[announcer] healthful. flavorful. beneful. from purina. when you re up on the stage so unbelievable oh, unforgettable i don t think we are going to solve this problem in weeks if that is what you mean. i think this is going to take some time. the iraqi security forces, in order to mount an offensive and be able to operate effectively with the support of populations in sunni areas are going to have to revamp, get resupplied, have a clear strategy. but this is going to be a long-term project. good morning. welcome to morning joe. take a live look at times square. boy, does it need another reminder six years into into the presidency, barack obama is learning again this weekend and getting a view of just how lonely it is at the top. especially when you re running the military of the last remaining benevolent super power in the world. with europe still seemingingly to be sleep, barack obama just became the fourng straight u.s. president to launch a war in iraq. america has ordered hostile military operations in that country. i read in this a maureen dowd piece, 17 of the last 24 years. it came from both sides this weekend. democratic critics seem oblivious through the growing threat, while republicans who attack president obama for doing nothing or now attacking him for wait, willie? wait? for doing something. this isn t iraq we are talking about. every day that goes by, isis build this calaphate. they are more powerful than al qaeda was on 9/11. i m predicting if we pull everybody out of afghanistan not based on conditions, you ll see that same movie again in afghanistan. this commander in chief has no strategy. he has no vision. they are coming here. this is just not about baghdad. this is just not about syria. it is about our home land and if we get attacked because he has no strategy to protect us, then he will have committed a blunder for the ages. some republicans are even saying, willie, it s worse that he has done something. but this time, the commander in chief made his military move because he had few other options. you saw in the maureen dowd column this weekend, i m sure. maureen said this is a barbaric forces pillaging so swiftly across the middle east it seems like from a sci-fi film. becoming stronger and more dangerous by the day and making president obama s genocide case for him. religious cleansing against christians and shiites and sunnis and a group of people battling againing genocide. it occupies now a land mass larger than jordan. good morning. it s monday, august 11th. willie, we ve got a lot of people talking about this. a story that is developing and breaking news. i guess we are arming the kurds directly? update this this morning arming the kurds directly as they fight isis. joining us this morning is senior political editor and white house correspondent for the huffing post, sam stein. a former director of the national terrorism center, michael leiter. carol lee. editorial director of the national journal, ron fournier. and bobby ghosh. welcome to you all. this morning, more evidence that the president has finally seen enough. u.s. officials say the obama administration is now directly arming kurdish fighters in iraq. american aircraft, meanwhile, continue to pound targets there, but a struggle over control of the iraqi government is threatening to complicate the crisis now. a fourth round of air strikes has been carried out against the group known as the islam state or isis and u.s. troops have made at least four air-drops of aid to displaced iraqis. president obama over the weekend say the campaign strike may last for months while once again ruling out ground troops there. joe, this is, obviously, a limited action by the president of the united states to stop isis in this one spot, in this moment, in this case. right. but this is a bigger problem as you pointed out in your introduction. it s in syria and iraq. it s not going away. it s a massive problem. for people looking at this and saying the same thing about isis they don t want to knock down buildings in new york or washington, isis wants to knock down buildings in new york and washington. this is, again, this weekend, another the new york times column i read said that actually religious genocide is the end. it s not a cool of terror. it s a means to an end. bobby ghosh, explain what we are seeing in isis, what their objectives are and what they are hoping to achieve. as joe said, they are far more ambitious than any other terrorist group that has come before. they want to hold territory. they want to create a state for themselves. they are calling themselves the islamic state. then they want to kill almost anybody that comes in the way. fellow muslims, most of all. whether shiites or fellow sunnis that don t happen to believe that the islam that these people have. do they want to attack the united states? absolutely. they want to take attack. the west, the united states specifically. it doesn t have to be in the homeland. the united states can be attacked all over the world. we have interests we have people in harm who could potentially be in harm s way anywhere in the world and these guys want to do harm. there is absolutely no question. no question about it. michael leiter, though, it is pretty encouraging what has happened in the past two days. the president s decision to start bombing isis shows that they aren t the third rike. they have spread like poison gas because western countries and countries across the middle east have allowed them to do that, but it looks like we are already making some pretty quick gains here. i don t think this is a particularly difficult target for the u.s. military. the question is how far we want to go with that. as you noted, joe, they are strong and they are certainly the strongest terrorist organization and army we have faced over the past ten years, but they are far from far from this that can t be defeated. i think folks at the pentagon believe within one to three months, isis could really be rolled back with u.s. air power if there is also an iraqi ground force that fights side-by-side. the real challenge is you can control them out of iraq with some air power, but how far are you willing to do? because without considering syria in the same breath, we can t really attack this at its same root. ron, the president took decisive action here and we have seen isis rolled back to the point where the kurds have been able to repel them, at least in this one region. but as this does metastasize and see more attempts of genocide around the world and region there, what does the president do next? he s in a tough spot. we are all in a tough spot. the country doesn t want to go back to war. we really you know, our forces are depleted and worn out,this a serious issue. we are now, you know, almost exactly 13 years after president bush got a memo in crawford, texas, saying osama bin laden wants to attack the united states. we are getting that memo now. what we are seeing on tv now is a warning that, you know, with every day after 9/11 the odds of us getting hit haincreased. as you were just told, this isn t just a matter of rolling out of iraq and i wonder if we are overestimating our ability to do so. we tend to do that. are we going to follow them into syria and are we capable of keeping them out of the united states? we have already had remnants of isis in the united states. we had a young man come down to florida and visit his family and go back to syria and blew himself up. it s a scary time. this is a tough nut for the president to crack and he has been underestimating a lot of things on the world stage the last few months. he can t under estimate this threat. no. this appears to be the threat that is is not capable or should never be underestimated because it s danger. i don t think can be overestimated because of its goals. we heard michael leiter ask the question how far does this go. do we have to go to syria because this is the root of the problem? that was part of a fascinating debate. team of rivals this weekend just became rival. yeah. hillary clinton amazing in this interview with the atlantic magazine looking to distance herself perhaps from the foreign policy of the administration she once served. in an interview she praised the president but said great nations need organizing principles and don t do stupid stuff is not organizing principle. stunning. a reference to the president. a cleaned up reference to the slogan reportedly used at the white house on how to approach foreign policy. clinton touched on the factor to leading to widespread violence in syria saying the failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who are the originators of the protest against assad left a big vacuum which the jihadists have now filled. in an early interview president obama rejected the idea of changing rebels could have changed the course of what happened there. with respect to syria, it s always been a fantasy, this idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms what was made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth and they were able to battle, not only a well-armed state, but also well-armed state backed by russia, backed by iran, a battle hardened hezbollah. that was never in the cards. sam stein, there is nothing that makes me sadder democratic on democratic violence. this is hurtful. it is pretty stunning in the middle of the military operation to be reading headlines like this where you have his last secretary of state calling him a failure and you have the president call his last secretary of state and possibly next democratic nominee for president living in a fantasy world. failure versus fantasy. but i think probably, the most stunning part of that a lot of ways hillary clinton could have done that, but as we say in the south, she was just sticking a sharp stick in his eye when she brought up that really embarrassing quote about don t do stupid stuff. that was a blind side right there. i don t know if she called him a failure per se but she did stick it in the side. his policy in syria was failure i. this is what everybody has been waiting for on what plank would clinton try to distance herself from obama and it makes sense that it s foreign policy at this juncture because of what is happening across the globe. obviously, the headlines are terrible for the president and the administration and it makes sense. also it sort of goes by her history. she has always been perceived as probably is much more militant and willing to use force, i should say, in foreign crises than the president and she runs risks doing this. you can hear the groans from members of the democratic party after this interview wpublished withever go evejeffrey goldberg. with respect to the president now it makes sense to break with him because of all that is happening across the globe. carol, you ve covered the white house and learned a lot probably about the relationship between the president and the former secretary of state hillary clinton. how long has this been bubbling beneath the surface? how long have they served parted ways on these certain matters of foreign policy? well, i think if you look at when she was secretary of state during her tenure, she differed with the president on a number of things. sam is absolutely right. she was seen as much more hawkish on nearly every foreign policy debate they had in the white house. and particularly on syria, you know, some of us have been watching this, been waiting for this moment when she would do this because this was the biggest split that they had where she, three years ago, was really pushing for arming the rebels and the white house was pushing back and saying, you know, we don t know who these guys are and they are not even capable of using the weapons if we were to give them to them. they really wanted to step back. that was at odds with some of president obama s senior staff. so, i mean, what is really interesting about this is that it s hard to prove the negative. it s easy for her to say this now, and easy for the president to stick to his line outbut it was inevitable she was going to do this. bobby, when i read this, i thought hillary clinton understands what other foreign policy leaders have been saying for the past months or two. yes, the plane crash over ukraine was horrific. and that all diverted our eyes. and what happened in the middle east, absolutely terrible. you could do nothing in july, but look at the horrible images coming out of the middle east and coming out of gaza. all along, foreign policy experts had said watch isis, watch iraq, watch the meltdown in the middle east because this is what is, as ron said, this is what makes us less safe every day. it s almost as if hillary clinton understands this is all going to circle back to syria and so the blame game has already begun for a crisis that is sure to come. well, it s a terrible thing to say about a situation that has taken nearly 2,000 lives. what happened in gaza was the past reasserting itself. what you re seeing in ukraine, again, is old russia trying to reassert itself. isis represents a threat of today and tomorrow. this is something existential not only for those tiny communities that are exposed on that mountain in iraq but a poison gas and virus and use any number of expressions, this will be for us a long time to come. the longer we ignore it, the worst it has become. yes, these are no the nazis that they eventually became but the reason the nazis became the supreme evil was because for a long time the world did nothing. czechoslovakia, we did nothing. he took a little bit of this and that. we did nothing. we are at a risk of doing the same thing with isis until literally last week. michael leiter, final thoughts. i think the president has to make a case more strongly that we have to be in this for the long haul. we have long-term interests in iraq. we have long-term interests in the region and we have long-term interests of not being a defensive crouch on counterterrorism and that is going to require the u.s. and our allies to be deeply involved in iraq and syria, despite the fact that it may be deeply unpopular. all right. michael leiter, thanks so much and sam, ron, carol, bobby, stick around with us. still ahead on morning joe, thomas friedman is here fresh off his exclusive interview with the president. you just saw a portion of that. the former u.s. ambassador to iraq under president obama. ambassador james jeffrey asking what he thinks is to blame for the situation there. nascar star tony stewart hits and kills another driver on the track. my gosh. we will break it down for you. what exactly what happened? and what happens next. rory mcilroy cannot be stopped. highlights. his dramatic come from behind victory to beat phil mickelson and rickie fowler. first, bill karins is back from his long vacation. hey, bill. one holes and week straight in the casinos, willie. good morning, everyone. i hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. summer still going well on the eastern seaboard. had a lot of storms to deal with down along the gulf. as we head through this week, this is the same weather pattern all summer long. another shot of cool air heading for the great lakes and out ahead of that a good chunk of rain. if you re driving this morning, milwaukee to chicago heading over through southern michigan up to grand rapids you re in the rain this morning. maybe even a few thunderstorms. eventually this will sweep to the east coast. as far as the northeast goes today, another beautiful day. summer-like. low humidity. enjoy it. temperatures in the mid-80s because it gets cooler after this. looks like storms arrive tuesday afternoon. airport plans could be delayed from new york city to d.c. tuesday afternoon. the rest of the southeast today, you re looking for isolated storms. still very hot and dry in many areas of the west. the good news, the best of all! we are heading into the peak of the hurricane season and there is nothing brewing at all! that is fantastic. we leave you with a shot oh, what a gorgeous sunrise. did you see that super moon last night? that was pretty cool too. you re watching morning joe. we will be right back. did you hear the news came across the air today 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. it s time to bring it out in the open. it s time to drop your pants for underwareness, a cause to support the over 65 million people who may need depend underwear. show them they re not alone and show off a pair of depend. because wearing a different kind of underwear, is no big deal. join us. support the cause and get a free sample of depend at underwareness.com welcome back to morning joe. a probe is under way after a dramatic crash involving nascar driver tony stewart left another driver dead. on saturday during a sprint car race in upstate, new york, kevin ward jr., spun out racing side-by-side with stewart. you see it there. ward gets out of his car apparently angry gesturing toward stewart and seemingly looking for a confrontation. another car swerved to avoid him but as stewart came around, his car struck ward killing him. sparing you from seeing it there. st stewart s spokesman said he would be racing on sunday but a few hours later, stuaewart saide would sit out of the race, sailing the following. police have questioned stewart. they say the three-time champion is being cooperative. they have not, though, ruled out criminal charges. they also said they have no reason to suspect criminal intent there. joining us now is cnbc brian sullivan and morning joe derrick kitz who has followed racing and been in his family many years. you guys have both raced and this is what your dad drives. yeah. let s start with a couple of things first of all. brian washings was tony stewart, nascar star, we see him on sundays, why was he racing on this dirt track in upstate new york? this is what he does. a year ago he was racing these cars and flipped his car and compound fracture of his leg and sat out the rest of the nascar season. people said please keep racing these kind of cars. he said i m a racer and this is what i do. he took his race team and did this saturday night feature and it ended in tragedy. i was asking derrick a lot of questions, what was it? on friday? yes. thursday and friday. we were talking about danica patrick. they say tony stewart does everything because what he does. he is a great driver and can do it all. let s set a couple of things up. first of all, ward, this poor man who died the other night. he came on the road pointing and yelling and it looks bizarre to us. and, yet, tony stewart has done that himself. you sit there going, don t they tell them to stay in the cars? at every race, they start with a pit meeting and drivers meeting. everybody gathers and the pit boss goes over the routine saying if you re in a wreck or spin out or you re injured stay in the car. it s the safest place on the track. it s standard operating procedure, stay in your car is the safest place. especially in the night and the track wasn t very well lit. they say tony stewart probably didn t see him because so much mud up on the windshield which makes it even more dangerous to run out into the middle of the track. so two things at play there. one, the helmets these guys wear have what is called a tearoff. they have about 8 to 10 then plastic sheets and a button that will tear off because their visibility gets so impaired and they can t see. that is standard. they have to preserve these throughout the race. who knows at what point in time tony stewart was on his tearoffs. he could have had a perfectly clean one or impaired tearoff. you don t know. so many factors. especially when you re at the apex of one of that turn which is one of the most dangerous spots. willie, also looking at tony stewart, you have to look at tony stewart. this is a guy known for road rage and known for running out in the middle of the track throwing his helmet at other people. he has got a long history of this. he has been on the other end and we have to be careful between making a leap him going after another ki and targeting this guy. right. let s look at a little history of road rage in nascar. tony not very happy. we know what tony thinks. we were mad after that restart. checked up twice to not run over him and i learned my lesson there. i will run over him every chance i got. you get your helmet back. your aim was precise. i don t give a crap. tony, your respect of what happened. the kid is an idiot. he wins one cup race and he took us down to talladega twice. i m curious what that idiot is thinking down there. i don t think he knows what he is thinking. after tony went over to question and did more than that. got a swing in there. let s see what steve burns came up with. tony, what angered you at the end of the race? what the hell do you think i was mad about? he bulb he drives like a little bulb i m going to bust his ass. thank you, tony. a lot of threats there. there is that clip that made us all flinch when he said i m going to run over him every chance i get. he is an angry man. listen, i think that is a little racing talk there. i don t think he is implying he is going to run over him physically. but tony stewart has always been a hot-head. no question. he is not the only one. yeah. so what is his future, brian sullivan? so much of this depends on your sponsorships. yeah. gasoline powers the engine and money powers nascar. the question is going to be no matter what the outcome of this by the way, i ve been racing for 30 years. this is the worst thing i ve ever seen. whether or not mobile one, bass pro shops, go daddy, whether they come back to him. stewart is unique. he is the only major driver that owns his team. no charges have been filed but whether or not you pay your money to put your name on his hood. was there anything exceptional either of you saw in the wreck? no, he drifted up. he s on dirt. in fact, i was talking to you earlier. i said it looked like a clean pass. it looked like a clean pass. which means tony stewart goes past him fair and square. if you look at the video, i m not even convinced he necessarily made contact. brian, when stewart is making a clean pass like that, that is where you slow down, let the other guy go past you and you re going to get him at the next turn. especially in open-wheel racing where it s so dangerous as you can see. on that sharp turn. listen. some people over the weekend brought up some great point and a lot of awful speculation out there too. was there any history between these guys? like, i don t know. was there? did tony stewart have a go popr? what is getting the attention is, i can t hear if you have the audio up or not, you can audible hear the engine rev. is there a chance he is checking stuff. looks up. there is the guy. the guy is coming out pointing for at least four or five seconds. here is the other thing. there s been speculation about the cars made revving their engines. the fact is the cars have to rev their engines during the caution flag because if they don t the tires fill up with mud and no traction and the tires cool down and it s standard operating procedure and you ll see it all the time. we don t have time, but, my gosh, rory, that guy is on fire. my gosh. did you watch late last night? they didn t finish until almost 9:00, the pga championship. rory mcilroy wins third turned in a row and fourth career major. two in a row. this is the scene on the 18th hole last night as he putted in to win there. a one-stroke victory. a great sunday. phil mickelson was there all day and finished a stroke back. rickie fowler incredible season of his own finishing in the top five in all four majors. a great sunday. now you can say rory mcilroy the last couple of years and had some struggles and i think the next tiger thing probably got to him. he is there now. he joined jack and tiger as the three youngest since 1934 to reach four career majors. so he s on that trajectory now. how many strokes would you give mcilroy? scarborough, mcilroy, head-to-head, 18 holes. it depends what year. course of your choice. where would i go? willie, i won the masters in 87 the year after mickelson. who could forget? . because mickelson wins in 86 the shadow of jack nicklaus. guys, thank you for coming. coming up next on morning joe, authorities nap a 20-foot python in a florida neighborhood. we will explain the strange capture next. outrage in st. louis while the death of mike brown is compared to the trayvon martin tragedy. more morning joe straight ahead. 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amazing. they gave them umbrellas to shade them through the sun as they were going through all of that. wild one. 75 feet in the air. the breakfast story you must see. capturing a 12-foot long python accused of eating neighborhood cats. it took several police officers to remove the 120-pound snake from the pushes! there is currently an infestation of pythons in florida in the everglades these snakes can lay up to about 80 eggs each spring! wow. they really are great for breakfast. hide the colonel. also from florida, the orlando sentinel. a 9-year-old boy is lucky to be alive after surviving an attack from a nine-foot long, 85-pound alligator. this is our florida block. my lord! the boy says he was swimming in a lake when he felt something latch on to his leg. he was able to hit the gator and causing it to let go and allowed him to swim to shore. doctors treated him for three different bites. 30 teeth marks. scratches as well and removed a gator tooth from one of the wounds. left a tooth in the boy! wow. the 9-year-old is expected to make a full recovery. you re supposed to punch it in the snout. i think he did. the kit jacked him in the snout and saved his own life. shark week started last night. i don t know if that is big around your house. oh, yeah. but at my house, it s huge. it keeps getting better. kate and jack, jack is a little scared by it all at 6. but he s hanging in there. but it s shark week. i tell you what, my kids start talking about shark week four months ahead of time. it s unbelievable! like christmas. it is! it will be like may and they go, daddy, shark week is soon. next week? no, august 10th. it s on calendar in our house! another thing taken over by hollywood. the casting has gotten better and better on the sharks and finding better ones. they are looking for neg negladawn? i won t tell my kids that. maybe they will find him this year at the end of shark week. coming up, what does president obama think is the biggest difference between democrats and republicans? overall, if you look at the democratic consensus, it s a pretty common sense mainstream consensus. it s not a lot of wacky ideological nonsense and fact based on reason based. that s the president of the united states? oh, lord! we are reasonable and rational. them, you know he? it s witchcraft. holey cow. i can t wait to ask thomas friedman who is coming on to talk about that interview. up next, from the south of france. have you got your teletype? is it coming in? ding! mika s must read opinion pages coming up and straight off the cable from the south of france. we will be right back. being the new kid on the block can be intimidating. take your kids on a walk through the online neighborhood. show them sites you feel are acceptable. teach them how to deal with cyber bullies and encourage them to navigate safely. the more you know. in the nation, the safest feature in your car is you. add vanishing deductible from nationwide insurance and get $100 off for every year of safe driving. which for you, shouldn t be a problem. just another way we put members first, because we don t have shareholders. join the nation. nationwide is on your side. 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. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use hey there, i just got my bill, and i see that it includes my fico® credit score. yup, you get it free each month to help you avoid surprises with your credit. good. i hate surprises. surprise! at discover, we treat you like you d treat you. get the it card and see your fico® credit score. willie, fresh off the teletype. i hand to you from it smells like the south of france. from the casino royale. off the teletype from mika. she is reading the new york times. writing about back to iraq. from the sunday times, maureen writes it felt bracing to see american pilots trying to save innocence in a country we messed up so badly that it s not even a country my nor, some critics warn it was not a military strategy and almost worse than nothing as john mccain put it. the latest turn of the screw in iraq also underscored how we keep getting pulled back godfather style without even understanding the kuverculture. it creates even more monsters. the united states has taken military action in iraq during at least 17 of the last 24 years. the ultimate mission creep in a country smaller than texas on the other side of the world. what better symbol of the middle east quicksand than the fact that navy planes took off for their rescue mission two years after president obama declared in war in iraq over from the george h.w. bush aircraft. high ironic the president who got elected finding the only guy out there against the last war in iraq is back now in iraq which should show us just how badly the situation has deteriorated. yeah. it s probably the biggest disappointment to him. i mean, it s a personal disappointment of his presidency. and this is something that he never wanted to do and, as you mentioned, he campaigned on 2012. i traveled with him extensively during that time. the draw down in iraq was a number one pause line for him and they really touted it. i remember traveling with vice president joe biden in 2011 when he did the trip to end the war. he said we have turned lemons into lemonade. this is a place they never thought they would be. if you look at what the president said when he first spoke on this, he practically apologized for taking military action. as you saw on saturday he is back saying, well, this could be a lot longer. i think he has got some explaining to do on this part. it s accelerating, too, willie. by the way, i support the president. we go in and we do the bombings to save a lot of people from grisly death, but this morning, we wake up to the breaking news that he is now arming the kurds directly. so looks like he is moving towards being all in. said i guess this weekend said we could be there months. he said this is going to take a long time. ron, recent history said you can t dip your toes into the waters of war. if you re in for a dime, you re in for many in case. we had to face the fact we were not honest as a country as we got into iraq and we weren t very smart how we got out. we can t do anything about the former so we have to deal with the latter. the problem the president has it was just a few months ago where he called this threat j.v. was only a couple of years ago when he said we re pulling the troops out because iraq is stable and safe and sovereign. he just admitted he blew the call on libya that he underestimated what happened after we got rid with gadhafi and he underestimated putin and what happened after mubarak was chased out. as i said earlier, he can t underestimate the threat now. but it s not an easy call for him to make. no. but i tell you what, i think the fact that the president has said what he said about isis and other groups and the fact he is going in now, should show the american people just how serious this threat is and just how serious this president has to take it. no politician likes admitting they were wrong and what the president is doing here. but, again, shows how serious things are and how much things have deinvolvvolved in the midd east. another unarmed black teen is gunned down and a community is demanding answers as overnight protests become violent. we will have the latest on the shooting death that is causing outrage and unrest in st. louis. don t go away. we will be right back. 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i got three subscriptions. a hundred bucks a year you can watch the former alaska governor go rogue. in this clip she hass on massachusetts senator elizabeth warren. we believe that fast food workers deserve a livable wage and that means when they take to the picket line, we are proud to fight alongside them. we believe wait. i thought fast food joints? don t you guys think they are of the devil or something? liberals, you want to send those evil employee who work at a fast food joint, send them to purgatory or something so they go all vegan and wages in picket lines aren t often discussed in purgatory, are they? why are you worried about fast food wages? well, we believe in america, where minimum wage jobs, they are not lifetime gigs. they are stepping stones! that one-year subscription, by the way, comes with a two week free trial period where you can get your money back. what did i just see? reason for a refund. truth to what? speaking what? you don t talk about wages and purgatory. i m trying to figure out what that means. my teeth are hurting. big mac and number one and super sizesed with purgatory. we will try to figure that out. while the animation sweeps and the next hour of morning joe starts. i don t think we are going to solve this problem in weeks if that is what you mean. i think this is going to take some time. the iraqy security forces to mount an offensive and mount the effective in sunni areas are going to have to revamp and get resupplied and have a clear strategy. but this is going to be a long-term project. that s the president talking about a lot going on right now in iraq. u.s. officials say the obama administration is directly arming kurdish fighters in iraq and news broke overnight. american aircraft pound targets there and struggle over the control of the iraqi government about complicating the crises whatever is easy in iraq? a fourth round of air strikes carried out against the group known as the islamic state. four air-drops to 4,000 displaced iraqis. the president said over the weekend the air strike campaign may last for months. once again ruling out ground troops, the president did, he is now dealing with this internal problem. iraq s prime minister is accusing the country s new president of staging a coup. al maliki is face ago third term but facing calls to resign. he gave a televised speech last night saying he is not going anywhere. yes, you are. special forces to support al maliki were sent to key areas around baghdad. u.s. officials support iraq s new president and are alarmed by the tone of al maliki s speech. joining us now is nbc news white house chief foreign correspondent, andrea mitchell. a lot of concern. yeah. one second, andrea. senior fellow for national security studies max boot. author of invisible armies. associate professor dominique tierney. and with time magazine, michael crowley and sam stein is still with us from washington. thank god. a full house. andrea, let me get back to you. set the stage a little bit for people just kind of waking up on a monday morning, what happened over the weekend in iraq? well, what happened was really last night. maliki is threatening to stay and has ordered his loyal army, even if it s around baghdad, there is real concern there could be political violence today. not from isis, but from maliki s forces. so how can they fight isis with maliki supposedly in the last week letting iraqi forces work the u.s. in a coordinated fashion to save the peshmerga and the kurds. maliki can t stay. none of this works with maliki stays. this, obviously, is surprising to a lot of people the thought that one foot was already out the door. is maliki suggesting something more troubling. yes. what is maliki suggesting? he was suggesting by saying that the army, well, to him, supports the constitution. he was suggesting just as the shiite coalition was getting together to choose a prime minister and finally complete this governing process without maliki having a third term. maliki was suggesting basically a coup and that is what caused enormous alarm last night among top u.s. officials reaching out. they are the intel people were working, you know, very, very early this morning to see exactly what his intentions are. maybe we should just let the egyptians annex iraq. max boot, it s never easy in iraq. the president of the united states did what he felt like he had to do. talk, if you will, how bad had the situation come until the bombing began and what progress were we making? i think the situation, joe, is about as bad as you can imagine, because here you had this fundamentalist islamist state before 2001 they had taken control of a substantial portion of syria, as well as iraq. we show this map, max. they actually control an area larger than the entire nation of jordan. exactly. larger than new england. it s a pretty horrifying scenario. they were starting to carry out genocide against the christians and threatening erbil. they were marching on baghdad. my question is do we have a strategy driving owner intervention and i would point you to the words of napoleon who said if you start to take vie a vienna, take vienna. in other words, when fer going to fight these guys, let s do it for real and a way to have a strategy to destroy isis. willie, we always say that. if you re going to take vienna, take vienna. that is a pretty good quote. i think i m going to use that. michael crowley, let s talk about the strategy going forward here. this appears to, the air strikes appear for the time being to give kurds time and space to repel isis. but what next? because isis is not going away. maybe they have pulled back from this region but they will pop up in other places and they exist obviously in many other places throughout the region. what is the over arcing strategy for the white house here? oftentimes if you re in once, you re in for a lot more. yeah. i think the overarching strategy is for us to not get too deeply involved, at least militarily. a big part of it is to use proxies. in other words, get the kurdish fighting forces, called the peshmerga and that translates those who face death and have a record as fierce fighters try to supply them. they were outgunned by i shortstop and can we let them take the lead in the night up in the north. the u.s. is working to restart that anbar awakening that was so pist pivotal in turning around the iraq war and in many cases, you know, we basically bribed them to do that. those tribes are very frustrated and disillusioned with maliki right now and have made common cause again with al qaeda style groups but we are trying to reverse that and replay that. finally to get some kind of political reconciliation in baghdad which is probably the hardest component of all as we have seen in the previous conversation about this move maliki is pulling and still a work in progress. we have syria in play here. when we talk about what is taking place with bashar al a assad. what isis means specifically in syria and how that is overlapping in the border regions there so explain that dynamic and what takes place as we, back here at home, watch washington, d.c. president bush said they were not into nation building but that is what we have come now. a country trying to oversee nation building everywhere. right. here in the cradle of civilization, we have seen a decent and it has created a tremendous challenge for the obama administration. assad in syria has, in many ways, cultivated the rise of isis as a deliberate strategy to radicalize the opposition and actually help themselves stay in rule. now isis has swept into iraq. it s a huge challenge. the obama administration has responded with a policy basically of containment. the idea is not to try to destroy isis but stop them from expand beyond the kurdish region and is there a long-term strategy? i think the destruction of isis will not come from the united states but come more from internal dynamics within the jihadist and sunni communities. we talked about this last hour, andrea mitchell. a lot what is going on right now with hillary clinton. obviously, fascinating articles where she is distancing herself from barack obama, especially on the issue of syria. right. but in this interview with jeffrey goldberg of the atlanta she praises the president but says great nations need organizing principle and don t do stupid stuff is not an organizing principle. i thought that cleaned up reference to a slogan the president used. it s pretty stunning. it s almost like hillary understands, like most foreign policy experts we have talked to over the past month understand, that isis is the beginning of a great unraveling of the middle east. they understands it and understood it then. this is a little politically thought. the president is doing exactly what americans want him to do according to every poll. he is not getting engaged. he did not get in engaged in syria a year ago where he said he would get if the red line were crossed by assad and when the chemical weapons were used. i think what is really hurting him people want him to stay out of these foreign entanglements but they want him to be a leader. what hillary clinton is trying to do here is show the distinction she had the vision, if you will, that syria was the heart of it and if they did not arm the so-called rebels fublet th if you believe that they were he said it was a fantasy. one other thought here, joe, and all of the gang, there is no way that, aside from containment and this will be a long-term project if this is supposedly containment of isis but if they want to get to isis they have to go through syria. that is where the foreign fighters are coming to join and they know that. they have to go to syria and, obviously, hillary clinton talking about this and talking about syria and talking about all of this foreign policy actually shows that she understands part of the great unraveling. a lot of fingers are going to be pointing and she you know, it certainly is clear that she is seriously contemplating a run for president of the united states or else she wouldn t distance herself in such a striking way. willie? sam, so much of the president s legacy, he hopes, i think will be on getting the united states out of the war in afghanistan and iraq. he called iraq war a dumb war if you go back to 2006 and 2007. something he has always been against. does he run the risk of getting america reengaged in iraq? we are on a limited basis right now, but could it grow from here? well, if you take him at his word, there is going to be no ground forces sent to iraq so there are limits i guess what the policy will bring us. you re absolutely right and andrea is absolutely right. the popular thing is what the president s policy was which is get out of iraq and leave afghanistan. there s, obviously, debate over whether or not he should have fought harder for a forces status agreement to leave the troops there and what good that would have gone. but if you talk to the white house and if you talk to the administration officials today, they say, you know, these decisions aren t done in vacuums. for instance, arming the syrian rebels. they point out that they armed the iraqi military. they trained the iraqi military and gave them sophisticated weaponry and what good did it do when they had to go up against isis? they ran and went away. i thought the most important thing that the president told tom friedman was his biggest regret is what happened in libya which is they got rid of gadhafi did you didn t envision what happens tomorrow. how do you reconcile the turmoil in iraq with the objectives of pushing back isis in the northern provinces. isn t it something as we move forwards another democratic fight for the presidency, willie, that hillary clinton, if there is somebody that rises up to run against her from the left, is once again, going to be painted as the hawk, at the neocon? the very thing that gotter be h beaten in 2008 she is not running away from. she is racing to. remember a race between her and rand paul. i said sometimes she is a neocne neocon neocon. it s hard to find a conflict or a debate in the white house where hillary clinton didn t support some sort of military convention or at least the strongest, toughest stand. as carol lee pointed out the last hour there were conflicts when she was secretary of state disagreeing with the president on many of these issues and now coming out into the public eye. we have nbc news correspondent keir simmons live in erbil. what is happening on the ground there right now? set the stage for us, keir. reporter: good morning. thanks. what is happening here is the fighting continues about 20 miles from this city of erbil and we are hearing the u.s. has now decided to deliver arms to the kurdish peshmerga forces who are fighting isis in this area and that will be hugely welcome and through the weekend they will be pleased with that. through the weekend, they do appear to have made some gains working on the back of those u.s. air strikes, they managed to regain control of a number of key towns on the roads out of erbil here. perhaps that is a tipping point. isis thrives on fear. that is one of its weapons, as well as its armor and its guns. practic perhaps the u.s. air strikes are building the confidence here and allowing them to push isis back. at the same time, i circumstances is sophisticated. they are strategic and they will be thinking about when their next move is. there is a lot of heads that will be considering what next move to make. isis issue will be effectively what president obama has indicated any time they move armory on the roads, the u.s. will move to attack those positions. so isis needs to rethink what you can expect they will reattack somewhere in iraq at some point. obviously, those air strikes helped pushing isis back there. what are the people on the street hope for from the united states going forward as isis moves in around them? can i just comment looking at keir s shot, i never expected it to like it does. this city, you could be in the middle of europe right now. it seems to be insulated from the hell going on all around it. set the stage there. reporter: yeah. i mean, you know, people are going about their normal business. they are frightened. they were terrified. you re right. this is a city of 1.5 million people and it is increasingly westernized. the u.s. consulate is here and the reason president obama i think felt had he to act. i think people are more confident as a result of that air strikes and the news that the u.s. will deliver weapons to the kurdish fighters and give them confidence. iraq is now a divided country. if you move over towards baghdad where nuri al maliki, the prime minister, is refusing to resign, there is a much more greater sense of fear. i was there just weeks ago. it is a different atmosphere there. even compared with here in erbil now, and the question about those divisions in iraq, it is within that divided country, the isis was able to thrive. that is still a glaring issue, even despite this u.s. intervention. keir, thank you so much. great deal appreciate it and be safe. bring in chris jansing who is live from martha s vineyard in another world. president obama is spending quite a distance from elbil but, obviously, the president, the white house sent out some fascinating information several hours ago. the united states is going to directly arm the kurds. what are you examine pg to hear from the president today? well, we don t know if we will hear from the president himself today. they have been setting up and sort of giving us a little indication that we might hear from some of his national security team. maybe his deputy national security adviser ben rhodes. i had a long conversation with him last night and to pick up on what keir was just saying. this is critical the whole nuri al maliki piece of this. they believe in order to create a situation where the u.s. doesn t have to be involved militarily and the president has already said this is an open-ended mission they have to get a new prime minister in there and they have to get somebody who at least that a chance of bringing the different factions together. right now nuri al maliki is not that person. i won t say they are surprised. they knew and he had continued to show signs he was going to fight to stay prime minister, but that is what they really are focusing very closely on right now. that, in addition,, obviously, to what we are seeing in the air both the air drops and the air strikes that military mission. joe? willie? andrea, if you re still here, it s interesting. we bring you into the mix with chris here. hearing the president and others talking about all we need in iraq is a unity government. that s not so easy. we have been trying to do that for a very long time. al maliki wasn t willing to do it. what are the prospects for that if that is the solution in iraq, what are the prospects? it s really tough. they have just announced that the deputy speaker of the parliament has been chosen to replace maliki. they were working on this last night. we were on the phone with officials as they were tracking it. now, it s very unclear whether maliki will let this new coalition survive, whether he will cling to power and whether this will, in effect, be with a coup. clearly we not only backed the wrong guy in iraq but then supported him and turned a blind eye to the fact he was excludeing sunnys. year one he was throwing them out and stopping their payments to the tribal leaders that petraeus and u.s. embassy had carefully cultivated during the sunni arising. that was the key to the american withdrawal. all of those sunni tribal leaders were completely excluded by maliki and many joined isis and provided the critical strategic help that isis needed in its initial march toward baghdad. max, let me ask you quickly. what does the next move need to be from the white house? well, i think we need a concerted strategy for breaking the grip that isis has on a significant portion of iraq and syria. and talking about containment i don t think is good enough. what are you saying with containment? we are content to have this exist as long as it doesn t take erbil? i think we need to work with the pressure ma peshmerga and bolstering our military footprint on the ground and having a real counter attack has a military as well as a political component that will break the hold of isis. i mean, the bottom line is the situation is pretty serious right now. but it is still recoverable. it is still possible to swing the momentum against them as we did, in fact, in 2006 and 2007 during the serge. we have to do it without all of the u.s. troops on the ground but i think it s still possible to do it but we need a strategy and we need the resources necessary to do that instead of just saying we are going to limit ourselves to containing them. i don t think that is good enough. as willie and i like to talk about if you re going take vienna, take vienna. exactly! thank you to all of you. still head a deadly crash involving a nascar driver has the questions being asked was it a an accident or a homicide? plus a preview of the hard-foued mhar hard-fought races up north. a race that is going down to the wire and may determine who runs the united states senate. you re watching morning joe. we 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. that s why i always choose the fastest intern.r slow. my mom works at ge. 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. welcome back. a probe is under way after a very dramatic crash involving nascar driver tony stewart left another driver dead. that is tragic. it really is. we have a lot to talk about on the back side of this. it s hard to tell what is going on in that video. it s hard to tell but it s interesting because it s not uncommon to see drivers get out of their vehicles and other examples of this but kristen dahlgren is standing by live. reporter: the in its investigation no evidence of any criminal intent but you can imagine just how traumatic this was for anyone who is watching the race here on saturday. you mentioned that video. it s so disturbing that we won t show you the whole thing. but as you guys were talking about this morning, there are a lot of people asking a lot of questions about safety. reporter: it was a packed house saturday night. the hum of sprint cars racing around the track. then video posted on youtube shows two cars colliding. one spins out, while the other, driven by nascar legend tony stewart keeps going. the driver of the sideline carp gets out and in the dark appears to point to stewart and walks on the strak toward tony steward. 20-year-old kevin ward junior is hit by stewart s back wheel. he was later pronounced dead at the hospital. stewart is one of the nascar s most popular drivers with a reputation for colorful language and frequent outbursts. he once threw his helmet at another driver after colliding. tony stewart can be a hot-head. he gets into arguments with other drivers at times but, you know, typically, it s not really aggressive driving. reporter: authorities are examining video of the crash but say it appears it may just be a tragic accident. an investigation is ongoing to try and identify all of the potential factors for this on track crash and subsequent death. reporter: stewart pulled out of sunday s nascar race saying, quote, there aren t words to describe the sadness. ward s family is asking for privacy. the young driver started racing go carts at age 4. but most recently took to racing high-powered sprint cars equipped with wings that increase traction on the short dirt tracks. fans of the sport say accidents and drama are a part of racing, but not like this. now, authorities say that stewart is cooperating with their investigation. there s no word yet on when he might race again. guys, as for nascar, it says it will respect the process of local authorities. kristen, joe scarborough here. any talk already about safety changes? reporter: yeah. a lot of people talking about it. there has been no official word. you know, we have talked about how common it is to see drivers get out of the car. so a lot of people saying there should be some type of rule that keeps drivers in the car after a crash or when they are upset about something. i ve heard this called a watershed moment. even if there aren t official changes, i think it s safe to say drivers will be thinking about this the next time they think about getting out of their cars. thank you, kristen. what a tragedy. brian, first of all, you guys look. we are bringing in jeff burton an nbc sports analyst covering nascar and also a long time driver on the sprint circuit. thank you for being with us. brian sullivan is here and derrick kitz who are associated with cnbc who grew up racing. jeff let s first go to. the first question people watching asking is what the hell are these drivers doing getting out of their cars which derrick explained to us last hour, one of the first things your pit crews tell you, if there is a wreck, stay in the car, the safest place to be. why do guys get out an run in the middle of the track and point fingers? it all starts with the emotion of the sport. you put so much effort and energy into preparing your car, running the race and all of the things it takes to be a successful driver and when somebody takes something away from you, the chance to win the race or you feel like wrecks your car, it s a very emotional thing. unlike a football player or basketball player where you get up off the floor or the field and approach a guy urchs t, you the only way to show your displeasure is approach the guy in a race car but he s in a moving vehicle. i ve done it before. approached a guy under caution and wasn t the smartest thing in the world. jeff, i m sure you looked at this video like the rev of us a lot. i m not a big big fan of nascar racing but you look at it and there is even the question of whether the two actually hit each other or not, whether jeff, whether they did anything wrong, whether anything was wrong here. well, to kevin ward, he felt like tony had done something wrong. again, that goes back to what i said earlier. it s an emotional sport. people care about the results. you put that much effort and energy into something, doesn t go your way, it s very emotional. so tony did crowd him but it s racing. those things happen in racing. you know? it s part of the sport. so, you know, you can five people could watch that wreck and five people come up with different ideas. the fact of the matter is you have those things in racing. you do today and you will tomorrow as far as track incidents. the post-wreck incident is the big issue here. what happened on the racetrack in my eyes is just a racing incident. what do you think happened after the accident? what did you see in that video? well, i see a young man that is very upset. he is going to express his displeasure. then the video kind of goes away to be honest with you you can t see what happens before kevin gets hit. i ve known tony for a long, long time. no way in the world do i believe that tony stewart hit kevin on purpose. i don t believe that. any piece of my body, don t believe that. i just believe you see a tragic accident and i see a lot of emotion taking over and a tragic accident and everybody has to deal with the end result. jeff burton, thank you so much. you were talking about how he should have just let him pass. that nothing really was done. tony did nothing terrible in going past it. it looked like a clean pass. in fact, you re looking at the video again. you are wondering whether he actually even hit him or not. i think in viewing the video, you know, it s a classic slide pass. tony got underneath him and slid up. it looked like a clean pass. if it were a clean pass and the young man hit the wall, no reason tony stewart would even know that it was kevin ward that had spun out or that had wrecked when he came back around. if, in fact, there was no contact made. tony would have no reason to understand yeah. he was passing him. he was passed. it looked like a clean pass. derek said something last hour about the strips. tearoffs. the visibility. it s dark. it s night. he is wearing a dark fire suit. think about also, too, with race car the thing called after dale earnhardt was killed it limits you to make sure you don t break your neck as easily. you brought up something off the air. what people don t realize the track is banked and it s made of dirt and clay mixed. you wonder in the video you see kevin ward look like he is trying to turn. you can see a situation and i m not trying to steal your point here but he is running down to confront stewart and can t go back up. because it s slippery and steep racing shoes are like slippers. like wrestling shoes. very lightweight and thin and made of fire retardant material and only designed for the gas and the brake and no traction on them. if you re running down a bank clay oval like that, to try to stop, oops, i went too far and back pedal could be virtually impossible. looks like the last second he tries to turn. you guys are saying you look at that video. you just you re going fast. and you just don t have that much control. that s right. a real tragedy. thank you, guys, for being with us. coming up next, control of the senate is going to hang in the balance, obviously, this year. what happens in the 49th state is going to determine who runs the senate next year. morning joe heads to alaska to cover tough re-election fights going on up there. especially for democrat mark begich. we will be right back with more morning joe. it s monday. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. centurylink your link to what s next. i make a lot of purchases foand i get ass. lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back. and my rewards points won t expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can. we ll start looking for an suv. fire by firenze sir? 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actually, that was a beautiful shot. here is the capitol. the shot before it was northeast harvard maine. mika summers there. goes between there and the south of france. isn t that lovely? it is beautiful. it is lovely. you know what? it sort of reminds me of alaska. i m wondering, thomas, because they get all of these cruises, right? i think this is a great idea. we are going up to alaska. we are talking about alaska here. i think we need a morning joe cruise. i love it. you know? i think it would be great. you could have steve rattner giving power presentations and have him do some light comedy because i think he is funny when he is off camera. dr. brzezinski talking about geo situations in the hot buffet line. i m there. i m there. shrimp as big as your head! it would be great. i would lead the morning crunches. let s talk about what is going on in alaska. it is one of the key senate races where we have the incumbent mark begich with his hands full. he votes with republican senator lisa murkowski and he mentions it in his newest ad. lisa murkowski and mark begich vote 80% of the time. i don t think we should break up that team. i ve been a elizabeth lifelong republican. i voted for ted stevens and lisa murkowski and now i m voting for mark begich. senator murkowski is giving him the heisman and wants him to stop and asking him to cease and desist running that ad. his office said he used her likeness without her permission and featuring an alaska voter who is not actually a republican. kasie hunt caught up with him in anchorage. alaskans like what they are working together on. that is factual and talks about 80% of the time we vote together and that is laying out what we have been saying and what alaskans are telling me they love and that is the delegation working together. she said that the photo of the two of you together in that ad constitutes a violation of senate rules and federal law. is that the case? no, it s incorrect. under the rules you can utilize that photo purchased by the you don t plan to take the ad down? no. i think it s very factual. 80% of the time we vote together and proven today with the f-35 announcement the delegation working together an incredible announcement we made up a couple of days with opening up an incredible bridge. according to roll call, mark begich is the fourth most vulnerable incumbent senator in the mid terms. more on the interview coming up tomorrow. i heard they had an excellent time up there and a lot of reporter stelg. kasie does an amazing job. mark only got elect because of some very questionable investigations against who he beat so we will see what happens. i m focused more on the cruise. murkowski was tough on her. we all recall the tough time she went through. she had to run as an independent. it s fascinating to think she is coming back to say don t conclude me. stay away. yes, stay away. you re breaking federal i wish i could say you re breaking federal law by using my photo. i bought that fair and clear. exactly. still ahead, the real death valley. the major reason undocumented immigrants crossing the border don t make it out lialive. that story is next. 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graechlt. yeah. mass graves in texas where these people die and get lumped together and thrown into the ground? unbelievable. it is unbelievable. in the united states we do have real mass graves in this part of texas. there was a period of time where the body were being processed by private mortuaries and they didn t know what to do with them. if the individual was unidentified or they were skeletal remains, in some cases put them in a trash bag. they get across the border and die of dehdehydration? they are already the border and this is not at the border. this is 70 miles north. there is a checkpoint. they get out of the car. they have to walk around the checkpoint to avoid this last sort of area of defense from the border patrol. they walk for about two or three days and the conditions are so harsh that many of them do lose their lives. what do they die of? dehydration, heat. they get lost. they may be injured and they are in the middle of nowhere and it s hard to find them and hard to find help. why did you see this documentary and what john is reporting is showing, improving the hard conditions, personal stories, why did you think that fit with your brand? sure. about two years ago, they created a digital documentary unit called weather film where we explore investigative journalism topics that intersect. fundamentally what is killing these people out there is tough weather. there has been near constant drought in brooks county in south texas where this is happening the last five years. the last year, we have had 31 days over a 171 days over 90. so the heat, the temperature is a major factor and people dying in south texas. meanwhile, with the heat in washington, d.c. over the conversation about immigration reform, did you realize how political this was going to be for you and worth.com getting involved in picking a digital documentary like john s? yes. yes. yeah. it was part of the it s a politically charged topic. classically we don t do political topics on the weather channel. although people are passionate on both sides of it, there is not that much politics in the piece. we don t interview politicians and nothing democratic or republican about it. it s simply we think a tragedy at the border that very few people know about. you re talking about hundreds of migrants that die each year. if we told you a hundred bodies showed up in a texas ranch land of american citizens you would hear an outrage. and buried in a mass grave. any religious organizations out there to help these people? there are. how do you get access to the private land to put out water? these individuals are in a thousand square mile area the size of manhattan. so to find them, to find out where to put water or where to provide humanitarian assistance to find a road to access it is pretty difficult. as neil is saying, you re going to find a couple of hundred bodies on a regular basis. hundreds of bodies and mass graves, it s a real tragedy. absolutely fascinating documentary. i m glad you guys are bringing it to life. thank you. appreciate it. the real death valley debuts this morning on weather.com. john and neil, thank you so much. still ahead, is the past prologue? eight years ago republicans under george w. bush suffered what then the president called a thumpin . that was during the midterm elections. were president obama s approval ratings lower than his predecessor? the morning joe polling place is coming up next. i m spending too much timer our calhiringer. and not enough time in my kitchen. need to hire fast? 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the moms? or the dads? with guaranteed low prices on flash drives, it s definitely the dads. staples. make more happen for less. so we re talking about nicki minaj. so what? what? i don t know. you ve got to see the movie the other woman. is that what you and patrick did this weekend? that was our lively weekend. pretty exciting. pretty exciting. cameron diaz, hot ticket. was it a good show? a few good laughs. you got to see nicki minaj. you hated it, didn t you? i can t get that two hours back. you said kate upton was in there? she was great. i like her. was she pretty good? like katherine hepburn? they share the same first name. president obama has spent plenty of time on the road this year, raising a lot of money for his party, but he s largely been absent from the campaign trail. derrick kitts draws on recent history to see why democrats are avoiding their own commander in chief. if the recent poll is any indication, democrats in congress should be wary of relying on president obama to provide any transaction support. the president sits at 40% approval. if president bush s poll numbers at the same point of any indication, these midterms could be trouble for the democrats. bush s approval was two points higher and americans had a better attitude about the direction of the country with only 54% believing the country was on the wrong track. most surprisingly, considering the wars in iraq and afghanistan, voters approved of bush s handling of foreign policy more than than they do of president obama. the midterms saw president bush and the republicans lose 31 house seats and 6 senate seats. if that is any indication, president obama and the democrats have a right to be worried. sam stein, let s go to you. we signed of go around believing that george bush was at 21%, 22%, harry truman type numbers. even in september before the election george w. bush was a point or two ahead in this poll, a pointing or two behind in other polls, margin of error basically in the same place. i guess the only question is, is the republican standing so bad this year they won t get the lift that democrats got in 06? can i digress for one second? i want to talk about the other woman. i ve heard that is literally the worst movie ever created. i m surprised that thomas roberts was as kind as he was to it. also derrick, derrick is all over this show today. you know, this is the derrick hour. it is the derrick kitts variety hour, i know. he raced forever and now he was derrick derrick has strong points. and in politics, derrick was like i think he was majority whip in the legislature. i just want to say that the other woman was on sale on demand for $4.99. you would have to pay me to watch it. i would not watch that movie, it looked terrible. and you ll never get the two hours back, thomas. i won t. i thought you lived an exciting lifestyle. we don t. you don t? boring married people, joe. now see, i don t understand why you fight for the right to be married. that s where you end up. buying the other woman movie. you fight for the right to be married so you can be bored on weekends watching the worst movie ever made? what have i done? and fight to like fight in wars? god, i m so disappointed. sam, thank you for the analysis, sam. did you have anything to say about this? listen, obama is in a terrible position. it s just as bad as george w. bush. democrats have terrible seats. but republicans aren t sitting up pretty either pollwise. 19%. you just made me understand why inequality rules. thank you, joe. thank you. well listen, i d be glad to switch and straight people to not have the right to be married. okay. deal? you ve already got it. they do. i want everybody to have it, though. i mean come on, seriously. it s our new motto. straight people don t get married. i ve been saying for that years. we have a packed hour ahead with new developments in america s mission against islamists. we ll talk to ambassador james jeffrey. also nbc s jim miklaszewski and dan senor who advised american officials during the american occupation. plus we ll check in the president s vacation at mar that s vineyard as he squeezes in some golf while dealing with a long, long list of cry kries seize. s time to bring it out in the open. it s time to drop your pants for underwareness, a cause to support the over 65 million people who may need depend underwear. show them they re not alone and show off a pair of depend. because wearing a different kind of underwear, is no big deal. join us. support the cause and get a free sample of depend at underwareness.com helping you find a dentist you ll want to go to for the rest of your life. we ve helped over 8 million people find that dentist, and we can do the same for you. call 1-800-dentist today. call 1-800-dentist today. hey pal? 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(singing) snack time and lunch. gogurt because lunch needs some fun. tony stewart just hit that guy! a young driver dead and another engulfed in tragedy and controversy. there are no facts in hand that would substantiate a criminal charge or indicate criminal intent. what do you want? on the streets of ferguson, missouri, outrage and anger, after the shooting death of an 18-year-old unarmed black man by a police officer. two very different stories coming from other side. hands in the air, he s shot and dies. fire and the fury of an unfinished war raged in gaza today. israel, determined to strike hamas right up to the start of an agreed truce. fierce fighting on the ground throughout northern iraq. american jets and drones took out enemy targets. this is going to be a long-term project. barack obama is learning again this weekend just how lonely it is at the top. there is no policy, there for there s no strategy, therefore, things are going very, very badly. we can t wait for the iraqi maliki government to fight isis. my constituents don t want to see another couple hundred people killed by isis. we should do whatever we have to do. as you just saw in that clip, i said a couple of hours earlier, that this president, as if he needed any reminding, six years in, got a look this weekend of just how lonely it is at the top, especially when you re running the military of the last remaining benevolent superpower in the world. with europe still sleeping through a quarter century history vacation, this president just became, get this, the fourth united states president in a row to launch a war in iraq. america has now ordered hostile military operations in that country in 17 of the last 24 years. and this weekend, the harping came from both sides. the president s critics seem oblivious to the growing threat that is posed not even to the middle east but all of the world by isis. republicans who attacked president obama for nothing are now attacking him for doing something. but this time the commander in chief has made his military move because he had no other options. as maureen dowd wrote this weekend in the new york times, a barbaric force is pillaging so swiftly and brutally across the middle east that it seems like some mutated virus from a sci-fi film. isis is spreading like poison gas across the middle east, becoming stronger and more dangerous by the day and making president obama s genocide case for him. isis is practicing religious cleansing against christians, against shiites, against unobservant sunnis and against other groups that are now battling genocide for the 73rd time. for isis, religious genocide is not a tool of terror, it is the reason this terrorist war machine exists. as you look at this map, isis now controls a land mass larger than the entire state of jordan. a lot to talk about this morning. with us now, former foreign policy adviser to the bush administration, dan senor, white house correspondent for the wall street journal carol lee, james jeffrey and from the pentagon, nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski. jim, let me begin with you. some surprising news breaking overnight that we re now arming the kurds directly. what else are you hearing inside the pentagon? joe, the u.s. had been providing the kurds with ammunition through the baghdad government as per u.s. law and agreements with the iraqi military, but now u.s. officials tell us that the cia is directly providing in some weapons, we don t know, we presume they re small arms, even perhaps as high as shoulder-fired weapons of some kind, directly to the kurds bypassing baghdad. but even at that, the kurds are woefully outgunned by those isis forces, you know, who are just a few clicks away from erbil with artillery, armored personnel, tanks, shoulder-fired, gun mounted rockets. there s no way that the kurds can stand up to the isis rebels over any kind of length of time and they have asked for some of these weaponry. but that doesn t appear to be in the works at all. we have to remember what the president laid out in terms of his current strategy. limited air strikes, which will continue around the erbil area. they have had a little bit of effect. you know, the rebels haven t fled, but they have taken the black flags off their vehicle because they realized it made them easy targets, but that s pretty much the reaction from those rebels so far, joe. it s limited, bobby ghosh, but the president started last week by saying i m going to take care of these people trapped on the mountainside. a lot of people said that s not enough, that s too limited. and i think a lot of us on set were saying last week, well, that s just the first step. the next step we saw was the president bombing isis. people said that s too limited. then we find out overnight the president is now arming the kurds. the president has stepped in and as a guest said last hour, quoting napoleon, if you re going to take vienna, take vienna. this president, i think, is done with halfway measures when dealing with isis, don t you think? i certainly hope so. by saying this is going to take months, he s preparing all of us for this. i mean that goes against all the polls that show this country doesn t want that, but perhaps doing this slowly and gradually is the only political way that he can sell this to an american audience and to congress. and ambassador jeffrey, maliki just remains a colossal thorn in america s side. here we go into iraq trying to do what we can to stop this virus from spreading across iraq and the entire middle east and maliki decides to pick this time to say i m staying no matter what. seems to be suggesting even the possibility of a military coup. the news overnight is not very promising, joe. but on the other hand what s happening is the president has to pick a party and a leader of that party to form the new government after the elections. and that would normally go to maliki s state of law. but what you re seeing is a revolt among his fellow shia members of parliament who know he can t get a majority of votes, particularly from the sunni arabs and the kurds in the parliament but also from many of the shia. this is still a constitutional process. another shia politician and the deputy speaker of parliament is one of the candidates that people are looking at right now, so in the hours ahead, we ll see what president masun does because he has a deadline of today to take a decision on who will form the government. i hope it is not maliki. let s bring in right now nbc news senior white house correspondent chris jansing. she s live from martha s vineyard. chris, a lot moving very quickly. what have you heard up in martha s vineyard. well, they are focusing very quickly on what s happening in the decision about what to do about maliki. the president has more people here than he originally planned on this national security team. he has susan rice, who is staying with him, in addition to other national security officials. they re briefing him at least three times a day but obviously this is an ongoing situation. in long conversations that i ve had over the last 12 hours or so with administration officials, they say there is nothing that can be done until al maliki is done. until they make a decision that they can bring someone in who they think can bring some level of stability. we all know how fraught that is and difficult it s going to be, but that s the immediate crisis in the next 24 to 48 hours is seeing what happens there and who becomes the new prime minister or if maliki somehow still seems somehow to cling to journal. let s bring in carol lee. carol, you followed this president during 2012. you are obviously at the white house every day with this president and listen to what he and his advisers say all the time. a lot of inconsistencies. this is a president who in 2012 said he wasn t going to be going into iraq, he s getting troops out. he said that s one of the biggest applause lines. his critics are loving his line to repeat that isis is from the jv team. this had to be a really difficult decision for a president that doesn t like to be cornered, doesn t like to be pushed into anything, but it appears that it wasn t his political rivals pushing but history itself. did the president just get to a point where he understood he had no other choice but get engaged? yeah, basically he did. you know, the turning point was there was this moment on last wednesday when the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff joined the president in his limo ride from the state department to the white house. they had a five-minute conversation where he just said, look, this is really bad. and that continued into the night on wednesday and by thursday morning his aides were using the word genocide to characterize what could possibly be happening in iraq and the president decided he was going in. but you re right, i mean you followed him too. this is a president who is so reluctant to use force. he s a commander in chief of the largest, most powerful army in the world and he s defined by his reluctance to use it. and that s you know, you see that in the way that he initially when he talked to the american public on thursday night saying this is going to be limited, we re not going in with boots on the ground, very cautious, very pinprick and he didn t even say that he was absolutely going to order these strikes, just that he had authorized them. then you see him on saturday and he s saying dig in, we re getting in this for the long haul, this could be long term, we need to find passage for these people to get off of the mountain. and so he went in reluctantly, he presented it in a very limited way and now it s looking like he ll be in there much longer. and we heard this weekend we may be in no months. let s bring in san sedan senor. we ve said time and time again, we don t want to be involved in iraq. we don t want to be involved in afghanistan. they have been a lot closer to my position on these matters than yours. we ve had these debates long and hard. but at this point i can even say we need to be involved. will you do what a lot of republicans didn t do this weekend and salute the president for being involved? i m so sick and tired of the same people bitching and moaning about not doing things and when the president does things, instead of supporting things, when we re at a critical moment, they have got to go on the sunday shows and bitch and moan about a president doing what we all know, what realists, what neocon alike understanding, we have to confront isis. will you salute the president for taking these steps? i have. i ve said several times over the last couple of days that we should applaud the president for taking the action that he s taken. we have to ask the question, joe, while these steps are important, obviously heading off trying to head off the genocide of the yezidis, heading off the march up to erbil and the kurdish areas and obviously protecting american personnel, all of those objectives are critical and the president deserves credit for working to end them. when you take a step back strategically we should also ask the president what is the game plan for that huge swath of territory south of the kurdish area. what about all those people living in a part of iraq that can t rurkurds or yezidi. if isis weren t on the march up to northern iraq, would we be content in letting isis governing this ungovernable space on that side of iraq s border. a strategic case for the long haul we haven t heard for the president. he began to lay the groundwork in talking about this is going to be a long haul as we discussed earlier and the steps he s taken so far are important. but i think what the american public needs to hear, we are a war-weary public. look at every military action, just about every military action that the u.s. government has taken since world war ii, the american public has always been against it. this is no exception. the president will have to make the bigger strategic case about what the threat of isis means not just in iraq but what it means throughout the region. chris jansing, let me go to you. obviously you had joe biden, a very long time ago talking about breaking iraq into three parts. it certainly seems over the past three or four days the president has decided not to really go all in with all of iraq but at least go all in with the kurds. yeah, and to the point that you were just talking about, as i ve been talking about senior administration officials they think he s the best person to make that case. when you talk about he needs to explain this, he needs to tell his long-term strategy to the american people, there are definitely people within this administration who are pushing him to do that. they liked what he had to say when he was walking across the lawn and heading here on saturday morning. they think that the american people understand what he s differentiating. they know that they re war weary but they also believe that they understand there is genocide that is threatened there. they also know that our strategic interests are at stake and that the president is the best person to make that case. so i don t think we would necessarily be surprised if we heard from the president over the course of the next couple of weeks more than we have in previous vacations. he s getting a lot of push to do just that. you know, bobby, i want you go to the ambassador with a question but first you look at that map. we can t control all of iraq. it has just been an absolute disaster. but you look at the northern section where the sunni kurds are. you look where the kurds are and that does seem manageable. and i just wonder whether we whether we solidify things up north or help the kurds solidify things up north and move towards joe biden s vision of iraq. i don t know about splitting iraq up. i think that westerners shouldn t be drawing lines in maps in the middle east. that s why we re in this mess. that s why we re in this mess. but you make a good point. we ve had a long history of protecting get kurds. instead of drawing lines, what i m actually talking about more is controlling the spread of isis. you cut them off at the knees if you make the northern part of iraq a place that at least is a bit more stable. we have a long history of protecting that part of iraq. we did it after the kuwait war. we allowed it to become much more autonomous. it worked for the kurds. it didn t work for the rest of the region. but the crucial thing and this is what i wanted to ask the ambassador. what is the role of the iraqi army? what are they loyal to? are they loyal to maliki? he s brought out the tanks in the streets of baghdad to try and protect, to sort of prolong his prime ministership or this is the army we trained and spent a lot of money on. do you think, ambassador, that this is an army that can be relied upon to take the fight to isis, or are we just expecting the peshmerga, the kurdish fighters, to do that. that s a good question. i think it s a qualified yes. the president does have a strategy that he kind of outlined on thursday and then again on saturday. one is counterterror. he s going to make sure isis cannot strike at america or some other interests in the region. secondly and what we re seeing all the action in is he s using various justifications, our embassy in baghdad, our consulate in erbil and the personnel there. he mentioned infrastructure, critical infrastructure on saturday, he mentioned genocide and groups of people who will be slaughtered or ethnically cleansed by isis. what he s saying is if they come out of the sunni areas that they have occupied and start attacking other areas, they ll have to do this by classic military mobile infantry columns, he s going to strike them with local forces. the iraqi army can be supported and we are supporting them with logistics. eventually if they re in trouble, we might support them with strikes. but to actually take the offensive in these sunni arab areas, he stressed again and again, you need an inclusive government that can reach out to these people. we do not have that now, we will not have that with maliki. that s why all of the attention is on politics. if there s a new prime minister, the army will go with that prime minister. half of the units are judged by our experts to be relatively combat effective. so there is a base to move forward on the offensive with our air and logistics and their ground forces if we have the political calculus right now. let s go back to the pentagon. hey, mik, the cartoon image of generals and admirals in the pentagon are that they re running around power hungry and mad to go back to war. the truth is, of course, the exact opposite. they re the last ones that want to go to war. what is the appetite inside the pentagon right now for going into iraq for, what, the 14th time in like 24 years? right now everybody s attention and all the planning going on just a few floors right below me here, all the planning is for these two limited missions. one, to secure that kurdish area and stop the advance by the isis rebels. the other is to protect those yezidi worshippers that are trapped aboard the mountain. we re told there is very active planning under way as we speak to provide that safe corridor that the president talked about on saturday to help them escape their predicament. right now it looks like it s going to require some help from the british and the french, who the president talked to over the weekend. but in the long term, and, you know, there s always somebody in the building looking at the long term and it does not look very good to u.s. military officials i m talking to. even if we resolve those two situations and even if isis were somehow contained in iraq, people here are now looking at this as being a 10 to 20-year challenge, joe. oh, dear god. thank you, mik. thanks to everybody. coming up on morning joe, failure versus fantasy. those are the sharply different terms being used by hillary clinton and president obama to describe their views of what went on in syria. hillary says we should have armed the rebels and takes a direct swipe at the president. the president says she s living in a fantasy world. we re going to be talking to new york times columnist thomas friedman who sat down with the president for a revealing interview next. first, here s bill karins with a check on the forecast. as we look towards the west the fire season continues in full swing. we now have 37 large active fires on the ground. last week we had about 27 or so, so we re starting to hit the peak of the fire season out west. this one fire outside of san francisco, not in san francisco of course but about an hour s drive outside of san francisco, only about 35% contained. there is a lot of active flames. the temperatures lately are not helping, and especially in the pacific northwest. today will be a very dangerous day, especially up there in oregon. look how hot it s going to be. the one section of the country, really the only section of the country that s had a hot summer has been the northwest. 99 in portland today, boise at 98. we haven t even come close to those temperatures in even washington, d.c., this summer. as far as the rest of the country, another shot of cool air coming down from the north. it s not cold but it s definitely not summer-like either. especially at night you feel it. i know we ve all saved a lot of money in the east on our ac bills but maybe a couple more beach days would be nice. today in chicago the rain is ending, temperatures will be cooler for you and a lot of rain heading for toledo, also detroit and portions of the ohio valley will get soaked. if you have any travel plans late in the afternoon, those thunderstorms could cause delays in the southeast and also in sections of kentucky. here s a look at chicago. there is beautiful weather on your way, but that s fall, isn t it? 78 and sunny and at night in the 50s. what a crazy summer it s been there in the great lakes after your horrible, horrible winter. we leave you with a shot of washington, d.c. low humidity continues but of course it doesn t have any effect on that miserable traffic. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. 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because i feel and i look at washington from abroad. it feels like we kick around this country like it s a football, and it s not a football. it s actually a faberge egg. we can drop it, we can break it. enough dysfunction on all these core issues that you talked about and that s what i worry about. i feel like we re saying to the world do as we say, not as we do, not like we used to. i would distinguish between american society and american politics. the truth is that countries should continue to do as we do. we still set a pretty darn good example. that was part of thomas friedman s interview with president barack obama, the new york times columnist joins us now from pebble beach. you re at pebble beach. i just have to ask a question, thomas. you are getting out golfing at pebble beach, are you not? you better believe it, joe. it s vacation time. the president can deny it, you will not. it is even no nongolfers, you are in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. so let s talk about your interview with president obama. absolutely fascinating, especially if you team it up with jeffrey goldberg s interview with hillary clinton. there s a lot of back and forth going on here where hillary is attacking the president for not doing enough in syria. tell us what the president told you about hillary s view that if we had gotten into syria earlier, then things would have been better. what did he call that? well, he made a couple of points. he wasn t specifically responding to her. but that, number one, that it was a fantasy to believe that the kind of barely organized opposition there, which was largely professional, secular, middle class people, at the end of the day armed or not would have stood up against an assad regime backed by russia, backed by iran and supported by hezbollah. backed by iran that s had 20 years of building networks of support for the regime there and iran that does not have to worry about congressional oversight. he just believes that in the end they would have eaten them alive and we just would have ended up getting a lot more people killed or being drawn in ourselves. so bobby ghosh is with us and has a quick question for you just to follow up on that. bobby. tom, if it was a fantasy then, why is his administration now talking about training and arming the free syrian army? what has changed the calculus? surely the situation has become even more complicated than it was three years ago? well, it mas of their program. so ask yourself this. how is it that 16,000 muslims have marched to syria from all over the muslim world to fight for jihadism and how many have marched there to fight for pluralism. i think i could count them on one. and right. tom, obviously the situation now, as bobby just said, a lot more difficult than it was a ye year, year and a half ago. would it have been a less difficult task, a less difficult lift if the president had gone in earlier? i m not making hillary s point, i m not arguing, i m asking you as a man who s been studying this region longer than most of us, a lot longer than most of us, was there an opportunity missed by the united states of america before 150,000 people were killed? let me answer that sort of in a broadway, joe. actually if you look at it, we tried three different options. we tried going in and taking over an entire country, iraq. doing far more than arming the opposition, we took it over with armed military and spent six, seven years, billions of dollars trying to train them. that didn t work. it didn t work because the politics wasn t there. then in libya we said we re not going to do that, we re just going to decapitate the regime and not go in at all. that didn t work because the underlying politics wasn t there. now people are saying that had we just armed the opposition that would have worked. and i just don t believe it. so, tom what, do we do? what is the thomas friedman doctrine moving forward? we were just talking about the hillary doctrine. we decide the hillary doctrine is just to get elected president. right now everything seems to be ad hoc. so what is the tom friedman doctrine? so here s the two conclusions i ve drawn from the last decade in iraq. one is, joe, sometimes the necessary is impossible, or it s impossible at any cost that we are willing to pay. that s number one because basically you are having you re seeing states fall apart and i think the only way to really rebuild them is an international force to come in and stay for 20, 30 years, okay. so sometimes the necessary is impossible. and the other point you have to take note of is, number two, is that the two most successful arab spring nations are the two countries we ve had nothing to do with. tunisia and kurdistan. we helped the kurds early on but the people there came together in a no vanquish formula and they built the politics that could support a state which we can then come in and support. tom, let s talk about another ugly reality we ve all had to face over the past decade. i was extraordinarily concerned about like i m sure you were what had been going on for egypt for 20, 30 years. they are our closest ally but there are a lot of things that made us extraordinarily uncomfortable during mubarak s reign. we have the arab spring and now what we ve realized is that sometimes if you want order, sometimes the alternatives aren t really that good. a pluralistic democracy sometimes leads to absolute chaos in some of these middle eastern countries. that s something that i think we re all having to grapple with. let me ask you about the international force. can i say something about that? sure. because it s a very important point you re making and i m as guilty of this as anyone. we thought starting with egypt that the alternative to atalk kraes was democracy. and it s turned out the alternative has been disorder. chaos, absolute chaos. unless you have some internal force or external force that can manage that disorder and basically build a bridge to a different order, which is very expensive, takes a long period of time and also takes people who know what they re doing, what the players are. if there s anything we should have learned from iraq, people are saying we should have done this in syria, it is that we don t know what the hell we re doing. what we have had to say right now in august of 2014 is that the question is the world better off, is iraq better off with saddam hussein dead and in a grave instead of running iraq. that question is even up in the air right now, which is something i thought i would never say. and i know it s something you thought you would never say. i want to get to this international force really quickly, though. europe has been on a vacation from history since 1991. they do absolutely nothing. and as bobby ghosh pointed out during the break, it is the europeans who face the gravest threat from isis. not us. what is it, by a factor of ten, there are ten times as many europeans that are have joined up isis to create havoc in their homeland, and yet the europeans seem willing to do doing. to do nothing on ukraine, to do nothing on putin, to do nothing on iraq, to do nothing on syria, to do nothing. it might just be all of these things that you re bringing up, might be just a little more manageable if the europeans would actually be interested in more than just the bottom line. and if the united states would do more of what the president is saying an basically tell them to go straight to hell, build your own militaries. you know what, it s not 1945 anymore. well, you know, joe, the burden-sharing here or the lack of it at the scale we need is obviously a huge problem. but i want to go back to something we talked about earlier, and this is really what i founding is underlying the president s thinking and it certainly has affected mine. the middle east only puts a smile on your face when it starts with them. the anbar uprising started with them. the camp david peace process started with them. and without a group of iraqis who are ready to come together and build a political platform of sharing power, any force we put on that yes, we can kill bad things and suppress different things for a while but without that underlying political consensus, nothing good will happen. that s why none of these others, searia, libya, by saying if we d only armed the rebels, this isn t about who you give guns and training to, it s about the will of the people to live together. as jim miklaszewski and dan senor and bobby gosh just agreed, this may be a 20-year project in iraq. and who has an appetite for that, especially if, as you re saying, tom, the iraqis don t even have an appetite for pluralistic society. tom, stay with us, we ll be playing more of your fascinating interview with president obama and why he says democrats are reason based and republicans are mired in, quote, wacky ideological nonsense. the president s words, not mine. keep it right here on morning joe. savings accounts? that s right. 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. moderate to severe is tough, but i ve managed. i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn s was not under control. he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn s disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. if you re still just managing your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. and i have to say here, you know, i ve been speaking in generalities and trying not to be too political. but that extremism position is much more prominent in the republican party than the democrats. democrats have problems, but overall if you look at the democrat consensus, it s a pretty common sense mainstream consensus. it s not a lot of wacky ideological nonsense. and by the way, it generally is fact based and reason based. we re not denying science, we re not denying climate change. we re not pretending that somehow having a whole bunch of uninsured people is the american way. we re doing things that are pretty sensible. let s bring thomas friedman back in. a fascinating enter view. i don t even know where to begin with that answer. as you were listening to that answer, is this a president gearing up for a very important midterm election in 2014 or did you sense that s the president we re going to have through the end of 2016? this interview was almost entirely focused on foreign policy. that was the only real comment about domestic politics. so i think it speaks for itself, i think. it s out of my lane, but i ll let you handle that lane. i m hoping that he was just being partisan, but unfortunately i think he really believes that. let s talk about israel. the president also said israelis have a right to defend themselves, but also to live side by side with the palestinians. let me play a clip of what the president had to say. because israel is so capable militarily, i don t worry about israel s survival. others can cause israel pain. it s a really bad neighborhood. israel is going to survive, that s not the issue. i think the question really is how does israel survive. and, you know, how can you create a state of israel that maintains its democratic and civic traditions. how can you preserve a jewish state that ialso reflective of the best values of those who founded israel. dan senor has a question. hey, tom, the president said in you re interview that prime minister netanyahu is so strong. is he so strong politically that that creates an obstacle with the palestinians. one of the reasons that he is so strong right now is he not only has the support of the right in israel but actually he has the support of the center left after this gaza operation. you have the justice minister who s very liberal, so isn t there something to the fact that he s built some kind of consensus and it s not just a strong right wing political prime minister? dan, it s a good question. as you know, though, this consensus is very much a product of this specific context of israel facing rocket attacks from hamas. and there you have a wall-to-wall nearly wall-to-wall support for the president. i think you ll see that consensus break down almost immediately once there s a cease-fire and diplomatic negotiations begin over how do we actually resolve the gaza situation so we don t return to more missiles. the consensus will fraction in two ways. his right wing critics, because he s very much in the center, if not the left, will say he failed. he didn t finish hamas off in gaza. and his center and left wing critics will say you really don t have a solution for gaza unless you can bring the west bank palestinian authority back into gaza to control the borders, to manage some level of demilitarization and that won t happen unless you resume the peace process. so bb has a lot of support today in terms of responding to hamas rockets but that is going to quickly fracture as soon as we enter the negotiations. thomas, we have to go but i have to ask real quickly, you ve been following this so long. do you think the tragedies that we saw unfold in july in gaza give us an opening to peace with a weakened hamas, strengthened netanyahu. is there an opening to peace? you know, joe, i really think there is because people have got a glimpse of the next war and the next war and the next war. we ve had a lot of leaders that have been dog paddling in the rubicon. they say, joe, i m coming, i see you there, but they re actually dog pamgddling and that s got t stop. thomas friedman, an absolutely fascinating interview of the president. thanks for bringing that to us. hope your golfing goes well. do you have a favorite course out there? all of them. all of them. all right, all right. take a picture for us on those last few holes of cypress and send them back to us. coming up, what s running today s markets. business before the bell coming up. morning joe back in a minute. 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. 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 some really shocking news here and i mean that. shocking news coming out of texas, coming out of exxon. we ve got brian sullivan joining us for business before the bell. brian, you just told me, it s just breaking, that exxon has brokered a deal with putin s russia. a multi-billion dollar deal. that vladimir putin is hailing exxon, this texas-based company, as a model of cooperation. i thought we had sanctions. here i m criticizing the europeans and we ve got a texas corporation that s in bed with vladimir putin taking care of his problems. let s be clear, the deal had been set way before this. they began drilling in the arctic as they re partnered with the state-owned oil company. i m sorry, weren t there sanctions weren t there sanctions against yes, there are western sanctions but this is because it s a partnership with the russian state-owned oil company, i guess they re allowed to get around the sanctions. the drills went in the ground on the arctic on saturday. so exxon is taking care of putin s problem for him? one wonders if this could help the situation. they always say you don t go to war with countries that have a mcdonald s. perhaps that s a load of crap. that s what they said in june of 1914. and world war i began. yeah. go exxon. all right. coming up next, what did we learn. yes! get in there! go, go, go, go, yes! let s go, drew. the not-so-good more would be them always watching you. go for it, paul! get open! come on, paul! let s go! hustle! what is that, chamomile tea?! uh, lattes. you wanna take a nap?! get the good more with nfl mobile, free with the more everything plan. exclusively from verizon. now get 50% off all new smartphones. it s monday. a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions, your business is more reliable - secure - agile. and with responsive, dedicated support, we help you shine every day of the week. centurylink your link to what s next. 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. welcome back to morning joe. dan senor is here. his by, campbell brown, is launching a choice campaign for education. this is bizarre, in the new york post your wife was attacked on twitter by angry porn stars. what s going on there? it looks like to the groups affiliated with the teachers unions are hiring porn stars to retweet their attacks on campbell. they truly lost their minds. including a young lady called@cynthia nipps. bobby, what did i learn? if you re going to take vienna, take vienna. what did you learn? tot number one in the premier league this year. i m still stunned by the new york post. what i have not learned whether my two nominees have accepted, gavin newsom, rachel way and manny machado. from the orioles. you guys had a rough night yesterday. you feeling good about tonight? feeling good about the orioles taking on the yankees down at camden yards. i don t understand what that accent is. if it s way too early, it s morning joe. stick around, though, luke russert is next with the daily rundown. 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 ganncr: we took care of your back pain. you make him the mvp. tylenol is clinically proven to provide strong, fast pain relief. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol 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? 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to use the military, but we must always be fast if we even think genocide is a possibility. we should be fast with prudence. thanks for watching tonight. i m al sharpton. hardball starts right now. genocide. this is hardball. good evening. i m chris matthews in washington. genocide. if there is one word in the language that should cut off partisan dribble this should be it. once you see a religious or other group of human beings is in the process of being exterminated we need the to stop it. is there another view of this, a moral opposition, a case for not acting when you hear an or pi of ze lots is marching in and crucifyinger or beheading people because they don t like their religion? let me hear it loud and clear that you are willing to let people be exterminated for being who they are. this is how i m looking at the decision to strike at the isis militants marauding through iraq, killing all in their way. what disappoints me now is the incapability of the speaker of the house and others like john mccain to get behind the president and say we americans will not stand by in the face of genocide. why does petty politics and potshots and the rest of the cheap stuff have to invade every conversation? why can t we get together for a day or two to do what we agree is right, the morally necessary thing the do. now to the question of what s to come. tonight we ll look at where this is heading. the president has authorized limited bombing of isis to keep the militants from the consulate in erbil and from religious minorities trapped in northern iraq. how long lit continue? will it eliminate isis as a military threat and who will pick up the fight against isis once we stop. in other words, how do we avoid getting sucked into iraq for the long haul? andrea mitchell is chief foreign affairs correspondent for nbc news and host of the andrea mitchell report on msnbc. michael leiter is a terrorist expert for nbc news. eugene robinson is a columnist for the washington post. the u.s. military started dropping bombs on isis today at 6:45 a.m., washington time. there were two separate rounds according to the pentagon. the first targeted a mobile artillery piece being used to shell kurdish forces. a few hours later drones and u.s. jets struck a mortar position outside erbil. andrea, this seems like we ve got a good bead on targets. we are not shooting at areas, groups or whatever. we have one vehicle at a time. this is precision bombing which raises the question. we have to go in low. then the question is how vulnerable is american forces in this limited humanitarian effort. what some suggested is it s too precise, too targeted, too simple. it s a piece offer artillery here. a convoy here. that you re really not getting at the heart of isil. not even at the isil terrorists surrounding the mountain top. can you break their assault with these pinprick attacks? will they stop marching on and killing? you can slow them. through other support of the kurds you can provide kurds the ability to push back. no matter how much you do around erbil you can t roll isis back without a much larger campaign. that s the big strategic question for the president going forward. gene? that s the question. is the idea to contain isis and stop them right there so i they don t take erbil or oh go further, which i think these attacks could do. or is it to destroy this genocidal group that s taken over a huge swath of territory and provides a huge threat. ultimately for the united states. who are we talking to with these attacks. we are not trying to eliminate the enemy. we are trying to talk to them. stop. we are shooting at them like a shot across the bow. stop or we ll keep shooting. that s the signal. at the same time we are told the iraqi air force has been operational today. we have long what do you think of the air force? not much. in fact, weeks ago when we first started talking about isis s advance into iraq they said, we can t get involved. giving them hellfire missiles won t work. they can t run the planes. they could barely run a cessna. we are told the iraqi air force is there. what does that amount to? that s number one. number two, what s turkey doing? getting humanitarian supplies. where is everybody else? david cameron said we ll do humanitarian efforts but the brits aren t going to get back involved in military action in iraq. same for france. where is the rest of the world? the points from josh ernest. we are in there to protect u.s. personnel. especially in erbil. there are a couple hundred people there. why didn t they evacuate? they started to downsize them today, by the way. we don t want to. the kufrds are our closest friends in iraq. they have backed us up for 20 years. that s about the most secure place we have. an honest statement would have been we are not there to defend our personnel, we are there to defend the kurds with our personnel. absolutely. we are not pulling out of kurdistan. this is not just humanitarian or purely defensive. exactly. this is to sort of build a wall in front of the kurdish area. back to my question. certainly go no further. we were talking to kruschev. who will say, you know, this u.s. super power is to be dealt with. we are going to pull back. is there such a person? i don t know if there is any such person to talk to. i don t think there is. one interesting question about our military personnel in erbil, are they providing spotting help to the air strikes because these were very, very precise strikes. that s harder to do just from the air than it is when you have somebody on the ground pointing the laser. in truth, this goes back to my years as a naval aviator. these aren t especially hard targets. they are largely in the open. you can do it from 25,000, 30,000 feet. they are guided bombs. the risk to american airmen is slim. you can always have accidents. what we have to do is increase the relationship with the with kurds. we have held back supporting with other weapons, spell jens because we want add unified iraq. we are blowing up carriers with those 500 ton bombs? isn t that a. that s what you use. the attacks have been small and pinprick. i think isis will take it. they still feel they are winning. i think they want to take casualties. that s been part of the appeal. they are not afraid to die. the travel warning that went out warned americans in iraq about the potential for kidnapping. also the terrorizing of the civilian populations. they are beginning to take americans out of erbil. they are still worried enough that they are downsizing. i m worried about the pilots. maybe i m a parent about this. pilots? you don t want to get captured by this crowd. today, secretary of state john kerry cited fear of genocide, as i said, as the reason for the action. isil s campaign against the innocent including the yazidi and the grotesque targeted acts of violence show all the warning signs of genocide. for anyone who needed a wake-up call this is it. well, last night the president talked about the fear of genocide. let s listen. we face a situation like we do on that mountain with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. when we have a mandate to help in this case a request from the iraqi government. when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, i believe the united states of america cannot turn a blind eye. we can act, carefully and responsibly to prevent a potential act of genocide. that s what we are doing on the mountain. this week, one iraqi in the area cried to the world there is no one coming to help. well, today, america is coming to help. someone said the president is a realist with a conscience. he likes to stay out of the countries. he s not a neocon with a grand agenda for u.s. forces. he can t resist this. is this an echo of rwanda where bill clinton said i should have done this or kosovo or the holocaust? bill clinton told you and me after he left office my big p mistake was not responding to rwanda. you have samantha power and susan rice who were involved and care passionately about that issue in the white house and the u.n. the u.n. has not said a word about this today. u.n. security council not meeting, not talking about this, to my knowledge. they have talked about ukraine. they have other cry sis, gaza. this president said only on friday we can t be everywhere in the world. saturday they saw what was happening on the ground. i interviewed brent mcguirk on iraq. he said saturday we saw isil moving with incredible proficiency, moving with command and control. routing the peshmikas. they went into another gear. there is no joy in the white house i can perceive. they are hating it. what kind of debate was there, gene, do you know? i m not sure. it s basically do we do something or not. if we do, what is it? i m not under the impression that everyone is agreed on what it is we are doing. they shot down not doing anything. save the yazidis. save the yazidis. everyone agrees we want to prevent genocide. i don t have the sense there is a full-throated agreement or even a full-throated sense really of how far beyond that we go in terms of combatting. how many days ahead have they planned for, gene, do you know? . i don t know. this goes beyond the yazidis and genocide. with all due respect to the yazidis and stopping genocide, we have lost 150,000 people already in the syrian civil war. and done nothing. people have been slaughtered in syria. isis slaughtered tsunami slaugh came in. they realize they can t stand back any longer. this is the heartland of what could be kurdistan collapsing. if that happens, iraq breaks apart, jordan goes, lebanon goes. you see isis spreading like a cancer throughout the whole region. i think this was the president having to make a decision he didn t want to make. we saw an animated conversation yesterday right before the decision was announced between the president and dennis mcdonough as he left for the bill signing. i wouldn t be surprised that there was some disagreement about the pitfalls here. that s what a chief of staff does. warn him. no, no. thank you. who could warn president obama? president obama circa five years ago. he can go back to his speeches and get the warning of what bad things can happen. and could still happen. i think he reached a point where he felt bad things happen when you don t intervene as well. that s what they are facing now. it s not making the region better. or invasion may have caused the instability that led to this. we could go back and blame somebody. i want to focus on ironically, i don t want to talk politics right now. thank you, andrea mitchell, gene robinson and michael leiter, for coming. coming up here, we want to take ary newed look at the involvement in iraq from all the angles. what are the u.s. military options now? who are the enemies? isis members who are bent onslaughtering in their path. president obama was elected in large part, as he says, because of opposition to the war in iraq. he s the fourth straight american people to order military action in that country. what s been the congressional reaction? most of it is small minded and deeply politicized. let me finish with what we are headed into in iraq. the urgent question of how we get out. this is hardball, the place for politics. 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. dad: he s our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? 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i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. welcome back to hardball. we ll take a look at america s military options in the battle against isis. let s start by reviewing what action the u.s. has taken so far today. this morning two u.s. navy 18s took off from an aircraft carrier in the persian gulf. at 6:45 eastern time they struck isis military artillery positions near erbil. with 500-pound laser guided bombs. a few hours later, shortly after 10:00 a.m. eastern time a drone struck a mortar position killing isis fighters. four f-18 fighterers also from the u.s.s. george h.w. bush struck a convoy of seven vehicles and a position near erbil. they made two passes dropping eight laser guided bombs. the target is an insurgent group straight from hell that s amassing frightening amounts of power in a vacuum that the united states helped create. for how long can we continue the strikes? what are young pilots facing on the missions and what happens next? retired army general barry mccalfry commanded the 24th infantry division and wes moore is a retired captain and combat veteran. thank you for this. general, how did you begin to see the mission from the beginning, what the limits are, what it can get done in a cowle of days. no question. there is a huge tragedy unfolding. a couple hundred thousand refugees in the last few weeks. families isolated on a mountain top without nutrition or access to war. it s a tragedy. a shock to everybody to see the kurdish forces evaporate. we ve got a problem. we have to support are the kurds. i argued strongly we should have been providing them significant military equipment a year, two years ago. we are trying to artificially hold together an iraqi state that s already come apart. my concern is except for navy air, thank god for navy carrier battle groups. we have very few forces in the region. you can t protect 1.5 million refugees or supply them a humanitarian aid from the air. these are political gestures, not serious military operations. what happens when they are on the ground and you re isis and you have committed to your goal of killing everybody else. why would a few pinprick attacks on some of your vehicles stop your advance. stay with that question. would they stop the advance? of course not. right next door in syria where isis has its preponderance of forces, 180,000 dead mostly perpetrated by shiite, christian and other minorities against a sunni majority. all throughout this area, particularly syria, iraq, and parts of lebanon, this is now coming apart. it s a giant civil war, ethnic and religious minorities struggling. it will be solved through violence. it s hard to imagine modest uses of military power making much different. captain, your view. can a pinprick attack stop an army of zealots that doesn t duck. they re there for god and aren t worried about getting killed. i wonder about a strike against people with unlimited ze lalotr. your thoughts? we can t understand this in isolation. it is not just about northern iraq. not even just about iraq. this is about things happening throughout the entire region. one thing we were told during captain s training is one of the greatest oxymorons in the world is limited military operations. inherently they can t be limited. you re always stepping on the doorstep of something that could be much larger. i think what we have seen particularly in the past week has uncovered two things. one is the lack of stability. this idea that there is no military solution that will be able to fix what s happening in iraq. we have had the past four presidents that had military involvement in iraq. the second thing and this could be the most dangerous. there is no iraqi national military. the iraqi military is very regional. you saw the way isil was able to cut through western iraq, cut through mosul like a hot knife through butter. the idea of a national military iraqi response doesn t make sense. well, that s point. i want to go back to your point about arming the kurds. we have an iraqi army against 7,000 isis forces. yet they are running from them. what would stop them? what sort of mechanized force, military armor, what can we give them what weapon would make them stand and fight? it s a group that s widely hated. when isis moved like a juggernaut, most of it was nonsense. there are a few thousand fighters. sunni tribesmen rose up against a hated, shia dominated army and police force. the kurds, the president said an iraqi called who s going to help us. that was a kurd. they won t let the iraqi army back in kurdistan for the next hundred years. so the kurds are worthy of being supported. we need to give them the technology to defend themselves. possibly we d support them with air power. basically again a giant civil war, ten years of violence. i don t think the american people have political will to turn this around. let s start with the pinprick, the purpose. one goal is to defend our facility in erbil. can we do it with naval air alone, general? then captain . it s nonsense. it s a giant city, the capital of kurdistan. if they won t defend their own capitol, all is lost. i think they will. it sounded like the turner joy in vietnam or something. we are conducting carrier air strikes to protect the 200 people we just put in to a giant city? it s nonsense. captain if you want them to protect themselves give them the tools to do it. will the united states dr or is our statement that we ll use military face and naval air to defend erbil and our facility there something that will work? it seems that s one thing that will work here in coordination with the kurds. think about it. when you talk about the application of military force, you think about how is the application of military force going to deter the enemy. how will it defer what you actually have to face? isis isn t making pinprick military attacks on civilians. they are not making strategic attacks on specific villages. i m not sure how to understand that strategic pinprick military reaction to that is then going to counter what they are going to do in order to make a military action effective, you have to first understand your enemy and see how it s going to impact their actions. hear, hear. isis isn t into nuanced signalling. they are crucifying people, beheading them, trying to terrorize them. that s what i think. i agree. they are killers, not thinkers. thank you so much for coming on the program on friday night. up next, more on isis, the violent extremist group running through iraq. you will hear the horror stories. hold your ears. this is a frightening group of people. who are they? can they be stopped by u.s. airstrikes or do they want to die for god? that s ahead. this is hardball, the place for politics. 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[ kevin ] really? where the reward was that what if tnew car smelledit card and the freedom of the open road? a card that gave you that i m 16 and just got my first car feeling. presenting the buypower card from capital one. redeem earnings toward part or even all of a new chevrolet, buick, gmc or cadillac - with no limits. so every time you use it, you re not just shopping for goods. you re shopping for something great. learn more at buypowercard.com welcome back to hardball . what and who exactly are we fighting in iraq? as bobby gosh said they are a nightmarish vision from hell. he described who we are up against. they enjoy the act of slaughter. these are not religious people. these are are people who are insane. they have oil in their territory. they have seized weapons. some of them weapons we left for the iraqis. they have seized weapon prs the iraqis, syrians, the lebanese. these are nightmarish vision from hell of the likes we have not seen. that s not even the scariest part. this might give you a sense of how the radical insurgent group known as isis operates. they catalog atrocities. as the financial times reported the military success and brutality of isis was recorded with the level of precision often reserved for company accounts. 10,000 operations in iraq. 1,000 assassinations. 4,000 hundreds of radical prisoners freed. this is a group al qaeda disavowed. they were a liability to the al qaeda brand they were so bad. the iraqi military forces and capturing critically important targets like the country s mosul dam. that s under their control now. this doesn t include the acts of horror that drove 40,000 christians, kurds and yazidis up to mount sinjar where they are surrounded by a group, ell bent on converting or killing them. is this group over taking one of the last functions areas of iraq that we are now fighting from the group. brian cotolus is from the american center for progress. and one of their reporters with vice news has been embedded with isis. brian, how many are in the field now fighting for control of iraq and what do they want? if you add them up, iraq and syria, there is no border between iraq and syria. you have 10 to 15,000 estimates. a couple hundred from the united states and europe. those people from the united states, muslims come from that part of the world. there is a mix. people have converted. european backgrounds. yeah. how many of them are there? that actually joined this. a couple does frn the u.s. are most estimates. from middle eastern background? it s a mix. some are americans that aren t middle eastern background. how many people joined the islamic cause not born muslim. we don t have precise figures. five, ten? a couple of dozen. it s a prost proselytizing organization. it s grounded in religion, but a distorted 15,000 in the field in iraq. what do they want in iraq? what are they doing in northern iraq? tapping into the grievance sunnis had against the shiite-led government in iraq. yes, they are the vanguard. there are ex-baathists. they don t crucify and behead people. they are part of the group. why do reasonable political people who are ethnically united against the new government over there supporting this barbarism. ner not supporting it. they are living with it. but not fighting it because the group is so vicious and brutal. they actually strike fears in the hearts of many people in iraq and syria. sounds like the nazis. let s look at this. vice has no affiliation with us and nbc news. it has not verified the interview in this documentary. this interview is said to be with an isis fighter should give you a portrait of the mindset we are fighting. what do you know about this humiliated us in iraq. i don t remember that. is that part of the propaganda? that they have already beaten the united states in the field? i think they feel they did that in iraq. their world view is an expansionist, fundamentalist world view is what they are high on. we spent three weeks in syria and iraq. in the emerging caliphate, as they call it, trying to understand what motivates them, why they are doing it, how powerful they are. i think more interesting, what s it like to live under their control? we got a portrait that s chilling, terrifying and scary. when did they humiliate the united states? i don t know what they are talking about. they are referencing afghanistan, iraq. it s their narrative they are creating. we left iraq in shiite hands, in malakis hands and walked out in the hands of a government adversarial to them. how do they see it as humiliating us? they have their own propaganda, view of the world they are telling everyone, their supporters. it chimes. they are viciously anti-american. it chimes. doesn t mathter whether it s correct. it s taken hold and it s spreading. it finds support in many parts of the region. earlier on people talked about it being a regional crisis. there is a real crisis now. this entity is spreading outwards to the turkish border, syria, jordan, lebanon. this is a real problem. let me ask you what you have learned. what we learned was we were in the base. we saw the weaponry looted from iraq. american weaponry paraded in the streets. we saw indocket tri nation of children, boys as young as 9 by older men. one father asked his child if he would like to be a jihadist or a suicide bomber. the child said jihadist. they talk about the caliphate, the islamic state. we went in the prisons where people have been arrested for o possessing alcohol, waiting to be with whipped. it s a chilling portrait of what a society will look like run by hard line armed islamic militants. was your embed present during the crucifixions or beheadings? no. the film maker was escorted around by armed men. he went into the edge of iraq. he wasn t present at any of the brutality. as was mentioned before they publish it themselves. it s a very sophisticated operation. it s horrible beyond belief. we won t show it, but it s out there. thank you, kevin. this situation. my complaint against the bush policy has been the idea that you can eliminate your enemy by killing them all. it shows us killing arabs and islamic people on international television. to me it breeds more. that s right. this is a catch 22. you kill them and they are replaced by more. if you don t, they kill your allies. there are no easy solutions. a key part is to get actor this is the region like jordan. last september. za are rkawi in 2006, the head of al qaeda. the jordan yans helped us get him. saudis and gulf states including kuwait. we saved kuwait. they have private financiers supporting groups like isis. working to cut off the funding and deal with the cancer. that s what it is. deal wit. cut it off. where was the u.n.? awol. i don t know what it s doing. where is turkey? turkey is wringing its hands. they claim to be offering humanitarian assistance. it s unclear. that s what president obama is trying to do. get this region. once again we are the gurka army. we go in to run around and march for somebody else. we do it. thank you. up next, when he was running for president barack obama campaigned on getting the united states out of iraq. now he finds himself sucked back in. i wonder what he has to do now. you re watching hardball, the place for politics. r 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. peoi go to angie s listt for all kinds of reasons. to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie s list members can tell you which provider is the best in town. you ll find reviews on everything from home repair to healthcare. now that we re expecting, i like the fact i can go onto angie s list and look for pediatricians. the service providers that i ve found on angie s list actually have blown me away. find out why more than two million members count on angie s list. angie s list reviews you can trust. life with crohn s disease ois a daily game of what if s . what if my abdominal pain and cramps come back? what if the plane gets delayed? what if i can t hide my symptoms? what if? but what if the most important question is the one you re not asking? what if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation? for help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisinfo.com to get your complimentary q&a book, with information from experts on your condition. i ran for office in part to end our war in iraq and welcome our troops home. that s what we have done. i will not allow the united states to be dragged into fighting another war in iraq. as we support iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, american combat troops will not be returning to fight in raurk. iraq. welcome back to hardball. as i have said it s much easier to get involved in a war than to get out of one. something president obama is keenly aware of. he s gone to great length s to end the war in iraq. there was no small amount of pain when he announced new involvement militarily in iraq. he emphasized he hopes in this case u.s. involvement in iraq will be of a limited nature. still, as peter baker of the new york times wrote, in sending war planes back into the skies of iraq thursday night president obama found himself exactly where he didn t want to be hoping to end the war in iraq he became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of american ambition. kristen welker is at the white house now. first to you, kristen. if you could give us a sense of how this went tick-tock to a decision basically to get into it again. as we have done today militarily in iraq. chris, we are just getting our first sense of that tick-tock. i m told by a senior administration official that on wednesday, after president obama wrapped up his news conference at the africa summit he was told by the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, general martin dempsey the crisis in iraq had reached a critical juncture, that isis was making gains, moving toward erbil. that s when the discussions began about how to respond. there was a high level meeting that night which included president obama. then that situation room meeting on thursday which occurred first thing thursday morning. president obama meeting with his national security team. i m told in those meetings there was broad agreement that something needed to be done. the united states needed to take action. the question was what would that action look like? one of the key concerns was about flying f-18 fighter jets. the reason is they fly low. they fly quickly. there were concerns though that flying those f-18 fighter jets would be putting u.s. military personnel at risk. ultimately though the decision was made that the need to take action outweighed the risks because of the humanitarian crisis and u.s. interests were threatened. also because of the strategic reasons you have been talking about, chris. the fact that erbil is a kurdish strong hold and losing it would be a disaster from the perspective of u.s. policy there. chris? tell me if i m wrong. i looked for little things in the news. one was the release of the photo from the situation room. i wonder if they do it in order to show, a, the deliberate nature of the decision, how difficult it was, that it was a share ed decision with the military man dempsey there. i think that s him in the foreground and tony blake and the national security aid aide in the back and susan rice there, the national security director. is that to show the gravity of the situation, the fact they released the photo. reminded me of the photo when we killed bin laden. right. optics are always important, chris. in these types of situations, even more so. i think you re right to under score that point. there was a desire to show that the president that his national security team were on top of the crisis. they were dealing with the crisis earlier today. we got video of president obama speaking to jordan s king abdullah. i m told he ll make more phone calls to u.s. allies in the coming days to try to shore up support, not necessarily for the military mission, but to get more aid in terms of the humanitarian mission. in addition to all of those christian minorities stranded on the mountain, there are thousands who have been displaced by the crisis. he s going to be reaching out to u.s. allies to get their support in terms of dealing with that. optics are always important, chris. i think that situation room picture we got, the video we got earlier today certainly is part of the white house s desire to show that the president is on top of of this. thanks, kristen. now to ron reagan. you know, grenada was a bite-sized war. how do you have a bite-sized war of a bigger war? you don t take one bite and pull back. that war is still going on testimony yeah, that s right. kristen pointed out a lot of risks here. it s one thing to say we ll have limited strikes, protect the humanitarian mission. that can go wrong in many ways. think about an f-18 going down, a pilot being captured. if those things happen we are in a different ball game. we don t want to be sucked into a war with isis in the middle east. that s for the iraqis, the peshmerga of kurdistan. do they want to say let s watch the fight? i hope the peshmerga at least, they have been regarded as one of the best fighting forces in the region. i understood from the uh news report before i came in, you may know more that they may have actually freed 11,000 of those people driven from their villages now and overrun some of the isis positions. i don t know if that s legit or not. it would be a good sign if it were true. the kurdish army has been respected for a long time like the turkish army. any news that there was a successful military operation near erbil. in fact, in freeing people, allowing them to break out from captivity on the hill in sinjar. the white house hasn t given an update on the ground at this hour, chris. i checked in moments ago. i can tell you their broader strategy in addition to firing the air strikes to increasing military support to the fighters. right. as ron pointed out, they are among the strongest fighters there in that territory. there was a fair amount of surprise by the fact that they were treated so quickly. and the hope is that those air strikes will give them time to basically reconvene, get stronger and rearm, chris? thank you for coming in on a friday night during a war, it looks like. ron reagan, i want to hear more next time. a little short tonight. up next, the reaction from congress to the air strikes in iraq. two coming here, one democrat, one republican. so we re all set? yyyup. with xfinity internet your family can use all their devices at once. works anywhere in the house. even in the garage. max what s going on? we re doing a tech startup. we re streamlining an algorithm. we re going public! 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[ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. without a prescription for frequent heartburn. get complete protection. because the best moments in life aren t experienced from the sidelines. now there s nothing holding you back. this is nexium level protection™. the #1 prescribed acid-blocking brand now without a prescription for frequent heartburn. get complete protection. nexium level protection™, now available at walgreens. get complete protection. the last four hours have seen. one child fail to get to the air sickness bag in time. another left his shoes on the plane. his shoes! and a third simply doesn t want to be here. until now. until right booking now. planet earth s number one accomodation site booking.com booking.yeah! we re back. for reaction from congress on the military action in iraq, going on right now, we turn to u.s. congressman john garamendi, a democrat from california. senate armed services committee. we also have joining us u.s. congressman dana rohrabacher, from california, who sits on the house foreign relations committee. gentlemen, thank you. let s start with congressman rohrabacher. your sense of this mission as it s been defined, are you supportive of this decision to try to hold off the isis forces from basically committing genocide to start with? well, obviously the president is to be commended for sending humanitarian support. the food, the water, to prevent people from starving or dying of thirst. and also, commendable to prevent them from being annihilated by people who are armed and they are unarmed people. but let s take a look, and a limited sense that he knows he has to use some american military support, but that should be very limited, and les remember that this crisis has been brought on because this president has not had a coherent policy in that part of the world. we end up not supplying our friends. we have withheld support from the kurds for a long time, just like this administration is withholding aid from sissi in egypt that the egyptian government this crisis has been brought on by this administration. i accept that assessment. your assessment. what has been the rationale from the white house for not aiding the kurds sufficiently? do they want them to be part of the united government in baghdad? is that s what their argument was? you could hear it in the president s speech last night. his idea of how he s going to solve this is get everybody in the same room and agree to a government they can all agree on. that type of policy does not work. we should be supporting those elements that are pro-american, and if we would have supported the kurds, let them become a national entity, you would have had the sunnis and the shiites creating their national entity and that would have created stability. so, coincidentally, not bipartisan observation, but coincidentally, you re where biden is, let him split up, let him be three different countries. that s correct. it s unfortunate this president has this idea that we re going to get everybody in a room and sing kumbaya and hold hands. fair enough. and that s going to create some kind of peace in that area. that s a good argument. they re suffering because we have not had a coherent policy of supporting those elements that are pro-american in that part of the world. john garamendi, your view of the whole thing in terms of trying to focus it on the situation, the humanitarian aid, you know, dana rohrabacher said we have to do something right now. it s the larger questions that haven t been figured out here. well, certainly true, but we have an immediate humanitarian crisis, potential for genocide, and the president is doing exactly what he should do and what i believe americans want him to do. that is to provide the humanitarian support in every way possible, and to prohibit or prevent any genocide that might be in the future. that s the appropriate way to go. can we do it with the pinprick attacks, knocking out a couple personnel carriers? we re dealing with zealots willing to die for god, determined to kill or be killed. stop when we stop them with the sniper attack basically on them. it s not an all-out assault on them at all. well, the other option, put another 150,000 troops back into iraq, no way, no how. this is going to have to be worked out in that area by the people in that area. ster certainly the kurds have a great interest in seeing isis prevented from getting any closer, and involvement in their area. shiites likewise. the sir rounding countrying, jordan and the rest of them. all of them have a very severe threat, and, yes, we ought to get all of them in a room. kumbaya is not the right song. we better come together, together with those that have an interest in that area, and get to work on trying to prevent this radical group from taking over. that s what we have i was not talking about i was not talking about getting all of those other powers in the room. that, i agree with 16 100%. i m talking about getting everybody in iraq in one room and suddenly then they re going to find a consensus. congressman rohrabacher, do you think that the kurds will defend their city, defend irbil? will they fight for it in the next couple days? sure, they will. we need to make sure they have the ammunition which we have denied them. we have supported a pro-mull la regime in kabul, in baghdad. people hear your argument. i think people figure the argument out. i think we have to help the kurds. thank you, congressman john guer garamendi. and congressman dana ror bara r rohrabacher. a great speechwriter for ronald reagan. we ll be right back after this. from the pros. find more real possibilities at aarp.org/possibilities. 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. crestor lowered bad cholesterol in it s a fact. high-risk patients more than lipitor. bad cholesterol. you re going down! yeah! lowering cholesterol is a big deal, especially if you have high cholesterol plus any of these risk factors, because you could be at increased risk for plaque buildup in your arteries over time. so, when diet and exercise aren t enough to lower cholesterol, adding crestor can help. i m down with crestor! crestor is not right for everyone, like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. tell your doctor about other medicines you re taking. call your doctor right away if you have muscle pain or weakness, feel unusually tired; have loss of appetite, upper belly pain, dark urine or yellowing of skin or eyes. these could be signs of rare but serious side effects. are you down with crestor!? 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all right, that s going to do it for this edition of way too early. morning joe starts right now. good morning! look at that, willie. that is a beautiful view. beautiful day. it s a beautiful day. last couple , not so beautiful. it s thursday, august the 14th. great to have you here with us. along with you, we have got washington anchor for bbc world news america, katty kay and nick consori and then with bloomberg news, al hunt. yesterday, willie, really bad storms out there. did you see some of the pictures? even out here on long island. cars on the highways up to their roofs. looked like a river. it was. yeah, parts of the mid-atlantic and northeast cleaning up and drying out after heavy rains sparked flooding across several states. the hardest appeared to be long island. islip 13.27 inches in under 24 hours and more than a foot in less than a day. more than the region receives in an entire summer. the rainfall shattered previous records and a lot of cars abandoned and a lot of people had to get out and run. bill karins, this was serious business yesterday. epic rains, willie. we tell you record highs and lows. this was all-time records for new york state. we have weather records back in new york to the 1800s and we have never seen in new york state s history this much rain in 24 hours in any single reporting station in the entire state. you re thinking about all of the hurricanes that have occurred. all of the huge storms. the nor easter. this was the most rain ever officially. it did up to 13.57 inches for islip, new york. the old record was set recently with hurricane irene when it went through in tannersville, new york at 17.5 inches. it wasn t new york we saw the flooding. last night at midnight in portland, maine, they were telling people stay off the roads and they were doing water rescues as cars were submerged, especially in the under passes, with 6.5 inches of rain. this went back to detroit with record flooding with over 4 inches. a slow moving storm and a very unusual amount of moisture in the air. the precipitation rates were very high for this storm and very unusual because it wasn t a hurricane or a tropical storm and makes you scratch your head. it wasn t forecasted all that well. we knew it would rain and rain hard but no one was expecting this much rain in this short of a period of time. when it comes down that fast, that hard, you get the pictures like you see there. today, we are much better across the region with that shot at the top of the show. it s a beautiful day out there, it feels like fall almost the next couple of days. if you want to scratch your head for extreme weather events this was one of them over the last couple of days. wild couple of days. bill, get the rest of your frac in a couple of minutes. the fourth straight night, the streets of suburb looked like a battlefield. police in full riot gear and using tear gas to control crowds simmering over the death of 18-year-old michael brown by a police officer there in ferguson, missouri. two reporters in town to cover the store last night detained after police ordered them to leave a local mcdonald s. wesley lowrie and ryan reilly claim they were handcuffed after police said they were not packing up their things to leave quickly enough. lowery caught part of his episode with the cell phone. stop videotaping. please don t do this. let s go. you see me working? please do not tell me not to use my cell phone. let s go. down to about 45 seconds. let s go. reporter: the street let s go. not time to ask questions. move your car if your car is out here. reporter: what i was asking. you didn t have time to ask me. let s go. reporter: i m working, sir. let s go. here is a door over here. let s go. let s go. you can move. let s go. move. reporter: sir, please let s move. let s move. last night, lowery who shot that avoid spoke about what allegedly happened when the camera stopped rolling. tried to direct me toward another door. i said, officers where would you like moo to go? the bag slipped off of my shoulder. officers, i need to adjust my bag and they said let s take him. slammed me into a soda machine and grabbed my bags. reilly said, in part, a s.w.a.t. team just invaded mcdonald s. i was given a countdown. i was told i had, you know, 45 seconds, 30 seconds, to pack up all of my stuff and leave. at which point, the officer in question who i have who i repeatedly asked for his name and was never or his badge number and never given it, decided that he was going to help me pack and he grabbed my things and shoved them into my bag and i was then when i basically, he then arrested me and he handcuff me and put them on tight. he used a finger to put a pressure point on my neck and it was just very difficult experience. willie, i don t know. what do you think? well, okay let me help you out here because i m always the one that gets in trouble. i ll get in trouble here. i ll just say if i saw that video and my son was the one the police arrested after that episode, i said, joey, here is a clue. when the cops tell you the 30th time says let s go, you know what that means, son? it means let s go. i m sorry. you know what? we have got a lot of questions out there. we got people angry in the streets because they won t release this cop name. we don t each know what happened. we have two sides telling something completely conflicting so there is a lot of unanswered questions here. but i do know this. when a police officer asks you to pick up i can only i can only i ve been in places where police officers said, all right you know what? this is cordoned off, you guys need to move along. you know what i do? i go, yes, sir, or yes, ma am. i don t sit there and have a debate and film the police officer unless i want to get on tv and have people talk about me the next day. i am sure i am just the worse person in the world for saying this. i can only judge how i would treat my son who is a reporter who, if he were in this position, okay, well, you know what? next time a police officer tells you that you ve got to move along because you ve got riots outside, well, you probably should move along. maybe i m in the minority. i don t know. i don t see any evidence there were riots outside that mcdonald s. i wasn t at that mcdonald s. i wasn t there either. i don t know why the police officers were there. i know it s bad out there. if you re a reporter setting up shop in a fast food restaurant you re going to have a laptop, a wi-fi card, your phone, your charger. going to take you more than 45 seconds to get it together. he was trying to imply. the question is what was the rush to push them out of there? when he slips basically and drops his briefcase, he gets arrested and pinned. it doesn t make any sense. we don t know how long that is. i don t know why the police were moving them along. listen, i m just concerned by what seems to be this common misperception that it s illegal to avoid a law enforcement officer or take pictures of them. it s not. i don t think it is, but if they are coming in and saying that we re cordoning off this area and they say you have a certain amount of time to do it and, instead, you re putting up a video phone and you re asking some kid with a gun who is 25, 26, 27, didn t make the orders. the only comment i m reluctant to have journalists become the central of the story and seem to have become in this case and something more seriously is happening in ferguson than what happened to these two reporters, but i think for a police force that is trying to show the country that it is capable of exercising restraint, this was not a particularly smart public to do to slam the reporter against the soda fountain and handcuff them. first of all, katty, i think it s a bad idea to look ukrainian guards. paramilitary. i m sitting there going, boy by the way, i m just talking about this one episode. right. and, no, i find it really hard to believe that they couldn t have shown a little more he subtly through this entire process. they were quickly released when they got there and the chief got wind of this and said let these guys go. they were sitting in the cell and the cop came in and said who is the two journalists. let me ask you guys something. am i a sucker for the police saying telling you to move along or should i sit there and question him? by the way, what was he packing up? if he was packing up our entire control room, that s fine. he had a friggin laptop. come on! oh, wait, i m packing up, officer, let me ask you a question. i m sorry. isn t there a broader question? if it happened to these two reporters, it is some indication what is happening to other people in ferguson who are not able to is it? there is accusations of heavy-handedness by police in ferguson amongst the local population. but aren t there accusations on both sides of this story? we hear the story cops bad. we had a police officer come out yesterday. they are calling basically signs holding and people calling for murder charges. and i understand, by the way, for everybody out there, going, joe just blindly know is on one side or the other. you know what? i caught hell what i said about trayvon for months. in this situation, we don t know what happened. we just have absolutely no idea and you ve got people, you know, the cops are trying to protect the identity of this cop and his family until they know exactly what happened. we have, willie, two completely conflicting stories here. one, that the officer was assaulted. they went for the gun. they shoved him back in the car. and the other that this poor young man was just walking down the street and he was gunned down execution style. yeah. what do you do with that? you have a couple of witnesses including his friend who gave the latter version of the story saying he was executed and the police say something. that is the core of this. what happened? we don t know. he was unarmed, we know that. until that, it s not worth of us sitting in new york or washington to debating. we can talk about what we see in the streets in ferguson and what is happening and i haven t been on the ground there looks like a heavy-handed approach by the police there. when you have what have been for the most part peaceful protests. it seems a lot over the top. and i don t understand that side of the story and one side of the story so everybody can take deep breaths at home if you re ready to eat cheetos. you know what? when we talk to bill bratton the other day, you know, what would fix all of this? have police officers wear cameras. absolutely. so we know what is going on. that would do two things. that would stop this from going on. that would stop people from falsely accusing cops and put a chilling effects on cops that use their power to push people around. i m not talking about what goes on in this case. i m talking about what we have all seen with cops across america at times they get a little too much power and they get a little too cocky. it would have a chilling effect on that type of behavior. i guarantee you if cops on staten island were wearing cameras, every one of them, they wouldn t have put that man in a choke-hold and killed him for peddling cigarettes. i agree. i can t think of a single argument left any more to not do this. it seems like good policy and it s good for the officers. and it s good for the people they serve. you know who it s bad for? bad cops. that is who it s bad for. if i m a good cop, i want that. because i want everybody to know what happens. i want to protect myself. i want to protect, in this case, if and we don t know if this cop is innocent, then if he had a camera on, he would be safe, he wouldn t be worried about his family. if he had children, he wouldn t be worried about his children. if you re in a tough call, do you want the only camera on the scene to be a bystander? exactly, with a cell phone. he could be coming in a minute whatever prompted the altercation. what you always hear from police unions and police chiefs and police officers, that shows a little part of it. okay, fine. give us the whole thing. put it on squad cars which we have on a lot of squad cars and put these cameras on cops. it doesn t cost that much. of the only group of people that it hurts are bad cops that abuse their power. there is another issue, with the ferguson police force and i don t know how this is replicated around the country. the fact it is ungrossly represented of the population it is serving. what is it? only three of ferguson police officers are black in a population that is 70% black in that neighborhood? i think that has got to be addressed too. how much effort are they making to diverse their police force and why aren t they hiring a more diverse police force? you re asking for trouble. you really are. its insanity. absurd. look at the pictures of the people in s.w.a.t. uniforms it s white guys in s.w.a.t. uniforms. if you re going to police any streets in any neighborhood, you need the community to be a willing partner. that s what bill bratton talked about in l.a. and what is talking about here. you can t do that if the police force is that grossly unrepresentative. willie good night. should we turn to some politics? i would love to. it was the hug everybody was waiting for last night. can i just say? i wasn t waiting for it. i know. a bit tongue in cheek. i m not much on fake physical contact. we don t have any evidence of it. no, we don t. i think we should have every politician wear a camera! so we know what they are doing and if they hug, we know. that s an idea. so president obama and hillary clinton came face-to-face last night for the first time since a public flap over foreign policy messaging and the debate to arm syrian rebels. they sat at the same table on martha s vineyard at a birthday party. hillary clinton said she was looking forward to making amends early in the day yesterday. hug it out with the president? absolutely! yeah! we are looking forward to it. going to be there tonight. is it a hard choice? no. in the book, we agreed, we are committed to the values and the interests and the security of our country together. we have disagreements as any partners and friends, as we are, might very well have. but i m proud that i serve with him and for him and i m looking forward to seeing him tonight. there you go. just two pals getting together. why is it that whenever we see bill clinton come on, we do and you can t see it, we need to wear a camera so you can see what happens. every time we see bill clinton, we just start laughing because he is just a natural. i love kentucky, you know? and everybody loves him. we were like cringing for her. yeah. after all these years, maybe she has bob dole-itis? maybe she is great in person but it s so canned. it s so calculated. al hunt, you know, hillary, i have made no secret of it. i m not ashamed. i called hillary my girlfriend in 2008. i love her. she is great. most people that talk to her and meet her away from when the cameras aren t turned on, think she is just a wonderful, wonderful person. i mean, some people who have worked for her might not think of her like that but in this case, she still seems so awkward, so stiff and so canned. let s be honest about it, so i insincere. the book could be titled dimple. i love your idea of cameras on politicians. i want to have the exclusive right to bill clinton cameras. oh! oh, my god. a lot of that has to be redacted! we need a seven-minute delay. how many minutes would end up on the floor? joe, you know, this pains me to say, but hillary clinton is having the same kind of season as bryce harper. she is underperforming and it s careless talk. i think it was careless talk in the interview. then the walk-back was almost worse. i just think she s just, whether it s sea legs, whether she is rusty, it s really been a bad several months for her. do i think she is still the favorite for the nomination? of course, she is but i think what is occurring she is pro wall street and pro intervention and says to a number of democrats this is an easy ride to get in a primary and win 35% of the vote. al, do you think as you ve watched the last couple of months this process of going back to be the ringer as she was in the past couple of years and giving book tours and responding to questions has given her any paws about re-entering the arena in a couple of years? willie, i don t know. i think it s a really good question. i doubt it because i think it s almost inevitable she is going, assuming her health is good. but i hope, for cher sake, the lesson she has learned is that she has tond that maybe there is an inner circle doesn t serve her well and think carefully about some of these things. she s a very smart woman. whether it s we were broke when we left the house or this latest, it s been a bad couple of months. al, whatever the calculations about president obama s approval ratings at the moment, do you think that for her there is any long-term benefit in what has happened over the last few days, showing that she is going to stand up to the president on foreign policy and distance herself? i think she has to strike some distance with the president over the course of the next year on both foreign and domestic issues. the same challenge that george w. bush faced in 1987. i think, a, she is not doing it well. if her message is, guess what, i m pro wall street and i am pro interventionist at a time when i think the country is more populous and wants to pull back, i think it s certainly important in the democratic primaries. we are sorry about bryce, by the way. so am i. it s kind of astonishing, isn t it? the democratic party, the grassroots does not want a hawkish, you know, she lost last time because of this, right? right. and now she is going out again saying i m more hawkish than the president. i m not each sure republican voters want that. while you re talking about this, i see the tubes going around in the background. oh, no. i m going to get dunked. are you doing it? yeah. bobby jindal, the son of a guy challenged me. i m going to get wet and we are going to have a special guest here also. really? you guys keep one of those in the building? i think mika may get dunked in too. coming off of vacation. her daughter is going to be leaving, amelia, wants to get one last shot in for her mom. this is for the als association. the thing that is going around. it s incredible. i did it a couple of days ago. i sent one to andy cohen. he did it live on his show last night and a couple of other ones. we will show that later. a couple of other ones, i think we should expand on. brooke shields, wanda sykes. 37 monkeys running around and a camera on me, i don t know. i figured it out. did you know any of those guys that got arrested last night in mcdonald s? yes. they are probably wonderful guys. they are professionals. they are professionals, exactly. have you seen any silicon valley? they sounded like characters out of sal convalley. i m sorry, they just did. i got my laptop. what are you doing, sir? i don t understand. hold on! 3.2 gigabytes in this laptop, sir. what are you doing? i don t know. have you ever seen silicon valley? never seen it. you will love it. you got to do it. i trust my judge. still ahead on morning j joe, the creative genius behind madmen. matthew wieiner will be here wih more on that. you re watching morning joe. we will be right back. (son) oh no. can you fix it, dad? yeah, i can fix that. (dad) i wanted a car that could handle anything. i fixed it! (dad) that s why i got a subaru legacy. (vo) symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 36 mpg. i gotta break more toys. (vo) introducing the all-new subaru legacy. it s not just a sedan. it s a subaru. 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? hing your favorite players come on, get open. yeah.with that in mind. with nfl mobile on verizon. yes! get in there! go, go, go, go, yes! let s go, drew. the not-so-good more would be them always watching you. go for it, paul! get open! come on, paul! let s go! hustle! what is that, chamomile tea?! uh, lattes. you wanna take a nap?! get the good more with nfl mobile, free with the more everything plan. exclusively from verizon. now get 50% off all new smartphones. can i just say if you like t.j. i don t know him. you ve never met t.j.? his wife doesn t even like him today. his kids? they call me up at night. come on. everybody likes me. everybody does. willie, what am i supposed to do? problem is he spends half of the day in the car. he lives six hours from work. he doesn t see anybody. t.j., you want to tell the world how you got to work. the horse. samuel. t.j. has a long commute for those of you that don t know. thank you, t.j. it s time for the morning papers. sacramento bee. lawmakers in california passed a 7.5 million water bill. the drought that continues to cripple the golden state. this is epic. the new plan marks the most aggressive investment the state has made in decades. the money is allocated to build reservoirs and clean up contaminated water. residents will vote on the measure in november. wall street journal, cutting back on assault in your diet to harm your health. this is what we have learned, okay? i m so glad mika is not here for this. you need more assault, right? and fat is actually good for you too. you see that? in moderation. i m sorry. like red wine in moderation. assault, fat, and red bull, the three staple of any diet. and wine? no that is always there. those who use less than 3,000 milligrams of assault had a 27% higher risk of heart attack, stroke, even death compared to those who consume between 3,000 and 6,000 milligrams daily. i like assault. like we count the milligrams of sodium. the fda says it plans to review the findings. the new york times. e-cigarette is said to be the cause of a smoking bag. boston fire marshal says recharger batteries into in the cigarettes can cause a fire. the department is considering adding e-cigarettes to the hazards material list. a texas teen was discovered living in a walmart two days after he ran away from home. employees said he lived off food in the story and wore diapers. come on. can home be that bad? incident to grow up to be an astronaut? he changed his clothes every few hours so he wouldn t be recognized. the teen was caught after employees noticed garbage which led to the area he was sleeping. so far, no charges have been filed. the diapers is proof enough. only two days. is that a testament to walmart? you could live in walmart, literally live in walmart. they have everything. i m stunned katty saying he was only living in diapers two days. that is like a long weekend at oxford. a bear mauling drove a girl to the hospital. thompson was hiking on thursday when she spotted a seven-foot bear that knocked her to the ground and bit her seven times. when the bear retreated she walked nearly two miles back to her car and drove to the hospital. she is expected to make a full recovery. that s a tough woman. wow. you know what we do? alex just said, we need cameras on bears. that s.o.b. thinks he is going to get away for this. he needs to be put down. need accountable in the bear community. terrifying video shows the moment water races through doors at a salve fear cafeteria in a hospital. the damage, full of three feet of water. where is this coming from? doors, tables, chairs, no patients or employees hurt during the incident. what happened? it looks like a scene out of the poseidon adventure. nick, that was about 20 years before you were born. upside down. under down. the morning after. maureen mcgovern. it has to be the morning after wow. that s terrible. the end of the last segment we had an inflatable pool going up and after this segment, we have mike barn a balance sitting over there. he is coming up next with sports. scary collision in the outfield. the number one baseball prospect in america is carted off the field after running into his teammate. also, show you a play at the plate that caused this manager to absolutely lose his mind. i love that! i love when they do that. so old school, billy martin. mike barnicle joins us next for sports. shopping online is as easy as it gets. wouldn t it be great if hiring plumbers, carpenters and even piano tuners were just as simple? thanks to angie s list, now it is. start shopping online from a list of top-rated providers. visit angieslist.com today. 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. we make inspiring things. cialis for daily use that go beyond the expected and get people talking. things that make you wonder. .how you ever lived without them. the all-new chrysler 200. america s import female narrator: the mattress price wars are on the mattress price wars are on at sleep train. we challenged the manufacturers to offer even lower prices. now it s posturepedic versus beautyrest with big savings of up to $400 off. serta icomfort and tempur-pedic go head-to-head with three years interest-free financing. plus, free same-day delivery, set-up, and removal of your old set. when brands compete, you save. mattress price wars are on now at sleep train. your ticket to a better night s sleep welcome back to morning joe. pause for quick sports here. mike barnicle is at the table with us. scary moment at a minor league baseball game in connecticut. minnesota twins star collides with a teammate in the outfield halting play for nearly half an hour as he lay motionless. oh! unconscious on the ground and taken off the field in an ambulance with a concussion. as if it matters his teammate hung on to the ball. we don t know the long-term prognosresnosresnosis but it wa concussion. number one prospect in major league baseball. five-tool player. can t miss but he has got some problems this morning and we hope he is okay. a huge talent. hope he is okay. manny machado placed on the 15-day dl. a right knee big strain. took an awkward fall. by the way, that was thomas fault. he dumped a bucket of ice over him before the game. the old roberts jinx. exactly. o s jonathan scope evened things up with a solo home run. same inning, adam jones up with two men on. he jacks a three-run shot to left center for the baltimore lead. they hang on. complete the two-game sweep with a 5-3 win. mike, they are starting to run away with this division now. the o s are very good. adam jones could be an mvp. where did this come from? they stunk about 30 years. they are a pretty good team but the rest of the american league east is really pathetic. really? really. how about old steinbrenner sounding like his old man? telling the yanks to step it up. might be a little too late. check out san francisco and white sox leading the giants 1-0 p.m. bottom of the seventh. crew chief reviewing a game time play at the plate. he is out by a wide margin. after the review, the umpires reversed the call because the new rule does not allow a catcher to block home plate so he was safe even though he was out. white sox manager robin ventura comes out of the dugout and gets his money s worth. a little lou piniella, a little billy martin. they have alter that rule. that is terrible. wait. you re telling me the new rule and a catcher can t block the plate? the rule was put that s why you knock them over! the rule was put in to prevent any more catchers going down with concussions. it s a sensible rule but it should be the umpire s judgment. clearly there was no threat to the catcher. that was a little swipe tag. wasn t like he was standing in front of the guy guy. why don t they put dresses on catchers. come on. they do have catcher cam. giants ran away with that game and won 7-1. we should tell you about a brand-new documentary title. the stars are aligned and takes a look at notable graduates from the s.e.c. schools and their favorite memories. although i said notable graduates, willie geist was interviewed about his alma mater vanderbilt history. the finest moment for vanderbilt football history was a game against tuscaloosa. our punter calls a fake punt. if it blows up, the game is over. we were so shell-shocked. we had a tyne pocket up in the corner of the stadium at tuscaloosa that we ran down the steps and ran back up and, for some reason, we had vanderbilt swagger and we were like, what is up now, alabama? yeah! vanderbilt swagger? now in those days to score a touched in tuscaloosa was big. you say that was the longest run in vanderbilt history? it was done by our punter on a fake punt. that is on the s.e.c. network which debuts today on espn. 9:00 tonight. that s right. stars a are aligned. still ahead the democrats make a big bet to the tune of 9 million bucks but will it be money well spent? a campaign under way to elect the dude. thousands of montana voters petition to get jeff bridges to run for the united states senate. we will have his response straight ahead. 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[ aniston ] because beautiful skin goes with everything. aveeno®. naturally beautiful results™. israeli and hamas are marking the longest cease-fire since their latest conflict began more than a month ago. overnight both sides agreed to a five day extension of the truce before it was set to conspire and sparking re newed hope that egypt will be able to negotiate a long-term deal. it appeared the agreement may not hold up. both sides reported violence before the extension was reached. israeli accusing hamas launching eight rockets into israeli. official in gaza reported a dozen air strikes and no casualties. this israeli/hamas showdown front page of wall street journal. mike was just talking about it. a stunning story that israeli outflanks the white house. while the white house is trying to tamp down military operations in gaza, the pentagon secretly sending israeli more armaments. the story is filled with all sorts of nuggets, too. including u.s. officials said mr. obama had a particularly combative phone call on wednesday with mr. netanyahu who they say that pushed the administration aside but wants it to provide israeli with security assurances in exchange for signing on to a long-term deal. unbelievable. with us to talk about this and the cease-fire from tel aviv, martin fletcher. it appears the cease-fire is holding, one, after a rocky start right before the deadline. secondly, this story is just absolutely fascinating that netanyahu doesn t end runaround arched the white house. reporter: israeli quickly denied by many unofficial sources saying that it s actually impossible in terms of the in terms of the how israeli gets its hands on the weapons. you know, america, the united states has a weapon stockpiles in israeli and they are in warehouses in israeli for any kind of strategic need, so when israel deems it necessary, they get permission. wall street journal report on specifically, in particular, was the hell-fire missiles which are air-to-ground rockets, laser guided or radar guided. very sophisticated weapons that penetrate armor. israeli apparently used enough of those fired mostly from apache helicopters to need resupplied. whether or not they did it according to in the way they are supposed to from an israeli point of view seems unlikely. how do you bypass the white house and state department? on the ground, the weapons depot in israeli who has charge over this? the israelis or american presence on the ground? you have to have a permission slip to get the weapons? you can t walk through the door and get what you want. you need to get permission from the united states and the former israeli ambassador to the united states who was saying this morning there were strict protocols and strict procedures to get your hands on those. having said that wall street journal seems to be very athorough tative and a hostility between the president obama and netanyahu. whatever the details are whether or not israeli got a hold of the weapons in the proper way the more worrying thing in the long term i believe is israeli s relationship with the white house at a time when israeli needs american help facing the worldwide hostile its to its activities in gaza to the horrific death toll. martin, thank you so much. we really appreciate it. we will be following this throughout the day and the hour to see if the cease-fire holds up. let s hope it does. still ahead on morning joe, hillary clinton and president obama bury the hatchet on martha s vineyard but is a hug enough to mend fences between the democrats biggest stars? joe klein is with us in a minute. plus, it s very disturbing. this one, wow. we will be right back. weird. we always have the right hotel, in the right place, at the right time. 12 brands. more hotels than anyone else in the world. like ramada, you do your thing, leave the rest to us. for a chance to win one million dollars, visit wyndhamrewards.com . create a better website at squarespace.com start your free trial today. 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. who s more excited about back to school savings at staples? the moms? or the dads? with guaranteed low prices on flash drives, it s definitely the dads. staples. make more happen for less. welcome back to morning joe. blinded by the light. a beautiful shot of something. i don t know, thank you, t.j. reagan national airport. ready to hear come all ye faithful no, it s beautiful. great. so, any way we are going to get to north carolina in a second. nick, you brought up a remarkable wall street journal story. the story of the day. talk about what you found there. they were trying to undercut the administration s position and kind of create a misperception about the cease-fire position of the white house to delay a cease-fire. basically lying about our position. who is the client state? are we allies here or what? it s just amazing. now we spy on each other an awful lot. i don t know. let s go to north carolina. senator kay hagan looking to run as the party looks to hang on to the committee that is launching 9.1 million dollar campaign in the race against republican. watch this. it s right there in black and white. house speaker tom tillis drew a bull s-eye on public schools cutting nearly $500 million. he sliced and diced education and creating chaos in our classrooms and hurting middle class families while giving tax breaks to yacht and jet owners. tom tillis. cutting our schools, giving breaks to the wealthy. the democrat irsenatorial campaign committee are responsible for the content of this advertising. he knows jet owners? the war on jet owners. a recent poll shows tillis with a one-point lead so they are tied over senator hagan. well within the margin of error. what is going on in this race, nick? money, money, money, money, money. a lot of outside money. $43 million in outside money in this race. more than what willie makes in a week. this $9 million is about a third of the democratic party s cash on hand for senate races. that s a huge bet. really? what is amazing is all of that money, the poll numbers really are not moving very much. it s basically where it was, like, six months ago. can you imagine if somebody spent $43 million in the tax ads? yet this race is locked in place and it s absolutely critical. over the past several cycles, we have learned talk about law of diminishing returns. the one thing the big donors said hold on we look back at history as joe suggests and not getting our return for that investment. if i was a small businessman putting my money on american politicians at the moment wouldn t be seen as a very good return. they are paying very close attention to these senate races and all of the people who run these big outside groups, karl rove, folks associated with the koch s, they have a huge amount on the line. they sell their donors we temper expectations this time and we can get definitely three or four senate seats but we can t promise seven senate seats because, last time, in 2012 they said we will get the majority and easy to win. everybody understands the stakes and everybody is much more sense is a tiesed how their money is being spent this cycle and how effective it s going to be. al hunt, $43 million in a north carolina senate race, that s insanity. joe, i remember 30 years ago, north carolina, early january, jesse helm and jim hunt tied. they spent a record sum and jesse helms won by one point. they didn t basically persuade any voters so i think what determines that race is they have come in and i think the koch brothers have spent $20 million down there and roughed up kay hagan some. i think what is going to determine that race will be whether the african-americans and others in north carolina are angry enough that turn out to vote and hire numbers and they usually do in off-year elections. a real roll of the dice of the democrats and it s going to be tough. you look at the states, al. north carolina, arkansas, alaska, kentucky, you can go on and on and on. there are so many close races this year. this is going to be a big democratic year even though nobody is predicting that. it could be a big republican year or it could be a draw right down the middle. there are some tight races out there and all of the polls seem to be very close. joe, i don t think it s going to be what they call a wave election because as unpopular as obama is and republican party just as unpopular but it doesn t mean the close races may not break one way or most of them. clearly if they break the republicans way they are going to win at least seven of those seats that they need to win. but it s the red states that you mentioned but it s also colorado and it s iowa. there s a good eight or ten races out there that have very close. al hunt, thank you very much. we will see you soon. thanks, al. thank you, guys. at the top of the hour, the military calls off the mission of refugees in iraq. joe is going to take the als ice bucket challenge as we freeze the water. you re enjoying that way too much. there is baby pool here which is something else entirely. we will be right back. unlimited cash back. 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? 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[ male announcer ] when you see everyone in america almost every day, you notice a few things. like the fact that you re pretty attached to these. ok, really attached. and that s alright. because we ll text you when your package is on the way. we re even expanding sunday package delivery. yes, sunday. at the u.s. postal service, our priority is.was. and always will be.you. our prior ty is.was. here i am. rock you like a hurricane fiber one now makes cookies. find them in the cookie aisle. you ll soon discover our mighty love are you going to hug it out with the president? absolutely! we are looking forward to it. going to be there tonight. is it a hard choice to call? no. in the book, we agreed and we are committed to the values and the interests and the security of our country together. we are disagreements as any partners and friends, as we are might very well have, but i m proud that i serve with him and for him and i m looking forward to seeing him tonight. welcome back to morning joe. so good to have you guys with us. on set, the bbc s katty kay and the new york times nick consofori and at the table with us is columnist for time magazine, joe klein and chief foreign affairs and host of andrea mitchell reports of msnbc, andrea mitchell. andrea, got a couple of questions for you. and the spokesman coming up for benjamin netanyahu and ask him about the article in wall street journal. i bet you will. joe klein, we saw hillary there hugging it out. we were talking a little earlier and get the details talking about earlier how anybody who knows hillary clinton, i like her a lot personally, but she puts on the political suit and she just seems so stiff, awkward and forced at times like yesterday. yes, like yesterday. it was just painful. it s been a painful situation. i think that she wittingly separated herself from the president, although i m not so sure that i agree with the positions she took in that interview, and it raises the question about how she is going to separate herself from another prominent democrat, her husband. right. that is going to be a much big problem for her. i don t know if she is on foreign policy issue. not on foreign policy, on wall street. on financial policy. that is going to be a far more central issue in a democratic primary. right. she is going to have to make a decision about whether she supports things like her husband refusing to regulate stock options. she has already been down on to goldman sachs. you re allowed to go to goldman sachs and take a position that they don t like. she went to goldman sachs and granted them absolution in her speech there. she said to wall street, we are not making you our enemy and that is the message they want to hear. they will accept some policy differences but they really don t want to be is on the wrong end of a stick and to be demonized. she has given them that and it s fascinating to watch as joe points out. let s go to martha s vineyard and get the details there actually what happened up there, katty. well, when the officials say that the obama s, we don t have the actual photo, the obama s and clintons sitting at the same table last night, earlier in the day former secretary of state clinton was looking forward to making the amends. it s not clear if that actual hug was involved. officials do say the obamas and clintons had a great time and danced to almost every song. we don t know if they danced together almost every song. despite the much publicized dispute the white house defended the decision to keep reporters away. i believe the president and secretary clinton have had hugs over the past few years and i m sure some have been caught on camera. i think this is a private gathering for someone s birthday so it s hard to bring you lovely people in. one of the articles is titled is this island big enough for clinton and obama? one writes her aides are making plain she has no intention of running for obama s third term. another section, david axleford, obama s former senior adviser and analyst for nbc news is quoted as saying, i don t understand why they are doing this. if i were her, i would be be so sparing with this she makes herself a candidate and a target why she would want to be out there so early is beyond me. david is free to tweet his will, joe klein, the other day, a jab at hillary. everybody is ganging up on barack obama right now. hillary is knocking him down. nothing to do with his approval ratings of course. according to this story another drag down knock out fight with him last week. let s go to that story, andrea mitchell. pretty remarkable. netanyahu and israelis went around the white house s back straight to the pentagon to get more weapons, at the same time, white house was asking netanyahu to draw down, and if you read into the article too, they were also misrepresenting america s position in negotiations p.m. this dispute obviously, getting uglier between the white house and the israeli. israeli and the white house are going to deny these kind of details but the fact is even from the very sanitized readouts that we have been given of recent conversations between the president and the prime minister, it is clear and certainly from what john kerry said in that caught on mike moment that he wasn t aware of when he was taping the sunday shows a couple of weeks ago, they are very concerned that the state department at the very top, kerry and the president, very concerned that israeli was not using what the white house feels is precision weapons in these densely populated areas. there is no question about that. these are american weapons and there are rules of engagement where we provide these weapons and furl all the way back into the 1980s with sharon in lebanon when cluster bombs were being used and talk in the reagan white house because american weapons are not supposed to be used offensively in inappropriate ways. there are rules of engagement in the munitions that we sell. so there is is a lack of a lack of confidence here, a lack of trust, and one of the things that was really overlooked in hillary clinton s interview with jeff goldberg is that she disagreed with president obama on iran, on the iran negotiations, and on israeli. if you read what she said about israeli, she is uncategorically supported of israeli in ways this president is not. let s go to israeli right now and from jerusalem, we have chief spokesman for the prime minister of israeli, mark. a great day for you to be with us. we are reading stories in the u.s. which i m sure you guys are reading as well in israeli talking about how at the same time the white house and the state department are asking israelis to draw down a bit in the offensive in gaza, that israeli was going around the white house s back and actually securing more weapons from the pentagon without their permission. what is israeli s response to those claims? the response is in the story. you know, there s no man closer to my prime minister, closer to benjamin netanyahu than our ambassador in washington ron durham. we have a close military-to-military relationship as you know. it s only natural that that sort of military request would go through our defense ministry of the pentagon. there is no one says that we violated procedure and no one can seriously claim that what we didn t dough was routine. it s simply how do you say it? it s a pile of sand not based on anything. so, mark, are you saying then this is more of a communication problem between the state department and the white house and the pentagon, instead of between the white house and israeli? my prime minister has been in office now, what is it? this his second and third term more than five years and parallels president obama s first and second term. i don t think there has been an israeli prime minister and an american president in recent history who have spent so much time working together. my prime minister respects president obama. i know that he s called the american support during this recent conflict in gaza and called that support terrific. the iron dome which was recently pushed through again, that is extra support for our missile defense system. we greatly appreciate and so i think a lot of these reports, they are wrong both in tone and in content. time magazine joe klein is bus and has a question. hey, mark, how are you? go ahead. we got 12-second delay. don t ask how the weather is. go! military-to-military, i understand. what about politician-to-politician? what can you tell us about this angry phone call between the prime minister and the president? and there is, as you know, a lot of precedent for this in this relationship. i think the word they used in the wall street journal was combative. i don t think that s a correct description of the conversation. obviously, i m not going to go into details of a conversation between the two leaders. those conversations have to remain discrete and that is the way it should be. i can only tell you that since this conflict in gaza started president obama has been hearth for israeli and condemned hamas behavior unequivocally. mark, there are lots of times you can point to instances where this relationship has clearly and publicly not been very good when prime minister netanyahu turned up in the oval office and lectured the president and when the vice president turned up your prime minister announced new settlements on the west bank. this is not an easy relationship and the relationship between israeli and the united states is suffering because of it. i disagree when you use the term lecture. i was there in the room. i don t think that was the situation and i think the situation when vice president biden visited was also a bit different. that s my interpretation. that s my impression and i was there on both occasions. i can say the following. i heard hillary clinton at the top of the hour saying as secretary of state she not always agreed with the president. that s natural. people have different opinions. people have different policies. people don t see eye-to-eye on every issue. fountain president and the secretary of state don t see eye-to-eye on every issue, is it is not illogical to president and prime minister of my country would agree on every issue? from the bbc, all of us know about the great alliance between churchill and they were allies and partners and anybody on who reads the history know the disagreements they had and also a policy issue. if i can put a bit of perspective on this, israeli and america are so close so whenever we have a disagreement it s front page news this time in the the wall street journal, but we agree on much more than we disagree and we work together very closely. we should have actually listened to the british a hell of a lot more in 1945. andrea mitchell? mark, what about the fact, though, that the weapons, american weapons are used in a way that this president does not appreciate, that this president really is offended by. it s very clear from all of the statements from the white house. how can israeli defend itself against rockets coming from gaza if the united states is so upset about the tactics that israeli is using? you know, over the last few days, andrea, american pilots have been flying combat missions in iraq against isis and they are trying to be as surgical as they can to stop isis from committing mass atrocities. both you and me know that sometimes bombs go astray and unintentionally and civilians get killed. we made a maximum effort we would we never targeted civilians, not once. but, mark, if you look at the situation in iraq many people think we are not doing enough because we are hitting artillery pens convoys out in the clear and letting isis gain ground like in mosul. what about the u.n. claims that there were 17 warnings or 30 warnings in one case about the particular school? can you address those? i can. israeli did not target u.n. facilities. i can say that unequivocally. i know they were shooting at us from a u.n. facility or shooting at us from the immediate facility of a u.n. facility and using that for shields of their terror machines. i know there was combat in the vicinity of u.n. facilities because hamas and the other terrorists turned those fa sillities arls naturals of missiles kept in the u.n. we didn t want to see that in the first place. mark, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. he is doing his job. he is doing his job. i m sure he is a good guy, but let s just say what has happened. this is a relationship that was fraught with problems and it has just got worse because obama has found that netanyahu is going around him to get weapons. i mean, you know, this has been a lousy relationship from day one. i think it s felt on both sides. obama spent his first term not going to israeli. he did. you see that poll 3% of, like, israeli people believe that he had their best interests or something. got off to a rocky start. that people in the clinton state department perhaps including the secretary herself were really pushing him to go to israeli. right. and to, you know, show a little love. he had been to cairo, made that important speech there. and there is resentment on both sides, i would say. i like how you defined it in the negative. he spent his first time not going to israeli. like i spent my four years in college not studying. let s bring in jim miklaszewski. jim, thank you so much for being with us. so help us out here. we just spoke with, obviously, mr. regev, netanyahu s chief spokesperson, who denies wall street journal report, which is pretty stunning. tell us, what are you hearing inside the pentagon? reporter: where this entire issue arose, people here at the pentagon were discussing it openly because, at the time, it was considered a pro forma exchange. these missions are forward located in a stockpile in israeli that are under the control of the u.s. government so that in an emergency, if the israeli government needs munitions in a hurry, it s there. but, jim, doesn t the commander in chief need to define what an emergency is and what an emergency is not doing? i mean, i m surprised that somebody at the pentagon, in a situation this political, you and i both know that the more stars are on a general s shoulders, the more political they are, the more politically astute most of them are. i m stunned they wouldn t pick up the phone saying, hey, we got this request from israeli. if that happened, personally, i don t know that it happened that way. but officials here, at the time, described it as a prearranged pro forma exchange between the u.s. and israeli in terms of providing them ammunition. can i tell you when we asked questions about it here at the time, there was nobody that was attempting to side-step the issue, doing the tap dance. they said, oh, yeah, we did it, blah, blah, and here it is. so i can t tell you if, in fact, there was anybody here at the pentagon that fs trying to undercut the state department or the white house. quite frankly, with the iron hand in which the white house rules this building, they don t sneeze here without waiting for the white house to say gezhuntite. for the minute i can t believe personally that people here at the pentagon were trying to purposely hide this transfer of munitio munitions. it calls into the phone call between the president and netanyahu. it calls into question why is the white house so ticked off about this at this point? if what jim says is true and i m sure it is, why is the white house making a show of being really angry? the president has been doing this an awful lot lately. he is really seemed cynical, not just about the press. he was born cynical about the press. and about the republicans, but about his own policymakers and just about everything. you re beginning to suspect this is one angry man. the wj say they have been getting ammunition from the pentagon without their approval of the white house. there is either an issue of communication or it s something more underhand and conspiratorial about this. there is something here that is the white house is not happy about. jim, we will end it with you. what it sounds like, listen to what you re saying and what the israelis are telling us this morning, it sounds like you had a pro forma exchange, at least the two parties are saying it s pro forma exchange, that the white house didn t know about maybe because they didn t know the procedure? i don t know. it just doesn t add up. reporter: an example how they operate on the foreign military exchanges and sales. normally, when we ask a question about it the standard response in this building is talk to the state department. right. okay. they know the rules. they know the routes in which this is supposed to take. i find it difficult to believe. it could happen. a rogue general sitting in an office somewhere and work hand in hand with the israelis but it just doesn t add up. mick, thank you. joe klein, thank you. what music are you listening to? who should i go see in brooklyn? who should you go see? i don t know. right now, i m just coming back and i don t know. i am going on a road trip in the fall and going through the south and listen to some great blues but also you owe me something. you told me you were going to take me to a major college football game. i m going take you to an alabama football game. this fall? roll tide, this fall and do music at the same time. we will do music at the same time. andrea, thank you for being with us. a great day to have you on here. we really appreciate it. andrea mitchell s report is on at noon. nick, thank you. thank you. good to have somebody else who has seen silicon valley. i just want to watch the ice getting dumped on you. it s coming at 8:45. plenty of madmen, things are look like pretty dark for don draper. we will talk to the show s creator matthew weiner. president obama says no u.s. combat troops in iraq but the special ops that were on the ground were definitely armed for battle. air force secretary debra lee james joins us next. bill karins will have an update on the flooding in the northeast. you re watching morning joe. we will be right back. ganncr: we took care of your back pain. you make him the mvp. tylenol is clinically proven to provide strong, fast pain relief. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol ahhh! what is it? there are no marshmallows in this box of lucky charms! huh. weird. seriously? what? they re magically delicious it can help your business save money. false. the truth is when you compare our fastest internet to the fastest dsl from the phone company, comcast business gives you more for your money. why pay more for less? call today for a low price on speeds up to 150mbps. and find out more about our two-year price guarantee. comcast business. built for business. for the fourth straight night, the streets of the st. louis suburb look more like a battlefield. police in full riot gear using tear gas to simmer the crowd. joining us now from ferguson, missouri, nbc ron allen. reporter: good morning, mike. this is a piece of one of the munitions that the police were firing, a gas canister. we found it here. the tear gas was so intense, you can still smell and feel it in the grass and in the air here, slightly irritating to eyes. many people aren t surprised that this happened because they say that the level of hostility between the police and protesters demanding justice for michael brown and his family seems to grow deeper every day. for a fourth straight night, intense clashes turn the streets of an american city into a battlefield. tear gas sending hundreds of people fleeing for safety. dozens of heavily armed police s.w.a.t. teams, military style vehicles, enforcing an order banning large gatherings after dark. police say they responded with tear gas when bottles and molotov cocktails were thrown at them. it had all started peacefully. demonstrators marching through the neighborhood where michael brown was shot and killed by a police officer. some weapons pointed at the crowd. you re subject to arrest if you do not leave the area peacefully j a man on crutches was removed by officers and this woman apparently got too close. we want peace and unity. we want to partner with the police to find out what happened and to bring justice for mike brown. reporter: police have insisted their tactics of recent days were necessary because of what they faced. the officers from area departments have been subject to assaults with rocks, bottles, an even gunfire directed at them. reporter: now some reporters also claim the police were heavy-handed forcing them to leave a mcdonald s where they were writing stories near the protests. slammed into a soda machine. grabbed my bag and my phone. and put me in temporary restraints. what do we want? justice! reporter: with the investigation into brown s killing expected to take weeks and residents demanding murder charges against the officer who allegedly shot him, many here fear still more confrontation. police say they made ten arrests last night and in this area, there s so much violence that the fear of it, that the schools are closed to children today, about a thousand affected. meanwhile, the police are trying to set up a meeting with the brown family as they try to do everything possible to try to calm the situation down. joe? ron, thank you so much. wow. it s extraordinary that that is happening in this country. we are going to keep following that throughout the day. turning now to news overseas. the u.s. mission to help iraq rescue thousands of refugees. debra lee james is with us. madam secretary, what a day to have you here. there s been so much bad news. we wake up every morning really early and scan through the news. it s all bad. this morning, it was like a ray of sunshine just because you never have good news. this morning, the good news came in the form of wire reports saying that actually what we re doing, what a lot of your people are doing over in iraq actually is easing the humanitarian crisis there. tels us about it. you re absolute right, joe. first of all, thank you for having me on the program today. you re right. overnight the news seems much, much better coming out of iraq and i think the key takeaway is that our humanitarian assistance and the limited air strikes that were ordered by the president are actually working. freed up the blockade, right, or the siege? so we and the u.s. air force, for example, have been able to deliver more than a hundred thousand meals ready to eat as well as 27,000 gallons of fresh water and the limited air strikes have allowed some of the people trapped in the mountain to get off of that mountain so this is all good news. madam secretary, most people read the newspapers and they see this and say that is great, look what we do, we are great and we are great, the united states of america is great. but the logistics behind a delivery like this, the daily drops of food and water has to be enormous. where are these flights emanating from? as you point out there s a lot of work in the back office so to speak of our military to produce the type of operations that we see going on around the world. the key thing about mobility and that is the c-17s and c-130s that delivered this needed food and water is that they can emanate from any part of the world. they can come from the united states, they can come from europe and elsewhere in the area of responsibility. the key thing we have assets to be able to refuel and to be able tote go our people out safely to provide that protection and to get that needed humanitarian shi assistance in there. madam secretary, i don t want to be the voice of gloom. you re british. why we have you on the set. isis is trying to control this region and given the chance they will probably try the thousands of people stuck on the mountain. this effort is not over for the united states or the europeans that are joining you. how do you carry on both with the humanitarian aid and the strikes against is circumstances to try to stop them from going back into the cities and villages where they are committing genocide against these people? the president has said this is not likely a short-term operation. first of all, later ask you why you re here before you go. 22,000. hi no idea. 22,000 air force personnel in new york? joe, i am here because of our people, our airmen. as you say, we have 22,000 airmen who either work in new york or who hail from new york. so just yesterday, i had had the opportunity to visit with our air national guard at our base and met with some terrific bronze star winners. they are combat rescue men to so these are people who rescue those on the battlefield. later on today i ll be going to rome labs for cybersecurity and the future of command and control and communications. we in the air force love new york. and from my friends at home in northwest florida, you also love? we love eglin weair force ba. thank you for joining us. thank you very much. coming up next, two years after sandy, long island got smashed by another record storm and this time, some flooding there was even worse. bill karins joins us for that. up next, things get weird with louis. this is bad. they made me say it. i don t know. we will be right back on morning joe. i dbefore i dosearch any projects on my home. i love my contractor, and i am so thankful to angie s list for bringing us together. find out why more than two million members count on angie s list. angie s list reviews you can trust. i m spending too much timer our calhiringer. and not enough time in my kitchen. need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web s leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter.com/offer99. 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. scarborough country music comes in again. when it comes to politics, does the dude abide? let s go to our louis bergdorf. i m louis bergdorf. faster unseat belts because it s about to get holly weird. we will use any excuse to show you justin bieber s mug shot from last sun. he accepted a guilty plea of careless driving and resisting arrest with that infamous miami arrest. he made a donation for a youth charity and take a course in angry management. that ought to do the trick. martin hasn t finished writing the books to his wildly popular series but he says fans have suggested the ending. martin said, quote. at least one or two of the readers put together the clues i had planted in the books and came to the right solution. you re going to pay to answer those phones and get that coffee. you re finished. go. the weinstein company run by harvey weinstein is offering wide-eyed hollywood hopefuls an opportunity to get their foot in the gor a medoor with a mere fi figures. the dude for senate? that is exactly what thousands of people from montana are calling for in on online petition urging jeff bridges to make a run after embattled john walsh backed out of the race. they call bridges the only candidate you can post pictures of him naked and smoking pot and it wouldn t affect him. bridges told howard stern his week that his wife nicks the idea. i m unemployed. joe, the dude does not abide. back to you. the dude does not abide. i would like to see the dude run. he can just keep saying, that s just your opinion, man. that would be pretty good. yeah. so you were the reporters in mcdonald s? yeah. you think the cops did everything the wrong way? i think the clip that we showed earlier is evidence of how not to police, how not to police. i don t think the reporters necessarily moved fast enough and if i had been told by the cops waving a gun to move along i would have moved along before they got to the end of the sentence because that is me and i would want to do what they said. i think what they did after slam ago reporter under a soda fountain. was that on video? nobody. the guy talks about it. we need video cameras on cops. it also gets into, joe, another aspect we have talked about this earlier, and other programs, the increasing militarization of police departments in towns. hard to figure out how they could handled this worse from the very beginning. they look like they are in the middle of ukraine instead of in the middle of america. how do you trespass in a mcdonald s? i don t know what was going on, mike, all right? i m only paid to be here. that s why i m here every day 365 days of the year. that s true. whether the little red light is over that camera or not. you should take a break once in a while. i will not do it. this is my home. i ve got no life. outside of this. it s a grim existence. coming up next, the end of an era. we will ask matthew weiner about the madmen finale and a few other things to discuss when he joins us next on morning joe. moderate to severe is tough, but i ve managed. i got to be pretty good at managing my symptoms, except that managing my symptoms was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said my crohn s was not under control. he said humira is for adults like me who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn s disease. and that in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief. and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. if you re still just managing your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. hey there, i just got my bill, and i see that it includes my fico® credit score. yup, you get it free each month to help you avoid surprises with your credit. good. i hate surprises. surprise! at discover, we treat you like you d treat you. get the it card and see your fico® credit score. you sure i don t have to go in and talk to anyone? no. i have the note. happy valentine s day. i love you. what an incredible scene. i thought one of the more telling scenes of this past season. matthew weiner is with us. his emmy award tv work from madmen and writing to producing the sopranos. now behind the lens as director of a new movie are you here. take a look. let s get things started with a little shot of the harbor and some sea gulls enjoying the sunshine. how are you doing there, fellows? today s high will get up to about 65 degrees with unlimited visibility which means if we could get this knuckle head out of the way you could see down to the ocean city. clearest spot of the nation? that honor goes to bismarck. smooth as silk. seems like you on this is the hottest and wettest spot in the nation and i guess that makes it the number one destination for teenage boys. hey, victoria? i guess so, steve. oh, my gosh. back to you. back to you! matthew, we go back a long way, my friend. a long way. thank you very much for your maybe our earliest supporter of the show. i guess you had basically cable back then. i had basic cable and immediately called every to amc and i sat there and just watched it. talk about binge watching. let s talk about the movie first and then to madmen. tell us about it. that looks hilarious. it s kind of the first thing i wrote after madmen. i wrote the pilot for that and then wrote it right afterwards. it s sort of a it plays a little bit on the way that we feel like we re in a movie at some point. zach and owen play best friends. i think they think they are liverg living in a stoe stoner comedy they are in their 40s and it was a chance to play with the idea of like what holds a friendship together. tell me, because i ve watched the internship like during my vacation 70 times on hbo. what is it about owen wilson? so funny. i love owen wilson. what is it about that man on screen that makes everybody love him? i wrote the movie for him. did you? one of the thing that was kind of fun about it this plays with his on-screen persona because he is similar character. . he is a little wasted and has problems with authority and he is unreliable but he also, it sort of becomes a story about, like, what happens if that guy has to, like, look at himself in the mirror? what is going on underneath that? the thing i love about owen is he has this warmth. he has kind of like bill murray glibness to him which i love. he does. but he is also really an actor and i think a little bit of sensitivity to him underneath it and he is super smart and i think goes against the entire character he is playing. can you script zach? zach is a real actor and he learned his lines. no, i want people to know that. you don t need to script him to some degree. he radiates a kind of warmth and he is just like a really nice guy. we shot in north carolina, which is where he is from. he was he s just a lot of fun. it s exactly what you would want it to be. in the description you gave of owen and the fact you had him in mind for this part and you wrote it for him and then the description that you give maybe not a director s dream in terms of putting a guy that could be a little dry? that is his character. that is his character, you know? but he can take direction? he had an oscar nomination for writing. i don t. he is really smart. and so he s playing a person so he is thoughtful about it. but there is something he does with the silence and something about him being able both of these characters a lot of this movie is about telling the truth and both of these characters, especially owen s character says exactly what is going on in the in a moment most matter how incredibly awkward it is. you see that. he gets away with it. i don t even know what that quality is. i don t know if it s, you know, a childhood thing, adaption thing but there is a mystery about stardom and what people, talk about characters popping or actors getting in the screen and what they give off. i don t know. for me, he s always in this, like, a little bit of thought under neath all of that and a little bit of sadness. the movie has like this sort of change of tone and i think you will see that owen and zach are doing things they have both never done before. let s talk about madmen. it was a little darker this past season. i said it reminded me of watching let it be. the documentary you have all of these people you love but it seems to be surrounded by, what, a lot of sadness. yes. but it s also a story of triumph. yes. this is the whole thing about telling a story. there is going to be 92 hours of this thing when it s done. one of the things you want to do is not repeat yourself. you wano is not repeat yourself but you don t want to mix it up to keep it interesting. part of it is to sort of take the next step in his life. the previous season he had ruined his life. it was the story of 1968, it was also the story of don falling apart. his daughter found out that he was having an affair, his drinking was out of control and how ironic don didn t get in trouble when he was lying. he only got in trouble when he was telling the truth and that was when we had that wonderful scene with sally at the end, who s just an extraordinary actress. but he asked why she had gotten fired after he kept it from her and he said basically because i told the truth. yes. at the wrong time. not great parenting probably to share that with your kid but she knows a lot of things about him that we don t know about our parents, hopefully. and the story last season was kind of him working his way up inside his own business and kind of saying, well, you re waiting for him to self-destruct. you re waiting for him to act on his impulses and blow it like he always does. you re waiting for him to be selfish, and you re hoping that he can repair his relationship with peggy. telling that story, when we did that episode in particular with sally, which was directed by mike uppendahl. you re like he has to tell the truth to her, treat her like an adult. she knows everything about him. and that scene at the end which is every parent s dream. we were saying like don draper, a lot of his life is about his horrible childhood. he has just learned that you really got to work a lot harder to lose the love of your kids. every time the show can have a genuine earned emotion, i think it distinguishes it. i think it distinguishes it from the kind of liker for formulaic stuff. i just want to show one more scene. i m sorry, we re way over. i don t care. you don t have the scene? why don t you yes. which one. i think you can, question authority. i think one of the more do you have it? okay, play it. let s get things started no, come on. t.j., you suck. you did that on purpose. show me show me the one. do you have that one? here we go. here s one of the more telling scenes i think. i want you to tell me about it, go, t.j. you said you didn t know what was going on. this beatles album, start with this one. have fun. don draper in a world he doesn t understand anymore. he is a sinatra man, not a beatles man. i think everybody was a beatles person. this, like a lot of the stories on the show, was something somebody told me. and the guy told me this amazing story that he and his father, they had a lot of battles, but they both loved the beatles. and then revolver came out and they listened to the album and his father just said i don t get this anymore. and to me it was like don is not does not want to be part of that. it s not just it s definitely part of the thing about it being a sinatra thing but that s one of the interesting things about this period and about the show. we did my way last year. my way is a number one song in 1969. i don t know that everybody is a sinatra man or beatles man or the jefferson airplane. there is a subversive streak in the united states. there s also an openness that goes with it. and you see something where our perception of what it was like is not it s like it is now, you know. if you want to, you can keep up with things. my dad real emotion wins out. i became a huge beatles fan because my dad had every album up until revolver. so you tell that story, yeah, he didn t understand anymore. listen, we re excited. thank you for being with us, matthew. thank you. and the movie is are you here. it debuts next friday, august 22nd, in theaters. i m sure we will all be there to see that. thanks so much. what happens at the end? let me tell you. hold on. hold it right there. we ll get it right after break. you re watching morning joe. we ll be right back. start a team. join a team. walk to end alzheimer s. visit alz.org/walk today. 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don t wait ask your doctor about we ve got dr. jeffrey sachs, he isn t giving hillary clinton a free pass on foreign policy. why he says she s pushing for a mindless call for more war. plus leigh gallagher on who s topping the list of the 100 fastest growing companies. plus record-shattering rain leaves drivers stranded and the threat is not over yet. bill karins will be here to check on the forecast. also, i am going to get dunked in very cold icy water. 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. dad: he s our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don t know exactly. kid: what if you re not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it doesn t work that way. kid: why not? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? wealth management at charles schwab thousands of yezidis have spent ten days looking death in the face. while the white house has insisted that u.s. troops would not be put back into a combat role in america american military forces were on the ground today in the middle of a combat zone. the heavily armed green berets were there to assess what it take to put together a rescue operation. the question is whether american forces will get drawn into a direct slash with the militants of the islamic state. after dark it does get a little dangerous. for the third straight night the streets of ferguson looked like a battlefield. tear gas has been filling the air and bullets of lighting up the night. two reporters in ferguson, missouri, were arrested by ferguson police. evidently i was not moving quickly enough. i m ready to take my kids and i m ready to go. it s scary. are you going to hug it out with the president? absolutely. at an event in martha s vineya vineyard, it s getting a lot more attention than it might have. since clinton criticized her former boss in a magazine interview. we had any disagreement as partners and friends and i m looking forward to seeing him tonight. she still seems so insincere. harry reid said what you re doing is a political stunt. we will do what we have to do in the state of texas to protect our citizens. harry reid needs to try that on. yes, sir. all right. welcome back to morning joe. great to have you back with us. do we have the clock, t.j., are are you going to screw that one up too? i have it. do you want to put it up there? oh, look at that. so there s the 50 minutes till i think i get in there and get ice water dumped on me, all for a good cause. this is mika s daughter amelia and graham. they re going to dump, i guess, ice on mika s head too. it s the last thing she s going to do before going off to college. she gets one last shot at her mom. that s good. it s good to end your 18 years at home. it s a good negotiation tactic for the allowance discussion. i think so. with us on set we have fortune magazine s assistant editor leigh gallagher. also the director of the earth institute at columbia university, dr. jeffrey sachs who, wow, hillary clinton s foreign policy deception. we re going to be talking about that in just one second. first, parts of the mid-atlantic and northeast are cleaning up and drying out after heavy rain sparked flooding across several states. yeah, the hardest hit area appeared to be long island where islip, new york, saw a record amount of rain. 13.57 inches. that is a lot in under 24 hours. it s more than the region typically receives all summer long. let s go to bill karins for more on this horrendous wet weather. bill? this 13.5 inches of rain, guys, is not just a daily record or monthly record, we re talking an all-time new york state weather. think how long weather records go back in new york state, back to the 1800s. no single location has ever recorded 13 inches of rain in 24 hours before. think of all the hurricanes that have hit, the nor easters and all the big thunderstorms. this was the most rain ever. so islip, new york, the new record holder at 13.57 inches of rain in 24 hours. the old record, by the way, was only set two years ago when hurricane irene went through, about three years ago and that was in tannersville, new york, at 11.5 inches of rain. where else did we get drenched? maryland saw 10 inches. what s amazing about this storm, a little bit of a head scratcher with our weather extremes is that so many locations saw flash flooding. this wasn t a hurricane, this wasn t a tropical storm. this is new pictures coming in from last night all the way up in portland, maine. they picked up 6.5 inches of rain from that same storm. that s as much rain as they would typically get in three months in portland, maine, during the summer. you can see this just adds to the hundreds of vehicles that were swamped up and down the east coast. other areas, of course two days ago in baltimore, three days ago in detroit, all from the same storm system. thankfully it s gone and we don t have to deal with it ever again but we have to deal with its aftermath for a while there. still some power outages and a lot of water waiting to recede, especially for those areas around long island and islip. greatly appreciate it. glad that has passed. we re actually going to have a nice weekend up here, going to feel like fall. so let s go from long island to iraq. obviously. obviously that s the next step. there are strong signals in iraq that the u.s. will not launch a rescue operation for those displaced civilians. a team spent 24 hours on top of mt. sinjar where waves of refugees fled from islamic militants. the pentagon said several thousand refugees are still there but far fewer than reported a week ago. ongoing u.s. air strikes have allowed many to escape. defense secretary chuck hagel says it is far less likely that an evacuation mission will be needed. meanwhile prime minister nouri al maliki is striking a defiant tone. he might as well be talking to a wall. i think he thought iran would help him but they have ditched him to. the u.s. as undercut him, the military has undercut him, now he s going to the courts? he does have these militias and special forces and military who are loyal to him, so could he try and get them out on the streets again? politically, it looks like he s over. we ll see. jeffrey, boy, this is seems to be a much tougher call. you know, we ve been against military intervention in a lot of been together since 2008, 2009 on a lot of issues like this. how do we respond, though, to the growing isis threat without trying to get a group of nations together to work with us to stop the spread of isis? well, the first thing is we understand it. what is it? well, it is very radical, obviously very murderous group but it emerged in the context of our syria policy. our syria policy was to destabilize the syrian government. this opened up space for every kind of horror, including the isis horror. so every time we intervene we have an anti-midas touch from libya, searia, iraq. we destabilized the whole region. we destabilized syria and then it falls to pieces, isis grows out of that. are you on hillary s side, are you on the president s side that we should have gone into syria earlier? barack obama says it s fantasy that if we went into syria earlier we could have actually done something to stop the killing of over 100,000 syrians. what do you think? we went into syria. it s been hidden from the american people by and large. we don t know how far in syria we are and have been. there s been lots of secret weapons moving, lots of secret money moving, lots of publicly announced money moving. we re in syria. we have succeeded, in quotation marks, in destabilizing a region and now there are the same way we were in bosnia, by the way. we got in enough to create a complete disaster. you ve established that. so we all agree. yeah. let s agree for argument s sake that we created the disaster. we re one of the parties and we contributed to it. so what do we do after that? what do we do now? what do we do moving forward with isis? i think you re correct that a number of governments have a critical stake in isis not being this murderous group that it is. where are they? where s turkey? where s germany? we have something called the united nations. that s a good place to start. instead of us just taking this on unilaterally, once again making the incredible kind of mess that we keep making, let s try to find a real solution that actually speaks to the interests of the neighboring countries. where are our european allies? they seem to be on a vacation from history. everybody has just assumed that the united states is going to clean up messes across the globe and when we go too far, they turn around and attack us for trying to clean up messes around the globe. why can t we drag the germans, why can t we drag the e.u. and drag other people who have more of a stake in curbing isis than do we? i think one of the things we have to remember is that many times the europeans have said stop, you re about to step into a land mine, like in iraq in 2003. they told us absolutely right, don t do that. we said what are you, cowards, pacifists and so forth and we ended up creating a disaster. it s 2014 now, jeffrey. well, i m saying we have a pattern now repeatedly in iraq, in syria, in libya that has destabilized now an entire region. it s incredible to read the interview with president obama where he says, well, yes, we overthrew gadhafi. we didn t think very much about what would come next. are you kidding? how can you say that in 2011 when we saw the experience in 2003. so the instability across the middle east is all the united states doing? no, no. it s just that we are so not smart in what we re doing, it s unbelievable. did you ever see team america? i haven t. you should see it. jeffrey, you write about hillary clinton s foreign policy deception and hillary may want to walk away from this mess but she can t. t of course the u.s. is not the only failure in this story, there s failure galore among all participants. yet with all of the urgent issues the world faces, fighting diseases, climate change, extreme poverty, high unemployment, widespread illiteracy, our political leaders have doubled down on war, including clinton s tough talk. most of us are utterly tired of the mindless call for more war that is leading the world deeper into despair. there s no doubt that this country is war weary and nearly bankrupt because of our expenditures in various wars. but with regard to this particular region and this particular group, katty, is it not the case this is the saudi duplicity, egyptian duplicity and even iranian duplicity, they are all our natural allies in this fight against the growing threat of isis. and there s been a stunning silence from around the region. from the qataris who were supporting them in syria as militant extremists. you haven t heard much from the iranians and the saudis. the only way that the situation is going to get resolved in iraq at the moment, the only chance we have of really rolling back isis and making this an organization that is no longer a real national security threat to the united states and to europe is by getting a political regional solution from those countries. bravo. this is exactly right. we can t do this. this is not the u.s. job. and i think when joe, to your point when it was about syria, i do think actually there was much more pressure in europe from politicians the french and the british. and britain too to get involved at that stage, to get involved earlier on in the syrian operation. but iraq is still seen as america s problem. it really is. and you re right, isis constitutes a threat to europe as well. there are fighters there from europe as well, but iraq is seen as america s problem. joe, we sat at this table when president obama and hillary clinton said assad must go. i remember saying to you, what? what are they talking about? how are they going to do it? what s going to happen? mubarak must go, assad must go, gadhafi must go. we talked about it and said you can t make a statement like this and think things are going to come out roses and here we are. they don t think. one of the big issues here that hasn t received the headlines that it ought to receive because of the ongoing conflict with isis on an everyday basis is jordan. if isis manages to control part of jordan or overthrow the jordanian government, which is very tenuous to begin with, think of israel, its next-door neighbor. what s going on in gaza is going to look like a day at the beach. and the thing is, yes, we started this in 2003. the reason i said it s 2014. we ve got to deal with it now. the europeans have to deal with it. the saudis have to deal with it. qatar would have to deal with it but they re at the root cause of so many problems across the middle east it s stunning what they get away with and why more people don t trace what they re doing with terrorist groups across the middle east. i m not sure why they get a free ride on that. but yeah, the saudis, for god sake, why aren t the saudis doing more? and you said the crucial word, political. not military. you said it needs a political settlement. jeffrey, you write in the arab spring in 2011 we were got wholly flat-footed. our policy has been completely reactive. why do you think that is? because nobody in washington is paying attention to on the ground. we just look at these countries only for what they mean for us in the most reactive way, oil, for example. or, you know, some immediate thank god we re going to get a lot more oil in america, huh, jeffrey? yeah, this is it s unbelievable. we ve just not paid attention for years. we don t have a feel on the ground. when you re there, i travel in these countries all the time, you see a lot that isn t reflected in washington at all. then when something happens, boom, war. overthrow them. that s what we do. jeffrey sachs, we ve missed you. happy to be back. come back more. i will. what are they saying about morning joe in sub-saharan africa. they love it. at the vatican, the pope, everywhere. you say wherever you go it s unbelievable. we ve heard this obviously from egypt i can be any place in the world. hey, i saw you last week on morning joe. i was in ethiopia, i was in row wanda, just hearing it everywhere. isn t that crazy? i know i m ironic a lot of times, but here we hear this all the time. world leaders from across the globe actually watch this show. jeffrey came back and he said, you know, i even get it at sub-saharan africa. no question. it s crazy. do they watch it on their phones? everywhere. they tweet it out,in incredible. coming up on morning joe why the pope means business. how pope francis is fixing the finances. plus i always thought bobby jindal and i are on good terms. we ll show you why i m starting to question that assumption. they re going to dump some ice on me and mika s daughter, dear, dear amelia, is going to spend her last moments dumping ice on her mother. a surprise visit from morning mika straight ahead on morning joe. it s time to bring it out in the open. it s time to drop your pants for underwareness, a cause to support the over 65 million people who may need depend underwear. show them they re not alone and show off a pair of depend. because wearing a different kind of underwear, is no big deal. join us. support the cause and get a free sample of depend at underwareness.com fancy feast broths. they re irresistabowl. completely unbelievabowl. totally delectabowl. real silky smooth or creamy broths. everything she s been waiting for. carefully crafted with real seafood, real veggies, and never any by-products or fillers. wow! being a cat just got more enjoyabowl. fancy feast broths. wow served daily. mom usually throws a gogurt in there. well mom s not here today so we re doing things dad s way. which means i get. two. 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that was a scene from the 1994 movie about how quickly business can take off. the latest issue of fortune magazine looks at the fastest growing companies. leigh is here to take us through that. also we ve got ceo and editor in chief of business insider henry blodget. thanks for having me. first of all, this guy is turning over the tables in the temple. unbelievable. he is making a lot of people in vatican city nervous. tell us about your story about the holy reformer. sure. well, we ve all seen in the past 18 months what pope francis has done. the francis effect, the 4.3 million twitter followers, the way he has completely re-energized the catholic church. we made him our number one world s greatest leader a few months ago because of that reason. but what a lot of people don t know and what s lost in this story is that he is actually an incredibly savvy manager. and what he s done, he has gutted the way the vatican does business, the way it manages and in particular rearranged its finances soup to nuts. the cardinals never saw this coming? they never did. he replaced old guard cardinals. he brought people in from ernst & young. you re kidding. no. he knows how to bring in the right leaders under him and motivate them to get the job done. as a result, it s just being completely transformed. there had been a level of corruption and secrecy in the vatican bank that was historic. and dealing with that bureaucracy would have to have been mind boggling. yes. in fact before he was named pope, he was a long-time critic of the way the vatican did business. the inside dealings, bids go to friends of the church and no competitive bids, an insular way of doing business, which is not a good way of doing business for many reasons. he s got this elite managerial skill set that i think is something people have no idea, for all the other things that he s done that we know about. he also knows a lot more about economics than most economists. he understands actually what s wrong with the world economy. we have this incredibly growing inequality gap. what even people in the united states don t understand is the wages that you pay to people who work for you are revenue for everybody else. we are now obsessed with profitability, maxing it out. we ve got to start actually paying our folks more. that s one of the messages he s preaching. absolutely. and he says that you can t he can t meet his bigger need, which is helping the poor around the world, help get needy is his biggest mission. you can t do that unless your books are in order and that s also something new. let s go to the fastest growing companies. sure. i m glad henry is here. i m going to ask henry some questions about this as well but let s talk about the fastest-growing companies. this is a list we do every year and we rank them on profit, revenue and stock growth over the past three years. this is who s hot in sort of the recent past. what s interesting this year is a full quarter of the companies are involved in shale oil and natural gas. so a fourth of these companies are either refining, delivering, servicing, selling, discovering, so it s really a metric of what s hot in our country. does one company stand out? no. there are probably a lot you haven t heard of. number one is actually a pharmaceutical company that s developed an anti-inflammatory drug so that s always an yar where we see a lot of growth. i just heard a funny term this week, hopium for pharmaceuticals. hunger games very good for liongate entertainment. toll brothers has really risen a lulu lemon is on here. apple still? apple is still there. henry, let me ask you, you look at the bubble in 99, 2000, you look at the housing bubbles. when you look through these lists, how do we sort through the pets.com versus the apples versus the microsofts. there are pockets of incredible opportunity. energy, the united states has a huge energy boom which is driving a lot of job growth, it s been very good for reducing dependence on the middle east and so forth and a lot are in there, but it seems to be relatively widespread right now. part of the issue in the 1990s was it was centered on technology and housing, everything was tied directly to housing. now it seems to be relatively diversified. so you mentioned income inequality which is a staggering problem we have to confront in this country, but how do we get through the mindset, you get these big corporations and they announce we laid off 10% of our workforce and their stock goes up. you have to ultimately focus people on the longer term, which is that if we keep destroying the american consumer by reducing costs to the absolute minimum we can pay people, you re ultimately destroying the buyers of your products. the reason our economy has been so strong since 1950 is that we had a very well off middle class that could support every company. if we gut it, and we re continuing to do that, there s no revenue for other companies and ultimately the economy just breaks down. if you really want to get somewhere, you can try appealing to fairness. maybe share a little bit more of the wealth that the company creates with the people who create it. if that doesn t work, appeal to long-term greed which is companies will grow a lot faster if you put more of what you re making back into the economy with wages. henry ford famously figured this out over a century ago. his employees were customers, so pay them well. exactly. great points. leigh, this is great. holy reformer on the cover. thanks for being with us. thanks. coming up, what s the next best thing to creating your own internet startup? investing in one just as it gets off the ground. one of the top ceos joins us on the web on morning joe. plus, you invite someone on the show and how do they repay you? by publicly coercing you to dump a bucket of ice on your head. look, the tarp is coming out, mike. obviously it s going to be wet around here. rain delay. bobby jindal, thanks so much, buddy. we ll be back with more morning joe. so ally bank really has no hidden fees on savings accounts? that s right. 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. [ male announcer ] when you see everyone in america almost every day, you notice a few things. like the fact that you re pretty attached to these. ok, really attached. and that s alright. because we ll text you when your package is on the way. we re even expanding sunday package delivery. yes, sunday. at the u.s. postal service, our priority is.was. and always will be.you. our priority is.was. 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. with us now the co-founder and ceo of benovos inc., andy dunn. thank you so much for being with us. thanks for having me. we were talking about a lot of different companies that were growing fast in the last segment, but you obviously, you re the founder of red swan ventures. consumer products and the way they re being sold is changing pretty radically. well, that s what s exciting about new york right now is you ve got technology enabling the transformation of industries like retail. right. where not much has changed since the invention of the automobile. with the development of the internet and the smartphone, our belief was you re able to build a brand with the internet at its core. so we took these great-fitting pants and said let s deliver a digital model where we can deliver not only great clothes but great customer service. that was 2007. people said you can t build a brand with the internet as its core. we said not only do we think we can but we re going to offer better product and service as a result and now you see companies, transforming eyewear and harry s transforming razors so it s not just about us. so here s the friction here. obviously a great idea for people that don t have tons of money, have a great idea, they can go out and have the internet as their core. stores, you don t have to hire thousands of people. and so there s a good side to that. but the bad side of it is, again, that you have less people working in retail. how do we strike that balance moving forward? well, hopefully they are paying the people who are working for them well and the people who are no longer working in retail can either work for companies like yours or can create new companies. the economy is always transitioned. we used to be a farming economy, then it was a heavy industrial economy. jobs have always been created as long as people are creative. the point is, the goal shouldn t be to pay the people who create the value as little as you possibly can. it should be to share the value with them. talk about the boston store. mike was asking about the boston store. talk about that, if you will, because it s fascinating how your operation works. well, one of the things in responding to henry s point tying to the store that we found to be exciting is actually sharing the ownership with the company. so most of the time in retail what you do is you say we re going to hoard all the profits and you ve got the employee peons. we flipped the script and said let s make everyone in the company owners. so coming back to our guide shops, we ve got ten now. boston, chicago, san francisco, all these places. the managers are equity owners in the company. same for our customer service ninjas, which is our customer service team. most people are talking about running customer service on the other side of the planet, we re running it here in new york city. if you want to offer great service, you have to make the people who are providing that service, in case the ninjas and the guides, you have to make them owners of the company. but what happens in the store, to joe s point? our stores we think are a revelation. we think this is the future. you come in, you get an amazing customer service experience. a great one-to-one interaction. you come in, you have an appointment, you try stuff on, you touch and feel the product but the whole thing is guided. so you re getting great-fitting product but awesome style advice as well. at the end of your time with us, we place an e-commerce transaction which fulfills through the mail. so you take all this inventory out of the store and that enables you to focus on just great human interactions in the store. i think apple was the pioneer of this with the genius bar. you were talking about lululemon earlier. they re great at offering a great experience in stores. i think stores are just changing into more experienced and customer service. you are hiring people in your stores. this is not just online only. you re actually hiring giving people real jobs and some of the you have a venture capital firm that you started and is investing in similar companies. one of those companies is task rabbit, which is a great counter argument and making another point what henry said is that a lot of these new companies are giving people new ways to work. this outsources tasks. i need a dress to be picked up, i can t get out of the office. you hire someone to do it and they bid on it. now they changed the model a little bit. so they do your task for you. they are students or part-timers and they are finding new ways to is there an app for this? yes. did you get reviews on this? look it up. it s the future. i ve got to get out of 1979 and get the 8 track tape away. get yourself a cell phone. these are pretty cool, you should get one. i ll try one of those things. try an app. an app? yeah, a-p-p. what s that? i m just going to go home and watch my beta max. this is fascinating, aebd. are you wearing our clothes? not just our pants anymore. shirts, jackets, we re seeing huge growth in suits and blazers and button down shirts. all right. fantastic. greatly appreciate you coming. andy dunn, thank you so much. you can log on to afternoonmojo.msnbc.com to hear more about andy in our exclusive web interview. henry, great to have you on, greatly appreciate it. coming up next, for the governor of a warm weather state, bobby jindal has a cool, cool sense of humor. we ll explain what i mean next on morning joe. 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? 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is it some past criticisms that we may have had about your esteemed office or being an alabama fan? why are you picking on me, man? why are you picking on me? joe, i ve never been more popular with your staff and your producers. they were so excited when i did this. you know, look, as an alabama fan, you guys aren t going to be able to do a gatorade shower later this season when we beat you. look at this, lsu fan already talking smack, mike barnicle. you can take care of him this fall. that s what i m saying. so have you heard back from les miles. you challenged les, is he going to do it? i ve heard back from willie robertson. i m thrilled you re going to be such a good sport about this. i want to be very clear, there s a new trend called the naked ice bucket challenge. i m not challenging you to that, that is not at all that s not good tv. so this is just the plain, vanilla, ice bucket challenge. mike barnicle wants to actually volunteer for that. that will really help ratings a lot. through the roof. we re going to talk about why you did this, why you challenged me. the bigger cause in a minute a little bit later on right before the ice is dumped on my head and mika s head as well. first of all, let s talk about a couple of things. let s start with common core. this is an issue that seems like a great idea to a lot of people, including conservatives like jeb bush. it seemed to take a nasty turn. i ve actually heard parents from moderate republican and democratic families walk up to me and express concern about common core. it s not just been right wing nuts, as the mainstream media would want us to believe, but a lot of concerns about common core. what s your what s your evolution on this? well, look, i originally thought the idea of standards locally was a great idea and i m still for rigor in the classroom. the reason i m opposing common core so strongly and fighting to get it out of louisiana is that it has become something very different than what it started. now it s become driven by the federal government, the federal bureaucracy. it was never intended to be a top down approach. the federal government has never made curriculum decisions in our local schools. i think it s a mistake to do that. a lot of times people who are for common core try to say if you re against us, you re against standards. that s not true. i m for tests, i m for standards. i don t want the federal government driving these standards. as a parent, i look at the math standards and some of the reading text and i m very worried about my kids doing these things. i think it would have been better if they had slowed down, let the teachers, let the parents have more involvement, have more transparency. i think they have rushed to do this. so i think the idea of standards is good, i just don t like the idea of a one size fits all approach from the federal government. speaking of high standards, the bbc s katty kay is here. governor, you were up in des moines, iowa, there, and the register there said you got a warm welcome. so how is 2016 looking for you? look, i m thinking and praying about it. won t make a decision until after november. we ve got to win some important races this november. if i were to decide to run, i certainly think that our country is hungry for a big change in direction. not incremental change, especially when it comes to restoring the american dream for our children and grandchildren. there s a lot of frustration with both democrats and republicans in both parties that all they want to do is make incremental changes. even in d.c. you hear from republicans you can t repeal obamacare, you can t pal the budget, you can t grow the economy. we need stronger foreign policy. but there will be time after november to make those decisi s decisions. right now let s win the senate and these governors races. governor, back to the common core, where does louisiana rank in terms of education and math in national standards? well, historically louisiana has not done well but recently we ve implemented very aggressive reform so in new orleans, 90% of our kids are now in charter schools. we have doubled the percentage doing reading and math on grade level in five years. we have got the highest ever graduation rate in our high schools. at one point in new orleans before these reforms, 60% of our kids were in failing schools. now it s less than 6%. you look across the state, record growth in the number of kids taking a.p. exams, more kits doing well on the a.c.t., so we have seen rapid improvement and rapid progress. we ve still got work to do. i m not saying we re where we want to be but we re doing better than we have before because we ve done charter schools, merit evaluations of our teachers. we do school choice. i m all for reforms and i m all for accountability. i think it s important. louisiana s kids learn the best math and we can compare them to kids in other countries and other states. my problem with common core is, again, the federal department of education, arne duncan through race to the top, no child left behind, has made this into a federal takeover of our local curriculum. that s what s not acceptable. governor, this is thomas roberts. just two quick things. first of all, thank you for accepting the als challenge that you took and thank you for challenging joe. did your other two nominees accept and have they done it? willie has accepted. he s going to do it later today. we ve not heard from les miles. i think we can raise a lot of money for als by auctioning off the rights to dump joe. think about all the money you could raise offering people the chance to bid on that. bobby, you stick around. we re going to get this over with next. plus we re going to reveal who i m nominating for the challenge, and here s a hint. one of them is sitting in our little swimming pool here on the morning joe set with tarp all around it and with our kids around. amelia is here and i ve got kate and jack here as well. straight ahead on morning joe. can this decadent, fruit topped pastry. .with indulgent streusel crumble, be from. fiber one. new fiber one streusel. are you new to medicare? are you wondering about your choices? with over 30 years of medicare experience, unitedhealthcare medicare solutions can help. call now to learn more about plans available to you. including aarp medicare plans. or to get this free medicare made clear answer guide. it was created to help make the different parts of medicare easier to understand. medicare has two main parts parts a and b to help cover a lot of your expenses. like hospital care. and doctor visits. but they still won t cover all of your costs. unitedhealthcare has the information you need to help you be better prepared when making medicare decisions. so call toll-free now. or visit us online. are you looking for something nice and easy? 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sure. so mika is here because joe, your nominations are? carol king, lyle lovett and mika brzezinski. mika, who are yours? mine are my brothers mark and ian and bradley cooper. these are all really good ones. governor jindal, do you have any final words before they get ice baths? i want to thank them for supporting a great cause. i think we should start dunking members of congress every time they say something stupid on your show. do you support that? that would be niagara falls, are you kidding me? we should go into the ice-making business. okay. are we ready to do this? okay, give me this. let me take glasses. here we go. on the count of three, are you ready? 1, 2, 3. get em, get em, get em, get em! attack! attack! get em jack. get em. get em good. oh, my goodness. it s absolute mayhem! and the crowd goes wild! oh, my goodness gracious. that was a good job, jack. kate, good job. graham, good job, amelia, good job. louis, good job with the trash can filled with ice. governor jindal, thank you for the spectacle you created here on morning joe. support the als foundation. it s a great cause. it really is a great cause. go check out their website because if you weren t inspired by this oh, goodness! wait, i already did it! i already did it! here s jack. i ll protect you, jack. 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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? musical chairs. fun, right? 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? helping you find a dentist you ll want to go to for the rest of your life. we ve helped over 8 million people find that dentist, and we can do the same for you. call 1-800-dentist today. dad: he s our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don t know exactly. kid: what if you re not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it doesn t work that way. kid: why not? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? 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
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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