you know what? i have been known to wear a tan suit myself. don t forget, a politics nation baseball cap is always in style. thanks for watching. i m al sharpton. hardball starts right now. a dove named paul? a hawk named hillary? let s play hardball. good evening. i m chris matthews in washington. let me start with the president s decision today to hold off on air strikes in syria. i don t want to put the cart before the horse. we don t have a strategy yet. i think what i have seen in some of the yous reports suggests folks are getting further ahead of where we re at than we currently are. that s not just my assessment but the assessment of the military as well. we need clear plans that we are developing them. i will consult with congress. and make sure their voices are heard. there is no point asking until we know what it will take to get the job done. that was a surprise. the big debate is do we go the direction of george bush again back to pursuing grand goals of ideology? the freedom agenda or do we stick to the dovish stance of president obama trying hard the to wind down the military intervention in the islamic world? here come it is big irony. could the voters be asked to choose from are a dovish republican in rand paul versus a relatively hawkish hillary clinton? listening to what they are saying it s hard to see anything else. in a wall street journal op-ed today senator paul had strong words for people who pushed for stronger action in syria. he wrote, shooting first and asking questions later has never been a good foreign policy. the past year has been a perfect example. our middle east policies unhinged flailing about to see who to act against next with little thought to the consequences. this is not a foreign policy. he pointed out if the hawks got their way and we brought down the government of al assad, it would have been strengthened. the administration s goal has been to degrade assad s power, forcing him to negotiate with the rebels, but degrading assad s military capacity also degrades his ability to fend off isis. joining us are howard fineman and ron reagan. we were talking before the show. very much like the way he s been. dovish. stay out of this stuff. it s as though he read rand paul s op-ed piece. my head is spinning. you have rand paul writing an op-ed piece that could have been written a generation ago by george mcgovern, and the national committee came out with a statement attacking rand paul from the right. basically from the hawkish perspective that sounded like something that could have been produced by dick cheney or john mccain or rudy giuliani a few years ago. this is who he is. he ll go so far as to say, hey, i don t have a plan. i have no strategy as a way the to buy time, rather than shoot first and ask questions later. ron reagan, i have been looking at this for weeks nowment i saw it coming. rand paul is an isolationist, a dove. in many ways he conforms to what i think, probably for different reasons. i think the united states has gone way overboard in involvement in the world. too many fights, too many enemies looking for trouble. an itchy trigger finger. hillary clinton seems to want to be at least two notches to the right if not one notch to the right of the president. much tougher on russia, ukraine, the middle east, china, everywhere. she s much more ornery and wanting to fight. what s your thinking? what s going on with american foreign policy in the debate? the rand paul brand looks better on a bumper sticker than when you flesh it out. howard fineman is a fine editor. if rand paul were one of his columnists and turned this in as a think piece howard would send it back in no uncertain terms saying you need to put thought into it. what was he saying exactly? that we should learn from mistakes in the middle east especially and not repeat them. well, thank you very much, senator paul. next column maybe you can do something on the importance of washing your hands after using the restroom. what did this piece say? nothing. it said let s not be stupid in foreign policy. there is no prescription there from paul. the political point that up is down and black is white with hillary. what i remember about eisenhower is he didn t take us to vietnam. that was a good thing he didn t do. when it comes to foreign policy i believe some of the best stuff you do is what you don t do. lyndon johnson did a lot in foreign policy, right? yeah. a lot of foreign policy. as howard said rand paul s essay is like barack obama s don t do stupid stuff. they are a mirror immanual of one another. hillary clinton says not doing stupid stuff isn t enough. you have to do other things. what are those? that s what we ll see in the depate if she runs. if i had been editing rand paul s piece and i ll ask him to submit the next one to me, ron. you should. first of all, he should have said what he would do. ron s right. he didn t say, okay, you re cautious, you re smart. leave syria alonement stay out of it. that s true. what s wrong with saying we don t have to mess in everybody s rhubarb. why are we building syria, iraq, egypt, the emirates? we are largely leaving syria alone. we have not gone into syria. you want to ask rand paul, what happens when isis beheads other americans? what if they attack oil fields vital to the national interest, an ally we have a defense treaty with. what then? well, hands off? it s more complicated than rand paul s imagining would have it. here comes senator paul again. he called out hillary clinton by name for her hawkish views on syria. wrote, to interventionists like former secretary of state hillary clinton we would caution that arming the islamic rebels in syria created a haven for the islamic state. we are lucky mrs. clinton didn t get her way and the obama administration didn t bring about regime change in syria. that new regime might have been isis. on meet the press sunday the senator called hillary clinton a war hawk. listen. in a general election, were i to run there will be independent and democrats who say, we are tired of war. we are worried hillary clinton will get us involved in a middle eastern war. if you want to see a transformational election in the country let the democrats put forward a war hawk like hillary clinton and see a transformation like you have never seen. amazing stuff that this campaign has begun in 2014. two years from thousand. to look at history, a generation ago all the fights about intervention, isolation and so on were within the democratic party starting with johnson and kennedy, through mcgovern and so forth. now it looks like, if rand paul is to be taken seriously, that the fight will be within the republican party. i would have said, who are the unnamed republicans you are also putting in hillary clinton s camp? if you re going to get to hillary clinton you re doing one of these. come at me. where is that from? pittsburgh? you want to go directly to hillary clinton and set up the general election. who are the republicans you will take on here? it s great. isn t it good? yes. isn t it good we are debating instead of just doing it? we never had a debate about going into iraq, as i recall. a few of us opposed the war. john kerry, biden. who didn t support the war? hill ry. hillary. i don t want to get caught on the wrong side of this baby. i don t want to look weak. i have to look at strong as republicans. that kind of chicken is where the democratic party didn t show its finest colors when they said we don t want to be caught off base. i think you are right, howard. the great debate might be in the debates which by the way, the media won t be involved in the debates next year. we re not involved. i think if paul starts the serious argument within the republican party it could spread to the democrats as well. hillary clinton better watch out. who s going to carry the banner i don t know. for the dovish side. i don t know. who would be the dove against hillary if she runs? she sounds like it. a couple notches from the president. one would be appropriate. if she s two notches from russia, china, the middle east, somebody will commit against her on the left, i think. do you agree? boy, i don t know. i can t see anybody actually challenging her now are from either side from the democratic party. interestingly enough for rand paul he s got the opposite problem hand paul has decided to go into the republican primary running to the left of hillary clinton. that s a novel strategy for a republican. i have to say. i love it. some of the primaries and caucuses you can register on the day, go in and participate where the action is. i think that s one thing rand paul is looking at is a strategy. independents and dems to vote for him. if he s the only anti-war, let s be careful, let s get involved, get in other people s rhubarb to use your are phrase. that s from batman. i grew up with people like mark hatfield, john sherman cooper. these were the people opposed to the vietnam war, republicans out front. it s not the craziest thing for a republican to be dove issue. great to see you. coming up, karl rove s group crossroads gps commissioned a record looking at the republican party standing with women. the blunt finding of the group, female voters think the republican party is intolerant, lacking in compassion, stuck in the past. that s the republican view of their own party. also, what do you think when you mix a private donor s conference sponsored by the koch brothers, an unguarded politician and an audio recording. the latest behind closed doors look at what they really think. this time it s mitch mcconnell explaining what the republican agenda will be if he gets to be majority leader. yesterday, we saw the tragic consequence of what happens when a 9-year-old girl is allowed to shoot an automatic weapon, an uzi. for some gun people i can call them gun nuts, like the nra people, it s the tip of the iceberg. they want virtually no restrictions on guns. wait until you see laws pushed across the country. they are on a slippery slope on the far right. finally, people who speak with a forked tongue like mitch mcconnell and mitt romney. this is hardball, the place for politics. we re less than 70 days from midterm elections now. the senate race in iowa can t get any closer. let s check the hardball scoreboard. the latest poll has democratic congressman bruce braley and republican jo any ernst even at 40%. we have new numbers for the governor s race in the hawkeye state. terry branstad is up by 12 over jack hatch. that s 47-35. things are happening in iowa. we ll be right back. choose nexium twenty-foureople hour for frequent heartburn. i was worried about orange juice, coffee. everything. not anymore. get nexium level protection ™ and for a limited time save six dollars at nexium24hr.com for over 19 million people. 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[ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. transamerica. could help your business didavoid hours of delaynd test caused by slow internet from the phone company? that s enough time to record a memo. idea for sales giveaway. return a call. sign a contract. pick a tie. take a break with mr. duck. practice up for the business trip. fly to florida. win an award. close a deal. hire an intern. and still have time to spare. go to comcastbusiness.com/ checkyourspeed if we can t offer faster speeds - or save you money - we ll give you $150. comcast business. built for business. welcome back to hardball. when president obama won 55% of the women s vote to romney s 44% republicans could no longer deny they had a problem. it was acknowledged in the 2013 rnc autopsy report. now a new report commissioned by two major republican organizations including one founded by karl rove. it has bleak news for the grand old party among women. it concludes female voters view the party as intolerant, lacking in compassion, stuck in the past. if hillary clinton is their democratic nominee for president in 2016 the republican party s un popularity with women voters could grow exponentially. joining us is kelly ann conway, a great pollster with the republicans generally and michelle bernard, president of the bernard center for women, politics and public policy who i can never figure out politically. kelly, you know karl rove and we all know him in different ways. what do you make of the republicans doing their own polling and coming out with words that suggest a real problem? i thought this polling was the opposite of breaking news. it s what we saw when developing the contract with america. it shows the caricature of the republicans takes hold. i can tell you what the party is doing. the party is doing its own polling. i have been involved in focus groups and we find there are certainly some of the stereotypes that persist. there are a number of policies that when explained matter. if you have a happy optimistic message that connects with people, remember the famous washington post poll after the 2012 election? mitt romney beat barack obama and who has a vision, he lost 81-18 on which one cares about people like you. even a majority of republicans agreed. there is no question you have to here s the question. why are women more susceptible to buying the caricature. are men buying the caricature of what the party is? sometimes. does it work both ways? sometimes that s true, chris. the genderer gap works both ways. president obama, president clinton, it is difficult for democratic candidates to win men much the way it is difficult for republican candidates to win women. in the case of clinton, she may be the democrats mitt romney in 2016. what evidence is it that she connects with all women? i don t know how good a candidate she ll be. it s one answer we have to wait for. how good a candidate will hillary clinton be? she has the name i.d., credentials f. she s great she walks away. if she s okay, it s close. it s a terrible summer of unforced errors for her in the book tour. terrible. okay. that was a late hit. to this one. 15 yards. 49-39 among women. my question is do you know why it s important? here s the answer before kellyanne gets back. there are more women than men so the gender gap on the women s side is lethal. not only that there are more women than men but women go out and vote. women go to the poll and vote on the issues that matter. what i like and find interesting. i know what people think about karl rove. i m a fan. we have talked about it before. i think he s a brilliant strategist. i watched him work. i personally witnessed him go out with george bush and work hard for the african-american vote. regardless of people say the increase bush got was negligible a 3% increase in the african-american vote is a big deal. i like the poll did you vote for bush? i think he got he once, not twice. first or second? when everyone was worried about the vote for the first or second time. i don t remember. would you vote for him again? when i was worried about terrorism, i saw the massacre in russia. i saw those children could have been mine. george bush was my man. the hanl out of the poll is that the republican party keep s doing autopsies on lots of things. how do we get white women to vote for us. how does the republican party get anyone that s not a white man to vote for them. in 2014 we have a poll that shows among women voters, republicans favored to run the congress, 37% want the congress in republican hands and 51% of women, a real majority want the democrats. explain that. is that caricature. not at all. they are probably going to vote for their incumbents. particularly in the house if they are republicans chances are that individual s connection with that woman and his or her performance on the job will trump party i.d. on the senate side it s fascinating. 2014 is incredible. you have female republics ded republicans . i bet you that mary landrieu, kay hagan and michelle nunn, three female democrats in the south are not going to run on the war on women, anti-woman republican meme. how can they do that? georgia, louisiana and north carolina. they re not talking not that it s the only issue. they don t talk about abortion rights down south. right? right. let me ask you this profound thing. you are fighting a number. 51-37. that s a huge change. it seems women i look at people like joanie ernst. i bet she ll do better among men. that s odd. people vote ideology not gender. correct. you have an african-american senator from south carolina who s a republican. yes. people you have our friend michael steele running in maryland. in our state, yes. he got blown away by the african-americans. they killed him because he s a republican. one of the things we have to look at and kellyanne is my favorite pollster, we have used her. we have to look at the browning of the country. if you look at how voters, the democrats of the republican woman who votes republican. most are married. most are white. most live in upper middle class families. the country is browning. you are seeing fewer white women just like you are anywhere else. and not getting married. they are not getting married. economic issues, the democratic party looks friendlier. i agree. people that go to church a lot, married tend to be republican. those who aren t married, don t go to church a lot tend to be democratic. kellyanne, please come back. we have so much to talk about. great conversation. i almost got a word in there. up next, a word to the wise for rick perry. if you have been indicted on criminal charges you should probably know what the charges arement another oops from the man from texas. this is hardball, the place for politics. one day, machines will be sprayed to be made. and making something stronger. will mean making it lighter. one day, factories will work with the cloud. one day. is today. tigers, both of you. tigers? 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[ applause ] more news after this. next up, speculation this week that the u.s. led fight against isis in iraq could expand into syria led many to point out a move could put us on the same side as bashar al assad blurring the lines of which side we are on. here is jon stewart reacting to that. could you see as crazy as it might sound some sort of covert cooperation between the u.s. and the syrian regime of al assad in damascus? you know, it is [ bleep ] like this that makes you almost regret us destabilizing the region in the first place. i get it now. now we find ourselves trapped between iraq and assad place. are [ cheers and applause ] finally, if there is one thing we learned about former presidential candidate rick perry during the 2012 campaign it was that he doesn t have the best memory. who can forget the oops heard around the world. the third agency of government, i would do away with education, the um commerce. commerce. and let s see. oh, my. i can t. the third one i can t. i m sorry. oops. that was a small oops. anyway, it seems the recently indicted governor of texas has forgotten which criminal charges have been filed against him. according to abc news he told a group of business leaders in new hampshire over the weekend that, quote, i have been indict bid the same body now for, i think, two counts. one on bribery, which i m not a lawyer so i don t really understand the details here. well, in fact, the charges do not include bribery at all. perry has been indicted for, quote, abuse of official capacity and coercion. you ought to know what you are being charged with. if you are talking about taking down the president make sure nobody is recording you. senator mcconnell caught on tape. that s next. you re watching hardball, the place for politics. thank you daddy for defending our country. thank you for your sacrifice and thank you for your bravery. thank you colonel. thank you daddy. military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa auto insurance can be one of them. if you re a current or former military member or their family, get an auto insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life. let that phrase sit with you for a second. unlimited. as in, no limits on your hard-earned cash back. as in no more dealing with those rotating categories. the quicksilver card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you purchase, every day. don t settle for anything less. i ll keep asking. what s in your wallet? and cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment is right. cialis is also the only daily ed tablet approved to treat symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any allergic reactions like rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. hi. i m frances rivera. president obama says russian s ongoing incursion into ukraine will bring more costs and consequences for moscow. russia has stepped up military intervention inside ukraine. u.s. air forces targeted a tank, a humvee and other vehicles near the mosul dam. police say there is a strong possibility the body found is that of a 23-year-old american student from new jersey. he disappeared friday while hiking with a friend. comedian joan rivers is in a hospital after suffering complications of throat surgery. according to e news she s in stable but critical condition. thrill-seeking surfers have been hitting the waves but tropical storm marie has caused flooding and damage on the california coast. life guards rescued dozens from the water. then we take you back to hardball. welcome back to hardball. kentucky republican mitch mcconnell was are recently recorded bragging at a koch brothers retreat in california about what he ll do to destroy president obama s legislative accomplishment if he become it is the senate majority leader. mcconnell is currently in the political fight of his life in kentucky. he promises to use the budget process to defund things like the affordable care act itself. nbc news is not independently verified the voice on the audio but the recording was taken from the left-leaning youtube source called the undercurrent. let s listen. we re going to go after them on health care, on financial services, on the virlt tall protection agency across the board. all across the federal government, we re going to go after it and we are not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. that s all we do in the senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage cost the country 500,000 new jobs. extending unemployment. that s the great message for retirees. the student loan package the other day. that s just going to make things worse. these people believe in all the wrong things. when the audio is that bad you know it s worth listening to. somebody snuck in the recorder. politicians get into trouble when they think they are addressing a small group of similar-minded people. remember mitt romney and the 47%? here it is again. same problem. 47% of the people who vote for the president, agree with him. 47% are dpen dend upon government who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, food, housing, you name it. it s entitlement. that the government should give it to them. they will vote for this president no matter what. the negative messages the candidates are sending behind closed doors that get caught never play well when they are made public. jonathan ways man is is with the new york times and perry bacon is a political news reporter. the rule was don t say anything in politics unless you are ready to see it on the front page of the newspaper. right. that s a caution a lot of them can t abide by when they get in front of fat cats they are trying to kiss. exactly. it usually requires an exclusive cute deal that i will do something for you that will offend other people. let me whisper it when nobody is listening. your thoughts. this is a bipartisan problem. these are the donors backing you up. backing up the party. you feel you need to give them something. the mcconnell campaign said this is something he says all the time. this is not his stump speech. this is what he was telling a group of donors that s not just bank rolling mitch mcconnell but all the candidates that would make him the senate majority leader next year. this was the koch brothers? right. not just americans for prosperity. this was a koch brothers conclave for the whole afp, just universe of koch brothers people that wanted their money s worth. the audio always sucks because it means somebody snuck a cell phone in or a bartender. let s look at the bartender. we showed that one already. this is one from catching the democrats. this is the president of the united states in 2008 talking to a bunch of liberals in san francisco telling them we don t have to worry about lower level people who need guns and bibles. people have been beaten down so long that they feel so betrayed by government. let s pardon them that they get bitter and cling to guns, religion or antipathy toward people who aren t like them. as a way to explain their frustrations. the president lost the pennsylvania primary by nine points. in 1984 colorado senator gary hart was in a tight nomination fight with former vice president walter mondale over california and new jersey when he stepped into it, too, in front of a private audience in california. he described what it was like campaigning apart from his wife. the deal is we campaign separately. the good news is she campaigns in california and i campaign in new jersey. i got to hold a koala bear. mrs. hart said i won t tell you what i got to hold samples from a toxic waste dump. hart lost new jersey by over 15 points. they don t like to be called the solid waste types. it must have worked with the community in california. you never want to say something you would not say in public. obama would never talk about religious people like that in public. romney would never say that. i think mcconnell got away here because he said he ll block things obama is doing. that s not news. it was a total destruction. he said something similar to politico, laying out the idea for attaching anti-obama stuff to spending bills. he talked about it already in some ways. i wasn t shocked. let me go back. do you know what i think the news is? when talking to the koch brothers they are not interested in a mix of progressive here, but mostly conservative here. they want an end to government because they are in the oil and gas business. all they want is no more taxes and certainly no more environmental regulation. they want no more government. that s what the koch brothers want. i think go ahead. i think what s most significa significant, believe me is the optics of it. what you will do is see these audiotapes super imposed over a picture of mitch mcconnell looking mean. you will see them in october in the run-up. it feels like he didn t say anything particularly outlandish. it s not going to look good on an advertisement. how would you find a picture of mitch mcconnell looking mean? i have no idea. you re playing down your own scoop. good work here. perry, thank you. a programming note. allison lundergan grimes will talk to lawrence o donnell tonight on the last word. her first national interview. don t miss it tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern. we ll be right back. age? 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[ male announcer ] it s one of the most amazing things we build and it doesn t even fly. we build it in classrooms and exhibit halls, mentoring tomorrow s innovators. we build it raising roofs, preserving habitats and serving america s veterans. every day, thousands of boeing volunteers help make their communities the best they can be. building something better for all of us. we re back with a gun range story. it confirmed the death was caused by a single shot to the head. the instructor at the bullets and burgers gun range was shot when the girl lost control of an uzi. it ignited new debate over gun safety. the fact that the recall is too strong for a child of that age seems a matter of common sense. it was reminiscent of a 2008 incident in which an 8-year-old boy in massachusetts fired the very same weapon with disastrous results. the gun tilted up, killing him in the process. unfortunately these tragedies are part of a bigger problem in the country which has seen an erosion of gun restrictions over the past 30 years. unsurprisingly the national rifle association has been con speck lousily silent since that event. for years the nra raised money on the notion that any restrictions on guns will lead to their confiscation which they call a slip vi slope. but there is a slippery slope on the other side toward complete unrestricted access to firearms. guns are ubiquitous thanks to advocacy of the nra. joining me is jim cavanaugh, retired atf special agent in charge and chief johnson of the national law enforcement partnership to prevent gun violence and police chief of baltimore county, maryland. thank you. i want to speak to mr. cavanaugh first. what is it about the nra s current position that seems to the allow them or force them to say nothing this these days since the tragedy where the young 9-year-old girl was shooting an automatic weapon. chris, i would say that lobby groups like the nra don t feel they have to say anything. today tuck in, get advice from the public affairs specialist to just stay out of the fray. you know they are very adept at maneuvering the trenches on the hill up there as you are know. they will probably stay out of the fray. if they say anything they something. i think they ll let it play out for the operators and ranges around the country. you know, there s associations for them. and they re going to be more the outfront speakers on the issue. does silence mean consent? well it often does in law. well, i think it does as far as they don t want to go any way against guns at all, no matter what. and that s what you described in your opening there. it s sort of a fanaticism and doesn t go to any moderation in anything. you know, it has to be one way or the highway and that s the way the lobby groups see it. they see it as just an idealism fanaticism with no compromise at all. what do you make of the no comment, mr. johnson, not even the words, no comment, nothing, just nothing. i mean, this involves guns. you know, uzi, a pretty dangerous weapon, is an automatic weapon. it s light. it s a submachine gun basically. and everybody with it can do a lot of damage. we saw what happened here. a lot of damage, unintended. totally unintended. it was the gun that killed people here. not just the person. certainly it s irresponsible on the part of organizations like nra not to speak out. it s, frankly, irresponsible to put an uzi of that capability in the hands of a 9-year-old. for groups like the nra who have been founded upon, you know, gun safety and range and the sport, itself, you know, putting a ruger .22 in the hands, for example, of someone to train them is totally different than putting a gun of that capability in a 9-year-old s hands. totally irresponsible. let me ask you, mr. cavanaugh, what would be a restriction that would make sense here? i know everything they see sounds like confiscation to them, the slippery slope. here we are at the other end has become a slippery slope. anything goes. from what you said, it sounds like they don t want to hear that you can have an age requirement, say 18, something reasonable about being able to handle an automatic weapon. that would be pretty liberal. they don t even want to see that at these gun ranges. right. i don t think you re going to see any lobby groups get in the press for any change here. they re going to stay out of the fray. it would generally be up to the sta states, chris, if there were any laws that talked about ages a gun ranges, and likely states that would pass the law don t need the law. and the states that need the law won t pass the law. and it s unlikely that we re going to have any change on the hill, and probably federal law wouldn t be the right place to address ages on guns anyway. so i d say we re not going to have any legislative change, although it would probably be good if little children were, couldn t do that, but the children need protection immediately. that s where common sense comes in. that s where range operators have to say we re not going to do this anymore. we ve had two deaths, they shouldn t be shooting these kinds of guns. they re submachine guns for the military, for the police, for trained people that collect them, certainly we understand that. in the citizens hands that have a permit for it. but not for children. it s not disneyland. you don t need to go out there shooting those kinds of weapons. chief johnson, seems to me even a fire hose had a kick to it. you need a couple serious firefighters to know how to handle one. an automatic weapon like this, what kind of kick does it have? what kind of sense would anybody have i don t want to speak over the dead. this guy s dead. the idea of putting something like that in the hands of a skinny little girl. a 9-year-old girl. doesn t make any sense at all to anybody, right wing, left wing, down the middle. i don t get it. well, certainly common sense should have been applied here, and the muscular development of a child of that age certainly is not to the point to handle that weapon. look, as a nation, we implement all sorts of different rules, policies, and laws in some cases to safeguard children and others. have to be a certain height to ride an amusement ride park. require bike helmets. but yet we won t tackle an issue like this. certainly here i think common sense should have prevailed. you know, we pass common sense laws in this nation. we re seeking common sense gun laws like a national background check. but in this case, you know, i don t care what type of rule, policies you may have put in place, or the way the range instructor hovered over the child. there s very little you can do with, you have a kid with that kind of weapon in their hands. that thing s going everywhere. here s a crazy law in vermont, which i thought was a pretty liberal state. apparently you can get a gun at 16, you can buy a handgun or a shotgun at 16 but have to be 17 to see an r rated movie. interesting how we make these judgments. thank you, jim cavanaugh, thank you jim johnson for joining us. another tragedy. and we ll be right back after this. e freedom of the open road? 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someone in the room is going to have a cell phone or some other piece of electronics and get you on the record and send it out even if, especially if, that s the last thing you want done. how do we know that barack obama talked to the liberals of san francisco about the people who, quote, cling to their guns or religion? because someone had a cell phone and put it out. and we know what he said. how do we know that mitt romney was talking down to the 47% he said lived off the rest of the country? because a bartender record it. don t you love this stuff, when a politician gets caught pandering to one group while putting down the other to have the other group learn what he was saying behind closed doors. it shouldn t surprise us, none of this. why do you think the press out of political fund-raisers? they don t want us or the public to hear what it is they re throwing out when they re throwing out the raw meat.
as a nation, we are united and when people harm americans, we don t retreat, we don t forget. we take care of those who are grieving and when that is finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside! hell is where they will reside! all right. mika, boy, what joe biden said yesterday, very strong. i m sure a lot of people, a lot of republicans on capitol hill have been calling for stronger words. it might take some of that. what do you think? i think he is tapping into a growing sentiment in a country that might be war weary but certainly is not impervious what we have seen the last two weeks. sounds likes the guns of war across america. you heard the vice president saying america would follow isis to the gates of he he ll to get justice. the secretary of state says they don t want to contain is circumstances, they want to destroy isis. you know what is happening here, they are hearing from constituents who are concerned and you also know, because they are politicians, internal polling, obviously, showing americans want action now. kay hagan she joined john graham and lindsey graham late night in a debate. al franken sent a terse letter to the white house calling for military action and they were not alone. but you know what? there were more developments, i think, mika, yesterday that weren t driven by political poles. the indianapolunited arab emira out. they are going to support america in any military action taken against isis. also the iraqi parliament. you know what would have happened if we shot first and then asked questions later. now they are begging us to take action. while it s one thing to have kay hagan calling for a stronger use of force, americans asking questions first and shooting missiles later may actually lead to our country not having to go it alone again. yes. as we protect other country survival. i got a question this morning and i hope it s a question my republican friends will ask and i hope it s a question john mccain and lindsey graham both will ask. i hope it s a question that everybody who is calling for immediate action will ask for. it s one thing for kay hagan to say we need to move now and i m angry at the president of the united states. how about this question? where is egypt? where is saudi arabia? where is jordan and where are the countries whose very existence american fire power against isis is dependent? that s what i want republicans asking. that s what i want these new democratic war hawks asking. if the united states is going to go after isis and destroy them, and we are, let s not go it alone again, and let s not, once again, spend american blood and american treasure protecting other tyrant s power. let s go right now to chris jansing who is traveling with with the president in wales. chris, the administration not ambiguous yesterday. it was seek, search, and send to the gates of hell. tell us what is going on there. yeah, you re going to pay that was the message, right? and what a difference a couple of years makes from the last nato summit. this is high stakes. i just was listening to the secretary of state general of nate tow saying we are not a cold war relic, we are involved. i saw the president going into a multilateral meeting with leaders. ukraine is not a member of nato but another high on the list of what to do here which is what to do about vladimir putin. but look. there s a lot that hasn t been done with nato. they have been sort of deescalating for a while. a couple of years ago the talk was how do we get out of afghanistan and spending less money. there are 28-member countries and four of them contribute what they are supposed to contribute which is 2% of the gdp so they are pushing for that and pushing for a rapid response force, about 4,000 troops they would have that would respond to a crisis within 48 hours. but i think to your point, joe, it s important to say that isis and what to do about the rise of extremism wasn t even officially on the agenda. we now know there are going to be a number of sides, there was a little bit of time already morning for president obama and david cameron to meet. the folks who were close enough said there was a lot of whispering going on. we don t know what was said. but there is a rising sense of insecurity here as there is around the world and particularly when it relates to isis. you see the foreign fighters and the possibility of them coming back to the homeland whether here in the uk or europe or in the united states. has put this on the agenda in a way it wasn t before, joe and mika. thank you so much, chris. greatly appreciate it. this is getting to widespread that you have turkey and qatar have not been the most helpful in this fight. turkey had what is called the jihadist highway, you know, any foreign fighters that wanted to join isis, you know, directly through turkey. they are now even joining in and trying to shut down the jihadist highway. yes. it s like a bell was rung last over the last day or two and the world is suddenly, pow. it s megahow the rhetoric has coalesced around this. how long will that last? they are talking tough right now. when president obama initially started talking tough and isis is a cancer and all of these things, my initial question is he just trying to look as if he is doing more than he really is? now it feels as if there is more of a momentum but the question this is going to be a very long that will involve building a coalition and holding the coalition for years. what are you going to do? there is more news on this. new details with steven sotlof sotlof, the second journalist to be beheaded. israeli reports say he faked being sick so he could fast on yom kippur. a debate on islam and gave a tribute to sotloff. steve had a gentle soul that this world will be without, but his spirit will endure in our hearts. today, we grieve. this week, we mourn. but we will emerge from this ordeal. our village is strong. we will not allow our enemies to hold us hostage with the sole weapons they possess, fear. the mother of james foley is speaking out, offering condolences to steven sotloff s family. diane foley says she hopes their murders can somehow lead to positive changes in the world. we just want to extend our deepest sympathy and hugs to the sotloff family, all of his dear friends and colleagues. steven was another talented, courageous young american out there trying to share all of their suffering of the people in the middle east with us. i would hope that their deaths might not be in vain, that they might awaken the world that we must act as a unified world for peace and for goodness and just work together. it was so wonderful having an opportunity to talk a beautiful family. to her and mr. foley. a wonderful and extraordinary family. wonderful gesture to come out of her mourning, which has to be so extraordinarily intense to try to do that. they are in a unlikely and terrible position and she is doing her best. she really is. harold ford, let s turn to what happened last night. kay hagan was in the debate. al franken in minnesota, if he is responding to constituents calls for military action, this is why it s spread. we had two republican, one pollster and one consultant, steve schmidt, who spends a good bit of his time, talking about like me what the republican party is not getting right and why they are going to lose elections. he said yesterday it s a wave election for republicans and internal polls have to be showing a big, big break. what does the president have to do? he s god to keep his head here and not just shoot missiles into the desert. what does he do? do you support this path of slow and steady and waiting for arab countries to ask america to get involved, or does he have to act faster? i think any president, including this one, has to act to protect the interests of the country, and i give the president some credit in being sober and smart and trying to be reasonable about this. i mean, you think about the doctrine where you identify the threat and the forces behind it to achieve your goal and you re able to exit. i think the president is trying to think about it in those ways. colin powell, by the way, let s forget about the slip on friday where he said we didn t have a strategy. if colin powell were president of the united states or secretary of defense or what we wouldn t be rushing into war, because you re exactly right. powell identifies a threat but before he sends the first troop in, he says we need to know what the exit date is. he got pushed in 2003. and never get pushed gep. i think president obama is trying to do that. his language has been awkward and at times maybe dangerous. you look at al franken and kay hag hagan, they probably represent different spectrums of the party. i think for them to be the way they are i think it s the president talking about what it is. i don t think the polling shows yet that these issues rank foremost on people s mind in all of these battleground states. i imagine if i al franken and kay hagan up for re-election you want to be in front of this as you possible could. the other major foreign conflict is russia and we will focus on that in our must reads. new developments there. in a few hours, the justice department will announce a sweeping civil rights investigation into the city s police department. they will look at the conduct of the ferguson p.d. over several years. in the last five years the justice department has opened 20 investigations of police departments across the country. true to her message. senator elizabeth warren is openly criticizing former house majority leader eric cantor s decision to take a multimillion dollar job on wall street. cantor will be the vice chairman and managing director of an investment bank, earning more than $3 million over two years. in an interview with yahoo! s katie couric, warren says it sends a bad message. you know, how wrong can this be? that basically what is happening here is that people work in washington and, man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you and head straight out into the industry, not because they bring great expertise and insight, but because they are selling excess back to their former colleagues who are still writing policy, who are still making laws. makes sense, right? the democratic senator was a little less blunt, however, when she was asked about hillary clinton s relationship with the financial industry. i m curious if you think that hillary clinton is too cozy with wall street? i know you ve disagreed with her in the past on issues like bankruptcy, legislation. you know, i worry a lot about the relationship between all of our regulators, government, and wall street. what about hillary clinton in particular? i worry across the board and here is part of why. we have got a washington now that works for anyone who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers, and it doesn t work for regular families. families don t have armies of lobbyists, they don t have armies of lawyers. and that is why i think it s so critical now that we speak up on these core issues. so very interesting, joe. i want your take. when it s a republican, it s bad, it sends a bad message. when it s a democrats, she is worried. worried. she s in a bad position. listen, if you re going to be a straight shooter. she should say it s not good. if you re going to be a straight shooter, you got to be a straight shooter. what is wrong with her saying, you know what? it s not good. her relationship raiseses a lot of questions. she gets paid a lot of money by a lot of these banks and then tells them that what they did is okay. with the hillary team, like, close in on her? she went down to goldman sachs and told them everything you did was fine, which was great. i d do that because i ve been trying to a job and begging for a job there for years now. who did? hillary. elizabeth didn t. she didn t. yes, she did. she went down and basically waived the wand of absolution toward them. you have to be a straight shooter for republicans and democrats alike. i think joe is right. if you re that critical. i agree. mrs. clinton represented new york state which is the home to the headquarters for the financial service industry. okay. i understand. her and chuck schumer the fact they stand up people in new york lost a lot of money in their pensions in the bust of 2008 and elizabeth warren supposed to be worried about them, should be worried about them. we have more politics to get to. scott brown in new hampshire and major news out of kansas and get to that in a bit. three-hour show. major news out of kansas? yes. what happened? what is the matter with kansas tell me! it s a tease. my father is not in kansas. he is here to talk to us. doctors zbigniew brzezinski will join us and tony blinken and andrea mitch and ayman mohyeldin. how do get your kids in a ivy league college of your choice? i can get them into alabama. actually, 20 years ago i could but not now. the latest on the condition of comedienne joan rivers. a brush with death off the coast. we will be right back. don t just dream of being the hero. make it happen. i can t believe we re missing the game for this. we re not i ve got xlte. it doubles our 4g lte bandwidth in cities nationwide, so be that guy with verizon xlte. now get 1gb of bonus data, and our best pricing ever on the more everything plan. thomas? look who is here. he is ready for the open today. are you going to the open? i am. i think so. if i can stay awake. i ve never been you wanted there. i ve lived in new york city now for 73 years, and i ve never been out to the u.s. open. i thought it was 72? no, 73. i was there when the guys were wearing skirts and, you know? really? i don t want to see that. you ll have fun. do you play tennis? i do. i m quite aggressive. that doesn t surprise me. and i hear your father cheats. he would never say he cheats. was it in? out. i think that was in. right on the line. mine. that s not surprising at all. let s take a look at the morning papers from our parade of papers. the boston globe two kayakers lucky to be alive after surviving a great white shark attack in plymouth, massachusetts. paddles and i looked over to talk to her and it came completely out of the water and got the bottom of the boat and flipped her over and knocked my my kayak completely over. i saw at least four feet of its head. four feet of it came up out of the water. it bit through the boat. bite marks through the bottom of the kayak. my gosh. both of them so traumatized by the shark attack they had to hold the beachside press conference for four and a half hours. what else do we have? stop! they were scared! i know. if i survived a shark attack i probably am not going in front of a bank of cameras but i d go home. the attack came after hours officials say they heard of a shark sighting in the same area and it was near ducksbury, massachusetts. the shark was between 12 and 14 feet long. that s big. this is exciting coming to us from the dallas morning news. tesla motors. you got your driver s license! no, i passed my precertification. i m there with every 15-year-old in america. are you kidding me? you don t have your driver s license and just got your precertification? i went to driver s ed in new york city and we watched dvds from 1994. they said if you had road rage, you put it in an audio tape. what do you do? did you right around on a bicycle in baltimore when you were 18? no. i got my license when i was a kid. then when i moved to california, i let my license conspirexpire. when you call california saying i want a new license, they can t send it to you. can you send it to new york? they said no. now you have to prequalify to take a test? yeah, i need my mom to come here and bring me a car. mommy, can you come take me? and a tesla as well? this car is great for people who can drive cars? and afford one. tesla making this big announcement, a plan to build a battery factory in nevada. i say nevada, you say nevada. it s a gigafactory and produce the batteries expected to make the batteries for the tesla car. if you ve seen these cars on the road, they are good looking cars and they are really cool. 4 to 5 billion is about as much mike bloomberg makes on a long weekend. no. that is about in one hour. get his numbers right. he gets upset. former mayor michael bloomering will return to the lead the company he founded. throughout his tenure as mayor, bloomberg maintained 88% ownership of the organization. detroit free press. protests over fast food workers are supposed to be across the country. they are will be targeted by demonstrators from the fight for 15 campaign. they want a pay increase up to $15 an hour. if you see them, walk with them. or just go in and buy a big mac. guys, seriously, this is ridiculous. i m serious. i haven t had a big mac in a long time. joan rivers is resting comfortably in a private room in mt. sinai hospital in new york. she breathing during a throat procedure. thoughts are with her for sure. certainly. the guinness world record sold in seattle. this hot dog features a bratwurst topped with beef and shaved black truffles and cav r caviar. the creators sold six dogs during his first day on the menu and all proceeds went to charity and customers looking for a bite of the dog must give two weeks advance notice. i think that s a foot long. i think i m sick. yeah. i ve got a plan. why don t we do this. you can have a big mac. no. i m just ignoring him. and you can support what the marches are doing outside so we will compromise on that. thank you. you should support the marchers. but then go in and have a big mac. the more big macs you buy the better the mcdonald s can afford to pay them more. did you hear our friend nicolle wallace is going to the view. i m so excited for her for so many reasons! she deserved it and she is going to be great and she is going to add so much to the show! it is such great news. way to go abc. how smart? off the mid terms of 2016. she is going to be fantastic! we will have her on and talk all about it. she is coming on friday. i m responsible for the shoes she wore at the audition. can you get me some shoes? coming up, the cost of taking on isis. is the obama foreign policy stretching the u.s. too thin? the new york times david sanger joins us with his behind the scenes reporting on that. first, today s must read opinion pages, including one from president obama and prime minister david cameron. we will be right back with much more morning joe. when folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that s not a coincidence. it s one more part of our commitment to america. [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. my mom works at ge. oh, he fakes a handoff quaand he s making a run... for mattress discounters fall kickoff sale! right now, save up to $300 on sealy posturepedic and serta mattress sets. even get 24 months interest-free financing on every tempur-pedic. you re going to love their football field-size selection. this calls for a little touchdown dance. don t miss the fall kickoff sale at mattress discounters. mattress discounters mike barnicle joins the table for the must read opinion pages. vladimir putin has laid out a proposal to end the conflict in eastern ukraine. that s so nice of him. it s perfect. it s great. the timing is so interesting. the new york times reports the seven-point plan to deescalate months of bloody stalemate was apparently written out during a flight over siberia. he had on to dropped two reporters who had written something bad about him from 30,000 feet from the plane and went back to do the draft. he is multitasker. he can kick somebody out of the pl plane and kill them at the same time. as they consider a rapid response unit for eastern europe and another round of economic sanctions. meanwhile, another sign of weakening russian influence in europe. france has decided not to send 1.7 billion dollar amphibious warship manufactured for russia after coming under pressure from the united states. they say the behavior has under mined the security of the continent. our first must read is about putin s little document that he wrote up on his plane. putinesque cease-fire wall street journal. it s no accident mr. putin has floated this cease-fire plan before the nato summit in wales and before the eu discusses broader sanctions on russia on friday. mr. putin hopes to forestall sanctions and divide the west a strategy that has worked before. ukraine will not mr. putin s last military destination. i mean, are they really going to fall for this at nato in terms of dealing with sanctions? are we going to say, oh, thank you so much, you ve written this lovely that is ridiculous. gideon, i don t know what the options are for a lot of the eu countries. require some action. i think the nato countries are actually probably red-lined for putin. this wall street journal editorial talks about how putin uses kazakhstan is not really a country. i think my take is that putin s mainly got what he wants now. he has eastern ukraine where the russian speaker majority is and where the country s industrial base is. and with that, he basically has ukraine destabilized and weakened and that is all that matters to him. if he thinks, mika, like a politician, even a brudish politician. if he goes into kiev there will be a lot more pain for the russian people. i think he is where he is. let s talk about an op-ed written by david cameron who has been very forceful towards isis and also the president. mike barnicle has that. they are writing the times of london today we will not be coward by barbaric killers whether regional aggression unchecked or prospect that foreign fighters have a threat in our country. our nations have always believed that we are more prosperous and secure when the world is more pros purse and secure. so we have a real stake in making sure they grow up in a world where schoolgirls are not kidnapped and women are not raped in conflict and families aren t slaughtered because of their faith and political beliefs. that is why we have des core al qaeda and supported the afghan people and why we will not waiver in our determination to confront isil. it is interesting, joe, over the past couple of months how what has happened in the middle east with isil has altered really the dynamics of the political and economic dynamics of two countries and more, great britain and the united states specifically. it really has. but i ll tell you something else it s done. i m looking on the international page of the new york times. they talk about hamas, look at this. walking around claiming victory in a completely destroyed area. wow. this has also changed the calculation for groups like hamas, and they were feeling the noose tightened around their neck because of egypt and other arab countries withdrawing sport. the silence was deafing during the latest battle in the middle east war. because of isis you actually have arab countries starting to strike out against radical islamists. this is bad news for isis and also bad news for hamas. i would agree. thank you, harold ford. they are saying one thing in my ear. i ll let your dad answers if he thinks we should announce they won t be accepted in nato. i m curious to hear his reaction. one time he listens to alex in his ear he blows through it. i did but then i told them i couldn t take it. here is the deal. we have him on the show. kind of a big deal. but they did send me a t-sitter saying i m a big deal. mike allen that has report. president obama vowed a commitment to protect eastern europe from russia but can the united states sustain their presence there and two other parts of the world? the new york times david sanger is our guest and he talks about the three-headed monster confronting president obama. that is coming up. we know we re not the center of your life, but we ll do our best to help you connect to what is. hello! three grams daily of beta-glucan. a soluable fiber from whole grain oat foods like cheerios can help lower cholesterol. thank you! take and. exhale.in. aflac! and a gentle wavelike motion. aahhh- ahhhhhh. liberate your spine, ahhh-ahhhhhh aflac! and reach, toes blossoming. not that great at yoga. yeah, but when i slipped a disk he paid my claim in just four days. ahh! four days? yep. find out how fast aflac can pay you, at aflac.com. we will defend our nato allies and that means every ally. in this alliance, there are no old members or new members and no junior partners or senior partners. they are just allies. i believe our alliance should extend these defensive measures for as long as necessary. because the defense of tallin and others are just as important as the defense of berlin and paris and london. here with us now from washington is national security correspondent for the new york times david sanger. he writes in his piece this morning with his speech in estonie estonia on wednesday about the as a result nes vulnerable nations will last for as long as necessary to deter russia. president obama has now committed the country to three significant projection of american power. as david reports, it seems to cost a great deal of money. it did. david sanger, thank you so much for being with us. when i sasat on the armed servi committee we obsessed on being able to fight a two-front war. did we have the power and manpoman d manpower to fight a two-man war. it s not only expensive but it would stretch our military beyond its current capabilities, wouldn t it? it s a big stretch, joe. and beyond that, it s a stretch that nobody anticipated. remember. the concept in the first term was that the president would use drones, cyber, special forces and use those to deter adventurous major powers and you wouldn t have to have a big sustained presence. just think about the list that we put together in the lead that mika just read. it requires a lot of naval resources and no one doubts its long term because the chinese aren t going away. the isil effort is going to have to be a sustained one, particularly if we are concerned about putting ground troops on. so you re going to need an air campaign that, you know, is going to run up to probably a quarter billion dollars a month at the current rate. then if you need a sustained effort against vladimir putin who probably isn t going to leave office 2024, if then, that is a long commitment as well. there has been a lot of prrp leaders criticizing the president s so-called pivot to asia and it looks like he won t make that pivot any time soon with isil rise in the middle east. in many ways the pivot is hard to see right now, at least on the military side, because it requires the deployment of a new class of ships and a movement of resources that is going to take a while. but when you talk to the pentagon to the people who are doing it, it s slowly under way. now, isil could get in the way and putin could get in the way and people say we can t keep 60% of our forces, which is the target, in asia starting in about 2020 and, of course, you ll have another president to make a decision on that closer to the date. but it s headed in that direction. frankly, joe, when you think about all of these threats, it s china s rise over time that is probably the one that will require the most sustained attention. i m just wondering, and when you look at isis and the cost at 225 million $2 billion a year basically when you look at those numbers, the pentagon usually underestimates these things, what choice do we have? number one. how do they put a number on this? there s so much we still don t know about how to take on isis. that s right. it s very hard to put a number on it and in some ways the number is the least of it, mika. while $2 billion, $2.5 billion a year if you stay at this level, isn t that much when you think in the last years of the full presence in afghanistan, we were going through $100 billion a year. so on that scale, it s not that big but, remember, those are numbers, assuming we don t go after isis in syria and, of course, we all know that if you re actually serious about taking isis to the gates of hell, to use joe biden s line the other day, you re going to have to go to syria. david sanger, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate it. thank you, david. the problem is the pentagon always underestimates how much a war is going to cost. right now $2 billion a year doesn t sound right. if you re going into syria, if you re going to take isis to, quote, the gates of hell, that is going an expensive trip. the beauty store bandit. how one woman s request for a free makeover went horribly wrong. oh, my god. that s a makeover? that is news you can t use. up next the 50 ideas changing politics in america and the people behind them. politico has a list and we will explain the reason hillary is not on it. how did that happen? we will be right back. man: i know the name of eight princesses. i m on expert on softball. and tea parties. i ll have more awkward conversations than i m equipped for, because i m raising two girls on my own. i ll worry about the economy more than a few times before they re grown. but it s for them, so i ve found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we re owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we ll help you get there. fill their bowl with the meaty tastes they re looking for, with friskies grillers. tender meaty pieces and crunchy bites. in delicious chicken, beef, turkey, and garden veggie flavors. friskies grillers. my motheit s delicious. toffee in the world. so now we ve turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i m janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. great. this is the last thing i need.) seriously? let s take this puppy over to midas and get you some of the good ol midas touch. hey you know what? i ll drive! i really didn t think this through. brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling) republican scott brown is running for senate in new hampshire as you know. this video from a town hall in hudson released by an opposition research group shows brown react to go a question about how he would create jobs as a u.s. senator. here is the thing. when folks say, you know, what are you going to do to create jobs, i m not going to create a job. my job is to make sure that the government stays out of your way so you actually grow and expand and obama is a great example. the number one job right now is obamacare. a poll last knot month showed senator jeanne shaheen leading brown. that is getting closer. who knows what it s like the past week. we are seeing democrats scurrying to the right and taking a hawkish position. i suspect new hampshire, like a lot of other states, are tightening up. it s a jump ball right now. given scott brown s propensity for malappropriateness, jeanne shaheen has lived in new hampshire all her life and knows new hampshire. why is it a tie right now if that is the case? i think president obama is a big weight for a democrat to carry in new hampshire. all right. a big weight. let s go to politico. with us is the chief white house correspondent for politico, mike allen. politico is unveiling an annual list of key thinkers and doers who are reshaping politics in 2014. congratulations, joe! yeah. i m sure number one. and hillary is not in it, mike. why? maybe she is 51. politico magazine decided this year, rather than doing a traditional list of washington s powerful or rising stars, to do thinkers, people who, at a time when washington is locked up with gridlock and dysfunction, actually, are out promoting ideas. so that is why you find rand paul and ted cruz on this list. they are out actually, you ve got rand paul as number one. oh, my lord. explain. yeah. well, we have seen on this show, he has been talking about issues like justice reform, changing prison sentences and making it easier for people who have been convicted of small drug offenses, to get work again. whereas, hillary clinton has not been talking about idea. she had a whole book without ideas in it. being very safe. mika, you say good lord, but even mika is saying, wow, this guy is really interesting. number two. ambassador to main street you call her, janet yellin. explain. so the fed chairman who at the time when the fed used to be remote is now can talk a language that people understand and also is bringing a more populace view in the past. you talk about capital, a rock star. thomas piketty in a book very few have read. there have been some stats on that and how far into the book people comment, but he s someone would captured the debate about inequality. as you know, joe and mika, in 2016, whether you re on the right or whether you re on the left, this issue of income inequality is something every candidate will have to say something creative and convincing about. and let me just say it has a very compelling table of contents. as far as i got. no, i got a couple of chapters in. it s a compelling argument, not realistic how he is going to take care of the income divide but still very compelling. number four, ted cruz. ted cruz is someone who, not only wants to have his own think tank, is building a staff almost like he has a political organization, a government organization, and a think tank. he is someone who we saw this weekend in dallas at the americans for prosperity conference. very ambitious and wants to run about right ideas. look at number six. i love that. pope francis, washington s favorite populace. elizabeth warren takes on a cozy relationship. plus the u.s. is gearing up for a prolonged war against isis. the drums of war seem to be taking off in d.c. we will live to the white house to speak to tony blanket. first, stephen colbert answers the question will washington run easier if fictional character were in charge? news you can t use is next. eenie. meenie. miney. go. more adventures await in the seven-passenger lexus gx. see your lexus dealer. so what we re looking for is a way to plus our accounting firm s mobile plan. and minus our expenses. perfect timing. we re offering our best-ever pricing on mobile plans for business. run the numbers on that. well, unlimited talk and text, and ten gigs of data for the five of you would be. one-seventy-five a month. good calculating kyle. good job kyle. you just made partner. our best-ever pricing on mobile share value plans for business. now with a $100 bill credit for every business line you add. (yawn) . toaster strudel! more fruit in the filling, ya? mmm! ya! warm, flaky, gooey, toaster strudel! now, with more fruit! 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. everybody take a very close look. okay. at this next picture. the face of crime. brandy allen was arrested for shoplifting of 144 bucks of eye makeup at the ulta beauty store. here is her mug shot from fayetteville police. an officer found her in the bathroom flushing the toilet several times and asked to see what was inside her purse she pulled out eye shadows and running her fingers over the makeup to make it app it was already used and smudging it on her eyes. you look above the right eye it s sort of a david bowie look. i like it. stephen colbert thinking president obama could learn something. his idol is frank underwood. look at cameron s suit during the speech. it says power, dignity, and strength and obama s suit says i m a groomsman in an august wedding but even david cameron pales in comparison from frank underwood from house of cards. if you have not stolen your ex-girlfriend s netflix password yesterday, he s a washington power player rising to prominence in lying, scheming, back stabbing, and murder but gets things done in washington. president francis underwood, i can t believe it. please, stephen, i detest formalities. just call me president frank underwood. it s a real honor to have you here, sir. i m a huge fan. how do you get so much done? well, it s like i say, stephen, a dog doesn t need to show its teeth as long as his growl deep enough, the food bowl is full, and he knows where all the bones are buried. wow. i have no [ bleep ] idea what that means. but he sounds good saying it. he does. it s the top of the hour now. we were talking last hour, ayman, about how you look at what the vice president is saying and following isis to the gates of hell and what kay hagan said last night in her debate. al franken in minnesota, of all people, he is writing letters to the white house demanding action on isis. it looks like certainly, the president of the united states, the secretary of defense, they are not going to contain isis, they say they are going to destroy isis. i was asking the question, though. kay hagan is fine but i d like to hear from egypt. al franken is great but i think the saudis have more of a stake in this than we do. so uae came out yesterday very forceful against isis and said they are going to be on board and the iraqi parliament, it s pretty interesting too. are we going to see egypt, saudi arabia, and other countries whose very existence would be threatened by the rise of isis? i think you ll definitely see it on certainly levels. certainly intelligence, perhaps trying to cut some of the finances flowing to them and curb the ideology. will they join bush 41 coalition? if the u.s. can put it together. the bottom line they are american militaries pretty much but they don t have the ability for operational ability. what would the impact be in egypt if the generals came out tomorrow like the uae and said we are behind the united states of america, destroy isis? i don t know if they would use those exact words we are behind the united states of america but if they say we are standing with the united states of america. look at me, being an american. shoulder-to-shoulder strong against isis. the international community to destroy isis, i think it would have an important effect. they are dealing with elements of extremism in their own country. they are struggling with very similar ideology they consider to be just as extreme so they have an interest and stake in fighting isis. i m going to show you a picture from a place you recognize all too well. it s gaza. you have hamas claiming victory, despite the fact that so much was destroyed and they got pounded militarily. i said earlier, even hamas is hurt by the spread of isis. the middle east is changing and you have arab countries that are now striking out against what they consider to be radical elements. and this is one issue which as much as prime minister netanyahu say they are the same but that is definitely not bought in the arab world and nobody will accept that. i think a lot of people in the west would reject that as well. at the same time, as you mentioned there is this kind of perception that the rise of groups, any kind of group, particularly in societies where they may not know the difference between hamas and isis, their image and their reputation is going to be tarnished. people i think are generally fed up with what is going on in the middle east. this constant state of instability and just the violence and i think there s a lot of frustration generally, even inside the arab world. you got to keep that in mind. this is something that is new, mika. it s rising. we got the uae and egypt going after extremists in libya. that was crossing a threshold that hadn t been crossed yet. i think the arab world is changing dramatically. you have the president and vice president and secretary of defense showing some unity here and their sharp tone against isis. here is chuck hagel yesterday echoing the president. here is joe biden. as a nation, we are united and when people harm americans, we don t retreat, we don t forget. we take care of those who are grieving and when that is finished, they should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside! hell is where they will reside! the president sounding a tad bit more measured but biden is biden and tapping into the fears that certainly what we have seen the past two weeks have been arising americans. chuck hagel says the u.s. knows of more than a hundred americans fighting with isis overseas. in an exclusive interview with nbc news one u.s. citizen named don morgan revealed the details of his attempt to become a member of isis. someone has to defend islam and someone has to defend innocent people. i purchased the ticket with the intent of entering syria, either joining up with medical and food aide convoys or directly with the islamic state. a push came from being mistreated by people around me who didn t share the views i had. reporter: he decided to join last june and began to make his way from beirut to syria, but he was stopped on the way by authorities in turkey and sent back. morgan is currently in federal prison because he allegedly tried to sell a gun online, despite having a prior unrelated felony. somebody has to defend islam. i don t think it s him. i don t think it s him either. that is a pretty shallow bench, harold ford, if he is a guy going to defend islam. that is how they get to people. operationally, as we talk about destroying and degrading and tough language coming from the administration, what actually can be done? it seems that this threat is pretty disperse. how would an operational set of attacks what would it look like? why that sound bite is so important because it gets to what i think is actually the bigger problem which is this ideology and the sentiment people think they need to come and defend islam and bring all kinds of narratives to this ideology that we have been struggling with for the past decade and even lrng. what the u.s. can do militarily is stop people like this from traveling with the help of turkey. once they congregate in the battlefield, carry out strikes on those positions, try to target facilities they are using to store am nirks and try to go after key decision-makers within the organization. at the end of the day, you re going to still have people like that who want to go and fight because of an ideology and if they don t do something to stop that and make people feel they belong elsewhere and the psychological reasons why this guy wants to go, you re going to have these problems for a while. from the white house is tony blinken. thank you for being with us. a lot going on and happening very quickly. yesterday, certainly, the president of the united states, the secretary of defense, the vice president of the united states all talking about destroying isis and following them to the gates of hell. what is the first step? if one is going to actually travel across the river sticks and go to the gates of hell, what is the next step? is it getting allies to cross that river with us? joe i was listening to you earlier and yesterday and i think you ve got it exactly right. the president is being very deliberate about this. first, we got to look before we leap. we tried the opposite about a decade ago and that didn t help us very much in the middle east so we are being very deliberate about putting together a coalition of countries to deal with the isis problem. that coalition is critical. could i ask you, tony, i brought up a couple of countries that have a lot at stake here. so glad uae came out yesterday forcefully and good to see what the iraqi parliament did. what about egypt and what about saudi arabia? can we expect them to make the sort of statements that the uae made yet? the short answer is, i think, yes. what we are seeing is countries that don t often have a lot in common and sometimes couldn t cooperate are us starting to stand up because they see the isil threat is first and foremost the wolf at their door. we had a strong statement from the uae yesterday. i ve been talking to the saudis they are on. they are starting to put the coalition together and we have to be very deliberate about it. a lot of work to be done and it s going to take time and i think we will do it. when you say that certain countries are beginning to stand up and they are on board. what is on board mean? and which countries are you hopeful or even convinced that you will have collective unity on this? a number of things we have to do to achieve the goal the president said which is in the first instance disrupting isil and ultimately defeating it. first deal with the war fighting capacity. it tends to mask troops. we have got to take a whack at that. we started to do that in iraq. second, we have to get a support network. the terrorists financing. the propaganda. the recruits. all of that. the foreign fighters. third, we have to deal with some of its local support and move them back to the other side. alienate sunnis in iraq and, finally, enable local actors who can take and hold the territory with we may help them get with our air power and bringing all of that together and bringing countries together to do that is exactly what we are working on now. that is the comprehensive plan the president is enhancing. did you get a sense of supporting the syrian and giving them to the poopopposition you spoke of? when congress gets back, next week, we will talk to them about that. a train and quick program involve countries in the region hosting the trainers to make sure that we can strengthen the opposition so that it can both deal with isil and deal with the assad regime. tony, thank you. thanks very much. we greatly appreciate it. i want to follow up on what tony said, harold, really quickly. he is right. the president, and i know a lot of people get angry about this, you know? the president said something he shouldn t have said on friday. he said it inartfully. the whole world exploded like we weren t going to survive. did they want to send the missiles on saturday, sunday, on labor dah? i brought this point up in real-time you seriously would have thought i was walking around with makeup on my eyes like that lady that leave her alone. that knocked off the cosmetics store in arkansas. what was he going to do some we talk about leading from behind. this isn t leading from behind. this is saying we are not going to do your bidding for you any more. if you want to join us in a true coalition of the willing, then we will do it. and it sounds like. it s what they are doing. because we are being deliberate after not being so deliberate a decade ago, we are going to have egypt, we are going to have saudi arabia, we already have the uae. we already have iraq. i m sorry. that s starting to sound a little bit like 1991. we all talked about why couldn t we have presidents more like bush 41? it sounds like that is the direction we are heading. the deputy national security adviser right there, mika s father at a different time over the weekend, sounded clear, stronger, more passionate and forceful and, frankly, more understandable than the president sounded in his press conference. it was the brown suit. the president stand before the country and say we have no strategy you should just wait and no need to talk. i agree with you. what the president is doing, being deliberate i think is smart. at the same time, you know he was talking about syria. again, nobody that has watched this seven for seven years think i carry president obama s water. you know what i like to call him? the commander in chief. at a time of crisis, that is just child s play. and as you know. i would agree. because you grew up in a church. i ve seen your political commercials. when i was child, i behaved as a child. when i grew up, i put away childish things. i m serious. there is a true analogy. we can scream and yell over health care, this, that and the other but when we have a existential threat to the countries in the middle east it s time to put away s child play and start working and looking at the long-term range and i think he s got it right. you made two of three eloquent powerful statements the last several days on this. fountain president had that kind of confidence and clarity and consistency in his language it would have been a different take. nobody said he has ever been a good speech maker. oh, wait. yes he has. stop. in the words of george w. bush, it s hard, it s hard. it looks a lot easier from this side of the camera, harold p.m. you know that. i know but what our effort would actually look like on the ground. ayman and tony were clear that i think the american people have heard from the president over the last several days which i think is what we need here. a lot of people think we are going to deploy troops in a broad way. a different way to do this. ayman, i thought, said it well. a couple of more headlines and then to the break. my dad is on the other side and he is nervous already. raising the minimum wage on the arkansas state ballot after a petition received more than twice the signatures it needed. what more do people need to know about what we need to do here? if passed it would raise the state s minimum wage from $6.25 and hour to $7.50 an hour in 2016. mark prior embraced the increase in february calling it the right thing to do and signing on to the petition. his opponent republican congressman tom cotton has yet to make an decision. this is an important issue. i said it after labor day and believe it now. this is a bigger issue as we move forward and puts republicans, like tom cotton and like myself when i was in congress, you know, a couple of decades ago, in a difficult position. is it hard to take a position on this right now at this time? i don t think so. i don t think so. it s not. if you can get a deal out of it. exactly. mitt romney said on your show and he endorsed it. get a deal out of it! you can t win over the senate and control the senate if you re out of touch with american people on a lot of issues. in the kentucky senate race, a sliver of good news. a sliver. for mitch mcconnell. a new cnn/orc poll has mcconnell up four points over allison lundergan grimes. that is within the margin of error. it actually says five, but it s very close. i wouldn t count her out. i would not count her out at all. i think the national press is giving her a little bit of a bum wrap. i think she is a formidable xae candidate. i think democrats are fired up down there. we shall see. the democrat candidate for u.s. senate throws in the towel in kansas and how that may mean the party will hold on to their seat. one man thinks he has cracks the go ahead to get into the ivy league. build a gym for that school. okay. all right. first, dr. zbigniew brzezinski with his foreign policy views on europe and the middle east. you re watching morning joe. we will be right back. 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[ inhales, exhales ] [ male announcer ] and made the decision to quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. now we invite smokers to quit, too, with our comprehensive program. we just want to help everyone, everywhere, breathe a little easier. introducing cvs health. because health is everything. sailing away joining us from washington is former national security adviser for president carter, dr. zbigniew brzezinski who always plays fair in tennis. he never cheats and plays fair. doctor, notable and quotables in wall street journal this morning. this is cool. dr. brzezinski writing foreign affairs in march and april of 1994. the crucial issue is future stability of ukraine and american policymakers must face the fact that ukraine is on the brink of disaster. you talk about a russian ethnic explosion in crimea. 20 years ago. 20 years ago. that, obviously, has happened. now vladimir putin bragging that he can make kiev in two weeks. where do we stand in this crisis? i think the west is now more united than ever before and the sanctions that are being planned are serious. i think, however, putin is trying to undermine that unity by proposing this sort of phony peace settlement of several points that he is planning to discuss with boris shinco. i think this is making them think they have accepted the plan. as far as i understand the ukrainians have agreed to talk to putin but not agree to accept his plan and that is an importance difference. on front of usa today can russia be stopped? should the u.s. provide arms to ukraine? that is the next step. in my view, absolutely. not to provide them with arms gives putin the incentive to escalate the military collision step-by-step knowing that the opponent is vulnerable, and weak and there is no cost for him in doing so. so i think we should be open about it. we should say to putin, we are providing arms to the ukrainians because they don t have any. we are providing defensive arms mostly so that they are not going to attack you. but you ll have enough arms to oppose what you have been doing which is peace meal the stabilization of ukraine and the gradual wrecking of its economy because that is happening. dr. brzezinski, mike barnicle is here and he has got a question. doctor, has putin s behavior somehow inadvertently done something within nato that is seemingly impossible to do for about a decade strengthen nato collective? ly. i think it s a good point. more and more people in russia even at the top are beginning to think he is slightly mad, that he is is not conducting an intelligent effective policy but weakening and isolating russia and if push comes to shove, it s a fate that it will become the vessel of china. we will move on to isis in a moment. putin scratched out this seven-point peace plan cease-fire with ukraine. how should this be received? i think it should be received as an opportunity for talking and i have no objection to that, and ukraine and the west can make counterproposals. but the plan itself is essentially designed to undermine nato s unity and to drag the ukrainians into a relationship in which the government in kiev has to negotiate with thugs armed by putin with putin sitting on the sidelines and pretending he is not involved. harold ford? quickly, doctor, i thought your interview over the weekend i think on cnn was outstanding. following up on one of the points you made. do you believe inexplicitly in any negotiations or cease-fire plan if something is reached we should say ukraine will not be accepted into nato? did i understand you correctly over the weekend making that point of view? that is correct. unless push comes to shove and we have a military showdown there has to be some accommodation. i think it s perfectly reasonable to have an accommodation in which ukraine becomes increasingly a part of the western and eventually of the european union but not a direct member of nato, which from the russian point of view is a security issue. so i think here is some compromise is justified and i think the basis for a resolution. ukraine is not going to be a member of the union, putin s empire idea, but is not going to be also a member of nato. nbc news ayman mohyeldin is with us. how do you think they are approaching is and we heard is there a sense it s a little too late to be doing that now or is that our only hope? well, if we focus specifically on syria, that is a problem in addition to isis. i think that the problem in syria is that the opposition to assad is weak angle the strongest of position happens to be isis. so i don t think we are really pointing in the right direction by continuing to wage some sort of a war against assad. assad, after all, was acceptable to the israelis and he was acceptable to us. he actually treated the nonislamic people in syria better than most other arab governments, so i think we have made a mistake here, which we should be correcting. our approach has to be there are several different battle fields, iraq, syria, potentially some others and we are not going to be engaged in all of them in one-sided fashion. dr. zbigniew vertebbrzezinsk thank you, dad. is this a best chance for the democrats to keep their majority in the senate? the shocking events in kansas for the race for the upper chamber. the offensive in ukraine, an on the ground look how math and science is playing a role in the conflict with pro russian separatists. i don t know. i think they can probably shoot those things down. all that and more when morning joe returns. when folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that s not a coincidence. it s one more part of our commitment to america. you pay your auto insurance premium every month on the dot. you re like the poster child for paying on time. and then one day you tap the bumper of a station wagon. no big deal. until your insurance company jacks up your rates. you freak out. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? hey insurance companies, news flash. nobody s perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won t raise your rates due to your first accident. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. we re changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we ve created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it s not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov the democratic candidate for u.s. senate in kansas has dropped out. democrat chad taylor was struggling and submitted his withdrawal yesterday to the secretary of state just moments before the deadline really to do that. now democrats in the state may rally around greg orman, an independent. according to a pp poll in a three-way race, pat roberts holds a seven-point lead but when taylor is taken out of the equation, the independent greg orman leads by ten points. orman ran as a democrat in 2008 but hasn t made up his mind who he would caucus with if elected. if i get elected, there is a reasonable chance that neither party will have a majority in washington and if that is the case what i ve said is i m going to caucus with whichever party is willing to go to washington and start trying to solve problems as opposed to just pleasing the extremists and their own base. and i think both parties are actually guilty of that sort of behavior. really, i think, in an attempt to make sure they win elections and not solve problems for the american people. pat roberts campaign responded by blasting democrats, calling the move corrupt bargain. joining us now from washington, msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt. before we get to the claire factor which is the back story behind this move, there are big implications here. potentially really big implications. just because the map itself is so on a razor s edge. whether republicans take back the senate or not is likely going to hinge on one or two seats. so the fact that suddenly it could come down to kansas? is not something that any of us started out this cycle expecting. it sort of reflects how far of an anti-incumbent on the ground now. sam brownback is also in trouble and orman has support from the modern republicans who have backed brownback. as far as the back story goes, a source telling me that senator claire mccaskill played a key role in getting chad taylor to drop out partially it s in her neighborhood and she was paying attention and realized an opening here and they credit her being a aggressive political strategist and pushing this forward. senator reed s office denied they had anything to do with getting taylor out of the race but it s probably pretty clear that, you know, they wouldn t go ahead and do anything like this without leadership blessing. well, claire getting involved, claire mccaskill, harold, is, to me to shows these implications are as big as she says them to be and could be the ultimate balance of the senate. what do you make about claire and others jumping in here in terms of she s from the mist and she understand that. i know. she has a greater appreciation for the political dynamics there. who would think this would be happening in kansas. how do you tell someone to get out of the race, you could help our party? how does that happen behind closed doors? if you want the issues addressed it s probably in your best interestses to move out. i don t know the back story what happened to this guy. listen to go that candidate, if this is the way in a direction we have headed in the national politic candidates saying i m caucus with the party doing the most to help the country, i kind of like. . whatever went on behind the scenes, this might be a win/win not only for kansas but the country. kasie hunt is an official political correspondent for us. congratulations. thank you. coming up, getting on college admissions like a broker bets on the stock market? why one man has made it his job to guarantee acceptance into ivy league schools. morning joe will be right back. fill their bowl with the meaty tastes they re looking for, with friskies grillers. tender meaty pieces and crunchy bites. in delicious chicken, beef, turkey, and garden veggie flavors. friskies grillers. woman: everyone in the nicu all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment. i wouldn t trade him for the world. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we re owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. if you re caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care program offers strategies that can help. great. this is the last thing i need.) seriously? let s take this puppy over to midas and get you some of the good ol midas touch. hey you know what? i ll drive! i really didn t think this through. brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling) well, joe, your stats are very respectable. you ve done some solid work here. but it s not quite ivy league now, is it? just when you thought it was safe to go into your locker room comes the terrifying true story of teens facing that most horrifying experience of all! getting into college! harvard won t be impressed that you aced history of polka dots. you may have cleaned contaminated waters from villages but you ve never got into an ivy league. how are we doing? used like yuvert of illinois. peter waldman is here how he can get your kid into college guaranteed. that s great! guaranteed. that s photographic. thawhat kind of numbers a we talking about? i guess anybody can be bought. what number, peter? well, let s see now. there was a ceo in hong kong who gave $700,000 to the entrepreneur whose name is steven mau who sow here in the silicon valley and that went through tutoring and class preparation and essay assistance. 700,000? he didn t keep that amount of money. he did keep 400,000. give us another example. well, let s see. mr. mau is now working with another hong kong executive s child. for $600,000 up front, for that, if this child gets into an ivy league school, 600 grand, if he gets into an ivy league school, mr. mau will keep that. if he doesn t, there will be other amounts of money he can keep down to, i think, about 90 grand. guaranteed 90 grand. instead of taking your basically kaplan course you re paying somebody 600,000 to get your kid prep your kid and get them ready for college. that s insane. harold ford, around new york, i mean, when i first moved to new york, i was shocked. i have two little kids. i d sit around the table and it would be like, they would go, we love your show, if you ever neat theater tirkts, just let us know. okay, great. i never go out and sit in an apartment and eat cold cereal alone. so i love transformer series. but they went around. help me with that and that. not that i didn t need any of that help. then i said i have a 5-year-old girl and i need to get her into kindergarten. they said we can t help with you that. they were dead serious, peter. now the insanity of getting your kid ready for college in america, among elites, is outrageous. i guess this is just one of those depressing examples of it. i don t know what it was like in alabama in your day. $500 a semester. now you re paying 30,000 for one of these elite schools. he also does tutoring and competes with kaplan and kudor and it will give you a guarantee. how? how can he guarantee this? what does he do? this is a math wise. he used to work at a hedge fund. he bets on these kids like a trader will bet on a commodities market. he says i figured out you have 5%, 8% chance of getting into that school. i ll base my fee on that and he takes a risk. he s a trader is what he is. wow. mike, you see those acceptance rates. stanford only 5% of students. they don t even let me on the campus in palo alto. peter, is there any way we can bypass the middleman, steven mau, and go directly to these people in hong kong he is dealing with and can we tell them that for a hundred grand, i can get that kid into umass-amhurst? in the end he was paid 400 grand to get his kid into syracuse which is a wonderful school but not that hard to get into. maybe some information will help them. i don t know if they read my story. we will find out. this is a good one. thank you for getting ub extremely early. i feel for you. we will check out the latest issue of bloomberg business week. . the crisis are russia and how fighters are turning to technology to get an advantage in that conflict. we will tell you who is joining whippy and rosy on the set of the view. someone close to us. we are so excited! it s not you, mike. we will be right back. 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[ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. so as the conflict between ukraine and russia rages on the political stage, on the battlefield, ukrainian techies are putting their skills to good use. as our partners at vocative recently covered it s having a real impact. reporter: this looks like a regular mortar attack. part of the war that is being raged between pro ukrainian forces and separatists who want to return to mother russia but it s actually something different. the mortar shell is being guided by a tiny drone and financed by housewives and supporters over the internet. [ speaking in foreign language ] reporter: as the inequipped and underfunded ukrainian army repeatedly failed to wrangle the pro-russians, a series of armed pro-ukrainian militias aka battalions have formed to fight them. for the most part, this is played out as a low tech game of you steal my tank, i steal yours. translator: neighbor russia should take a neutral position and someone would watches a fight between a husband and wife and a someone gives a club to the husband and a knife to the wife to spice it up. russia is a provocativor and putin is a provocativor. now we have those for and against ukraine. if they want to live in russia, they are welcome. go [ bleep ] off and live there and don t tell us anything about our country. translator: the efficiency of the government is about 1.5% and doesn t solve problems on time and can t handle any serious tasks. therefore it s the main volunteers that supply the army. reporter: filling this void is outfits like this one that decided to give the funds to these militiamilitias. a bunch of i.t. guys. translator: the money was donated by kind housewives and sending sums to us. so our priorities are low cost, speed, and quality. reporter: volunteers assemble and sell jackets and belts and armor and all sorts of combat equipment, but it s the remote-controlled drone, the one kids aspiring to movie careers with their mom and pop s cash and given the putin-backed separatists a series flak. translator: they helped us find enemy tanks and we then destroyed. translator: since childhood i was always fond of aviation. our commanding officers took note of it. i was ordered to leave my combat unit for this unit of nerds. i m a computer programmer. as many other computer guys, i don t only work but i also spend a lot of time playing computer games. that includes flight simulators. this experience became very useful now because when you re operating a drone, it is, in fact, like playing a computer game. reporter: so throw the spraitists hasprai separatists putin watching their back, the nerd units are fast becoming a key game changer in the fight for ukraine so much so the separatists have allegedly put a price on this drone pilot s head. translator: they spent a special group to capture us is a telling fact. i think is demonstrates how effective our effective our work is. translator: this is a patriotic impulse, a real one. all ukrainian rulers did everything to destroy the ukrainian army, and now it is trying to reappear like a phoenix rising from its ashes. wow. we thank our partners for that perspective. what surprises you most about that report? i mean, for me, crowd sourcing of funds for, as they report, this unit of nerds, it s like a real live video game of war come to life. yeah, and it also shows you a lot about how the battlefield s changing. it s a small unit. not sure how big of an impact it s having on the battlefield, but very interesting to say the least. but it does give you a sense of this merger between militaries or those fighting and crowd sourcing and just how social media in general is just changing the dynamics of everything, including even warfare. i think it s absolutely fascinating. it makes it harder to drew the line between civilians and people fighting. they want to go after this unit. can they go after the people financing it? raises lots of questions. coming up at the top of the hour, strong words from the obama administration describing how the u.s. will take the fight to isis, but will military operations match the rhetoric? and then a french freezeout? why the country is finally putting an end to one of its military deals with russia, or is it? france s ambassador to the u.s. will be our guest. plus, tornado warnings have already been issued for the upper midwest, as a massive storm heads east. a full report is next. morning joe will be right back. 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(announcer) ask your doctor about linzess a once-daily capsule for adults with ibs with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation. linzess is thought to help calm pain-sensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. it helps you proactively manage your symptoms. do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. it may harm them. don t take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it s severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include, gas, stomach-area pain and swelling. bottom line, ask your doctor about linzess today. whenwork with equity experts who work with regional experts who work with portfolio management experts that s when expertise happens. mfs. because there is no expertise without collaboration. you owned your car for four you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends. three jobs. you re like nothing can replace brad! then liberty mutual calls. and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement, we ll pay for a car that s a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. there s talk that warner brothers is planning to revive full house. they re bringing back full house. i saw the new opening credits. i guess it s been off the air a little longer than i thought. take a look. everywhere you looked there s a heart i m here to hold on to everywhere you look there s a face of somebody who needs you john stamos does not age! he s like dorian grey. it s all that greek yogurt. so this is really great news. i am so excited! for nicole wallace. congratulations going out to two ladies who join the table at the view. rosie perez and nicole will join whoopi goldberg and rosie o donnell when the new season of the view begins on monday september 15th. that is great news! i ve never been more happy for someone. seriously. usually these choices are made for all sorts of reasons. she s so smart. she s so great. obviously a member of the morning joe family. we re so proud of her. everything is good about that choice. whoopi s great. rosie s great. and nicole adds some political heft. especially with the midterms in 2016. political heft. she s going to light that place on fire. i can t wait to see rosie and nicole. get yourself some nice shoes now. that s great news. i have to lend her my shoes. now let s turn to bill karins for a look at the forecast. we re looking at some severe storms expected today. early morning tornados. the lightning has been incredible this morning. starting in north dakota and then right through minnesota and now into areas of wisconsin. at one point we had about 10,000 lightning strikes as it was coming out of fargo and going just to the north of st. cloud. now heading towards duluth. we had tornado warnings. report of a 90-mile-per-hour wind gust that did some damage. but no tornados confirmed as of this point. we re also watching some pretty strong storms further to the south. these went through milwaukee overnight. they re threatening the chicago area and now heading right over peoria again. i m sure o hare will have some minor delays because of these. here s how we re looking as we go throughout the day today. severe weather possible in yellow. wind damage, large hail possible with the strongest storms, and it s another very hot day in the east. temperature at 90 in d.c. we ll also be watching that heat heading into the northeast as we approach the weekend. but things change. about three more days of summer and then it s going to feel like fall in the east as we go into sunday. so again, you know, very hot and stormy, but fall is on its way. before you know it also it s going to get dark earlier. it s already happening. i kind of like it. you like it getting dark. are you a vampire? i m a vampire. but anything that helps bring on sleep. help the pills help themselves. i can take less maybe. you never know. i doubt it. all right, we ve got a lot ahead here as we look at the headlines straight ahead, so the next hour of morning joe starts right now. those who have murdered james foley and steven sotloff in syria need to know the united states will hold them accountable, no matter how long it takes. while the white house is being characteristically calibrated and cautious over america s response, the vice president today used very different language. we don t retreat. we don t forget. we will follow them to the gets of hell. if you re actually serious about taking isis to the gets of hell, you re going to have to go to syria. what s the next step? getting allies to cross that river with us? we re being very deliberate about putting together a coalition of countries to deal with the isis problem. the administration not ambiguous yesterday. it was seek, search, destroy, and send. yeah, you re going to pay. that was the message, right? what a difference a couple of years makes from the last nato summit. there s been a lot of sabre rattling in eastern europe lately. the u.s. says it s now sending troops inside ukraine. with its new rapid reaction force, a spearhead, they call it. the spear clearly pointed at vladimir putin and his eastern european ambitions. president putin listed seven conditions for cease-fire. but the plan itself is essentially designed to undermine nato s unit and so drag the ukrainians into a relationship in which the government in kiev has to negotiate with putin sitting on the sidelines and pretending that he s not involved. today we are bound by our treaty alliance. an attack on one is an attack on all. if in such a moment you ever ask who will come to help the nato alliance, including the armed forces of the united states of america right here present now. so much going on, mika, over the last two hours. we ve had tony blanken come on talking about who may be coming onboard. certainly here at home, the sounds of the drums of war have really begun in earnest in this country. yesterday the vice president said america would follow isis to the gates of hell to get justice. the secretary of defense says the u.s. doesn t want to contain is isis, but rather they want to destroy isis. democratic senators became war hawks. internal polling showing americans want action. kay hagan joined john mccain and lindsey graham s side in that democratic debate talking about action. al franken sent a terse letter to the white house. yes, that al franken from that state of minnesota, calling for military action, and they weren t alone. but there were more important developments yesterday, maybe not driven by political polls, but the united arab emirates condemned a spread of the islamic state. that s important. it s also important they said they ll support america in efforts against isis. so did the iraqi parliament, who would have loved to criticize america if we had taken action earlier without getting their go-ahead first. and while it s one thing to have kay hagan calling for a strong use of force. america actually asking questions first and shooting missiles later may actually lead to our country not having to go it alone again. and carry other countries water. so the question is, where is egypt? tony blanken said they re going to be supportive. where is saudi arabia? i think they re going to be supportive, too. where is jordan? certainly you would think jordan would be supportive. and where are the other countries whose very existence depends on american fire power and us sending our sons and daughters overseas and spending our treasure to cut out a cancer from the middle east that is really in their best interest to cut out. we ve got nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent and the host of andrea mitchell reports, andrea mitchell. about an hour ago, tony came on the show. i said, it s great about uae. it s great that we ve got the iraqi parliament actually begging us to come over this time. it s a little better than what happened in 2003. but where is egypt? he says they ll be onboard. where is saudi arabia? maybe they ll be onboard. where are the other countries? could it be that we re moving because we are being deliberate towards a scenario when bush 41 assembled an extraordinary group of countries, including syria, to fight against saddam hussein. if you recall back then, jim bakker spent months and months building that coalition of the willing, and it was extraordinary. you had syrian fighters going against saddam hussein, but it was a different situation then, and i think it s going to be a much heavier lift because some of these very countries like saudi arabia feel that the president should have moved a year ago labor day when he didn t. but a country like saudi arabia has the most to lose with a group like isis spreading across the middle east. so will we see the saudis publicly come out and be supportive of this? you might because of two things that happened this week. a refinery hit inside saudi in their key eastern area, the oil area. and also the arrest of 88 isis-related, they claimed, alleged terrorists. now, saudi arrests are notoriously difficult to ascertain. the saudis did arrest terrorists on their soil and announce it. last week, bobby was on the show and he said an important threshold had been crossed when you had the uae going into libya to pursue other islamist fighters. it s great that they did that. do we expect more arab countries to follow their lead? i think the statement from yusef was very significant. that was a big signal. they are concerned and basically their opposition is to qatar, to their fellow emirates. qatar has been anything but an ally with the united states, along with turkey. we saw the front page this morning of the wall street journal. i can t find it right now. that actually turkey is shutting down the jihadist highway. you ve got potshots from the right and the left. the president needs to do more, needs to stop saying things like we don t have a strategy, criticize, criticize, criticize. but what joe s been talking about tony blanken echoed. while we have this painful wait for maybe some collective action, what s the value of collective action and what does that actually look like? the collective action, if it works as joe was just defining it, would include some arab leaders, some arab states, and not just humanitarian missions. we want to see their jets in the air and we want their intelligence i mean, we ve got a lot of intelligence sharing, but we want we don t need them militarily, but just a signal of their jets in the air sends a powerful signal, right? absolutely. and it helps inoculate the united states from retaliation, even though people like the pathologically crazy people in isis are going to go after us anyway. at first when i heard you expressing the same abouts that i had about the uae, refueled in egypt, hitting islamists in libya two weeks ago, whenever, how could we not have known, how could our intel have not picked up that? i was listening to you, watching you in the morning and thinking that s impossible. they swear to me that they did not know in advance. that was preposterous. did you think it is preposterous on its face? listen, i know this. the uae is such a good ally of the united states of america. they would not blind side us. they just wouldn t. so anyway, who knows. mike, i ve got a bridge to sell you in brooklyn, right? giving the planes we have up in the air nearly all of the time, 24 hours a day in that part of the country, given our technological resources, of course we knew there was flight in the air. by the way, it s a good thing. the big thing and andrea, i know you speak to these people on a regular basis. the biggest difference between 1991 and jim bakker and george h.w. bush and today with john kerry and barack obama is that in 1991, there was no fear, no real fear in riyadh that saddam hussein was going to come for the throne. there is legitimate fear in riyadh. you know what the other big difference is? they knew that when jim bakker spoke, he was speaking for bush 41. there was no daylight between the secretary of state and the commander in chief. talk about the daylight between the secretary of state and the commander in chief, where the secretary of state almost by necessity, some close to him say, is having to go out there on his own. well, look at what happened last thursday, for the much-criticized we have no strategy yet. that was as much a signal to men named hagel and kerry right. that i m not ready yet, you re not ready yet. he framed it badly, but he was speaking internally as much as externally. isn t that remarkable? that s one way to look at it, too. i would probably just call them into my office. that s no knock on kerry, hagel, etc. the relationship between the white house and the secretary of state, including a woman named hillary clinton. i have heard for a very long time there s a lot of space between john kerry and the president of the united states. i just couldn t imagine that to be the case until we did find out last week that that no strategy was actually designed more for people in the administration than out, mika. quote of the day. i would have just called them into my office. let s get to some other news now. russian president vladimir putin has laid out a proposal to end the conflict in eastern ukraine. isn t that great? it s going to be over. the new york times reports the seven-point plan to deescalate months of bloody stalemate was apparently written out during a flight over siberia. in wales, president obama and european leaders will take his proposal under consideration as they consider a rapid response team for eastern europe and another round of economic sanctions. meanwhile, another sign of weakening russian influence in europe, france has decided not to send a $1.7 billion amphibious warship manufactured for russia after coming under pressure from the u.s. president hollande s office says russia s behavior has undermined the security of the continent. that s pretty significant news coming out of france. yeah, looking at this headline in the ft today about france halting that warship. when the sanctions were first announced, they excluded arms sales specifically because france was refusing to cancel this deal. now france has cancelled this deal. so that s why i think vladimir putin was writing on the back of an envelope over siberia. this signal. sometimes sanctions don t work, sometimes they do work, but this is a big deal. actually, we re going to be talking to the ambassador coming up after the next break. in just a few hours, the justice department will announce a sweeping civil rights investigation into the city s police department. the investigation will look at the entire conduct of the ferguson pd over several years. the probe will be similar to past investigations over alleged profiling and excessive use of force. in the last five years, the justice department has opened 20 investigations of police departments across the country. and if you re going to investigate a police department, i would put ferguson s near the top there. well, we ve got the investigation going on into michael brown s death, the shooting death of michael brown, so now we have an extended and expanded investigation that s not just going to look into months, but the years of police culture of what some people say is baked in. we talked about it an awful lot. a police culture where you ve got a minority population, overwhelming minority population, 53 police officers are white and you just wonder how many other cases led to this tragedy. we ll wait and see exactly what the doj will find. but we see cases like this here in new york city. so this is not an urban problem as much as it is a suburban problem. it s systemic across the country. so let the chips fall where they may. to some politics now. true to her message, senator elizabeth warren is openly criticizing former house majority leader eric cantor s decision to take a multi-million-dollar job on wall street. cantor will be the vice chairman and managing director of an investment bank, earning more than $3 million over two years. in an interview with yahoo s katie couric, warren says it sends a bad message. how wrong can this be, that basically what s happening here is that people work in washington, and man, they hit that revolving door with a speed that would blind you, and head straight out into the industry, not because they bring great expertise and insight, but because they re selling access back in to their former colleagues who are still writing policy, who are still making laws. so how was she well, politico named her the next liberal line. did she roar when katie asked her about hillary? let s see how the lion roared. not as blunt about hillary. i m curious if you think that hillary clinton is too cozy with wall street. i know you ve disagreed with her in the past on issues like bankruptcy legislation. you know, i worry a lot about the relationship between all of our regulators, government, and wall street, and here s what i think what about hillary clinton in particular? i worry across the board. here s part of why. we ve got a washington now that works for anyone who can hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. and it doesn t work for regular families. families don t have armies of lobbyists. they don t have armies of lawyers. and that s why i think it s so critical now that we speak up on these core issues. so her worries seem far more specific, andrea, do they not, if it s a republican she s talking about than a democrat? yes. and i think she s being very careful not to take any shots at hillary clinton because the obvious fallback position for the party, if hillary clinton does not run, is elizabeth warren. aside from the fact that it would explode in the press the next day, elizabeth warren takes a jab at hillary clinton. but what would be wrong? what is the risk of saying, you know what? that s wrong, too. it s not good. i have great, great respect for hillary clinton, i support her in many ways, but i ve got to tell you, these relationships are too cozy and it s wrong. that would be consistent. it would also explode. exactly. there you go. great news out of nevada. talking about the american economy and trying to bring manufacturing back. innovation creates new jobs and they create them there. it does. tesla motors will announce its plan to build a giant battery factory in nevada following a five-state competition, the so-called gigafactory will employ 6,500 people and produce the batteries that are expected to power the new generation of electric cars. tesla is expected to spend 4 to $5 billion on the project. mcdonald s, wendy s, and other chain restaurants are expected to be targeted by demonstrators from the fight for 15 campaign. organizers want the right to unionize and have a pay increase of up to $14 $15 an hour. how much would that make my big mac cost? it shouldn t cost anything. profits are just fine. give these people a raise. i mean, this is a joke. coming up on morning joe, how the u.s. troop withdrawal had a lasting impact on our allies in south vietnam. we ll speak to rory kennedy in just a bit. up next, the new french ambassador to the u.s. is our guest. we ll ask him if france is committed to sanctions against russia, even if it means hurting their own economy. it appears so. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. in new york state, we re changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we ve created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it s not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov we are a collection of smalls. a home saved. a hero homebound for a new opportunity. a kitchen that kick starts careers wells fargo invests in our communities a little differently. small measures that add up to make our whole even greater. little by little we can do a lot. because. small is huge. visit www.wellsfargo.com to see how big small can be. i know what my money is doing. i rebalanced my portfolio on my phone. you know what else i can do on my phone? place trades, get free real time quotes and teleport myself to aruba. i wish. france says it will no longer deliver a powerful warship to russia next month because of its support for separatists in eastern ukraine. french president francois hollande made the announcement yesterday after initially resisting pressure from the u.s. and other countries. the warship is part of a $1.6 billion deal between france and russia. russia is accusing france of bowing to pressure from the u.s. and warning it will likely increase tensions. and joining us now, france s ambassador to the u.s. it s very good, mr. ambassador, to have you on the show this morning. first, tell us if you can in your own words, exactly what the message is that you want to send by cancelling or at least suspending this deal. good morning. our first goal is to end the russian interference in ukraine. after that, cease-fire. the sanctions are not an end to themselves. they re a tool. so we are increasing in an incremental way the pressure against russia. so now the russians have crossed a new red line by sending their forces, their tanks, so we have to react and france has decided to react on its own. so in terms of this warship now not going to the russians, is the deal suspended or is the contract ended? those are two different things. yeah, for the moment, what we are seeing is the conditions are not met for the delivery of the warships. we do hope that in the coming weeks, in the coming months, if there is a political settlement, a political negotiation, if there is the evidence that the russians have stopped their intervention in ukraine, i think we could have a look at the contract. andrea mitchell? mr. ambassador, it s andrea mitchell here in new york. is the goal of france now to try to get putin to back down, and do you think that putin s last-minute plan that he apparently wrote on a slip of paper is that plan specifically to sort of get nato to bow to russia until after the nato summit? is that the timing of what putin is up to? i think the timing is obvious. putin is trying, as you said, to undermine the unity of the alliance. it s a sheer maneuvering. but at the same time, it s for president poroshenko of ukraine to decide whether the russian proposals are acceptable or not acceptable. it has to be a negotiation between ukraine and the separatists. we don t have to dictate the terms of the agreement. mike. mr. ambassador, your president has been fairly critical of the lack of action in the middle east with regard to syria by the united states, indicating here s a quote, if two years ago we had acted to ensure a transition, we wouldn t have had an islamic state. and i would like to underline the word we. we had acted. it almost always falls to the united states to act in these occasions. what would you think france s commitment would be going forward in action against isis if there is a partnership that comes together with the uae, with saudi arabia, france, england. you get it. what s france s position there? first, we need such a partnership. what we have done, there was an emergency. we have ability cted to stop th advance of the jihadists. we the french, we have sent weaponry to the kurds. so in a sense, that was an emergency reaction. now we have to build the coalition, for the countries which are interested. which are on the front line. you said the saudis. we need it for the turks. a lot of foreign fighters are going for turkey and going to the islamic emirates. and in this context, i think the summit organized by president obama of the security council about the fighters, the foreign fighters, would be certainly i think a useful outcome. and we have also to work with the iraqis, of course. what is the level of concern internally, domestically within france, within paris, with regard to immigration policies, with regard to home grown terrorists. they have a problem in great britain. we potentially would have a problem here. what s the level of concern domestically within your country? we have now, right now, we have identified something lake 360 french citizens fighting in syria and iraq. we have identified since the beginning of the syrian crisis around 1,000 french citizens who went for syria and now for iraq. it s obvious that these people are going to come back with some expertise. so i can say there is a high level of concern in my country, and i think all over europe. thomas. mr. ambassador, when it comes to the situation with russia, vladimir putin has responded to the denial of the delivery of the amphibious warships, saying that france will suffer the biggest blow-back financially because of the lack of delivery. how do you respond to that? you know, there are moments where you know, moments that you have to put your financial interests behind your strategic interests. you know, what the russians are doing, it s such a fret to the world order. such a fret to european security right now that we had to react. and to say very bluntly and very simply right now, the conditions to deliver the warships are not met, it s up to the russians actually to respond to our call. we have no interest to a long-term confrontation with russia. it s obvious. russia is not the soviet union. it s not an existential threat to our way of life. but, russia has to respect the basic rules of the international life. ambassador, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. thank you very much. thank you so much. tough talk. it really is. that s what we re looking for, among other places. coming up, george clooney s iphone was not hacked, but he is getting ready to tackle the phone hacking thing. that s ahead. but first, what would have happened with vietnam if president john f. kennedy had lived? we ll talk about the last days in vietnam with director and producer rory kennedy. morning joe will be right back. 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[ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. my mom works at ge. my mom works at ge. when folks think about wthey think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that s not a coincidence. it s one more part of our commitment to america. take and. exhale.in. aflac! and a gentle wavelike motion. aahhh- ahhhhhh. liberate your spine, ahhh-ahhhhhh aflac! and reach, toes blossoming. not that great at yoga. yeah, but when i slipped a disk he paid my claim in just four days. ahh! four days? yep. find out how fast aflac can pay you, at aflac.com. people holding letters saying, you know, i work for the americans. please let me in. journalists were arriving, and counting on being recognized to be let in by the marines. there was a sea of people wanting to get out by helicopters. but, well, they looked up at the helicopters, and i could see their eyes. that was a scene from the new documentary last days in vietnam, and the director and producer of the film, emmy award-winning documentary film maker rory kennedy joins the table. wow. congratulations. we ve seen it all over the place. you were getting great reviews. thank you, mika. i m excited for the film to come out finally this friday. you know, one of the iconic images you were talking about was that scene, andrea mitchell. 1975. saigon as the last helicopters left. and we pulled out, but we left all of these vietnamese behind, which is what rory deals with in the film, and how we pulled out, leaving our allies, our translators, our employees at the embassy. i think that s right. a lot of people are familiar with that iconic images of the helicopter on top of what they think is the embassy. in fact, it s not the embe sass. very few people know what took place the last 24 hours, or why it got so crazy, that we were ending up leaving from the top of the embassy in helicopters. at that point, we had about 6,000 americans in vietnam. the peace treaty had been signed two years prior. the u.s. said, it s too hectic, we ve just got to get the americans out of the country. but our film shows how americans who were in the country, in vietnam said not so fast, we have our vietnamese allies, our family members, our colleagues. we ve worked with these people. they ve helped fight this war with us. we re not going to leave them behind. and the film documents these extraordinary heroic acts that they took to get the vietnamese out of the country. let s watch another clip from last days in vietnam. putting his family on the plane. he had wanted to stay in vietnam to defend the country, and this full colonel had, like, eight kids and a wife. and he was in tears. the family the family were in tears. and i said to him, get on the plane. just go. go. it was a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible moral dilemma. it s a chilling story. you know, rory, just watching clips of the film, this is just my view. it might be andrea s view, too. but this country really paid a psychic price for vietnam, culturally and politically that i think we still pay in part. this film brings back so much of that in terms of what we tried to do heroically, as you pointed out. what we couldn t do. and it occurred to me just watching that clip and the discussions earlier this morning about what s going on now in the middle east. 50 years ago, this past summer was the gulf of tonken resolution. this is the result of the gulf of tonken resolution, when you willy nilly without hesitation jump into something. we jumped into vietnam and this is how it ends. i think that s right. what i really sensed focusing on the last 24 hours of the war in vietnam is there were very few options available at that point. and so there we are leaving from the embassy in helicopters. and, you know, i think it sort of begs the question of what is our exit strategy when we enter these wars, and how are we going get out, what are our goals, what are our responsibilities to the people who are left behind. and i think as you all have been debating this morning, the pros and cons of taking on isis, i think we have to be asking these questions. so before we go, who do we hear from in this? i understand you talk to some incredible players if this, including henry kissinger, among others. the film is really firsthand accounts exclusively. there s no narrator. no experts who are looking back. it s all people who are on the ground, or inside washington creating the policies that led to this moment in history. so it s a range of people and characters who were in the embassy, who were on aircraft, who were on boats, who were trying to get people out. right. does anybody the answer of what would have happened if your uncle had lived? or do you just come on at the end and said none of this would have happened. i d like to think that. the film, it really stays within the confines of really the last 24 hours, a little setup to that point, but it doesn t go back and tell the history of the war. extraordinary reviews. what a compelling story. thank you so much for being with us. and we can t wait to watch it. thank you for having me. last days of vietnam opens in select theaters tomorrow. rory kennedy, thank you so much. great to see you. still ahead, a fascinating story of an american citizen looking to join isis, and as he put it, defend islam. i think we may have been in better shape if that guy had been let in. richard engel has that report next. and then we ll take a trip to hollyweird, where rob ford takes the phrase running for office literally. morning joe continues after a break. wouldn t it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters shopping online is as easy as it gets. and even piano tuners were just as simple? 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[ male announcer ] the wish we wish above all.is health. so we quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. expanded minuteclinic, for walk-in medical care. and created programs that encourage people to take their medications regularly. introducing cvs health. a new purpose. a new promise. to help all those wishes come true. cvs health. because health is everything. secretary of defense chuck hagel says the u.s. knows of more than 100 americans who are now fighting alongside isis overseas. now in the first of its kind, nbc news interviewed one of those americans. richard engel has more on that exclusive sit-down. richard? reporter: good morning. i m in turkey, and as we ve reported, thousands of foreign fighters have gone to syria, many of them coming through this city. this has been the main transit point to go to syria to fight with militant groups like isis. we ve reported that americans have been among them, but until now, they ve been very elusive. we haven t been able to speak to one directly. my islamic name is nasar abdur-rahim. reporter: this is american donald morgan. he didn t hide his intention to join isis. i purchased a ticket with the intent of entering to syria, either joining up with medical and food aid convoys or directly with islamic state. reporter: morgan was raised catholic and educated at a military academy. my entire life growing up was surrounded by the idea that i would be 82nd airborne, i would be special forces, i would serve dutifully, duty honoring country. reporter: but now he speaks of his country as a potential enemy, and of isis, also called the islamic state, as a savior. the responsibility of the islamic state is to protect those who can t protect themselves. if it s not assad dropping a barrel bomb, it s going to be obama launching a drone strike. so, it matters not to me who the enemy is. reporter: morgan wasn t always like this. he served in the national guard. worked as a deputy sheriff. living in salisbury, north carolina. this is the house where don morgan live, at the end of a quiet street in a middle class neighborhood. and the questions on the minds of his co-workers and neighbors is why would someone want to leave suburban north carolina to join the vicious fight in syria? it is frightening that someone could go to that extreme. reporter: brian beaver has known morgan for 15 years. i would say he was a person that was on edge. it was like, what s it going to take to you know, this guy s going to fly off the handle one day. reporter: after getting in trouble with the law, morgan, an amateur bodybuilder, converted to islam in 2008. he followed the wars in the middle east on the internet. he pledged allegiance to the isis leader abu bakr al baghdadi, and his islamic state, the caliphate. isis doesn t have the objective to be a terrorist organization. reporter: morgan tried to enter syria traveling through turkey, but was deported to lebanon. running low on money, he decided to go back to the u.s., aware of the risk. i think there s a strong possibility that they ll charge me with supporting terrorist organizations and participating in terrorist activities. reporter: when morgan returned to the united states last month, he was arrested, but not for terrorism. he was picked up for an unrelated gun charge. he is a convicted felon, and he is accused of trying to sell a firearm over the internet, and because of his previous felony, he s not allowed to even own a gun. he pleaded not guilty. he says that he s not a terrorist, and poses no threat to the united states. but not everyone we spoke to agrees. okay, richard, thank you so much. really appreciate it. you just wonder what the lure is. not only for americans, but also quite a few british citizens and other westerners who are actually going over and trying to join up. and getting maybe a hold of people who are disturbed and angry. all right, let s go to business for the bell now. cnbc s brian sullivan. brian, take it away. yeah, hard to follow up with that, guys. great reporting as always by nbc and richard engel. anyway, let s talk about gas prices. maybe a little good news out there for consumers. gas prices really a tax on everybody. the longer you drive, they re aggressive. gas prices really eat into your wallet. aaa saying gas prices should continue to fall, so that is some good news. a little bit of relief for the american consumer, putting the money back into their wallets. apple had a big drop yesterday. as we did on our show yesterday, guys, apple is so big, people don t realize what the value of apple is. apple is so big you could take out the value of google and intel from apple and still have enough money left over to buy yahoo. wow. what? $618 billion market value. google is just under $400 billion. intel is about 194. yahoo is about 50. good news about august car sales, right? amazing news, guys. i know you guys have been big on the detroit story. we re going. i know you re going. 17 million cars annualized run rate sold as of the data. it could fall off. they re aggregating the data up from an annual basis. that would be the highest since 2006. chrysler has seen their cars more than doubled. i drive a jeep. go jeep. jeep sales going up more than 100%. some good news for the auto dealers, the auto sales people, and also hopefully for jobs, as some of these companies add more line workers, add more production in the united states. wherever it might be. and joe, i want to end with a question. i ve got a question for you, buddy. okay good. totally off topic. you won t see me for a couple weeks. but i ll say this. we miss you already. saturday night, virginia tech at ohio state. ohio state freshman quarterback, somehow they re 11.5-point favorites over my beloved hokies. do we cover? andrea would know the answer to that. andrea, do we cover? of course we do. i don t know the answer to that. brian, why are you leaving us? well, i m just going to be shifting you know, we re expecting a baby, so i m going to be trying to balance out a little bit of work, but making sure that i am as helpful as possible at home. look at him. aw! that almost makes me like you. i m tearing up. if any of your viewers have had a kid over the age of 40, this is a blessed surprise, i urge you to send me diaper changing tips. my skills are weak. you have shea in the house, a 10-year-old, right? an 11-year-old. oh yeah. we are enlisting her. we ve got a little doll, like this is what you do. shea is going to expect to be compensated for her efforts. i ll just speak for her. a little candy action? no, i think her allowance is going to need to go up. brian sullivan, thank you so much. coming up next, is game of thrones too much for croatia to handle? you and your children were asking that question just last night. we have the answers straight ahead. great. this is the last thing i need.) seriously? the last thing you need is some guy giving you a new catalytic converter when all you got is a loose gas cap. what? it is that simple sometimes. thanks. now let s take this puppy over to midas and get you some of the good ol midas touch. hey you know what? i ll drive! and i have no feet. i really didn t think this through. trust the midas touch. for brakes, tires, oil, everything. (whistling) before using her new bank of america credit card, which rewards her for responsibly managing her card balance. before receiving $25 toward her balance each quarter for making more than her minimum payment on time each month. tracy got the bankamericard better balance rewards credit card, which fits nicely with everything else in life she has to balance. that s the benefit of responsibility. apply online or visit a bank of america near you. whenwork with equity experts who work with regional experts who work with portfolio management experts that s when expertise happens. mfs. because there is no expertise without collaboration. are we still doing this? i ll clean out my purse. and we ll just toss it to lewis? look here in hollywood, we love when a hollywood story collides with a current national news story. george clooney is set to take on the subject of phone hacking. clooney will direct an adaptation of the nick davies book hack attack, the investigation into rupert murdoch s media empire and phone hacking. this has all the elements of lying, corruption, blackmail at the highest levels of government by the biggest newspaper in london. and the fact that it s true is the biggest part. nick is a brave and stubborn reporter. we consider it an honor to put his book to film. meanwhile, one of the stars of hbo s girls appears to be ready to take on a more masculine look. yesterday allison williams released the first photo of herself as peter pan, who she will play in the musical adaptation of peter pan live which airs on nbc in december. i think she looks pretty good. when she was cast in the role last month, she posted this picture on instagram telling fans she s been rehearsing for a really long time. now let s go from the childlike and the whimsical to the adult and inappropriate. lena headley is one of the few game of thrones characters that we haven t seen undress in the show, looks like that s about to change. production hit a roadblock when the church prohibited the filming of the naked scene in the city streets, but officials ok d the season five walk of shame from the famous church of st. nicolas, on the premise that lena doesn t set foot in the church. the show must go on. finally, rob ford is quite literally running for re-election, guys. here he is, the toronto mayor running from door to door this week, shaking hands, breaking a sweat, and hopefully not kissing too many babies. the internet, of course, jumped all over the images, and one intrepid youtube user produced this video, chariots of ford. that is a highlight reel for the ages. oh, my gosh. that guy. one more reason to mourn the early passing of chris farley. what he could have done. oh, right. with rob ford! you re right. that would have been great material. oh, my gosh. coming up next, what if anything did we learn today? 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wealth management at charles schwab yeah. have you looked up the leaked celebrity nude photos? any yeses? there s one yes. yes. were they hot? yes. are you ashamed of yourself? no. why should by? have you looked up the leaked celebrity nude photos? has nicolas looked it up? we re about half and half. yes, i have. are you ashamed of yourself? not even a little. are you really creepy? moderately. have you looked up the leaked celebrity nude photos? we re about half and half on this one. i do periodically. but the ones that just leaked. no, i have not. now i have a task to do when i get home. you d think with the x-ray vision welcome back to morning joe. it s time to talk about what we learned today. what i learned is a lot of tall guys. and she has heels on. giants. three forwards here. congratulations to our good friend nicole wallace, who joined the table at the view. what a great move. andy murray just couldn t do it against djokovic. now i m worried about federer. what did you learn today? i learned how hard it is to wake up three days in a row to do this show in the morning. yeah. he comes in this morning like oh, i m so excited. i was at the tennis match until 2:00 a.m. it s not when you wake up, it s when you go to bed. always a real pleasure. i m always ready any time. we ve got to take the show to london so we can wake up at 11:00. and watch a liverpool game. yes. if it s way too early, it s morning joe. but stick around, because peter alexander has the daily rundown straight ahead. president obama trying to rally international help as the u.s. sends more resources to the region and the vice president declares they ll be chased to the gates of hell. meantime, vladimir putin puts out his plan to stop the fighting if ukraine, but will the west let russia dictate terms to end the crisis that russia itself helped to instigate? plus, new developments in the fight to control the senate. highlights and low blows from last night s carolina clash. as well as a surprise turn in kansas that has one roughed up republican crying foul. good morning from washington. it is thursday, september 4th, 2014. this is the daily
costs of fighting wildfires like this one in southern california. and keep the news out of ka lee coming. the red carpet awards that willy night in nbc. your host this year, the very talented seth meyers. that s going to do it for way too early. morning joe starts right now. i was under the impression. i thought bruce said he didn t want his music played at you re vents because he didn t believe in your politics. no, you re wrong about that. bruce has never asked me to do that. i saw bruce about a week and a half ago, and he had every opportunity to tell me not to. he didn t and he never has told me not to do it. i m pretty sure i know him and you re wrong. you re now expressing your politics. you re now expressing your politics and your objection, that s fine. don t put it in mr. springsteen s mouth. put it in yours. if you have an objection to it, you object. you have every right to object to it. i know bruce and i ve spoken to bruce and you re wrong. speak your mind. be angry or not, it doesn t matter to me. i have a job to do and i m going to do my job the best way i know how to do it. if you object to it, that s okay. the question i thought i heard what you have to say. we ve got the idea. seriously, when you start off by mischaracterizing. i didn t make it up. i m sure you re pretty sure. you have no place else to go with the story except to stick with the story you got. how about the story about the disabled. if you want to debate, run for governor and i ll debate you. i m not debating you now. that went on and on and on. i kept waiting for it he s back! good morning everyone. it s wednesday, august 20th. welcome to morning joe. that s a good sign because donny is over there that s terrible, he s such a bully. i m sitting there going he s doing really great. okay. onset, we have donny deutsch. you thought that was good? i thought that was great. we ll talk about that in a second. you know what i think is great, also. letting mika introduce people without interrupting her. we have a code on this show. we do? what s the code? don t interrupt. i didn t know about that code seven years in. msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele. in washington, roll call s editor in chief christina bellantoni. good to have you on board as well this morning. also coming up, they did the mugshot of rick perry. what a stupid speaking of governors. did he smile? he had a nice smile. look at him. he s a good looking guy. it s not exactly anything you know what? he looks good and has every reason to be happy right now. the democrats have over reached. from texas to virginia, bob mcdonnell on trial. we ll have report on that as well. that is that s a tough one. let me ask you about mr. springsteen and mr. christie. what did you think? i think the debate might have gone on a little long but i m used to people going on long. maybe that s why i related to it. you kept asking questions and as a reporter, she decided she was going to get into a debate, she had her springsteen information wrong and she started moving on to other questions, and he s right. if they want to hear the reporter, the reporter should hold a town hall meeting. they re there to hear chris christie. was that a reporter or constituent? i think it was a town hall it was a constituent. same with a constituent. sf they want to debate, the constituent can hold her own town hall meeting. i would much rather this happen than having him cowering in the corner going i m sorry. there s somewhere in between. i m not saying he should cower. he comes across as an obnoxious puj listic bully. i m looking as a human being, he looks like an unappealing, nasty human being. no, he doesn t. he looks like a guy there s a way to push back and move on. we ve seen thousands of politicians say that s unacceptable. next question. no disrespect to these two people who i know personally and like personally. but in the age of hillary clinton and jeb bush, a lot of people want to see that. in an age where washington, d.c. is stuck in the mud and everybody has canned responses and nobody shows their real emotions and everything you say is market tested and poll driven, that breaks through, and that s why chris christie worked before, and i think that s why, if the investigations all go what i said from the get-go, he definitely broke away from the mold. he put himself out there in every way in a very honest way, a way that seemed extremely authentic. willie is in jersey the authentic aspect is what resonates with people. it s authentic, but obnoxious. i go out to the hamptons in my $100 million mansion every week end, maybe it comes out that way. i thought you weren t going to it s your house. you have to pay it. he tortures me weekend and week out in the hamptons and he said i might be out there this weekend, can i come hang? we re doing this because sweet little lewis is getting married and having an engagement party. i m going to stay at gatsby s mansion. is it mick that lives there? i m like mick. i ll go there and watch you do all this profane stuff and sit there. then i go back he ll be in awe. i go back to the west end. you should see the green light. and joe will be dancing. really quickly, you re a jersey boy. when they want to know what the kids are thinking on the streets of jersey, they ask willie geist. what do you think? it s an odd topic, whether or not bruce springsteen likes you. i don t think it s as unanimously good as you might think it is in new jersey. i ve talked to people, they like the honesty, they like that kind of stuff. beneath that stuff, when they look at some of the other things he does, they doesn t always love it. the numbers are good for a guy who has been through a scandal, whether you think it s a big deal or not. i think what s important, if he has big aspirations is whether or not that plays outside of new jersey. we ve got a lot of news to cover. isis continues to be a dark cloud that covers the middle east. i can t even show the front of the new york post. but the daily news has a shot of they are absolute savages. i don t know what they think they re proving, but all they re doing is, they re just setting themselves up to be killed, all of them. everybody that acts that way, it never ends well for them when you do that to the united states. it just doesn t. it s not jingoism. where is osama bin laden now? i hope he enjoyed his day in the son. where is saddam hussein right now? i hope he enjoyed it. it s not going to end well for isis. i will say this again thank you president obama for going against your base. this is a scourge that needs to be wiped out from the middle east. i say that with great trepidation after supporting the gulf war, great trepidation after supporting the first gulf war, like about 70% of americans. that was, we found out later, an optional war. this fight against isis, there s nothing operational about it. they are a scourge that will continue to spread and find its way to america s doorstep. the reason i said we should get out of afghanistan four years ago is because the taliban didn t want to blow up buildings in the united states. these people, they want to kill us all, and if they stay in iraq and they stay get in control of an oil field and get money and get weapons, they will come to us and they will kill as many of us as quickly as they can. this is something the president can t ignore. i would like the republicans to salute them for stepping forward and doing what he s done over the past week or two. we can all go back and criticize what he s done i think democrats criticize what we republicans have done. and then we get nowhere. going against the base is something that some pol politician haves a lot of fear about. so that s commendable for you to say. the big story here in the united states, attorney general eric holder will be in ferguson, missouri, in just a few hours, 11 days after the deadly shooting of an unarmed black teenager by police. tense moments overnight between police and demonstrators after calm for most of the day. peaceful protesters could be heard screaming not tonight as water and glass bottle ts were thrown at police. state highway patrol captain ron johnson is hopeful the violence may be declining. i think that was made by the clergy, the activists, volunteers, men and women of law enforcement partnered together to make a difference, but also those citizens took heed to what we talked about last night, not allowing criminals to mask themselves in a peaceful protests. they protested early and went home early and allowed us to have a better look at those criminals and and staters roaming the streets for their own agenda. captain ron johnson. can you show the end of that clip again? i m just going to say it. got to work around the clock because of this. you have one african-american police captain and i see white faces back there. only 3 out of 50 it shouldn t be about race. guess what? it s about race. this is about race. i don t know. that speaks to the problem that that community has. that s the problem in ferguson, exactly. let s go to ferguson. nbc news correspondent craig melvin has been on the ground for several days. it s good to see you. we hear a relatively good night last night but we heard that before so we re leery of celebrating that. what is the mood on the ground and what you think now that you ve been there for a couple days breaks this and brings the peace. that s a good question, willie. everyone seems to be in pretty much universal agreement that the one thing that would probably empty these streets fairly quickly is if there was some sort of indictments, charges brought against that officer. as you know, the grand jury convening about 9:00 this morning to start hearing some evidence, it was very interesting, as you just heard there, 47 arrests last night, no molotov cocktails, no shooting, no teargas used. there was pepper spray used. you can see that in one of the clips played there. but it was calmer. the crowd itself, i can tell you, was smaller last night than it had been. there also seemed to be a shift in police strategy. captain johnson told me earlier in the day that we might see this and we did, in fact, see it last night. in previous nights you saw those officers in riot gear wearing helmets, shields out. shoulder to shoulder. sort of a very offensive position. last night you did not see that. you saw smaller groups of officers and they were mingling, so to speak, in some cases with these smaller groups of protesters as well that once again were being forced to make that lap around the main drag here in ferguson. we also saw those military-style vehicles. in previous nights, they had been right smack in the middle of the street again in sort of an offensive position. nonetheless, an intimidating position. last night those vehicles were not in the middle of the street. they were on the side as well. so there are a number of folks who have said said to me last night, that little things like that did, in fact, make a difference. of course, as you know, captain johnson urged the peaceful protesters not to come out last night and do their protesting in the day. by all accounts it looks like a lot of those protesters did just that. all right. speaking with msnbc s tamron hall, ferguson mayor james knowles looked to downplay suggestions of racial tensions within the community. take a look. there s not a racial divide in the city of ferguson. according to who? is that your perspective or do you believe that s the perspective of african-americans in your city? that s the perspective of all residents in our city. there are people, with all due respect, there are people on air on any network, even if you don t watch this one, who disagree and live there. i m asking, with all due respect, are you listening to them? absolutely. there s 22,000 residents in our community. this has affected about a half mile strip of street in our community. the rest of our community, the rest of the african-americans in our community are going through out their daily lives, going to businesses, walking their dog. kind of like saying after 9/11, look at new york. new york is fine. what s wrong with new york. that s perfect. what are you talking about? nothing has happened in new york. it s a small strip of buildings at the island down there. the guy is clueless right there. he is absolutely clueless. for days people have been asking where is the political leadership in this town. they hadn t seen mayors or members of the city council. he comes out and he s clueless. you understand why folks in that community will pissed off right now. he looks like he just came back from vacation and has no idea what s going on. there s three out of 53 members of the police force, his police force, right? right. that are black. not only that, mika. out of 53 in a city that s 70% african-american. how can you let that happen when you re hiring and trying to figure out a force that represents the community. i know how you let that happen. you don t think there s a problem. then to make matters worse, you say there s not a problem. you think because you say it that that means it s the rule of law because you are clueless and you re not self aware. i don t know if this guy knows, willie, even the egyptian government is chastising for what s going on in ferguson. if the generals in egypt are criticizing you for your human rights record. the ayatollah in iran is tweeting about ferguson, missouri. there are things that happened in the moments after this young man was killed that have traumatized that area of town, that whole town. he was left lying in the streets for hours. he was not covered up. and there were children there were people so stunned at what they were seeing, they were videotaping it because they didn t know what else to do. they were traumatized that they saw this young man get gunned down and he laid there in the middle of the street, not surrounded, not covered. they didn t put they said they didn t want to tamper with the scene. my god, they certainly didn t tamper with the scene. they left the scene there for everyone to see to be traumatized for hours. it s the same thing in the trayvon case. the parents weren t even notified that he was in the morgue for a couple of days. again, the game we always play around this set is what if a republican president did this and in these cases you have to ask what if it was a white 18-year-old kid shot in the middle of a suburban neighborhood? it s the same questions i asked every day during hurricane katrina. if this has happened in an exclusive suburb of dallas, texas, would the president be looking down from 30,000 feet or walking around shaking hands? it s the same thing here. if this happened in a white neighborhood. it continues to stress the black community in particular in these areas that are suddenly thrust into this reality again. for them it s every day. this is an everyday occurrence. this frustration has been going on for a long time. for the mayor to sit there and act like it isn t craig melvin, thank you very much. still ahead on morning joe, how a grand jury investigation into the death of choke hold victim eric garner play out in a staten island courtroom? we ll about to find out. plus we deal in the unique, the unusual, barely legal, and we always get the deal. this is barely legal pawn. just a few days away from this year s emmy awards, we have this reminder of how brilliant the cast of breaking bad was. up next from vice presidential candidate to intellectual leader of the republican party, paul ryan is standing by. i thought that was me. no, joe, it s paul. you took my mantle. i trademark that. he still looks like a sweet young man. you know who doesn t look like a sweet young man? bill karins. pretty amazetion stuff in arizona. we got trenched. it only happens a couple times every year. the flooding was pretty epic. north of phoenix they picked up about four inches of rain in a short period of time. horses being rescued, running in the water, numerous accidents. and 17 was closed at one point. when it rainses that water goes wherever it wants. that s over and done. the story now is the heat and humidity. the dew points measure how much moisture in the air. this is the most humid and hottest we ve been across the country, especially in the southern half. heat warning in st. louis and heat advisories from memphis into southern illinois. how hot will it be? not record shattering, when you add the humidity into this, it will feel like 105 today in st. louis. that continues all week. that s the thing about this. this is going to be a long duration, definitely as we go throughout the weekend and even into next week. look at memphis, tennessee, near 100 all weekend long. the heat is with us and it figures it would arrive at the end of summer. as we go into next week, we could be watching something in the tropics heading for areas like the gulf of mexico. it s going to be a feeling of summer and the tropical season in the week ahead. we leave you with a nice, warm, beautiful shot of the capital in washington, d.c. we ll have more coming up here on morning joe. you know what he said that s why i put this on. he said they were getting itchy. vernon jordan, seriously, every time i see him in the airport, he chases me down. and he s like, son, wear a tie. stop looking like that. he would know, joe. disgraceful. if i looked as good as vernon jordan every time i put on a coat and tie, i d wear a coat and tie. i assumed when i saw that, that s what you put on when you got out of bed. that s a faulty assumes. that s what i wore to bed. the night is still continuing. with us onset, not only the house budget chairman, but also the guy that puts out the list of the worst dressed man in america, congressman paul ryan. of wisconsin. out with the way forward: renewing the american idea. good to see you. how are you doing? doing well. how is the family. sn. great. cross country practice began the other day. all three doing it. the young guy on nye knee, the first year of eligibility. who is fastest? oh, my daughter. a great hurdler, too. were you a runner? distance. slow, not fast. slow and steady gets it done. what were you? i was fast and short. on my football team i ran the fastest, like eight yards. out of the gates i still surprise my son and his friends, i explode very quickly. after about eight yards, i have to smoke a cigarette. i m joking kids. daddy doesn t smoke. paul, a lot to talk about here. i want to get to as much as we can. we certainly want to talk about the book. first let s talk about ferguson which sfeeds right into the book. we were having a conversation yesterday about the frustration of covering ferguson and everybody is covering what happened in the past week. these people have been left behind. they ve been abandoned. let s try to pass this program, let s try to pass this program and we re not guilty anymore of the lives that they live. they re abandoned. isolated. i try not to inject my personal policy preferences on to a tragedy. i think just of respect for the brown family, the community, it s important as policymakers to see look what s happening and do what i think should be done. i think it s important not to do that. having said all that, i talk about it in this book and i put out a plan a number of weeks ago, we have got to reengage with the poor in america. we are in the 50th anniversary on the war on poverty and poverty is winning. let s think about how to measure success instead of on input, how many dollars we spend, but helping people out of poverty. how do we engage when americans are hearing republicans saying let s cut this program, let s cut that program? one of the reasons i wrote this book, if you don t like the governing philosophy prevailing in washington, what would we do differently? i think the country is on the wrong track. a lot of people agree with me. not everybody. here is the kind of governing philosop philosophy, the community agenda and the solutions necessary for renewing the american idea which is basically the condition of your birth doesn t determine the outcome of your life. my question is, does that require a slashing of spending for the type of programs that keep a lot of people that we re seeing on tv alive, the food on the table? the entire premise of that question presupposes that these programs are great. i don t presuppose that. but i know we can t tomorrow pass a budget that s going to cut aid off to the truly disadvantaged. you voted for welfare reform in 1996 that did more to reduce child poverty than any reform in the modern era. what i m saying is let s rethink it like that, take the other welfare programs that have not been reformed and cuz tommize them to a person s individual specific needs so we can work on fighting poverty, soul to soul, eye to eye and back up a community. one of the problems i think of the war on poverty, we ve had this federal government intervention that has told the common taxpayer, this is government s responsibility, it s not ours. we ve isolated people in our communities. i think we need to reengage that. let s reform the welfare program so that we re getting able-bodied people in the workforce. we talk about high tax rate. the highest arguably is the single mom making $20,000 to $40,000 who ends up making a decision going to work and faces these high marginal tax rates. there s a lot of room for reform. congressman, you know the cartoon version of you put out by critics and democrats, all you want to do is cut, cut, cut. you want to throw old people and poor people out on the street. how do you answer that in the context of this conversation? what would you do specifically besides cutting to help disadvantaged people? first i d say read my book, not just a shameless plug. i talk about a different governing philosophy to reconnect people with the american idea who don t think it s there for them in their communities. i ve proposed a number of things here, rethinking the way we fight poverty and reintegrating civil society, communities with federal resources to focus on getting able bodied people to work and having a safety net that s resilient for those who can t help themselves. one of the problems in america, we re going bankrupt. we have a debt crisis on the horizon. that puts the safety net in jeopardy. the or problem is we re not having the economic growth and opportunity. a lot of reforms there. with specific focus on poverty, there are people in america who are doing amazing things over coming poverty, helping people do so. i talk about a lot of them in my book. i talk about an agenda that helps fwhak up so we can do more of those things. we need another. we have to do lightning round. we brought christina in from washington. christina from roll call? she hates you. for 30 minutes, i m going to trash him. the only reason i m here. we told her to hold back. how do you expect the issue will be resolved with the border spending bill? you guys passed something before you left. it s going to be the first issue confronting you when you come back september 8th. you also have talk that there could be a supplemental request coming from the white house. could those two issues end up being merged? i think that s quite possible. as you know, the supplemental we carried in our budget was higher than what the administration asked for. i think there will be a reconciliation there. we re waiting to see what the senate will do on the border bill since the house acted to deal with the humanitarian crisis on the border. if there s an additional supplemental request from the white house on iraq, that s something we ll have to deal with basically in a week or so. mike? to pick up on what you have in your book, let s take the landscape where the republicans take the senate in november. now you have the house and the senate. how do we govern with president obama 2015 to 2016? we should define ourselves with our actions and pass the policies we believe and show what we can do if we can get them into law. put some things on president obama s desk to have hick maim decisions. be prudent in trying to get the incremental gains to get things moving. like the budget deal patty murray and i did last year, do something like that again, to get modest down payments on our debt situation. candidly, i don t think we re going to fix these big problems with this president. get things done on an incremental basis and also show what we would do if we could. on an incremental basis and not impeaching the president. that comes from wackos on the left. this is a hold on, hold on. here we go. we re going to get this on tape. should the president be impeached? no. we got it on tape. there we go. we got it on tape. i don t do that with everybody. i agree with you. they ll find one crackpot. out of 435 i was always a crackpot with what i had to say thank you, paul. sometime in washington in the fall, run around the wall, your kids against mine. i have runners. me and willie will do eight-yard sprints. the book is the way forward. congressman paul ryan, thank you so much. up next, guaranteed skol ships you guys can t say oh, impeach he s the intellectual leader of the party. very, very smart. smart young man. plus the right to target tourists. taking matters into their own hands? the morning papers are next. 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[ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. my mom works at ge. it s time to take a look at the morning papers. we ll start with the baltimore sun. the university of maryland announced a new program that will guarantee so-called lifetime scholarships to student athletes until they graduate. it means athletes will be able to finish their studies regardless of injuries or how they perform. that s a great idea. i think that s fantastic. the new program will go into effect this november. from the staten island advanced, grand jury will decide if charges should be filed in the choke hold death of eric garner. this next month the grand jury will review all evidence in the case and doesn t need a unanimous agreement to decide whether to indict. earlier this month the city examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by a choke hold and compression of his chest during the arrest. the washington post, top obama strategist is heading to silicon valley. david plouffe, presidential adviser is joining uber as senior vice president of policy and strategy. the car service is looking to use plouffe s campaign skills to gain entry into more cities, many of which have a powerful taxi lobby and strict regulations through which the company will have to maneuver. i thought he was going to be chief of staff? he s going into the private sector. the new york post. dozens of costume characters in new york city s times square held a rally on tuesday. oh, good lord. to fight for the ability to collect tips from tourists. the rally comes as police stop police continue to crack down following reports of aggressive i m sorry. it is kind of funny. numerous characters have also been arrested for alleged assault harassment or groping. why don t we all say that s why they re laughing. you see people put on these dirty outfits and you think they re creeps. some of them are nice people. but when i saw all those i would never let my kids like in the middle of that. they re groping? it s a little hard, with due respect to take them seriously when minnie mouse is holding a press conference, shaking her fist at the cameras. charlottesville daily progress a stoner in unionville, new jersey, has been arrested for allegedly selling weed. his name, paul scott stoner. mr. stoner was growing marijuana and selling it to minors. you can t do that. charged with manufacturing weed and possession of a firearm. further charges are still pending. i didn t understand when you said stoner was arrested for selling weed. okay. still ahead, congress may be in recess, but we now know how one of the senate s most respected members sends his downtime. senator mccain getting loose. that s not mccain. are you kidding me? i think she tried to kill us. no, it s only 15 calories. with reddi wip, fruit never sounded more delicious, with 15 calories per serving and real cream, the sound of reddi wip is the sound of joy. nobody ever stomped their foot and asked for less. there s a reason it s called an all you can eat buffet. and not a have just a little buffet. because what we all really want is more. now get our best ever pricing with the more everything plan. 1 gb of bonus data per month per line. verizon smart rewards to rack up points for the things you really want. and 50% off all new smartphones, like the htc one m8 for windows & android. built to inspire envy. come get your more with verizon. 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[ male announcer ] that s why there s ocuvite to help replenish key eye nutrients. ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. ocuvite. help protect your eye health. we re changing the way we do business, with startup ny. ocuvite. we ve created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it s not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov 44 past. there are brand new polls for governor andrew quom mow and the investigation into his decision to shut down an ethics commission. 51% have read or heard about it. 45% are unaware. 77% say the decision was a political deal. overall, a combined 83% say government corruption is a serious problem in new york. 48% say cuomo is part of the problem. cuomo s ahead of republican rob affidavit reno, essentially the same as in may. it doesn t seem to have affected race. donny, no impact there? no. you may like or dislike andrew cuomo. he has done by most measures a very effective job in new york. he s not getting unseated. i think people are somewhat an northwest sized, government is a little corrupt. unless it s something interestingly enough like the christie bridge thing, where people can understand whether that happened or not. that s funny. here you have a guy that shut down an ethics commission compared to two lanes being shut down and you re like shutting down two lanes. joe can i finish. you are a funny it s the people s inability to understand the scandal. the bridge thing, oh, he closed down lanes. that same poll, if you asked people what are you talking about, they would have no idea. with your rich left wing friends. there are rich right wing people, too. a lot of hedge fund guys. mainly left wing. christina, it looks like andrew cuomo could do basically anything and still win this race. it s the governor s race, is it going to be fast governor s race that dannel malloy down seven points. this is what happens in a national tie because democrats are starting to really feel the pain in a lot of places, and roll call has a story that went up about illinois and governor pat quinn there, extremely unpopular. he only won three counties when he won his race in 2010. now he s not even doing well in those. they re fearing that house democrats could be dragged down along with him. they re already in tight races. some of them are among the more vulnerable members of the house this year. in some of these marginal places, this could end up being a tie that takes people up and down the ticket. that s what we saw in 2010, that tide started to turn and swept in new state legislatures and governors. we ll look for that piece, christina bellantoni, thank you so much. we ll be checking out the top stories in roll call this morning, first thing after morning joe. should super bowl half-time performers pay to play? if the nfl has its way, that will be happening. okay. morning joe will be right back. ups is a global company, but most of our employees live in the same communities that we serve. people here know that our operations have an impact locally. we re using more natural gas vehicles than ever before. the trucks are reliable, that s good for business. but they also reduce emissions, and that s good for everyone. it makes me feel very good about the future of our company. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. so get out there, and get the best price guaranteed. find it for less and we ll match it and give you $50 toward your next trip. expedia. find yours. it s the yoplait greek taste-off and we are asking the music city which 100-calorie strawberry greek yogurt is the next big thing. i m a random lady with a 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half-time gig. donny, you said it makes sense. obviously if it s known that they pay, it takes away from having said that, any of these artists would pay because the reality of getting in front of a billion people, that audience, bruno mars last year exploded even more. it is the stage of the year. i don t think it will ever be public, but if they work out some behind the scenes do they usually get paid? no. but the exposure. it s the best exposure of the year. for the first time ever, a little leaguer has made the national cover of sports illustrated. no way! s.i. cover girl, 13-year-old pitching sensation monet davis who plays for philadelphia s tan any dragons. girls play? she throws some heat. the eighth grader first grabbed national attention for throwing a shutout that sent her team to the world series. then she followed that up by becoming the first girl to throw a shutout in world series history after a 4-0 win over nashville. also the sixth girl ever to record a hit at the little league world series. monet davis says her dream is to play basketball for the university of connecticut. how cool is that. we introduce add new segment, scarborough horoscope. his horoscope is keep your ideas simple today because the more complicated your plans get, the more likely you ll end in failure. you really don t need to do anything out of the ordinary at the moment. just be yourself. that s more than enough. that s today s scarborough horoscope. simple plans for a simple mind. be yourself. i don t know how that s different than what he does every day. that will be on every day at 6:52. coming up the top of the hour, protesters and police. we ll explore both sides of the standoff in ferguson, missouri and the issues raised because of the violence there. from county court to ice cream cones. we ll break down what turned out to be an eventful day for texas governor rick perry. paul rudd gets a superhero makeover. hollyweird is straight ahead. we ll be right back. in new york state, we re changing the way we do business, with startup ny. we ve created tax free zones throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it s not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov that, my friends, is everything. and with the quicksilver card from capital one, you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you purchase. not just everything at the hardware store. not everything, until you hit your cash back limit. quicksilver can earn you unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you could possibly imagine. say it with me everything. one more time, everything! and with that in mind. what s in your wallet? frothere s no reasonn average 17 we can t manufacture in shuthe united states. here at timbuk2, we make more than 70,000 custom bags a year, right here in san francisco. we knew we needed to grow internationally, we also knew that it was much more complicated to deal with. i can t imagine having executed what we ve executed without having citi side by side with us. their global expertise was critical to our international expansion into asia, into europe and into canada. so today, a customer can walk into our store in singapore, will design a custom bag and that customer will have that american made bag within a few days in singapore. citi has helped us expand our manufacturing facility; the company has doubled in size since 2007. if it can be done here in san francisco, it can be done anywhere in america. welcome back to morning joe. donny was hanging out with elite company over the weekend. hamptons for the apollo raising money for the apollo theater. big event. i ve never seen a room like this, from jack nickel son, barbra streisand, christie and mccain, jamie foxx. it was ridiculous. bon jovi played and sting played and pharrell played. of course, there was mccain and christie dancing on stage. jamie foxx was on stage, called up governor christie. let s give some props here to senator john mccain doing the robot. the arizona center showed he can get down a little bit. oh, my goodness. i think it s fantastic. he dives in. let s give him credit for that. he shows up. jamie foxx said he was impressed by senator mccain s robot. good stuff. wow. if you re going to take vienna, take vienna. he s taking vienna right there. fantastic. on monday night the team from rhode island at the little league world series was a little low after being eliminated. the manager david bell isle gave his teary-yeed team an inspirational speech they re sure to remember. everybody, heads up high. let s talk for a moment here. i got to see your eyes, guys. there s no disappointment in your effort in the whole tournament, the whole season. it s been an incredible journey. look at the score. 8-7. 12-10 in hits. came to the last out, we didn t quit. that s us. boys, that s us. the only reason why i ll probably end up shedding a tear is because this is the last time i m going to end up coaching you guys. but i m going to bring back with me and the coaching staff and you guys will bring back something that no other team can provide but you guys, that s pride, pride. i love the smile. pride, we got each other. what a great message. i m going to cry. all right. that was beautiful. the next hour of morning joe starts right now. when i was a u.s. attorney privately to our staff, i hear a politician make some comments about a case they thought we were working on or whatever, i d say i hate when these guys that don t know anything act like they know everything. now that i m in public office, i don t want to be guilty of the same thing i used to criticize them for. until i know more, i ll give the police the benefit of the doubt here in new jersey and as for missouri, let s let those guys work it out an learn whatever lessons we need to learn from what happened when we get all the facts. welcome back to morning joe. donny deutsch, michael steele with us. an ominous view of new york city with the national in the background, look at that. we have political columnist for time magazine i would love a picture of that. joe klein joins us today. we re so blessed actually to be here every morning. jo klein, good to have you. in washington, chief white house correspondent for the new york times peter baker and president of the benard center for women politics and public policy michelle bernard joins us as well. good to have you on the show this morning. good morning. a lot to get to. attorney general eric holder will be in ferguson, missouri, in just a few hours. 11 days after the deadly shooting of an unarmed black teenager by police. there were tense moments again overnight between police and demonstrators after palm for most of the day. peaceful protesters could be heard screaming not tonight as water and glass bottles were thrown at police. 47 people were arrested. state highway patrol captain ron johnson is hopeful the violence may be declining. i think that turning point was made by the clergy, the activists, the volunteers, the men and women of law enforcement who partnered together to make a difference. also those citizens took heed to what we talked about last night, not allowing criminals to mask themselves in a peaceful protests. they protested early and went home early and allowed a better visual, a look at those criminals and and staters roaming the streets for their own agenda. earlier in the day there was another police-involved shooting just two miles from ferguson. st. louis, police, shot and killed a man armed with a knife. just hours before his visit, attorney general holder is making a pledge to the residents of ferguson in an open letter he vows there will be a full, fair and independent investigation meanwhile a funeral will be held for 18-year-old michael brown whose death earlier led to the widespread protests. mayor james knowles had a heated back and forth with msnbc s tamron hall over whether there is a racial divide in ferguson. there s not a racial divide in ferguson. is that your perspective or do you believe that s the perspective of african-americans in your community? that is a perspective of all residents in our city, absolutely. have you been watching the news? please w all due respect, there are people on air, on any net work even if you don t watch this one who disagree who live there. with all due respect, are you listening to them? absolutely. there s 22,000 residents in our community. this has affected about a half-mile strip of street in our community. the rest of our community, the rest of the african-americans in our community are going about their daily lives, going to our businesses, walking their dog, going to our neighborhood watch meetings. that s like saying after 9/11, the upper side the restaurant is really good this time of year. put him on a milk car tochb. you understand why ferguson is having the problems it s having on the police force. it has 50 white officers and three african-americans and a mayor who says there s no racial problems in ferguson. are you kidding me? it s as if the community were cry logically frozen in the era before the voting rights act passed. this is a melanin-deprived government in a 60% black town. the lack of political leadership throughout, including the governor jay nixon, has been just appalling. where has he been? why haven t there been town meeting there is to talk about this? leadership is such an x factor. you go down the list. i was talking to my former chief of staff during katrina. he said you know what? this is what happens when politics gets into checking the box. are they pro life or pro choice? are they for guns or against guns? then you get to the x factor of leadership. i talk about jeb because i saw him up close. i ve never seen anyone take command more powerfully but also with a light touch when he needed it. bill clinton, obviously, a guy you kronkaled has the x factor of leadership in times of crisis. it s missing here. on all sides. all levels. there isn t the quality of black leadership that the country used to have. let s go to peter baker here, your front page article in the new york times today. obviously a vacuum at local leadership. eric holder stepping in. fascinating piece on the differences between these two men, eric holder, a son of the civil rights movement. barack obama, obviously much more complicated background which doesn t connect him quite as viscerally as eric holder. talk about the two men who share the same vision but have different approaches and at the end of the day will have a big impact on what happens in ferguson. you do see these two men, the first african-american president, the first african-american attorney general. they share a vision but approach from different points of view. sometimes you hear disappointment on the part of some of president obama s supporters, that he s not more outspoken on issues like this, that he s not as assertive as attorney general holder seems to be. the backgrounds, where they come from, what their personal experiences are, and the roles they play. president obama is not a very he s a reserved person to begin with. he wants to find a balance, be the president for all people. he doesn t want to influence a case that s very active. they make a distinction between this and his personal comments after the trayvon martin case which came after the courts had already acted. in this case he s holding back trying to calm a situation without inflaming it, whereas attorney general holder will be on the ground today in ferguson personally taking charge of the investigation there to some extent. michelle, it s donny. let s say you re the czar put in charge of turning this thing around and you have a playbook at this point going forward. what happens to not put this behind us, but to take this and elevate it and put it on the right track? sf i were running this, one of the things i would do quite frankly is appeal to the president. i understand his role. he s in a very difficult situation. we know he s being briefed daily. he is intimately aware of what s happening. i think this is one of those times where we need leadership from the absolute very top of the nation. one of the best speeches i believe president obama ever gave was when he spoke with then senator obama right after the whole controversy with reverend wright. he talked about things happening in the black community and black people themselves being responsible for our lives. when we talk about the racial divide that we re seeing, i ll tell you, i have seen some of the nastiest hate mail i have ever seen in my entire life in dealing with public policy issues, and the divide is so clear. we need someone like the president to come in and say, look, as a member of the african-american community, i understand what ills the community and what we need to do, ourselves as a community to take responsibility for our lives. however that doesn t mean that the government can be a co-conspirator in what looks like the execution of a young black men. the lives of black males are just as valuable and just as important as others. mukal, we talked earlier. it s so important we come together. i was wondering, the trayvon case. i caught a lot of you know what, a lot of crap for talking about how offensive it was things that went on down there: i see for the first time a break in the dam of republican silence. i m not saying republicans are racist or insensitive. my party, though, usually shuts up when things like this happen. rand paul come out and say there are two americas when it comes to justice. he s exactly right. you have erick erickson, another conservative guy, a good friend of mine saying, hey, guys, we really shouldn t wait for this to happen to a white kid before we get offended. let s get offended now. even ted cruz talked about the heavy handedness of it. that s to me a really good sign. if we re going to have a real conversation about race, we need both sides engaged in this. you do need both sides engaged and to take it out of the realm of the political. at the end of the day, this is how white america views black america and how black america responds to that. that s the conversation we re not having. we dance around it. we gloss over it and say we re in a post racial america because we have a black president in the white house, a black attorney general. at the end of the day, young black males are being arrested, killed and harassed in their communities. as the economy suffers, it gets worse. combination of the criminal justice system, the economy, all these factors playing out in these communities. the problem is we re not addressing them. it builds up like any pressure system. it s important to hear rand paul on the right and folks on the left talk about this or begin to break this open. at the end of the day, if we don t deal with it, it festers i want to come from the left f from an unexpected point of view. obviously this is a tragedy. i want to liken this to a medical situation, where on a daily basis there are tens of thousands of operations going on in this country, life and death. sometimes there s malpractice, the doctor screws up. before we talk about black america, white america and this tremendous divide, isn t there just basically an ar rith mattic certainty that out of hundreds of thousands of daily interactions between law enforcement and suspects, whatever you want to that this is going to donny, i know where you re going, donny. here is the deal. we have made great, great over the past 50, 60 years we ve made great strides. but in this area, the criminal justice system. if your kid gets busted for weed, african-american kid gets busted for weed. your kid is off. the african-american, he could be in jail for five there is an uneven application of crime and punishment in america based on the color of skin. right wing bloggers, you can be pissed off with me if you want to, it s just numbers it really is. you can look numerically joe klein at the numbers and black males, they re so much worse in the system. and this, even if we don t look at who has the money, to have the lawyers. you ve got to look at reality, too. this is a very complicated situation. first of all, there are two competing stories about what actually happened. part of the problem we have in having a conversation about this in this country i ve done a lot of reporting in neighborhoods like this when african-americans look in a situation, they see a metaphoric truth of 400 years of white people vamping on blacks. but that s not good enough you also have to look at the facts of the case. by the way, i said that. i m not even talking about this case. i m talking about in general, the criminal justice system in general, blacks represent 13% of the population and 50% of the people convicted for murder. 90% of blacks who are killed are killed by other blacks. this is a cultural problem in that community which may well have roots in all of the historic crap we ve laid on t m them, but it las to be expressed with a certain amount of subtlety and complexity. joe, i just wanted to add quickly. when we talk about problems within the african-american community and talk about criminal justice, i think we have to talk about prescriptions, i think the most important prescription everyone needs to be having at the national level is education. african-americans and other people who find themselves ignored and living in low income neighborhoods are almost relegated to being a permanent underclass because your education is based on zip code. we all know that you escape poverty with a good education. if you can t get a good education, we re going to continue to see what we re seeing in ferguson and we re going to continue to see some people in the commit community believe that black people are lesser. that s why a lot of us around this table, i will put politics into it, are offended when poor african-american children in harlem are not allowed to have the same choices on what school they want to go to as rich white people. that s right. by the way, when you stand i will say this. when you stand in the doorway of allowing a poor african-american child in harlem to be able to go to a good school for political purposes a charter school. a charter school. a public charter school, you are no better than george wallace standing in the door of the university of alabama and not letting african-americans go in the kids in the charter schools in harlem are scoring the same on aptitude tests as the rich kids in westchester county. with all their tutors. exactly. joe klein, thank you so much. michelle bernard, thank you as well. peter stay with us. we have other stories to get to you on. still ahead on moenl morning joe, the two sides of maureen mcdomd as told by the other maureen mcdonnell, bob mcdonnell s sister. they share the same name as his wife testifies in the couple s corruption trial. we have all the details. we ll also get the latest from alaska s important senate primary, the republican primary there. up next, #ferguson, how twitter played a major role in thrusting the missouri story into the national spotlight. the new york times david carr joins us with how social media is break news in a new and compelling way. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. who s more excited about back to school savings at staples? the moms? or the dads? with guaranteed low prices on sharpies, it s definitely the dads. staples. make more happen for less. dovisit tripadvisor new york. with millions of reviews, tripadvisor makes any destination better. u.s. intelligence officials are analyzing a video that appears to show islamic militants murdering an american journalist. it appears to show them be heading james foley. the militants say it is retaliation for u.s. air strikes against isis in iraq. they are threatening to to kill another journalist held captive there. peter baker, i goes most americans are waking up this morning and seeing the i ll say it, the sheer evil in isis, a lot of these militants. i think it s been fascinating what s been happening with the white house over the past several days. the president saying it s a humanitarian mission and then we announce that we re going to help the kurds. then he announces he s going to bomb. it continues to grow. it continues to expand. is there an increasing understanding inside the white house of just how dangerous isis is, not only that region but to the world? well, i think if they didn t know before, certainly that video yesterday reinforced it. it was grisly. it s brutal. assuming it s verified by the intelligence agencies, it s a great tragedy for the family of james foley who only went there to record what was happening and tell people around the world. obviously this is a white house that doesn t want to find itself in mission creep. it doesn t want to get dragged back into a war that s not, in their view, america s. there a sense that isis representing a greater threat than we ve seen in a while. with this new government in bagdad, designated prime minister abadie, their hope is they can work with the government in the way they haven t been able to with maliki s government before, to counter the isis threat. you do see a little more robust action on the part of the americans beyond simply the immediate humanitarian crisis we were talking about in mount sinjar last week. peter baker, thank you very much. here with us now, david carr who wrote over the weekend about social media s role in the ferguson story. he wrote in part this, the web crackled with one story and one story only. it wasn t long before cable news made adjustments and a huge story, a militarized response to a mostly non-violent exercise in free speech took center stage. for that you can thank twitter which is often derided as a platform for realities, but has become much more than that in the age of always-on information. nothing good was happening in ferguson until it became a hash tag. david carr, thank you for being here. we always love having you on. we ve heard stories going back to 2004 in ukraine, the orange revolution, about how texting got people together and now we re hearing it happening, i guess iran 2009. what happened here in ferguson, when that hash tag got in front of ferguson, you say the bag things that were happening at least started to slow down a bit. i think part of the reason it was a big story on twitter is the people were trying to do their job, as we do, with cameras and crews who were getting pushed out. it fell on the people with phones in their hand to make it happen. it s a story it s a deep and complicated story, right? when you see people in militarized clothing pointing sniper rifles at american civilians, that s really all you sort of need to know about what s going on in terms of how big of a deal it is, right? that s why twitter was a good place for it. talk about how social media in general has grown over the past for things like this, where it actually bends the arc of the story. i think what happens is, when you look at twitter, there s people represented on twitter that aren t represented in your average network audience. twitter index is in the black community in the way that mainstream television doesn t, so it offers a visibility and window into that community. the other thing is it has a bias toward media. we re all, of course, talking to each other and sending notes to each other. that thunder dome, that echo tends to making stories mushroom very, very quickly. there s always an underbelly with every technology. the way traditional media uses twitter almost defeats democratization of it. you read the post they highlight six tweets. they may not be representative. there s an irony that there s still this basically hom mojization or certainly editing. we thought there would be a thousand flowers, but it s still the same oak trees standing there. i think a lot of other media tends to take a redakive approach to twitter. on wednesday night i know you and probably joe, mika, you just sat there and watched the waterfall come in. news is these days a list oftentimes. people talk about watching things on twitter because things were moving so quickly. a lot of it was carrying images. it was the best place to see what was going on. yes in the morning there was a distill asian of it and people have applied editorial practices to it. but in realtime it was quite something to behold. and different emotions and points of view fell into that waterfall in a way that in the mainstream media sometimes you get more of a canned look. it s weird, isn t it, that some something 140 characters and it can have that much emotional content. david carr, thank you so much. i love david carr. you can read his latest peeft on new yorktimes.com. coming up, mark begich finally has an opponent to face off. is it that joe miller guy? we ll find out. if a picture is worth 1,000 words, you won t want to miss what we have to say about rick prry s mug shot. they did a mug got. we ll be right back. vo: this is the summer. the summer of this. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. where memories will be forged into the sand. and then hung on a wall for years to come. get out there, with over 50,000 hotels at $150 dollars or less. expedia. find yours. from safety. to fuel economy. to quality. today s chevrolet has it all. and the time to buy is now. it s the chevy labor day sale! and 0% financing for 72 months is back! plus, no monthly payments for 90 days. 0% financing for 72 months plus no monthly 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him? they did everything they could do to put themselves in a position to win back the senate. it doesn t mean they ll win the senate. is this another tea party loss? would this be considered a tea party loss? why am i asking you. kasie hunt is here. so is this another would this be considered by the alaskan tea party as another loss for the tea party? in some ways, yes. in some ways this has just become a very, very personal thing for joe miller. it s a little bit about the tea party and a lot about the fact that he felt completely abandoned by republicans who backed murkowski when he won the nomination. thhe personally knows karl re which is why his group has gone so much into him. he worked for condi rice at the state department. they got so into him because they were worried about a joe miller can you queue up the theme song for the empire strikes. astounding what the republican establishment has done this year. i don t know what s going to happen in the senate, but in the republican party, they have owned this election cycle. just by not being stupid. they basically got engaged, figure out who is the most electable candidate. spent money early, were really aggressive. you act as if just not being stupid is not a huge achievement for our republican party. we would be walking around in pajamas and slippers in renault. stupid in 2010 and got it right in 2012. the iowa camp explained that. the question i have about the fall, in this process, in this march of the empire striking back, joe, do you see that base staying with the party? have they come with the conclusion it is better to win with as opposed to win with principle? you understand this better than anyone because of the positions you ve had. it s not like these guys are squishy moderates. they re really, really conservative people. better at getting really conservative people that can be backed by the establishment. we re not talking about the rise of moderates. talking about the rise of super, duper two other stories. governor rick perry is speaking out after spending time at an austin courthouse where he was booked on a pair of felony corruption charges. i m going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being and we will prevail. the actions that i took were lawful, they were legal and they were proper. this indictment is fundamentally a political act that seeks to achieve at the courthouse what could not be achieved at the ballot box. i ll tell you what, unless there s something by the way, that is a good looking man. i m serious. i could pay annie liebowitz to take my picture and rick perry s courthouse shot is better than mine. on the cover of time magazine. it s great stuff. jim vandehei, unless i m missing something, this is one of the greatest abuses of power on the national level i have seen. this is not on rick perry s part. not on rick perry s part. this office in austin, texas, that does this. they did it to tom delay and now doing it to rick perry. tom delay i don t know. that shag carpet is deep. i don t know what s in that shag carpet. but kay bailey hutchison, that was a scam. this rick perry indictment is a scam. as i said before, ronald reagan, according to the prosecutor in austin, texas, ronald reagan throwing the budget down and say if you i will veto this bill. that s like a criminal offense. can i ask who is going to indict this guy who is indicting other people for political reasons? who is going to investigate this? this is a runaway beer truck in the austin prosecutor s office. it s disgraceful in my opinion. when you have the new york times editorial board going to the defense of rick perry, you know something is up. it makes perry bigger when i don t think he s a legitimate contender for 2016. he gets way too much coverage, more than he deserves. there s parts of his campaign last time around that were really laughable. i think he s a lot better this year than he was you already have republicans saying john mccain saying this indictment is going to help rick perry because it s going to motivate people who are angry because they think he s politically targeted. the strategy is so interesting. they decided he s going to take this head on. mika, what s really troubling is the fact, we talked to paul ryan about impeachment. some republicans talk about impeaching barack obama, a small number, but they re stupid when they do. that s taking politics to a bad level. the next level would be, you know, this, where you re actually talking about putting somebody in jail for up to 99 years for not a veto, for a public veto threat. you talk about a kangaroo court in austin, texas, this is disgraceful. nobody enjoys a mugshot more than this guy, rick perry. when you take a look at that picture, keep in mind he really did enjoy it. right after the mugshot he went and got ice cream. not joking. good for him. good for him. listen, we have been around this table, mika, and we have been tougher on rick perry around this table than probably anybody in american media. i m guilty. very tough. the very mention of my name, there were news reports made his wife gasp. very upset with you. no, she s not. we re okay now. but this is a disgray. this comes from a guy that beat him up more than anybody else three years ago. i hope it helps him. all right. speaking of 2016, hillary clinton heads to iowa to speak at the annual state fry next month. what is a steak fry? do they fry their steaks? lots of butter. i m sure it s delicious. i love butter and it s good for you, too. i m sure if i went to a steak fry, i wouldn t have done so without serious damage. i don t grill a lot, there s a lot of butter. okay. stop. the event is becoming a must-visit for democratic presidential hopefuls. hillary heads to the caucus state in a weaker position. derrick hits has the numbers in the mojo poling place. some political pundits continue to act as if hillary clinton is a lock as our next commander in chief should she decide to run, a look at the polls shows her image has significantly been damaged since leaving the state department. whether the change in numbers were different by comments that she and bill were dead broke after leaving the white house or that she s racked up millions in speaking fees or something in between. one thing is certain, every major national poll show america s views of hillary clinton heading in the wrong direction. the nbc wall street journal shows a net negative 24-point swing in voters positive to negative view of her. with quinnipiac showing a similar swing of 22 points in the wrong direction. cnn, orc, 17 points and gallop, 14: of the likely 2016 presidential campaigns, hillary clinton s remains the most promisi promising. if there s one thing these trends remind us, there s no such thing as a sure thing in politics. guys, back to you. thank you, derrick. she could afford to lose 24 points. she cannot afford to lose another 24, that s correct. are you surprised at how badly she s managed the past three months during the book tour? i am and i m not. i think the expectations were high that we d see a different hillary. we re seeing the same hillary in the same hillary operation. i think when she broke with the president in that interview, it s going to hurt her. i think it plays to what everyone dislikes about the clintons, that everything is political, everything is calculation. she won t get the benefit of breaking with the president. she s always going to look cold and calculating. she ll have to wrestle with that when she s in iowa because she s undoubtedly running. kasie hunt, thank you very much. jim stay with us. up next, can bob mcdonnell be saved? his sister maureen is making the case against his wife. family feud here. it s getting ugly. this is unbelievable what s going on in the courthouse. this family is tearing each other apart. all that and much more straight ahead on morning joe. wouldn t it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters 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[ male announcer ] if you want to hear how their day went, serve manwich. and wait til they come up for air. [ laughs ] [ male announcer ] hold on. it s manwich. former governor bob mcdonnell is leaning on his family in an unusual did you see he s leaning on his family? yes. in a positive or negative way? it depends on what member of the family you re talking about. it s unbelievable, isn t it? jim vandehei, it s crazy. a fantastic story. you say fantastic. in a sick way. like the harlequin romance noveling. leaning on his family to avoid conviction in a federal corruption trial. the governor s sister who shares the same name as his wife testified the former first lady could be manipulative, deceptive and a bully. she said in court, there are two sides to mauer lean. you re not sure which one you re going to get. which one will show up. the governor s sister also tried to help the couple s case by reenforcing their narrative, trying to demonstrate that the marriage was in such tatters, the couple couldn t have conspire for gifts and loans. she gave example of how the govern governor out of the loop on a $50,000 check from donny williams. when she called her brother to discuss it, she said she could hear the first lady in the background angry that she called him about it. another witness testified the former first lady was so difficult, her staff once threatened to quit en masse, like all of them at once, leave. here with us from washington, columnist for the washington post, bob mccartney who has been following the case since the beginning. bob, this is some ugly stuff, if you re having to watch day in and day out. it certainly does paint a picture, the testimony, the stories we ve heard have to paint a picture of a husband with a wife that seemed to be completely out of control. what do you think is really going on here? i think maureen mcdonnell is a bit unstable, and i think a bit. a bit unstable, a bit manipulative, a bit deceptive. she initiated most of this, most of the bad stuff that they re in trouble for, but i think that bob mcdonnell went along with a lot of it based on the evidence that we know by the end, and that s why he s in trouble. the strategy clearly of the defense is to demonize maureen mcdonnell, the first lady, using, in part, the testimony of maureen mcdonnell, the governor s sister and basically put it all on her and portrayed bob mcdonnell as innocent, honest guy trying to do the right thing and the wife was doing all this stuff behind his back. a fair amount of it was done behind his back, but we know for sure that he was involved in some of the negotiations over the loans, and that certainly he knew about the vacations that he went on that johnny williams, the businessman, paid for. the parts he did know about, his wife being interested in leaving and having an affair with johnny williams. this is boys behaving badly. the governor of virginia behaving badly, johnny williams behaving badly. this is woman versus woman now. do you think johnny williams was adopting them because he wanted to? he was buying access. i don t see that the governor was an active participant? when he held up the row lex and smiled at the camera? this is from my husband that i got for my 40th birthday. when the governor held up his rolex i don t know. let s get back to the case at hand here. bob, let me ask you, though, as we talk about this, let s talk about the watch, the daughter s wedding. the governor had to know that there were funds coming in from johnny williams. they were using this guy like an atm machine and there was no real deal on the back end to pay it back. the governor definitely knew about the $15,000 to pay for the catering for his daughter s wedding. now, the defense argument is that that was a gift to the kid a gift to the young happy couple and not to the governor. but the governor was very much involved with it. the checks actually went at least one of the checks went to maureen, maureen the first lady, not maureen the sister. there s some confusion about whether he knew, bob mcdonnell knew that the money for the rolex came from johnny williams, senior. real quickly, a very important point to clear up. we said from the very beginning, it looks sleazy. it s legal in the state of virginia. as far as the federal charges go, does it have to be a quid pro quo that s proven? yes. you have to prove when bob mcdonnell took the money from johnny williams, that he had the intent to do something for him, to do something for johnny williams, and they did do stuff for johnny williams, senior. there s a question about whether they did more than they normally would have done for any businessman who was trying to promote his products in virginia. let me say, mika, that is a high, high bar ha the prosecutor has to meet. in there, i don t know how the prosecutor will meet that. but that intent for pay back, because if they had a payment schedule to pay back those loans works that set the dynamic up properly to prove that the governor had intent to pay him back and was not going give some favor for the cash? again, this just blows my mind that anybody would do this, but as far as virginia law goes, they don t have to pay back. they have to prove that quid pro quo. you helped my daughter so in return i m going to help you get your vitamins or whatever. and i just think it s getting murkier and murkier. it s going to be very hard for the prosecutor. at the end of the day, bob mcdonnell is broke because of it. we ll tell you about the time julia louis-dreyfus walked into a pawn shop to find the stars of breaking bad. and things are getting hollyweird. that s ahead on morning joe. t. and minus our expenses. perfect timing. we re offering our best-ever pricing on mobile plans for business. run the numbers on that. well, unlimited talk and text, and ten gigs of data for the five of you would be. one-seventy-five a month. good calculating kyle. good job kyle. you just made partner. our best-ever pricing on mobile share value plans for business. now with a $100 bill credit for every business line you add. hey pal? 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who cares? look where you get to stay! booking.com booking.yeah! who s more excited about back to school savthe ladies?ples? these guys? or these guys? when you get guaranteed low prices on everything you buy the most, everybody gets excited! staples. make more happen for less. no justice, no peace. we want the world to see that st. louis knows how to take care of business. now community leaders are stepping in to try to persuade the most radicalized elements to leave the streets. this is our city. we take control of our community. what will bring peace to the streets of ferguson. justice. hands up. don t shoot. an army that has put the islamic state to flight. today a sign they can be defeated. awful tragic news from overseas, it s about an american journalist named james foley. executed. beheaded by isis. terrorists go on to threaten the life of another american if president obama doesn t end u.s. air strikes in iraq. perry, perry, perry. i reported to the county authorities a few minutes ago. texas governor rick perry was fingerprinted, photographed and booked on two felony charges of abusing power. he made it clear he sees the charges against him as a political vendetta. i m going to fight this injustice with every fiber of my being, and we will prevail. i thought i heard that bruce asked that none of his music was played at your events because he didn t believe in your politics. no, never did that. i know him and you re wrong. and i understand you re expressing your politics. don t put it in mr. springsteen s mouth, put it in yours. welcome back to morning joe. it s 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. back on set we have donny deutsch, michael steele and in washington christina bellantoni. they did the mug shot of rick perry. speaking of governors. did he smile? he takes a good mug shot. he had a nice smile. look at him. he s a didngood-looking guy. all right. let me ask you about mr. springsteen and mr. christie. what did you think? i think the debate might have gone on a little long but i m used to people who go on long. it s no problem. maybe that s why i related to him so well. but she kept asking questions and as a reporter, she decided she was going to get into a debate. she had her springsteen information wrong. then she started moving on to other questions and he s right. if they want to hear the reporter, then the reporter should hold a town hall meeting and we ll see how many people go to that town hall meeting. they re there to hear chris christ christie. was that a reporter or constituent? i think it was a constituent. same with the constituent. if they want a debate, the constituent can hold her own town hall meeting. yeah. listen, i would much rather this happen than have them cowering in the corner. but there s something in between. he just comes across as an obnoxious pugilistic bully. you know what he looks like there s a way to push back and move on. we ve seen thousands of politicians say that s not acceptable, next question. i ve got to say no disrespect to these two people who i know personally and like personally, but in the age of hillary clinton and jeb bush, a lot of people want to see this. in an age where washington, d.c., is stuck in the mud and everybody has canned responses and nobody shows their real emotions and everything you say is market tested and poll driven, that breaks through. and that s why chris christie worked before and i think that s why if the investigations all go all right for him, i think that s i think that s why we liked him from the get-go is that he definitely broke away from the mold. kind of put a real and not all of it was pretty but he put himself out there in every way, in a very honest way, in a way that seemed authentic. willie is the authentic aspect is what resonates with people. but we want to get to the left wing, i d go out to the hamptons in my $100 million mansion kind of guy, maybe that s not appealing. i thought you wanted to come out? i am! it s your house, you ve got to pat. i can ride in your wake. he tortures me wake in and week out about the hamptons. then hey, man, i m going to be out there this weekend. you know why we re doing this because sweet little louis is getting married i m going to stay at gatsby s mansion. but is it mick that lives in the side house? i m like mick. i ll go there and watch you do all of this profane stuff and just sit there. and then i go back to my shack. you ll be in awe. you should see the green light. it s like a disco strobe. and joe will be dancing. techno music. going like this. it s not what gatsby looked like at the end of the buchanans. doc, you re a jersey boy. when they want to know what kids are thinking on the streets of new jersey, they ask willie geist. what do you think? first of all, i think it s an odd topic to have a public debate about. whether or not bruce springsteen likes you. to pick that fight is weird. i don t think it s as unanimously good as you think it is in new jersey. if you talk to people, they like the honesty and that kind of stuff, but when they look at some of the other things he does, they don t always love it. but that said, his numbers are pretty good for a guy who s been through a scandal, whether you think it s a big deal or not. i think what s important is whether or not that plays outside new jersey. i can t even we ve got a lot of news to cover. isis continues to just be a dark cloud that covers the middle east. i can t even show please don t. i can t even show the front of the new york post, but the daily news has a shot of just these they are absolute savages. i don t know what they think they re proving, but all they re doing is they re just they re just setting themselves up to be killed, all of them. i mean you know what, everybody that acts that way, it never ends well for them when you do that to the united states. it just doesn t. you can ask. where s osama bin laden right now? i hope he enjoyed his day in the sun. where s saddam hussein right now? i hope he enjoyed it. it never ends well. it s not going to end well for isis. and you know what, i will say this again, thank you, president obama, for going against your base. this is a scourge that needs to be wiped out of the middle east. i say that with great trepidation after supporting the first gulf war, like about 70% of americans. that was, we found out later, an optional war. this, this fight against isis, there s nothing option a.m. about it. there s no option. because they are a scourge that will continue to spread and they will find their way to america s doorstep. the reason i said we should get out of afghanistan four years ago is because the taliban didn t want to blow up buildings in the united states. these people, they want to kill us all. and if they stay in iraq and they get in control of oil field and they get money and they get weapons, they will come to us and kill as many of us as quickly as they can. this is something that the president can t ignore and i would like the republicans to salute him for stepping forward and doing what he s done over the past week or two. we can all go back and criticize what he s done and then democrats can criticize what we republicans have done and we get nowhere. and i think going against the base is something that some politicians have a lot of fear about, and so that s commendable for you to say. all right, the big story here in the united states, attorney general eric holder will be in ferguson, missouri, 11 days after the shooting of a black teenager. there were tense moments overnight after calm for most of the day. peaceful protesters could be heard screaming not tonight, as water and glass bottles were thrown at police. 47 people were arrested, but state highway patrol captain ron johnson is hopeful the violence may be declining. i think that turning point was made by the clergy, the activists, the volunteers and the men and women of law enforcement partner together to make a difference. but also those citizens who took heed to what we talked about last night, not allowing criminals to mass themselves in a peaceful protest. they protested early and went home early and allowed us a better visual look of those criminals and agitators that are roaming the streets for their own agenda. can you say the end of that clip again. he s got to work around the clock. you ve got one african-american, police captain, i see white faces back there. only three out of 53 officers. i know. i m just saying now, again, it shouldn t be about race but guess what, it s about race. this is about race. i may be i just i don t know. but that speaks to the problem that that community has. the problem in ferguson, exactly. all right. let s go to ferguson. nbc news correspondent craig melvin has been on the ground for several days now. craig, good morning. it s good to see you. we hear, i guess, a relatively good night last night but we ve heard that before so we re a little leery of celebrating that. what is the mood on the ground there and what do you think now that you ve been there a couple of days breaks this and gets people out of the streets and brings the peace? reporter: you know, that s a good question, willie. everyone seems to be in pretty much universal agreement that the one thing that would probably empty these streets fairly quickly is if there was some sort of indictment, some charges brought against that officer. of course as you know the grand jury convening at 9:00 this morning to start hearing some evidence. it was very interesting, as you just heard there. 47 arrests last night, no molotov cocktails, no shooting, no tear gas used. there was some pepper spray used. i think you could see that in one of the clips played there, but it was calmer. the crowd itself, i can tell you, was smaller last night than it had been. there was also there also seemed to be a shift in police strategy. captain johnson told me earlier in the day that we might see this and we did in fact see it last night. in previous nights you saw those officers in riot gear wearing helmets, shields out, shoulder to shoulder, short of a very offensive position. last night you did not see that, you saw smaller groups of officers and they were mingering with these smaller groups of protesters that were being forced to make that lap around the main drag here in ferguson. we also saw those military-style vehicles. in previous nights they had been right smack in the middle of the street in sort of an offensive position. they would say a defensive position, but nonetheless an intimidating position. last night those vehicles were not in the middle of the street, they were on the side as well. so there are a number of folks who have said to me last night that little things like that did in fact make a difference. of course as you know captain johnson urged the peaceful protesters not to come out last night, to do their protesting in the day. and by all accounts it looks like a lot of those protesters did just that. all right. speaking with msnbc s tamron hall, ferguson mayor james knowles looked to downplay suggestions of racial tension within the community. take a look. there is not a racial divide in the city of ferguson. according to who? is that your perspective or do you believe that is the perspective of african-americans in your community? that is the perspective of all residents in our city, absolutely. have you been watching the news? because there are people, sir, and please with all due respect, there are people on air on any network, even if you don t watch this one, who disagree who love there. so i m asking, and again with all due respect, are you listening to them? absolutely. there s 22,000 residents in our community. this has affected about a half mile strip of street in our community. the rest of our community, the rest of the african-americans in our community are going about their daily lives, going to our businesses, walking their dog, going to our neighborhood watch meetings. that s kind of saying like 9/11 taking cameras to the upper east side or the upper west side. look at new york, new york is fine. what s wrong with new york? my god, that s perfect. yes. what are you talking about? it s just a small group of buildings down at the tip of the island. the guy is clueless right there. for days he is absolutely clueless. for days people have been asking where is the political leadership because they hadn t seen the mayor and heard members of the city council. he comes out on air and says that? not only is he clueless, he s not credible. you understand more fundamentally why folks in that community are pissed off right now because he s totally out of touch with what s going on. he looks like he just came back from vacation and has no idea what s going on. there s three out of 53 members of the police force, his police force, right, that are black. not only that, mika, out of 53 in a city that s 70% african-american. how do you let that happen when you re hiring and you re trying to figure out a force that really represents the community? i know how you let that happen. you re racially insensitive and that creates a racial divide. and you don t think there s a problem. and then to make matters worse, you say there s not a problem. right. and you think because you say it that that means it s the rule of law because you are clueless. that s right. and you re not self aware. so i don t know if this guy knows, willie, but even the egyptian government is chastising him for what s going on in ferguson. if the generals in egypt are criticizing you, you have a problem. the ayatollah in iran are tweeting about ferguson, missouri. it s not a good position to be in. there are things that happened in the moments after this young man was killed that have traumatized that area of town, that whole town. he was left lying in the streets for hours. he was not covered up. and there were children there were people so stunned at what they were seeing, they were videotaping it because they didn t know what else to do and they were traumatized that they saw this young man get gunned down and then he laid there in the middle of the street, not surrounded, not covered. they didn t put cars they said they didn t want to tamper with the scene? well, my god, they certainly didn t tamper with the scene. they left the scene there for everyone to see to be traumatized for hours. it s the same thing in the trayvon case. the parents weren t even notified that he was in the morgue for a couple of days. again, the game around this set is what if a republican president did this? in these cases, you just have to ask, what if it was a white 18-year-old kid shot in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. they would cover it up, they would surround it. it s the same questions i asked every day during hurricane katrina. you know, if this had happened in an exclusive suburb of dallas, texas, would the president be looking down from 30,000 feet or walking around shaking hands? it s the same thing here. it s like if this had happened in a white neighborhood. and it continues to stress the black community in particular in these areas that are suddenly thrust into this reality again. for them it s every day. this is an everyday occurrence. for the mayor to sit there and act like there s no problem, it s amazing. still ahead on morning joe, the breaking bad boys reunite as we take a trip to hollyweird. plus pat o brien will join us. pat o brien is coming back. we will discuss the highs and lows of a remarkable career and how he overcame several stints in rehab. also, we ll have more with congressman paul ryan. up next, a scary scene in california when a car chase involving a buick sedan comes to a crashing halt. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. speaking of car wrecks, right? well, good morning, everyone. we watched epic rains in arizona yesterday and now we move on to this heat wave. it s moving from the west coast to the middle of the nation and soon to the southeast. along with it, we talk about humidity, because that s what s really going to be oppressive as we go throughout the week. when you add that to the temperature, the heat index will feel like 100 to 110 in many areas of the country. when you have dew points in the 60s, a little uncomfortable. when it s in the 70s, it s oppressive. that s what we have from dallas all the way through atlanta and florida. already in the 80s. soon it will be into the 90s with that heat index going over 100. heat warning in effect for the st. louis area the next couple of days, possibly into the weekend. heat advisories all the way down through memphis. in memphis this weekend it will be very hot, near 99 degrees. so it s hot across the country. the cooler spots, the great lakes are still beautiful in the northeast. going into next week the first item to watch in the tropics for a while, we re going to be watching a tropical disturbance heading over the caribbean the next couple of days and a week from now heading into the gulf of mexico. the million dollar question is will it develop? will we be dealing with a tropical storm or hurricane heading for the u.s.? it s all a possibility and we ll watch that closely in the days ahead. we leave you with a really nice shot of washington, d.c. some beams of sunlight coming down to the surface. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. hey! i found a happy space somewhere to call our own a happy little place and it all starts with you whoa-oh-oh-oh, all this goodness. after-school snacking should be fun and nutritious which is why we put whole grains first in every general mills big g cereal what matters most should always come first general mills. look for the g, it means goodness first. take a look at the morning papers. the arizona republic heavy rains triggered massive flooding in phoenix. over 5 inches of rain has fallen in areas north of the city, shutting down roads and highways, rising waters and crippling neighborhoods, washing through mobile homes, trapping rez dments cars. look at that. there s more rain on the way later this week. so far no life threatening injuries have been reported. this from the sacramento bee. there s a wildfire burning near yosemite in california. so far the fire has scorched nearly 3300 acres and destroyed eight structures. officials are saying the blaze is 35% contained and more than 1,000 people have been cleared to get back to their homes. the fire began on monday, the 16th, miles from a park distance. the guardian, a study says readers absorb less reading on ereaders such as a kindle or ipad. do you find that? i do. this is so interesting. according to research out of norway, those reading a paperback retained more aspects of the story when tested on plot points and character comprehension. scientists say, i believe this, holding an actual book means the reader is able to chart their progress as they physically turn pages while holding an e-reader can be less gratifying. i think we were just working with my daughter yesterday on study skills and she finds that writing notes down as opposed to typing, and i do as well. i think the same applies to reading. you ve got to hold the book. i ve got a pretty good memory but as far as studying goes with things i didn t want to absorb, i just had to sit there and write it. i d read it, i d write it, i d tear it apart. that makes sense. there s some less of a connection there. the san francisco chronicle, surveillance footage emerged showing the terrifying moments when a car crashed in sausalito, yesterday. the driver was being pursued following a domestic violence incident. while trying to elude police, he lost control of the car, hopped a car and crashed into a cafe where people were eating outside. the suspect attempted to flee on foot but was chased down and arrested. three people were treated for nonlife-threatening injuries. 50 years after lbj launched this nation s war on poverty and congre congressman paul ryan says poverty is winning now. more from our fascinating conversation with the wisconsin republican as he tries to set the way forward. that s his new book. plus the great pat o brien is here and we ll get his take on our important hollyweird report. yes, pat will chime in on that. he s got a great book we are going to talk about. 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[ male announcer ] during the cadillac summer s best event, lease this 2014 ats for around $299 a month. hurry in this exceptional offer ends soon. hurry in this exceptional offer ends soon. funtil to keep growing, theys hneeded a new factory,, but where? fortunately, they get financing from ge capital. we re part of ge, a company that s built hundreds of factories. so we can bring in experts to help them evaluate costs, incentives, and zoning to make a decision that would make their founder proud. if you just need a loan, just call a bank. at ge capital, we re builders. and what we know, can help you grow. so ally bank really has no hidden fethat s right. accounts? it s just that i m worried about you know hidden things. ok, why s that? no hidden fees, from the bank where no branches equals great rates. 30 past. congressman paul ryan is putting a face on his push to overhaul the nation s regulations and he says it s america s poor who can benefit the most from new policies. we spoke to the budget chairman just a short time ago on morning joe. we ve got a lot to talk about here and i want to get to as much as we can and certainly want to talk about the book. but first let s talk about ferguson, which actually feeds right into your book. we were having a conversation yesterday about the frustration of covering ferguson and everybody is just covering what happened the past week. we have got to look at what s happened the past 50 years. these people have been left behind. they have been abandoned. people have let s just try to pass this program, let s just try to pass that program and we re not guilty anymore of the lives that they live. they are like abandoned. that s right. isolated. they re on an island. i try not to inject my personal policy preferences onto a tragedy. so i think just out of respect for the brown family, for the community, it s important as policy makers not to say look at what s happening, therefore, do what i think should be done. i think it s important out of respect not to do that. having said all of that, i talk about in this book and i put out a plan a number of weeks ago, we have got to re-engage with the poor in america. we are in the 50th anniversary on the war on poverty and poverty is winning. and so let s think about how to measure success instead of on inputs, how many dollars are we spending, but how are we getting people out of poverty. how do we engage when americans hear the republicans say let s cut this program or let s cut that program. one of the reasons why i wrote this book, if you don t like the direction policy is heading right now, if you don t like the governing philosophy, what would we do differently? i think the country is on the wrong track. a lot of people agree with me. not everybody, but a lot do. so i wrote this to say here is the governing philosophy and the solutions for renewing the american idea which is basically the condition of your birth doesn t determine the outcome of your life. back to my question, does that require a slashing of spending for the type of programs that keep a lot of these people that we re seeing on tv alive? keep food on their kids table? the entire premise of that question presupposes that these programs are all just great and it s just a matter of doing more of the same or not. no, i don t presuppose that but i also know that we can t just tomorrow pass a budget that s going to cut aid off no, that s right. for the disadvantaged. but you voted for a bipartisan bill in 1996, welfare reform, that did more to reduce child poverty than any reform in the modern era. what i m saying is let s rethink it like that. let s take the other welfare programs that have not been reformed and customize them to a person s individual specific needs so that we can work on fighting poverty, eye to eye, and back up the community. one of the problems in the war on poverty is we ve had this federal government intervention that has told the common taxpayer this is government s responsibility, it s not yours, and we ve isolated the poor. we ve isolated people in our communities. i think we need to re-engage that. number one. number two, let s reform our welfare program so they re always pointed toward getting able-bodied people into the workforce. we talk about high tax rates in america. the highest arguably is the single mom making $20,000 to $40,000 who makes a decision to go to work and ends up losing more benefits than what she gets getting a paycheck and facing high marginal tax rates. so there s a lot of room for reform and clearly dialogue. congressman, you know the cartoon version of you that s put out by your critics, by democrats, by many progressives that all you want to do is cut, cut, cut, you want to throw old people out on the street, you want to throw poor people out on the street. how do you answer that? what would you do specifically to help disadvantaged people. first of all, i d say read my book. honestly i talk about a different type of governing philosophy and a different agenda to reconnect people with the american idea, especially those who have fallen away from it, who don t think it s there for them in their communities. what i proposed in a number of things are rethinking the way we fight poverty and reintegrating civil society, local communities and charities along with federal resources to get aid that s customized to focus on getting able-bodied people to work and having a safety net that s resilient for those who cannot help themselves. one of the problems we have in america is we are going bankrupt. we have a debt crisis that s on the horizon and that puts the safety net in jeopardy. other problem is we re not having the economic growth and economic opportunity. we don t have the healthy economy we need to get people back to work so a lot of reforms there. but with specific focus on poverty, there are people in america who are doing amazing things overcoming poverty, helping people do so. i talk about a lot of them in my book but i also talk about an agenda that backs that up so we can do more of those things. part of our conversation this morning with congressman paul ryan. see the full discussion on our website, mojoe.msnbc.com. his book was called the way forward. it s time for reques busine before the bell with brian sullivan. how are the markets looking, brian? they have been looking strong. a lot of viewers are not day traders but they might have a 401(k) or pension plan. things have been pretty doggone good. the s&p is less than half a percent off its all-time high. i tweeted this out yesterday, joe. apple s market cap is nearly $600 billion. that is the value of every nfl, nhl, cable team combined six times over. mika, you think you may be going back to an iphone? you ve tried to get away from it. do you think you may be going back? come back. i was one of the latest adapters and i m a happy guy. you re happy? you moved from it? from a blackberry to it. you took a while. i m a late adapter. when are you leaving the 8 track? i just want to make sure everything is okay. i let the other 200 million people graze first. i m old school. by the way, speaking of old school and music, this is completely unrelated and unplanned, but did you know vinyl album sales are up like 600% over the last five years? people are going back to vinyl. i use lps the ahome. the sound quality is much deeper. i know, joe, you re a musician. there s notes in there you forget you don t hear on mp3s. john heilemann, of course, is an audio file and listens to nothing but records. while walking down the street he listens to records. it s amazing. it s kind of crazy. i just picture him eating cheetos in his underwear just playing the lps. that s your problem. please don t thrust your problems on the rest of us, donny. so let s talk about really quickly snap chat. i snap chat with my daughter. please snap chat me, amelia. you say ads and news are coming? 30 million snap chat users, mostly teens, it disappears, but in november something called snap chat discovery will roll out which will put ads and news in your feed. listen, mika, i know you ve got teenagers, joe, you do too she s snap chatting with one right now. what about snap chat, who s in your child s dorm room? you ve got to give the warning about snap chat, though. what s the warning, donny? there s ways you think you re sending something in picture that disappears. you can take a picture. so just be careful. you should have figured that out. the pictures are already out there. my attorney says you haven t heard the whole story yet. cease and desist. still ahead oh, boy. oh, boy. this guy is great. he s back. he s spelling it right! good god, i ve never seen that happen. he once lived a lavish lifestyle high rolling with celebrities and politicians. we ll talk about what happened next, when pat o brien joins us with his new memoir. morning joe we ll be right back. you owned your car for four years. you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends. three jobs. you re like nothing can replace brad! then liberty mutual calls. and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement, we ll pay for a car that s a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. see car insurance in a whole new light. liberty mutual insurance. hey, i heard you guys can help me with frog protection? 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(vo) ours is a world of the red-eyes. (daughter) i m really tired. (vo) the transfers. well, that s kid number three. (vo) the co-pilots. all sitting. .trusting. .waiting. .for a safe arrival. introducing the all-new subaru legacy. designed to help the driver in you. .care for the passenger in them. the subaru legacy. it s not just a sedan. it s a subaru. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. so get out there, and get the best price guaranteed. find it for less and we ll match it and give you $50 toward your next trip. expedia. find yours. joining us now, famed sports and entertainment broadcaster pat o brien. also a former student of my father s. and he was a good teacher. oh, was he? some say he was a little scary. how smart do you have to be? what did you get? from him? i learned how to balance my checkbook. that s good. he didn t give you an a, did he? no. it was more about theory with him. but when i went to school for advanced and national studies, your father was there, henry kissinger would come in and talk and we had this incredible group of professors. it s great. we used to smoke hash in the library and do our finals. wolf blitzer was my classmate. so let s talk about your incredible life. you go through the book, extraordinary, i mean extraordinary arc from the dakotas to the center of hollywood and fame and stardom. and yet the last picture you show after showing pictures with mccartney and ringo and mick jagger, you lying on a carpet. you say it s a perfect metaphor for your life. your, quote, emotional suicide. that s what it was. i had a very big life, i still do and plan on still having one. but a very blessed life, especially from that side of the tracks. abe lincoln poor in south dakota. and to get out of there and come up through the ranks. but part of my alcoholism was that my life was so big, i started believing every lie i was telling myself, that i could drink like a normal person. who s drank with me here. you have, you have. do you remember drinking with me? i m joking. please don t tell me. did something happen? no, nothing happened. i had a very big life. and the alcoholism kind of set in when i was 55. and a disaster. but i m fine now. i ve done a lot when i was writing this book how do i address this panel. do i just say joe or mika? you just talk to whoever you want to talk to. mika, when i was writing this book that s the smart move. i couldn t believe how much i had done. this book should be called i am freaking tired. we ll get to whatever you want to get to but the book has a lot of great sports stories. i worked a lot with harvey milk back in the day in the gay and lesbian movement, it was just called the homosexual movement back then, i think. and lots of stuff in there,ing through scandal and all kinds of things. alcoholism at 55, that sounds surprising because i think the theory is, oh, somebody has had a drinking problem, but at that stage of life to either acknowledge or become explain how at 55 versus 47. well, you re predetermined as an alcoholic, it s a disease, it s a brain disease and it s an allergy. i thought i was fine, but at 55, and it had to do with where i was working too. i hated the people i was working with. i loathed the executive producer who was just a nightmare who would make me go stand next to my friends by the way, that s why mika and i are so sober. we love working. when heath ledger died, he was a friend of mine, go stand next to his coffin. but it was my fault. i was drinking too much. i was never drunk on the air. not that i can remember. i was drinking back then too. so this side of the table has had drinks with pat o brien. some people can drink and some people can t and i m one who can t. and now i ve got there s an app for this. 50,954 without a drug or a drink. that s fantastic, right? the great thing about our time intersecting, the thing about the b the insider is pat and lara were in new york and i was in l.a. most of the time you get this big roaring pitch from pat, like t.r., what have you got? then it would cut to me in l.a. pat and lara were in new york to give a more new york centric feel but so many people thought the world of pat o brien, salt of the earth kind of guy. obviously there was tension behind the scenes with some of the higher-ups. it was a tough environment, certainly one for me coming from a news environment i wasn t prepared for. but mistakes happen. it s all about the recovery. in this book you talk about your recovery. why after the fourth rehab attempt were you able to get it right? what do you think about that, four rehabs. i used to make fun of people who were in two. the first one was at promises and it was after that whatever you call that scandal that i had which is so benign now. and creepy to talk about. but i will. the second one was at betty ford where i got a nice suntan. a beautiful room. then i had the record at betty ford for relapsing and going back in and then i got sober at hazelton. when i got to hazelton, mika, i was almost dead. my last day of drinking, i drank 12 bottles of wine, 13 or 14, was found flat down on my beach near nantucket and was nearly dead. when i got there, they said to me you better listen this time because you re going to die. i was 130 125 pounds, take 40 pounds off this body. i finally realized like dorothy in the wizard of oz, i could go home. robin williams was a friend that grabbed me and said welcome home, papa, you re in a safe place now. the safe place is in these rooms of recovery. you hear other stories and you get support from other people. i hope you stay safe. i m safe now, aren t i? you look great. stay that way. you look great. thank you for coming on. this book looks amazing. you get incredible stories about celebrities and that lifestyle, but i think a lot of people could be helped by this book as well. you need to come back more and just hang with us. the road to recovery is not perfect. it s also the number one health problem in the country. pat o brien, stay with us because things are about to get weird, okay? not that they haven t already. really? hollyweird from paul rudd s makeover to cindy crawford s crusade and a breaking bad reunion. we ll be right back. and asked for less. there s a reason it s called an all you can eat buffet. and not a have just a little buffet. because what we all really want is more. now get our best ever pricing with the more everything plan. 1 gb of bonus data per month per line. verizon smart rewards to rack up points for the things you really want. and 50% off all new smartphones, like the htc one m8 for windows & android. built to inspire envy. come get your more with verizon. no question about that. but your erectile dysfunction - that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment s right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any allergic reactions like rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a free 30-tablet trial. we ll start looking for an suv. fire by firenze sir? start your search online with over 35,000 carmax quality certified used cars. carmax. start here. it s time for a trip to hollyweird. louis. wait. what happened to louis? wait a minute. this is such a successful segment that i got rid of louis. oh, really? i just figured that was the way it works around here. if you look at your constitution, you re now in charge of hollyweird. so what are you going to say? let s take a trip to hollyweird. they have done studies, you know. 60% of the time it works every time. he s known for the loveable and quirky comedy role. now paul rudd is said to become the latest hollywood star to get a tough guy superhero makeover. marvel released this picture of rudd as a super hero with the ability to shrink and increase his strength. he saves the world in july 2015. and celebrities have problems just like you and me, even celebrities who send them to posh malibu day school. here s a local parent voicing her concern. and the cock is still there. let s test it and it needs to be removed, let s remove the caulk. that doesn t seem like rocket science. cindy crawford is talking about the school s window caulking, which could contain dangerous chemicals. two of the biggest names in television death is so final as life, life is full of possibilities. now the two tv stars are on demand on stage joining forces for the 19th century comedy, a month in the country, a show that debuts in january. stalked, threatened and called taylor swift. speaking of the biggest names in tv, in this promo for next monday night s primetime emmy awards, ryan cranston is back in business. there it is. barely legal pawn. check out what happens when julia louis-dreyfus is a client. i m here because i m wondering if you might be interested in purchasing this. look at that. it s a best supporting actress in a comedy. supporting, it would be better if it was a leading, you know. hey hey, hey now, supporting is a huge honor. thank you. it is. cindy crawford what was that? watch out for that caulk. it was caulk. watch out for what? the window caulking. caulking? billy bush, eat your heart out. i m coming for you next. it s caulking. i m really glad you didn t caulking. wait a second, so they were protesting the caulking in the windows. yes. because? well, she thought it should be tested. toxic caulk. dangerous chemicals. it s a dangerous conversation. why do you say hollyweird? something worries me about you washington we re new york now. i understand. when hollywood people come in here, you wear a tie, you get dressed up, you fawn not you no, i don t actually. people fawn all over them. look, do we look like fawners? we do not fawn over anybody. you re not fawners. he s not a fawner. i m talking about chris matthews, my good friend. you can t name names. i love chris. he loves that. no, i love chris. you know what, it s offensive that you call me like a washington insider. i m all nantucket, baby, you know that. we are nantucket. that s our bumper sticker. we are nantucket. hey, this is an amazing book. we ll talk about it more and would love for you to do what you did at the beginning of this show where you would just come and stay with us for an hour. we ll be back. thank you so much, pat o brien, great to see you. love pat o brien. that does it for us here on morning joe. craig melvin picks up coverage live from ferguson, missouri, after a short break. have a great day. i m meteorologist bill karins. the heat and humidity is the story. we re watching temperatures soaring into the 90s. that s not the big deal. it s the humidity added to it. that gives you a heat index of 100 to 110 all the way from texas, oklahoma, kansas, all the way down through florida and through the carolinas. some spots will be 110 to 115 in florida this afternoon. have a great day. and with the quicksilver card from capital one, you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you purchase. not just everything at the hardware store. not everything, until you hit your cash back limit. quicksilver can earn you unlimited 1.5% cash back on everything you could possibly imagine. say it with me everything. one more time, everything! and with that in mind. what s in your wallet? 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if you haven t visited us on the online show, come join us. there s the address on the bottom of the screen. and you can keep the computer on as greta goes on the record right now. new proof, isis has plannings to commit terrorism and the plans are global. fighters from at least 50 companies, the majority of them are for isis and the scariest part of them are right here in america. that means they have american passports, the state department released disturbing new numbers one day after an american was ski kill after fighting for isis in america. the number of how many americans are likely fighting for isis in syria and iraq. i don t know if it s a larger number, but do you have to say about that? if? war continues and isis continues to win and is seen as a conquering jihadist here row and the eyes of this disturbing fight around the world. president obama is derelict as commander in chief to get all of these american citize s who are going to jihad should be considered as terroists. i m going to. isis, i mean at the time they had taken falluja and falluja in 2004 was one of our biggest battles, but if he got it so wrong in january an the intel jems he was given was so wrong then, where s my confidence then that he was making the right decisions? isis didn t come got from a hurricane or a storm. his entire national security team said arm the syrian rebels that would align with us, he chose not to, isis came from iraq, when he drew a terrorist line from assad, and he allowed it to get worse. the commander in chief is derelict in his duty to protect the homeland and the goal should be to defeat these guys, not contain them. is there anything you can say to convince me that tonight that things that have very much changed, i hear what the pentagon said, but as a u.s. senator who s deepably involved in these international matters are you hearing that the pentagon is stepping up and looking at this very differently? this is one senator that was burned by senator obama. i went to the white house to speak to president obama and his assured us he was going to degrades assad and upgrade the syrian army, he took a walk from his chief of staff a few days later and i don t have any confidence at all that he understands the country and his indecision upon indecision is putting our homeland at risk. there s going to be 1400 if we don t start beating these guys. senator, thanks for joining us. and it s not just americans fighting for isis, fox news jennif jennifer griffin is life at the who is. reporter: u.s. intelligence officials have been watching the al qaeda link news front, this montage shows canadian, australian and british foreign fighters bragging about their role as jihad us tourists. 140 americans have gone to syria and iraq to fight. but one official tells me the official could be much higher they just don t know. u.s. intelligence telling me that an estimated 5,000 foreign fighters from across the middle east have joined isis. the state department said last week about 12,000 foreign fighters from at least 50 countries are fighting in skiera alone. these photoings were provided me who lift clues as to his intentions. his family expressed shock that he had gone to syria and in his last tweet he had announced that he had gone to seyria and was with his brothers now. before driving a truck laden with 16 tons of explosives used by seron forces. you can see why this phenom unanimous and european pass mort holders has u.s. intelligence officialings so very concerned. and the beheading of american james foley apparently by a british jihad it now putting pressure on britain. former british prime minister margaret thatcher. you re essentially saying this is it s a breeding ground for britain s jihadist. the british government says that at least 300 jihadists have fighting for isis. so this is a massive problem for the british government. it is also a major security issue for britain and the united states. these jihadists could return to the middle east and they could then return to the middle east. they really have to be dealt with in syria and on the groundin iraq. britain of course has been a very tolerant society that has been used by islamists, the islamists have used moskss for recruiting grounds for islamist terrorists. they have indoctrinated jihadists. britain has become a breeding ground for islamist terrorists. that now is changing and there are calling from many british politicians for far tougher measures to be taken, to be arrested eed detained. he s also mayor boris johnson is quoted as saying anyone who s traveling to syria or iraq should be proven guilty until before being presumed innocent. most people would agree with that assessment 689you re highl like to be when you return to syria, according to boris johnson, you should lose your citizenship. because after all, islamist terrorism is a direct threat to the united states as will. how do these brits or the british government, how do they look at president obama and his handling of the issues. a lot of builts they need britain loongeside, he needs to outline a clear coherent strategy with regard to defeating idefeat ing isis rather than defeating them. and the news about isis keeps getting grimmer. getting advanced news report on issis. what we know from this assessment is that it shows that there was definitely planning and prepositioning by isis. this was not a group that built this crisis on the sly. this is something that was laid down four years ago. he reformed the group if you will and decided to take specific aim at the iraqi security forces. he decided to intimidate them and to flush them out and once he created that vacuum, he was able to build on those gains. what makings it more disturbing, and i don t mean to keep pounding the president, but in january, he announced in the no,,er that this was a jp group. this rebooting for four years, where in the world is this intelligence community na we seem to have dropped the ball very painfully. what i have heard from intelligence officials that there was consistent and ample warning. they took specific aim at the security forces and then once they had pushed them aside, they retook the armament. these warnings were given to the administration. but what seems clear from my reporting that there was a failure to understanding the skb intelligence or a fail krur to act on it in a certain way. i don t understand how you can understand that as a grave concern. i think one element that was pointed out to me in my reporting today is that when we fail to get a status report agreement, we not only had to pull out or military when you re getting your own information from your own people and your own pool of informents that informs gets the more le leadersh leadership. i see it s a confluence of events, it not a single element that causes the c the crisis we seeing today. today he publicly thanked everyone mo worked to bring him home. i had no yvd when i was in prison that so much effort was being expended on my behalf. and know having found out, i m just overwhelmed by emotion. i m also overwhelmed by total strangers that are coming up to me and saying, we re just glad you re home, glad you re back, glad you re safe, great to see you. i suddenly remember how greet the american people are and the kindness they have in their heart and i say a huge thank you from the bottom of miss heart. curtis did not say anything about mihis captivity. begging the isis lead tore please release his son. since steven s capture, i have learned that islam believes that no individual should be hi held responsible for the sins of others. i have always learned that you can grant amnesty, i ask you to please release my child. there s growing controversy or whether the united states should pay ransom for hostages. listening to this mother, i mean having to beg for her son s life, it s just terrible, isn t it? it s horrifying and she s probably going through the worst time in her life. family members of hostages suffer in stress the same as hostages do. that unknowing part is just overwhe overwhelming. we saw that video, but that was just a week ago. now we to the question of ransom. does the united states pay ransom? the united states government zuchbt pay rang ransom. the government doesn t pay, now there have been times in the past when the government has allowed private entities to pay, those are under very straight circumstances and there are reasons for that but the u.s. government doesn t pay ransom. i think they wanted 132 million, which is way out of line, can the government stop you from paying a ransom to get your relative home? they really can t. and that s one of the problems whenever a country tries to district all ransom payments they have just made them do it through a backdoor or a back alley that doesn t bernefit anything. his mother did a wonderful job today, her job to make him see her as a human being. that s what i think would have an impact on you, have an impact on me, by people would behead, these are the most callo callous, evil barbaric people. i can t imagine that they would even care. you would have to understand the what their rules are. he talked about the fact that the profit mohammez. say that a cap chushed islamist would commit to convert. ask that a get out of jail card? a simple things such as recognizin recognizing - never pay by they their faith. it s everybody s test. and our next guest who is african-american says there s no such thing as black america. how does he say that. former assistance to george w. bush goes on the record next. also protesters outside. no matter where you want to be or what you want to do, chances are we re already there. 12 brands. more hotels than anyone else in the world. like super 8, where every destination is super. for a chance to win one million dollars, visit wyndhamrewards.com that s why i always choose the fastest intern.r slow. the fastest printer. the fastest lunch. turkey club. the fastest pencil sharpener. the fastest elevator. the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn t i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. president obama picking reverend al sharpton as his l liaison in ferguson. but is this the right choice to deal with issues already diedings our country. he says there s no such thing as dividing america. nig nice to see you sir. there s no such thing as black american. i would say i m a californian first, i m an american first. the greatest thing about this country is the diversity. when you have people like al sharpton, jesse jackson and the usual as i call race hustlers to seek the divide this country along ethnicity and race, it s does harm. how do we get beyond that, how do we stop that, and be decent to each other and not have any racism in this country or not throw it in someone s face. i think we need to based on the color of their skin. this is one instance i think the president missed a good opportunity to bring the country together. rather than hitting the links and rather than issuing statements from martha s vineyard, he should have been out there saying let s calm down, let s not rush to judgment. let s look at the facts of the indicates and not say was a racist black cop who shot a teenag teenager. the attorney germany what s supposed to be raced and color blind. we need to make sure that question have a vigorous prosecution, i think these folks are making a big mistake and making mouse polarized than ever. there was an article in the new york times that said that sharpton is the go to leader for the president of this administration and they re looking at him as one that for whatever reason has a lot of credibility with the black community. we re americans, we re citizens, not just to be judged on the color of our skin. if you look at this young man, michael bun s funeral. you saw sharpton, jackson, spike lee, people hoo are more interested in rabble roundsing for the cameras as opposed seeking calm and harmony. it s a disgrace. and i having? to say about president obama and reverend al sharpton. and get ready for another power grab, senator rand paul goes on the record next. so we gave her purina cat chow complete. it s great because it has the four cornerstones of nutrition. everything a cat needs for the first step to a healthy, happy life. purina cat chow complete. share your rescue story and join us in building better lives. one rescue at a time. . . is obama getting ready to bypass congress again? this time it s climate change. the obama administration working on brokering a climate change agreement with other nations, but without radification from congress. and that s not the only problem. the president s plan is based on the honor system. and senator rand paul joins us. nice to see you, sir. is this an abuse of power by the president? not only is it an abuse of power, i think it almost leads us to a constitutional crisis of sorts. it s one thing after another. you know, he says he has no choice but to act. he says he has a pen and a phone and he is going to act. that doesn t sound like our republic. we have checks and balances. he has done this with global warming. he has also done this with immigration. he has also done this with the war in libya. he doesn t seem to grasp the checks and balances. if we don t have checks and balances in this country, you know, that can lead to a real problem. i thought it was two things that were curious to me. one is for the first two years of his term of presidency, he had the house and senate. why didn t he do that? he could have gone through the constitutional process. i don t know if he could have gotten it ratified in the senate. the second thing is like the honor system that even if he does sign this, i don t get where with the teeth. the honor system when i was in fifth grade just meant everybody got as. cap and trade. the house rejected cap and trade. so now he is going around democracy. he is doing an end around congress. and you can t imagine that the american public would let him do this, or we would let him do it, frankly. i hope that we will see regulations and actual legal action. i support speaker boehner s legal fight to say the president can t just do what he wants. he is not a king. he has to really get approval from congress. but he doesn t even call congress. he is making this decision. but has he gone to the senate? we heard that he has gone to the leadership to say let s sit down and talk about this? no. i ve tried to communicate with him and i called him a couple of weeks ago to talk about repatriation, letting companies bring home their profit at a reduced rate so we can get money to come home there is $2 trillion sitting overseas that i say could come home and create jobs. and i called him and asked him for his help. but i really didn t get anywhere. i m going to get your trip in one second to guatemala where you were not senator, but dr. rand paul. on your trip, at least one time you re quoted as saying the former secretary of state hillary clinton, i think you referred to her as a warhawk. well, you know, they called the war in libya s hillary s war. and it s led to chaos. so i think we ought to think a little bit before we get involved in war. we now have an ambassador that has been assassinated. we have an embassy that had to flee overland. couldn t even leave by the airport. we had jihadist groups everywhere. and i think we re less safe as a country now with the chaos in libya than when were when gadhafi ruled the place. and that doesn t mean gadhafi was a great guy. he was an autocrat, a dictator, but we had some stability. we have less stability. i think the country has to ask themselves if hillary clinton is going to run for president, is that the kind of decision making that we can expect? is she going to create more chaos by getting involved in more wars in the middle east? and i don t think she fully grasps really the repercussions of what she created in libya. talk to dr. rand paul. now you were in guatemala. why did you go guatemala? for years i ve been seeing kids from guatemala there is a guatemalan neurosurgeon in my hometown of bowling green, kentucky. he has been bringing the kids up and we ve been operating on them for about 15 years. we went down with a team from the university of utah, and we did about 200 cataract surgeries, and i was able to visit with some of the kids that i had done surgery on 15 years ago. one of course was yulia estrada? she was exciting to seattle. she was a beautiful little girl. she is now a pretty young woman. i was able to straighten her eyes. when i went down we were able to get her glasses and she was able to see 20/20 with glasses. i was surprised when hernando lopez s wife left him and he went blind. his wife left him because of that? his was the most dramatic case. this man was ecstatic and overcome by emotion. he had gradually gone blind for three years. lost his job as a truck driver, lost his wife, lost his kids. lost 40 pounds. he was emaciated, and he was being taken care of by a young man from the church. and he got his vision back. and he was so excited and thought maybe i can get my job again. maybe i can get my wife back again. but it was really we were all overcome with emotion seeing his response. so cataracts to the point they were blind? yeah. some could see light perception only. they could tell light on or off, but not enough to walk around the village, not to do any work. definitely not enough to drive that was the majority of the cataracts. dense, white, mature cataracts. that s why the vision is so when you take off the patch the next day, the response is so dramatic. that must be really fun. don t you sort of miss that full-time? i do. it must be fun to give someone his vision back. there is no reward in a more dramatic than seeing someone sit up and say i can see that. is amazing. senator, nice to see you. welcome back to washington and obviously a very successful trip down in guatemala. thank you. and for more on president obama s next potential abuse of power, our political panel joins us. u.s. news and world report and steven, start with you. is this overreach to go beyond congress for this climate? politically it may be. legally, i think this is different than some of the other executive actions he has taken. this does not have the force of law. he has been explicit about that early, the white house in what they have told us so far and what they have told the new york times so far. it s basically, as they put it, a name and shame. it would create pressure for the u.s. to live up to obligations that it made previously and obligations in other words, its honor. and we have people like president bashir of sudan who kills people by droves. we think we re going to shame him into doing something? that s why it s probably not necessarily going to be successful. and it s not legally binding. it s an effort for him to basically get the u.s. to do what he wants the u.s. to do. but whether we do that or not is up to him and his administration. and eventually, up to law. betsy, i imagine the environmentalists aren t going to like this at all. he has given them an honor system. and they want something much more definitive. and on top of that, they re already irked that he has done so little. look, he had a chance in 2009 when the house passed cap and trade legislation. the senate didn t even take it up. the president has staked so much of his legacy on climate change. when he was running in 2008, he said it was a moral challenge and a national security risk. but he said is that on the va when he ran in 0. he was going to clean up the v.a. you don t think that distresses him? there have been so many reports that he wanted to make it the centerpiece of the second term. the fact that nothing has materialized, number one, that reflects poorly on him by the own standards he set. but number two, the democratic base can t be excited. david, is this a power grab or abuse of power or completely within his authority? i think it s power politics and something he cares about for his legacy. he talked about at the beginning of the year, he doesn t have a congress that he believes will work with him. but he tried. i understand his legacy. i understand what he is doing. but i have not seen any effort to go to capitol hill to get senator harry reid. he knows what is going to happen. you re in the middle of an election. he should at least look like he is trying, don t you think? trying to do it within the system? i think he tried to do it within the system during his first term, and he felt he got burned and burned from both sides and from the right. politics is hard. as stephen said, this is not a legally binding agreement. this is a politically binding agreement to try to but the environmentalists, they re going to be horrified, aren t they? i would separate this one out from the other executive actions he has taken. this is one where he does have the power to do what he is doing here. the other ones are major questions of law where he is actually trying to alter or change or i guess deal with enforcement of law. that s an entirely different situation. but david, go back to the environmentalists. he promised them something. then he is giving them a name and shame. this is more than nothing. the united states it s not binding, but when the united states acts, people pay attention to it. look, you need 67 senators to get this through the senate. what can you get 67 on anything? obama is saying i m going do what i can by myself. i m going to take the last word. i think he ought at least be appearing to try. but that s just me. panel, thank you. and man in the building business who says regulations are tearing him down. his story is 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putting them out of business. on the record investigating how too much red tape is choking capitalism. griff jenkins spoke with a kansas construction owner. we get up every day looking for projects that we can do to keep our men employed so that we can make money so that i can make a living. it seems like the federal government wakes up every day and says hmm, how can we slow that process down. reporter: slowing the process down, another small business owner accusing the government of making it too different to do business. meet carl harris, owner of carl harris construction. we re a small business. we ve been in business about 30 years. and hitting it hard every day, trying to keep track of stuff. this is a fema shelter. this is a tornado-safe room built for this school. we put the structural steel framing in that to be able to withstand tornadoes and a safe place for these kids to work. reporter: harris says the government is making it difficult to do that. my business is putting buildings together like, that not keeping track of regulations, griff. and every day we wake up, we read in the papers the federal government s trying to shove something else down us, additional recordkeeping, additional safety requirements, just a number of things. and it s really hard to keep track of that. a small business like myself and my family, because it s a family-owned business, it s all we can do to try to keep track of this. we are trying to bring somebody in, keep them schooled up on what that is all the time removes me from being competitive in the marketplace. reporter: for harris and his company, the regulations don t just slow things down, they actually prevent his business from expanding. we don t do new development because new development is hammered really hard by the regulatory agency. permits for epa, permits for this or that, those kinds of things. so we re not in the new development states. we ll wait until somebody gets that all taken there is way too much risk. reporter: harris doesn t oppose all regulations. he just wants the government to make sure they re actually benefitting people, something he says they re not doing. regulations that are good are okay. but they ve got to be quantifiably beneficial. and that s all we re asking for. reporter: and for businesses like carl harris construction, the many bad regulations are bad news for business. small businesses are the lifeblood of our time. and the more they stifle small business, the more they stifle the economy, the more they put guys like me out of business. and we want to take another look at our on the record investigation choking capitalism. all of our reports are posted. and if you have a business struggling because of these types of regulations, tweet on the record griff jenkins at griff jenkins. and it s not regulations putting a florida business owner out of business, it s his own neighbor. the young businessman is 12 years old. he runs a popular lemonade stand. but his neighbor is telling city hall to shut the stand down. tonight throwing that neighbor in the slammer. lemonade is $1. and i have pink lemonade, strawberry lemonade and regular lemonade. reporter: t.j. is making money. i buy my mom and i dinners. i pay for her cell phone bill, all different things. reporter: the 12-year-old running a lemonade stand in the tampa bay area, florida summers can be hot, and neighbors crave ice-cold lemonade, except one neighbor, 61-year-old doug wilkie, accusing the 12-year-old of running an illegal business, saying it s bringing down the value of his house, and even asking police and city hall to shut it down. the city responded and said it s not in the business of putting lemonade stands out of business. [ applause ] reporter: on the record tried calling wilkie, but his own disconnected. we re sorry. reporter: but t.j. gets loads of support from lemonade loving customers and neighbors, even a local radio station. they sent one of their co-host out to sell lemonade for t.j. until he got home from school. i got this for you. was this a nice surprise when you came home from school today? yes, it s a very nice surprise. reporter: the radio publicity brings hundreds of new customers to the stand, and t.j. making nearly a thousand dollars. i think it s cool that there are people that are backing him. anything i can do to help a 12-year-old that is as enterprising as him out, all the better. reporter: and this 12-year-old looking forward to his 14th birthday when he can legally apply to be a grocery bagger at a publix grocery store. i m showing that i work hard for my money, and that i m not just taking it from my parents. and doug wilkie is the only neighbor complaining about the lemonade stand. that s why we think he should go in the slammer. and inside and outside the california governor s mansion, many americans demanding mexico s president release sergeant andrew tamoressee. nobody ever stomped their foot and asked for less. there s a reason it s called an all you can eat buffet. and not a have just a little buffet. because what we all really want is more. that s why verizon is giving you even more. now, for a limited time, get more data! 1 gb of bonus data every month with every new smartphone or upgrade. our best ever pricing with the more everything plan and 50% off all new smartphones. like the htc one m8 for windows or android. built to inspire envy. come get your more with verizon. femaget three years interest-free financing and save up to $400 on beautyrest and posturepedic. even get three years interest-free financing on serta icomfort and tempur-pedic. but this special financing offer ends labor day at sleep train. that s why i always choose the fastest intern.r slow. the fastest printer. the fastest lunch. turkey club. the fastest pencil sharpener. the fastest elevator. the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn t i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. those are protesters at the california governor s mansion. they were taking their message to mexico s president, who was dining inside the mansion. the protesters demanding mexico release our imprisoned marine sergeant andrew tahmooressi. but some california lawmakers decide instead to actually attend the luncheon for the mexican president, thinking that would make a greater impact. assemblywoman melissa melendez was one of them. she joins us. good evening. good evening, greta. thank you so much for having me. all right. great to have you. now i know you have sent a letter to president obama. you sent a letter as well to the president of mexico about sergeant andrew tahmooressi. but take me inside what happened today at the lunch. be my eyes and ears. what happened? so there were several probably i think 300 people or possibly more at this luncheon from various different industries and walks of life. very crowded. there was a lot of security. but i chose to attend the luncheon rather than go to the protest because i felt that i stood a better chance of getting my message to the president of mexico by being there than him hearing my message if i were on the corner protesting. so we decided to take the message directly to him. they were very gracious about it. of course, they didn t give me an answer right there as to whether they would give us what we were asking for. but they were gracious about it. did you actually get up to the president of mexico or did you get intercepted by one of his aides? i spoke with his legislative aide i believe it was. they did offer i go up and give to it the president myself. it was in the middle of lunch. i thought that was a little inappropriate. and frankly, i was a little worried that the letter would get lost in the shuffle. i did give it to his aide and he assured me he would get it. did the aide indicator show he knew any sign about sergeant andrew tahmooressi or did you catch him off guard? he didn t. he didn t really indicate. he was very respectful and assured me the president would get my letter, asked where i was sitting in the chambers so perhaps if they had an opportunity to come back and speak with me, they would. but again, this was all about getting the message out about sergeant tahmooressi, because as my husband indicated to me when we were talking, he said, you know, maybe no one has asked him to intervene. maybe no one has asked him directly from the united states to get involved. and i thought okay. maybe you re right. and so i ll be happy to be the one to do that. and just before i go on, greta, i do want to say for your viewers and to you on behalf of all of the veterans and sergeant tahmooressi and his mother who i have spoken with, you have been really wonderful if getting the information out. i know you travelled to the border. just on behalf of all of us, we want to thank you for your efforts too. well, i really appreciate it. and the best thing that could happen is if that marine could come home and get treatment here in the united states. i know you are fighting for him and a lot of people are. before i let you go, you wrote a letter to president obama about this very issue on july 31st. have you gotten any reply from the white house that they have even do they acknowledge receiving your letter or have you just been ignored? strangely, no, no response. the president has taken the time to discuss what is going on with justin bieber and a host of other things that are pretty insignificant when you re talking about a marine jailed in mexico. no, no response, sadly. thank you very much for joining us. and good luck with your fight there in california. i know you have been introduced a resolution as well to fight for andrew tahmooressi. thank you very much for joining us. thank you, greta. and coming up, i m going talk to you off the record. i m going tell you what i think about president obama picking reverend al sharpton as his liaison in ferguson. that s next. many of my patients still clean their dentures with toothpaste. but they have to use special care in keeping the denture clean. dentures are very different to real teeth. they re about 10 times softer and may have surface pores where bacteria can multiply. polident is designed to clean dentures daily. its unique micro-clean formula kills 99.99% of odor causing bacteria and helps dissolve stains, cleaning in a better way than brushing with toothpaste. that s why i recommend using polident. [ male announcer ] polident. cleaner, fresher, brighter every day. let s go off the record. let s talk about president obama picking reverend al sharpton as his liaison in ferguson. now that s a political cause that says liaison. maureen of the new york times says president obama depth deputized sharpt on the, and from the tone of her column, she is skanl scandalized. sharpton has no interest in healing. he divides people. he just picks sides. let s not forget, he has done some really cockamamy things. hawk false rape accusation. that s hardly all. according to maureen dowd, sharpton whipped up anti-semitic feelings in new york in 1991 by denouncing jews, whipping up anti-semitic feelings is awful. it s stirring up hate. and did you know sharpton is a tax scofflaw? according to the new york post, sharpton and his organization owe $4.7 million in unpaid taxes, all this and more makes it perplexing that president obama uses sharpton as his go-to outreach guy. it s a rotten message to send to the nation. i don t get it. president obama has lots of choice. why didn t he pick someone well respected with a record of helping, not deciding? he could have picked cory booker. now a democratic senator who has a history of reaching across the political aisle. why not pick him to help? maybe president obama is afraid senator booker will show him up by having success. and that s my off the record comment tonight. thanks for being with us. we ll see you again tomorrow night right here at 7:00 p.m. eastern. just a reminder, if you re just getting home and tuning in
it brings us closer to community polici policing, community, police trust and credibility on both sides. we must have solutions. we cannot stay where we are. thanks for watching. i m al sharpton. hardball starts right now. another american beheaded. this is hardball. good evening. i m chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with a horror that appears to have no ending. the islamic state has beheaded another american, steven sotloff. this is not a bit of news to absorb, move on and forget. it is a zsadistic assault on ou country s pride, barack obama, the american people, on the country we love. cutting off the head of one of us is a taunt, a humiliation. it debases us this the eyes of syrians, iraqi, our countrymen. the american intelligence community is working to confirm the latest video that shows him being executed in the video. mr. sotloff is in an orange jump suit saying he s paying the price for president obama s intervention in iraq. it was obviously scripted. this comes two weeks after the beheading of james foley. in this plea for his life from his mother. as a mother i ask your justice to be merciful and not punish my son for matters he has no control over. i ask you to use your authority to spare his life and to follow the example set by the prophet mohamed who protected people of the book. i want what every mother wants to live to see her children s children. i plead with you to grant me this. bobby gaush from quartz. i want to start with you, bobby. this looks like it will go on. this will be a battle of nerves and whatever else in our visceral reality. this is personal between the president of the united states and baghdadi leading the islamic state. yes. they have already said they will execute a british prisoner next. they have other prisoners. it s worth remembering here they have been executing prisoners of other nationalities for weeks and months now. syrians, other arab nationals. they have been doing it for a while. they clearly take a great deal of enjoyment from this the. for political reasons and perverse personal reason ares they will do it a lot. it ee s sadism. absolutely. this is beyond a political message. this is people taking a perverse pleasure in slaughter. these are not the only examples. there have been lots of videos they posted online of atrocities. it s hard to say at this moment, but atrocities worse than dozens, scores, hundreds of people being lined up and killed. we have been seeing reports from amnesty international, other international bodies and people who survived. reports of women and children taken prisoner, sexual slavery, depravity of a kind that we shouldn t really be mentioning on a show like this. it gets to our guts, a sense of self, vulnerability, someone doing this to us. these are just americans not guilty of any particular behavior. they were just picked at because they got their hands on them. they are going to keep doing this. that s the message the president will be confronted with. he goes to bed tonight and as cool a customer as he can b he puts his head on the pillow thinking about they are beheading our guys over there. he goes to bed tonight as the president who said a few days ago when you come african americans we come after you. he s already answered this challenge rhetorically. now this increase it is pressure on him to do something more. the big question and the huge problem for him is what. what can he do that s effective? we like to think we are high tech. we can bomb a country with immunity, make a statement and they can t touch us because we don t put people on the ground. to me the message is they have our people on the ground. there are people within the reach of this organization and others simply because they are there doing their jobs. journalists in this case, but also aide workers, businessmen, diplomats. people there not because the united states government sent them as soldiers but they are there doing some other job. a few days ago the president said and people jumped all over him for saying he doesn t have a strategy yet. put together this. they are going to continue doing this obviously. they made it clear. they are going to keep looking for americans, missionaries, business people, tourists, the average backpacker they can get lost shr. they will keep looking for americans to behead. as i said, during his news conference last week with president obama made this blunt admission which will flow through the air for the next several days. i don t want to put the cart before the horse. we don t have a strategy yet. we don t have a strategy yet. today rear admiral john are kirby said we have a strategy. the pentagon says it does. absolutely there is a strategy for our approach to the middle east. i can only speak from a military perspective and for the pentagon. but we have been consistently going after the terrorist threat in that part of the world. military strategy with respect to the middle east has been clear. it s not just something we just started doing. we have been going after terrorist networks in that part of the world for more than a decade. with very good success. doesn t mean it s been eliminated. we have been active, energetic and the objectives have been clear. that s an absurd statement. we went into iraq, blew the country apart, created the opportunity for isis to grow. it was nothing. anything we faced from hussein. the idea that we have been winning this war against terrorism is ludicrous. we are facing a new danger now going after our people there, threatening to become a country. no one seems willing to take it on in the region. how can you say we are winning like the average said? i don t understand that. i guess he has to say that stuff because of his position. we re not winning the war against terrorism there. certainly not in syria and iraq. it s a bad sign when you have to start by saying our position is clear. if it was then you wouldn t have to say it. yes, there have been successes in other parts of the world against terrorism. even this morning we heard of an air strike in somalia. that s not where the world s attention is focused, where americans are being killed in this brutal fashion. the president said he will respond. if you kill americans, we ll come after you. who is the you here? is it baghdadi, the leader of the group? is it all five to seven to 10,000 of the fighters. that s my question. this isn t a criminal matter. if it s a war crime first of all you have to have a war. we are not engaging in a war. at some point you single out, after you have won the war, who are the most egregious betrayers of what s considered acceptable behavior, even a military campaign. that s when you get to neuronburg. we are nowhere near that. the idea we ll have holder there with g-men to find baghdadi, you hit the point there without intentionally doing so. it s absurd to say we ll go there, grab somebody and put them in on a eichman-type raid like the israelis. we re not a little country. we are a big country. this is furtherering the whack-a mole problem. some part of the organization, related one or fellow travellers pops up this in somalia or throw a dart at the world. there are people in isis now who weren t in it two weeks ago. the idea that we can surgically go after pieces parts of that probably won t work. obama has to articulate larger strategy. he needs a plan, not words. if this latest execution of an american, steve sotloff leads to military action we could be fighting against the same side we threatened to oppose a year ago. the government of bashar al assad. here is nbc s richard engel on that point. reporter: like it or not, the u.s. may now be forced to take the action against isis, not only in iraq, but also in syria. this, critics say, could mean helping the assad regime which the president said had to go. this is the weerird thing. it s sad. it shows how screwy the situation is. we were going to warren oh one side a year ago. now the other side. i can t think of a time in history where we switched sides in the middle of a campaign like this. bobby, last word on that. i think that s the quagmire we are in here. if we had been on the side of against this side last year we would be the isis air force now. if we go in now we are assad s air force against isis. we choose sides, friends, take enemies to our side. i have to tell you, it looks like assad is looking more impressive an ally than these people, baghdadi s people. i don t think assad is any kind of ally. we are a big country. we should be able to fight on two fronts. we spend enough on the military for that. we can and should be gathering a coalition of countries to do that. we can walk and chew gum at the same time. we can fight assad and isis tame. there have been successes in iraq recently, in recent days. the murder of sotloff overshadows these things as it should. iraqi forces with american help managed to drive isis away from one village, about 180 miles from baghdad. we retook that dam near mosul with american help but iraqi boots on the ground. that s the beginning of an idea, a combination local boots on the ground, americans and international that will solve the problem. can any other force join our effort besides iraq? i gather there is a lot of effort to bring in the turks. that would be a good start. the turks face a grave danger. a lot of this is taking place on their border. turkey has allowed a lot of the fighters to go through their territory into syria. just like pakistan, turkey is now facing the prospect of people coming back over their territory, bringing with them this poisonous ideology of theirs. what a predicament. thank you. coming up, what should president obama do about the isis threat? what can he do? this is a direct, personal humiliation of our country. americans want action. it s the president who has to act for us. plus the battle for control of the u.s. senate. we ll look at the four blocks of states and how they look now. in an alarming violation of privacy hackers steal hundreds of private nude photos of jennifer lawrence and other female celebrities n. the digital age what people do in the privacy of their homes doesn t always stay there. let me finish with this damned if you do, dal fd you don t situation facing the president. this is hardball, the place for politics. arp, then you don t know aarp . our drive to end hunger has donated 29 million meals, and counting. find more real possibilities at aarp.org/possibilities. welllllllll, not when your? travel rewards card makes it so hard to get a seat using your miles. that s their game. the flights you want are blacked out. or they ask for some ridiculous number of miles. honestly, it s time to switch to the venture card from capital one. with venture, use your miles on any airline, any flight, any time. no blackout dates. and with every purchase, you ll earn unlimited double miles. from now on, no one s taking your seat away. what s in your wallet? the united states justice department is in federal court in texas arguing against that state s voter i.d. law. opening statements began in a lawsuit led by attorney general eric holder. and minority rights groups themselves. they say the law is to tamp downturnout by minorities and young people. a ruling isn t expected until after the midterm elections. we ll be right back after this. driver 1 you ready? yeah! go! [sfx] roaring altima engine woah! ahhhha! we told people they were riding nissan s most advanced altima race car. we lied. about the race car part. altima, with 270 horsepower and active understeer control. how did you?.what! i don t even, i m speechless. innovation that excites. when folks think about wthey think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that s not a coincidence. it s one more part of our commitment to america. another gruesome kpe cushion of an american at the hand s of the islamic state. the terrorist group s slaughter of u.s. journalist steven sotloff is part of a message for president obama. it could be summed up like this. if american missiles continue to strike our people that s them we ll continue to strike yours. we re going to show a very short portion of the video in order to hear in this case the accent of the executioner. i m back, obama. i m back because of that s all we got. two other americans are believed to be held by the group and waiting for more of the mayhem. something this terrible goes beyond politics obviously. this is about presidential leadership in the world, strength, who will lead our country out of this humiliation. michael steele was rnc chair and eugene robinson was with the washington post. both msnbc political analysts. you guys are seasoned in thinking about these things. if you re president of the united states i don t know what you think. it s clear they are taunting him, humiliating the president with the bodies and the heads of americans. this is tribal. right. this is probably the most primitive people on the planet used to to. the thing obama faces that s difficult is he can t appear to be reactionary. the other side of the coin is you can t appear to be distantly removed as well. you have to figure out a way, that thin slice to connect yourself so the american people understand so he under mined the effort at the press conference when he said we don t have a plan. this is something that crept up in the last few weeks. the beheadings raises this to a level of visceral reaction. most americans like me call murder. get those guys. exactly. he didn t want to do it last week. right. it s theatrical in this vilest and most despicable sense. bring out all the adjectives you want. the adjectives don t take you far. president obama s general m.o. is don t get mad, get even. so i think he has to communicate that to the american people that we are not going to let this lie. we are going to respond to this. but we are going to respond to it this a way that we think will be effective, not just react. we have to do something. i always have been the one with the itchy trigger finger. when he was 20 points behind hillary clinton in fall of 2007 i said, let s get going here. he did have a plan to win the delegates. there is a price to be paid for his deliberation. that s the difference. that s the problem. there are at least 26 other americans that are known to be held by the islamic state, so the question becomes if this video, as it noted, this is because of you that we are doing this. how did the president respond? the early steps of bringing the community into this are partnering. those with as much of an interest as we do, getting them out in front. you begin to create a wall to go after them. it s not just about american air strikes. it s really communicating globally. this is the line that no one is allowed to cross. the global community when the president leading against israel in 46, 67, 73. when do they attack? there is a confluence of interests in the region, clearly. an attitude in con fluent interests against isis. how do you get them to act in concert? that s not easy. you re right. it doesn t happen often. there is a lot of diplomatic ground work done on that score. my colleague covered a lot of that in a column today the actually. there is a lot more yet to do. one thing you could do, and i think the administration is probably trying to do is you could take one shot at the guy. if you have a sense of where that guy is. i think you could do that and the united states. the united states could do that. do you think a decapitation would work? that would achieve something? well, what it would achieve is, i think, giving you and me and michael the sense that, yeah, you can t do this. we did have to respond to this. if you behead americans on television like that but bu that s essentially a lucky shot. who know ifs they know exactly where that guy is. we couldn t get saddam hussein and he was the head of the country. we couldn t find the head of the country. that wasn t easy to do. hypothetically, if you had a shot, you would take it. i think the president is good at the partisan stuff. president obama is facing renewed pressure led by hawks like senator graham who put out this statement about the killing. condemnation is not enough to deal with the surge. it is time to act against isil wherever it resides. when american air power has been employed in coordination with reliable partners on the ground isil has been devastated. it should be pursued in syria and iraq. mr. president, if you can t come up with a strategy at least tell us what the goal is regarding isil. the problem is he s confronted by a direct challenge from the head of the islamic state that if you keep bombing me i will keep beheading americans. that s the problem. the president has to work out and unfortunately has to work it out publically. we will be as much a part of the decision-making process as anyone, the american people. the problem is the president doesn t have a safe harbor. he can t look at rhetoric from the right and think, oh, we are going the to push this some dems say the republican congress needs to step in and lead on some of this. how would that work? in other words, that they could reauthorize the president that would put him in a worse situation. it would. the president has to clearly define what this mission objective will be and what the goals will be once the objective is reached. what does it look like once we are done? do we leave an enemy in place that s still capable of attacking us? i think go ahead. i m going to say the reality is isis will continue beheading people, whatever we do. right. if we say tomorrow, okay, gee, if they are not going to stop. the horror is those people are facing horror in the middle of the desert with a camera running knowing their country is not coming to save them. we have to assume that it s not easy to figure out how the to save them. as lindsey graham said air power with reliable support on the ground. who s that? who is that? who was that in syria? who was the reliable support on the ground in syria . the french, the british? you don t know, i don t know and president obama doesn t know. lindsey graham doesn t know. easier to criticize. it is. much easier than to have to make the decision to commit u.s. resources, not necessarily forces but resources to solving a problem as delicate as i worked for jimmy carter as a speech writer. i have never felt worse than i did then. the humiliation and all we were watching was 50 american hostages not hurt but marched around with blindfolds on, they purned a flag. nobody liked that. imagine if happened and we hadn t gotten war-weary. if it was 2001 and they were beheading americans. would we still sit and watch? think we have a vastly different response. are we just war-weary now? we are. and the world, especially syria and iraq, are more complicated than anyone could have imagined in 2001. there were two dictators then. it was simple. if we have to write the capstone on the presidency, will the big issue of foreign policy and the obama presidency be keel dealing with iran are s nuclear threat or syria and the fanaticism? what s the biggest story? for all i know it could be ukraine. i don t know. it won t grab us like these two. this could be defining. definitional because of the loss of life. i think iran will be pusheded back. i think this is center stage. he s on our side against isis. the enemy of my enemy we are not sitting through the rest of 14, 15 16 watching americans being beheaded every two weeks. i can tell you that. we are not going to put up with that. something else is going to have to happen. i agree. or we have problems with leadership. the president cannot sit and watch this. grieving isn t going to help. that mother did everything right. everything. it didn t work. we really do worry and pray for you. thank you for that. you are a great example of a great american, mrs. sotloff, doing what you could do. we ll be right back after this. i m randy and i quit smoking with chantix. as a police officer, i ve helped many people in the last 23 years. but i needed help in quitting smoking. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix reduced the urge for me to smoke. it actually caught me by surprise. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don t take chantix if you ve had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these, stop chantix and see your doctor right away as some could be life threatening. tell your doctor if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, or if you develop new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. i did not know what it was like to be a non-smoker. but i do now. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. machines will be sprayed to be made. and making something stronger. will mean making it lighter. one day, factories will work with the cloud. one day. is today. i got this., whenever you re ready. no, i ll get it! let me get it. ah uh, i don t want you to pay for this. it s not happening, honey. let her get it. she got her safe driving bonus check from allstate last week. and it s her treat. what about a tip? here s one.get an allstate agent. nice! switch today and get two safe driving bonus checks a year for driving safely. only from allstate. call 866-788-0900 now. hold on man, is that a leak up there? that s a drip. now that s a leak. that is a leak! and if you don t have allstate renters insurance. game over. protect your valuables from things like water damage for as low as $4 a month when you add renter s insurance to your allstate auto policy. call 866-788-0900 now. and, if you re a safe driver, you can save up to 45%! just a few more ways, allstate is changing car insurance for good. call an allstate agent and get a quote now. still ahead on hardball, just two months now to go before the midterm elections. we ll look at who s got the best shot in the biggest races around the country and whether democrats or republicans will control the senate come november. plus the massive computer hack that led to the exposure of private pictures of celebrities including jennifer lawrence. you re watching hardball, the place for politics. so what we re looking for is a way to plus our accounting firm s mobile plan. and minus our expenses. perfect timing. we re offering our best-ever pricing on mobile plans for business. run the numbers on that. well, unlimited talk and text, and ten gigs of data for the five of you would be. one-seventy-five a month. good calculating kyle. good job kyle. you just made partner. our best-ever pricing on mobile share value plans for business. now with a $100 bill credit for every business line you add. my motheit s delicious. toffee in the world. so now we ve turned her toffee into a business. my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i m janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. here s what s happening. u.s. officials tell nbc news monday s air strikes in somalia killed three suspected members of al shabaab. it will be days before america can confirm if the leader is among the dead. an american doctor has tested positive for ebola. a missionary group says the doctor working in liberia wasn t treating ebola patients. joan rivers remains at mount sinai s hospital where she s on life support. she went into cardiac arrest during throat surgery last week. and home depot may have been the victim of a data breach. they are looking into unusual activity. back to hardball. welcome back to hardball . summer is over and the sprint to november has begun. republicans need to pick up six seats in order to win control of the united states senate. the big races break into four groups. georgia and kentucky where democrats can knock off a republican. keep your eye on those. there are three stages where they are looking at a major upset when republicans are favored. there are four close races in red states where democrats are fighting the anti-obama wave. finally there is a group of democrats in four blue states looking to hang onto what the party s got. let s talk predictions to the extent we can here. howard fineman from the huffington post media group and amy water, the national editor of the cook political report. let s start with the potential democratic pick-ups. georgia, michelle nunn s campaign was given a boost thanks to an endorsement. and in kentucky, senate minority leader mitch mcconnell is head to head against allison grimes. i know you re an expert and hate to be definitive but we have to start. of the two women about to possibly pick up republican seats who is running the best race now? who has the best chance may be different from who is running the best race. in georgia, michelle nunn s chances were diminished after the run-off when david perdue came through as opposed to a candidate who was going to be much easier to tag. a whacko. to use a technical term. in allison grimes s case she s running a good campaign. i think it surprised a lot of republicans, especially that they weren t at this point able to catch her in some sort of slip-up, goof-up, first time candidate mistake. he she s been able in terms of the trajectory you see allison possibly winning this. yes, possibly. she s this a better position. you re a kentucky expert. yeah. i lived and worked there, covered the race there is and kept up with what s going on. i agree. i think kentucky is a better shot for the democrats for the reasons amy said. they have also managed to put mitch mcconnell, the incumbent who would be the majority leader. managed to put him on the defensive in a way he hasn t been in most of the races he won. most narrowly. i would say right now, we have a new polling methodology for the huffington post. a new poll. it shows grimes with a slightly better chance of winning than nunn. n-u-n-n. system. right. these are what you call ten-point difficulties for democrats. they face an uphill battle in west virginia, montana and south dakota. the democratic incumbent isn t running. that s the problem. president obama lost all three states in 2012. at the moment republicans are heavy favorites in the contest. the question is where is the democrat s best chance montana, west virginia, south dakota. howard? you re giving us a tough one. with our poll i keep mentioning the huff post. it s the best. i don t think we bothered to rank those. it s difficult. all three are toughment red states. montana is hardest when you don t have a candidate. then you have to pick one at the last minute. that doesn t help much. cribbing. that s a little bit of a problem. in this case, west virginia, the toughest state for barack obama. but they have a decent candidate there. you re splitting hairs. south dakota. let s go to other red states where they are fighting the anti-obama wave. alaska, polls show mark beg itch with a narrow lead over dan sullivan. in arkansas, a close one for mark pryor and tom cotton. in louisiana, senator landrieu battling questions about residency. the post reported she didn t have a house of her own in louisiana. she s registered to vote in her parent s home and has an eighth share there. a poll shows senator kay haguen is deadlocked with the speaker of the house there, thom tillis. which do you think is the best et beth? if you talked a couple of days ago to the folks on the democratic and republican side they would say alaska is one of the toughest campaigns. it was a tough day today where one of the ads was taken down. we ll see what the reaction. outside residency hurt landrieu. it s about the run-off. there are few people who think she ll make it whether she s in first place or not. she will be course forced into a run are-off. what s the best bet? i would put alaska and north carolina. as the best bets. alaska and north carolina. are you filling out your washington post wait until thursday before the election. that s what with it s about. thursday night. i will say alaska is the best shot despite problems with begich has had. the reason is having travelled the country a lot, in the south barack obama s very name the poison. the only one of the four that escapes that basic cultural fact at least to some extent is alaska. that may have nothing to do with it. for that reason i would say begich has the best bet. we ll talk about the south on another show. that s a problem. there are four blue states. this is like general grant winning the war in a civil war. state where is democrats are in close contests. recent polling shows colorado s mark udall s lead is within the margin of error. jo any ernst s ad about castrating hogs helped catapult her into a dead heat. she s probably carrying the men despite that. in michigan, democrats are fighting to hold onto senator levin s seat. he said he won t seek election again. and in a recent poll in manchester, senator jeanne shaheen s lead over scott brown went from 12 points to two in less than a month. let s talk about the new hampshire thing. if you turn on our network election night in november, and you see it s too close to call in new hampshire, look out for the democrats. if it s too close in kentucky, look out the. p republicans won t sweep. 7:00, 8:00. i am amazed scott brown who just toodled his way into the state has a chance to be a senator. why are you surprised? he just moved there. the bigger question he s not bobby kennedy or hillary clinton. he s not a national name brand. no. that s true. we have seen polls bounce all over in new hampshire. they are bouncing down. the bigger question is colorado and iowa are the two states that will be the closest and will tell us a lot about is it a good campaign? no. but it s about bruce braley the candidate versus the campaign. right now, about two months out, i will go with poll. that s the huffington post poll. says of those four, that iowa is the one the democrats need to worry most about. at this point. is that creativity and a funny ad? no. it s because i think iowa has been trending you know, this is the holy grail for people like karl rove for years and years to try to get that part of the midwest trending republican. carl thought he saw it in minnesota. didn t materialize. it is materializing to some extent in iowa. we look at the republican primary, caucuses there. we sort of wonder at the evangelical activism there. that bespeaks cultural change in iowa i think is tough for the democrats. why is that for somebody who s had somebody from the hard right and hard left in senate? they are contrarian in iowa. they like to think of themselves as independent. they like ideology in politics more than most states do. that would be my minnesota seems to be the same way, too. wisconsin now has that as well. they also reflect the election that they came the year in which they were elected. ron johnson in wisconsin is a product of the 2010 election in the same way ernst would be a product of the 2014 election. when you look at this, and you do it all the time, is it more important to have a really good candidate or not to be obama? hmm. is it party label this time or i like to believe the best candidate generally wins if they put on the best campaign. people like them the most. joe biden, for example, won in 1972 when nobody else was winning. you can beat the trend if you re a good candidate. is that true or not? it is only true if you re a very good candidate running against a not so good candidate. i don t think it is enough to be just a really good candidate to beat back the national tide. can i say i think the senate elections have become more and more nationalized. i think so. that makes president obama s low ratings a problem nationwide. these are becoming parliamentary leks. just as mitch mcconnell versus harry reid in the two brands. electoral votes. remember when mitt romney knew he lost the election because he didn t do as well in virginia as he thought he would, so he knew he lost ohio. right. it s like that. the demographics. if you see it is close between allison grimes and mitch mcconnell the democrats may not get wiped out. that s a good showing, right? that s fair. if scott brown is winning that s a very big sweep. i still think the democrats will lose the senate, but i don t know. the republicans should be farther ahead than they are given the lay of the land. that gives the democrats a dplimer of hope. they have all the possibilities. they need to win 5 of 9 seats they win control in the senate. thank you. it s a mood-changer. thank you, howard, amy. coming up, the massive computer hack that exposed hundreds of nude celebrity photos, including those of actress jennifer lawrence. this is a big story about hacking and getting into everybody s stuff. this is hardball, the place for politics. driver 1 you ready? yeah! go! 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[ applause ] biotene for people who suffer from dry mouth. chris christie is taking the next step toward a possible run for president. trying to learn foreign policy. the new jersey governor is in mexico on what s being billed as a trade mission. for a guy with white house aspirations it s a chance to show he gets world affairs, especially after missteps this year like calling the west bank the occupied territories in front of sheldon adelson and a like-minded jewish group in las vegas. we ll be right back. while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, this can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain, and improve daily physical function so moving is easier. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain. and it s not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease or risk factors such as high blood pressure or when nsaids are taken for long periods. nsaids, like celebrex, increase the chance of serious skin or allergic reactions, or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, which can occur without warning and may cause death. patients also taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers. don t take celebrex if you have bleeding in the stomach or intestine, or had an asthma attack, hives, other allergies to aspirin, nsaids or sulfonamides. get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. tell your doctor your medical history and ask your doctor about celebrex. for a body in motion. transit fares! as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. no? oh, right. you re thinking of the 1.6 million daily customer care interactions xerox handles. or the 900 million health insurance claims we process. so, it s no surprise to you that companies depend on today s xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. which is.pretty much what we ve always stood for. with xerox, you re ready for real business. welcome back to hardball, the fbi is involved and looking into the massive leak of nude celebrity photos targeting stars including jennifer lawrence and supermodel kate upton. the anonymous leaker claimed to have gotten them through icloud. apple said celebrity accounts were hacked by a targeted attack on oh user names, passwords and security questions. one actress mary winstead said this on twitter. if to those of you looking at photos i took with my husband years ago in the privacy of our home, i hope you feel great about ourselves. the incident raise it is the question. in 2014 with more of our lives happening online is nothing secret or sacred? whether it s the phone conversation of british royals or private artwork of george w. bush. everything gets out apparently. swron than capehart is an opinion writer from the washington post and msnbc contributor. and a research professor and chief scientist at the center for secure information systems. anup? yes. tell me. my general view is to blame the criminal. mm-hmm. not the person who is the victim. i m not going to talk about stars and their problems and the way they choose to photograph themselves. criminal activity. we saw it with rupert murdoch in london. these people were sentenced to prison. talk about why that is a crime. hack. in this particular case, chances are the people that were after these celebrities are were after these celebrities are trading that information for something of value. it might be extortion, it might be re-selling it oato other peo who are interested in its content, but i also think users, all of us including celebrities expect some measure of privacy when we take pictures and, sure, upload it online to icloud service. i think what s happened here is apple s failed to secure that data on behalf of its users. when i go to the bank to get my money out or put some money in even by going to the bank window, you know, and pnc and put the money in, it s very complicated wro ed when you go computer and figure out how much you have in there to get your latest account balance. right? what s your favorite first girlfriend s name that s if you forget your password. well, sometimes they just seem to do that for sport. i don t know. how did they get through these kind of password situations is what i m amazed by. well, from what i ve read, maybe you can correct me, but the way these criminals were able to do this was through something called brute force where they just hammer a site with all sorts of combinations of is this like a monkey will type merry christmas if you keep punching the typewriter? they keep going, there s eight letters or something, and run all the permutations? yes, that s how they were able to do it, so there was a flaw on the side of apple but this also speaks to our responsibility as consumers to make sure that we have strong passwords and that we actually have passwords. i left i left an iphone on a plane that i had not locked. and so i had to spend the rest of my time trying to change all of my passwords for all of my did you ever hear from this person that picked it up? no, never did. how did they know? they re now thinking about, i found this home. long time ago. the question is, how do you get through? it is hard to get through these systems. these, you know, i was about to throw out my password there, but, i mean well, i say, most of the online service providers, whether it s google, or twitter, they ve adopted more secure technology called two factor authentication and what that really means is not just your user name and password but something else as well, right? so even if i gave you my user name and password, unless you have this other code, which is usually texted to you, you can t log in with my credentials. apple needs to do that at a minimum. you know, this brute forcing, you re right. pretty much everyone has developed systems that eliminate brute force attacks. will they be sued on this? you know, it s not probably a big enough problem for apple today. it s a media issue as opposed to celebrity. the stars have pictures all over the place. good point. a statement a publicist for jennifer lawrence, one heck of an actress said this is a flagrant violation of privacy. the authorities have been contacted and will prosecute anyone who posts the stolen photos of jennifer lawrence. i don t care about the kardashians and paris hilton and giggle-worthy crap. i care about people of talent, and somebody as good as her in the business she s in of acting, these people are being abused here. they re not the only ones being abused. we know about this because they re actors, they re famous and have the platform to make us think about this. for every jennifer lawrence out there, there are hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people who become victim to these hackers who take their information, whether it s pictures, whether it s their bank account information, whether it s all sorts of other information, and ruin their lives with that information. sure. what s gone unnoticed in all of this celebrity news is home depot is likely hacked on a scale that will match target. that happened in the same day. of course, the celebrity photographs make the news, but all of us, all of our credit card information is getting hijacked because of the unsecurity of the systems and as consumers we need to demand better security from the people who develop the systems. is it more difficult to do what they did, hacking in these people s nude photos than it is to hack into your bank account and start pulling the money out? you know, it depends on the particular system. i hate to say that, but some people implement security better than others. we need to demand better security out of our retailers. i mean, the dhs put out a report last week that said, 1,000 retailers have been hacked by one particular malware. 1,000 retailers. that means basically all of our credit data is out there. someone has access to it and could ruin our lives because of identity theft and fraud. is this a part dan issue where the libertarians have one side, the democrats another? is there a fight over regulation between the two parties? in other words, i bet we re going to see something like this on the party platforms in 16. they ll be up to date on this. if not 16, definitely by 20. you d hope something like this knows support for making sure that americans information is protected knows no party, that it is a nonpartisan issue where folks come back to washington and actually do something. here s thing that they can actually get done if they come together and do something to protect the american consumer. good luck. advice i heard years ago in politics, if you can say it, don t write it. if you can grunt it, don t say it. keep it to yourself. your communication could be the worst enemy you ever had. richard nixon taught me that. anyway, thank you, jonathan capehart and anna gosh for joining us. we ll be right back after this. kid: what if you re not happy? 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machines will be sprayed to be made. and making something stronger. will mean making it lighter. one day, factories will work with the cloud. one day. is today. let me finish tonight with this terrible challenge now facing the country. i put the question to you, you re president of the united states and an enemy is beheading one of your people every couple of weeks. what do you do? can you do nothing? can you sit and watch it happening? this open-ended barbarism against your people? what if the one thing you can do to stop the beheadings is invade syria, begin taking control of the country, city by city, village by village? how do you know who is isis and who are the people it s terrorizing in order to conceal them in their midst? how do you avoid becoming immeshed in a country that will soon come to hate you, the enemy among the innocent. entering syria militarily we re choosing sides in a war between the assad government and isis. a year ago we were pushed to