>> we asked you at the top of the show what you're doing up at this hour. tower, what do you got? >> thank you for that. >> chris, -- >> that's never happening again. go ahead. >> chris writes i'm up scratching my head how a bacon sunday where the population will be obese in another 20 years could be considered a good thing. chris, the concerned vegetarian. >> chris, don't worry about it. there was a time in this country people didn't know the combination of peanut butter and chocolate would work and it's worked. what about bacon and chocolate. i have a tweet too, i'm up early making the bacon for our ice

cream party later. come on, america, get on board. burger king's bacon sunday. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ ain't that america for you and me ain't that america ♪ >> he says, we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers, did he not get the message of wisconsin? the american people did. it's time for us to cut back on government and help the american people. >> yes, only romney has the courage to say what we're all thinking. america is being sucked dry by firemen, policemen and teachers. the worst part, folks, is our kids look up to these parasites. kids need to start admiring society's real heros, job creators. that's why i'm calling for free market affirming children's books celebrating the 1%. what about james and the giant year-end bonus? or, "green eggs and howard weinberg, senior vice president

of global currency at goldman sachs." have your kids read them. or you might need to read them to your kids because if romney wins, we might be a little low on teachers. >> good morning. it's wednesday, june 13th. >> it is a good morning. >> welcome to "morning joe." live shot of times square. rainy. >> yeah. >> kind of depressing morning in new york city. with us on set we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, we also have former communications director for president george w. bush and former senior adviser for the mccain campaign, nicolle wallace, i missed you yesterday. i'm glad you're back. her novel "it's classified" is now out in paperback. great novel. get it. >> on rainy days like this, what cheers me up, sport. >> sport. >> i love sport. i love sport. and i also love smokewood bacon

filled -- >> no. >> desserts. >> why would you do that? >> mika -- >> is that real? >> what the? >> may i explain what you're looking at here? first of all this is not a joke. this comes from -- >> called ecstasy, that's what you're looking at. >> it's a sundae put out by burger king filled with bits of bacon and garnished with a full piece of smokewood bacon. >> on every menu? >> excuse me hardwood thick cut smoked bacon. >> what are they thinking? is that ice cream? >> yeah. that's an ice cream sundae. there's the statement from burger king, it's sweet, it's savory, it's everything you want a dessert to be, plus bacon. >> two great tastes that taste great together. >> was there anything better when growing up, going to the ice cream stand, with your mom or dad, on a hot july night and getting a bacon cone? a bacon sugar cone. >> we're all going straight to -- >> that's the stupidest thing

i've heard of in my life. >> we're going straight to hell. >> one other piece of -- >> is it on every menu or being test marketed? >> it's on the menu but a summer promotional things for the kids to keep cool in summer. >> light. gross. >> one other piece of breaking news. >> no. >> last night taco bell introduced, for our morning audience, this is real too, called mountain dew a.m. it's a blended breakfast drink of mountain dew and orange juice. >> sweet jesus, i am home. >> i would try that. >> look at that. >> i saw a commercial, like golden corral, know what they're doing now? they're serving cotton candy. >> oh, yeah. >> yeah. >> cotton candy. >> now you stop that. >> right. >> i never heard in five years -- >> cotton candy. >> i worked with him ten years ago and never heard a word out of him. this is how sick we are. >> cotton candy. >> and depressed this society we just focus on the food we eat and all the tastes and bad

things we -- really? okay. because that's where we're at and that's why -- that's terrible what burger king has done. they should be ashamed of themselves. that's just a little pot of poisen to give to your kids. >> this hillary clinton thing, she and the comis are going back and forth. >> we have a lot to get to this morning and a lot not good. ready to get to the news. >> do you believe that? >> no. are you ready to get to the news? >> that is. >> anybody better than hillary? >> absolutely. >> hillary is so tough. friend the comis, friend putin. watch my step. >> i would too. >> yeah. >> are you ready? >> i was born ready. >> okay. we're going to start -- >> for some of that smokewood bacon, that sundae. oh, my. look at that. look at that. sweet jesus. i'm coming home. that is so -- amazing grace. >> somebody didn't sleep, ob

sf sweet the sound. >> can we please get to the news? >> sure. >> quit asking and start doing. go. >> kind of serious. >> the dramatic effect. pause, go. >> okay. thank you, mike barnicle. we're going to start in syria, a new shelling begins this morning. a top official at the u.n. says the 15-month conflict in syria has now grown into an all-out civil war there. secretary of state hillary clinton revealed that russia, one of the main obstacles to action, is likely shipping more attack helicopters to damascus. >> we have confronted the russians about stopping their continued arms shipments to syria. they have, from time to time, said that we shouldn't worry, everything they're shipping is unrelated to their actions internally. that's patently untrue. >> an estimated 10,000 people

have been killed since fighting began. we're going to be continuing to cover that. looks like hillary clinton, obviously, on the front lines of that. but that situation is -- >> keeps getting worse. >> going to be job one for the president at some point. over taking any type -- >> some point? it continues. it continues and we're just sitting back. is this the sort of thing we'll be writing like books, like ten years from now -- >> stunning statement from hillary. anyone who follows the u.n. knows it's always russia and china that stand in the way of action. for hillary clinton to be calling them out and i think on the eve of a meeting -- >> we sat back and did nothing with rwanda while a million ra what dans got shopped to little pieces and then all wrung our hands, it's terrible. couple years later, 2 million sudanese killed in a civil war. we sat back and we wrung our hands, oh, it's terrible, never

again. never again. and here we do it again. it's happening in syria. >> there's an interesting coalition on the far left and far right where there's agreement there should be a more muscular american role in the places that you just named. it is an interesting coalition that it draws together to -- >> but i'm wondering, how many people have to get slaughtered before we force the international community to move? like if they had oil there, i'm sorry, i hate to sound cynical, gadhafi had oil and so suddenly this is an easy thing to take care of and it's close we can figure it out. >> done. >> if syria were an oil rich nation, done. the tanks would have been in there, we would have had like a damascus disneyland by now. seriously. we would be -- burger king would be sprouting up across the region and serving like smokewood bacon sundaes. we would have been in there by now. but there's no oil up there so we're just letting these people get killed. >> and you also wonder if part

of this, if the russians have the same mindset that so many small fringe terrorist groups, including the bur beguning al qaeda in the early '90s about the united states, so overextended economically and military they won't do anything. >> internally focused. >> they won't do anything. >> the russians will keep pushing us because they know that we've got a president that's not going to do anything about it. >> and the new approach yesterday by secretary clinton to sort of human late russia in public, it's a step they have to take but russian has proven itself over time to not be concerned whatsoever about public humiliation. there's no appetite to put american troops on the ground so how do you do it? if it's into tnot going through u.n., is the nato, some other organization? if you're really talking about the military, are the american people going to go for putting troops on the ground against a huge syrian army where americans certainly will die, 375,000 man army in syria. it's different than libya.

>> yeah. >> how strong is the secretary of state, hillary clinton? how strong is she? >> she's tough. i don't think any of us around the table have any doubt she wouldn't be sitting back and letting these people get slaughtered day in and day out if she were president of the united states. she's not, though. this president will allow the slaughtering to continue for some reason. >> we're going to continue to cover this story and bring more guests in to talk about it and move on to other news now. dueling campaign stops, president obama and mitt romney accuse the other of failing to understand the fundamentals of the economy. the president was quick to link his republican challenger to what he called the failed policies of the past. >> i love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. i inherited a trillion dollar deficit. we had a surplus, they turned night a deficit, built in a structural deficit, that extends for decades, and --

>> [ inaudible ]. >> isn't that something? >> it's like somebody goes to restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, martini, all that stuff, and then just as you're sitting down, they leave. and accuse you of running up the tab. >> that's actually what barnicle does. >> i know. >> orders it. >> i don't level accusations, though. >> he doesn't level accusations. >> going to the men's room and never comes back. >> if you want to continue that met fa for, it's like the republicans ordering the steak and the martini, and then the president coming and going, you know what? food for everybody. >> lobsters all around. >> lobsters all around. in fact, we're going to -- we want -- can you guys make the lobsters and the steak pile so high that we can't breathe. >> do you think that's the

metaphor? >> come on. look at the numbers. >> spending -- >> if you're talking about -- >> hey, mika, the spending, he has spent more money by far than any president. >> faster. >> in the history of the planet. faster. >> oh, yes, he is correct, mika. he is correct, mika. mika, he is correct. there was a trillion dollar deficit for one year when he came in. the president has now given us four years of trillion dollar plus deficits and the spending continues, and he had a chance to pass his debt commission recommendations and he threw it under the bus and he's spending more money on defense than ever before, spending more money on entitlements than ever before, spending more money on discretionary spending than ever before, spending more money on everything than ever before. >> and i would not -- >> and there's not a close second. >> parallel that to members of the middle class across this country eating lobster. because i don't think that's how they feel.

i think they feel like things were just kept from the brink and god -- god help us, they hope it gets better. you know what, that is not the president's fault. >> what is the president's fault, though, is, he's the one that brought up the steakhouse analogy, forget that. so let's just talk straight. let's just talk straight. george bush left him with a trillion dollar deficit. he has answered that, by increasing the deficit for four years in a row, the biggest deficits ever, the fastest rate of growth ever, the biggest entitlement spending ever, the biggest defense spending ever, the biggest discretionary domestic spending ever, in every single category, mike barnicle, there is not a close second. if this guy is going on the campaign trail and trying to make george w. bush as a big spender -- i wrote two books attacking george bush as a big spender. this guy makes george bush look like calvin coolidge. >> mike, can i add? he left obama with a trillion

dollar deficit and an economy -- >> that's fine. >> on the brink of an epic meltdown. please continue. >> but hold on a second, though. you can't keep saying -- >> separate them. >> you can't keep saying well, i came in this house four years ago. there was mud all over it and boy, it was really messy. and then you go around and you dig in shovels and throw in a lot more mud. he's got the responsibility -- >> the reason he says this -- >> as president of the united states to clean it up and he hasn't done it and spent more money in every category at a faster clip than any president in the history of the planet and his defenders that keep going back and blaming george w. bush, for his spending now, for -- look at his budget where it goes ten years from now. it is mind blowing. it is eye popping. it is bankrupting this nation. >> he used to confuse me to hear him blame george w. bush, months and years after he got the job, but i understand it now. some of my liberal friends have explained it to me. while it does nothing to

persuade the independent voters that delivered his historic victory, it does rally the disaffected democratic base. to be reminded of what he inherited. i think we'll hear him do this all the time. and hopefully it does what he hopes it will do, gets people off the couch and gets them to go vote for him again. it will not, it will not do anything to bring back to him the independents, the moderate republicans and moderate democrats who voted for him four years ago. >> mike, four years -- >> i agree. >> four years in still blaming george bush for spending that george bush did in 2008. his spending your see what he projects to 2020, it is sickening. >> yeah. the constant, you know, line of attack on george w. bush does not resonate i don't think with a lot of people. the restaurant metaphor, i think the obama administration, what they're saying with the restaurant metaphor what the president is saying, if you don't expand the menu and buy the shrimp with the steak, the

the people in the kitchen would lose their jobs, it's the only restaurant in town and then the whole town goes down, so let's expand the menu and -- which is what they're not doing, by the way, but that rhetorically i think is where he's going. >> like jeffrey sachs said four years ago, god bless jeffrey sachs for getting it right, al they're doing with the spending, buying all the lobster and steak and buying all the cotton candy available at golden corral, all they're doing is reinventing a bubble that will burst. >> true. >> and jeffery sacks said it four years ago. jeffrey sachs, supporter of this administration, four years ago said all they're doing spending money wildly, not vincing in the sort of -- not investing in the things that will grow the economy and jeffrey said three years from now, you watch, all of this reckless, reckless spending, that they enacted upon during the stimulus will run out and our economy will go back down and i'll be dammed if he's not 100% correct. >> and to expand the menu, to

get into the bacon ice cream cones and everything like that, without talking to the two principal owners, simpson and bowles, and getting something done with simpson and bowles, in order to, you know, maintain a sensible budget -- >> that's a problem. >> we continue this metaphor. >> i lost it like five minutes ago at the ice cream. >> you take over the business and go the business is bad, let's bring in two nerdy accountants and they go, here's what you need to do to save the business. and the owner looks at him and goes, well i like steak. >> right. they make you order -- >> i like lobster. >> they make you pbj and don't eat dinner out. i think the big question that this country faces in november, is are we willing to bring a brown bag lunch. that's what's going on in europe. >> i like that. brown bag lunch. these are all good. >> the bottom line is, the restaurant, the analogy, the restaurant was really screwed up and they brought in the two

best, willie, to save it and what did he do? he got the big recommendation and threw it away and kept spending like it was 1999. >> to nicole's earlier point, i wonder, and i ask this sincerely, if voters will be interested in hearing the argument about george bush's economy and the other argument it's the republican congress's fault. i've tried to create jobs and republican congress won't do it. bill clinton always said, elections are about the future. i just wonder if people in the middle will want to look back to george bush and continue to blame it on him. >> what do you think? >> i don't think so. >> i don't either. i know they don't like congress. i will be interested to see if that works. >> what do you think, mika? do you think it will -- it will work? blaming george bush? >> well, i'm hoping. but i think it's a tough sell. i still don't -- >> at least she's honest. >> i don't know what the metaphor is for lobster in this country. i mean -- highways? projects to try to keep people at work? you guys are a little skewed.

>> lobster is the amount of money being spent -- >> that's about where it ends, nicole. >> to date between massive spending and tightening the belt. >> okay. so i think we should have tightened, you're right. >> the nerdy accountants. >> we should have tightened the belt. when literally there were no jobs for anybody, and still aren't, in terms of long-term employment and the economy was about to literally collapse in ways it hasn't in decades, we should have tightened the belt. >> i'm not talking about that when you have -- >> people get their benefits -- >> when republicans and democrats almost came together and did it. i'm talking about that moment. that's the missed opportunity. >> yeah. we should have taxed people who could afford it but we didn't do that either. >> people will get to decide whether they want to tax their way out of a recession or -- >> of course that's always the answer. is tax. raise taxes. >> well, we didn't. so you're good. >> because obama didn't want to. obama has -- >> if you were a memb-- if you remember, we went and talked to

people in the administration and said, wait a second, you're not going to raise taxes? and they said, we can't. we're in a recession. >> clinton said that a week ago. >> bill clinton said that a week ago. this is another big lie that goes around, like they all like lie to their democratic base and say if we could only raise taxes on the rich, then everybody would pay their fair share and we could take care of deficit. you talk to all of them behind closed doors and none of them want to raise taxes because they think it will hurt the economy. every one of them behind closed doors of the obama administration, you talk to bill clinton, larry summers, they all believe it. let's look. europe, boy, mike, we still have some problems going on in europe. this is this meltdown continues. obviously fears continue to rise and the european union over what's happening in greece. and our banks are so interconnected and greece goes down and italy goes down and

spain goes down and portugal goes down and ireland goes down, american banks go down. it's terble. >> the contagion is nearly epidemic now. it's not even -- part of it is based on reality, but part of it is just the fear of what is happening in europe. the daily fear that is like an obstacle here in this country economically on wall street, on main street, i mean what is going to happen. spain just gets $125 billion. and now we find out, you know, they get the 125 -- >> that's not enough. >> it's not enough. >> exactly. they need a trillion. there's not enough money to save these banks that's going to impact us. the only good news, mika, the only good news for you, this is upsetting you all of these bad foods and everything like that, that the only good news right here, you know, this time it's personal. russia and poland, the polls, they drew yesterday against russia.

1-1. it's pretty exciting stuff. i mean we know how that story ends. >> we do. >> but it's always bad for the polls. for now it's a tie. >> coming up, we're going to continue to follow the crisis in syria. we'll also talk to former presidential candidate tim pawlenty. >> oh, good. >> biographer walter isaacson and dr. zeke emanuel and nancy snyderman. >> so he shows up, dr. zeke. can't do it yesterday. >> he doesn't talk, he screams. have you noticed that? >> they're all the same. >> like a 5-year-old with an adult voice. >> i love him. up next new numbers on who's winning the wall street vote and is it close? it's one of the stories in the politico playbook. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> mika, feel like i need to do something to get you in a better mood. >> i'm sorry. >> she's grumpy. >> yeah. we are looking at a nice forecast in areas that are gloomy this morning. joe and mika mentioned it coming in this morning from new york city up through new england, it's wet, kind of dreary, chilly out there. the rain is still moving through

coastal connecticut all through rhode island up to boston. as the storm moves out, we are looking at a great trend of weather as we go throughout the holiday forecast weekend. father's day looks nice throughout new england and much of the mid-atlantic. the forecast for today, logan airport could have minor delays. that light rain will be moving out during the day. beautiful weather from pittsburgh back through the great lakes. ideal weather continues in chicago. thunderstorms this morning just outside of dallas/ft. worth could cause minor issues. joining us on the west coast in the middle of the night you're going to look for a beautiful wednesday yourself. nice conditions through much of california, just a slight chance of showers in seattle. speaking of a great day, washington, d.c., low humidity, you know what the summer is going to be like. bottle this up and enjoy it. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪

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time now to take a look at the morning papers. "usa today," the same government panel that recently recommended against routine psa tests to protect prostate cancer now has a new recommendation for women. >> what, that you don't like have breast exams now also? just got to roll dice. >> says that healthy post-menopausal women should not take daily low doses of calcium and vitamin d to prevent bone fractures. the benefits were inconclusive. doctors recommend getting your vitamin d and calcium through, i always thought this, a healthy diet. not sure about vitamins in general. >> they always say -- i think this group is studying ekgs saying that you should just go to the horse races and smoke instead of taking ekgs. see how your heart reacts to your horse not winning. >> eat anything, exercise will keel you we were told a couple weeks ago. >> don't take mris either. just drink cherry coke.

>> don't worry about prostate cancer. >> from our parade of papers, "the richard times dispatch" says the stage is set for the u.s. senate race in virginia. it's going to be a contest between two former governors after republican george allen, easily won his party's primary last night. george allen will face democratic challenger tim kaine. that's going to be a great race there guys. >> absolutely. george allen looking to redeem himself from 2006. >> we are going to be staying up pretty late on that holiday and smoking cigarettes on election night. >> going to be a late night in november. down to politico, joining us for a look at the playbook, the executive editor there, mr. jim vandehei. good morning. >> good morning, how are you? >> i'm doing all right. let's talk about wall street money. there's been a lot of talk over the last couple years about wall street supporting president obama in 2008 and now turning on him during his administration. you've got a new piece this morning that shows the evidence of that. wall street vote romney by a

landslide, says politico. tell us about it. >> the numbers are in. our team crunched the number and so far from the financial sector romney getting about $40 million to $5 million for president obama. what's most striking is there's 21 big donors who were with president obama in 2008 who have not given him a penny this time around and are giving money to mitt romney. i think the bigger significance here is that there's so much anger in the business community and now with these outside groups that can not only give that money to romney but to the outside groups and i think the most important story we've had in the last couple weeks was the piece we did, we talked about the outside groups raising upwards of $1 billion, that's above and beyond what romney is going to do. politics has never seen anything like that. it's largely fueled by these business donors and could have a major, major consequential effect on this election. >> joe, no big surprise, obviously. we knew this was happening out there. the number is significant, 37.1 for mitt romney, that combines his campaign and the super pacs,

president obama, $4.8 million. what's the -- we know the numbers were coming but what's the impact on the place. >> you know, there's going to be so much money in this race, i don't know there's going to be a huge impact at the end. but i think nicole will agree with me, that usually in washington, wall street especially, they hedge their bets. they always hedge their bets. i think the most telling thing about this is, they're not even bothering this time. they're just like, the hell with obama. we're not going to give him the money. i think -- i am very -- i'm surprised by few things, i'm surprised that wall street's not hedging their bets any better than they do. >> yeah. look they were some of the first people, i think, to turn on obama. i think early in his first term when he came out with the rhetoric that was so anti-compensation, that was so interested in washington having a role to play and executive compensation, and regulating wall street and i think the message became very clear very early on, that the extent he

understood them and i think there's a pretty good debate about whether he understands business at all, he didn't appreciate them, didn't understand their role in strengthening the economy. he has never been interested in providing any certainty which is what they desire almost more than -- more than favorable regulations they take certainty over anything. >> and there's this gut feeling that a lot of wall street people, they told me, mike, i know you've probably heard the same thing, you meet these people every once in a while, barack obama is the type of guy that believes it's moral to have just as much money as you have but anybody that has more money than you, it's excessive. so, you know, he's worth like $14 million now. and that's okay. that's moral. but somebody who has 20, $25 million, what do you need that much money for? it's just -- it's just this attitude that he has that there's an immorality to wealth up to the point that he's wealthy. >> yeah. and nicole --

>> by the way, i've heard that a billion times from wall street. >> as have i, all of us have in new york. nicole hit on a key aspect of the discrepancy between 2008 and today with regard to wall street. and it is, that the perception that he has a complete lack of understanding of what it is that business does and combined with that is the attitude that i don't care what business does, those two things, it's not like, you know, we hate him. it's just that he doesn't understand us, and he doesn't want to understand us. i think that's the feeling you get on wall street and thus the $40 million to $5 million. >> jim, a lot of people look at these numbers and say, this is wall street having hurt feelings by president obama, cry baby sending their money somewhere else. is there something deeper than that? >> no. i mean there's certainly an aspect of that in this. i think one of the reasons that what bill clinton said over the last couple weeks hurt president obama so much is, it basically

showed again to wall street what a pro-business democrat sounds like. talking about extending the bush tax cuts. talking more positively about romney's business record. it's why bill clinton did so well with a lot of the financial donors and it's one of the reasons it was easier back then for the financial sector to hedge their bet. but if you go back to 2008, a lot of these donors were big, big obama supporters. they believed in him, believed he would govern more like bill clinton when it came to the economy. to their minds he has not. that's where the revolt is coming. you hear it all the time. the question is, is it all in new york? certainly new york money seems very, very down on president obama. there's a lot of folks outside of new york who are not and the question is can they make up the difference? >> one mitigating factor in the 2008, jim, fund-raising i would suggest to you, you're right, on all of those issues the sarah palin factor was huge in terms of wall street throwing money towards obama. >> huge. >> before we let you go, we have to ask have you yet -- >> you're going to ask him.

>> have you tried the bk bacon sundae? >> i haven't. i have to say, it sounds good if you didn't have that big chunk of bacon wit it. a little bit of salt with ice cream is not that bad. big chunk of bacon? >> it would be good if you didn't have the big chunk of bacon? that's like taking christ out of christmas. >> that's not funny. >> there's still sprinkles of bacon and ice cream and that mix can be delicious. >> probably call it x-mass, don't you? >> christmas and dan dehad lions, baby. >> don't take the chunk of bacon out of the sundae. >> it's labeled as a garnish. you don't need a spoon. you just -- >> you guys are going to try it this year. it's a campaign year. you're going to have that sundae. >> jim vandehei, who wrote the playbook, take care. >> lebron james and the heat were in complete control in the first half of the game. >> oh, good. >> one of the nba finals in oklahoma city, could he shake that reputation for vanishing in the fourth quarter? highlights next.

the medicare debate continues in washington... ...more talk on social security... ...but washington isn't talking to the american people. [ female announcer ] when it comes to the future of medicare and social security, you've earned the right to know. ♪ ...so what does it mean for you and your family? [ female announcer ] you've earned the facts. ♪ washington may not like straight talk, but i do. [ female announcer ] and you've earned a say. get the facts and make your voice heard on medicare and social security at earnedasay.org.

welcome back to "morning joe." time for a little sports. the heat coming off a seven-game series win over the celtics in the eastern conference finals, looking to redeem themselves in

the nba finals after last year's collapse there against the mavericks and they came out hot in the first half in game one on the road in oklahoma city. lebron with the quick hands here, the steal, durant can't catch him, big dunk for lebron james. put the heat up 13. >> it's over. >> 13-point lead. and they were playing well. but three minutes before halftime, durant watch this move to the basket and the throw down, a vicious dunk. thunder down seven at the break. third quarter winding down, russell westbrook with a beautiful move here. nice through the defense. the left-handed lay-up and the foul. westbrook had 27 points. that gave the thunder the first lead of the game and they never turned back after being down 13 points. >> holy cow. >> opened it up in the fourth quarter up three here. kevin durant with a three-pointer here. he had 36 points, 17 of them came in the fourth quarter. >> you said he was just crazy. >> he went off in the fourth. 17 points. >> crazy. >> finals debut he scores 36 points. thunder win 105-94.

franchise's first win in a finals game since '96 when they were the sonics. lebron 30 points in the loss, most ever for him in a finals game, in the fourth quarter just seven points, 2 for 6 from the field. game two crucial for the heat they have to win in oklahoma city. only three teams in nba history have overcome a 2-0 deficit in the finals. game two is tomorrow night in oklahoma city. baseball, yankees taking on the braves in atlanta. braves up 4-0 in the eighth inning. bases juiced for a-rod. and he goes deep to tie the game. grand slam that is historic, actually. matches lou gehrig's all-time mark for most career grand slams in the history of baseball. that's 23. he's added a couple more. they won six more, five games in a row, alone on top of the al east. >> you know, willie, you know -- >> two of your favorite athletes, lebron and a-rod. >> no doubt, lebron and a-rod. i'm such a big fan of sport and you know who else is a big fan

of sport? mitt romney. i mean look at this guy. this guy loves sport. >> what are you talking about? >> he loves sport. >> he doesn't call it sports like the rest of us. sport. >> are you going to break into this? in news you can't use. >> we'll look into it with stephen colbert. new york magazine's gabe sherman writes about bloomberg's effort to become mayor of the world.

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the nation's capital. with us contributing editor for "new york" magazine gabe sherman. he has written a piece on the mayor. >> yes, he has. >> of mayors. >> in his piece, the latest issue of new york magazine gabe writes about mike bloomberg's -- >> i'm scared? >> in part he writes this bloomberg has been about casting about for his next job since about midway through his second term. in a sense the third term was a stopgap, something to do while he made up his mind and since the presidency seems frustratingly out of reach, he's set his sights on a plan b, he wants to be mayor of the world. he has famously strong views on where people can smoke, what they should eat and last week drink. how much companies can pollute and how schools educate their children and he plans to bring these requested ideas to the biggest possible audience. he certainly has a large audience here in new york city.

>> what's he going to do? >> this is a portrait of a man who has the ambition to be president of the united states but unfortunately -- >> possibly not at the moment. >> our political system is so ossie fide he has to find his own way to use his philanthropy and media company to create a global platform to advocate on these big issues. >> that's going to be so frustrating. you have presidents that walk around like ghosts trying to be presidents again and it never works. what's going to happen with bloomberg? what's he going to do? >> the difference is that, you know, former presidents don't have $20 billion. i mean mike bloomberg has a warchest and he has the resolve to spend it, to go around the world meeting with world leaders and say you want to do this program on climate change, my foundation will fund it. that's really the key, the secret to his post-city hall plans. >> how badly does he want to be president of the united states? >> i mean you see it. there is no love loss between the mayor and the white house and, you know, they try to set up meetings.

the golf came game, you know, meetings back channel, bill daly reached out to the mayor to see if he wanted to be president of the world bank. there has been efforts to kind of bridge these camps. mike bloomberg has the ambition and believes he has the skill to be president of the united states. >> and the other side of that is, he just doesn't think barack obama has a skill to be president of the united states. >> it's the experience question. this goes back to people who look at the president, people in mike bloomberg's circle who say mike bloomberg has much more business experience, he has more political experience than this president. >> he has an infrastructure in place as well. i mean and a staff and political experts. >> oh, yeah. i mean he has a whole -- >> organization. >> media company, his foundation. i mean the third term has really been putting these pieces into place so that when he leaves city hall, you know, everything is ready. then the big unanswered question is, will he buy the new york times because there is a trophy that mike bloomberg wants that would give him instant

credibility and cache on the global stage. >> but he already -- he has that to a certain extent, but if you look at bloomberg in two realms, politics and business, he is not a foolish man. >> no. >> and he has, i bet, spent a lot of money looking at the prospects of a presidential run and decided -- >> doesn't see it there's not a third pathway. >> it can't be done. the purchase of "the times" would give him a platform to discuss all of the things you were talking about earlier in the clip that we read, globally. >> yeah. >> he could use that paper and bloomberg to really focus on all of those issues worldwide. >> that's the idea. he does not want to overpay. goes to your earlier point about being pragmatic. doesn't want to do what murdoch did and see that investment gho go down the drain. he wants the "times" but doesn't want to overspend for it. >> i've been following his --

>> not just super sized sodas. >> and the obesity crisis in general, he has a lot of different initiatives. >> climate change, education, immigration reform. >> guns. >> gun policy, really wonky stuff like road safety. he's down in the weeds on these technocratic nonpartisan issues. >> sustainability. i mean big on sustainability on manhattan being sustainable. you look at this city and it really has made some remarkable steps forward since he's become mayor on just how sustainable one of the largest cities in the world is. >> and then on, you know, the issues talking about earlier, the fiscal issues, wrote a "wall street journal" op-ed taking both parties to task that we can't solve these problems with just tax cuts or just, you know, spending. we got to come -- the whole simpson-bowles idea. it's frustrating to a nonpartisan like him that sees how polarized the system has become. >> how long do you think it

would be before a bloomberg with this world platform would articulate and assert himself in this global contablen, spain, grease, everything going down economically, with his insight and his intellect? i mean, what, two, three seconds? >> yeah. you know, there's really -- that's a role he could play maybe on sort of be sort of the crisis manager on these big global issues that they're just -- there seems to be a leadership void and maybe he could fill it. >> so has the door completely closed up on the presidential run? are we passed the dates, the americans elect, all that -- >> this cycle, all of my reporting indicates that there is no more movement on his front for any sort of presidential aspirations this cycle. >> just not possible. >> not a viable third path. i don't think he wants to run just for the sake of running for president. he would run to win. >> yeah. >> all right. >> it's not going to buy a fourth term, is he? >> no. >> you can relax. >> dave sherman. >> that's not the only thing i

didn't agree with. otherwise i kind of liked most of his stuff. your article in the latest issue of "new york" magazine. >> we love you, obviously. big announcement, gabe -- >> lot going on. >> gabe, mika and joe coming up soon. >> news you can't use. >> you can feel the excitement. you can see it in gabe's voice. >> right back. >> gabe doesn't look excited but he is. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital

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>> update for our top story about the bacon sundae from burger king. it is a limited run, goes to september 3rd. act now. as much credit as burger king deserves for this achievement, jack in the box would like you to know they came first to this party. in february they had a 1,000 calorie bacon milk shake. >> no, they did not. >> they're saying burger king -- >> where was i? >> where was mika? >> all these places just disappeared from the face of the earth, the world would be a better place. >> it's just like -- it's like -- >> bacon milkshake. >> like the age of disco. >> the three of us are going to be doing september 3rd. >> what's that? >> the last day of this thing. >> hoarding. >> you asked about sport? >> yes, i did. i love sport. >> good news for the romney family, their horse, rafalca might qualify for the london games? >> stephen colbert has an analysis. >> really?

>> the romney's horse might go to the olympics. though one would imagine it's going to be a long drive to london on top of their station wagon. this is exactly what mitt needs. he's had a little trouble relating to joe six-pack. >> i met a guy yesterday, seven feet tall. i figured he had to be in sport but he wasn't in sport. >> yes. the tall man was not in sport. but folks the image of romney as a privileged princeling ends today, because now mitt is your average blue collar fan of dressage. that word may sound haifa lieu tant, but it also goes by the street name horse ballet. jim, show us rafalca at sport. ♪ oh!

oh! rafalca number one ♪ bermuda jamaica i want to take you to bermuda bahama come on pretty mama ♪ i just get swept up. >> horse -- >> that's nice. >> horse ballet. just one of the guys. >> he can't -- he can't own a horse like bing crosby, right? it's like horse ballet. >> horse ballet. rafalca at the summer games. >> still ahead, former candidate tim pawlenty joins us and next walter isaacson and jon meacham join the table. >> the nerd parade. ♪ no need for argument there's no argument at all ♪ [ banker ] mike and brenda found a house that they really wanted.

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had made you smile. [ announcer ] beneful. play. it's good for you. i love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. i inherited a trillion dollar deficit. we had a surplus, they turned night a deficit, built in a structural deficit, that extends for decades. and -- >> and then they blamed you.

>> isn't that something? it's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, martini, all that stuff, and then just as you're sitting down, they leave and accuse you of running up the tab! >> all right. we're not doing that again this hour. top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." nicolle wallace is still with us and joining the table, executive editor at random house, pulitzer prize his store yan and contributing editor jon meacham. do you think i'm mean? >> not on even days. >> not on even days. >> and the ceo of the aspen institute, author and biographer walter isaacson. >> let's talk, walter knows you are -- >> ambassador. >> let's talk last night. >> yep. >> the president. turns 88, right? was it 88? >> the president.

>> the president turns 88. >> george herbert walker bush. >> the last gentleman you're going to be writing a biography about him and you got to see -- >> hbo did -- >> jerry weintraub inspired beautiful film. >> great film. it was -- they did -- hbo did a nice event at saint ann's church where george herbert walker bush's parents were married and the family -- >> gorgeous. >> family church and then had a lovely party and it was -- it fulfilled sort of all your -- what your expectations would be. he was in -- the film is very good. it's all in '41's voice basically, and -- which is ineffable, it's hard to make that up, predicate sometimes happens, sometimes they don't. >> sometimes they don't. >> who needs them. he's a small government guy. and very gracious. the senior -- the 43rd president was there and much of the family

and mrs. bush. it was lovely. and reminder of -- sort of, obviously, comes to mind when you look at president obama sort of retroactively still blaming the last eight years, obviously different parties, you didn't hear a lot of bush '41 blaming the deficits on the previous eight years. i think people want you to move forward. >> and it's fascinating where we find george h.w. bush, a one-term president, who in this political culture where everybody seems to be demonized, there seems to be one man who has risen above, loved and respected, really by presidents on both sides, you get the sense bill clinton looks at him almost as a father figure and that barack obama, asspires to be like him -- aspires to be like him. >> i think the obama affection for the senior bush is quite

genuine but i also think there's a his store cycle back story there, which is you can be a one-term president and be redeemed by history and i think that -- i sort of know from some conversations with people in the obama white house, that president obama's interest in the bush '41 story, really kicked up in late '09, early '10 when president obama realized this isn't all going to be easy. and i think history has, as we've talked about before, i think history has redeemed much, if not all, of what defeated the senior president bush in 1992. >> walter isaacson, why is that? >> well, first of all he was one of the best foreign policy presidents of our time. he was able to bring a soft landing to the cold war without doing some victory dance on the brandon burg gate, able to do an iraq war in which jim bakker himself truly formed a great coalition to do it. he's a man of genuine humility

but good nature. i remember right after hurricane katrina, when his son, the president, asked him and bill clinton to co-chair things, it was just a perfect team. he's just a caring individual. >> you hear all these stories of town hall -- towns -- town squares being named after ronald reagan in eastern europe, but you talk to german leaders today, they will tell you they are a unified country because george h.w. bush didn't listen to the french, didn't do a victory dance on the brandonberg gate, but stayed back quietly not to shame anybody and to bring unification together. it seemed he was the right man for that extraordinarily historic time in 1989. >> he had a great team, too, brent scowcroft, jim bakker and they were realists who understood. you're looking at the headlines

today about syria and the russians helping syria. you've had a long history of russia being allied with syria. jim bakker knew how to play that because the elder bush was great at that. >> jim bakker knew how to play everything. >> still does. >> it was like a jedi mind trick. you want to be a member of the cold war. >> john's book, because the question of how he did the the economy and domestic policy and that compromising, that seems to me, i mean my old friend ben franklin said compromises may not make great heros but they make great democracies, that was a brilliant compromise but he was vilified for it. >> let's talk about that right now. we were going to go to syria, but this leads into what jeb bush said yesterday. and jeb right now, a man that many consider to be a future republican presidential nominee, getting absolutely secu lly ske

many on the right for having the courage to make that praise. >> jeb bush said his father and ronald reagan would have a difficult time with the climate in the gop today. bush said, quote, ronald reagan would have based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground as would my dad. they would have had a hard time. if you define the republican party, and i don't, as having an orts doxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground. jeb bush touted his father's 1990 deficit reduction deal as a model for political compromise. >> nicole, there has been, of course, a misunderstanding from idiots on the extremes about what jeb bush was saying yesterday. you and i know jeb very well. very, very well. and we worked very closely with him. jeb's as conservative as they

come. he's a small government conservative. i don't know that he would have done the deal in 1990, but he was making one big point yesterday, and that was, in a democracy like we have, you have got to compromise at times. >> jeb was making a point about the need to govern and i think his point, i went back and read everything because i kept thinking i must have missed something. did he say pro-choice is the way to go? no, he said you must get things done, you must govern. i was his first press secretary when he was governor of florida and the things he did were so, so -- he was the tip of the spear for conservative education reform. he was, you know, i think the second state to -- >> went to war on vouchers, went to war on affirmative action, went to war on spending. he vetoed republican spending bills. >> balanced his budget every year. >> he was the conservative's conservative. >> when he stood up and said on monday, was that you must

govern. you can't disinvite people from sitting down around the table because they have different views. >> what does it take to govern? >> i think to govern you have to do what lindsey graham said yesterday and you have to be willing to put everything on the table. you can't come out the other end with any legislation with any progress unless you're willing to put everything on the table. >> what is that saying? what is he saying about the party today? what are they not doing. >> by signing grover norquist's pledge, everyone ruled out the possibility of getting anything done because everybody arrives at the table with their red lines drawn. >> i can imagine a lot of people are thinking this is massive nostalgia and mythologyizing about if george h.w. bush walked across the atlantic ocean would he sink? yes he would. >> revisionist history? >> but as arthur used to say, the main duty we owe to history is to rewrite it which keeps us employed. >> good. >> yes. >> we like that. that's our stimulus.

but in real time, we have the documents, we know he did it. george herbert walker bush struck that deal at andrew's air force base in 1990 and knew it would probably cost him the election. >> it wasn't a maybe this will be bad, maybe this will be rough. this was, i'm doing this because it's right, it's going to break the base, i may pay with -- the job may cost me. and then that got sort of lost because of what happened on the 2nd of august, 1990, saddam invades kuwait and then -- the narrative shifts. george h.w. bush knew in the back of his mind, that what he had done could cost him his job. how many people in office today will do something, explicitly on the day they do it, say i'm going to do it right even if it costs me my job. >> walter isaacson, courageous moments have consequences. he did that in 1990. the democrats, against the advice of people like myself,

all raised taxes in 1993. the republicans in 1995, made massive spending cuts, recessv n revisions, and all three cases you had political lives put like laid waste and put to the end and yet, you had a decade of great prosperity. >> the first time we balanced the budget in a generation, two years later. we balanced the budget four years in a row for the first time since the 1920s. the -- 22 million jobs created. i mean courage actually pays off in the long run. >> yep. and that's unfortunate because you have to pay off in the short run people like meacham and myself that write the long run, not everybody is playing for history. they usually are playing for the next election. it is true, that even now, we pretty much know how to deal with the fiscal issue. if people had some courage and sense it would be within 5 or 10% of where simpson-bowles got

us. this is a solvable issue and we know how to solve it. it's not like the european debt crisis which i'm not sure how you solve that one, but we know how to do this one. it takes both of the candidates to say, you know what, we're going to get near to simpson-bowles by the time if you elect me. >> that's great point, walter. we could all sit around this table and in ten minutes we could figure out how to slow down the rate of growth for medicare, social security, medicaid, over the long term, save this economy for a generation. now, how do we take care of the economy over the next two, three, four years? that's tough. but that's not our long-term challenge. that's not the existential threat to the american economy or the dollar. >> those are separateble challenges. you can deal with the long-term deficit and on the other hand how we're going to get out of this doldrums we're in. >> who are the -- >> i think there's some people meeting doing that. >> who are the leaders now that have the guts to stand forth? let's talk about the president.

the president said in february of 2009, he didn't want to kick the can down the road anymore for social security or medicare. and he's done it. why -- >> clatter you hear in the background is the can. >> why -- at the end of the day, it is -- it comes down to the president, whether it's george w. bush who, guess what, he didn't have the courage to do it. instead he added a $7 trillion unfunded mandate to medicare. >> he tried social security reform and couldn't bring his own party to the table. >> tried on social security. >> and tried to make that sustainable. >> and then on medicare added $7 trillion debt. i mean he tried social security. and then he wrote a huge check for medicare that we're going to be paying for for years. neither side seems to have the guts to do this. >> i think

>> reform, is that the sacrifice? >> that's what he's going to think.

in the narrative -- he's a writer, ask him it --

chapters of the book, it seemed to be he wasn't directing it straight at barack obama, but he kept talking about how the lesson of johnson is a lesson of how a president who understands how to use that office, can dominate not only washington and the world,

i think barack obama has in other ways. >> again, is is that president obama just doesn't talk to members of congress. george bush didn't much either. i remember when lincoln chafy left the party, that was after a year. he would never talk to george w. bush. jim jeffords never talked to george w. bush. i mean these last two guys, pretty isolated. >> and you can think of it as

maureen dowd did the story 20 years ago now, of -- called polaroid diplomacy, how bush had -- bush 41 had a one-step camera back when that was cutting edge and all the members of the house, the house, come down and sit on the lincoln bed and he would take a picture of them so they would have a picture taken by the president of the united states. they could have forever. >> yeah. >> and, you know, then you have johnson calling people in the middle of the night. you don't -- >> but bush and obama both have vice presidents who are of that body who are very active who certainly serve as their ambassadors. >> i just don't think you can subcontract it. >> not the same. >> there's a president. >> you get the president -- >> can't subcontract connecting with people. >> and then you get -- >> we try. >> we try all the time. >> as men we try and it doesn't work out. >> really quickly, we have to go. i'm curious both of you guys, because it's a question that keeps going, it's like as i read the caro book, it goes back, '57

lyndon decides to move on that civil right bill did he do that out of political expediencesy or becoming the guy he wants to be. >> becoming the guy he wants to be. i think if there's one small thing i disagree on caro the second volume where stevenson is painted too large and good. i think lyndon johnson stuck with truman in '48 and that tells you the trajectory he's going to be on and i think he believed it, believed in fighting for the little guy, and i think he had his heart in civil rights. it wasn't just the political expediency. >> and the tragedy of vietnam -- >> is the next volume. >> is that you had a man who could take white, southern, democrats to a certain place and then he created a political situation with vietnam. >> walter isaacson, thank you very much. >> mr. ambassador, thank you for being here. >> mr. meacham, his eminence, the reverend dr. meacham. >> still ahead, we'll get a

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he should be proud of the personal success he achieved as the head of a large financial firm, but i think he has drawn -- he's drawn the wrong lessons from these experiences. he seems to believe that if ceos and wealthy investors like him are doing well the rest of us automatically do well. for over a decade, harder work hasn't led to higher incomes. bigger profits at the top haven't led to better jobs across the board. you can't solve that problem if you can't even see it.

>> back more on the president's comments in just a moment. so welcome back, everybody. >> so you all went to the church, kennebunkport and then went to walker's point to have a big event there. >> the great richard, our good friend, richard know house to throw a party. >> yes, he does. >> they call him actually to do kennebunkport. >> they do. they do. they do. he's ambassador pleper. it was a great event. the president turned 88 and mrs. bush had

talking about yesterday and how do we -- how do we restore our party and work on our party's brand because you're right, we did just nominate someone who had to carry the burdens of governing in a blue state throughout -- i don't have to tell you, throughout the very long and tedious process. >> great point, nicole. i have a certain sympathy and empathy for conservatives who governed in blue states, minnesota my home state, obviously, but look, the republican party and the cub servetive movement isn't a monoli monolith, it's a coalition of various pieces, you have economic conservatives, social conservatives, libertarians, national security and defense

conservatives and others and if you just focus on one slice of it and say that's the whole party, well it's not. no one slice can win the nomination or election. you have to have a coalition and go out and earn the support of independents and democrats. if you look at this snapshot in time, we have a nominee in mitt romney who is know worse than tied in the national polls. in fact, in many polls slightly leading in many of the independent states doing better than say traditional republicans amongst women, doing better with younger voters, relatively, and pretty hopeful looking campaign at this moment in time. so, i'm more optimistic and hopeful about the future of the party under mitt romney's leadership. he is a conservative but he's also somebody who's got a record of getting things done and results and the proof in the pudding. conservative governor in one of the most liberal states in the country cut spending, grew jobs, decreased unemployment, reformed government in many key ways, and so there you go. somebody who i think in terms of

temperament, tempo, style, is reaganesque. >> governor in terms of branding or rebranding the party, seemed to be doing a pretty good job, doing a pretty good job this morning at it, have you been vetted or are you -- do you want to be vetted for the vice presidency? >> well, i'm co-chair of the campaign, one of the co-chairs of the campaign and we have a policy not to talk about the vp process so -- and i've said look i think i can help mitt best in other ways rather than a potential vp slot but anyone would be moonered if they were asked. as to the process and who's being vetted or not vetted and timetables and related issues we don't get into that. >> you got knocked around badly by the mccain campaign. joe, i don't think i was treated badly by the mccain campaign.

>> they used you and abused you governor. you were their straw man that they set up for all of us to see. >> i like that. >> i don't agree with that. john mccain is a friend, somebody i'm close to and i -- every -- in life, you put in the effort, i thought the process was fair, i have a lot of respect for him and i don't think i was mistreated at all. they went a different direction, i get that, but as to the mitt romney campaign, i'm happy to help him, support him, i think he's an incredible leader with the right moment in time in history for his style and leadership and agenda. as to the vp stuff i think i can serve the country, if it gets to that in different ways and better ways, then just being vp, i shouldn't say just being vp but being in that position. >> governor, jon meacham, i swear this is not a potential got you question, but which mitt romney should we be thinking we have now? is it the romney you've been talking about who governed in a

blue state, who was a proto rockefeller republican, much more moderate figure or the one run for president twice now? there are different views, explicit on important issues. >> jon, as you know, you've been an observer, anybody who's been in the battle and leadership position and executive position will have a few battle scars, me included, but this idea that there's a perfect candidate out there who hasn't had to take a hit or, you know, had some issue that comes up, look, everybody has that. but mitt's record is a conservative record. in massachusetts, cutting taxes, cutting spending, reducing the state work force, reforming government and streamlining it in key ways, and so that's a conservative record. he stood for life, traditional marriage and to look at all that and say somehow he's not conservative just doesn't withstand scrutiny. so i think you're going to see in mitt romney a reagan-esque

conservative focused on getting things done but highly competent and ready to be president. >> i'm not arguing he's not conservative. i'm arguing there was -- there's been a shift on important issues that generally take a longer time in terms of people ideological evolution and working through different issues and i just think it's fair to say and barnicle covered him when he was governor, it's fair to say that the governor, the mitt romney who is governor of massachusetts has had significantly different views on important issues than the former governor who now wants to be president. i'm just wondering, do we -- we take him at his word, is that the best we can do and then figure this was a genuine evolution as opposed to a calculated ship? >> look, i know mitt romney as i know mike barnicle does and others. this is a very gracious and genuine and authentic person. he has been very candid, i think, about the few positions where he's had some change, but

i think for good basis he's shown his heart on that, he's talked about that openly an candidly and that's no different than any other person who's been in these positions. look at president obama, he's made a ton of promises, broke a lot of them, early in his administration, he's going to cut the deficit in half. tripled it. he came into office and said pass the stimulus bill, otherwise unemployment could go to 8%, it went to 10%. you have somebody as president of the united states who has broken promises, changed positions including on the marriage issue, so you got to look at all sides of the coin and now president obama, including in his speech tomorrow goes back and blames president bush, like the old garth brooks long neck bottle let go of my hand. he's been there almost four years. i mean, quit blaming the president from four years ago. he's had the helm, the control, for four years. nobody wants to hear him whining and complaining about what

somebody did or didn't do four or five years ago. we're not going to re-elect him because he got a participation ribb ribbon, we have to do something. he's a participation ribbon president, not good enough to get re-elected with the economy and challenges having to occupy the office. you have to do something. >> and you can make the case that the current job situation is all on obama and nothing to do with the past several administrations. >> no, to be fair, mika, he inherited a difficult and challenging situation, but then the question is, did his policies subsequent add to or subtract from the efforts to -- towards recovery. >> right there. >> and then it's a legitimate debate. that's a legitimate debate. we would say his policies on energy, stifling american energy development, on health care, taxes, labor issues have stifled job growth and economic growth. >> former governor tim pawlenty, thank you very much. >> thank you, governor. >> it's great to see you.

>> always great, thank you. >> that guy is great. he's a good guy. >> he is a great -- he is a great guy and, you know, nicole, we've -- we have been suffering over the past couple years with republicans that don't respect the party well, has nothing to do with ideology, it's just being smart and decent and being the type of person that can attract swing voters. he's one of those guys. >> he's also one of the nicest people you'll ever meet in politics. he kind of got a wrap for being, you know, steady as he goes, sort of boring. he's very whitey, has a bright sense of humor. >> he just brought garth barook into the base. >> the way most politicians don't. he's great. >> is he in sport? >> that's another thing. >> he is not a sport -- >> i doesn't talk about -- >> i should do like sport. i mean no. you're quoting garth -- >> about the jeb bush comments and i don't think he was forthcoming. that's okay. >> rain on our parade if you

must. >> we'll talk to arianna huffington, former white house budget director peter yor zach and chief of staff for the u.s. army, ray or deyear no and elizabeth warren will be on the show. looking forward to that. more "morning joe" in just a moment. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet?

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up next, a man with financial future, how the lives of china and the meltdown in greece will impact the u.s. and what's the single biggest economic threat facing the world. that's next on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] this is the at&t network. a living, breathing intelligence helping business, do more business. in here, opportunities are created and protected.

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45 past the hour. live look at washington, d.c. joining us now here in new york, international economist ambisa moil, author of winner take all china's race for resources and what it means to the world" an senior fellow at the new american foundation, the co-author of the ebook "reality

hybrid driving in the emerging technology civilization." this is going to be interesting. your book "winner take all struggling economies, political awakeni awakenings, unrest around the kworlds" what do you say is the biggest threat? >> my book is essentially a call to action. i strongly believe commodity head winds are the biggest issue we're going to confront in the next several decades. already we have 25 wars that are raging around the world which have their origins in commodities. the united states department of intelligence just six weeks ago put out a report raising the alarm around water wars and more generally we see a lot more pressure with commodity prices rising, demand cannot be met by the supply finite from everything of land, water, to energy and minerals. >> these are the basics. >> hierarchy of needs. >> in a world where cash is king, china's much noted cash

stock pile over $3 trillion in foreign currency reserves in 2012 affords it the ability to do what other countries can't do and go where other countries can't go, simply put the chinese are on a global shopping spree and its commodity appetite is unlikely to aed by a significantly even if china's economic growth rates were to cool. where is this going? >> so the first thing people seem to overlook is that many of the countries where china is going, places like africa, south america, even places like canada, have very, very large pockets of young people, 60% of the population in africa is under the age of 24, in places across the middle east we know 70% of the population is under the age of 24, places like uganda, 50% under the age of 15 and they need investment, job creation, they need trade and this is what china is offering. it's a symbolic relationship and beneficial to these economies and works for china too. >> other issues within the

chinese political system given their own generational shifts and their own -- the constraints of their own system that's going to -- will affect their projection of power and their accumulation of it? >> well, i think they have absolutely no interest in acquiring political power at this time and so i think one of the misinformation out there is somehow china is in near colonial or imperialistic sense, this is about economics. they have 1.3 billion population as we know, 300 million live like us, western standards but a billion people living in very dire economic circumstances and the reality is without without significant improvement we're talking about instability in china something to avoid at all costs. >> how does technology explain the picture that she's describing here? >> a big way. not only are they going out around the world, they're also

acquiring technology assets and innovation from abroad and bringing them back home. what we write about in hybrid reality is how the chinese five-year plan issued a year ago is considered the technology five-year plan. they're committing $1 trillion of investment to advance technology which include nano technology, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, alternative energy, more efficient agriculture, all of these relate to natural resources. and to meeting the needs of their population economically and in terms of substance. it really shows that there are a big emphasis moving forward is going to be on using technology to feed and nourish their population to diminish the independence of having to go abroad to unstable political environments where you're right it's about economics but a growing backlash against china in many of these places. they have to be very careful. >> so much human and intellectual commodity capital is moving without much regard to borders we still are a nation state and require a certain

competitive position. in your -- what is your research shown about the america's comparative position and possibilities over the next ten years? >> we are still the most inventive nation in the in the incredibly innovative and for one thing, the diffusion of the invention and it's getting commoditized instantly in asia. we can't rest on air laurels, as it were and say just because apple, facebook, ibm, cisco, google they're all american and yet those technologies are diffusing very quickly and adapting to where the people are and the profits are to be made. so we can't be complacent about it. >> also, we play by different rules, which does that hold us back ultimately? >> of course, it does, to some extent. one, the speed of human trials of bio technology. there's a saying here, we like to play with our mice.

in china, i wouldn't be surprised if they move quickly into human trials. they have a rapidly aging population which they have to worry about caring for. their dependency ratio is very vast. there was a high school last week in china that was censured for giving energy-boosting injections to its students. >> yea. >> mika does that. >> is that against the law? i didn't know that? >> you have no idea. you don't want to know. >> at least you don't juice at the end of the day. or do you? >> in winner take all, where do we go with all of this? where does it lead us? >> just picking up on the last question, one of the issues i found is china has adopted a multilateral approach and i touched on this earlier. the approach has been symbiotic and it's been encompassing and they go to these countries and

they offer what they want in access for the resources and it works beautifully and a pugh survey asked africans what do you think of the chinese? do you like them? do you hate them and by wide margins, 95%, 98% and they're improving the livelihoods and they're meaningful and important. just in terms of contrast, the americans have tended to adopt a unilateral approach to securing resources and there's a lot of scope for much more cohesive approach to dealing with this issue. >> dambisa, thank you. the book is "winner take all." your ebook is "reality hybrid." thanks for being on the show. >> stay with us. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

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still ahead, get a good night's sleep and cut down the risk of a stroke, dr. ziga manuel and nancy snyderman weigh in. "morning joe" will be back in a moment. dude you don't understand, this is my dad's car.

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one serving of cereal, a baseball. and one serving of fruit, a tennis ball. - you know, both parties agree. our kids can be healthier... the more you know. romney's horse might go to the olympics! >> folks, this is exactly what mitt needs. he's had a little trouble relating to joe's six pack. >> i met a guy yesterday, 7 feet tall. i figured he had to be a sport, but he wasn't a sport. >> yes! >> yes, the tall man was not in sport! the image of romney as a privileged princeling ends today

because he's a blue collar fan of drissage. it sounds highfalutin and it also goes by the street name horse ballet. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> that's number one! >> good morning! it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 on the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." we have mike barnacle and nicole wallace. >> you know what cheers me up? sport. i love sport, and i also love smokewood, bacon-filled desserts. >> why would you do that?

>> there you go. >> what the -- >> first of all, this is not a joke. >> it's called ecstasy. that's what you're looking at. >> mika, it's a sundae put out by burger king that is filled with bits of bacon and garnisheed with a full piece of smoked wood bacon -- excuse me, hardwood, thick cut smoked wood bacon. >> is that ice cream? >> it's sweet and savory, it's everything you want a dessert to be. it's two great tastes that taste great together. >> there was anything better than growing up going to the ice cream stand, the mom and your dad and getting a bacon cone and bacon sugar cone? we're all going straight -- it's just the stupidest. >> we're all going straight --

>> i'm surprised. is it on every menu or is it being test marketed? it's a summer promotional. >> for the kids to keep cool. >> so gross. >> one other piece of breaking news. last night taco bell introduces this for the morning audience, it's called mountain dew a.m., it's a blended breakfast drink of mountain dew and orange juice. >> oh, geez. >> i saw a commercial like golden corral. you know what they're doing now? they're serving cotton candy. >> yea. >> i never heard a word out of him and -- >> yea, cotton candy. >> i worked with him ten years ago and never heard a word from him. >> this is how sick we are. are we just that depressed that we focus on the food we eat and the bad tastes and really? because that's where we're at and that's why -- that's

terrible what burger king is doing. they should be ashamed of themselves. we're going start in syria. a new shelling begins this morning. a top official at the u.n. says the 15-month conflict in syria has now grown into an all-out civil war. secretary of state hillary clinton revealed that rush a one of the main obstacles to action is likely shipping more attack helicopters to damascus. >> we have confronted the rugs about stopping their continued arms shipments to syria. they have from time to time said that we shouldn't worry. everything they're shipping is unrelated to their actions internally, that's patently untrue. >> an estimated 10,000 people have been killed since fighting began. we will be continuing to cover that. it looks like hillary clinton is on the front lines of that, but that situation is --

>> it just keeps getting worse. >> job one for the president at some point overtaking any -- >> it's a point that continues. it continues and we're just sitting back. is this the sort of thing that we'll be writing books ten years from now. >> it is a stunning statement from hillary. anyone who follows the u.n. knows it's always russia and china in the way of action and for hillary clinton to be calling them out, and i think on the eve of a meeting -- >> we sat back while a million rwandans got chopped up and then we wrung our hands and said that's terrible and 2 million sudanese killed in the civil war and we sat back and wrung our hands and oh, it's terrible. never again. never again. here we go again. its happening in syria. >> there's far left and far

right that there should be a more muscular, american role in the places you named so it is an interesting coalition that it draws together. >> how many people have to get slaughtered before we see a national community to move. >> i'm sorry. i hate to sound cynical. gadhafi had oil and oh, this is an easy thing to take care of and we can figure it out. if syria were an oil-rich nation -- done. the tanks would have been there. we would have had eight damascus disneyland there and burger king would be serving smokewood bacon sundaes. we would have been in there by now, but there's no oil up there so we're just letting these people get killed. >> and you also wonder if part of this, if the russians have the same mindset that so many small fringe terrorist groups including al qaeda in the early

90s had in the united states that were so overextended economically and militarily, we are again, very internally focused. and the russians are going to keep pushing us because they know that we have a president that's not going to do anything about it. >> and to sort of humiliate russia in public and not be concerned whatsoever about public humiliation. the question is there's no appetite to put american troops on the ground. how do you do it? is it nato? if you're really talking about the military and are the american people going to go to put troops on the ground against a huge syrian army where they'll die and 275,000. it's different than syria. >> how strong is secretary of state hillary clinton? >> she's tough. i don't think any of us at the

table think that she would be sitting back and letting these people get slaughtered if she were president of the united states. this president will continue the slaughtering to continue for some reason. >> we will continue to cover this story and bring in more guests to talk about it and we'll move on to other news now. in dueling campaign stops, president obama and mitt romney accuse the other of failing to understand the fundamentals of the economy. the president was quick to link his republican challenger to what he called the failed policies of the past. >> i love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. i inherited $1 trillion deficit. we had a surplus. they turned it into a deficit and built in a structural deficit that extends for decades and -- isn't that something? it's like somebody goes on a

restaurant, orders a big steak dinner, martini and all of that stuff and then just as you're sitting down, they leave and accuse you of running up the tab! >> that's actually barnacle. >> i don't level accusations. >> but if you want to continue that metaphor, though, but then, okay so it's like the republicans ordering the steak and the martini and then the president coming and going, you know what? food for everybody. >> lobsters all around. >> lobsters all around. in fact, we want -- can you guys make the lobsters and steaks pile so high that we can't breathe? >> that is the metaphor. >> come on. >> look at the numbers. >> if you're talking about -- >> the spending, he has spent more money by far than any

president in the history of the planet. he's spent it faster. oh, yes, he is correct. mika, he is correct, mika. mika, he is correct. there was a $1 trillion deficit for one year when he came in. the president has now given us four years of trillion dollar plus deficits and the spending continues, and he had a chance to pass his own debt commission recommendations and he threw it under the bus and he's spending more money on defense than ever before. he's spending more money on entitlements than ever before. he's spending more money on discretion than ever before, and there's not a close second. >> parallel that to members of the middle class across this country eating lobster because i don't think that's how they feel. i think they feel that things were just kept from the brink and god help us, they hope it gets better and you know what? >> what is the president's

fault, though, he's the one that brought up the steakhouse analogy. forget that. so let's just talk straight. let's just talk straight. george bush left him with a $1 trillion deficit. he has answered that by increasing the deficit for four years in a row. the biggest deficits ever and the fastest rates of growth ever and the biggest defense spending ever and the biggest discretionary spendsing ever in every single category, ever there is not a close second, so this guy has gone out on the campaign trail and he's trying to make george w. bush's a big spin. i wrote two books attacking george bush as a big spender. this guy makes george bush look like calvin coolidge. >> he left obama with a trillion dollar deficit and an economy on the brink of a meltdown. please. >> wait a second. >> you can't keep saying when i

came in this house four years ago there was mud all over it and boy, it was really messy and then you go around and you dig in shovels and throw in a lot more mud. he's got the responsibility as president of the united states to clean it up and he hasn't done it and he spent more money in every category at a faster clip than any president in the history of the planet and his defenders that keep going back and blaming george w. bush for his spendsing now. look at where it goes now. it is mind blowing and it is eye-popping and it is bankrupting this nation. >> it used to confuse me to hear him blame george w. bush months and years after he got the job, but i understand it now. some of my liberal friend have explained it to me. while it does nothing to persuade the independent voters to persuade his historic victory it does affect the democratic base to be reminded of what he

inherited and i think he'll do this all of the time and hopefully he does what he hopes it would do and get people off the couch, but it will not -- it will not do anything to bring back to him the independents, the moderate republicans and the moderate democrats who voted for him four years ago. >> four years in he's still blaming george w. bush for spending what george w. bush did in 2008. his spending, what he projects in 2020. it is sickening. >> the constant line of attack, that does not resonate with a whole lot of people. the restaurant metaphor. they're saying what the restaurant metaphor is, if you don't expand the menu and buy the shrimp along with the steak, the maitre d' loses his job and the chef loses his job. let's expand the menu.

what they're not doing, by the way, but that rhetorically i think is what he's doing. >> god bless jeffrey sacks for getting it right. all of they're doing is the spending to buy all of the lunch and the steak and buying the cotton candy now available at golden corral and all they're doing is inventing a bubble that will burst and jeffrey sax said it four years ago and jeffrey sax, a supporter of this administration four years ago said all they're doing is spending money wildly and they're not investing in things that will grow the economy and jeffrey said four years from now you watch, all of this reckless, reckless spending that they enacted upon on the stimulus, and the economy will go back down and i'll be damned if i'm not 100% right. >> to get into the bacon and ice cream cones, without talking to the two principal owners with

simpson and bowles in order to maintain a sensible budget, that's a problem. >> as we continue this metaphor. >> i lost it, like, five minutes ago. >> you say the business is bad and you bring in two nerdy accountants and they say here's what you need to do to save the business and the owner goes, i like steak. i like lobster. >> and they have a pb and j. pb and j. i think the big question that this country faces in november is that we're willing to bring a brown bag lunch. are people willing to -- are we ready to eat now? >> the bottom line is the restaurant was really screwed up and so they brought in the two best to save it and what did they do? they got the beg recommendation and kept spending like it was -- >> to nicole's earlier point and i wonder whether voters will be

interested in hearing that argument about george w. bush's economy and then the other argument that the campaign is using right now that it's the republican congress's fault. bill clinton always said elections are about the future. i just wonder if people in the middle will look back to george bush. >> what do you think? >> i don't think so. >> coming up next, health headlines with dr. zeke manuel and nancy snyderman including that not enough sleep could dramatically increase the risk of stroke. also ahead, exploring the subconscious mind. oh, good. that's going to be great! exploring his subconscious mind. that will be, like, oh, my god. we could go on for hours and now neuroscientist joins us to talk about the mysteries of the human brain, but first, here's bill

carrons. >> we've had ground stop and it's where the worst weather of the country has been and let me show you what we're dealing with out there and we've had the thunderstorms near amarillo, texas that have swept down into the dallas, fort worth, area. as far as rainfall goes, in the dallas, fort worth area, maybe another hour or two. today's forecast will call for temperatures that will be pretty mild out there throughout much of the southwest. phoenix today, 107. dallas, san antonio and houston still very warm and we're still very cool in new england and we are going to see thunderstorms down along the gulf. tell you what, middle of the country is nearly perfect today. if you're traveling from denver to kansas city, chicago, detroit and cleveland and if you're waking up early on the west coast, just a slight chance of a

shower in seattle. seattle, good news, sunshine will come your way into the weekend. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. with the spark miles card from capital one,

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>> welcome back to "morning joe." it's 8:21 in the morning on east coast. a beautiful, live picture with the sun up in philadelphia. nbc news chief medical editor dr. nancy snyderman.

>> the greatest men in the world i get to share the morning with. >> and zeke emmanuel and chair of the department of medical ethics at the university of pennsylvania's pearlman school of medicine. dr. ezequiel, good to see you not just on the phone. >> good to be here. >> i think we need to start with the sleep deprivation for people who watch this show and for us personally. a lack of sleep, nancy, linked with higher stroke risk. >> no one knows what the perfect number is for anyone to get, but we all know we're sleep deprived. probably we shouldn't get less than six hours of sleep a night and for those that are sleep deprived a fourfold increase in stroke. probably a very sophisticated relationship between the brain and sleep deprivation raises high blood pressure and the stress hormones and the risk of stroke is significant.

>> does a nap help? >> we used to think a nap didn't help, but power napping does make a difference. if you go to silicon valley, a lot of them do get power naps. >> medicated sleep? >> i'll let zeke take care of this one. >> i know all of us are trying to pack more into a day and we've got more things to do and we think sleep is expendable. one of the things i like to remind people that biology doesn't preserve sleep for millions of years among animal species unless it's really vital and we need to think of it as one of the essential elements just like food and breathing for our lives and most of these studies that are done usually use the cutoff of having seven to eight hours as being the sort of normal, and i would also remind you again, going back to the food issue, we also know

that sleep deprivation is associated with increased obesity and increased diabetes and there are multiple problems as a result like sleep deprivation and it's not an increase of stroke and as nancy says there are complex hormones that are being set. some of them go up at night and some of them go down in the morning or up in the morning and when we screw around with the sleep cycle we're making ourselves sicker and a lot worse. >> nancy, we're a sleep-deprived society and it's prevalent among shift workers. >> i get up at 3:30 in the morning. >> and overnight shift workers, that's an independent risk factor for cancer. >> you can feel it when you're working an overnight shift. you can feel your body just not functioning correctly. so i meant, quite seriously, i know i need six or seven hours'

sleep, but if i have to do that i have to go to bed at 7:00 at night and therefore i have to medicate, take an ambien or an adavan something to fall asleep because it's impossible to fall asleep. is that good sleep? the slippery slope is you're adapting to an artificial --? is it better sleep? yes. at least your body is having a chance to repair itself. with true sleep deprivation you're going to become ill. there's just no doubt about it, but is it perfect having to take a medication to get sleep? of course. >> the thing about taking medication, they're for short-term solutions and they're not a chronic solution so most of the medications like ambien are supposed to be used for a maximum 30 days.

>> what about five years. >> i'm dead serious. >> that's what happens. >> that is not a very good thing to be doing. >> so that's worse? >> they're not intended for chronic use. >> and i think one of the interesting questions is what happens when you end up with chronic use and i don't think we fully understand those effects. >> you almost have to say, okay, if i must be up at 0300 you have to change everything around you, dark shades, kids don't bother me and try to avoid the medications and everything in your social life has to be rejiggered to fit your work life. >> oh, trust me. >> biology has taught us that sleep is important as food to your system, but biology being biology my sleep needs might be different and how do you measure different needs? how does one measure your sleep need? >> i don't think it's that complicated. you know if you feel good in the

morning. you know if you're nodding off at work and if you're falling asleep behind the wheel of a car and if the birds awaken you at 5:00 and you feel good and pop out of bed and you're okay, there's no perfect number unless you want to go to a lab and it changes. teenage boys need 10 to 12 hours of sleep and as you get older it gets more and more disrupted. >> remember there is a bell-shaped curve, and there is a distribution. some people need more sleep and some people need less sleep, but the idea that 90% of people need seven to eight hours of sleep. there are some extraordinary people that bill clinton is famous for, the four-hour sleep, but that's not most of us. >> president clinton is a classic insomniac and always

talked about three to four hours of sleep and then you look at the cardiac issues he's had over the years and even though he loved mcdonald's i always wondered if his sleep deprivation played a role in his heart disease. >> there's a badge of honor in our business that i -- >> surgeons. >> i need two hours of sleep. it's beyond biology. >> that's an important point that we should not make the cultural change the biology. i sleep only two hours a night as a good thing. that is not good for people, most people, and we should not laud it as somehow an increased performance. the other thing that companies should be aware of is that when companies sleep less they're not as mentally sharp and they make more mistakes and create problems and so encouraging your workers to work hard can really be a problem for the company's

performance. >> did we just link it to strokes? >> listen to this conversation has it occurred to you that when joe and mika aren't here that you and i the public service we do to put people to sleep. >> you started off the conversation with something so concrete. i beg to differ. >> you raised the bar. >> in "usa today." the same government panel, that used tests to prodetect prostate cancer. the healthy post-menopausal women should not take low doses of calcium and vitamin d to prevent bone fractures. the benefits were inconclusive and doctors recommend getting your vitamin d. i feel this way about all vitamins. i stopped taking all vitamins and the calcium came out linking it to heart disease and i happen

to eat a really good diet and we have to remember, these are not meant to be taken as food. supplements are to supplement a diet for what you're not getting. >> do these vitamins go? >> i think you get expensive urine with a lot of them and what makes this one complicate side we have been taught that if you take calcium and vitamin d you'll get stronger bones. this study says looking at 1,000 milligrams of calcium, it doesn't prevent broken bones and may hurt your heart and may give you kidney stones. for women over the age of 65, perhaps for everyone else. eat a good diet. >> aren't all of these things found in your food? why do you need to buy a pill and boosting an industry that doesn't work? >> we have learned more about vitamin d. we don't know everything, but it is important to get a lot of

vitamin d and a lot of that happens through sun exposure and with more people working inside and covering their bodies. i would say the other important thing, mika, to keep in mind and let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. there are micronutrients that not everyone has or gets in their diet and we do need to be careful about those, but in general, nancy's recommendation is exactly right which is good, healthy food as we've been saying in many cases and gets you the newt ryents you need and gets you in people's head, and moderate portions and plates offood fruits and vegetables. >> good, healthy food is a lot of work. it's not easy. >> make sure they're colorful vegetables. >> anything with color. >> micronutrients that get in your diet. >> not watch out for them. make sure you actually get them.

>> what are they? >> we know things like vitamin a is a very important micronutrient. we know that for women, folic acid is something i would plug. folic acid is especially important especially before they begin having children because folic acid we know if you take it as -- and get enough of it in your diet you decrease the risk of spina bifida and other birth complications so that's a very important one especially for young women. i would just try to be subtle and don't throw everything out. >> you know, what's interesting, if you look at juice, it's fortified and cereal is fortified. for the first time we talk about how much we hate junk food, there's more food available on the market that is fortified with might vitamins and nutrients so you have to read the label as the basic usda, but go for bright green vegetables

and enough fruits you're probably going to be okay. i really have stopped taking everything now except my baby aspirin. >> robin roberts made an announcement about her bone marrow disorder. can you explain what she has? i know you'll do a report on her. >> robin underwent treatment and now has a problem with her bone marrow and pre-leukemia kind of condition where she needs a bone marrow transplant to cause full-blown leukemia, and she will take chemo therapy and then her sister who is a perfect bone marrow match they will take literally blood from her arm and spin out the stem cells from her bone marrow and put it into bone marrow and will replace her bone

marrow and she should lick this. there are 18,000 cases per year and this is probably a chemo therapy-induced cancer from robin's previous treatment and there are only a few hundred of those a year. how much are you able to spin blood out from another people. >> needle into a bone marrow biopsy and in the university of pennsylvania where zeke is top, top state, state of the art place where you can go in and the university of pennsylvania is doing extraordinary stuff and not only getting stem cells out of peripheral blood, but if you can't get the fat out of your blood, they take the blood, spin it down and put your good blood in and -- >> this is unbelievable. >> zeke is sitting in the middle

of all of the brilliant scientists. >> i would say one needs to be, again, this is the role nancy and i play, but you need to be careful about the bone marrow transplant. it is not like a walk in the park. >> no, this is serious stuff. >> she's going to be blasted with chemo therapy and total body radiation to get rid of her bone marrow and her immune system. >> that exposes her for a period of time until the new bone marrow and the new blood cells take over to a lot of infects and problems. so you have a chance of the therapy coming in and you also have a very big chance of infection and other complications from all of that high-dose chemo therapy and total-body radiation and you also have a kind of blood disorder this myelodysplastic syndrome. >> the problem is there isn't an

option. this is it. >> nancy is right, there's no alternative in this case. usual care does not cure it. it's just mainly supportive, mainly because it is a disorder of older people, not people under 60. >> right. so it's pretty unusual to have this condition for younger people. >> and robin is extraordinary lucky to have a sister that is a match. in mixed-race people it is much more complex to find a perfect match and that's the real silver lining in robin's situation and she's perfectly healthy and is getting great care. she has a very bumpy road ahead of her. >> when you get chemo therapy you have no defenses and you know how crazy i am about immunizing children and a child who is not immunized who comes in contact with a person like

robin roberts could kill robin which is why i believe it is everyone's responsible to immunize children to keep everyone healthy. >> she has a special report on this on "rock center" at 10:00 eastern time. we want to end on a lighter note. nancy and zeke, explain to us what happens to the human body when the individual consumes this here. >> yes! thank you. >> this is from burger king, just out. >> if i do this do i become a republican? >> something like that. >> it'sa i sundae with bacon in it. >> i was watching you guys earlier. >> why? >> let's talk about the positive. >> what idiot -- >> i'll let zeke go first. i have to say, i have no idea what the upside is, but all i could see is orthodox jews don't allow you to mix milk and meat

and that's one of the reasons why they don't allow that. >> that's the best i've heard. >> does that make this an anti-semitic dessert? >> wow! >> we're pretty deep. >> what is it? 510 calories? so you can have four of those a day. >> what company -- >> i think every good jew should go out there and protest. >> i think all americans ought to say stop, stop, stop, stop. >> zeke! i'll follow behind you! >> it doesn't sound appealing to me, and i like eating good food. i just can't imagine who they're appealing to. >> take care. doctors are in. stay with us. up next, we'll explore the subconscious mind. keep it on morning joe. [ male announcer ] this is the land of giants.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining us a neuroscientist, day of the ed aelman joining us with his book "incognito." is the brain deceived? how does it work? >> it's made up of lots of

pieces and parts and sort of a representative democracy where you have different political parties and they're all battle to control the ship of state. >> oh, my god. >> so what that means is you're want one thing. so, for example, if i put one of those sundaes with bacon on it in front of you. >> what would my brain would do? >> part of it would want to eat it. >> no, part of it would want to eat five of them. >> i'll go to the gym tomorrow if i eat it now. who is talking with whom? >> right. >> it turns out it's all parts of you and we're not one thing. this is why people -- >> can we develop the other parts? >> that's one of the things we're working on is because we're doing the political parties and the question is can we strengthen those parts of the brain?

>> so what we're doing is using real-time feedback in neuroimaging and brain imaging to give people immediate feedback how they're doing in terms of their cravings. >> we started this with cocaine addicts and we showed them cocaine and we showed them that part of the brain and we give them immediate feedback and their job is to make that bar go down. they're strengthening up the parts of their brain that are suppressing their cravings and impulses. >> so interesting. >> given this incredibly complex, moving thing we have in us, the brain, is there any internal combativeness within the brain when it comes to a moral code that is addressed to you by your parents and your upbringing and the way you're brought up, is there any conflict ever? >> certainly. it turns out the process of socialization is getting parts of your brain to stop other parts of your brain, so when

you're a child you take off your clothes in public and your parents tell you no and society tells you no and the process of maturation is you're developing the frontal lobes of the brain to steer you into an acceptable form of behavior. and what happens when people get brain damage when they're older is the damage to the frontal parts of their brain all of those other behaviors are still in there and they get inmasked and they express themselves. >> as we look at the sandusky trial goes on it brings in decision making and criminality and you have a part of the book where you talk about the common criminal and the pedophile. what can we learn from the book that might give us an understanding as to what is going on. >> in terms of who you are and the kind of decisions you make we all think that's who i am, that's my moral code ask my integrity. the fact is we're made up of our

genes combined with our experiences, starting from the time we're in the womb. these all combine in complicated ways to make people who they are and the fact is that people's brains are very different and brains are like fingerprints and they're all quite different from one another and it's no surprise that across the population have very different drives. this is no defensive and any sort of behavior and it is to say it's not surprising that people can be very different from one another and what we find when we look in the legal system or let me just say, when you look in the brain in general what you find is that when people's brains get damaged, for example, with stroke or brain damage or a tumor that can change your behavior entirely. there's a man who had a normal sexual behavior and he had a brain tumor and he had itty r

removed he returned to normal. >> the implicit egotism that weer attracted to ours and even partners with the first letter of their name. >> most of what's happening in your brain, making you who you are is happening under the hood of consciousness and this is one example of it. you're most likely to marry someone to marry someone with someone with the first letter of your name and this is a terrible reason to choose a life mate, but you can go through the marriage registries and show it's true. it's one of the unconscious decisions we make. >> alex and allison. >> call deutsche. >> this is absolutely

fascinating. oh, my gosh. the book is "incognito." the secret lives of the brain and you can go to moejoe, msn msnbc.com. thank you very much. we're back in just a moment. uncover stronger, younger looking skin. [ female announcer ] new aveeno skin strengthening body cream helps transform dry, thinning skin, by strengthening its moisture barrier, for improved texture and elasticity in 2 weeks. reveal healthy, supple skin. aveeno skin strengthening.

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>> time now to talk about what we learned today. i can't tell you what we learned today because it's classified. it's classified. nicole's book now out in paperback. willie? >> i found out the sundae has what it's been missing all these years. pork. >> i learned the people who run