isn't that good news? >> see, we're going to be okay

america. >> some of that is good. >> good morning. mike barnicle and mike halpern, and emmy award winning journalist, former district court judge, miss katherine cryer with us this morning, the author of "patriot acts" and dr. howard dean, former chairman of the national democratic committee. can we start with clemens, barnicle. >> $10 million the government wasted. >> what was the point of that trial? >> the legal expert using legalese would say can't figure it out, trying to make the point that the government can regulate something it can't. it's not going to succeed and we had a big show trial.

>> they weren't even trying to prove he used steroids, they were trying to prove he lied. >> they spent $10 million trying to make and prove the point that roger clemens lied to congress. if you're going to start indicting people for lying to congress, that's a pretty long line. >> let me ask you as a guy who covered baseball and watches it, would you put him in the hall of fame fame? >> yes, i would. >> there a lot of people writing he shouldn't be in based on the suspicion. >> you mentioned bill madden of the "new york daily news", he's a terrific writer, terrific guy. i would either put a plaque up on the wing of a certain section of the hall of fame in cooperstown explaining the steroid era or i would put all the implications of what happened with clemens in the trial on his plaque -- >> even though he never tested, that it's all suspicion and us hearsay, why would you put that in the hall of fame?

>> you have several people who belong in the hall of fame, pete rose. >> your first thing has got to be the right answer. the steroid era has to be part of the hall. you have people like barry bonds who, you know, there's no plausible argument for not having barry bonds. he was a hall of famer before he got close to them, if he ever took them. >> just like the watergate section of the nixon library. >> we tried pete rose and all these guys came in to testify and that was non-jury conclusion, we want the caveats on the plaque. >> they do belong in the hall of fame. >> let's listen to clemens as he came out of courthouse yesterday. >> i put a lot of hard work into that career and so, again, i appreciate my teammates that came in and all the e-mails and

phone calls from my teammates. >> there you go, roger clemens. >> as articulate as ever. >> he's emotional. >> let's turn to some real news and talk about what's going on down in mexico at the g-20 summit, a big slate of international crises there, syria front and center. yesterday the president meeting with vladimir putin and today he'll try to convince hu jintao, the president of china, to come and on syria to push assad out of power. the photo-op looked a little chilly. the white house insists they had a "productive conversation." what are you hearing? >> we'll see how productive it is. the white house is correct that on iran there is some cooperation with russia. but syria there has not been and

i think the biggest problem in american foreign policy today in almost any theater where we have challenges is to get more cooperation from china and from russia and the president is down there working on that now, again without much leverage. but sitting side by side maybe they can do some business. the body language didn't suggest a lot of business but at least it's a start perhaps. >> john, as we look at some of the video of the body language here, the relationship between president obama and vladimir putin as contrasted to the relationship with president obama and dmitri medvedev, is it important? does it change our relationship with russia, the personal relationship with these guys or lack thereof with putin? >> i think there's no question but that in diplomacy personal relationships matter a lot. i think the president has established good personal relationships with some world leaders and less good personal relations with others. so this is a really important

strategic relationship. if the president is going to make progress, he's going to have to do a little better. i'm not blaming him but there's got to be some chemistry if he's going toks e exercise diplomacy. >> he said nt national relationships is personal relationships. he got it, joe biden, going back decades. the president did not come into office with those deep relationships, particularly with the countries who are a real challenge. >> as we watch the u.n. bang its head against the wall with this question of syria trying to get around the power of the veto from china and russia, what is the path forward if not through the u.n.? can the white house sit here and watch again as civilians are shelled and the government goes house to house or its goons go

house to house killing women and children? what's the move if not the u.n.? >> they're going to have to do something, to arm the syrian rebels. the syrian rebels are being trained. tear not a rag tag band. they recently elected a president or leader of their forces and i think that's going to happen. an interesting player to watch is turkey. he is deeply offended by human rights offenses and deeply offended by assad's attack on his own people. something is going to have to happen. the united states has had trouble taking the leadership because of the u.n. i think you're going to see somebody arming syrian rebels and we're probably going to be involved in some way. >> katherine cryer, when you think of the president's options, especially given the lean aspect the american military and our extensive reaches overseas in afghanistan, he is pretty much in a box here with regard to syria.

>> he's going to be hobbled and he's hobbled financially as well. but he's ult patly going to have to take that route where we are leading from behind but it turned out relatively well. but arming but you're right back with putin where he says -- he came out 48 hours ago and said we're not doing this, keep the helicopters out. he's going to have to change what. >> and mitt romney has said publicly we ought to be arming the rebels in syria. speaking of mitt romney, the immigration question, the argument changed on friday when president obama came out with the announcement from the department of home land security that would give leniency to young illegal immigrants in this country. at that plays into the presidential race because florida senator marco rubio is now dropping his immigration plan after being upstaged by the president last week. the president announced his decision to stop deporting thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought to the u.s. as

children. according to a new bloomberg poll released this morning, 64% of americans support the president's announcement to 30%. mitt romney is expected to come out at some point this week and endorse that plan but it's looks like that's not going to happen now. romney and rubio both suggested politics got in the way of a delicate situation. >> if you even suggest that you have an illegal immigration problem and we need to do something about it, if you're a republican, the left will label you as anti-immigrant. this idea that this is a slam dunk issue, that it's easy, is not true. on the one hand we do have a significant illegal immigration problem. it has to be confronted and has to be solved. we cannot be the on country in the world that does not enforce its immigration laws. on the other hand we have compelling human stories. feels weird to deport a

valedictorian who has been here since they were 4 years old and done well in school. what the president did makes it harder to find that balance and it's offensive to the constitutional principles of our republic. >> he went to work on obamacare and on cap and trade and on card check and on dodd-frank. he went after all the things that he and his liberal friends have been trying to do for years. he had talked about in the campaign, remember, he was all concerned about the deficit. he said he would cut the deficit in half. have you heard him talk about the deficit or balancing the budget in three and a half years? i haven't. and he was going to deal with immigration he said. in his first year he was going to focus on that. did he do anything on immigration while he had a democratic house and senate? no. this is a president who has said one thing and done another and i got to tell you we're going to have a very different course because the path he's taken us on is a path towards europe. >> a lot to wade through there.

mark halpern. >> this is fantastic. >> let's go to you, governor. you seem to be enjoying this. >> this is great. this is why presidents win reelection a lot. this is a brilliant move on obama's part. romney desperately has to get himself over at least 35% in the latino population. he can't do. even now putting rubio on the ticket, he can't do it. this is what incoming presidents get to do. the stuff about the constitution, first of all, since when have the republicans cared what's in the constitution? but secondly, standing up to congress, ignoring congress, that's exactly what the american people want. here's a group of people, a 9% favorability rating, obstructing everything the president is trying to do in every area, not just immigration and obama just says i'm just going to do this anyway. i think he gets big points for that in the latino community, 64% of americans support this, 90% of latinos support this.

a, it's the right thing to do and, b, was this ever well timed. >> was this is masterful move to short circuit the rubio-romney plan? and how did it come about? >> it certainly looks that way. not just microtargeting the hispanic vote as dr./governor/chairman dean points out. but it also showed the president looking decisive. he needs to find a series of issues. harold ford and others have said for a while now he's got to be seen doing something to get washington moving to show movement in a positive direction breaking gridlock. anything that tests 60/40 or better is going to be politicized today. i don't know for a sheer fact the white house did a lot of polling on that before they did this issue but i would bet they

did. the argument that mitt romney is making that the president shouldn't have done this because it shows he hadn't done anything comprehensive and it messes things up for a big deal, i don't think that's a bad comeback but it's insufficient. they're on the short end of this right now. >> the american people don't care about that argument at all. they've got to see movement. and we also know what happened when george w. tried to move immigration. one of those areas where the democrats are going we like this, there's a conversation here completely shut down. there was nothing for this president to do with this congress on immigration. there was no other way to accomplish this. >> it sounds like the outline of they're not going to do anything so i'll do it by myself. boom. >> look, what the white house has been afraid of for the last few months is that they look at their advantage over romney with hispanic voters and they think that's pivotal. they have feared that romney and republican super pacs were going to go into the hispanic community and run a really

negative campaign against the president effectively from the left and say barack obama, not only has he wrecked the economy for hispanics but he's been the most pro deportation president ever. this is the ultimate comeback to that. republicans can't run those ads now and say for the last three years barack obama not only didn't do immigration reform but he's deported pomore of your people. they can't make that argument now. he can say that was then and this is now. i've taken the action that puts the ultimate squash on that argument. it's a retort to what is going to be a really, really tough campaign. what chairman dean says is true. romney needs to get his numbers with hispanics up over 35% or republicans need to suppress hispanic turnout. that looks like what could lead to a really negative campaign in all the hispanic swing states. this is an important move to

fight that war. >> thursday and friday back-to-back speeches, romney thursday, the president friday. big moment for romney to come in and say finally what does he think about immigration policy? he hasn't said it in a comprehensive way. i suspect he'll do it there and have to perform well approximately. >> i don't think he'll do it. >> do you any number on how this is playing with independents? >> the bloomberg poll, very much approved by independents. >> those personal stories, you saw those guys on the cover of "newsweek," which turned out to be great timing for "newsweek" running that story basically about the dream act -- it was you guys, story about that. >> marco rubio conceded that point said if you're going to deport the valedictorian of a class who has been here since he was 4 years old. is it demographically impossible

for mitt romney to win? >> he can't win. you'll see between now and november a number of other occasion on which the president and governor romney speak to the same group. this is i think a really big one because he's got not just an unsafe policy but he's got to show some affinity and some feel for the aspiration of hispanic americans -- >> you do a 20-foot wall and you stop anything by 2050 we are over 50% hispanic if the republican party doesn't figure out how to assimilate to that community long term, it's a death nell. >> when romney goes on tv, i was back to back with romney on schieffer this weekend and romney talked to 15 minutes and didn't say anything. he's stuck. he can't say anything reasonable on immigration because he'll turn off the far right of his

party, which controls the party. so he can't agree with obama and he can't say anything outrageous because then he's really put himself in the hole with hispanic voters. i think this is going to be a really interesting campaign, a guy who is running on attacking the president without any specifics of his own. that's what his game plan is now and i think at the end of the day it doesn't work. >> what governor dean points out and catherine cryer points out, how do you go about suppressing the vote? >> what the obama campaign is worried about is they go into the hispanic community, they attack obama from the left for being pro deportation, attack him from the center for being bad on the economy and not doing anything about the foreclosure crisis, which has really hurt hispanic communities in florida, nevada, new mexico, arizona and then you attack him from the right on gay marriage because there's a lot of cultural conservative up in the hispanic

communities. so they attack him from every possible direction the obama campaign fights back and you end up with a really vicious negative ad war in hispanic media that cause as lot of hispanics to get in the theory of the voter suppression world. everyone throws up their hands and says i hate all these guys, it's all negative ads, i'm going to stay home. >> you don't convince anybody to come to your side. you just convince people to sit out. >> rick perry had this when he tried to talk a rational immigration policies. there are governors and leaders in states that have to come up with a rational -- that need those workers and so you're going to have this amazing split because what do you do with rubio as plan? how does romney respond to the rising young star's plan when he's denounced much of what it contains? >> governor? >> here what's people don't fundamentally understand to marketing to hispanics in this

country. most latinos get their news from the same place we get our news from. you have got to do the mainstream media because that's where latinos like every other american gets most their news from. most of the population -- the republicans have no clue because none of these folks are in the republican party but the fact is most people of latino dissent in this country actually speak english and watch the television that everybody else watches. >> that is half true. i mean, it's true that they do. >> telemundo has the number one news show. >> univision is a media kol os is. it is according to some people who know about this stuff the most trusted institution in a lot of hispanic communities, more trusted than the catholic

church. univision is powerful in a way that almost no media outlet is in our society anymore within those communities. >> here's one thing to keep in mind. people in chicago in the obama campaign are very confident about the hispanic electorate, they see it as a lynch pinch to winning. people in the republican party who are smart, karl rove, gillespie, and matt rhodes of the romney campaign, they have to try to figure out how to cut the hispanic gap. they haven't figured it out yet but they're not just sitting back and saying we can't win. they're going to try. >> it's an uphill climb. they have a lot of ground to make up. >> yes, they do. >> coming up, mike allen joins us with the top stories in the political play book. and in a few minutes, kansas government sam brownback will

join us and "the washington post's" eugene robinson and david westin. first bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> anyone leaving the house around syracuse, new york right now, some thunderstorms are rolling through. they'll be in and out in a hurry, though. they'll pass down through ithaca, portland and binghamton. temperatures in pittsburgh up at 91, d.c. 87. one more coolish type day from boston to new york city and then it's a two-day heat wave, temperatures 95 to 100 degrees from d.c. all the way up through new england. we're not going to see too much rainfall. humidity will be pretty high. at night we're not going to cool things off much. thursday we could hit near 100 degrees in hartford, connecticut. it's going to be a shock to the system.

we haven't had weather like this yet in new england. the rest of the country has but in the us. get ready, everyone, crank the a.c. up in the northeast. one more day and then the heat is on. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. cuban cajun

raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cashback. signup for 5% cashback at restaurants through june. it pays to discover. [ creaking ] [ male announcer ] trophies and awards lift you up. but they can also hold you back. unless you ask, what's next? [ zapping ] [ clang ] this is the next level of performance. the next level of innovation. the next rx. the all-new f sport. this is the pursuit of perfection.

mitt romney campaign has released video of his family talking about mitt himself as a family man and as a father. it's rather enjoyable. watch this. >> he's a goofball. he loved to horse around. >> oh, my gosh. my dad has legendary pranks. he's smelling this butter. he's like this butter turned. smell how awful this is and

you'd go in and smell it and he'd put your nose in it. >> i wonder one time he threw the gardner down the stairs. the guy survived. maybe he didn't. i don't remember. >> i'm mitt romney and i approve this message. >> everybody forgets that but zepo was a good guy. >> during a casual conversation at a charity event, mayor bloomberg was overheard saying mitt romney would probably be better at running the country than plop a but said he could not support romney because he disagreed with him on so many social issues. the mayor's office declined to comment on the conversation. mark, i saw the story last night, read through it. i was a little surprised the hearsay and overheard at cocktail party made it into the

paper. >> that said i believe it's accurate. >> you read this one. i'm getting tired. >> "washington post" says senator john kerrey will play the role of mitt romney in a series of debate rehearsals to help president obama prepare. kerrey long considered one of the most skilled debaters is also familiar with romney's political background in massachusetts. the governor, governor romney, has not yet chosen someone to play barack obama in his mock debates, three presidential debates are scheduled for this fall. >> the seattle times says microsoft is entering new territory unveiling yesterday a tablet to compete directly with the apple ipad. the device called microsoft surface has a built-in kick standnd a magnetic cover that doubles as a keyboard. >> the los angeles times says

asian-americans are the fastest growing segment of population. >> obama's strategy, it's the base stupid. president barack obama's campaign wants to turn mitt romney into the candidate of old, straight white men or the party of mike barnicle. he checks all those boxes. >> why is everybody so harsh on me today? >> just throwing it out there. what's the strategy today? >> young of heart. it's the other end of the telescope you all have been talking about this morning. jim and i have a story out this morning talking about how the obama campaign is exploiting this weakness by republicans. you were talking about the demographic cliff that republicans are looking over. there's a study of exit polls that fond between '76 and 2008

the proportion of minorities double from 12 to 26. and can you argue that mathematically ronald reagan couldn't have been elected with the electorate that these guys are facing. so that's why you see the obama campaign jumping in there, up this morning in colorado, nevada, florida. but they're also pursuing an hispanic strategy in non-obvious states, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia, looking for these pockets. obama has a campaign within the campaign, they call it operation vote and it focusses on swing votes and base votes. so for african-americans they have a barber and beauty shop program to reach out to them. for yoult they have dorm captains and urban d.j. programs. state by state, demographic group they're looking for all romney soft spots. >> at the risk of overstating the importance of what we've seen in the last few days on immigration, could we look back in november after election day and look at friday's move by the

white house as pivotal in who became the president of of the united states? >> republicans think it was very shrewd, they were totally caught off guard by it and it's the reason this weakness with hispanics was the reason that senator marco rubio of florida stayed on everybody's vice presidentialless, even though he's not very experienced, there's questions about how he would vet out. abc's jonathan carl reporting this morning it's not going to be him. the romney campaign is not vetting him, they have not asked for financial information or given the questionnaires they've given other candidates. look for someone outside washington. that's why i think tim pawlenty of minnesota is at the top of the list. >> portman? >> yeah, i think that's right. governor romney has said his number one criterion is somebody who could do the job. rob portman, senator from ohio, who has worked both ends of pennsylvania avenue could immediately step into the job.

>> this is a point that catherine made in the first segment, our friend mike murphy has been making for years, you've got to broaden the demographic base for the republican party or you become a dead party very quickly. >> when gay marriage became instrumental in so many states in 2004, remember we're going to make sure there's an issue to bring out a conservative audience. there has been a long concerted effort to roll out this vote, what i call a voter suppression move. you look at all the different states, all the state legislatures that have now enacted legislation. so we're reading about florida, we're paying a lot of attention in one spot but it's all across the united states and that's what you do when you confront these kind of demographics where your policies are not going to appeal to so many of these groups. they're trying it a very tried and true method and that is we're going to literally suppress the vote. >> some republicans who have been on "morning joe," ed

gillespie, have been talking for years about how they need to do more and more reach out. you're hearing more republicans worry that it's too late.micro . the romney message because they don't have time to do anything else is macro, the president has been a famier on the economy, anyone who thinks that vote for us. it's still close, it's not like romney is far behind heeshs g, a chance. they're going to have to do better. >> somebody with great knowledge said the obama campaign is community organizing, the romney campaign is an ad agency. >> mike allen with a look inside the political play book. coming up, the one-hit wonder. the mets r.a. dickey does it again. why he's a serious cy young

contender even as a knuckleballer. that's next. ♪ 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?

on friday el presidente barack obama announced in a rose garden ceremony that he will not be deporting illegal immigrants

brought here as children who have a high school diplomacy a and no criminal record. this of course replaces our longstanding policy of not deporting them if they were really good at baseball. >> welcome back to "morning joe." time for a little sports. the yankees. do you know what they're doing this year? >> let's go right to r.a. dickey. this is ridiculous. >> they're pulling together this rag tag group of kids. is this the national feed of this show or the tristate area? >> somehow they continue to get it done night after night. they don't have the best players in the world, by golly. >> what's their payroll again? >> it's lower than it used to be and close to theirs. >> what's the red sox by the way? right up there, my man. >> the little engine that could. >> red sox hosting the yankees. that helped the yankees to their tenth consecutive win, the second lonnest winning streak for the yanks since the

divisional era, 1969. >> why? why? >> they win ten games in a row and you don't talk about it? r.a. dickey, the knuckleballer from tennessee coming off a one-hitter in his last start, which should have been a no-hitter, taking the hill again. tom of of the fifth, we'll show you a single because it was the orioles' only hit of the night. in the eighth inning dickey gets nick johnson with a dancing knuckleball to end the frame. and in the ninth chris davis caught looking to end the game. that's a complete game shutout, one-hitter for dickey. mets win 5-0. he's now gone 42 2/3 innings without giving up an earned run. he becomes the third pitcher with consecutive one-hitters since dave steve in 1988, first national league pitcher to do it since 1944. since the turn of the 20th century, r.a. dickey the only

pitcher who have back-to-back one-hitters with ten or more strikeouts. he had 13 last night. >> 13. >> all-star starter perhaps? >> yes. >> and what about cy young? >> absolutely. >> he's 11-1. >> i'm with you. what if that knuckleball stops dancing in the middle of the season? >> heit won't. he throws three knuckleballs, it won't. >> small, medium and large. >> and bottom of the third, hill launches a fly ball off the wall in left center. all the way around to third for a triple. you starting to see where we're going? hill's next at-bat. down the left field, that's a double. >> he only needs one more! >> you'd have to get a home run. >> seventh inning. >> oh! >> aaron hill goes deep to left, yes, he hits for the cycle, the fifth player in d-backs history

to do that. the d-backs beat the mariners 7-1. tonight the heat hosting the thunder with a two games to one lead. what's the spread there? >> it's almost july 4th and the nab is still playing? >> stop it. >> it's a really good series. you can watch these two teams play, best of nine, best of 11. every game has been great. >>they were playing in my driveway i want go out and watch it. >> what the hell's wrong with you? >> it's almost july 4th. go home. the season is over. >> he's rather watch the red sox get swept by the braves. >> our next guest signed one of the biggest tax cuts anyone has seen in years. republican governor of kansas sam brownback joins us next. also ahead, we'll talk to congressman elijah cummings who will be at the high profile

meeting between attorney general eric holder and congressman issa. >> you have and your attorneys produced internally the materials responsive to the subpoenas? >> we believe that we have responded to the subpoena. >> no, mr. attorney general, you're not a good witness. a good witness answers the question asked. ♪ our cloud is not soft and fluffy.

our cloud is made of bedrock. concrete. and steel. our cloud is the smartest brains combating the latest security threats. it spans oceans, stretches continents. and is scalable as far as the mind can see. our cloud is the cloud other clouds look up to. welcome to the uppernet. verizon. [ 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. [ male announcer ] from our nation's networks... ♪ ...to our city streets...

♪ ...to skies around the world... ♪ ...northrop grumman's security solutions are invisibly at work, protecting people's lives... [ soldier ] move out! [ male announcer ] ...without their even knowing it. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman.

♪ welcome back to "morning joe." the republican governor of the state of kansas is with us, governor sam brownback. good to see you here in new york. >> it's great to be with you. >> you disagree with the mike

barnicle's assessment of the nba. >> we like to watch basketball most any time of year, in driveway. in a fieldhouse is best. >> when does the kansas basketball season end, though? >> officially or unofficially? >> it really never ends. >> it never ends, it keeps on going. >> my point, it's way too late. >> i agree with that point of it. we're still watching it. >> don't argue basketball with a kansas man. >> this is my only point by which he means my only non--point. >> governor, you caused a bit of a ruckus with what you've done with tax cuts, reducing the top income tax rate from 6.5% to 4.9%, eliminatesing income taxes on non-wage income for the smar

business and eliminating cuts on education. >> not so on the last part on that. >> no cuts on education or social services? >> no. you have to back up on this. i came into office about 18 months ago, facing about a half a billion dollar shortfall. unfortunately at the state level you've got to balance your budget. you can't just present money yet or anything else. so we had to go in at that point in time and really adjust our budgets and did. i'm now looking at about a half a billion dollar surplus. i've got 30 years of data where we had declining really -- we were growing slower than the entire region and we were the highest tax state in the region, weren't doing well. now we're saying we can cut taxes after we made those adjustments and moving forward. >> where did you make up the ground by cutting taxes? where did the new revenue come

from? >> we had some good years. we got a nice oil play taking place now in the state of kansas, good agricultural time period, manufacturing sector is growing, aviation sector is going up and you have to pay attention to the details in government. how much are we spending rent for this building, how much janitorial services? you can say it isn't going to add up to anything but it does and nobody's paid attention to it for a long period of time. it was really nickels and dimes in a lot of different places but the thing does add up. >> the attention to detail that you mentioned, talk if you would, governor, about the differences of being a governor day to day, getting a curb cut on the highway, signing a piece of legislation and being in the united states senate when you served. >> it really is apples and oranges. you really are right on the

ground. we had a flood last summer and i'm out there all the time and it's different people's questions. someone says we need a pump here to get the water out and you get ahold of the national guard and we get a pump. the senate is much more global in its view. you don't get into the details as much. i was chair of the agriculture subcommittee in appropriations with a budget three times the size that i have right now and a lot less impact on that budget because it is so large and so big, but this one that we've got now, it's a $14 billion budget. you're in there looking at that thing every day and literally asking the question what are we paying utility rates here? how much is it? why are we paying such a high utility rate? let's negotiate to drive that on down. it's a different level of impact. but that's what government is going to have to -- it's what's going to have to happen at the federal level really is getting into that detail of how this budget is actually spent. >> we've got another guy who knows something about running a

state with us in washington, governor howard dean once again. governor? >> thanks. i've got the same question mike has. how do you pay for all this? supply side economics has been discredited. you are lucky because you're in the middle of the energy belt and oklahoma has done very well as well. i cut income taxes twice but i left office with every kid in the state under 18 having health insurance. so i'm just curious about where this is going and how you're going to balance the budget. >> well, step one of what actually takes place on our proposal and what we put in is actually a tax increase. it's a severance tax increase. we had a proposal where we had our law was the first two years of any enough oil well, no taxes on it. this is one of these lateral plays. there's a big flush that comes in initially with the oil and then it dissipates. we're said that's going to be day one there will be a tax on that oil. we're going to use that set of revenues as well.

and plus it really has been managing and getting our costs down in a very specific fashion that got us to a half a billion dollar surplus that got us into position to where you could cut taxes so we could grow. we were -- our state taxes were too high. we got to get them down. particularly targeted on small business. we took all income taxes off llcs, sub ss and sole proprietorships to stimulate that key part of the economy which grows small business. >> good luck. i hope it works for you. >> we had a fight in the race between president obama and governor romney over the question of the federal role in spending money in states to hire in retention of firefighter, teachers, cops. president obama has made a point of how important that is and how important it is for states like yours. governor romney came out and said president obama is wrong about this, he thinks that's the

solution to our problems. sitting where you sit, would you like to see the federal government reduce its spending on those vital resources in your state or do you think the federal government should give you a little more money? >> i don't think they should give us any more money. the reason i say it is they're broke and we are in a federal system and it impacts the rest of us when they operate on such a lack of discipline fiscally. really what ought to take place in my estimation is over a period of time you ought to ask for a higher cost share at various -- but you ought to say if you're not willing to join the program, then don't but you're not going to get the federal match on it and let states be in more of a choosing role of what part they want to participate in. i think you're going to have to see a lot more of that in the future. >> a different philosophy, when they were talking about increasing taxes on corporate

jets and these sorts of things. >> which we didn't like in kansas. we make those jets. >> it's a little bit here, a little bit there, you're piecemealing this, it's not an answer was the republican response. you're saying it was that piecemealing going through, we're reduce hearing, add a little here, that's the effective way to govern. it doesn't sound like the philosophy we've been getting on a national level is at all corresponding or reflective of the kind of philosophy you've describe needed to accomplish the tax. >> you're talking taxes on adding, i'm talking budget on spending. >> it's just an analysis of the budget where you have to pick and choose and piecemeal to be effective. >> i think on budgets you do. there are places we put more money into, grew the budget, higher education particularly but targeted like animal health sector or aviation where we do so much in that field. but on taxes you need to get your overall rates down and you need to get your social manipulation out of it in my estimation to create growth.

and we'll see how it works. we'll have a real live experiment. we're right next to some other states that haven't lowered taxes. the area of kansas city is i think the largest urban area in the country that's shared between two states. you'll get a chance to see how this impacts a particular experimental area and i think kansas is going to do well. >> all right, governor sam brownback, good to see you up here in new york city. >> thank you. >> still ahead, eugene robinson joins us. we'll be right back. ♪ fer ] what if i can't do it? what if i can't lose the weight? what if weight watchers can't help me? what if i'm not ready for change? what if i fall back into old habits? what if i lose control? what if i gain it all back? what if i fail? shhh. there's only one voice worth listening to and that's the one saying you can do this. i'm standing here still in control of my weight with weight watchers, telling you to believe in that voice.

[ female announcer ] join now for $1. hurry, offer ends june 23rd. weight watchers. believe. because it works. [ thunk ] sweet! [ male announcer ] the solid thunk of the door on the jetta. thanks, mister! [ meow ] [ male announcer ] another example of volkswagen quality. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. ...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. how do you know which ones to follow? the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments. the equity summary score is one more innovative reason

serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea.

coming up next, congressman elijah cummings and eugene robinson join us. keep it on "morning joe." ♪ a house that they really wanted. it was in my sister's neighborhood. i told you it was perfect for you guys. literally across the street from her sister. [ banker ] but someone else bought it before they could get their offer together. we really missed a great opportunity -- dodged a bullet there. [ banker ] so we talked to them about the wells fargo priority buyer preapproval. it lets people know that you are a serious buyer because you've been credit-approved. we got everything in order so that we can move on the next place we found. which was clear on the other side of town. [ male announcer ] wells fargo. with you when you're ready to move.

[ male announcer ] wells fargo. ♪ hello...rings ♪ what the... what the... what the... ♪ are you seein' this? ♪ ♪ uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh... ♪ ♪ it kinda makes me miss the days when we ♪ ♪ used to rock the microphone ♪ back when our credit score couldn't get us a micro-loan ♪ ♪ so light it up! ♪ even better than we did before ♪ ♪ yeah prep yourself america we're back for more ♪ ♪ our look is slacker chic and our sound is hardcore ♪ ♪ and we're here to drop a rhyme about free-credit-score ♪ ♪ i'm singing free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ dot-com narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com.

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?

the greeks went back to the polls yesterday to take another try at parliamentary elections. by the way, i should also mention the whole [ bleep ] country is on fire. here are the results of the elections. >> voters chose a new lead who are wants to stick with europe and most of the economic sacrifices that requires. >> greece did the responsible this evening. you don't normally expect that from a country whose whole language is written in frat symbols. >> joining us from washington, pulitzer prize winning columnist, associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. good morning. >> good morning, willie. we were discussing earlier this morning, mitt romney's mysterious views on immigration "if taking action on the

immigration issue is good politics for obama and the democrats, then republicans have only themselves to blame. the gop has made a conscious decision to offer nativists a comfortable home where their extremist views go unchallenged. gene, walk us through what you saw from friday forward from the president's announcement on friday of that homeland security procedural action to the diffusion of the romney-rubio plan this week. >> what the president did was get way out in front on this issue. this seemed to be where rubio wanted to go and where romney perhaps wanted to follow. but the president got there first and it really does create a problem for mitt romney politically because he's already trailing badly among latino

voters. so badly, in fact, that that in and of itself can present a challenge to him in winning the presidency. if he doesn't get in the high 30s among latinos, it's hard to see -- it's hard to draw on the map where he wins. and i think this puts him further behind, if you look at sort of flash polls. you see the president's support among latinos perhaps being energized, perhaps being motivated and certainly being solidified, i think, by this. so politically it was a smart move by the president i think and also just in terms of policy itself. this is hard to argue with. i think it's hard for most americans to argue with the proposition that this is a group of people that you should give special consideration to. >> gene, you're not paid as far as i know to develop strategy for the republican party or for mitt romney but let me ask you

what he can do, mitt romney, to reverse this trend. when you look at the number, it's a wide gulf of 47%, 40%, defending which poll you look at. the consensus this morning seems to be voter suppression, to hopes the latino voters don't come out to vote for president obama this time. can he do anything else beyond that? >> beyond voter suppression, i'm not quite sure. this would have been a gesture if he could have come out for something like the rubio dream act but he can't at this point or he won't and so it could be down to voter suppression, negative ads, just essentially saying that the president hasn't done that much more you and trying to keep that total down and so he doesn't lose that badly. >> john heilmann -- >> sir. >> does it say anything or mean

anything in the obama administration we seem to be able to find out about cyber attacks on iran from reading the paper, seem to find out about drone targets in yemen from reading the papers yet this announcement last week was such a shock, just out of the blue. how did they maintain -- how did they keep the cover on that? >> well, you know, those -- both of those items that you talked about that ended up in the paper were politically advantageous to the administration and this political advantage here was to keep this quiet and they seemed to -- i don't know the source of the leaks on the foreign policy side but it is a fact that those are both things that made the administration look good. this is something where keeping it secret was to their advantage. and, you know, when i was reporting a cover story a little while ago, a couple weeks ago, about the president's reelection campaign, one of the senior campaign aides said we have a bunch of cards we want to lay

down. the only question is whether we get distracted and one of the concerns they have about all the money on the republican side is that that can throw them off their game plan. and on friday when i saw this, what i thought was i remembered that comment that the senior official made, which was this was something they've had in their hand for a while and they were waiting for the day to do it. it was the day mitt romney had started that bus tour, he had not moved very quickly on the subject of immigration, they had been waiting for him to make a countermove and they were like we're going to slap that card down on the table. mark has made this point many times before, they've been preparing for mitt romney for a long time and there's going to be moments when democrats panic about the team obama and do they not have the right message, are they off their game, et cetera, et cetera. they've been thinking about this for a long time. they thought romney was going to be the nominee for months and month. they may not win but they have a plan and they know how they want to execute it. i think you're going to see them

both in terms of their attacks on romney and in terms of affirmative things like this they can do because he's an incumbent president, the right day will come, they'll slap another card on the table and make romney's life difficult over the coming months. >> it does make you wonder whether the cards are going to be laid down. look at the gay marriage initiative and look at this, those are two cards that they played aimed at constituencies that the president really wants to energize and to lock down. so you wonder, you know, is there going to be something for african-americans specifically. >> young voters. >> young voters, exactly, to reactivate and renew that sort of obama coalition. look, he's not going to win among older white men, but if he can win among everyone else, he

can remain president for four more years. >> mark, you gave us some notes this morning, really interesting stuff about the electoral college, which is what we should really be focusing on, pointing out we keep hearing that mitt romney is doing better but he's got to do a lot of work on that electoral college to peel back some of the states the president won in 2008. >> he does. we've had very little in national polling about the race after the president's bad three weeks and then his move on immigration on friday. we've had even less state polling to try to figure out is this having a shift. right now the president still has an electoral college advantage. it's probably his biggest advantagein this race because he has a base in this last election and governor romney has to take a half dozen or so states away from him that the president won last time where he beat senator mccain. his bus trips going to states like michigan, wisconsin, iowa, those are states the president can't win without, pennsylvania.

those are four blue states. they're not purple states, they're blue states. the president -- we'll see if the president goes to those places. but right now you ask both campaigns all the time who would you rather be, whose hand would you rather have? for the first time in a while in the presidential campaign both sides say they like their hand. neither side considers themselves the underdog really and that's unusual. most campaigns, the two campaigns will agree that other side has a stronger hand but they've got a chance or we have the stronger hand. they both think they have the better hand. >> where does the romney campaign see the biggest vulnerability? in all those states where president obama cleaned up in swing states, where are the vulnerable ones for the romney campaign? >> i think the four i said. virginia is in its own category this cycle. i think if the president is on the defensive -- it will be interesting to see if the president travels to do political events in any of those states, particularly pennsylvania and mash began.

i think wisconsin, iowa, pennsylvania, michigan. they all kind of stay out of wisconsin to wait for the rrl to pass. and now governor romney spent yesterday there. we'll see if the president goes. but those four right now, they were chosen for the bus trip for a purpose, those four, if any of them are really in play, it's a much different election than we thought a few weeks ago. >> to go to this thing and mark and i talk about the electoral college all the time, specifically on this hispanic thing, they're in a situation if they can win nevada, north carolina, colorado, virginia, those four states which have -- virginia has the smallest, about 9% hispanic population in virginia but those others are dominated by huge hispanic populations, they win those states they can get to the electoral votes without ohio, without florida, woithout north carolina. there's not that many times in the past where you could win the

presidency without winning florida and ohio. the obama administration can get to 270 without ohio and florida, that is a very promising path for them and i think it's the one they see as most promising and the one that worries the romney campaign most. it's where that gap is so big on hispanics and so hard for romney to close. >> let's bring in democratic congressman of maryland, ranking member of the oversight and government reform committee, representative elijah cummings today. congressman cummings will be part of a meeting with eric holder and congressman issa. good to see you this morning. >> good morning. >> just set the stage, if you would, for our viewers who aren't totally familiar with the story about what we're going to see today. >> over the past 16 months chairman issa has been attempting to get documents from the justice department with regard to our investigation of

fast and furious. you know, eric holder, attorney general, has done i think has turned over more than 7,600 documents, he's got through millions of e-mails and basically we're down to a point now where chairman issa is demanding additional documents. now, i must tell you that while we have had disagreement on the democratic and republican sides, it's clear that chairman issa did something that was pretty good last friday. he made the decision to take off the table certain documents which would have been illegal for the attorney general to produce, wire tap applications, the information about confidential informants and those kind of documents. soap he's taken that off the table. now we're down to some documents involving a letter that was sent

to senator leahy on february 4th whereby there was a denial of this gun running process, gun walking process and now those -- the documents that chairman issa now wants surrounds those documents. and so we're going to sit down with -- today with leahy, the chairman and eric holder and figure out how to move forward so we can avoid this whole contempt situation because i really don't think it is necessary. i think we can resolve this. >> congressman consideration we back up a bit and for the people waking up putting a pop tart in the toaster getting ready for the day, can you explain what fast and furious, what that operation was all about and why it has become so contentious. >> the phoenix office of atf was allowing guns to go across the border, more than a thousand,

to -- they were following guns across the border, southwest border and instead of tracking them to see exactly where they ended up, basically they stopped tracking them. in other words, they watched them being purchased, they watched them go over the border but they did nothing to stop that. there came a time where some of those gun, at least two of those guns, were found at the crime scene where one of our border patrol agents, agent teary, was killed. that's been the whole controversy. whether the attorney general himself and his higher ups knew about this and they did not -- all the evidence shows they did not know about it, that this was an operation that was conducted from the phoenix office of the atf. >> i know, congressman, you disagree with chairman issa's efforts or the concept anyway of holding eric holder in contempt but are you troubled by the fast and furious program itself?

and if so, what part of it troubles you the most? >> i am extremely troubled by it and i've said that a million times. the whole idea that our atf agents would allow guns to go into mexico and as you probably know thousands upon thousands of mexicans have been killed and that's been all connected with this drug cartel situation down there but it's our guns, guns from this country, probably 60% to 70% of all the guns that are being used down there to kill people have come from the united states. but understand something, this whole operation, these types of operations actually started under the bush administration and the bush administration did nothing about it, although they knew about it. when eric holder found out about these tactics, he immediately stopped it. he said, no, we're not going to have this the other thing that eric holder did is he immediately demanded an investigation by his i.g. we're still waiting for that

report. i think eric holder has acted honorably. he's done everything he could to allow us to do our job, that is to investigate this matter. but at the same time he wanted to make sure that grand jury testimony and wire tap information, which he cannot release is not released opini. the other type of evidence he did not want to release is evidence that might interfere with ongoing prosecutions. again, as i said, chairman issa just friday took those things off the table and now we're down to a february 4th letter that we're trying to resolve. >> congressman halpern, can you explain why it's constitutional for the president to decide without input he's going to enforce the immigration laws for some and not for others. >> they can make decisions as to how they are going to prosecute the laws. and i think, as a matter of fact, i listened to your

conversation, i thought it was a good decision on the president's part. you know, as you guys talk back and forth, there's nothing said about the 800,000 young people who have done absolutely nothing wrong and who could contribute tremendously to society. the thing that i liked about what the president did is that he did something. he did something. i hear all the talking heads talk about, well, we ought to have reform, comprehensive reform. i'm for comprehensive reform, too, but people can't just sit around and wait, wait, wait. we need to help folks and these are some of the greatest folks we could help and i thought the president did something that was really very, very good. >> if i could just press the point a bit, i'm not an immigration lawyer but prosecutorial discretion would be in this individual case based on the facts we're not going to go forward on the facts and deport the prn. this is taking a whole group of people that the law congress passed that said this is part of the group of people that should be deported.

to say this group isn't going to be deported, doesn't that go beyond prosecutorial discretion and represent a threat on your powers of discretion? >> i don't think so. the president has made a decision in house, and he's done what he feels is in his power and i believe it's in his power also. >> congressman elijah cummings, thanks for coming this morning and keep us posted on fast & furious if you will. >> certainly will. >> what happens when evangelicals and the tea party combines forces. our next guest says it could put mitt romney in the white house. also chuck todd joins us live from the g-20 summit where yesterday president obama and vladimir putin met face to face. was there any common ground on handling the situation in syria? chuck will fill us in when we

return to "morning joe." with the spark cash card from capital one, sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ 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? here's your invoice. what if i can't lose the weight? what if weight watchers can't help me? what if i'm not ready for change? what if i fall back into old habits? what if i lose control? what if i gain it all back? what if i fail? shhh. there's only one voice worth listening to and that's the one saying you can do this. i'm standing here still in control of my weight with weight watchers, telling you to believe in that voice. [ female announcer ] join now for $1. hurry, offer ends june 23rd.

weight watchers. believe. because it works. dude you don't understand, this is my dad's car. look at the car! my dad's gonna kill me dude... [ male announcer ] the security of a 2012 iihs top safety pick. the volkswagen passat. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 passat for $209 a month. visit vwdealer.com today.

right now lease the 2012 passat for $209 a month. - one serving of cheese is the size of four dice. 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.

this isn't the first body language gate that we've had with the russians. president medvedev, who president obama has a great relationship with, there was a similar report that there was this body language and must be a huge problem. these are business-like conversations between the united states government and the russian government. you know, so they're candid and business-like. that tends to be the demeanor of the russians. >> joining us now from mexico, nbc news chief white house correspondent and host of "the daily rundown" chuck todd. good morning. >> good morning, willie. >> our body language expert is

late for the segment. take us inside that room yesterday, vladimir putin, president obama, what's the relationship like? >> well, i think it's at best the way folks -- the way the obama folks are describing it behind the scenes is simply, well, it was very business-like. they're still getting to know each other. it was their way of saying it's not chummy but at the same time you're overreading the -- what we saw on camera. i have to say what we saw on camera is unlike what we've seen with the president with any of these world leaders. that's what made it so striking to a lot of us. it's not that they weren't glad handing, hugging each other but they were not making eye contact. the president uses first names very commonly. with medvedev he used to call him dmitri all the time, they'd laugh all the time.

there isn't a bond between these two and maybe there never will be. that's one of the comments that one of the obama senior aides said, he said this is who putin is. he's a dower kind of guy in public. if he had something negative to say you would know because he would go ahead and say it so don't get too worked up about this. that said they were nervous enough about it that they made sure later in the day when the pool cameras were in as they were starting the g-20 the president went over to putin and they made sure cameras caught them laughing together. so maybe it was some russian bear joke or something, i don't know. >> eugene robinson, the theater doesn't matter if they're getting something done substantively behind closed doors. there's no evidence that happened yet at the g-20 summit. >> my question is on the economic front is there any sense there that these leaders have a clue as to what they're doing there?

you know, they want less austerity, more growth but they still want some austerity and they don't know how to make the growth. is there any sense that good will come out of this meeting? >> you know, eugene, thanks for sort of putting it that way because we've been joking about that ourselves. we feel like we've been seeing the same thing at every g-20 for the last three years. they're going to have this mix of growth and austerity and we want everybody to bond together but we're not going to tell everybody they have to do the same thing. this one feels like there's a whole bunch of countries not from europe sitting there and waiting for europe to act. and so i think this g-20 would have been a lot different had the greek elections gone in a different way. then would you have seen more of a crisis mentality among all these world leaders. so greece goes the way everybody was hoping it would go as far as these world leaders are concerned and now it's all about

getting the europeans together. the obama administration is using their time to have a one-on-one meeting with german chancellor merkel is to try to say use this opportunity, no more band-aids, use this opportunity to create the largest solution when it comes to your banking issues. so that you can stabilize all of the banks in the eurozone, whether it's be spain, whether it's italy, all of the banks have this long-term reform process. you're going to see the communique where they're all going to say these things. europe has dragged everybody's economy down, including the at one time hot asian economies, which of course there's also a good chunk of countries that make up the g-20. so there is -- it is true, it feels repetitive sometimes. >> chuck, do you have any reporting on where the administration is now on syria? are we getting any closer to a shift in policy at this point?

>> it's funny you say that. no. i think the policy is exactly the same, which is assad's got to go, there is a way to remove assad from power without necessarily toppling the entire regime right now if the russians play ball on that. after we were bombarding them with questions during the post-putin briefing, they started offering hints at exactly what the conflicting points were between putin and obama on syria. and putin's big questions were, okay, let's say assad goes tomorrow. then what? and putin brought up look at egypt. it's not exactly a lot of stability there. so we got to have a -- you got to have a plan in place to deal with the vacuum. what that tells you is it's clear putin is open to this idea of removing assad. that seems to be behind the scenes what i'm hearing from

folks but he wants a little more assurance as to what's it going to look like? what's the process going to look like and how do you prevent essentially what's happened in egypt. putin looks at egypt and saying this is not exactly a country that's showing that there's a lot of stability going on there. that seems to be the sticking point is what's the process post-assad and the obama administration didn't seem to have a good answer as far as putin was concerned. >> and the president will try again today with china's president hu jintao. behind you is that a swim-up tiki bar or a standard tiki bar? >> we do have our own trilateral. we have our own trilateral meeting at the tiki bar. but there's been a little bit of a problem. they won't serve you in the pool.

>> what? >> maybe it's just a rule since we've been here. i have a feeling this is a g-20 rule. it's like, wait, don't feed the reporters after midnight. you feed us after midnight, we turn into something else. >> thanks so much. we'll talk to you. our next guest says ivan general calls and the tea party have a way to predict this. ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ well hello, welcome to hotels.com. summer road trip, huh? uhuh yep uch let's find you a room. at hotels.com, you'll always find the perfect hotel. because we only do hotels. wow. i like that. nice no. laugh... awe uch

ooh, yeah hmm nice huh book it! oh boy call me... this summer, we're finding you the perfect place - plus giving you up to $100 at hotels.com

welcome back to "morning joe." it's 7:33 in the morning here on the east coast. with us the chief political correspondent for the christian broadcasting network, david brody. he's out with a new book, "the teavangelicals," how the evangelicals and tea party are taking back america. who are the teavangelicals? >> they are conservative christians that are part of the tea party that have signed up for this agenda we hear all about in the tea party. this is the premise of the book, to look at why they're breaking

bread. the truth of the matter is, willie, 50% at least, if not closer to 60% of the tea party are made up of conservative christians. and they're doing this for a number of reasons. judeo christian principles are a part of it. all that means is a return to the christian principles we hear about. >> if you take out social issues like abortion and gay marriage, what do evangelicals see in the tea party message they like? >> there's a couple things. this whole idea of reducing the size and scope of government. one of the things evangelicals tell me across the country is that there is a problem because government is in essence replacing god the way they see it, that government is getting too big and god is getting too small. they say that in obamacare and go down the list, even what what we see on immigration and what the president recently did.

there's also the idea of returning to fiscal responsibility. in the bible there's tons of proverbs about how a good person makes sure there is an inheritance for the children's children. they see it through a biblical world view. those are a couple of the big ticket items. >> how do they reconcile, though, reducing the size of got, cutting programs with things like welfare and education and even inside obamacare, preexisting conditions, taking care of people who don't have health insurance. isn't there sort of a contradiction inside there somewhere? >> well, that's one of the challenges, there's no doubt. but it's interesting because if you actually poll evangelicals like you would the rest of the country, they want to reduce the size and scope of government and return to fiscal responsibility but they don't really want their medicare touched much. they get that. they stanunderstand. it's a challenge for the teavangelicals to figure out a way to have austerity along the

process and at the same time watch out and make sure paul ryan is not going too far that way. >> what does it mean, david, when you go to these rallies, in the spring i went to a few of them, that you hear people urging the nation return to its judeo christian heritage. where did it go and what are they talking about? >> back to that constitutionally limited government. it's talking about just returning to first principles as at least the way the conservative side sees the world. the evangelicals, the teavangelicals see the world. they want to see a return to a country that in a way they once knew. they feel like it's getting a little out of control from a secular perspective and all of that type of thing. president obama has gone through and really dismantled some of what they feel and they cherish in this country, everything from constitutional overreach and you can go down the list as it relates to president obama. so there is a real fear in that teavangelical community that if

president obama is elected for the next term, there is going to be real, real danger in america. this is the way they see it. it's very much real. >> let me ask a question directly about mitt romney. you write in the book that the teavangelical vote is key to romney's prospect. he has to motivate those people for him to win in the fall. he's not a natural tea party guy, not a natural candidate for evangelical voters. many speculate about whether his mormonism is a problem. how much of a real problem is mormonism for this subset of voters that you identify as key to romney's prospects? >> there's two issues here. if you look at the polling data, about 15% of evangelicals will admit, at least, it's a problem voting for a mormon candidate. but the truth of the matter is it's probably a much smaller percentage actually in terms of they're not really too concerned about that within the evangelical community.

what john mccain did not have is three and a half years of president obama. and that's something mitt romney does have. you know, but mitt romney clearly needs to reach out to teavangelicals. he did not do that in the primary. it's interesting. actually, he needs them more now in the general election to show up than he ever did in the republican prime rich because they split all those votes. ralph reed's group, they've got the cell phone numbers and e-mails of 13 million evangelicals in this country. when they distribute these voter guides, they're not doing it through the churches. they're doing it right to the text message and right to the e-mail. there's this whole idea here they are truly believing they can basically get 3 million more evangelical voters to the polls in 2012. ralph reed told me he thinks they can get 7 million. if they get 3 million

teavangelicals to the poll, could be game, set match. >> my question is i think i understand what the teavangelicals are against, i'm not sure i understand what they're for, what their common purpose is, what sort of program would -- do they think would bes right way for the country to go forward? are there specific things that they agree on that they want to see? >> well, eugene, that's a great question and it's something i address in the last chapter of the book. the truth of the matter is this is not one big happy family. it really isn't. so getting everybody on the same page is extremely difficult. this has been one of the challenges. i think what you're seeing and we're seeing around the country is the tea party rallies, we don't see them anymore. why is that? it's because they're happening at the local levels. the city council members are become teavangelical members,

the school board is -- the tea party is becoming involved at the school level. i was told these teavangelicals are like the movie "the blob" where it can morph into any shape and size at any given time. we saw that because in 2010 the tea party was big time. then all of a sudden there were articles written that where did the tea party go? now richard murdoch and you just go on and on and they're back again. this is a ground, you a began being, bottoms up movement. where it goes, nobody really knows at this point. >> the book is "the teavangelicals, the inside story of how the evangelicals and tea party are taking back america." gene robinson, thank you as well. as always you can read gene at

gene@"washington post".com. >> coming up, how the junior senator has burst on to the political scene and how he's done it so fast. ♪ stand my ground and i won't back down ♪ this message. back from the worst economic depression. almost 4.3 million new jobs we're still not creating them president's jobs plan firefighters, police officers, work. right now. wealthiest americans congress refuses to act. tell congress we can't wait.

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?

[ female announcer ] improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula improves skin's health in one day, with significant improvement in 2 weeks. i found a moisturizer for life. [ female announcer ] only from aveeno. we are arguing about what the source of our freedom is. is the source of our freedom enlightened leaders that went to harvard, yale or really good schools or because of that -- or the university of florida forbes -- and because of that they tell the people at the university of georgia what to do? is that the source of our greatness? that's what's in dispute. is the source of our greatness we've had these really good

presidents and senators who are so smart that they know what's the best for the rest of us, we should listen to them? is the source of our freedom we that an we have this government that spends money so wisely and strategically that that's what's created jobs and opportunities? that's what one side of political equation believes. >> that was senator marco rubio taking a shot at particularly those who went to yale and harvard. >> manuel, it's great to you have here this morning. there's news that rubio is not being vetted as potential vice president pick by mitt romney. are you surprised about that? >> i'm not surprised. i think we'll see 20 stories about who is being vetted and who is not being vetted. i think this story is true but we could see another one tomorrow that says something different. >> let's take a step back.

why is marco rubio such a fascinating character and worthy of a biography here? >> here's a guy who a lot of people thought came out of nowhere, the tea party senator, the first tea party senator. and he caught fire because people thought that he was this outsider who emerged -- in the book i say it was almost that he had emerged whole cloth out of a town hall meeting. in reality he is somebody who worked the political system from the ground up from his early 20s. he was on a city commission, he was in the legislature, he was speaker of the house, he ran for the senate. he's a more complicated figure than a lot of people want to make him out to be. >> and there's a lot of -- let's just being frank about it. there's some cosmetics to it. he's a young, good looking guy with a good looking family, he's

a te latino, comes from the important state of florida. he has a lot of boxes checked in his favor. >> doesn't everybody want to get the hispanic vote? and isn't it a confusing and hart thing to figure out how to do it? you have a republican party that might have a liability there and here is somebody who is an articulate spokesman, has a following and can get in front of a podium and bring a crowd down, blow the roof off. >> what do you figure it says about us that we have two people on the national political scene, one the president of the united states who stands before a convention in boston in 2004 and electrifies the nation with his speech and marco rubio, his election night speech, which was widely televised, almost carried in its entire length the nation again. what does it say about this, hook, line and sinker --

>> we love a great speech. there was another one earlier on, he was just a candidate for the senate and he went up to washington to the marriott hotel where they have the c-pack convention. you know, it's real base republican enthusiasm. and he got in front of that crowd and he started telling them about his family, he started telling them about who he was and the crowd went crazy. and i think it's comparable, if you want to look at politicians rising, to obama's speech in the '304 convention, an introduction to the country. >> people talk about him maybe not on the tkt this year but people say inevitably he'll run for president sometime. what is he missing right now in your point of view in terms of experience, judgment, knowledge of world affairs. what is he missing that would make him a credible commander in chief, president of the united states today? >> he's working hard on getting his foreign policy credentials in line.

he traveled to the middle east, he recently wept down to cuba for the first time in his life, a place obviously that means a lot to his family history, although it was guantanamo so it's not necessarily like going to havana and seeing how people live. and the other thing that he is really needing to work on is the one thing that everybody believes is his strength, which is the potential for him to appeal to hispanics. because while some might think it's his strength, it's a potential liability, too, because of some of the positions he's taken, pro everify, antithe original dream act. some of that he's going to have to address if he wants to close that circle. >> senator rubio has a book coming out today, right, telling his own life story. >> really? >> the poor man's version. >> this was like a little bit of

a dwuling pub what's in your book that's not in his book that's are really important distinctions between the books? >> yeah. well, i wish him the best of luck. i think that what we have here is a book that's deeply researched. and i spent some time in the national archives, never realized what a trove that place is, came across these old documents that were hand-written in cuba, birth certificates and marriage certificates, told me the whole history of his family, going back to the little village in cuba, where his grandfather was born. his grand father was born in 1899, same month that the united states set up a provisional government there to run cuba. born in a that much thachd roof dwelling.

it's amazing to think in a little over 100 years you could go from a thatched building to the united states senate. all that came out of that deep research. and i think that is something that i can contribute to a deeper understanding of him. >> been called the michael jordan of republican politics, the future party, an awful lot to live up to. >> just means -- i missed the connection. >> "the rise of marco rubio." congratulations on the marco rubio book to buy today. more "morning joe" in a moment. ♪ how are things on the west coast? ♪

♪ i hear you... ♪ rocky mountain high ♪ rocky, rocky mountain high ♪ ♪ all my exes live in texas ♪ ♪ born on the bayou [ female announcer ] the perfect song for everywhere can be downloaded almost anywhere. ♪ i'm back, back in the new york groove ♪ [ male announcer ] the nation's largest 4g network. covering 2,000 more 4g cities and towns than verizon. rethink possible. dude you don't understand, this is my dad's car. look at the car! my dad's gonna kill me dude...

[ male announcer ] the security of a 2012 iihs top safety pick. the volkswagen passat. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 passat for $209 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. what if i can't lose the weight? what if weight watchers can't help me? what if i'm not ready for change? what if i fall back into old habits? what if i lose control? what if i gain it all back? what if i fail? shhh. there's only one voice worth listening to and that's the one saying you can do this. i'm standing here still in control of my weight with weight watchers, telling you to believe in that voice. [ female announcer ] join now for $1. hurry, offer ends june 23rd. weight watchers. believe. because it works. ...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.

♪ the president was interrupteded during the announcement of his new policy. that guy there, that was conservative blogger, neil monroe. everyone who was there thought that speech was over, including me. full disclosure, i am a member of the white house press corps. well, technically, the white house press corps reserves. one weekend a month. >> it is the right thing to do. >> hey! that's willford brehmly's oatmeal catch phrase.

>> excuse me, sir. >> it's the right thing to do, as willford brehmly's oatmeal catch phrase! why are you stealing from willford brehmly? >> it's not time for questions, sir. >> you want some oatmeal? >> not while i'm speaking. i'm not asking for an argument, i'm answering your question. >> you don't want an argument, you don't want oatmeal. there's no open bar. this wedding sucks! i'm out of here. >> still ahead, we'll talk to the author behind the highly anticipated, much talked about new biography of president obama fresh insight into the president's younger years and his influences. >> they're great. >> they're great! >> they're great. coming up, also more with halperin, heilemann and governor howard dean. we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] when a major hospital

wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. [ yawning sound ] [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. to get people to try on these new depend silhouette briefs, and today we are rocking the red carpet. look it's lisa rinna! lisa hiii,i know you don't need one but will you try on these new depend silhouette briefs for charity and prove just how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress? are you serious?

i am serious... sure why not! she's doing it! the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. hey lisa, who ya wearing? she's wearing the new depend silhouette. (growl) we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too.

♪ good morning. it is 8:00 in the morning here on the east coast. 5:00 a.m. as you wake up out west with a live look at new york city. back with us on-set, msnbc contributor mike barnicle. msnbc and "time" magazine analyst mark halperin. national affairs editor for "new york" magazine john heilemann, journalist catherine crier and in washington, former governor of vermont and former chair of the dnc, howard dean.

real quick, clemens, can we start with clemens? >> $10 million, the government wasted. >> let's turn to the legal expert. what was the point of that trial, exactly? >> the legal expert using legalese would say, can't figure it out. no point trying to make a point that the government, in fact, can regulate something that it can't. it's not going to succeed, and we had a big show trial. >> they weren't even trying to prove whether or not he used steroids, trying to prove whether or not he lied about using steroids, same thing with barry bonds. doesn't advance us at all. >> spent $10 million in trying to make the point and prove the point that roger clemens lied to congress. if you're going to start indicting people for lying to congress, that's a pretty long line. >> let me ask you as a guy who covers baseball and watches it, he has never tested positive for steroids, would you put him in the hall of fame? >> yes, i would. >> because a lot of people say based on the suspicion. >> you mentioned bill madden

"new york daily news" terrific writer, terrific guy. i would either put a plaque up on the wing of a certain section of the hall of fame in cooperstown, explaining the steroid era or put all of the implications of what happened with clemens and the trials on his plaque. to give -- >> even though he never tested, it's all suspicion and hearsay, why would you put that in the hall of fame? >> well, because you have several people who belong in the hall of fame, pete rose. >> i think you've got -- your first thing has got to be the right answer. you've got to think about -- how -- the steroid era has got to be part of the hall, because you've got people like barry bonds who, you know -- there's no plausible argument for not having barry bonds who was a hall-of-famer before he got anywhere close to steroids if he ever took them. and it's just nuts some of these people aren't going to end up in the hall of fame. they're too good, dominated the game for a period of the game, put it up in historical context and then act accordingly. >> like the watergate section of

the nixon library. >> yeah, exactly. >> we tried pete rose, espn, held the trial and goose gus yich and all these guys came to testify and that was the nonjury conclusion. we want the caveats on the plaque. >> put it on there. they do belong in the hall of fame. >> i'm with you. let's listen to clemens after he came out of the courthouse yesterday. >> i've put a lot of hard work into that career. and so, again, i appreciate my teammates that came in and all of the e-mails and phone calls. from my teammates. >> you know, roger clemens -- >> articulate as ever. >> he's emotional. all right. let's turn to some real news. mark halperin, let's talk about what's going on in mexico at the g-20 summit, a big slate of international crises there, but syria, of course, front and center. yesterday the president meeting with vladimir putin and today will try to convince hu jintao, the president of china to push

assad out of power. mark, how did yesterday go for the president? we saw the body language, a lot of people reading into the two of them. just in the photo op alone, looked chilly, but the white house insists behind closed doors for two meetings they had a, quote, productive conversation. >> we'll see how productive it is. the white house is correct that on iran, for instance, there is some cooperation with russia. but syria, there has not been. and i think the problem -- the biggest problem i think in american foreign policy today, almost in any theater where we have challenges, is to get more cooperation from china, and from russia. and the president is down there working on that now. again, would out much leverage. but sitting side by side, maybe they can do some business. the body language didn't suggest a lot of business, but at least it's a start, perhaps. >> john, as we look -- we've got some video of the body language here. the relationship between president obama and vladimir putin, as contrasted to the

relationship with president obama and dmitry medvedev. is it important, does it change our relationship with russia, the personal relationship between these guys, or the lack thereof with putin? >> well, i think that, you know, there's no question but that in diplomacy, that personal relationships matter a lot. and i think, you know, the president has established good personal relationships with some world leaders, and established less good personal relationships with others. and so, you know, this is a really important strategic relationship, and the president is going to make progress, he's going to have to do better. i'm not blaming him, but he's going to have to make that -- there's got to be some chemistry there if he's going to exercise the kind of leverage to get things done in the modern world. >> we heard joe biden speak the other day to the conference of mares and he said international relations is basically just personal relationships. and he's -- joe biden has got them going back decades. the president is still meeting a lot of these people for the third, fourth time.

and did not come into office with those deep relationships, particularly with the countries who are a real challenge. >> governor dean, as we watch the u.n. bang its head against the wall and this question of syria trying to somehow get around those vetoes, the power of the veto from china and russia, what is the path forward, if not through the u.n.? can the white house sit here and watch again as civilians are shelled, as the government goes house to house or goons go house to house killing women and children? what's the move if not through the u.n.? >> they have to do something, and most likely part of a consortium to arm the syrian rebels. the syrian rebels are being trained. they're not any longer a ragtag disparate force of people. they're beginning to be trained. they have just recently elected a president or a leader of their forces. and i think that's going to happen. and the interesting player to watch is turkey. irdawan is a deeply offended by

assad's attack on his own people. and i think something is going to have to happen. this can't go on. the united states has had trouble taking the leadership because of the u.n. i think you're going to see somebody arming the syrian rebels. and we're probably going to be involved in some way. >> catherine crier, when you think of the president's options, especially given the lean aspect of the american military and our extensive reaches overseas and afghanistan, he is pretty much in a box here with regard to syria. >> he's going to be hobbled, and he's hobbled financially, as well. but what he's doing is very much i think what we did in libya. he's ultimately going to have to take that root where we are leading from behind, which he got criticized for. but it turned out relatively well. but, yeah, arming. but you're right. back with putin, where he says -- he came out, what, 48 hours ago, said we're not doing this. keep the helicopters out. he's going to have to change that. >> and, of course, mitt romney has said publicly we ought to be arming the rebels in syria. speaking of mitt romney, the immigration question, the whole

argument changed on friday when president obama came out with the announcement from the department of homeland security that would essentially give leniency to young illegal immigrants in this country. that place into the presidential race, because florida senator marco rubio believed to be on mitt romney's short list for vice president is now dropping his immigration plan after being upstaged by the president last week. the president announced the decision to stop deporting thousands of illegal immigrants brought to the u.s. as children. according to a new bloomberg poll released this morning, the majority of americans support the president's immigration policy. 64% to 30%. rubio's proposal would have granted work visas brought in as children if they served in the military or pursued an education. mitt romney is expected to come out at some point this week and endorse that plan. but it looks like that's not going to happen now. romney and rubio both suggested politics got in the way of a delicate situation. >> if you even suggest you have

illegal immigration problem and we need to do something about it, if you're a republican, the left will label you as anti immigrant. and this idea that it's a slam dunk issue and easy is not true. on the one hand we have a significant illegal immigration problem. it has to be confront and had solved. we cannot be the only country in the world that does not enforce its immigration laws. on the other hand, we have some very compelling human stories. it feels weird to deport a valedictorian doing well in school. so trying to find a balance is possibility. what the president did by ignoring the constitution, ignoring the congress, makes it harder to find that balance. not to mention, it's offensive to the constitutional principles of our republic. >> he went to work on obama care. and on cap and trade. and on card check and on dodd/frank. he went after all the things that he and his liberal friends have been trying to do for years. he talked about in a campaign -- remember, he was all concerned about the deficit. he said he would cut the deficit in half. have you heard him talk about

the deficit or balance the budget in three-and-a-half years? i haven't. >> no! >> he was going to deal with immigration, he said, in his first year. he was going to focus on that. did he do anything? on immigration while he had had a democratic house and senate? no. >> no! >> this is a president who has said one thing and done another. and i got to tell you, we're going to have a very different course. because the path he's taken us on is a path towards europe. >>. >> a lot to wade through there. mark halperin. >> this is fantastic. >> governor dean, you seem to be enjoying this. what's your take? >> this is great. this is what presidents -- this is why presidents win re-election a lot. this is a brilliant move on obama's part. romney desperately has to get himself over at least 35% in the latino population. he can't do it, even putting rubio on the ticket. this is what incumbent presidents get to do. and this stuff about the constitution, first of all, since when have the republicans cared what's in the constitution? but secondly, standing up to

congress, ignoring congress, that's exactly what the american people want. here's a group of people, 9% favorability rating, obstructing everything the president is trying to do, in every area, not just immigration. and obama just says, you know what, you know where you can make that disappear, i'm just going to do this anyway. i think he gets big points for that in the latino community. 64% of americans support this. 90% of latinos support this. this is a tremendous move on the part of the president. a., it's the right thing to do, and b., was it ever well-timed. >> mark, take us behind the scenes on this. was this a masterful move by the white house on friday to short-circuit the rubio/romney plan and how did it come about? >> it certainly looks that way. not just micro targeting the hispanic vote, which is doctor/governor/chairman dean points out. may end up deciding the election in the background states. it also showed the president looking decisive. he needs to find a series of

issues. harold ford and others have said for a while now, he's got to be seen doing something to get washington moving, to show movement in a positive direction, breaking gridlock. and anything that tests 60-40 or better is something that is going to be contagious. i don't know for a sheer fact the white house did a lot of polling on this, but i would bet you they did. and it does put mitt romney in a box. now, that having been said, i think this argument that mitt romney and other republicans are making that the president shouldn't have done this because it shows that he hadn't done anything comprehensive, and that it messes things up for a big deal, i don't think that's a bad comeback, but it's insufficient. they are on the short end of this right now. >> yeah. the american people don't care about that argument at all. they have got to see movement. and we also know what happened when george w. tried to move immigration. you know, one of those areas where the democrats are going, we like this, there's a conversation here, completely shut down. there was nothing for this president to do with this

congress on immigration. there was no other way to accomplish this. >> it sounds like the outline of, you know -- they're not going to do anything, so i'll do it by myself. boom. >> yes, well, and look. what the white house has been afraid of for the last few months is that they look at their advantage over romney with hispanic voters. they think that's pivotal. they have feared that romney and republican super pacs were going to go into the hispanic community and run a really negative campaign against the president, effectively from the left, and say barack obama not only does he wreck the economy for the hispanics, but he has been the most pro deportation president ever. and this is the ultimate comeback to that. republicans can't run those ads now and say for the last three years, barack obama not only didn't do immigration reform, but he's deforted more of your people. they can't make that argument, because they can stand up and say, well, that was then, this is now. i've just taken this action that puts the ultimate squash on that argument completely, gives them an effective retort to what is

going to be a really, really tough campaign. i mean, because of what chairman dean said is true. romney needs to get -- he either needs to get his number with hispanics up over 35% or republicans need to suppress hispanic turnout. and that looks like what could lead to a really, really negative campaign in all the hispanic communities and all the swing states. these guys are -- this is going to be a real war. and this is a really important move for them to be able to fight that war. >> friday, back-to-back speeches in orlando to the hispanic elected officials. romney thursday, the president friday. big moment for romney to come in and say, finally, what does he think about immigration policy, he hasn't said it in a comprehensive way. i suspect he'll do it there and have to perform well. >> do you have any sense or numbers on how this is playing with independents? is. >> well, in the bloomberg poll that willie did, the top line very much approve the president's position, very much approved by independents. >> those personal stories.

>> yeah. >> you saw those guys on the cover of "newsweek," great timing for "newsweek" running that story about the dream act -- effectively a dream act -- you guys wrote it, sorry about that. >> marco rubio can see that in the sound bite we just played. if you're going to deport a valedictorian of a class. isn't it true what the governor said, statistically, demographically impossible for mitt romney to win if it stays the way it is right now with hispanics. he can't win, it's over. >> he can't win. and that's why i think the thursday speech is such a big deal. he's done some hispanic events, but they haven't gotten much attention. you'll see between now and november a number of occasions in which both the president and governor romney speak to the same group. this is, i think, a really big one. he's got not just -- he's got to show affinity, feel for aspirations of hispanic-americans. >> you have a 20-feet wall, and you stop anything by 2050, we are over 50% hispanic. if if the republican party

doesn't figure out how to assimilate and respond to that community, long-term, it's a death knell? >> governor? >> here's where he's stuck. i was back-to-back with romney on schieffer this weekend, and romney just talked for 15 minutes and is didn't say anything. this guy -- no, i'm serious. i don't mean this as an attack on romney. he's stuck. he can't say anything reasonable on immigration, because he'll turn off the far right of his party, which controls the party. so he can't agree with obama. and he can't say anything outrageous, because then he has really put himself in the hole with hispanic voters. i think this is going to be a really interesting campaign for a guy who is running on attacking the president without any specifics of his own. that's what his game plan is now, and i think at the end of the day, it doesn't work. >> coming up next, we'll talk to the author behind the highly anticipated book, "barack obama: the story." pulitzer prize winning journalist david marenis shares

hundreds of interviews and how it may contradict the president's own memoir. and david westin reflects on his career, the changing face of journalism and the story he calls his biggest regrets. but first, bill karins has a look at the forecast. >> much-advertised heatwave arriving on the east coast as we go throughout tomorrow. the worst weather out there this morning has been rolling through minnesota and wisconsin. those thunderstorms look to make their way near green bay and areas north in the next half hour to hour. that's your only really travel trouble spot. the other big story is just the heat. yesterday was 108 in macook, nebraska. that hot air heading across the ohio valley, another sizzling day from chicago to kansas city. all the way through st. louis and everywhere from tennessee to the ohio valley. and look at phoenix. yesterday 112. the big change is the east coast. the mid atlantic getting very warm. 95 in d.c. 98 in new york. this is easily the hottest temperatures of this summer season, especially in new

england. it's going to continue wednesday and thursday. mike barnicle? stay cool the next couple days, buddy. you're watching "morning joe," everyone. we're brewed by starbucks. sometimes, i feel like it's me against my hair.

[ female announcer ] weak, damaged hair needs new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. active naturals wheat formulas restore strength for up to 90% less breakage in three washes. for strong, healthy hair with life, new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. in here, great food demands a great presentation. so at&t showed corporate caterers how to better collaborate by using a mobile solution, in a whole new way. using real-time photo sharing abilities, they can create and maintain high standards, from kitchen to table. this technology allows us to collaborate with our drivers to make a better experience for our customers. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better.

♪ i never believed i'd be in control of my weight. [ whistles ] ♪ but here i am. still in control. loving how i eat. loving just walking. not stressing at all about my weight. ♪ if you want it, you got it weight watchers made me believe i could do it. [ female announcer ] join now for $1. hurry, offer ends june 23rd. [ jennifer ] weight watchers. believe. because it works.

♪ obama and romney are trying really hard to come up with a new batch of slogans and they're

trying them out. take a look. >> we are not going back, we are moving this country forward. >> we believe in ourselves, our greatest days are ahead. >> i don't get it. >> i'm not a good person. i'm not a good guy. >> i have an idea about starting -- >> i'm not familiar precisely by what i said but i stand by what i said, whatever it was. >> you can't. >> simply not up to the task. >> i didn't make a lot of money in the private sector and don't understand it. >> did you notice, it's raining outside. isn't that good news? >> there they are, ladies and gentlemen, candidates for president of the united states. joining us now associate editor for "washington post" david marnis, his book comes out today. thought it would come out a month ago. >> it feels like a year ago in

the "vanity fair" excerpt. but that's the political world. >> four years of research, 350 interviews. all around the world from kenya to hawaii to the united states. and the -- on the mainland, documents letters and journals and you only get us up to harvard law school. why did you want to go back so far? let's start with how far back you actually went. >> i go back to the suicide of his great grandmother in topeka, kansas and start from there, weaving together the stories from the united states and from kenya. because what obsessed me, first of all, i write politics, but i'm not a political animal. interested in soes ol gee and history and forces that shape people. and the utter randomness of barack obama's existence plus the fact that you could write about the modern global world through that story is what intrigued me in the first place. and so that's why i went back. the goal of this book was to write about the world that shaped obama, and then how he

recreated himself. >> interesting. so much talk about fathers in this election. >> oh, yeah. >> with mitt romney and his dad george, of course. but also with president obama and his -- frankly, he hardly knew. >> a troubled man, perhaps irresponsible. but also a big influence on the president's life. >> more than perhaps. and unfortunately, it's sad to say, but probably true that barack obama was lucky he never lived with his father. he was not just an alcoholic, but also abusive to his wives, and barack obama's mother ann dunham never really lived with him enough to suffer through that. but you know, the title of obama's memoir, "dreams from my father," evoked something that was never there. and it was really his mother influenced him far more. >> you know, david, a while ago, a couple years ago, i was speaking with someone who knows the president. i don't know that anyone knows the president very well. but who knows the president and

this person said to me that in a way he felt sorry for barack obama, because of how he was raised. and that it gave him a certain inability, you know, to express himself emotionally to others, because of the randomness of the way he was raised. i was wondering what you found out. what you think about how he was raised and the astounding fact that he is today president of the united states, given the way he he was raised. >> yeah, well, he never knew his father. his mother was gone, a large part of his formative years when he was in had high school in honolulu. he lived with his grandmother and grandfather. his grandfather was kind of a willie lowman character, a salesman who always had his big dreams and could never come close to them. his grandmother was very pragmatic. you could see a little bit of her, madeline dunham in the president, actually. the cooler, pragmatic side of him comes from the grandmother. but she too sadly was a closet alcoholic, because she had to carry so much of a burden. so he basically raised himself.

and raising himself without knowing his father, being a biracial kid in hawaii where there was a lot of -- there were a lot of half and half of something. but they were all portuguese, chinese, japanese. one of his friends in high school named tom topolinsk-i sounds polish, but was chinese. very few african-americans. so so many ways he had to find himself. and i describe his story as an ark toward home. every story is about that in some sense. and his is coming from hawaii, further from any land mass in the world. and trying to find himself and a home and it takes him all the way across the united states and then to chicago where he finds it in the black community, personally. that was inevitable for him. >> speaks to strength of character. >> you know, i think it does. i think that when you see the formation of obama, you see many of his talents coming into view as that happens. because he had to figure out so much on his own.

i compare him often with bill clinton. they both came out of dysfunctional families, as john and mark know so well. and clinton just kept plowing forward, reinventing himself every day, forgiving himself in the world, not dealing with the contradiction in his own life, but learning how to survive. and he was so great at that, that it got him to the white house. got him in trouble in the white house and then got him out of trouble, because he was so good at transactional politics. barack obama spent ten years of his life, early years in college and afterwards, figuring -- trying to figure himself out. emotionally, racially, sociologically, politically. and he was pretty good at that. he worked at it really hard. that made him an integrated character, which got him to the white house, but got him in difficulty there, because he wasn't as good as figuring out how to survive. he thought, you know, if i can figure out the contradictions in my life, why can't congress? why can't the political system of this -- of this period? and so he's not as good at that. >> i think we associate

presidents and probably all national politicians with -- sort of blind ambition from day one. you mentioned bill clinton. he had to be beaten back by his high school teacher, said you can't run anymore, you're holding every office in this high school. but barack obama was not that way. when -- >> certainly not. >> when did the ambition switch on and he decided i'm going to be a leader and perhaps the leader of the free world? >> it was an evolution. i saw the first hint of it when he got off the island of honolulu where he just played basketball and smoked dope and got to college with a group of older, intellectual students. some of whom said they saw a hint of his sense of destiny. you know, his mother had been sort of pounding that into him from an early age, that he was meant for greatness. but he was avoiding that until then. in new york, gets into this incredibly introspective period where he makes very few if any friends. but a couple of those friends, one of his pakistani friends said that young barack obama asked him, do you think i could ever be president of the united

states? meaning could a black man ever make it. so that's the first vocal iteration that i heard. and by the time he gets to chicago, he sees how politics works. in the grist of this great mid american city, racial politics, everything else. and he starts to understand power. and once he understood what it took for him to actually influence the world, that it would take electoral power, that's when he starts his rise. >> you talk about, david, you know -- one of the -- the book does not get to the place where he sits down to write "dreams from my father," but a lot of things you write about, there's a version of in "dreams from my father." you talked about bill clinton and reinvention. that book invented barack obama as a public figure. >> it's what we all know about him, is that book. >> but you point out that a lot of -- it doesn't bear much -- it bears some resemblance to reality, but not anything like literal resemblance to reality. and there are people who reading

your book are saying, you know, a lot of that stuff is not -- where he says the characters in his book were composite figures, you point out some composites are really loose and he wrote a book that is much more literature than autobiography. talk about what it says about the character of the man that he took the liberties he took in the service of literature as opposed to pure autobiography? >> well, i think there is a difference between memoir and biography. and i didn't go through my book saying, aharks huh, i'm going to check. i'm trying to write the real story. so when i come across something that seems to contradict something he said, i try to point it out and get to the reality of it. he was a young man when he wrote that memoir. i don't think he had had a clue he would be president of the united states and millions of people would read the book. went on to the remainder pretty fast after he wrote it. he was trying to see everything

through a racial lens. that was the purpose of that book. there were times where characters who are black are enhanced in the book and characters who are white are left out of the book. but it's all for a reason, there's a purpose for it. and i don't think it's a venal reason, it's more about a writer's pressure to tell a story. what i do point out also, there are a lot of mythologies, not just the mythology obama created, but the mythology that his opponents created. and this book pretty much decimates the whole notion particularly that he has any muslim in him. that's why i went back so far into the african part of the story, where you see that at every stage of the rise of the obamas and kenyas, it was evangelical christians and muslims had nothing to do with it. >> you've taken a topic all of us thought we knew everything about and found new things. how much of the stuff in this book did the president not know

about? >> i can't tell -- we had had what was supposed to be a 45-minute interview and it went on for an hour and a half, because he knew i found out a lot. i think he had -- he carried some of the mythology with him, but he is a -- a rather skeptical analyst himself. so, for instance, when i pointed out that his step grandfather in it indonesia, in fact, did not die fighting the dutch in the great anti colonial war, but fell off hisotman changing the drapes in his living room, the president said, "you're probably right." so there was a lot of that, that he did not know. >> well, it's a must-read, obviously. already been a must-read for some time. but officially out today. >> this is the first show i've been on since the official publication. >> the book is "barack obama: the story." david, thank you for making us the first. up next, business before the bell with brian sullivan. we'll be right back. ♪

♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman.

we make meeting times, lunch times and conference times. but what we'd rather be making are tee times. tee times are the official start of what we love to do. the time for shots we'd rather forget, and the ones we'll talk about forever.

in michigan long days, relaxing weather and more than 800 pristine courses make for the perfect tee time. because being able to play all day is pure michigan. your trip begins at michigan.org.

welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, the former president of abc news, david

westin. david is now the president and ceo of newsright, an online contract tracking and licensing company. and he's out with a new book, "exit entire interview" the book looks fascinating. >> we've been wanting david on for years. >> we have. >> do you remember interviewing me when i was looking for a job? >> i do remember. i remember everything about you. >> really? it was not a great interview. i didn't have a good interview. >> everybody that has ever had had a job in the news business gets that question. a lot of people -- >> i couldn't find a job. got a lot of nos. >> you've done all right for yourself. >> that was a stressful day. >> your second biggest regret. what in your book do you describe as your biggest regret? >> a lot of things i loved. my biggest regret was weapons of mass destruction in the build-up to the iraq war. like all of us, we had a lot of sources, looked at a lot of things, had a lot of governments

telling us this. but the one person in our newsroom who was always skeptical was peter jennings who said don't be so sure once we go in, not because i think he knew anything special, but because he knew that part of the world and he knew nothing was as it seemed and people like saddam hussein were task masters of misdirection. and i wish in retrospect we would have taken a harder look. we would have been better off if we would have been skeptical. >> did he push it? >> no, he was just always skeptical. he didn't have any information. and we pushed it. we pushed our investigative unit hard to look at sources. as you know, there were two mcclatchy reports who did report doubt about weapons of mass destruction. but we missed it. >> you had to run abc during a difficult time, not just for abc, but for nbc, cbs, all the networks. and i would guess one of the most painful jobs you had was having to downsize like nbc, cbs, everybody has had to downsize. >> yeah, it was awful. it was awful to have to do.

it was awful for the people involved. the company was very good at treating them well, as we said goodbye to them. but the thing that really drove me, and made it possible for me was it was the journalism we were trying to protect. i mean, one of the things i learned during my tenure there, and i've got a chapter on this, actually, what i learned, if you don't care about the business of journalism, then you don't really care about the journalism. you need money to invest to do really good journalism. >> but if you need money to invest to do good journalism, you need to make money. and did journalism always do that? >> we were comfortable every year i was there. >> do you understand what i mean about the changes and the challenges at the business overall? is going through, and what sells? what actually rate and what makes money versus journalism. >> and that's one of the things that you have to balance constantly. is high-quality journalism that you feel a mission to deliver and attracting an audience. because if you're not attracting a good-size audience for what you're saying, then in some ways

i said this to one of our big anchors, it's not journalism you're doing, it's keeping a diary. if you really don't care if anybody is paying attention, and so it was always a balance trying to do right but also be successful and attract a big audience. that is part of the job. it's also rather rewarding. >> how much resistance did you have to put up in the bleed between -- i don't want to call it entertainment, but the bleed between entertainment and news, actually. it used to be that the news division of a big company like disney or comcast or anyone else was sort of sack row sank and even if they lost money, they were doing important work as a public service. and it feels like to me and maybe you as well there began to be some bleed in terms of we need to get the numbers up, we need to cover stories that are going to rate. did you feel that pressure? >> well, i was always aware of the business side. i said from early on in my tenure there, that i saw abc news as a business and more than a business. and my job in part was to run the journalist -- there is a business side of this and we have to be prudent with what

we're doing and to remind the corporation that there is more than a business. and fortunately, the top leadership, particularly bob eyeinger was very supportive of that. there are a lot of things a broad cast news division does that are not profit. covering a presidential election is a loser. you lose tens of millions of dollars in covering a presidential election, but you do it, because it's the right thing. >> you replaced one of the great pioneers, probably the great pioneer of our time in televisi television. how difficult was that? >> that was difficult. early on in my tenure, "fortune" magazine decided to do a profile of people working -- we had a series of serious photographs taken in the newsroom. and then at the very end, rune, who had sort of an impish sense of humor, did this as a joke and of course that's the one they put in the magazine. you never want to succeed a legend. and he deserved to be a legend, first in sports, creating abc

sports, and then in news. you never want to do that. at the same time, we needed to make a move. i cared kedeeply about abc news and we concluded ultimately that was the best thing to do for abc news. so i took it on, thinking i would do it only for two or three years. >> talk about bob woodruff. >> well, bob is a dear friend and was a friend before the attack in iraq on him. i had named him co anchor of "world news" only 30 days before, and he was over in iraq to cover that big story tied to the state of the union, because that was the big subject of the state of the union. and a got a call at 5:00 in the morning from somebody on the desk at home on a sunday saying there's been an attack. and the first reports -- and you all know this. the first reports are always wrong and scattered. the first reports were he has an injury to his arm and he's asked you not to call lee, his wife, because he wants to call her. and i thought that can't be too bad if he's asking us not to call home. and then a series of reports

came, one after the other, that got worse and worse. and i realized he was going to be in no position to call lee, so i had to track lee down who was actually at disney world with her children, and wake her up. and her first question when she heard it was me, "is my husband alive." and i said he's alive, but we don't know. and there were hours in surgery. and i went to bethesda and with lee and the family went for the briefing. and there was no way he could survive, much less become what he has become. so in the end, his recovery is a triumph. >> it really is. >> defies every law of medicine and on the air doing a great job. but it was a very, very difficult time. >> i bet. >> i just want to say briefly, the way david and his wife sherry handled that crisis is legendary in the news business about the personal and professional concern. it was a brilliant and caring piece of crisis in human management. >> very good of you to say. >> a lot of people have taken inspiration from.

>> thank you. the book is "exit interview." david westin, thank you so much. say hi to sherry. >> thank you. >> we'll be back with much more "morning joe." 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. or treat gas with these after you get it.

now that's like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. oh, somebody out there's saying, now i get it! take beano before and there'll be no gas. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

i knew it'd be tough on our retirement savings, especially in this economy. but with three kids, being home more really helped. man: so we went to fidelity. we talked about where we were and what we could do. we changed our plan and did something about our economy. now we know where to go for help

if things change again. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get free one-on-one help from america's retirement leader. ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." let's get a check at business before the bell with cnbc's brian sullivan live across the river at cnbc global headquarters. brian, what's going on and where's the tie? >> yeah, what happened? >> yeah, you know, it's tieless tuesday here on cnbc. i'm trying something new. i'll probably get an e-mail. but the bottom line is this. i was just too lazy to put one on. >> you just invented tieless tuesday in the last nine seconds. >> to be honest, i've got to ask you, who invented the tie?

what's the purpose of the thing? i don't get it, is it to clean up chili? >> don't do this. >> constricting around the neck, it dangles down. >> he's going to be on youtube. >> you don't get to forget your tie and then try to make some larger point. you forgot your tie. >> it's calls object few skating the issue. look over here, let's argue -- it's like a cumber bun. i could like your tie. i saw that at century 21, $8.99. >> boom. what's going on in the world. >> spain still has problems, okay? spain, a huge economy. for three years we've been talking about europe, all right? the greece election goes the right way, all of a sudden now, spanish borrowing costs are rising, the fears are renewed. these are bigger fears. to be honest with you, i'm sort of losing steam on what to say about europe anymore. i mean, it's like -- how many times can you talk about, you know, a family member that has a

problem that they won't solve? eventually, you hold an intervention or you let them go. you know, this is every day in spain, greece, portugal, you name it, we have issues. so spain is back in the cross-hairs. but he's the good news. as we have said many times on our show, "street signs," 2:00 p.m. eastern, cnbc, very good program, does feature a tie. this is good for america, because capital is coming back here, futures indicating higher open, we saw housing starts improve today. so a lot of good -- you know, the money is coming back here because as somebody said in our show, we are the cleanest dirty shirt in a bag of laundry. may not be great, but better looking than everyone else. >> kind of like what you're wearing right now. >> extremely dirty. ring around the collar. >> dirty shirt, no tie. >> the neck tie -- >> i'm wearing jeans too. let myself go. >> did you mean to come to work today or were you going somewhere else? >> tune into "street signs," 2:00 p.m., cnbc. i'll look dapper. >> do you think he slept last

night? >> no. >> where's the love? we need more love in america. >> i've given up on ties, given up on europe, throwing in the towel on everything. >> the neck tie dates back to 1618 when mercenaries wore them during the 30 years war. >> i knew that. >> is that true? >> true story. they war them as part of their uniform. >> i love croatian mercenaries. fantastic. >> brian sullivan, thanks. >> learned something. coming up, r.a. dickey, the man. showing why he's a serious contender for the cy young. be right back. this man is about to be the millionth customer. would you mind if i go ahead of you? instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. people don't like to miss out on money that should have been theirs. that's why at ally we have the raise your rate 2-year cd.

you can get a one-time rate increase if our two-year rate goes up. if your bank makes you miss out, you need an ally. ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense.

i never believed i'd be in control of my weight. [ whistles ] ♪ but here i am. still in control. loving how i eat. loving just walking. not stressing at all about my weight. ♪ if you want it, you got it weight watchers made me believe i could do it. [ female announcer ] join now for $1. hurry, offer ends june 23rd. [ jennifer ] weight watchers. believe. because it works.

♪ r.a. dickey, come on. orioles last night, this guy unbelievable. coming off a one-hitter which should have been a no-hitter. david wright doesn't try to bare-hand. top of the fifth facing wilson bet immediate, orioles first and only hit. nick johnson with a knuckle ball. and in the ninth, chris davis looking. mets win a25-0. another -- 5-0. another shutout. 43 2/3 without giving up an earned run. first pitcher with consecutive one hitters since dave steve in

1988 and first in the national league. the only pitcher that had back-to-back one hitters with ten or more strikeouts. 13 last night. cy young. >> did you see phil nicor in the paper saying i had some streaks but nothing like this. incredible. >> coming up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? ♪ an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer.

to learn more, visit us today. responsibility. what's your policy? with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing skin or eyes. tell your doctor about all your medicines, including those for migraine and while on cymbalta, call right away if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles or serious allergic skin reactions

like blisters, peeling rash, hives, or mouth sores to address possible life-threatening conditions. talk about your alcohol use, liver disease and before you reduce or stop cymbaa.lt dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. ask your doctor about cymbalta. imagine you with less pain. cymbalta can help. go to cymbalta.com to learn about a free trial offer. mcallen, texas. in here, heavy rental equipment in the middle of nowhere, is always headed somewhere. to give it a sense of direction, at&t created a mobile asset solution to protect and track everything. so every piece of equipment knows where it is, how it's doing or where it goes next. ♪ this is the bell on the cat. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ [ thunk ]

sweet! [ male announcer ] the solid thunk of the door on the jetta. thanks, mister! [ meow ] [ male announcer ] another example of volkswagen quality. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. but what about your wrinkles. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair. it has the fastest retinol formula available. it's clinically proven to visibly reduce wrinkles in just one week. "why wait if you don't have to." rapid wrinkle repair. neutrogena®. recommended most by dermatologists.

♪ time to tell you what we learned today. we start at the end with mark halperin. >> twitter was made to react to everything mike barnicle does. it's like a barnicle meter. >> what's an example? >> nothing i can say right now. >> fair enough. mike barnicle, what you did you learn today? >> david maranis has done it again with his great by gravy of barack obama. >> falling apart on the air. >> he should have just not done the -- >> in my view, he should have called it -- >> nothing good about that. >> let's hope he gets better on his program later today. >> 2:00. >> i learned from the book, the story, that like john heileman, the president of the