Testifying on capitol hill. And banned for life. The nba commissioner says theres what legal case to oust the clippers owner from the league. Well get reaction from hall of fame are isaiah thomas. Good morning from a very rainy washington. Its the last day of april, april 30, 2014. Im chuck todd. Im jet lagged but i dont know how. I dont know what day it is. Well have the latest on the flooding and the tornadoes in just a few minutes. Right now i want to get to my first read of the morning and its all about the new poll. Theres good news for the president , his poll numbers are better. The bad news, the numbers still arent good. His numbers are the highest in months, but that job rating is still just 44 , well under a number thats likely to make endangered democrats feel secure heading into the midterms. As one pollster puts it, its the difference between going from five rundowns to two. Worse, by the way, for democrats, just 29 of independents approve of the president s job performance. Still for the First Time Since the health care launch, the president s personal rating is right side up again. 44 view him positively, 41 negatively. 46 see the Health Care Law as a good idea, and 38 see it as a bad decision. And now the country is almost evenly divided whether the law is working well or whether it needs minor changes or a Major Overhaul or full repeal. Thats better news for democrats. Overall, the president and his party still have to brace for a tough midterm season. 45 of voters want a republican congress, 38 want a democratic congress. Who are the high interest voters . Drilling down into the group of voters who tell us their interest level in this election is a 9 or a 10, you see this republican advantage. Unsurprisingly, seniors are engaged more than young voters, Republican Voters are more interested than democratic voters. Conservatives are more interested that liberals, 63 compared to 49 . Romney voters are more interested than obama voters and while there is a big gender gap in the congressional ballot, it not as wide as democrats need. Republicans need among men, democrats lead among women. Democrats have to have a bigger lead among women than the gop has among men to have a successful 2014. In addition to the president s Approval Rating being below 50 , just 27 believe the country is headed in the right direction and a majority of americans believe that the current economic and political system is stacked against them. The other takeaways from our poll, as a showdown with russia preoccupies washington and the president tries to juggle crisis in ukraine and the middle east, Americans Across Party Lines want americans to simply disengage from the world. A full 47 say that they want the u. S. To be less active in global affairs. This is the highest number on this question that weve ever recorded. Just 19 call for more active engagement. And approval of the president s Foreign Policy is at his lowest level of his presidency and on russia and ukraine, just 37 approve of hough hes handling the issue, down 6 points from earlier. Mrs. Bush, would you like to see your son jeb run . Hes by far the best qualified man but no, i really dont. I think its a great country, there are a lot of great families and its not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified and weve had enough bushes. Well we shall polled the question. It turns out a whopping 69 of americans agree with barbara bush. Most say her statement applies ekwlal to both jeb bush and Hillary Clinton. But our poll finds Hillary Clinton is more personally popular where bush is not. Bushs favorable rating is lower and his numbers are actually worse than they were a year ago the more hes gotten out into the public spotlight. Joining me now are our bipartisan polling team, democratic pollster fred yang and republican pollster mica roberts. Fred, mikas boss said these are better numbers, theyre not good. You cant get good until you get better. Is this the First Time Ever that his Approval Rating is higher than both Foreign Policy and the economy . Yes. I dont think ive seen that for any president. Were trying to see whats responsible for this its all health care. I think its health care. Mica, when you see these numbers and see the repeal question is basically 50 50 on health care now, saying major changes or repeal or just minor changes, does that mean republicans should alter their message a little bit . I think if you look across this poll you see numbers that reflect exactly where the nation was in late october 2010 before republicans went on to have an historic win in the house, pick up six seats, right direction, wrong track is exactly where it was. The president s Approval Rating is exactly where it was and the Health Care Law continues to be very unpopular. So, no, i dont think so you dont see anything has really changed here . I dont think theres been serious fundamental changes in the electorate or how things look compared to last months poll where we had a record low approval for the president. Very quickly . I think nothing has changed since 2010, but i also think nothing has changed since 2008 and 2006. The American Public is still extremely frustrated. I think the big question for the election coming up is how much will president obama actually be a marker for this election given people know hard to imagine he wont be. Ifthe theres a change from 2006, its the intensity level. I want to go the Foreign Policy, micah, that was a dramatic number. Look at march 14 versus september 2011 and its almost a flip of more active to less active. This is a country that just wants to retreat. We have to put that september 11, 2001 no doubt. After that dramatic event of september 11th, you couldnt get into the 50 of rain of wanting to get more involved is pretty dramatic. And it goes across party line, which is a very important part of the electorate and how people are going to be looking at issues, International Issues moving forward through 2016. Being pro active on National Security is not going to be good politics in 2016 whether youre democrat or republican. While the preference for a the president s Foreign Policy, i think for the most part the public is saying obama is getting it exactly where they want it, even as they disapprove. I was going to say, even as they disapprove, he is fundamentally sort of where the American Public is right now. I want to go to the midterm electio elections, micah. Amateur viewers are our poll are going to say its a tie, 45 to 45. I look at the undecided number in the generic ballot and they have an Approval Rating of the president of 29 . You cant forget or fail to mention that independents prefer Republicancontrolled Congress 21, which is a stunning number that reflects something preshutdown, october 2013 preshutdown and republicans have come back to the Republican Party since that time and they dipped down low between those points. An interesting election number, fred. Elections in mid term is about persuasion and turnout. We have a challenging environment not just because were democrats. Because our president of our party is seeking his sixth year. So the persuasion is going to be tough for us with these numbers. I think the other element of this is enthusiasm or interest. In our poll there is a block of people who voted in 2012, didnt vote in 2010, the democrats are ahead 5533. Are all those people going to vote . No. Are half those people going to vote . No. But if we can get enough of those people to vote in certain states and disabilities. Thats the survival group. Thats where theyll determine whether the democrats survive the mid terms, which means hold the senate or not. A lot of buzz will be about the barbara bush question, the clintons and bushes. I want to focus on jeb bushs numbers here. As jeb has become more public about running, thats got to be a little disappointing for him. Over the same time, Hillary Clinton has dropped below 50. The political world, the landscape is littered with the ed muskies, the Hillary Clintons of 2006, the ted kennedys who were supposed to win the nomination. Chris christies. And politics is a crazy game and thats why were in it. We love it. The interesting thing when we have rand paul on this one is the compare of rand paul and jeb bush. Nonparty republicans prefer jeb bush, Tea Party Republicans are basically the base of rand paul. The thing about mrs. Clinton and bush is he cant run against her, or whoever, unless he wins the republican nomination. I would say these numbers suggest he is maybe the frontrunner in the magazines but in the heartland he may not be. Whats interesting about Hillary Clinton, i was comparing them to barack obamas, shes basically a ahead of him among whites, ahead of him among hispanics and only slightly behind him among africanamericans. If shes got that coalition going in, seems like thats a better place to be now than in 6, right . That would be good. Now to developing news on the dangerous weather thats been hitting a large part of the country, including down in florida. Governor rick scott just declared a state of emergency in 26 counties dues to severe flooding across the panhandle. The state has also just closed ten miles of i10 near pensacola because of standing water and at least two people have died in the flooding and hundreds of drivers are stranded. The scary situation also forced schools in one county to close today. In nearby mobile, alabama, firefighters had to rescue a man forced to cling to a tree when the nearby creek flooded. The area got some 20 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, National Guard troops are still searching neighborhoods in mississippi, hoping to find survivors from the tornadoes. Joining me is bill karins. The south bracing for another day of severe weather. Do we need to be concerned more about flooding, tornadoes . The flooding wont be as bad as what we saw this morning. We will see isolated tornadoes, but compared to the last three days and all the destruction thats been done, it wont be quite as bad today. It will be the least of the damage done. Now, yesterday and then this morning it poured in pensacola. This was sent to me by a weather watcher. This is 24 1 2 inches of rain. Can you imagine that . Thats in 24 hours. Thats why were having this historic epic flow its lowlying area. Dont forget that. And we had onshore flow, too. This is a picture at sunrise of downtown pensacola. All that water is not supposed to be there. Thats about 2 to 3 feet of standing water in the downtown area. Theres been many water rescues throughout the region overnight. This wasnt just isolated. It was from mobile all the way to panama city. All of those locations have had about half a foot to a foot of rain in the last 24 hours. Its a miserable day for travel in the northeast. Right now weve got windy conditions and rainy conditions, airport delays for you as far as the Severe Threat goes today, 36 approximately people at risk of severe thunderstorms and maybe even isolated tornadoes, it goes from where chuck is located there in washington, d. C. All the way down to tallahassee. We get a break from this mess this upcome being weekend. Its april 30th. If the saying is correct, last day of april showers, lets get on with the may flowers. Coming up, an investigation into how a lethal injection went so horribly wrong last night. And here is the president s daily planner. Kind of a quiet day today as he rests up from his trip to asia. As we can using solar. At night and when its cloudy, we use more natural gas. This ensures we can produce Clean Electricity whenever our customers need it. Thats why i got a new windows 2 in 1. It has exactly what i need for half of what i thought id pay. And i dont need to be online for it to work. It runs office, so i can do schedules and budgets and even menu changes. But its fun, too with touch, and tons of great apps for stuff like music, cause a good playlist is good for business. I need the bosss signature for this. Im the boss. Honestly i wanna see you be brave thank you. Thank you. I got this. Oh, no, ill get it let me get it. Uhuhuh. I dont want you to pay for this. Its not happening, honey. Let her get it. She got her safe driving bonus check from allstate last week. 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I would email the phone company to inquire as to why they have shortchanged these customers. But that would require wifi. Switch to comcast Business Internet and get two Wifi Networks included. Comcast business built for business. Oklahomas attempt to execute two men went terribly wrong last night and now oklahoma governor, mary fallon, has issued an immediate investigation and stay of excuse for one man. So last night oklahoma corrections officials were using a new threedrug injection combination and it took lockett 43 minutes to die. Witnesses say he clenched, thrashed, clenched his teeth. This is a horrible thing to witness. One of the things he said is somethings wrong, he said man at one point and he kept trying to raise up. Charles warner was scheduled to be executed. But in the wake of the first execution, governor fallon postponed the second injection. Theres no set protocol for the drug combination in oklahoma. You have other states, texas, georgia, missouri, theyve been refusing to reveal their ingredients. Are they safe, are they legal, have they been imported from back alley suppliers, as has happened in some cases . Have they been made by unregulated companies . This is the thing that we never want to happen but its our fear and the reason that we need to have complete transparency in the process. Governor fallon gave Charles Warner a 14day of execution while the department of excuse figure out why locketts drug combination didnt work. One of the main drugs that was used in lethal injection for years has become harder to come by. States that use the Death Penalty and enforce the Death Penalty have been trying to come up with other combinations, buying drugs from overseas, theyve been hiding about what has been used and now were seeing that some of the stuff isnt working. It all goes to the larger issue, by the way, which is popularity of the Death Penalty has been waning for years. Is this one of those Tipping Point situations where folks wonder if it can be humanely executed. Well see if a very rare appearance today on capitol hill. A former Supreme Court justice will testify at a senate hearing. Its all part of an effort to shine a light on socalled dark money. But first todays tdr trivia question. Were focusing on new jersey this week. When was the last time new jersey voted republican in a president ial election and had a democrat end up in the white house . So new jersey votes republican even as the white house goes democrat. Tweet the right answer to chucktodd or dailyrundown. [ male announcer ] legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses. If you have a business idea, we have a personalized legal solution thats right for you. With easy stepbystep guidance, were here to help you turn your dream into a reality. Start your Business Today with legalzoom. Were here to help you turn your dream into a reality. Intercourse thats painfulit. 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