were also honored by all fellow americans who are supporting us our families our friends, our children who are adored and loved by everybody. Okay. Welcome to morning joe. Its friday morning. What a week its been. Top of the hour. What a week and what sad news. Were going to be talking about that. Unfortunately what so many of us woke up to i always get alerts from you know the Washington Post and New York Times. But, god god, what a week for the media world. David carr passing. And, of course, that follows bob simons passing and the media shakeup at the beginning of the week with jon stewart and Brian Williams. But david carr was nothing short of being an extraordinary media
writer. And what an extraordinary life he had. He was young, but wow. Yeah. Well talk about that. Willie theres as the New York Times we today, what makes his incredible story so much more incredible is where he started, what he over came. Yes. I loved having him on the show. He was always a blast. Not lucky enough to call him a friend but i can call myself an admirer of his work. You know just a complete no b. S. Guy. We throw that around a lot but he took it from no one as he wrote about the media. He wrote this remarkable book. He was a self described junkie and addict for a lot of his life put his kids in harms way. Three beautiful daughters in the book the night and the gun but made it through the other side. Just everything he wrote. Beautiful writer but also tough. Tough guy. I knew him back in
washington. He was the editor of the alternative newspaper in washington, Washington City paper. Among other things he covered media so he covered us at the post. I was the editor of the style section so he constantly covered me. So yeah he was tough. He was tough. And from where a royal pain in the ass but he was great. In such a good way. He was so good and he was so finance any and he was so he was always fair. You know, anyone who was ever covered by him agreed with that. I thought he was he was a great guy. I really admire ed what he did. He not only survived drug addiction. He survived cancer. He had hodgkins disease, he survived that. You know he he was an amazing guy. He said i now inhabit a life i dont deserve but we all walk this earth feeling like we are
frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope that the caper doesnt. End soon. I just had that quote cued up to read. Unbelievable line he wrote in his book the night of the gun. The commencement address last year where he was talking about being a journalist and he said do you have that bite . Uhhuh. Go ahead. Play the bite about being a journalist. If i told you that i was a drug addict who sobered up got custody of his kids got them off welfare, survived cancer and went on to become a columnist for the New York Times, would you like my story . You bet. What if i told you i was a fat thug, sold drugs, beat up women, terrorized children and maybe not so much. I work at the New York Times. We have 17 Million People that come to our website. We put out 100 videos every month. We have 80 blogs. We are fully engaged in the
revolution. The New York Times has dozens of bureaus all over the world and were going to toss that out which is the proposition, toss that out, and come back and see what facebook turns up. I dont think so. Journalism students last year. He said what we get to do is amazing. Go out talk to people more interesting than us come back write it down. He said it doesnt pay off your car loans as quickly as you like but it sure beats working. And thats where he died in his news room last night. So we have lots of other news to cover. The fbi is now investigating the shooting deaths of three young Muslim Americans in chap pill hill North Carolina, to determine whether any federal laws were broken. Left unsaid is that the alleged shooting by craig hicks may be prosecuted as a hate crime, though so far local Law Enforcement is investigating the deaths as a parking space dispute. Yesterday on ronan farrow daily
the slain girls father called on the president to seek justice done. My soninlaw has been living in that apartment for a year and a half. He was a second year dentistry student at unc chapel hill and he did not complain all the time even though the murderer can say that it was a parking dispute, whatever he was picking on he came to that apartment with his gun two or three times before the murder on different occasions. My daughter yusor complained and she told us she felt that man hated them for the way they looks and the muslim garb they wore. She felt the hate has risen after she moved into the apartment. And her friends came to visit and most of them were our muslim attire. I will call on the Chapel Hill Police, unc, and president obama, churches mosques, synagogue, and the american
nation. If this is not a hate crime, what is a hate crime . Yeah. Yesterday Funeral Services had to be moved to a larng Athletic Field after more than 5,000 people showed up to mourn deah bear barakat. They published a recent interview for a nationwide project called story core where she discusses culture in america. Growing up in america, husband, such a blessing and you know although in some ways i do stand out, such as what i wear on my head the head covering, there are still so many ways that i feel so many embedded in the fabric that is our culture and thats the beautiful thing here is that it doesnt matter where you come from theres so many different people from so many different places of yirchtdifferent backgrounds and religions but here were all one. Willie, what an incredible tragedy. I just three young people gunned down. I could say i i i wish the chapel hill place hadnt moved so quickly to say hey, this was a parking dispute. Nothing to see here. Move along. Yeah. I mean just when you have three muslims gunned down by this guy. Why would they do that . Is there a fear that they are going to look into that. You just heard how incredibly smart she is how thoughtful she was. You saw how beautiful she is in those photographing. And my all account it is you read this guy who isle ledged to have committed these three
murders was a longtime problem in this apartment complex. They had had a meeting about him to talk about what to do. He was the kind of guy who called the cops if you drove in to the parking lot with your music on too loud. He would go knock on doors. He sort of was a selfappointed according to the people who lived there, policeman. Who does that sound like . Does it sound like anybody here . I said it yesterday. Sounds like somebody else. Makes me cringe. That was in the news a year or two ago. In florida. Yeah. Speaking of that mika the fbi the fbi director has offered a blunt assessment on the strained relationship between Law Enforcement and the communities they serve. In a speech thursday james comey said the country was at a cross roads after cases like the deaths of eric garner and michael brown. He noted his own Irish Heritage reflecting on stereotypes of being drunks rough i dont knows and criminals. As the New York Times notes he went farther than the president or attorney general, calling for
straightforward dialogue on the ownership, on the part of officers of the law. All of us in Law Enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American HistoryLaw Enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to favored groups. Most Research Points to the wide spread existence of unconscious bias. Many people in our white majority culture have unconscious racial biases and react differently to a white face than a black face. In fact, we all, white and black, carry various biases around with us. I am reminded of the song from the broadway hit avenue q, everybody is a bit racist. Part of it goes like this. Look around and you will find no ones really colorblind. Maybe its a fact we all should face everyone makes judgments
based on race. You should be grateful i did not try to sing that. Gene, obviously the relationship between communities and police has been top of mind over the last year with foerg son and eric garner and tamir rice. We could go down the list. Nice to hear this coming from the new head of the fbi . I think its great to hear this from the new head of the fbi. Who, frankly, can go there in a way that. Even the attorney general and the president cant because theyre africanamericans. Right. You know, and i mean lets face it thats just the fact. And what he was saying was just the state of the Academic Research on subconscious racism and theres study after study after study that demonstrates this effect and i think its fascinating that the fbi director you know would actually bring that up and bring
it to the floor and say, this is really something we need to talk about because theres just its just kind of an established fact that this affects the way we behave and we need to take this into account, especially when were talking about the Way Police Officers who have the authority to use deadly force behave in situations. Were going to go overseas now where the latest move by isis is putting hundreds of u. S. Marines, potentially at risk. Officials say the militants have taken control of about 90 of al baghdadi in western iraq 50 miles from ramadi and Anbar Province. Near an air base where 300 u. S. Marines are training iraqi forces. The pentagon says the base has not been attacked though. This comes amid a new nbc news marrist poll shows the majority of americans want their representatives to approve president obamas request to yoo us military force against isis. That is despite a near split on
whether or not americans have confidence in his strategy to defeat Islamic State militants. 40 of americans say they now support a limited number of u. S. Grouped troops and another 26 would back a large number of Ground Forces. And more americans believe president obama will be remembered for starting a new war rather than ending one. Well, you know we never get what we want. We expect george w. Bush did not expect to be a wartime president and barack obama expected to end all wars and hes leaving with a middle east more chaotic than it was when it started. I think the stunning number there, willie is after 12 13 years of war and occupation. 66 of americans in this poll this nbc news marist poll last night support Ground Troops. I was shocked. 66 support Ground Troops. Conventional wisdom is the American Public has no appetite for another ground war. That poll suggests otherwise. People i talk to dont want to go back in but apparently 66 at least even if its limited, 40 say limited. The thing is this isnt, gene, like this isnt like hey, i hang out in manhattan and because thats not where i ask people these questions. I mean exactly. Everywhere i go when i talk to conservative group, when i talk to republican groups when i talk to liberal groups. There is never anybody i ever speak to in the most right wing groups the most moderate group, the most left wing groups will go hell yeah lets go back to war. I have the same experience. Everybody says let them take care of it. I have not our business. I have the same experience you have. Basically what people tell me is you know there are competent military forces over there. Let the saudis take care of it
let the turks take care of it. Why do we have to take care of it. Thats what people tell me. There are there are conservative writers and conservative intellectuals who that will explain why we have to be there. There are Foreign Policy gurus who will explain why we have to do that. Have we ever heard people i mean you these numbers are stunning to me. Every where we go people say, we need to rebuild our country. Well, its very easy to say but thats exactly the position this president is in and every president will be where nobody else can do it. We lead on everything. Thats something the president will say. Do you think we ought to dial back . Yeah, i do. Really . I do. Weve got a budget right now hold it a second. Wait a minute a. Adensefense budget of 530, 40 billion dollars a year. Listen, i believe there are times the United States has to go in state what they want to do. We talked about it yesterday. No boots on the ground and
absolutely no im talking the powell doctrine where we say, this is why were going to send boots on the ground. This is the pressing American Interest and this is a trigger of what we have to do before we bring our troops back home. And i dont see that right now. Until i see that, im not going to support any action. You sound surprised, mika. No i just think its very easy to take either position but its an im upon decision. You said it every president faces, but guess what this is what the next president faces, too, because as i read president obamas request for the authorization for the use of military force one of the things it does is kick the ball kick the can down the road. In a meaningful way. Right. Yeah. It wants to expire in three years. It wants to essentially its not specific at all. Its general. Manage it for a few years,
but the situation clearly, he anticipates, is going to be there. The Islamic State is going to be there. The basic problem is going to be there for the successor. So the successor is going to have the same basic decision to make. I said it for some time mika what bothers me is the United States always leads wits chin. Were always the first out there. Im with you. Im frustrated by it. The president is upset because republican because of sequestration and wants 520 billion. Republicans, they want more for the pentagon. Where is japan . Where is germany . Where are all these other countries . Let them contribute their fair share to it before we go rushing in to iraq again. I hate to bring up the tv show about this because this is so serious, but this season of homeland after a horrible season last year this season of
homeland, pretty much encapsulates american Foreign Policy over the past 12 years. We do what we think is right. We put it all on the line. There are people that are tireless and they sacrifice, and we end up making it worse than when we first started. And thats whats happened over the past 12 13 years. One of the things that surprised me, i supported the first iraq war. 70 of americans supported the first iraq war. So now im seeing 66 were going back into iraq with troops on the ground. Im not a passivist. I want to kill them all. I want to capture their leaders and i want to come home. But we dont have any better of a plan now, willie than we did in 2003. Thats why i was surprised by that other poll number that 50 of americans support the president s plan. I think it was 44 object. 94 of people responding understood what the plan is. Its a very general idea. Or 54 32, i should say. I dont know what the plan is exactly. I know the loose outlines of it but i dont know how you could have such a strong opinion ability something that doesnt quite exist. Exactly. And, you know, in 2003 there was at least the powell doctrine right, as a plan. Overwhelming force. You go in you just take the place. Right . As you said the plan now is is three years long. Thats all i know. Is dont know. Lets move on to whats going on right now in ukraine. Weve got a deal supposedly, being worked out. Supposedly. The deal to end the on going bloodshed in ukraine is not off to a good start. Ukrainian Officials Say eight servicemen have been killed in fighting with prorussian rebels in eastern ukraine. More than 30 other troops were injured in the last day. The ceasefire is scheduled to begin on sunday after france and yerm any help negotiate the truce with ukraine and russia but there are doubts the Peace Agreement will hold up. British Prime Minister david
calm rorn hadmeron had this warning for russian president Vladimir Putin. We sent a very clear message, unless russian behavior changed and putins behavior changed then sanctions should stay in place. Thats very much the message coming out of this canceled meeting. What really matters now is that on the ground actual things happen rather than just words being said. That means heavy weapons need to be removed, it means a proper ceasefire has to be put in place, it means that people actually have to do the things that theyve signed up to do. Bring in somebody who knows an awful lot about this conflict. Senior fellow and interNational Security, the atlanta council, ian brzezinski. Youve lived in ukraine for several years and know about this conflict. For all you know about this ongoing conflict how likely is this Peace Agreement to bring any lasting peace to this region . Good morning, joe. Good morning, mika. Im very pessimistic about this agreement. First off russia putin has
demonstrated little intent to bring in invasion of his to an end. He continues to be fighting. Escalating the fighting in ukraine. Second, hes reenforcing his presence there with additional troops and equipment. He continues to lie about his presence. The terms of th