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well, we asked you at the top of the show, why are you awake? john tower, the answers, please. >> bill, we've got a dave who writes, i just took a break from a michael keaton movie marathon, batman, gung ho, mr. mom. >> you have to end it with duplicity. >> mulitplicity. >> oh, mulitplicity? don't watch it. it really wasn't that great. great show, everyone. "morning joe" starts right now. i'd like to thank the fellow senators for being supportive of this cause. i would like to thank the members of congress who came over to support this cause. the clerks, the capitol police, the staff of the senate, the

doorkeepers who apparently i may have gotten in trouble. and i would go for another 12 hours to try to break strom thurmond's record, but i've discovered that there are some limits to filibustering. and i'm going to have to take care of one of those in a few minutes here. thank you very much for the forbearance, and i yield the floor. >> mr. president. >> the senator from illinois. there will be order. there will be order. expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted in the senate. >> it didn't seem to stop them. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 7th. with us on set are willie, myself and former treasury official secretary and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. and pulitzer prize-winning editorial writer for "the washington post" and msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. in washington, the nbc news capitol hill bureau capitol hill correspondent, kelly o'donnell.

you know, steve, you and i have been following the senate for some time. last night, responsibilispontan out, and you could see someone on the floor who wasn't doing something that was poll tested and market driven, whether you're a liberal or conservative watching rand paul, i think you kind of admire the guy for really going out there and fighting for what he believed in. >> yeah. he had a point of view. it wasn't popular. and he did -- you know, he followed the time-honored traditions of the senate. he had the right to go out on the floor and just like mr. smith goes to washington or strom thurmond holds the record for filibusters, he was able to go out there, as we saw the call of nature and other things led him to come in. >> he had, willie, widespread support. you had people on the left and the right -- >> yeah. >> -- supporting his asking the question and a lot of us asking the question around this table, does this administration really intend to move forward with

killing americans if there's not even an imminent threat? >> senator ron wyden, hardly a bedfellow of rand paul, regularly came out and spoke on his behalf. ted cruz and others gave rand paul a break. they could ask questions in the middle, but they came up and gave speeches and asked questions. if you wanted to shine a light on this issue, what better way? this started rolling about noon yesterday, picked up steam over the course of the day, went into the evening network newscast. he shined a light perhaps just for a day but a lot more people today know about it than they did yesterday, about the question of whether or not the united states can use drones against its own citizens. >> again, in the u.s. >> in this country. >> his issue is using drones against our own citizens. don't expect it. if we have pearl harbor or 9/11, i'm not ruling anything out. >> it was fascinating that ted crui cruz had asked the attorney general in a hearing, will you

rule out killing americans on american soil with drones? and holder wouldn't answer the question. >> i think for reasons that steve just explained, i mean, if someone's a member of al qaeda or a terrorist cell and they're here in the united states and they know that they're plotting or planning and they're on u.s. soil, do you, as attorney general, want to tie your hands in terms of action? i don't know. >> presumably if he's in the united states, though, you could go pursue him through other means and bring him to trial without killing him on site. >> and that is our policy. our policy is, as holder said that the cia does not operate with military forces within the u.s. they leave that to the police. >> that's the fbi and the police. >> right. i think holder's right. all he said was, if something extraordinary happens, then i reserve my rights to tell the president what the limits of his authority are. >> of course, what's so dangerous is, the legal opinion that the justice department drew

up their definitions of imminent and their justifications for killing americans without, you know, judicial review, without probable cause, without imminent harm. that, of course, is what continues to make a lot of people very nervous. it's sort of john yew legal opinion on speed. let's go to capitol hill right now with kelly o'donnell. kelly, an interesting day on the hill yesterday. filibustering by rand paul. >> it wasn't just yesterday, joe. it ended just a few hours ago when i was watching him at i think 1:00 a.m. eastern. and part of what -- there is a distinction here. just jumping in on your conversation. rand paul, through those many hours, did talk about a point where he would say, this is not about enemy combatants in the u.s., americans who might turn and become part of al qaeda. he was not opposed to that. he did say there are other means in which to go after them. part of why the u.s. uses drones in places like yemen or afghanistan and so forth is

because there's not a more feasible way to go in and capture someone. in the united states, the rules would be different because u.s. forces would have, in terms of law enforcement or even military, much greater access. so he kept talking about not killing someone, an american, at a cafe, in their home when they're sleeping. at times when there is not an imminent threat. it is a very narrow piece of the argument. but as the hours went on and on, more members of the senate seemed to support the stand he was taking. and just so everyone is clear, you cannot sit down. and you effectively cannot stop talking, although other members came in and did sort of speechify a little bit to give him a break. some brought him throat lozenges and water, and he had a candy bar or two that he would quickly take a bite of, but he was never allowed to leave to use the restroom. close to 13 hours. people respected the effort in that. it is a very narrow issue. he kept saying, why is it difficult for the administration to answer the question, if it's

not an imminent threat, if it is an american citizen who is not immediately plotting something, why can't they say that fifth amendment rights would pertain to any american citizen? it's an interesting constitutional argument. it's an interesting hypothetical. and they're just trying to get more information, says rand paul, but it certainly got a lot of attention. >> and we're going to get to the underlying story here that sparked this. first, i just saw this on the cover of the business section of "the new york times," steve rattner. it looks like "time" magazine's getting spun off. >> yeah. well, we have rick stengel, of course, coming in a little later. instead of doing the cover, we could find out what's going on in "time." >> i think rick would probably rather read the cover. >> i'm sure he would. the magazine has been troubled. the shareholder returns kind of guy has been trying to raise the stock price. tried to do a joint venture with meredith where they've combined these magazines with meredith. that fell apart with "time,"

"fortune," "sported illustrated" that didn't fit in. now they'll try and spin the whole thing off, kind of like what rupert's doing with his newspaper company. >> so first of all, what's rupert doing with his newspaper company? is rupert going to sell the "new york post"? >> no. i think rupert would, you know, sell his prized heirlooms before he sold the "new york post." he loves the "new york post." after the hacking thing and because you have a disparate set of assets in the company, he's taken his newspapers and educational publishing and spinning that off in a separate company this summer and keeping the entertainment stuff back in what will then be fox. and time is essentially now doing the same thing. they're keeping the assets that they're most excited about, the cable channels, film studio and things like that, and they're spinning out the magazine group on its own boat. the problems are, it will be their third or fourth ceo in the last three years. they've had a lot of turnover at the top. and it doesn't really create any value for shareholders. all it does is give them two

pieces of paper instead of one. and this company will still have to perform financially for it to be a good deal. it's certainly going to be a lot of change. >> what do you think, steve, is a good business model going forward for a magazine? take something like "sports illustrated" who's been getting crushed at the newsstand. the newsstand doesn't work anymore. how does a magazine stay relevant? how does it stay successful? how does it stay financially viable? >> i used to be more optimistic about magazines than newspapers because i thought in this larger format, 3,000, 4,000-word article, people would want to read them physically. i think i was wrong. i think the world is moving digital there the way it is everywhere else. it's not just a newsstand problem. it's also an ad problem. ads at times sports illustrated, fortune, all down even though we're in somewhat of an economic recovery. i think the real hope for all media is to go digital and to provide a product digitally that people are willing to pay for. as these devices get better, it

feels more like a magazine anyway. i think that's honestly their best hope. >> yeah. and it is a challenge. here we go. it's nice and smooth. nice and smooth. anyway, a lot of people talking about that. there's this great article. i'm curious. willie, this is the "usa today." talking about always working. that our world is changing so dramatically. and it changes by the day. that first of all, all of these mobile devices we carry around are killing pcs. but secondly, killing our lives. our personal lives. the e-mail comes in at 8:00 at night. you've got to respond if it's important. it comes at 5:00, when you're walking with your children on the beach. especially for a younger generation of workers, it is nonstop. >> i wasn't made it through the pc this morning, but i was thinking about it yesterday. you think, i'm home from work now. i got home.

i'm going to be with my kids. but you're never actually home from work because there's an expectation that when you get an e-mail in our work environment, you've got to respond to it. i was out to dinner with my kids last night at 5:30. there i am at the table, my son's trying to tell me a story about smearing paint on the walls at school or whatever he did yesterday. you know, i'm checking my e-mail. it's just an instinct. it's a reflex. it's probably not healthy for your family life because your job is 24 hours a day. >> but do you carve out -- are there moments in your day, though, where you say no blackberry for maybe this 15 minutes? this 30 minutes? i used to do that when i walked to work. the phone would go into the pocket. wouldn't be anywhere near me. wouldn't feel it buzzing or hear it ringing. that would be my moment of solitude. >> you know, there are times -- and when those times come, i always in the end pay for it. >> you start to twitch? >> no, it's not that i don't start to twitch, it's i go back up there.

you would think that the world had caught on fire in the 45 minutes. i said i'm going to leave this upstairs and go down and have dinner with my family. and so then you're explaining to these people for the next three hours that you don't hate them and you're not screening it and screening their e-mails. and yes, they're very important to you. and yes, we need to take that meeting next week. and let me -- you know, you know how it goes. >> in the old world if somebody wrote you a letter, they wouldn't expect an answer for a week or no. if they called you, they might not expect an answer for a day or so. now they expect an answer immediately. i'm with you guys. we had a rule in our family, no blackberrys at the table. >> right. >> that was it. so these people who think that they're going to hear from you in the next 12 seconds, they've just got to get over it. >> that's what you've got to do is reset expectations. i think as you know, anybody that's e-mailed me know i reset expectations because some days i

do put it down when i see especially my kids are being interrupted. i put it down in the afternoon. you know, i'll look at it again right before i go to bed to make sure there's not any explosions. and if there aren't, i'll answer in the morning. >> joe, i'm e-mailing you now and you're not answering me. >> he's resetting. >> come on. important. >> i'm resetting your expectations of me. what about you, kelly? are you on it all the time? >> i think there's a sense of guilt. pretty much. although we do try at home, we do try to have the dinnertime r oratorium. if we're checking, we point it out to the other. especially in our jobs, there is an expectation you'll respond quickly. there is a concern about missing something. when i am able to put it down, i do find there is a moment of zen. >> yeah. it's tough. i get so depressed when i walk -- not depressed, but just

troubled when i walk into a restaurant and you'll see a family of four sitting in a booth. and all four of them will be looking down at their blackberrys. >> sometimes that's my family. when i see that happening in my family, i just say, hey, guys. time out. >> it's usually one of my 73 children will do it, and then we'll all turn and go stop, stop. all right. so willie, question is, do you think last night at the president's dinner with his republican brethren and sisters, do you think the blackberrys came out then? >> i think when the president's speaking, it's wise to turn the blackberry off. so president obama, as joe said, did share a dinner table last night with 12 top republican senators. something a lot of people have been calling for, more outreach. he did it last night in an effort to side-step the gop leadership by searching for compromise with the rank and file. by most accounts, it was a friendly evening. even though some in attendance have been among the president's toughest critics. it was not intended to really

come to a specific plan to deal with the budget or entitlements, but just a chance to begin a little discussion. you see senator john mccain there with a thumbs up as he came out last night. some senators at the dinner expressed hope for a grand bargain to prevent the continuing budget crisis. to prevent it, i should say. it's still a long way off. last night the house easily passed a $982 billion short-term bill to gund the fovt through september. most of the no votes coming from democrats who criticized the plan for keeping in place the automatic spending cuts. the sequester. meanwhile, house speaker john boehner brushed off the idea that he and president obama could work one on one to come up with a big plan. >> so no more big top-town deals? no more obama/boehner top-down deals or really -- >> those haven't worked very well, if you've watched over the last two years. >> well, i understand, but hope springs eternal. a lot of people would like a deal out there. >> yeah, but i don't think it's the way to get to one. you don't have enough member buy-in. listen, two people hiding behind

closed doors doesn't replicate a 535 members of congress who are the wisdom of 535 members of congress or for that matter 300 million americans. this really out to be done out in the open. members have a chance to participate. and i think that we need to grow this organically through the house and the senate. >> kelly o'donnell, a lot of people including some of us around this table then pleading with the president to meet face to face with some republican members of congress at least to get the conversation started. so give the president credit for that. but did anything substantive happen last night, or where do we go from that dinner? >> willie, i talked to a couple senators who were at that dinner. and this is the power of those personal connections. i heard a more positive tone, a greater sense of optimism than i have in a long time, talking to those same members in the hallways. having a chance to sit down with the president. i was told that every member was able to speak. there was a good give-and-take. real substantive conversation

for more than two hours. that there was a really encouraging sign. honest conversation, i'm told, about some of the problems in both parties at getting to some sort of a big grand bargain deal. they talked about taxes. they talked about changes. to medicare. it was really described as very positive and constructive. i was also told that they expect the president will do a similar kind of thing with democratic senators to try to get sort of a framework put together on what to do next, to get to some kind of a bigger deal that would deal with this long-term budget. i was really struck by the positive tone. so a couple of hours spent at dinner might generate some new momentum, some new energy. talking is just a first step, but they said it was a really critical step in being able to hear each other out and that it was described as honest, thorough, very, very positive sense from it that i hadn't heard in a long while. >> you know, steve, that is, i personally think that's a great move forward. there are a lot of observers in the blogosphere or on twitter

who say why does it matter if they like each other? i've never done anything, whether it's been practicing law, whether it's running a business, whether it's been, you know, being in congress, whether it's been being in the media, whether it's been negotiating contracts over the past 20 years, where having that personal relationship before you go in and make the tough choices doesn't make a huge difference. i think this is a great step forward. and i think it's necessary for them to have several of these meetings and get to know each other. >> i spent 30 years negotiating deals, and i completely agree with you. no matter how difficult the negotiation was going to be, it was always easier if you had a personal relationship, had built some trust, built at least some sense of the other person or the other people before you sat down and tried to get these things done. we can look back and criticize and not criticize the president, but he's done it now. and i think he's on the right path in terms of these contacts. i don't want to be debbie downer after a nice night, but there's still an awful lot of wood to

chop. this was a nice meeting among clear-thinking republicans who understand problems. you've got to get through the rest of the senate. you've got to get through the house which, as you know, is unbelievably difficult. it's not a forcing mechanism at the moment. we don't have another cliff in sight. we're still a long -- this is maybe now on the 10 yard line of an effort to get all the way down the field to get something really serious done. >> and i really do salute the president. i think we are here, though, jonathan, in part because he tried campaigning around republicans. and he saw that didn't work with sequester. that he had republicans that were willing to vote down something or not vote for something even if it might not be in their best interests politically in the short run. and it sounds like he's gone to plan "b." it seems like -- at least for me -- i think it's a hopeful start. >> plan "b," going around the leadership, talking to these particular senators, the one -- not to be debbie downer like steve, but i wonder, what are the repercussions going to be against those senators for

sitting with someone who their base doesn't really like? we've seen lots of republican members of congress go down in a ball of flames because they've either said something nice about the president, agreed with the president on something, or literally allowed themselves to be hugged by the president. >> i don't know. i think it's -- i think that's silly. i think they should have the courage to tell people, tell their constituents not ruppn aw from it. it's the president of the united states. if he wants to talk to me, then i'll go down there. willie, best home field advantage on the planet, the white house. get somebody in the oval office, that's the best home field advantage. >> let's hope it's a start. this is a nice meeting, but there's a lot of work to do. you've got to get people to compromise on entitlement reform and other people to raise revenue. two things neither side has been willing to do yet. we've heard the first chirps of hope. >> chirps of hope.

churchill said that as the boats were coming back from dunkirk. >> the title of your next book, willie. >> chirps of hope. >> chirps of hope. >> in this case, you have boehner and mcconnell saying no new revenues, period. read my lips. this is it. it's over. and they're going to have to be new revenues. and there's going to have to be concessions from the white house. how the republicans climb down from that, i don't quite know. >> that's where you start. you climb down it by saying we had to do it. we had to get a deal. that's why you get them over there. see what their first positions are. and then i think they move. and by the way, mcconnell can find people that republicans -- find enough republicans that will support closing loopholes, you know? the guy knows how to count votes. hey, coming up, we've got a man who was at that dinner, senator tom coburn. he's going to join us. also, we've got mayor cory booker. also former senator bill frist and former white house press secretary, dee dee myers is

going to be here. also coming up, espn college basketball analyst jay bilas will be here. also, jim vandehei with the "politico playbook." but first, here's bill karins. he's got a check on the forecast. bill. >> morning to you, joe. of course, washington, d.c., everyone was watching you yesterday. everything was shut down for the snowstorm that didn't hit the district inside the beltway. dulles picked up three inches. just outside the beltway. but reagan picked up zero. you saw some snowflakes. it was just too warm during the storm. a lot of your friends just to your west got blockbuster heavy, wet snow. fredericksburg picked up six inches. d.c. was too warm. the same for baltimore through philadelphia. that storm is still out there. it's not done. it's going to linger today. it is affecting coastal areas. high tide is up on the jersey shore and out on new england right now. we're seeing some damage being done. be again, another high tide cycle tonight and tomorrow. it's a little colder in sections

of interior new england than it was in d.c. yesterday. that's why providence, north and west of hartford and worcester and all of massachusetts, you're going to get accumulating snows. most likely after dark today. daylight hours, i think the roads will be okay. it is snowing pretty good from boston southwards down to providen providence. the roads should only be wet. when you wake up tomorrow morning, this is how much snow should be out there especially on the grass. the roads will are more slushy. worcester, four to eight, manchester and boston, three to six. providence, three to six. even new york city has the possibility of seeing a slushy inch or two. mostly the grassy surfaces and suburbs outside of new york city is who will have to deal with it. looks like a great start in d.c. i don't think you'll complain about getting no snow after you're going to hit mid-50s this weekend. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ female announcer ] when a woman wears a pad

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welcome back to "morning joe." let's take a look at the "morning papers." "the new york times," negotiations under way between the united nations and insurgent fighters in syria for the release of filipino peacekeepers captured. a spokesman for the armed fighters said they have threatened to treat the peacekeepers as prisoners of war unless the syrian military leaves a nearby village. u.n. officials say they believe the workers are so far unharmed. "the chicago tribune," the city's school district could shutter as many as 80 schools. the district wrestling with a $1 billion deficit and reports show there are too many schools with underenrollment. depending on the plans the system adopts, some students may live farther away from the new schools they'll be forced to attend. and from the business section, "the dallas morning news," jc penney laying off 2200 employees as the department store's turnaround sputters under ceo ron johnson.

the stock has plunged under the last five days of trading, falling 35%. all this over a trial over a contract dispute with martha stewart and macy's. "the wall street journal," michael dell is fighting to keep a buyout of the company he created on track after a shareholder backed out of the deal. now one of dell's biggest competitors, hewlett-packard, reportedly interested in a takeover. revenue has dropped since consumers started using tablets and smartphones more frequently than desktops. mark teixeira will be out at least eight to ten weeks after injuring his wrist during batting practice. initial x-rays were negative. the yankees thought they'd have him back in a couple weeks, but further testing showed he has a strained tendon in his wrist. he'll miss the first month along with the rest of the old guys in the bronx. let's go to "politico,"

executive editor, mr. jim vandehei. good morning. >> good morning. how are you? >> good. let's talk gun control as it pertains to universal background checks. we talked earlier about the president's dinner meeting last night with republican senators. you say the president's going to continue to reach out today. but we're talking here about chuck schumer and tom coburn. they were working together on universal background checks. looks like now schumer may be going his own way. >> yeah. the further we get away from those shootings and guns being such a national issue, the harder it is to get a deal. and you see this now where you had coburn and schumer trying to do a deal just on background checks, and it got hung up over what happens when you sell your gun privately to a friend or to a neighbor. they can't even get a deal on background checks, much less what are we going to do about assault weapons? ammunition clips? they're down to that one narrow issue in finding bipartisan support even on that is difficult which goes to something we've been talking about on the show for some time, it's going to be really hard to

get anything substantive done on gun control in this congress because republicans just aren't interested in it, and they're not hearing anything from their constituents about a need to do new gun laws in this congress. >> so are we at the point now, jim, when an assault weapons ban is just a total pipe dream? if it can't even get the votes it would need? >> i thought we were at the pipe dream stage months ago. i never thought there was a chance of getting an assault weapons ban through this congress. you've got to look at who represents the districts. and who the senators are. and there's just not the votes in congress to get it done. so i don't think gun control is going to be the big issue this year. i think it's one of the reasons, by the way, that you see the president now moving over and trying to get back to this idea, can we get a grand bargain back on the table? i think the conversations at dinner last night, they're important. they are a first step. you guys were talking about that earlier on the show. we're reporting right now that paul ryan's going over to the white house today for a lunch with the president.

that's another important one-on-one conversation, one that hasn't been happening a lot until recent weeks. and so the fact that people are talking maybe to outsiders, you'd say, isn't that what people do? not in washington. so the fact that they are talking, that's a good thing. >> so jim, where's the wiggle room, then? who budges if mitch mcconnell, if john boehner don't want to move on revenue and won't for the sake of their jobs, among other things, where does that movement come on that side in terms of tax increases? and on the other side from the president and others on entitlement reform? >> that's why i really wonder if the president is pinching himself about how they handled it last year. had they made all these calls, had all these dinners right after the election when those bush tax cuts were going to go away, the president had so much leverage to get a lot more in tax increases than he ultimately got. and he could have used that to get a grand bargain. now that those tax cuts have kicked in, it's a lot harder because republicans don't want to put a lot of revenue on the table. here's what i think the president is up to. there are senators like lindsey

graham who are willing to put more revenue on the table in exchange for entitlement changes, a decade or more away from now. i think that you could see a deal where they do something on new revenues matched with entitlement cuts and then keep the $1.2 trillion covered by sequestration, but reorder them. decide that different programs are going to get cut, maybe more get cut in the out years, say not this year and next year but in the other eight years that are covered by sequestration. you could see that being part of a deal. >> yeah. putting it another way, we're really actually not that far from something that makes sense. if you got another 400 to $600 billion in revenues and you rearranged that $1.2 trillion to include something sensible on entitlements and restore some of these stupid discretionary cuts, you would be at $4 trillion of deficit reduction that a lot of us feel is not all we hoped for but enough to at least sleep at night. >> so where are we? break it down. >> we're right now at about $3.5 trillion of deficit reduction that we've achieved.

$600 billion of it was the tax increase at the end of last year. all the rest of it was actually spending cuts. >> you've got $600 billion in taxes, about $700 billion in interest savings, right, that they're counting? >> that's buried in that whole thing. you had three rounds of spending cuts. >> 2.5? >> it's about 2.7, i think. yeah. you basically had back in '10, the continue resolution. you had the budget control act in '11 and then you had the sequestration. you've had a lot of spending cuts. and then you had this tax increase. >> and unfortunately, of course, those cuts, most will say, came from the discretionary accounts. we need to move more aggressively towards entitlements, and there may be a deal to be done on entitlements. >> i think for those of us who care about not just the overall numbers but what's inside, that's a critical element. you need to trade off some of those cuts that you and i have talked a lot about that are harmful for some entitlement cuts which nobody wants but are unfortunately necessary. >> jim vandehei aboutwith a loo

the playbook. coming up, jay bilas getting us ready for march madness and talk about his new book. more "morning joe" when we come back. [ female announcer ] let our chefs take your lettuce from drab to fab with new lean cuisine salad additions. the perfect combination of grilled chicken plump edamame ripe pineapple crunchy broccoli colorful carrots all topped with a savory ginger vinaigrette and crispy noodles. for 300 delicious calories. all you have to do is bring your own lettuce. we'll dress it up. new lean cuisine salad additions. just byol. they're the hottest thing to hit the frozen aisle. nestle. good food, good life.

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welcome back to "morning joe." special edition of sports this morning because here with us, espn college basketball analyst jay bilas. he's the author of the new book -- >> how did this happen? >> on top of everything else, the man can write. the book is "toughness: developing true strength on and off the court." jay, it's so cool to have you here. >> great to be here. >> can we talk a little bit about the college basketball season? we were saying it's not like last year where we had kentucky and we said it's going to take somebody special to prevent them from winning it all. i don't think we've anybody special this year. >> i agree. we've got a lot of really good ones. and there are teams that are capable of playing great. i think there are a number of teams across the board that can win on any given night and that can win one or two games in the ncaa tournament. i do think the list of teams that can win five games to get to the final and six to win the whole thing is not as long as some people seem to indicate. i think it's more like a dozen.

but we've got a bunch -- we don't have any true great teams that we're going to say 20 years from now, remember the teams of 2013. we'll have a champion that will always be remembered, but i'm not sure that the top teams we're going to be talking about them in 20 years. >> there's no team in this tournament that can keep up with duke in '86. >> no. >> that's true. >> yeah, that was special. >> that was called a doughnut team. hole in the middle. >> had nothing to do with dawkins. look at this guy. look at the hair. >> i still have it. >> we're talking generationally, though, the game is just so different now. not just your team, any team from that era. take those vegas teams. it wouldn't be close if they played the national champion this year. why is that exactly? >> well, because guys don't stick around as long. i think players today are better than they've ever been. they're more skilled, far more athletic. they've had better backgrounds as far as being raised in the game. they've played all over the country. they've traveled.

so they're more prepared to play when they're 18 and get on campus, but they don't stick around. so the teams aren't as mature together. we had mature teams back then. michael jordan left north carolina in 1984. he was a junior. people were going, he's leaving early! >> right. >> he would never become a junior now. that would never happen. it's changed in that regard. and it's also changed -- scoring's way down this year. you probably heard that. it's historically low this year. so we've got a game where we've had a cumulative effect of early entries affected the game, a game that's probably overcoached a little where it's possession by possession. and then we've got a game where fouls have become accepted as defense. we've got hockey games right now in some of these games instead of basketball. >> you know, it's hurt the game. i mean, when i grew up, my mom and dad went to the university of kentucky. and we watched every game we could watch. and we were absolute fanatics. and when march came along, it was life or death. and starting a couple of years ago, i just completely fell off.

when they started getting really good because i kept hearing oh, they've got this great freshman that's coming in. he's only going to play one year. then he's going to go. why invest in that? and that happened on, like, two kentucky teams in a row. and finally it was like, you know what? i'll just wait for baseball to start up because why follow a team -- >> because they never switch teams. >> yeah. you go in and you start cheering for a team, you know, that this team you're cheering for is only going to be around one year. >> that's a great point because you can't fall in love with a team like you used to. when we went to college, guys came in as freshmen and left as seniors. that's rare. you don't have the great players that stick around to be juniors and seniors. you don't have junior and senior lottery picks anymore. >> you say players are great this year, this era, much better. but talk about toughness. you write a lot about toughness in your book. are they as tough as they once were? >> i think they are. i wrote an article about three years ago for espn.com about the

concept of toughness in college basketball. it's not about being a bully or physically being tough and knocking somebody around and beating your chest after you do something. it's more about the everyday stuff that you're willing to do. are you willing to prepare to put the time in to prepare? do you concentrate? are you hard to play against and easy to play with? the great teammates. those are the tough guys. sort of the everyday guys. and when i wrote the article, i got feedback that i couldn't believe from all over the world. from coaches, players, teachers, people from nasa, soldiers saying, you need to write more about this. i started talking to my friends. i sought out people like mia hamm and guys that i played with and played against, coaches like bill self, tom izzo, coach k., roy williams, the like and really investigated it and came up with this concept in the book. and it really seemed to resonate with people. nobody's tough alone. we're not born tough, but we can all be tougher. you start thinking about the tough people in your life.

the first people you go to are probably your parents. that foundation of toughness that you get from them of doing things the right way and having things in the proper perspective and going to work every day and being prepared when you get there. >> one of the things i love you write in the book is you say you can learn to be tough. i think there's this perception that people are born tough. they're gritty. they're scrappy. you say you can teach yourself to be tough. >> i don't think there's any question. nobody's born tough. coach k., that's one of the things in the book that he emphasizes. we're not born tough. and toughness is contagious. when you're around people that are willing to do tough things, that will dive on the floor for a loose ball, that will step in front of an offensive player and take a charge, grant hill talked a lot about that. some of the guys that are perceived as being tough in the nba, they're not willing to step in there and take a charge. near not willing to dive on the floor and keep possession of the ball. that's what wins games are extra possessions. i think that kind of thing, guys that are willing to do that, it's done tcontagious. mia hamm and julie foudy,

historically great, talked about having their level lifted by their teammates. that they were able to push their limits that they thought they had, and they didn't realize they had another gear. >> the reason why you got such a great response to your article is because this is contagious not only on the basketball court, but you're an attorney. >> right. >> jonathan is a journalist. if people around you make tough decisions, decide to go after a story that might be unpopular or take a case that nobody else wants to take, that sort of action is contagious. >> and people who are willing to have conflict, but they understand, we can disagree, but after we disagree and a decision's made, we're going to unite and we're going to move on together. and that's sort of the idea of being a great teammate. who taught you to be a great teammate? there wasn't any class on that. the great teammates are the ones who compete their tails off and practice every day. we may be competing for the same spot. and you're the starter and i'm the reserve. now, do i sit there and hope that you screw up so i get to go in?

or do i support you because we're on the same team pushing in the same direction? that's a difficult balance sometimes. >> what happens when toughness goes too far? who's the person to say, let's say i'm in your estimation too tough? how do you pull that person -- bring that person back down to the level where the toughness is productive again? >> it's kind of a semantic thing. i would say to that, there's no such thing as too tough. it's gone into an area that isn't toughness. that if you're doing something that's -- say you're knocking somebody around, trying to be a bully. that's not tough. that's being a bully. toughness is these other things. it's a mindset. it's facing adversity and fighting through it. and it's helping -- it's helping a teammate do the same thing or a colleague do the same thing. you know, i've had, in my law practice, joe mentioned it. my first hearing as a lawyer, you prepare for your hearing and you think you've got everything set. i had a colleague that came in a

couple years ahead of me. a woman named tamara. she said, are you ready? i think so. i showed her everything i had. she said, do you know where to sit? i had no idea where to sit. and i started thinking about, if i went in -- she walked me through the whole thing about the logistics. this is what's going to happen. this is how you put something in evidence. i would have had no clue. and it would have thrown me off. and it would have been a problem. and she was -- i thought that showed a tremendous amount of toughness, to think outside of herself and just her own job and help a teammate. >> and toughness is also recognizing when -- recognizing when you need help. >> exactly. exactly. that's exactly right. >> all right. thanks so much. willie, this is a great book. >> before we let him go, predict national title. who do you like? >> duke looks pretty good. they haven't been beaten when ryan kelly is in there. indiana, kansas, gonzaga. >> byer? >> because they've got an nba front line. >> "toughness: on and off the court." you can read an excerpt on our

blog and watch him quoting young jeezy on twitter each and every morning. >> real. >> jay bilas, good to see you. coming up, is main street keeping up with wall street? steve rattner has his charts to break down the market surge straight ahead. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪

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♪ ♪ no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. welcome back to "morning joe." it's time for "must-read op-eds." here's an interesting take. this is matt mill from her "the washington post." it's 1995 all over again. "apart from obamacare, what's the president's legacy beyond having avoided a second great

depression? republicans just got 82% of the bush tax cuts made permanent. they're forcing washington to debate deficits instead of jobs in ways that serve their partisan cause. these endless budget clashes are running out the clock on the affirmative portion of obama's second term. if you put aside the falsehoods republicans peddle and the inadequacy of their agenda to america's needs, as a matter of politics, their dominance of the debate is impressive. if this is how a retrograde party in disarray plays the game, who knows what's in store if the republicans get their act together." of course, i disagree with -- you know, a lot of his suggestions here about the retrograde party, but he brings up a great point. the president is frozen in place and is not advancing any part of the agenda that he wants to advance right now. >> i think a piece of the reason why you now see him reaching out

in these dinners, i think he realized -- i'm sure he realized a long time ago because it's obvious that his second-term record will depend heavily on whether or not he gets something done on the budget. if the budget becomes this morass where people like you and me and jonathan, whatever, are saying at the end of this process, are we worse off than we were before, then that's really bad for his second temrm. i think that's right except i think they probably lose, too, because they don't really have an agenda at the moment. >> the thing is, we're the maen who has nothing to lose. republicans' approval rating is so low already, jonathan. the president's got to figure out a way to work with them, and it looks like he's doing just that. >> he's trying his best, going around the leadership that he's had problems with, going to rank-and-file members, going to the american people, people call it the president campaigning. but it's trying to get people outside of washington to put pressure on the people inside of washington to get something done. >> so kelly o'donnell, where does he stand right now?

this piece is about legacy. if you believe the premise of that piece that he is sort of stuck underneath all this, where does he go from here? >> well, i did put that to senators who were at the dinner, trying to get a sense of was that a part of the tone? and while legacy wasn't specifically talked about, there was, i'm told, an awareness of the urgency on budget issues in terms of a very limited amount of time. that the president apparently thinks he has the republicans acknowledge as well. and i was told when you're talking about a continuing budget resolution that might continue things till september, that's sort of a window that there was sort of a clear-eyed view about in the room last night, about wanting to get something done. which goes against a bit of some of the popular theory right now that the president is more focused on trying to get democrats back in charge of the house, making his final couple of years clearer running room for him to get things done. i got a sense from those there last night that that was not a conspiracy theory that was at work at table, that there was more of a sense of urgency.

and that is probably a good thing for getting things done. >> i actually think the sequester, which everybody really talked down about, i think maybe that was something that broke the ice. the president went around campaigning. it didn't really move anything. his numbers didn't go up. and republicans didn't move. now this is plan "b." let's hope it works. thank you so much, kelly. still ahead on "morning joe," the dow keeps climbing, but what does it mean for your retirement account, and what does it mean for working americans? still suffering in this long recession? financial editor jean chatzky joins the table straight ahead. we'll be back on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] ok, here's the way the system works. let's say you pay your guy around 2% to manage your money. that's not much you think. except it's 2% every year.

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does the constitution allow a u.s. citizen on u.s. soil who doesn't pose an imminent threat to be killed by the u.s. government? >> i do not believe -- again, you have to look at all of the fact. but on the facts that you have given me -- and this is a hypothetical -- i would not think that in that situation the use of a drone or lethal force would be appropriate because -- >> general holder, i have to tell you, i find it remarkable that in that hypothetical, which is deliberately very simple, you are unable to give a simple one-word, one-syllable answer, no.

>> it's a good question. i think he sort of answered it, didn't he? >> i think he gave the best answer he can, given the circumstances. >> i think the answer is no. welcome back to "morning joe." steve rattner's still with us. joining the table, msnbc political analyst and vice president and executive editor of msnbc.com, richard wolffe. also senior political editor and white house correspondent for the huffington post, proving just how few years the huffington post has been around, senior anything. >> it's going to be that type of morning. >> former white house press secretary under president clinton and contributing editor to "vanity fair," dee dee myers. people always express wonderment that you could impeach bill clinton in the morning, and in the afternoon, he'd be playing golf with you. because he always knew the next legislative battle was coming. and he wanted you on his side. i really -- i salute president obama for starting to get these

republicans over last night. not expecting anything immediately, but at least taking that first step. >> no, it was good to see. and i think it was met universally with positive feedback from people who were watching. you know, relationships don't get built in one meeting or one dinner or one lunch with paul ryan today. it takes that over and over and over again over a longer period of time. so i hope that the president will, you know, invest the time now to build the relationships and build the trust that will allow us to stop having these self-manufactured crises every couple of months. >> do you think the outcome of the sequester may have been one of the drivers for the president to start doing this? >> yeah, i think he realized that there were limits to his effectiveness campaigning against the republican house. when the republican house starts at 8% approval, how much further are you going to be able to drive it down? >> right. >> you know, how much can you really change the dynamic that's sort of locked in that way? so that approach wasn't particularly successful. so it's time to try something

else. and this is something he's been getting a lot of advice about recently, that he's been a little aloof. he hasn't invested time building relationships on either side of the aisle, quite frankly, and ma maybe it's time to try a different approach. and this was a great first step. you know, the dinner last night, lunch today. he's been calling senators from both sides of the aisle. you know, i hope he keeps it up. >> that's great news. i hope so, too. the politics of it, richard wolffe, is the fact that the president campaigned, whatever he wants to campaign, but there are some of these republicans in gerrymandered districts that know that if they vote for two tax increases in three months without getting entitlement reform, they will get beaten. >> sure. >> that clearly -- so it seems to me the president is tipping his hat to the political reality that's in front of me. >> well, that's true. by the way, so is everyone. you have a dinner outside of the white house, it's not the right thing, not good politics to not show up, right? so everyone has to look like they're behaving nicely.

but what you said was interesting. tax raises without entitlement reform, entitlement reform is on the table. now, we can debate about whether it's big enough and whether it's quick enough. >> right. >> but everyone says it's on the table in which case there is a deal to be done if people are willing to put aside scoring political points over each other. you know, if the president says chained cpi and he does it on "meet the press," then he shouldn't really take a dinner to deliver that message again, but that's what it takes in washington. >> i think it does take him to sit down and have people know, i'm not going to send out a press release. i'm not going to hold a press conference. let's sit down and talk over the table. >> sure. i think there's two factors here. i talked to some white house officials about this. the first is i think they did get a message from the cable media echo chamber. i know they're pained to say it, but there have been complaints about the inability or the unwillingness by the president to do these types of things.

i think they took those complaints to heart and they are going to do it. now they hope that that type of complaining won't happen down the road. that they'll point to this moment and say he did his best. the second thing is now that sequestration is behind us, everyone assumes that there's going to be some kind of agreement on the cr, the continuing resolution. we're kind of beyond those days of the crisis politics, of the countdown clock. there is no fiscal cliff. there is no sequestration clock. we are going to probably have a fund of government until september. so you can have the space to do these types of relationship-building exercises, whereas in the past, it was too frantic to actually build the type of relationships needed to get legislation done. >> but the flip side of that, unfortunately, is we also don't have a triggering mechanism to force a deal. a lot of us thought the fiscal cliff was so draconian, the tax increases, the spending cuts, that people would have to do something. and obviously -- >> and that didn't happen. and i think this is -- the counterargument is that now you have to build relationships to do a deal. >> right. we also had the last four years to build relationships.

we'll put that aside for the moment. >> can i just say, steve, you always have to build relationships. to make a deal. i've just never -- i've never, in all my life, until the past four years, have i heard any political side make the suggestion that oh, relationships are just maybe nice, but they're not necessary to make deals. in every aspect of my life, you've always -- you always go -- and i never try to make the deal at the first meeting or the second meeting or the third meeting. at the fourth meeting, something may slip in there. and then you start moving. >> they are necessary. and i certainly get that. and again, i don't want to be the house pessimist, but you do also have beneath that problem, once you get past that problem, some very strong, heartfelt ideological differences between the two sides. >> but those differences aren't going away. >> which is all the more reason, dee dee, that you have these meetings because you do have -- i mean, if you -- i mean, i've been in mediation, legal

mediation before, as a lawyer. you know, yes, the ones where the people were the furthest apart on money, those were the mediations that took the longest to bring them together. but as long as you had two people looking for a deal, there was always a deal to be made. unless you're dealing with certain insurance companies. >> you have to spend the time to invest in the relationship b because you can't do it, when you're in crisis mode, to build the relationship. that's the time to build into that bank of relationship investment and, you know, be able to create a small space of trust and mutual self-interest, and then you build a deal from there. and without that relationship, you can't even get to the first step. and so i think it's -- you know, i wish the president had done it a few years ago. i wish the republicans had been more willing to do it a few years ago. look, everybody's there now. let's see if we can move it forward and see what happens. >> so bill clinton and newt gingrich were like two old

southern country lawyers. because, you know, we'd be in trial. and it would be for a week. and it would be ugly for one day. the second day would be ugly. finally, there would be like a break after the third or fourth day. and what would happen? everybody would wander out. they would be in recess. and then the two lawyers would run into each other and say hey, how you doing? then they'd go off to a side room and just talk. they'd go, boy. and then they'd start talking, complaining about their clients, you know? man, we've got the best case, but my client, wow! a little crazy. which, of course, that's what newt would always say about us. and then they'd commiserate. the other side would complain about their client being unreasonab unreasonable. again, in this casual setting away from the court, away from the judge, away from everything else, and finally after spending all this time, one would say to the other, hey, how do we get this done? how do we get this done? and if people at home are saying, wait a second, that's

the courtroom and not congress. they ignore the fact that most of the people in congress come in with this mindset because a lot of them are lawyers. >> look, what you raise is an interesting dynamic. where you can find a common enemy, there's also room for negotiation. and remember, this president when he was in the senate, his best friends were not democrats. actually, democrats didn't really much like him. his best friends were republicans. people like dick lugar, chuck hagel. this is a president who is now going to this republican group and saying, i can bring along democrats. and you're not going to get another president for some time, a democrat at least, who can bring democrats along on things like entitlement reform. now, again, you may disagree, but there's a real dynamic where the republican party is now saying okay, we used to think our mission was to make him a one-term president. he's clearly not. can we deal with him? that's what's also changed. not just the dinner. the dinner is just the means to an end.

the question is whether the dynamic is washington has changed because republican senators are not saying anymore, we need to make him a failure. and he can go to them and say, i can bring this party on. >> one thing that stood out for the administration was this ezra kline post where he was talking to this unnamed republican congressman about deficit reduction. and the congressman didn't know that the administration had offered chained cpi. he just didn't know it. and the administration sort of looked and said how could they not possibly know that's on the table? that was a problem. they couldn't communicate. they couldn't figure out what it was. they felt they had to reach out, get them more involved, let them know where they stood in order to start the deal-making process. >> dee dee, what's so interesting is that if you had talked to the president before the election and said, okay, mr. president, if you get re-elected, how are things going to change? and the president's response was to everybody that asked him that question, well, if i get re-elected, then republicans are going to understand, i'm here to stay. and they're going to have to

deal with me. what's so fascinating is you've heard people on the left over the past week or two start to say, if you look at the numbers, if you look at the house races, we hate to admit it, but the republican house is here to stay. they're probably not going to lose in 2014. and now -- and this really is, when these realities settle in and sink in in cement, i saw it when i was up there. i know you saw it when you were up there. when the reality sinks in, that's when everybody says, okay. i guess i'm going to have to deal with these people. ugh. pick up the fun. ugh. hey, bill. >> they're out of other options. >> there are no other options. you can't strike deals with the martian congress. you've got to talk to the democrats. >> and it's in everybody's self-interest to move forward on some of these questions like the budget. there's only one way to do that now, which is to find a way to talk. and joe, back to your analogy

about two southern lawyers. you know, they're not just talking. they're listening. they're listening for that signal that says, you know, my client's crazy, and i'm ready to make a deal, right? and so, you know, i hope that the president -- i hope that the republicans last night and i hope paul ryan today would be listening for that opening, that place you can start to build a deal. it's not going to be easy. nobody thinks this is a major turning point in democratic/republican relations, but it's at least a different approach. >> you know, we had some bipartisanship yesterday on the senate floor. when you had rand paul going out complaining about something, a lot of us around this table have been complaining about for some time, and those were the drone strikes and the drone policy this administration has been moving forward over the past several years. specifically the targeting of americans, rand paul took to the floor to filibuster john brennan's confirmation. b brennan's going to be confirmed despite a 13-hour filibuster by the kentucky senator that ended after midnight last night.

>> i'm not asking any questions about the president's motives. i frankly don't think he will be killing people in restaurants tonight or in their house tonight. but this is about the rule of law. it isn't so much about him. it isn't so much about john brennan. it's about having rules so that someday if we do have the misfortune of electing someone you do not trust, electing someone who might kill innocent people, who might kill people that they disagree with politically or they might kill people who they disagree with religiously or might kehl people of another ethnic group, we're protected. that's what these protections are about. >> boy, i'll tell you, that was an important statement for me. and i loved what rand paul said last night. i know "the wall street journal" editorial page disagrees. a lot of other people disagree. a lot of the president's supporters disagree. but man. the slope got so much more slippery when we started killing

americans. >> yes. >> without really legal justification. >> that was a great moment. >> to be clear, we killed one. >> and the son. we killed two at least. >> well, a couple were accidental. there was one target. >> no, no, no, no. we killed the american that we said was a terrorist. and then we killed his son. and the justification was that his son should have had a better father. it is a drone policy that's out of control. >> regardless if he killed -- regardless if we killed one or two, i mean, what they were doing was important. >> if i could just say really quickly, the problem was the justification. >> yes. >> the justice department and barack obama's administration put forward for not only killing those americans but killing americans in the future. >> yes. the question, of course, comes down to imneminence, whether there's an imminent threat. the important part is we have very little in terms of legal rationale from the

administration about where the lines are drawn. what senator paul is saying, it's a hypothetical scenario. it's almost surely not going to happen where someone is not in imminent threat. a u.s. citizen in a town somewhere, can we attack them with drones? it's a very easy question to say yes or no to. i agree with that. he's trying to shed light on the administration hasn't given a concrete answer. >> i'm interested how you draw the line around justification. if you think it's wrong to kill people without justification, why do you say it's about american citizens? >> it's the constitutional aspect. >> you should apply that to everyone in which case the problem -- >> no, no, no. >> the problem with this is -- the problem in this is actually saying we have suspected militants who have not yet moved to an actual execution of a plot. and we're killing them. >> yes. >> right. yeah, but nobody actually -- nobody around this table is really saying we shouldn't go after a kuwaiti or a saudi if they're in the early stages of a plot, but you are saying if it's an american citizen, that's a

wholly different situation. >> i didn't say -- i just want to clear up something. i never said one or the other is good or not. i'm saying there's a serious lack of concrete rationales here. >> we have a constitution to the united states that guarantees every american certain constitutional rights. so yes. there is a difference between the united states government, our government, deciding to kill a united states citizen. >> if they're on the battlefield in a uniform fighting against american forces, you would say those constitutional rights actually are not the same. >> that teenage boy that was sitting at a restaurant and was killed because his father was supposedly an al qaeda member is disturbing. we could go to the specifics of that. but what's even more disturbing is, again, not more disturbing than killing of a teenage american boy just because his father was an alleged terrorist. what's more disturbing is, eric

holder's justification for killing those americans and any other americans where they don't have due process. there doesn't have to even be an imminent threat. they don't have to be in the process of launching an attack against the united states. >> but the problem here is what is the battlefield? what is the battlefield, and what is the enemy uniform? how do -- >> that is the moral question. that is the philosophical question. it is not about citizenship. >> because i'm going agree with you, i think. we declared war on terror -- >> this is liberal on liberal on liberal violence. i love watching this. >> liberal on rib lliberals in e reversal, i think. >> i've been this way for a while. >> in any event, we declared war on terror on september 11th, 2001. there are not lines of people massed somewhere in the world that we can identify and go and attack. if there were, i would have in and out -- you would have no doubt that in world war ii on

d-day, we would have used drones. we would have not spent a lot of time worrying about whether there was an american citizen behind enemy lines in uniform or not. that's a fact, i think. i believe that we are at war with these terrorists. and i don't believe they have to have their grenade launchers to their shoulders before we can target them. i believe the military should do what it has to do. i do agree that the legal justification they put out was gibberish. i'm not a lawyer, but i couldn't make any sense of it. and so i think they have to give a better explanation and justification. but i think the concept that drones are a part of how we're fighting the war on terror to me is very acceptable. >> well, i think it has to continue to be debated because i think there's going to be a tremendous amount of blowback, dee dee, if we don't start targeting those that we're trying to kill more narrowly. also, i've just got to say, again, this is not -- this is not a distinction without a difference. i remember back -- i think it was 2004 or 2005, i was

supportive of george w. bush and many of the things he did in the first couple of years after 9/11. but i remember reading a "new york times" article on a sunday about padilla, an american citizen accused of trying to launch a dirty bomb attack in new york city, i think it was. and i saw that this american citizen had been locked in jail for several years, had not been given the right to counsel, had not been given basic rights that every american is guaranteed to have under the constitution. and i remember saying at the time, that was outrageous, and it was wrong. and i think here where you're talking about killing americans without a right to counsel, without any probable cause, without any imminent threat, imminent danger. i don't know that's a distinction without a difference. that is and that does require our justice department to hold a higher standard to that killing than targeting a kuwaiti or an egyptian or anybody across this

globe that is not born with constitutional protections that they are given from the moment they are born. >> look, and i think it raises -- there are two tracks here, right? there's the sort of more narrow legal constitutional set of issues which you're pointing out which i think are important and the administration has not adequately answered. then there are the broader questions which raise the specter of what do we need to do to protect ourselves in a declared war against terrorists versus who do we have the right to kill without due cause? and those are somewhat intentioned. i think the administration would do itself great favors by answering the narrow constitutional questions more thoroughly and in a way that's more understandable. so far the public is completely on the administration's side. they get that the drones are protecting american lives, both by, you know, not requiring people on the battlefield to do that. and by eliminating downstream threats. and so there's a deep reservoir of support for these policies. the administration needs to

protect that support by providing better justification. and i hope that they do. >> and by the way, if you look at the polls, i am so out of touch. i really am. when it comes to drones. like 99.8% of americans think we should use drones to blow up, like, their opponent's football team. i mean, the military budget, i saw something last night where there was a poll that said oh, cut all the domestic programs, but don't touch defense, please. >> drones are the greatest thing ever. >> the military industrial complex. we can't ask any sacrifices from them. no, when it comes to military issues, this country is all george c. patton. i will be the first to admit, dee dee, on the poll numbers, i am in the distinct minority. dee dee, stay with us. still ahead on "morning joe," facebook's sheryl sandberg has been called irreplaceable by ceo mark zuckerberg. she's the cover story of this week's "time." up next, financial planner jean

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's time for battle of the charts. please. do not try this at home. you could get hurt. with us now, in one corner, finance editor for "today" and personal finance guru, jean chatzky. she has charts and she's the challenger. but before we get to her charts, we have the reigning chart champion, steve rattner has some charts on how the market stacks up to other economic measures over the past few years. chart number one, steve rattner. the ball is in your corner. >> chart winner only by volume, not necessarily by quality. >> okay. >> anyway, so you've been

talking a lot this week. looks like we're going to have another record at least opening today on the stock exchange. and so we have a lot of winners among stock owners. let's talk about who some of the losers are. one loser is the average american whose incomes are up 6% in nominal terms. i can't draw on this. >> you're thrown off by jean being here. >> i'm thrown off -- >> this is the worst chart performance i've ever seen. >> i've been thrown off by limited technological capabilities. the stock market is up 13.3% since the beginning of 2007, the green line. individual incomes are up 6%. now, that's before you count inflation. after inflation, they're down 6.7%. >> oh, my gosh. >> you've got the number of jobs, down 1.7%. and you've got housing, of course, down 28%. so the point here is that people who own stocks did very well. people who had incomes, people who didn't have a job, people who had houses did a lot less well.

>> let's put the charts up again and just put it in perspective. if you look at the numbers, this goes back to 2007. housing is down 28%. so if you invested in housing pre-2007, a tough run for you. jobs, down 1.7% since that time. median income, is that right? >> median income up 6%, before inflation, down 6.7% after inflation. the stock market up 13.3%, back to a record. you. >> basically have a 26% swing between income and stock market. >> you've got a huge swing, yes, that's right. >> so what's caused that? >> what's caused that is the next chart, actually. if you look at the next chart, you're going to see what's going on in america, which is you see your stock price line. the green line again. up 14.7%. and then you see corporate profits up even more. >> household income is down 5%, 6% over the past four years.

poverty rates are up. wall street's up almost 25%. why? >> why? because can we go to the last chart? you'll see why maybe a little bit more clearly. >> the answer is always on the chart, steve. >> if you read your script, you'd know. >> i don't have to do that. >> this looks a little messy, but the real gist of it, if you look over at the left, back in 2001, personal income was 65% of all of our national income. corporate profits were 8.5%. look all the way over at the right. skip the recessions and all that. corporate profits are up to 14.2% of our economy. and personal incomes are down to 61.7%. the share of our economy going to work has gone down. why? because of globalization where companies can source their labor any way they want all around the world often at lower prices where workers can't demand pay increases. so the connecting fiber here, joe, is high corporate profits because they've been able to lower their labor costs. which means lower family incomes.

and that's really what's been going on in this economy. >> jean, the fall of 2008, terrible for a lot of people and their retirement plans. >> absolutely. >> it's come back a little bit. what do we do? >> it hasn't come back a little bit. it's actually come back a lot. when you look -- and i want to go -- can i go to chart three before i go to chart one or chart two? >> yes. >> the people that we're most worried are the people closest to retirement. as always, they have the least amount of time to recover from a big dip in the stock market. if you can continue to participate in your 401(k), if you continued -- here are the balances from people in that age group. and we've broken it down by the length of time they've been with their company. but the left side is 2007. the right side is now. and you can see these people have recovered. and they've recovered -- >> everybody's recovering. >> they've recovered. and a lot of people -- the smaller balances are going to

give people a source for worry. how can you be 55 and only have $50,000 in your account? what we have to remember is that people change jobs so often these days. they've got multiple 401(k)s. they've got i.r.a.s on the side because they've rolled over other balances. but the key to all this and the thing people have to remember as the stock market goes down, because inevitably, it will have its correction at some point when the fed decides to stop supporting the markets. you've got to keep putting money into your 401(k). you have to hold on because if you look at charts one and two, you see that the people who stopped contributing, they are way down. these are, again, those 55-year-olds. and they are way down. 19% below where they were in 2007. on the next chart, if they continued to contribute, you can see they're up 24% where they were in 2007. that is a huge, huge difference. and it doesn't matter where they put the money. i mean, if they put it into

stocks at the right time, great. but we can't time the market. we don't have the skills to necessarily do that. >> we're at record highs now, steve rattner. obviously we're going to have a drop. we're going to have a direction. is the advice around the table when that happens, just hold tight? >> look, this is an important point because individual investors and sophisticated investors have a terrible time timing the market. timing the market is a stupid way to invest, especially when you're a long way from retirement. your 401(k) people, you're right, they put their money in 2005 through 2007, they would have been fine. the mistake they make, they take their money out, they wait for it to double, which it has, and now you see stories every day about them putting their money back in. that is not the way to do it. >> billions of dollars. $460 billion in the last five years have come out of stock mutual funds. $54 billion has gone in just since the beginning of this year because people get emotional. and they don't like to lose money a lot more than they like to make money. and so they make bad decisions.

we can't leave it up to ourselves to make these decisions. we've just got to get in and put it on autopilot and stay in. >> unlike my dad that bought lockheed at 63 and sold it at 3. not a good move. let's talk about the 4% rule. for a long time, a lot of people thought the solution was 4% rule. don't take any more than 4% out of your retirement every year. you say that's not the way to go. >> well, and "the wall street journal" said it before i did. they looked at research that essentially said you've got to watch it. because if the market goes down during your early years of retirement, chances are pretty good if you adhere to that rule, you're not going to have enough money to last you the 30 years that retirement can last. a better solution may be to take some of that retirement money off the top and use it to buy yourself an income in the form of a very simple annuity. simple low-cost annuity. i know a lot of people hear the word "annuity," and they go whoa, i don't want to go there.

there are low-fee, simple immediate annuities where you essentially buy yourself what your grandparents used to have. you buy yourself a pension or a paycheck. and you can layer them over time. you don't have to buy them all at once. you take the same $50,000, and you spend it at age 65 on an annuity. if you use another $50,000 at age 70 or 75, you're going to get more every single month because of your age and your life expectancy. >> young sam stein? >> yeah, i brought a chart, too, by the way. >> don't show that chart. >> i have a chart. >> don't show that chart, sam. >> can we zoom in on this? on the one hand, we have number of tv viewers and then we subtract over time. >> this is cold. this is horrible. >> that's accurate. i'm sorry. >> do i detect a tinge of jealousy? >> yes, i don't have charts. no one told me to bring charts. >> you brought your own, young sam stein. have you invested yet in a 401(k)? >> yeah. >> do you? >> a very small amount, but yeah. it's only, you know, it's pragmatic to do something like that. i put everything in facebook

stock as soon as it came out. >> excellent. >> i know why you keep him around. >> is that doing all right? coming up, mayor cory booker and former senator bill frist. they're going to join us for a healthier america. we're going to offer some munchkins to them. see how they feel about that. more "morning joe" when we come back. revolutionizing an industry can be a tough act to follow,

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hey, dee dee, you're involved with a new bbc documentary entitled "what if women ruled the world?" i suspect this is not going to turn out the way the -- the answer to that's not going to turn out the way sam stein wants it to turn out. but this documentary explains a lot of things in your book why women should rule the world. they've done a great job, haven't they? >> yeah. i mean, to the degree that women are ruling, things are getting better, no question about it. you know, it was -- it's been a really fun project. i've gotten to go around and interview a lot of interesting women from condoleezza rice to, you know, janet napolitano, nancy pelosi to christine legard

and others. the question is what would change if there were more women of power in position. that's a topic near and dear to my heart. it won't surprise you to find out that to a woman, they all agree things would get better. they also agree that we need balance. that having women replace men wouldn't make things better. what would make things better if we included more people in decision-making from economic policy to security policy to education and economic development. so anyway, it's coming up this weekend in response to international women's day on friday. so it's very exciting. >> as you know, dee dee, this, too, is an issue that's very near and dear to my heart. let's run a clip of it. >> educate women, and they will not be trafficked into brothels in southeast asia or eastern europe. educate women, and they will not have 12 kids, and they won't have their first one at 13. and so you can get purchase on other vexing issues.

of course it's a moral issue. but it also is really an issue of development and stability and good policy. and i think madeline and hillary and i tended to see that as a more core issue. >> dee dee, when can we catch the bbc documentary? >> it starts airing friday, which is, again, international women's day, and it will air friday, saturday and sunday. check your local listings for bbc america. it's also airing around the world on the various bbc networks including a radio version which will air on bbc radio networks worldwide. >> fantastic. we will tune in. dee dee, thanks a lot. we appreciate it. >> thank you. and coming up next, part of the new group of female executives changing the business world. facebook's sheryl sandberg is the topic of this week's "time" cover. rick stengel is here to talk about the big reveal next on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles

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for our free usaa retirement guide, call 877-242-usaa. with us now, "time" magazine magazining editor, rick stepp g steppinglsteppinngel. >> we have our exclusive story and adaptation of sheryl sand befrg's book, "lean in." sheryl sandberg is the latest and i think the most important entry in these discussions about women in the workplace and what feminism is these days. the cover is "don't hate her because she's successful." >> that's a fascinating title, "fascinating cover. >> let me explain it. >> could you explain it to me? because i'd like to understand. >> good.

one of the things that sheryl says in her book that was a revelation to her when she was a young woman in the workplace is that success and likability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. that is, men who are successful, people like them more. women who are successful, people like them less. >> mika's been saying that for years. in fact, wrote the same thing in her book that you -- the more successful you -- >> there's a piece that i think is going up tomorrow on time.com about sheryl's book. i wish she was here. she would tell you what's what. >> she's so successful, she's in the south of france right now, and people hate her for it. mika always said, you know, women that get successful need to look behind them. >> from other women. >> mainly from other women. >> that's right. >> isn't that amazing? >> the worst place for women that i ever worked was "working woman" magazine. >> really? >> absolutely. and i know other women have said the same thing. women don't support other women on the way up because "a," there's a feeling that the people who have already made it

have paid dues that you have to pay. otherwise you just haven't done your job. but also you're a threat. and if you're on your way up, you're a threat and nobody wants -- there are a limited number of jobs for women at the top, and nobody wants to see theirs taken away. that's the perception. >> yeah, that's the perception. but you say it. mika's said it all along. it's not the men you have to worry about. >> nope. >> it's the women. >> but sheryl's point is saying that women internalize a lot of these things. and what we have to do is free up women from feeling those feelings that hey, people won't like me if i'm successful. or i have to plan for my own lack of success. i mean, she says women -- one of the fascinating things she says women overanticipate and overplan for getting married and having children even before they're married and don't have children. >> well, i totally see that. i mean, i was 26 years old and getting married and working on wall street at the time and thinking, i'd better get out of here because i don't want to have to get up at 7:00 in the

morning. look at us now. and show up for work. >> 7:00 in the morning, that's like noon for us around here. >> but i do think women do that. i think a lot of women have this plan that takes them down the road from the time that they graduate college to the time that they have kids to the time that they want to get promoted and do something. and frankly, she's right. it's not that linear. and you should go with it. in some manners. >> you've also got this related issue which is the one that's probably got a little more attention which is sort of the argument between sheryl sandberg on one hand and ann marie slaughter on the other where you can so-called have it all. sheryl lays out a plan for how you can kind of have it all. the husband does half the, so on and so forth. ann marie slaughter is saying that's just not reality. maybe a reality for you, you have a billion dollars and you have all the help. it's not reality for the average woman. that's what i think some of the pushback comes from. >> maureen dowd has written a column on this. there are a lot of women who say you can have it all if you have a billion dollars and you can

build an office. you know, an office. >> but again, maybe are you doing that same thing, are you holding it against a successful woman that she actually has made a lot of money? >> no, i'm not. but i don't want that successful woman to be talking to working-class women and offering advice that might be applicable if you've got a billion dollars but not if you make $50,000 and you're a single house mom. >> she talks about that. we all can't be sheryl sandberg. she is mostly addressing women who already have some means, but there are things relevant for women with more modest means. part of what she's doing is it's supposed to go across all income groups. basically women limit themselves in whatever group they're in. doesn't have anything to do with income. >> if these groups actually get other women to support other women, i think shell actually accomplished what she set out to

do. >> but that's the question. >> frankly, on the question of balance, i tend to think it's a crock. i am successful and i don't believe that you can have this. i think you have to choose -- >> men will do the laundry? >> my husband, as you know, does the laundry, and i'm grateful for that. >> let me ask you this, though, and again, with mika, what she'll always tell people, what she was saying is i always try to keep things in balance, and you know what, one day everything will be in balance and the next day i'll think i'm the worst mom in the world and the worst this and the worst that. and then two days later something will break that you never can have it all. >> on any particular day. she is totally right. on some days you're good with your kids, on some days you're good at work. if over the course of a week or month you're balanced, you're doing fine and you should as a woman give yourself a break. >> a number of us know how mika

lives her life and she is a level responsibility outside this studio that's probably greater than what a number of men at this studio have. you're a great father. >> i'm the first to say that. and we were talking about even going on vacation. if i'm out of town on business for five days, my kids who absolutely love me, who tackle me when i get in the door, if i'm gone for five days, they're sad. when's daddy coming home? if their mom is gone for two days, they start twitching. where's's mommy? where's mommy? i know you've seen this. it's hard to find a father as a a close relationship -- i'm not bragging, i'm making a point -- with their kids than me. i work and i'm with my family. and even in that case, i'm not mommy, and when mommy goes away on business, after about two days it starts to -- when's

mommy coming back? there is just this innate connection wet mother. >> and if so heart breaking. my kids are old enough now that you would think they would be past this, and i had it last week with my daughter because i traveled, and she let me have it. >> you carry that with you everybody you go, right? >> absolutely. and it makes it hard to feel good about being where you are either place. >> we were on a book tour, chris licht and i were on a book tour when chris worked here, and mika had come along and she was on the book tour and we were doing these live shows along the way. six days in, mika started getting lost and going in the elevator and chris said, i think it's time for her to go home and see her daughter. but it's true, there's such a burden on women, not that there shouldn't be on men. >> women tend to blame themselves more for things than

men do. whether it's in business or as a father, and women underrate their performance whether in business or as a mother. >> men have the ability, i have found in general, from what i've seen, to compartmentize. i'll make it up to my kids when i get home and they'll have to understand. a lot of moms, you don't do that, do you? >> not well enough. >> yeah, it's tough. well, this is fascinating. there's also joe klein talks about a jeb bush interview on this show in his piece comparing president obama and jeb bush. >> very smart piece. i think joe's first sentence is jeb bush is not not running for president, and he, you know, joe is outlining his campaign. >> all right. very good. thanks so much. in a few minutes we'll be talking to tom coburn. "morning joe" continues soon. ♪ if loving you is wrong

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coming up, the president breaks bread with a dozen senate republicans, and we're going to be talking about that as he invites john mccain and others to dinner to discuss fiscal issues. but more importantly, he's going to be meeting today with paul ryan. now, paul has been the president's foil and the

president has been paul's foil for about four years now, but they're meeting. that ain't nothing. >> it ain't nothing, but the new paul ryan budget coming out next week may be but did you know there's a cereal that's recommended by doctors? it's post shredded wheat. recommended by nine out of ten doctors to help reduce the risk of heart disease. post shredded wheat is made with only one ingredient: one hundred percent whole grain wheat, with no added sugar or salt. try adding fruit for more health benefits and more taste in your bowl. it's the ideal way to start your heart healthy day. try post shredded wheat. this has been medifacts for post shredded wheat. try post shredded wheat. ♪

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tail light's out.. fix it. digital insurance id cards. just a click away with the geico mobile app. i'd like to thank the fellow senators for being supportive of this cause. i would like to thank the members of congress who came over to support this cause, the clerks, the capital police, the staff of the senate, the door keepers who apparently i may

have gotten in trouble. and i would go for another 12 hours to try to break strom thurmond's record, but i've discovered there are some limits to filibustering and i'm going to have take care of one of those here. i thank you very much and i yield the floor. >> senator from illinois. [ applause ] >> there will be order. expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted in the senate. >> good morning. it's 8 a.m. on the east coast, 5 a.m. on the west coast as you take a live look at new york city. back with us on set, jonathan capehart, steve rattner, and in washington, kelly o'donnell along with willie geist. steve, you and i have been following the senate for some time. last night spontaneity broke out

and you could see somebody doing something that wasn't market driven. whether you're a conservative or liberal watching rand paul, i think you had to admire the guy for going up there and fighting for what he believed in. >> yeah, he had a point of view. it wasn't popular, and he followed the time-honored train stations of the senate and he had a right to go out on the floor just like mr. smith who goes to washington and strom thurmond who holds the record for filibusters. >> he had, willie, wide-spread support, he had people on the left and right supporting his asking the question and a lot of us asking the question around this table, does this administration really intend to move forward with killing americans if there's not even an imminent threat? >> senator ron wyden, hardly a bedfellow of rand paul, came out and spoke on his behalf.

a few others gave rand paul a break. they came up and asked speeches and questions, but if you wanted to shine a light on this issue, what better way to do it. this began rolling about noon yesterday, picked up steam, went into the evening newscast. he shined a light, just for a day, but a lot of people know about it more than they did yesterday, the question about whether the united states can use drones against his own citizens, in this country. >> his issue is using drones in the u.s. >> it was fascinating, jonathan capehart, that ted cruz actually had asked the attorney general in a hearing, will you rule out killing americans on american soil with drones? and holder wouldn't answer the question. >> well, i think for reasons that steve just explained, if someone's a member of al qaeda

or a terrorist cell and they're here in the united states and they know that they're plotting or planning and they're on u.s. soil, do you as attorney general want to tie your hands in terms of action. i don't know. >> presumably if he's in the united states though, you could go pursue him through other means and bring him to trial without killing him on side. >> and our policy, is that the cia does not operate with military forces in the u.s. they leave that to the police. >> that's the fbi. >> or police. all he said was if something extraordinary happens, i reserve to tell my opinion to the president. >> of course their definitions of imminent and there are justifications for killing americans without judicial review, without probable cause, without imminent harm, that of course is what continues to make

a lot of people very nervous. it's sort of john u legal opinion on speed. let's go to capitol hill with kelly o'donnell. kelly, an interesting day yesterday, filibustering by rand paul. >> it wasn't just yesterday. it ended hours ago when i was just watching him at 1 a.m. eastern. there was a distinction. rand paul, through those many hours, did talk about a point where he would say this is not about enemy combatants in the u.s., americans who might turn and become a part of al qaeda. he was not opposed to that. he did say there are other means in which to go after them, part of why the u.s. uses drones in places like yemen and afghanistan is because there's not a more feasible way to go in and capture someone. in the united states the rules would be different because u.s. forces would have much greater

access. so he kept talking about not killing someone, an american, at a cafe, in their home when they're sleeping, at times when there is not an imminent threat. it is a very narrow piece of the argument, but as the hours went on an on, more members of the senate seemed to support the stand he was taking, and just so everyone is clear, you cannot sit down and you effectively cannot stop talking, although other members came in and did sort of speechify to give him a break. some gave him throat drops and he had a candy bar that he would take a bite of, but close to 13 hours. people respected the effort in that. so it is a narrow issue and he kept saying why is it difficult for the administration to answer the question, if it's not an imminent threat, if it is an american citizen who is not immediately plotting something, why can't they say that fifth amendment rights would pertain to any american citizen. so it's an interesting

constitutional argument. it's an interesting hypothetical, and they're just trying to get more information, says rand paul, but it certainly got a lot of attention. >> there's this great article. yld, did you see this "usa today," talking about always working, and that our world is changing so dramatically and it changes by the day, that first of all, all of these mobile devices we carry around are killing pcs, but secondly killing our personal lives. e-mail comes in at 8:00 at night and you got to respond if it's important. it comes at 5 a.m. it comes when you're walking with your children on the beach. it's just, especially for a younger generation of workers, it is nonstop. >> i wasn't made it through the piece yet this morning but i was thinking about it yesterday, actually, because you think i'm home from work now, going to be with my kids but you're never home from work because there's an expectation that when you get an e-mail in your environment,

you got to respond to it. so i was out to dinner with my kids last night about 5:30 and there i am catching myself on my iphone at my table and my son's trying to tell me a story about smearing paint on the walls at school, and i'm checking my e-mail. it's just an instinct, it's a reflex. it's probably not healthy for your family life because your job is 24 hours a day. >> but are there moments in your day where you say no blackberry for maybe this 15 minutes, 30 minutes. i used to do that when i walked to work. the phone would go into the pocket, wouldn't be anywhere near me, wouldn't feel it buzzing or ringing, and that would be my moment of solitude. >> there are times, and i always pay for it. >> you start to twitch? >> no, it's just i go back up there, and you would think that the world had caught on fire in the 45 minutes i had said i'm going to leave this upstairs and go down and have dinner with my

family. and so then you're explaining to these people for the next three hours that you don't hate them and you're not screening it and screening their e-mails and yes, they're very important to you, and yes, we need to take that meeting next week. you know how it goes. >> in the old world, if somebody wrote you a letter, they wouldn't expect an answer for a week or so. >> if they called you up, they might not expect an answer for a day or so. you don't have to call back the same day in the old regime. now they expect an answer immediately. we had a rule in our family, no blackberrys at the table. that was it. so these people who think they're going to hear from you in the next 12 seconds have to get over it. >> that's what you got to do is reset expectations, and anybody who knows me knows i effectively reset expectations because some days i do put it down when i see especially my kids are being interrupted, i put it down in the afternoon and i'll look at

it right before i go to bed to make sure there's no explosions and if there aren't, i'll answer in the morning. >> joe, i'm e-mailing you now and you're not answering. >> he's resetting expectations. >> i'm resetting your expectations of me. what about you, kelly? >> well, i think it induces a lot of guilt. although we do try at home, we do try to have the dinner-time moratorium, and when either of us is caught checking, somehow we always point it out to the other. but it is about, especially in our jobs, there is an expectation you will respond quickly. there is a concern about missing something. when i am able to put it down, i do find there is a moment of zen. >> yeah, it's tough. i get so depressed when i walk -- not depressed, but just troubled when i walk into a restaurant and you'll see a family of four sitting in a booth, and all four of them will be looking down at their

blackberrys. >> sometimes that's my family. when i see that happening in my family, i say, guys time out. >> it's usually one of my 73 children will do it and we'll all go, stop. so question, willie, do you think last night at the president's dinner with his republican brothers and sisters, do you think the blackberrys came out then? >> i think when the president's speaking, it's wise to turn your blackberry off. so president obama, as joe said, did share a dinner table with 12 senators. he did an outreach last night in an effort to sidestep the gop effort with an effort to compromise. it was a friendly evening. even though some have been the president's toughest critics, it was not really with a plan to come to an agenda, but just a chance to begin discussion.

you see senator john mccain with a thumbs-up. some senators hope for a grand bargain to prevent the continuing budgeting crisis. last night the house easily pass a $982 billion short-term bill to fund the government through september. most of the no votes coming from democrats who criticized the plan for keeping in place the automatic spending cuts. meanwhile, house speaker john boehner brushed off the idea that he and president obama could work one-on-one to come up with a big plan. >> so no more big top-down deals? no more obama-boehner top-down deals? >> those haven't worked very well if you've watched over the last two years. >> i understand. hope springs eternal. a lot of people would like a deal out there. >> yeah, but i don't think that's the way to get to one. listen, two people hiding behind closed doors doesn't replicate 535 members of congress or the wisdom of 535 members of

congress or for that matter, 300 million americans. this ought to be done out in the open. members ought to have a chance to participate and i think we need to grow this organically through the house and the senate. >> kelly o'donnell, a lot of people including some of us around this table have been pleading with the president to meet face-to-face with some republican members, so give the president credit for that, but did anything substantive happen from that or where do we go from that dinner? >> willie, i talked to a couple of senators at that dinner, and this is the power of those personal connections. i heard a more positive tone, a greater sense of optimism than i have in a long time talking to those same members in the hallways. having a chance to sit down with the president, i was told that every member was able to speak, there was a good give and take, real substantive conversation for more than two hours, that there was a really encouraging sign. honest conversation i'm told about some of the problems in both parties at getting to some

of a big grand bargain deal. they talked about taxes, they talked about changes to medicare. it was described at positive and constructive. i was also told they expect the president will do a similar kind of thing with democratic senators to get a framework put together an what to do next, to get to some kind of a bigger deal that would deal with this long-term budget. so i was really struck by the positive tone. so a couple hours spent at dinner might generate some new momentum, new energy. talking was just the first step but they say it was a critical step in being able to hear each other out and it was described as honest, thorough, very, very positive sense from it that i hadn't heard in a long while. >> coming up, mayor cory booker and former senator bill frist will be here. also he was one of the senators who had dinner with the president last night.

we'll be asking senator tom coburn how the president's manners were. with the forks, sometimes you get the one that i think you're supposed to use it for shrimp, but are you really? >> you go to dinners with shrimp forks? you're fancy. >> he lives in a certain world. none of us will get there. >> right. all right steve rattner, but first here's bill karins. >> a very difficult forecast for southern new england. we're getting the large waves and gusty winds, but the snow forecast, very problematic like yesterday in d.c. which didn't produce anything on the white house lawn but outside of town you got 4 or 5 inches. it's a big storm, off the coast, but we are watching the wrap around rain up in new england. it's 31 in providence, 27 in

worcester. so it looks like just grassy surfaces for anyone at cape cod with snow, long island and southern connecticut. the white on the map shows you the snow. that band east to providence does have wet snow and there's where the worst travel is this morning. this is one of my computer models. it is hinting at the possibility of that area from providence to boston getting snow. it's going to be hard to get up that high with the total. i'm slightly lower than that, but anyone at elevations of southern new england and massachusetts, you could easily pick up 6 to 12 inches from this storm. worcester, i got you 4 to 8. providence, 4 to 8. boston 3 to 6, warmer off the water. and then as we go further south, hartford 1 to 3, new york city

about 1 to 3. philly not much for you at all. but tonight once the sun sets is when the snow will start to stick and overnight there'll be plowing and shoveling to do. once you're over it, no complaints. 50s over the weekend. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. i know what you're thinking... transit fares! as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. no? oh, right. you're thinking of the 1.6 million daily customer care interactions xerox handles. or the 900 million health insurance claims we process. so, it's no surprise to you that companies depend on today's xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. which is...pretty much what we've always stood for. with xerox, you're ready for real business.

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i'm assuming the president wants to talk seriously about the issues of the day. and if he just wants to have a

dinner so we can get to know each other better, that's fine with me. so how do you say no to the president of the united states who would like to have dinner with some of your colleagues? you don't. and anybody who would do that in this business is in the wrong position. so when the president asked that i get together a group, i willingly, and i was honored to try to do that. >> welcome back to "morning joe." you know it is a big day on capitol hill, richard wolffe, when lindsey graham actually steps in front of the cameras. it's a rare day. he's a camera-shy guy. lindsey will always tell you, no, no, no, i want to be behind the camera. >> he's in the right position. >> he's in the right position, and he gets in front of the camera, and it's a big deal because they got together. they broke bread. i think that's great news.

let's find out what happened with one of our friends, from oklahoma, senator tom coburn. senator, what was the appetizer last night? how was your meal with the president? >> it was a good meal. it was a good experience. it's something that should have happened years ago, which is part of the problems of this administration. and it's going to take a while to build the kind of confidence and trust that's needed. if you've had years of somebody put their finger in your eye and question your motivations and ascribe to you things that aren't accurate, that takes some healing, and i think it was very good for the president to have that dinner, and i think he needs to do a whole lot more of that, because relationships matter and building trust and confidence and knowing you're not going to get gamed is the way you get something down for the american people. >> you've known president obama since you guys worked together in the senate, and you've always

liked him. >> yeah. >> you guys have always had a good relationship, but you sound a little on edge about how you feel you've been treated over the past couple of years. am i reading that right? >> no, i'm just making the point is this is the first real outreach in four-plus years that the president's made to the minority party to try to build relationships and a communication channel that'll help get things done. and i think it's time to do it. but you know, you can't hold somebody with a boot on their neck and say, i want to talk to you, at the same time you're undermine their position. so i think we had a great dinner, great discussion. the president was sincere. i think everybody believed him in terms of wanting to work together, and i think it's the beginning hopefully of

relationship-building that will allow us to do that. >> did you talk specifics about getting to a budget deal? >> yeah, we talked a lot. their premise of where we are is totally bogus in terms of what's been accomplished so far. but putting that aside, the president was very honest about what the issues are and how you can go about solving them and what the political realities are on both sides and the resistance that's going to be there and what it's going to take. but you know, if you think about it, we've raised $620 billion worth of taxes, and the first real cuts, real cuts, not washington call cuts, started march 1st. and that's all we've done to fix this tremendous problem that faces our country and climbing out of this deep hole that both parties have managed to put us in. >> did the president talk about entitlement programs, the need to reform entitlements over the long run? >> absolutely, absolutely.

>> he did? so do you think he's willing to step forward and make some good faith efforts that he's willing to follow through with on entitlement reform? >> i think so. i think the important thing is to not let the press get ahead of the events and build the confidence and trust that you can actually have these discussions, and then you're not going to walk out of a meeting and then try to undermine the other person's position when you're honestly trying to do that. so no, he was very open, very honest and very straightforward about the lengths to which he will go to try to accomplish that. and i think that those of us that were there were very honest with him as well. most of the people there are willing to give up their seats to try to fix something in this country to secure the future. and so the political price, we're willing to pay whatever it is to get something done that will assure the future of this

country. >> sounds like great news. sam stein. >> switching topics. you're involved it one of the key components of gun legislation on background checks. i'm wondering what the status now that you're not going to be sponsoring the bill now, and how does he get to you yes, which is the probably the most critical component on what the president wants to do. >> first of all, chuck and i have worked had to do this. the problem with chuck and i are outside groups and where you think you can go. look, we have two problems in this country. one is we have transfer of arms and guns to people that we don't know whether or not they're a threat to somebody else or to themselves, and we ought to create a way where you as a responsible citizen can know that you're not selling a gun that you have to somebody that shouldn't get a gun. and that's my primary reason for being in this negotiation. and then the second problem is,

once a crime's committed, how do you try to follow up and trace that gun. there's 300 million guns in america that aren't on the federal firearms licensed dealers books. plus it's average, according to the atf, 11 years before a weapon is used in a crime after a transfer. so the ability is trying to trace back to one of those transfers. and most gun owners, and i'd say well in excess of 9 8%, 99%, don't want to transfer a gun to somebody. so the idea ought to be is let's make it easy and not onerous on somebody to do the right thing, and let's make sure that their rights are protected, not just their second amendment rights

but all the rest of their rights under the constitution. and by that i mean, in our country, you have to prove that somebody did something wrong. they don't have to prove they did somebody right. and that's the hang-up, and the outside gun groups aren't there yet, but if you're going to get a deal, that's where it's going to have to be. my deal is let's do the right thing and enhance this, and i think we can. i think we'll ultimately get there even though the outside groups aren't comfortable with it yet. >> richard. >> senator, i just want to get back to the budget and the dinner last night. sounds like you took the president at his word about being serious about entitlement reforms. he's already talked about chain cpi, for instance. if that's true, you do take him at his word, this is a sincere offer that is real, entitlement issues on the table, do you think the appropriate response for republican senators is to say, in that case, we will consider stanley revenues, tax revenues alongside entitlement

reforms? is that principle something you all can agree on? >> well, you know, i wouldn't phrase it that way. i would say, are we willing to look at tax reform in a way to where a portion of that goes to deficit reduction and a portion to rate reduction in the mix of getting this done. but the motivation for tax reform doesn't have anything to do with that. whether we have an entitlement program problem or not, we ought to be doing tax reform because it'll rebuild confidence into the economy. so if you said tomorrow to me, i've got a 75-year plan that for the next 75 years all our entitlements are taken care of and we've set in motion a way to do that, i'll look at anything. >> some measure of those tax revenues you said could be, should be going to deficit reduction? >> yeah, i'm saying i'm willing

to consider that. we just did $620 billion of that. $620 billion, and what i would tell you is fixing the long-term, fixing the long-term entitlement problems that we have in this country, actually saving medicare, actually saving social security, will do a ton in terms of our long-term ability to grow and restoring confidence in this country. if you talk to any of the rating agencies, that's what they're waiting to see. they're not waiting to see taxes go up. they're waiting to see the real problems, the real cost drivers be fixed. >> senator come coburn, thank you so much. >> you bet. >> always great talking to you. yeah, richard, again, republicans, i think you're going to see a lot of republicans willing to make those closed loopholes move forward to tax reform if they believe entitlement programs are going to be made solvent.

>> i think most of those people at the dinner are at there right now. coming up, a look at the business headlines, including new signs at how technology is creeping into our lives and bringing stress to work and home. with the spark cash card

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good morning. the latest weekly unemployment

numbers are up. unemployment applications fell to 340,000. that's the lowest number in five years. that's great news. we're going down. >> i'll take it. >> also the wall street journal is reporting that offshore tax probe picks up. and lawyers are tracking cases and they say that officials have collected $5.5 billion in unpaid taxes and penalties in the past four years and as much as $5 billion may still be out there. earlier this week, switzerland's oldest private bank was ordered to pay $74 million in fines for violating u.s. tax law. the cover story of this morning's "usa today," the creep of technology into our everyday life. cell phones have allowed to go up at home.

when it comes to tablets, 21%. then there's the amount of time on cell phones, there's increased fourfold since 2009. jonathan capehart is on his right now, from 22 minutes a day to nearly an hour and a half. jonathan, your eyes are blurred. >> it's not from this. >> not from that. so do you have like an ipad? >> i have an ipad, i've got my galaxy note 2, i have my mac book at home. >> are you on them all the time? >> i'm on this all the time, but i do try to carve out moments when i just don't go near it. the walk to work, when i go to bed. >> it's only ten minutes. >> precious moments. >> but when i plug it in the side of the bed, when i wake up in the middle of the night, my first instinct is not to check

this. >> i always do that. >> that's how i wake up, the light comes in my eyes from the ipad. >> you guys are junkies. >> arianna says never keep your phone in the room where you sleep. coming up next -- >> she's always right. >> especially when she writes her check. coming up, bill frist teams up on a new issue coming up on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] at his current pace, bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage.

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with us now from capitol hill, former republican senator

from tennessee and former senate majority leader, bill frist, and also democratic mayor of newark, new jersey, mayor cory booker. they are are with a nonprofit organization to fight childhood obesi obesity. >> good morning. so we know that one in three children with obese today, but there's another alarming statistic from your report. if the trend continues, roughly half of all americans will be obese by 2030. talk about this big picture on obesity in america. >> i'll just jump right in. it's an epidemic. increasing did not exist 35 years ago, so it's a new problem in the sense that 30 years it didn't exist, which means we probably can cure it, literally

cure it, and that's sort of the optimistic view, but it's a bad problem in terms of if you're obese as a child, 30% are, 90% will become obese as adults. healthcare costs go up, you live a much poorer quality of life. your incomes fall. miserable life. >> senator, there's a healthcare crisis, it's also a budget crisis. you look at medicare and medicaid being the two major drivers over the next generation of this country's debt. obesity feeds into that more than any other disease, didn't it? >> it is the primary driver. right now about $2.7 trillion are spent in healthcare today. about 30% to 80% of that is chronic disease. the number one driver of chronic disease is obesity. it is reversible, which is the good news, and that's why we gather, a thousand of us here

today with the partnership with america. >> right now one out of four of our kids military age don't qualify to serve in the united states military. these are young people that have twice the healthcare costs of people who are not obese. so this is really threatening the very strength, security of our nation and as you said, driving up healthcare costs to a point we can't afford as a nation to be as strong as we have been in the past. >> there's a third component, today one out of four people can't serve in the military because they're obese. the economics, jobs, if you look at that, the number one driver is disease. if you can cure obesity, you've got military issues, as well as quality of life. >> question for you, mr. mayor, i'd like your view of the white house as the first ladies have

been engaged a lot. the way they view it on the white house is more on the demand side than supply side. that is to say there are more companies facing competition from unhealthy drinks and food. so the white house has come out saying we need to lower demand. do you think that balance is right? should we also actually be targeting industry that is pushing this stuff as well as the people buying it? >> i think you're going to find, and this is some of the things we're announcing during this conference and some of the things that were announced last year, is that industry is stepping up in partnership with us to make commitments, and this report that just came out got rave reviews in bloomberg today, has been companies saying we're going to change our ways. you have walmart saying they're going to make better access to fresh, healthy foods. you have hyatt saying we're going to change the menus in our hotels. so i'm seeing a balanced approach, talking about demand,

working with kids, but also challenging corporate america to step you be and they are stepping up to do some extraordinary commitments. and the great thing about the partnership which is great senator here, and he and i have a lot in common, he is a well-trained medical doctor, and i have been to well-trained medical doctors in my years as well. >> nice. >> so what we are seeing in this partnership is our job is to hold those corporations accountable. >> just so piggyback, this is sam stein here, part of the reason people have such poor eating habits is because it tends to be the cheapest food. and one of the things, to bring it back to the sequester debate, one of the things to be cut is nutritional assistance for people, meals on wheels. so i'm wondering for our distinguished guests, both of whom are distinguished doctors, what role does the government

have to play in helping people get to a point in eating healthy, or does the government have no role to play at all? >> it's a great question and obviously a lot of my friends, republicans, are worried about that state. there is no silver bullet to reverse this tragedy of adolescent obesity. it's going to be the private sector coming together with the government, with partnerships. what we're doing today are bringing a,000 people together with companies that have made specific commitments to address childhood obesity. on the activity side, and you have the first lady with let's move, and this is independent of the michelle obama let's move campaign, and then you have the food. the type of foods is not just calories in, calories out, but

it is that type of food, so how can these companies change nutrition, labeling, types of food, less sugar, less sodium, and engage the consumer, and those are the commitments these companies are making. we're holding them accountable. >> all right. fantastic. thank you so much, senator frist and mayor booker, we greatly appreciate your work. coming up next, we've got the best of late night. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 seems like etfs are everywhere these days.

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