we asked you at the top of the show why you are awake? dan is wonderful and good okay? >> i'll take it. thanks, bill. brian tweets i heard the tide shout-out about tonight's game. go hoosiers. >> you get your chance but not this time, buddy. great show. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ >> here we are at times square in new york city. thursday morning. march 28th. i'm mike barnicle. with us is the writer for the "the washington post" and msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. that shot you're looking at

right now, don't touch that dial. you're not watching 21st century remake of "miami vice" says jonathan capehart. we have politico convention here. actually, three people trolling for a show. they just closed out "way too early." jim vandehei and mike allen and maggie haberman. >> we are just barnicle groupies! >> that is so pathetic! that is so pathetic. >> that's good. >> oh, my goodness. it's great to have everyone here. is everyone ready to keep talking, you know? talk for the next three hours? willie is not here. willie geist is not here today because his parents took him on a college tour. he is applying for college. i think today he is going to vanderbilt. >> i think that little willie has a bright future. >> i think he might. i think he might. we have one small item to begin

this this morning. nelson mandela who is in the hospital with what officials say is a lunge infection. he was entered before midnight. he has suffered a series of health setbacks in the recent month the former current president asked for prayers. we will follow the former south african president's brings you you an update as the morning goes on. it is holy thursday so we pray for nelson mandela. two huge days in a row with the supremes in washington. not diana ross, the real supremes. the doma debate just reading about it would appear that that is done. they are just going to throw it out? >> it sounds like it but doesn't sound like they will throw it out because they think it's unconstitutional on an equal protection basis.

it sounds like if they toss out doma because a legal te technicality. >> yesterday, just as ruth bader ginsburg questioned why same sex partners should not enjoy the same benefits that heterosexual couples do. >> it's pervasive. not this sphere and only a tax question. 1,100 statutes and affects every area of life so you're really diminishing what the state has said is marriage. saying, two kinds of marriages. the full marriage and then this sort of skim milk marriage.

>> anthony kennedy cited state rights as one of his concerns over the controversial law. >> whether or not congress has the power it can exercise it for the reason that it wants that it likes some marriages and doesn't like some, i suppose it can do that, but when it has 1,100 laws which in our society means that the federal government is intertwined with the citizens life, you are at real risk at running in conflict what has always been thought to be the essence of the state police power which is to regulate -- >> elena kagan said it was fear when it drew up the law. >> what happened in 1996 and i'm going to coat quote from the house report here is that congress decided to reflect and honor a collective moral judgment and to express moral

disapproval of homosexuality. is that what happened in 1996? >> does the house report says that? of course it says that and if that is enough to validate the statute you should invalidate the statute. that has never been your approach. look. we will not strike down a statute because of a couple of legislatures had an improper motive. >> conserves justice and scalia and roberts question the change of a latitude. >> why are you so confident in that attitude? how many states permit gay couples to marry? >> today? nine, your honor. >> nine. so there has been this sea change between now and 1996? >> i think with respect to the understanding of gay people and

their relationship, i think there is a sea change. >> i suppose the sea change has a lot to do with the force and effectiveness of people supporting your side of the case? >> the chief justice of the united states supreme court also faulted president obama for enforcing doma but not defending it. >> if he has made a determination that executing the law by enforcing the terms is unconstitutional, i don't see why he doesn't have the courage of his convictions and execute, not only the stat us, but do it consistent with his view of the constitution, rather than saying we will wait until the supreme court says we have no choice. >> the white house says they enforce plenty of laws he doesn't agree with. >> the justices were not leaving much drama there. but i can tell it you who has been silent in washington this week and that is republicans.

>> i thought you were going to say clarence thomas. >> in addition to clarence thomas. >> they recognize this is moving much faster than they thought. i know several of the several republican likely candidates leave it to the states and that their way out of the issue with young people but they have seen this week no way. the new formulation for republicans is going to be to say this is up to the church, not the state. >> right. there is a colleague of ours did a story yesterday, alex burns, how privately republicans are -- it's true, are rooting for basically essentially this to be the law of the land. the approach a lot of people took on obama care, right? what can we do about it? this is upheld now. >> if you pause a second and think about this moment and the arc of politics. doma becomes law. 2004 you think about the bush presidential campaign and how thei linchpin of was opposition

to ga marriage. there was a debate before the court about whether or not that is true or not. whether or not the state have moved, nine states have moved, public opinion has moved decisively. now getting close to two-thirds of the country. amazing sea change much of this was the issue of the '90s. >> the same week you with mark warner, virginia, claire mccaskill there of missouri and john tester, montana. the pace of this thing is nrvel. >> rob portman. >> hillary clinton. everybody. >> talk about the train leaving. the thing about portman, though, i applaud him for what he did. unfortunately, no other senate republicans have followed him. no other elected republican on the national stage any way has come out in favor of marriage equality in the way rob portman

did. something else, going back to chief justice roberts knock on the president for not having the courage of his convictions to not enforce the law, isn't it in the constitution that the president has to enforce the laws even if he doesn't agree with them or am i wrong here? >> i didn't complete that third year at harvard law. >> and i never went to harvard law and i'm asking the question. >> i decided to trim the hedges and pave the sidewalks rather than go to class. >> this president has moved in a lot of ways and reluctant to he got on the right side of history. >> it still is kind of shocking to the ear when you hear any supreme court justice but the chief justice sort of take a slap at the president of the united states. >> they do have a history. >> i know. i know. but i wish these sessions were televised, you know? it would be such an education for the american public and

certainly for me. it would really open up the doors, no pun intended. president obama will be spending more time with senate republicans. a spokesperson for senator johnny isakson says the president ask the republican to put together a list of gop members who would be interested in sharing another dinner together next month. the guest list will include senators who were unable to attend the last outing a few weeks back when president obama invited a group of republicans to the jefferson hotel and followed by a series of visits by the president to capitol hill in an effort the white house hopes will yield new compromise on the budget reform and gun legislation. >> i wonder what restaurant they are going to this time? >> that is the key question. >> steak and bourbon and four seasons. >> do you get anything out of it at the end of the day? >> do you? >> i was skeptical in the

beginning because the president doesn't want to dine with them and under pressure from the washington establishment to do it and reacted to and it where it could pay dividends is on immigration reform. one issue out there the incentive is to get a deal done. the president believes in the issue and wants a legacy. republicans can't continue to oppose immigration reform and win election in states with a large hispanics population. it will require people to get along. this idea can marco rubio sit down with chuck schumer and agree on legislation. in theory it looks like it's possible. but it's difficult. this gang of eight hasn't reported on a bill because it is painfully difficult when you get down to the specifics of immigration reform to craft something that can pass and be effective. >> we keep hearing from chuck schumer it seems like every other day. we're close, we're getting close. >> hearing from chuck schumer every other day? shocking. >> every day. >> the problem is how does chuck schumer and senator rubio sell

the same bill? it's very difficult. we learned that rubio thinks he has built in some insurance and one of the provisions of this is that the border security part is very much based on metrics we are told will take years to make. people will be able to apply right away for temporary status but can't agrpply for green car for years. republicans hope it will bring down the temperature while they sell it to the base which is skeptical at the least. >> maggie, the last dinner they had at the jefferson dinner and johnny isakson is putting together for the president, i don't have live in washington. >> i don't ireither. >> i do. >> you keep hearing over and over again from senators and various members of congress with regard to the president, you know, i don't really know the guy. >> and that is the democrats! >> that's true. >> plus on that positive, any

meeting that he has with these people. >> absolutely. i agree with jim's point, though. i think that is, a, i think, yes, it's a plus. look. he is never going to be a warm and fuzzy president. i don't think we ever think -- >> why do you think that is? >> i just don't think he is particularly needy human being as -- >> good for him. >> is a long time democrat said to me pretty recently. i don't think he needs that interaction and feedback the way become for instance does as you see ongoing for him with the amount of work he still does. even if his wife wasn't running he still would be out there. >> the by-product of that president clinton worked at one people and this president makes so little effort to work and people don't get why. friends of mother used to say people don't change, they get more like themselves. >> do you have any sense of the why? >> he feels like he doesn't get anything for it. you know? he and his staff help convince him to do these first dinners. they took a little in from

lindsey graham from south carolina and said, why not? try it. he is fed up with these guys because he feels he has put in the time with nothing to show for it. >> his numbers have gone down. he has to. >> often feels like two obamas at war with each other. the one that is the pragmatist that would like to get an immigration deal and the other is egged on by staffers to fight, fight, and believe republicans are not level to cut a deal. for anyone who thinks that relationships don't matter, why is it that every time they are almost at a budget impasse and something has to get done? why is it that joe biden has to come in and talk to mitch mcconnell? two people that come from different worlds but they have a relationship and trust each other and can get a deal. it does matter on the margins and to mike's point, it is tough. republicans don't like him and they say nasty things about him. >> speaking of mitch mcconnell. ashley judd is not going to run against him. >> so sad. it would have been great.

>> it would have been great. who runs against him? >> allison grimes, the secretary of state. right now he is doing everything he cannot to have a challenge from the right and so far there isn't one on the horizon. if he does his work right, he won't get one. >> miss grimes is much tougher opponent. she is young and just in office and doesn't have a record. >> encouraged by bill clinton. >> right. >> who is apparently said that both he and secretary clinton will support her. her father former party chairman wired through the state and can put together a campaign quickly. you will not have the circus you would have ashley judd. you'll have an actual campaign and senator mcconnell's approval ratings is not what he wants. he would rather talk about somebody being from san francisco. >> ashleyly judd was much easier to defeat and lampoon. this is a guy who looks at his internals and see he is unpopular despite the fact it's a very conservative state. >> why is he unpopular? >> because he's a really

conservative guy who has a track record for getting involved in in the most ideological battles and he is not warm and fuzzy and personable. he is powerful and ruthless and i would say like in a good way. he is ruthless in that he will destroy anybody who comes up. they were already popping off about ashley judd when she was a possible rumored candidate easement let's say mcconnell doesn't get a primary challenge. how does that then impact mcconnell's impacts in washington in terms of getting things done? from my perspective, the idea that mitchell mcconnell is afraid of a challenge from right makes it, i think, difficult for him to do anything in washington that smacks of a deal of any kind with the president. do you think it makes it easier to get things done in washington? >> certainly if he doesn't have the challenge from the right. you think you're an alien operating from 30,000 feet that there is a group of republicans who think mitch mcconnell is not conservative enough for kentucky? you can say a lot of things about mitch mcconnell.

the guy is pretty conservative. i don't think that is a dispute. yes, if he doesn't have someone from the right it makes it easier but not like he is looking for a lot of deals to cut with barack obama. >> but his interview with politico morning he did show some daylight. he did say he didn't rule out the idea of having some revenues in a budget deal. so he is talking to both sides for once. >> that interview -- >> how much would the democrats like to do to mcconnell what the republicans did to tom daschle? >> they would like it a lot. >> a lot! >> put their money with their mouth is. still ahead on "morning joe," our politico trio will stick around for the playbook and we will see how they are doing and bring them back. congressman mike rogers joins us. rick stengel will reveal the new cover of "time." and why the magazine says gay marriage has already won. dr. jeffrey sachs says we should

keep doing what we are doing. and coming up, the story of american women during world war ii who helped the top secret manhattan project without even knowing it. first, a contractual obligation on our part. we have to go upstairs to bill karins with a check on the forecast which is getting ridiculous. baseball starts monday, bill. >> it's crazy, isn't it? >> warm it up! >> areas like chicago, more on that in a second. this morning a couple of snow showers and rain showers and not a lot of bad weather out there for your morning drive. around pittsburgh, snow showers and light rain just outside of boston. more or less heading down towards the cape. another chilly, cold morning in the deep south. not as bad as yesterday but still 30s down to tallahassee. today we will warm it up in the southeast. nice temperatures in the 70s. let me take you through what we are dealing with the next couple of days through numerous locations into the holiday weekend. still looking at maybe some rain moving in later in the day on

easter sunday. new york city that includes philadelphia, washington, d.c. so we will keep an eye on that. atlanta, it looks like you're in for rainy periods. temperatures will warm up. but you'll be cloudy through the holiday weekend. midwest areas like chicago you'll deal with maybe a few showers but the good news you are warming it up. temperatures up there to the low 50s at least. we haven't hit 60 this month yet in chicago in march. that's pretty rare. one of the spots will be a lot warmer this weekend as we g through the weekend, clouds to deal with but temperatures up near 80 in dallas by the time we get to sunday. the bottom like no problems with travel friday, saturday but on easter sunday some of the rain in the big cities along i-95. you're watching "morning joe." here comes the sun. we are brewed by starbucks. ♪ come on, nowadays lots of people go by themselves.

no they don't. hey son. have fun tonight. ♪ ♪ back against the wall ♪ ain't nothin to me ♪ ain't nothin to me [ crowd murmurs ] hey! ♪ [ howls ] ♪ [ howls ] ♪

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uh, charles couldn't make it. his single miles card blacked him out here and here. he should have used... the capital one venture card. he's coming to us from home. hey fellas... hey baby, you want mama to iron your undies? nice tightie whities. i didn't know mrs. barkley made quilts. really? looks like a circus tent. is that the best you got? now if you put this, with this, you have a sailboat. what's in your wallet?

morning papers. take a look at some of them. "the new york times." new jersey and states looking to cash in on the business of sports betting. las vegas is expected to collect more than 200 million this year in march madness alone but the ncaa, nfl, nhl, nba and major league baseball have all filed a lawsuit claiming it could corrupt sports in the united states. >> in "the boston globe." a massive cyberattack on one of the woverled's primary spam blockers declared the largest in history. responsible for filtering 80% of the daily spam messages. global internet services may continue to be interrupted. >> i have a feeling a bigger page on page one of the globe this morning.

tommy mehinino. >> we are going to get to that. >> nice. >> are we on it on or what? >> tulsa world. >> act surprised. >> the merger between american airlines and us airways approved clearing the path for them to lose even more luggage. combined, the new airline will have 6,700 flights a day and nearly 25,000 people a day angry because they are leaving late and arriving late with an annual revenue of $50 billion. we added some stuff there. >> a little bit. the "chicago tribune." hundreds demonstrators in the

streets. the head of the chicago teachers union reinforced that belief bluntly saying let's not pretend that is not racist. city officials say the closures are necessary to help cut the city's looming billion dollar deficit. >> that is a huge story that we underplay, the media in general underplay. the closing of all of those schools in the city of chicago. huge story. the boston herald. the mayor is expected to announce he will not seek a sixth term in office. the 70-year-old democrat will make his official yesterday. his office said the plan did plan to make an announcement. he has faced health issues. the last 60 years, boston has had only five mayors. five mayors in 60 years. >> if i ever refuse to confirm a story but plan to have an announcement an hour later, call

it a classification. >> good job. good job. >> this is the morning politico. we now go to politico playbook. what have you got in the playbook? >> we have a first look from "morning joe" viewers and advertisement today from mayor bloomberg and, mayor menino of boston. first time in a tv ad we will see relatives of the newtown shooting. >> we dropped jesse off morning december 14 n. he gave me a kiss and said i love you, dad, and i love mom too. >> our daughter grace was 7 years old. she couldn't wait to go to school. she would skip down the driveway. >> my sister loved teaching at sandy hook. every student would say, i hope i get miss soto next year. >> don't let the memory of

newtown fade without doing something real. >> demand action now. >> amazingly powerful. for now that ad is just going to be in connecticut where legislature is taking up a gun bill and you can bet we will see that footage elsewhere. today we will see four parents at the white house with the president. at 11:40 he is doing a gun event and vice president biden will be there too. >> it's amazing to me the public opinion, just on universal background checks so overwhelmingly in favor of universal background checks. you have an ad like that, clearly emotional to the core. yet, so many members of congress on both sides of the hill, senate and the house, they seem not to care. >> you think of this ad campaign, for instance in, it's going to go in arkansas. one has tweeted the ads won't do a darn thing to affect his vote and affect his opinion because he is responding to arkansas.

the truth if you go to arkansas it's a very pro gun culture. talk to the republicans in the districts opposed to to gun control they come from gun pro rural cultures and they will not move. they might move on a limited form of a background check but are not going to be banning weapons or ammunition clips or any of the big stuff that was initially part of the conversation. it might be bloomberg is trying to do for gun control what gay rights ab tactivists able to do last 20 years. these things don't happen overnight and i don't think gun control in than sweeping way is going to happen. >> i agree with you completely. i think to some extent bloomberg is doing and for him this is pocket change. $12 million is something he can spend very easily. but this is very different than what he did in the hallvorson race in chicago. a huge role in the outcome there. these are congressional votes.

this amount of money will not do much what will ultimate happen. >> it's depressing. the slaughter of 20 children and you can't get anything done. >> sign of the climate on capitol hill, we have a scoop up this morning that senator charles grassley republican in iowa is working on an alternative bill and might be a way out of that fillibuster is likely to come because of senator cruz and senator rand paul and mike lee of utah. a way out of that. a much narrower bill and focusing on keeping guns away from schools and that would be a real watering down of what anybody expected, let alone what is being talked about. >> maggie, you mentioned voters thinking one thing and their elected representatives doing another. speaking of voters. it's pathetic we are already talking about a potential presidential race coming up. >> it's fantastic! >> you know what the name of our company is?

>> in the next block, we are doing 2020. >> hillary clinton. >> hillary clinton. that's all we talk about these days. no, look. we were talking earlier before that i have done a complete reversal on this. i did not think she was running. i think she is running now. i think all signs point to her running. it's hard to see why she wouldn't. look. you could argue she didn't clear the field last time but last time you knew barack obama existed. you just didn't think he was running in 2008 and he did run. so that was different. it's hard for me to see who comes in and challenges her at least for the nomination and if the economy is good, she makes a pretty good argument in terms of why she is obama's third term. >> she is doing things. she has a transition staff. >> look. she is very engaged. she was very, very clear in her testimony about ben ghazi showing it was is not just responding to the questions but showing she was doing well. >> biden and o'malley and all of

these folks, hillary, go right this way? >> i think o'malley will continue to run in the way that a lot of people continue to run for vp. i think that biden will continue doing what he is doing because why not? i think at the end of the day he probably will not challenge her. she has about six people helping her transition into real life. she is going to do a book tour and it's going to look similar what we saw when she did living history and she will give interviews around it. >> biden campaign slogan? why not? >> heard it here first. >> it would be why the -- no. >> her video about gay marriage was her campaign announcement. no other reason to be doing that. >> well, you certainly option preserving. she did it at the last possible second. she did it before the supreme court arguments had begun. she couldn't do it after. after rob portman she did it. she is not early to this. the hope no one will remember it

won't matter a big issue. >> i like how you phrased that for people who don't live in washington. her transition back into real life. >> i consider new york real life. >> extremely fake. coming up, the chicago bulls put miami's winning streak on ice leaving the heat just five games shy of tying the all-time record. highlights from that matchup and the boston buzzer-beater just ahead in sports. if youthen this willbrids arbe a nice surprise. meet the 5-passenger ford c-max hybrid. c-max come. c-max go. c-max give a ride to everyone it knows. c max has more passenger volume than competitor prius v and we haven't even mentioned... c-max also gets better mpg.

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♪ sports. that means it's time for jonathan capehart. >> i'm so excited for this. >> let's go. >> did you go last night? no, the game was in chicago. >> no. besides it was after my bedtime. you have to go to sleep early -- >> what do you think is harder? the heat maybe breaking the all-time win streak going to 34 games or winning a world championship? which is harder in your estimation? you're the expert. >> considering they lost last night. >> who lost? >> the heat. what? >> oh, man. you cannot make this up. >> what? >> heat are in chicago to take on the bulls who had been mentioned -- pay attention. take notes, okay?

>> it's hard! >> first quarter. heat fall into a 13-point hole. we have seen the heat come back before. the celtics. third quarter. here come the heat again. mario chalmers gets the steal and gives it up to lebron for the dunk. heat within five. later in the third. wade finds shane battier for three. the heat take their first lead of the night 59-58. a minute left. nate robinson can't get it to go. carlos boozer is there for the put-back. bulls hold off the heat, come back and win 101-97. the streak is to 27. >> what did i say? >> after the game, maybe a little bit of sawyer grapes from lebron. >> what did i say? >> lebron now that it's over, how much did you guys really want that streak? it looked like a ton at the end. >> i mean, honestly for us, we never talked about it. if it happened, it happened along the ride when we was winning games wen' would be extremely excited about it but

we weren't pressing every game to say let's win to get the streak. >> the celtics lost five heading into their game with the cavalie cavaliers. celtics down by one. is this the hard one? jeff green drives to the basket for the win. cs take the lead. what the -- this is script! they currently sit in the seventh playoff spot northeast and likely face the pacers or the knicks in the first round. >> where are the pacers from? >> go on! indiana, mike. >> another chicago story. you want to do this about brian urlacher? >> no. it's too hard to read. >> brian urlacher might have moved on from chicago but his younger brother casey is reasoning for mayor of mettawa? is that it? >> why i didn't want to read this. >> 547 residents. this is his first run for public office and why are we reading this? >> he is not with the bears any more.

>> is there no sports. must be why we are doing this. >> are we really talking about brian urlacher's brother? >> he is running for mayor! >> urlacher is not that interesting himself. >> this is important story. listen to this. listen. >> do it! >> oh, finally it's official. the miami dolphins have confirmed that they will make a change from this logo, the dolphin are a helmet on its head or feature ago dolphin with a helmet to a new logo where the helmet is gone and the dolphin looks chic. look at that green, orange, blue, white, fabulous! defense end jared odrick supported the new logo to a team charity yesterday and it got a comment from don shula who tweeted, quote, glad to see the new logo for the miami dolphins has the great colors from our great '70s and '80s team. a new look for a new era. >> i bet don shula was tweeting,

too. look at poor dan bartlett wondering what have i gotten myself into it? dan bartlett will join us coming up for the must read opinion pages. you're watching, i think! "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ i've always had to keep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters...

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take. both i think are in your wheelhou wheelhouse. the first from tom edsel. republican party has begun to move to the left and social and culture issues as well as on immigration despite the warnings of mass defections of white evangelical and born gone christians the shifts will not be as costly as some people both inside and outside the party claims. the fact is that on pretty much every noncultural issue, government spending and taxes and regulatory state and national defense the christian right holds orthodox republican views to the mainstream republicans. its members are unlikely to bolt the party. it may be a gamble and may cost the party donors but at the moment the republican party holds a losing hand. do you agree with that? >> look. i don't know if a lot of people will turn to tom for advice about what way we are shifting on these big issues.

take immigration, for example. this was an issue that president bush felt passionate about and probably ahead of his own time with regards to his party. we miscalculated because of our roots in texas it and simulation taken place down there, where that issue had shifted within the republican party. but now that you're seeing the mark rubio's and folks like that coming out. is there a shift coming on. whether it's the demographics of hispanics on the key issues but a necessary evolution of the party transition is going to be messy. no question about it. >> i think dan is on to something there. i think people forget the modern republican party is essentially a few years old and was born of april of 2009 with the tea party movement which i think reoriented the party around smaller government and so all of the people that we are talking about for 2016 were born after that. governor christie was elected because of the movement.

marco rubio. rand paul. that's where the energy of the party is. i think they are the ones thatn the party on many of these issues ironically, back to where george bush was in 2000 when he ran the first time whether on education, on immigration. the party knows it has to evolve and getting there, it's always ugly, messy until you have a nominee who can complete the process but until you have a nominee, it's by its very nature in politics messy. >> but the mechanics, not just the republican party, the democratic party would probably be the same but can a different tilt. the republican primaries in terms of the brand of the party if you're a party, do you worry at all you're going to have another round of multiple candidates standing on a stage and the american people listening to what they say and coming away with the impression that half of the field running for president as a republican think you'll sail right off the edge of the earth a hundred miles west of san diego?

>> i think that is one of the challenges that the tea party movement faces. if you divorce their issues from the individuals who advanced them and if you just take the broad principles of the tea party it polls quite well. not only with republicans but independents, small government. a lot of things you're seeing, you know, a majority of people resonate with it's only when you apply the candidates to them, particularly when we saw in this last cycle with aiken and engle back in the race against harry reid and the challenge and why you see at least behind the scene republicans being more aggressive and getting involved in the republican primaries to make sure an effort put behind getting good candidates and trying to exclude some of those candidates taking the part where people look up every morning and say, you got to be kidding me. >> to me the two most interesting people in politics are rand paul and marco rubio. they can do for republicans what republicans couldn't do before. . they can give them cover on

immigration and help the party move and they want to. they have national ambitions and by their very definition, need to bring people. if you listen to their rhetoric they want to change and who the tea party listens to and i think immigration is a messy tough test case and have no idea how it plays out but if rubio and rand paul are for it becomes interesting. >> there is always somewhat solidarity of foreign policies for rand paul. he is successful on foreign policy as he has been on domestic policy? and demonstrating there are things there whether you want to call it isolationism or what it might be. i think will be interesting. >> get to the next op-ed from the national journal. the secret republican plan to repeal obama care. republicans are doing their best

to highlight and stoke the kind of constituent anger that would force democrats to tweak the law. in fact, if democrats come under enough pressure, republicans believe they might be able to inject obama care into the broader entitlement reform discussion they are planning to tie to the debt limit debate this summer but that is a long shot if republicans hope to completely repeal the health care law they have to start by taking back the senate in 2014 and would likely need to win the white house two years later. still some republicans think the politics are on that i recall side. dan, how many times can you go after obama care before republicans realize move on. it's being implemented next year. why keep going at it? >> i think you're going to see a two-front strategy. they will back away from saying i'm for appeal and still

constituencies in their party who are for that. what is smarter political strategy is pulling out individual pieces of the law and holding them up for scrutiny whether the million device tags which got bipartisan support to take that tax down. i think you'll see a piece by piece let's elevate unpopular elements of it and they will never walk away from the rhetorical piece against it but is it going anywhere in total? of course not. >> does anyone how much of that law is implemented thus far of obama care? >> only a small percentage but each passing month more and more gets implemented. by the time you get past 2014 the bulk of the states is implemented. the federal government will set the rules for what a federal exchange will look like. so just saying we are going to get rid of obama care, healthier is the most complicated thing i think facing the country. not just the cost but the bureaucracy.

once that is set in motion you can't undo it. what you can do is undo pieces of it. i think one dangerous point for president obama is there's mountsing evidence that health care costs are going to continue to go up and that some of the provisions that were in that bill that were meant to lower costs aren't going to have the effect they to because you never know what effect this provision will have. >> you mentioned exchanges. when they get implemented, republicans are licking their chops over this. that requires the government not to execute a very implicated and technical implementation of law. i think a lot of republicans believe that is going to be a fiasco in trying to set those things up adequately and that will be an ripe area for them to come in and attack again very specific elements that will prove to be unpopular in certain states. >> which is why they are rejecting the state-based exchange and going to a federal one. they are taking the medicaid money and say let the ferguson government be their mess. it's a mess and a bureaucracy

and will be a mess. >> health care is the only thing that everybody has a right to demands and needs and nobody, none of us, ordinary citizens, have a clue as to what it cost. you get a flu shot, you never ask how much it costs. >> it's crazy. >> nobody knows. it's a crazy deal. nobody knows. >> the 10 dollar copay culture. >> aren't you glad you came here today, dan? thrilled. >> i do know about the bulls. >> two jobs. president hill and nolton. good to see you. >> good to see you. why "time" magazine went with two different covers for this week's issues. rick stengel is coming up on that.

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economic analyst steve rattner and dr. jeffrey sacha and president for the committee of responsible federal budget, a impressive title, maria macguineas and on capitol hill, is our correspondent kelly o'donnell. the stocks slipped wednesday. the investors shifting their attention to italy where that country's ability to have a impact worldwide. u.s. futures are pointing to a lower open. jeffrey, you write in "esquire" magazine how to make america great. you write. the role of the true progressive is to prove the government can live up to its promise. obama's failure is not of vision or he will defense. it's time to back off the cliche

that government is waste and decent adequate tax structure collects enough to do the job and many who might not remember how this country was built and who night doubt the investments are worth it remind them of the moon, the internet, gps and the mars explorer. not bad for government work. i mean, that's -- >> yeah, those were the days. >> realistic. given the world that we live in and the stage that we are all on. >> look. it's true. no one believes in government. everyone wants to see it slashed. and we will end up with a miserable uncompetitive country if we do that. that's the simple truth. and, of course, i am of the baby boomer generation that sat by the television or the radio listening to every moon shot and seeing what government can do when it actually is organized to do the right thing.

and in our own time, we are having unbelievable scientific breckthrou breakthroughs. they had led by great scientific and engineering leadleadership. do you think we could build a bridge again in this country and we might have a rail? i was in europe and asia the last couple of weeks. of course, you come back to jfk airport and you're stepping back 50 years. >> third world country. >> also this time it was stu stunning. the whole wall as we got off the plane was about a conference in china and went on for about a hundred feet of advertising about the great china conference in that country and you wonder where is the united states? >> i suspect i'm much more

aligned with jeffrey in terms of ideology and feeling about government spending and everything like that with one small difference. over the last 10 or 15 years -- and i'm not complain baggage taxes or anything like that -- what i am complaining about is the feeling that me, as a taxpayer, my family as taxpayers, are just not getting the best bang for our tax buck. that's the thing that bothers me the most. >> well, i think there are a lot of important things the way jeffrey lays out his argument which is we are not investing enough in the country any more. and we need to think about how you want your country to look and you have to be willing to pay for it which i think is the important pieces and fiscally bigger approach to bigger government. i think before we make any changes we have to fix the government, people need to feel what you're talking about which is their dollars are being spent well. part of the problem is we have been seeing a huge squeeze on the big important public investment sector of the

government but i think what you don't touch upon enough that is coming as a result from a squeeze of our growing health care costs, the aging of society, some big entitlement programs. the truth is we have to look at all parts of government. we have to focus on part of what you talk about which is how we are going to do this in a fiscally responsible way and we have to talk about a politically viable play and growing the size of government is not going to happen now. just lie dramatthe deficits are risk to the economy. >> let's let the professor critique this discussion. >> i'm just a professor. first we can make it unanimous we are underinvesting in the things we should be investing in. maya said it best. we are not putting the money back into the investment kinds of projects the way we should

be. the statistics are unambiguous. i think maya is right we have been squeezing out these programs by the growing costs of entitlements. i think the only places where i would differ with jeffrey a little bit are, one, i don't think this is entirely president obama's fault. in fact, i don't think it's mostly president obama's fault. we have a very dysfunctional political system in which the congress is completely unable to do anything really progressive in the sense of being thoughtful and creative, adventurous, anything. the last congress passed 30% as many laws as any previous congress in modern history. you can say that is great, i don't want congress to do anything any way but we have a lot of stuff to do as jeffrey pointed out and we need congress to do stuff and therapist. we end up squeezing these kinds of programs. jeffrey, with all due respect, i think you've laid out a wonderfully ideaistic ambitious place for us to get to.

i think the political relates would get in the way. for example you want to increase taxes on the wealthy. i'm not opposed to to that but i think we raise corporate taxes by 50% i think your math works out to i don't think works out. >> jeffrey? respond? >> 50% means we are 1.5% of their national income in what the corporations are paying, we used to be at 2.5% or three percentage points. i'm talking about adding one percentage point of national income or 1.5 percentage points in a period when the corporate sector is having a profit boom the likes of which they have never seen before. but the money is all being kept in the kcaimans and virgin islands and not investment in the u.s. either in the public or private sector. i agree. politically we are in a completely different direction. i don't think we have had the

leadership to say we need to invest in he america in a serious way. it's not unfortunately to say it. you have to have a plan. you have to have a framework to do it. we have wasted so much money on these terrible add sured wars. the health sector is completely out of control in costs. my complaint actually in this article is you can't ask the american people to entrust their money to government if the government doesn't manage properly and we are not getting management. it's all politics all the time. there is no management right now. that's why i was always against the stimulus and all of the rest. that is like throwing money at problems as if it's just a matter of throwing money. we need serious plans and serious management. we don't have it right now. >> kelly, so the phrase political relate has been thrown around by all three of the folks here on panel today. what are the political relates of doing any of this stuff?

>> reporter: i think you find both democrats and republicans would say that some of those ideas, the big things that only government can do when you're talking about the genome or the internet be thet behind that. what are the relate topics at the moment? they think the u.s. is not as competitive as some of the countries and wanting to bring some of that money back inside the u.s. for the investment that jeffrey was talking about, but right now one of the big problems is you can't even get congress to be able to sort of lean down areas where they know there is duplication in government. there were so many programs that are really found in several agencies or lots of money is being spent to do the same thing two or three times. just trying to pare that down which is something that gets talked about all the time, very hard to accomplish. even in the sequester when you're talking about trying to make relatively small percentage cuts there has been difficulty in trying to get that done. those cuts, of course,

disproportionate to some but when you see the idea of cutting be, people talk about it but the doing of it is tough. it's hard for the democrats in senate right now. they want to see more spending in infrastructure and so forth. we know house republicans are worried about sort of the time bomb of debt and if interest rates start to go up again, what that would mean to the country's long-term deficit. so political realities mean the big sweeping courage of having a vision, hard to come by right now. >> why do you think -- i think a lot of people out there think, feel, sense that unlike 20, 25, 30 years ago there is a lot of incredible amounts of waste in the way the government spends money. they might not have thought that. i didn't think that 20 or 30 years ago. but i think it now. what has happened to cause people to think this way? >> well, first, we wasted

trillions of dollars in iraq and afghanistan, so people could see it with their own eyes. useless, incredibly expensive and draining activities of this government and this has been both parties and just a terrible, terrible waste. second, people feel they know every time they go to a doctor that the health sector is completely out of control. and obama care did not bring it back under control. it helped to bring some people into the health care sector that needed health care but it didn't get health care costs under control and people are upset about that and they say where is this taking us right now if we are just expanding a broken system. i thought steve brill's article in "time" magazine was brilliant. it showed how this system is rotten and broken to the core right now. not for profit hospitals which dominate the local health scene all over the country are raking

in profits beyond anybody's imagination because there's no accountability. so we need some management and accountability, but what we also know from the past is that the only time we have actually accomplished something is when there's clear plans and some leadership. people say it's politically impossible to have that kind of leadership right now. i think it's a style that we need and we got to get off the kick, throw money at creating jobs and rebuild america. it's a completely different thing. >> okay. i'm going to give you five days. put you in the job. you're going to redo the budget. >> good. >> reshape -- >> we're for it. >> reshape the thinking of americans toward the federal budget. give me two or three things you think ought to be done. >> first thing is get the people in the room who want to get a deal done because part is the political will to work on this and i don't want to beat up on the political system but we have seen opportunity after opportunity to confront these issues and sqauuandered and finr

pointing and part of the reason i think we don't trust in government. i want people who want to fix the problem to work on it. then i want to look at how we spend money and i want to shift away from spending so much money on consumption which is where the bulk of our spending is right now. push a lot of it into investment. i don't think we should grow the government beyond what it's on track to and i don't think the political system will have the appetite to do that. but i want to think how we spend the money and put a lot of money into human capital and infrastructure and the kinds of investments you talk about but scale back on the consumption we don't know. that we don't need. finally i want to think about how we raise the money in the right way. we are going to need more revenues than we are paying right now but ways to do that that are good and competitive for the economy. the first place i would go to look we lose over a trillion dollars a year in tax breaks and tax breaks we like and not corporate jets and things we toirs like with you we could do

incredible overhaul to the tax system and tax breaks gotten rid of or reformed and both bringing rates down and bringing more revenues into the federal government in a way that would help grow the economy. i think competitiveness is a big piece of this too. get rid of outdated programs, look at each part of the budget you but really have a long-term budget because right now, we are focused on the next political circle and not the next generational cycle and doing a huge disservice to the country. >> i love what everything you say but i thought jeffrey was unrealistic. >> you said what would i do if i had five days! >> maya, thanks going forjoining us. >> thank you. >> you people, stick around. ahead, hole thursday. pope francis is breaking tradition. instead of holding the usual mass he is washing the feet of inconsecrated youth. that is ahead. with the great jesuit father jim

martin. first, congressman mike rogers who says no doubt the syrian government has cross add red line in that country's war. he will say what he wants to do about it. first, highlight of your morning. >> the glue that holds us all to go. >> bill karins. >> i'll keep going. show you the pictures out of washington state. this is impressive state on the puget sounds and million dollar homes and a lot of are being threatened after a huge landslide yesterday and this is only feet from dumping down that hill. looks like it's heading that direction. hard to get to this area. 40 homes in jeopardy from that landslide. looks like they lost a little bit of their living room too. the forecast is a quiet day around the country. airports looking green and that means go and no delays whatsoever out there. not even much in the way of rain out there. a few showers are drifting over cape cod and rain showers near

albany, new york. no bad weather. that's about it. a cold morning by southern standards. tallahassee 33 and charleston at 38. from here on out we warm it up. today is better than yesterday and we will continue to go in the right direction. atlanta 60 today. orlando 72. finally a decent end to a very miserable vacation week down there in florida with the cold weather. a couple of showers on the west coast and taking a look at good friday get-away forecast for the holiday weekend rain in oklahoma and arkansas but i think we are looking nice otherwise as we head into the busy travel period for easter weekend. speaking of travel. reagan national a nice shot. got rid of that full moon last night and beautiful sunrise. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ mallon brothers magic?

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♪ here with us from capitol hill republican representative from michigan and chairman of

the intelligence committee congressman mike rogers. glad to have you here this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> i'm reading something that you said a couple of days ago and i'd like to you comment on it after i ask you a question about it. you said, quote, it is abundantly clear that that red line, speaking about chemical weapons in syria, that that red line has been crossed and the president needs to take action to secure syria's stockpile of dangerous weapons. what must the president and, thus, the united states do? >> yeah, the good news here is this is joining together republicans and becomes in the house and senate who get to see all of this national security information have come together and said, listen, this is a growing danger, not only to the region, because of the refugee flows that is jeopardizing jordan and turkey and al qaeda that is showing up in the thousands, unfortunately, in syria and hezbollah pushed down. the stockpiles of chemical

weapons and conventional weapons are a danger to the region and our national security as well. here are some things we can do. by the way, i still believe is there a slight potential for a diplomatic solution but you have to regain the faith of the opposition to do that. imagine they told the u.s. secretary of state no thanks, we didn't want a meeting and area arab league partners are saying frustrated they won't show leadership on this issue. it's not big boots on the ground or big military. we have sm very special capabilities. so we ought to help create a safe zone in the north and the turks are ready to help us do that. same with our arab league partners and not with military force but we use our ability to knock missiles and airplane and helicopters out of the sky when they get too close. you train a vetted opposition forces, equip them and send them back with good intelligence sets. it's a special capabilities that we have in the united states so

that we can do this in a way that doesn't take a military footprint at all and we regain our confidence with the opposition so that we can start to push for a diplomatic solution so we can secure those weapon systems. >> congressman, before we go to kelly o'donnell who has a question for you, she is also in washington. i have one additional question that cropped up in my mind as you speak and it is this. is there an urgency clock here when this war seems to be spilling over borders into iraq? you mentioned al qaeda. clearly i think a war spilled over into another country and they go back and forth. what is the urgently clock here look like? >> well, i think we're, you know, we are hoping for the best worst outcome and better hurry up for that. you have an al qaeda organization now has thousands of people on the ground in syria and they have attached themselves, this is what is so

worrying, to the secular units who are fighting. the people who are farmers and clerks and just good folks of syria who rose up against the regime, they are attaching themselves to these units and that is dangerous. and, of course, hezbollah moving in from the south and the sheer number of refugees spilling over into jordan and turkey is starting to destabilize that region. if assad goes tomorrow, here is the scary part, we really don't have a great plan to secure all of those weapon systems. we are left hanging in the wind and if we learned anything from libya and iraq we better secure the conventional and chemical weapon systems and have a plan to do it. it doesn't mean the united states has to do it but we have to help with leadership and some other things and help our arab league partners jordan and saudi arabia qatar and the turks do that kind of work and i think we can do it but we have to act and act now. >> kelly? >> chairman, good morning. nice to see you, as always.

>> good to see you, kelly. >> do you think that the sort of fatigue about what has happened with a war weariness in the united states and as you just touched on, elaborate, tunisia and not able to properly predict what is going to happen do you think that has an impact how the administration looks at this even know the humanitarian aid which is much more broadly supported even that is complicated in a conversation like this? do you think the inability to see where it's headed is part of what has slowed down more aggressive u.s. involvement? >> i think it's a whole host of things. the production of the weapons system in libya was alive and well before we decided to take action there. the problem was we had no plan after. this is trying to get ahead of this problem. again, this is not -- this isn't a republican issue. this is republicans and democrats and both chambers have come up and said this is getting dangerous and getting spiraling out of control for a small and

effective effort now and helping coordinate our arab league partner so they can be effective. we save big and ugly later. this is the lesson we should have learned you can't just hope for a good outcome in syria. it's not going to happen. you have syria worried about the chemical weapons and what might happen with al qaeda there and hezbollah moving down. another terrorist organization trying to get their hands on these weapon systems. it is really destabilizing to the whole region and why we need to take action. our americans wondering why? absolutely. it's up to the president, i think, to get up and tell them why we need to do this for our own national security reasons. >> jeffrey sachs? >> congressman, good morning. >> good morning. >> i also feel pretty worried about what you're saying, but i feel worried we are just walking into another trap, another iraq, another situation we don't control. we declare that assad has to go. was jet stream change but

step-by-step we are backing it up by now cia operations and many other military steps and you've explained very well how this is going to spiral out of our control. we're not going to be able to keep this in control the way that we are going. so how do you reassure americans that this isn't going to be another incredibly expensive destabilizing set of actions after we have declared this regime change philosophy once again, that we know leads to this massive blow-back? >> yeah, exactly. well, first of all, there is no big troops, nobody -- republicans, democrats, anybody that stepped up, carl levin and john mccain in the senate and myself. no one has called for boots on the ground, big military and big involvement owning the mess when it's over. what we are saying we have these special capabilities, small

unit, in conjunction with our arab league. when do we have the arab league asking the united states to help them through a very difficult circumstance of which they are eager to get involved? and, by the way, already are getting involved. many argue they are getting involved in a way that is uncoordinated and probably at the end of the day, maybe even unhelpful to what happens after assad falls. fights between sunnis and shias and extremists versus secularists are brewing. with a little bit of u.s. leadership and talking a little bit and most americans wouldn't see this in "the daily news" other than the mass casualties see we now in syria is just by giving them some breathing space and then training and vetting opposition forces who are doing the fighting now. this is not the united states doing the fighting. it's just bringing those special capabilities and i argue if we know that they have put these chemical weapons into a position to be used, and they certainly have shown intent to use them

and we have the capability to make sure that they don't use them, i would argue we have a moral obligation here. imagine a chemical exchange here in syria and what that would do, a, to a humanitarian crisis, i just don't think we should idly sit back. this isn't iraq. it's not afghanistan. this is much smaller, much more effective way to rally the arab league and make them more effective in protecting those weapon systems and being assad's regime to an end. >> congressman, have you communicated awe this to the white house and the president and how would you critique their handling of this issue and why haven't they proceeded more he along the lines of what you're suggesting? >> i have for months and we have had some great discussions. i think for the very reasons that was stated, i think there's this concern, this worry that americans are going to believe

this is an engagement in another conflict and it's taken them too long, i think, to come to the conclusion this thing is spiraling out of control. i argue, you know, that they don't want to have any better cover than they will now, both democrats and republicans in the senate. democrats and republicans in the house saying use our special capabilities. mr. president, we will stand with you when you explain to the american people why we have prevented a huge humanitarian disaster that is brewing and unfolding on our watch and we can do something about it and it's not big military. that's really important to understand. this is not military engagement and not 101st airborne division. none of that needs to happen. but i will tell you if this breaks loose and al qaeda gets their hands on chemical weapons, what will our response be when something happens on the israeli border or the surface-to-air missiles go up into northern europe and, god forbid, some

commercial airline falls out of the sky? such huge implications of this and now is the time to rally around. he's got plenty of support. we will be with him if he does the right thing here. i think we need to move out smartly. >> good to hear that, that you're going to be with him. that is at least ending on a positive note for a very potentially really bad story. congressman mike rogers, thanks very much for joining us. coming up, rick stengel joins us with the new cover of "time" and why the magazine says the american public has already made up its mind about gay marriage, even if supreme court hasn't. and also pete williams who was inside the courtroom yesterday. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ all i need is a miracle all i need is you ♪ morning, brian! love your passat! um. listen, gary. i bought the last one. nice try. says right here you can get one for $199 a month.

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♪ come on joining us now from outside the supreme court, nbc justice correspondent and associate justice of supreme court appointed by me. >> thank you. >> our old friend, pete williams. how are you? >> good. how are you? >> doing. . what is going on today? >> we are assessing the what we think is the direction of the court after the oral arguments on wednesday on the second of these two cases, on doma, the

defensive marriage act. unlike tuesday where the justices seem to be going out of their way to void a straight up decision on the indication. it may be the four most liberal justices are prepared to say that the defensive marriage act amounts to unconstitutional discrimination. but the likely fifth vote, anthony kennedy 34may see this where marriage is a function of the states. if that is the result here, then you would not get a sweeping ruling on gay rights. it would, stead, be a more narrow ruling perhaps on, you know, the federalism issue who gets to decide what marriage is. still, though, if the court does strike down doma, which seems possible, that would still be a big victory for the same-sex couples. >> what do you think the timetable is for a decision?

one minute left on the clock before the last day of the court before they leave for vacation in june? >> not one minute. i'd say more like 15 pekeds. seconds. probably at the very end. i think this is going to be contentious and take a while to figure out. one calf yveat about that. it seems like the cases have been joined at the hip all along they will do them together and very much toward the end of the term which is in late june. >> pete williams, as always, thanks very much. >> you bet. joining us in new york "time" managing editor rick stengel and here to reveal the latest issues, perhaps should we say. >> yes. there are two covers there. two same-sex couples of two males and two females. gay marriage already won is the

headline. no matter what the supreme court does, the idea of gay marriage has insinuated itself and socialized itself into young people particularly that inevitable that same-sex marriage is something that is universal in our society. the court i think would be smart to recognize that. they may not. they tend to try to focus on the narrowest issues but it's an interesting story about how what has happened in the culture, in law, in business has just made this something that people feel like -- 80% of americans feel like it's going to happen. >> what is amazing is anyone watching this program or any program where we are discussing this issue today who is under the age of 25 and listening to us and watching the tv and say why are they even talking about this? >> what is the big deal. i want to congratulate you. these covers are beautiful. they are beautifully done. >> thank you. >> i cannot wait to hear the red sox across the country from i

guess where whether on newsstands or walmart or other places. we were talking before about how just 13 years ago the national conversation was jolted when governor howard dean signed this new construct called sieve unions and how that became the fallback position and now you're looking at a democratic party where the next nominee will be someone who is for fully marriage equality. >> what has happened, you're smart to cite that, what the story trace is out is this idea that the combination of the idea of marriage becoming a civil right, this idea that zone of privacy protects whatever we do in our own homes basically started to basically say marriage is a civil right. why would we exclude this from any citizen on the basis of whether it's color or sexual orientation so it becomes an equal protection issue and basically i think the american public just thinks of it that way like it's just not fair to exclude anybody from this institution. >> it's interesting.

because when you say the equal protection thing to me seems obvious. should be 20 years ago and for whatever reason today the society has gotten there. you mentioned the democratic side. i think it's interesting to see what the republican side does. only one republican senator, for his own personal reasons, rob portman, announce his support. they have to grapple with this issue where i think what mike said is, obviously, true the country is moving and we will see how they deal with it in the next round. >> kelly, the accelerant to this issue is really incredible when you think of it. and, yesterday, politically speaking even, kay hagan, north carolina. we have had mark warner, virginia, kay hagan, north carolina. claire mccaskill, missouri. john tester, montana. this is really something. >> notable for kay hagan because she is up for re-election next

year. john tester and claire mccaskill just won re-election. the microscope is on her talking guns and immigration is notable for to her to take this position. what i think has changed is the whole conversation about equal protection. it is not being discussed in the sense of how people have religious feelings about this issue. they are able to put that aside. they are looking at some practical aspects come to evidence to people. you see a woman who lost her spouse and had to pay what have not been an estate tax if she were legally married in a recognized way ended up paying a few hundred thousand dollars. people's sense of that doesn't seem fair really kicks in. and these are long marches to change and so when jonathan sites civil unions that was a necessary part of moving people toward this idea, because they got to see that there would be sort of a legal coninstruct that

could work and now people recognize marriage in a way that seems to have a much broader definition. politically the move is certainly happening. >> i think the irony of all of this is that it's a conservative constitution marriage. an endorsement of this institution that is conservative by its nature and coming from a place nobody had predicted. >> rick stengel, the editor of "time" magazine. there you go. we have both of them up there. the new covers. gay marriage. >> beautiful, rick. >> thank you. >> kelly, thank you so much as well for joining us. up next, holy thursday. father jim martin joins us in the studio to discuss how pope francis is breaking from tradition. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ [ penélope ] i found the best cafe in the world.

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holy thursday. there is a beautiful shot. look at that. holy thursday. we are bringing in contributing editor of "national catholic magazine america." other to jesuit guide. most importantly, perhaps, the official pastor of pallbearer nation. father jim martin, how did that happen? >> i had a piece in "the new york times" and the colbert people liked me and i've been on six or seven times. whenever he calls, i go. >> what happened to humility? >> i like to say that jesuits are number one in all things, including humility. >> you know, it's a pivotal moment, i think, for the church that we have a jesuit as pope and it's a pivotal moment today, holy thursday. the pope traditionally big mass

in st. peters square. this pope this moment in time is washing the feet and saying mass for juvenile offenders in rome. that is significant. >> i've been very moved by that. the symbolism is striking. he has chosen to spend holy thursday with the poor and like jesus did watch their feet. most of the youth there, the inmates are muslims so it's also a very wonderful interfaith act. this pope i think has caught the hearts of so many people through his simplicity. >> very exciting. a hope fighting poverty through his mission. this is an important time. poverty the extreme form of poverty could be ended. when the church speaks, people will listen all over the world and i think a fabulous moment. >> he is talking about working

with the poor and showing something with his symbols, his deeds. and to do something like that to kind of get down on your hands and knees in a juvenile detention center and wash people's feet i think speaks loudly as ten books on poverty. >> oh, wait a minute. books on poverty? let's not go there! >> books on poverty are very, very important. >> cyclicals and things like that. the pope can speak and write and he can also do. i think he is doing something symbol symbolic. >> what would you advise him to do in terms of dealing with the issues that we all know have been there in the church now for so many years? >> his primary responsible is preaching the gospel but i would say the sex abuse crisis and number three is facing a west that feels that the church and jesus and the faith are irrelevant. anything he could do to combat those things i think are important. >> those are the problems. what would you advise him are

the solutions in terms of what would be the steps he would take to deal with those three things? >> well, that's a big question. i would say the sexual abuse crisis to face it squarely put in safe environment programs and remove people who are credibly accused and hold bishops accountable for making the gospel relevant and i think doing what he is doing preaching the gospel and modeling what jesus did and i think in terms of the vatican bureaucracy it's not being afraid to learn from business and economists and, you know, hold people accountable. i think putting in good management practices is very important too. i think the church can learn a lot from corporate america. >> he has to fire a few people too. >> yeah. he is not afraid to do that. he can make tough decisions. >> so pope francis is the first jesuit pope. what influence, do you think, that will have on the church this thousands upon thousands of-year-old institution and what kind of impact do you think on jesuit priests overall? >> i can answer the second

question. the jesuit priests are elated and proud moment for us. i think it will help us with vocations in terms of people coming to thejesuits. he brings as we can see a devotion to the poor and social justice and living simply. he moved into this very simple apartment which i think is appropriate. jesus did not live in a palace. he lived in a small house. if it's good enough for jesus, it's good enough for the pope. >> in terms of the pope being a jesuit, you cannot go to georgetown. >> kidding aside we try to be humble and this pope is trying to live simply and trying to break not only the jesuit, but being with the poor as jesus was.

>> that's what the face is all about. forgiveness and the poor. >> that's right. >> i hope. father jim martin, thanks very much. espn college analyst jay bilas. we march towards the elite eight. "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ man ] i got this citi thankyou card and started

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>> we thank you for discussing in the latest issue of esquire. we had a reality which was good. up next, politico invades. mike allen and maggie hayden rejoin the table with what's driving the day in washington. keep it here on "morning joe." for your first day? yeah. ♪

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>> what's odd about this case is edith windsor who had to pay a large amount of taxes because the internal revenue service doesn't recognize her marriage. when umbrellas attack. you had to have umbrellas. it's raining men out there. >> it's 8:00 on the east coast and 5:00 on the west coast. live in new york city, jonathan

cape heart and maggie haberman and mike allen. now, two big days in a row. two huge days with the supremes in washington. the real supremes. the doma debate, just reading about it would appear that's done. they are throw it out. >> sounds like it, but it doesn't sound like they throw it out because they think it's unconstitutional on an equal protection basis, but it's because of a legal technicality. it's on the state's rights. they were the ones who set marriage laws. they said this is how marriage will be defined. it is for the state. >> yesterday ruth bader begins berg asked why gay couples

should not enjoy the same benefits. >> it's not a federal fear and only a tax question. it affects every area of life. you are diminishing what the state has said it knows. they said two kinds of marriages. the full marriage and the sort of -- marriage. >> anthony kennedy was a critical swing vote cited rights was a concern over the controversial law. >> whether or not if congress has the power it can exercise it for the reason it wants. it doesn't like marriage or not, i suppose it can do that. with 1100 laws which in our society means that the federal government is intertwined with

the citizens, you are at real risk of running in conflict with what has been the essence to regulate marriage. >> justice elena kagan said it was suggested by fear when they threw up the law. >> is what happened in 1996 and i'm going to quote from the house report here. congress decided to reflect and honor a collective morgue judgment and express moral disapproval of moral homosexuality. >> of course the house support says that and if that invalidates the statute. that never has been your approach under rational basis. if that's what you are suggesting. we are not going to strike down the statute because a couple of legislatures may have had

improper motive. >> he said congress was preserved about preserving the treatment of couples. justices scalia and roberts questioned the change of national attitude. >> why are you so confident in that judgment? how many states permit gay couples to marry? >> today, nine. >> so there is this change between now and 1996? >> i think with respect to the understanding of gay people and their relationships, there have been changes. >> i suppose this change has a lot to do with the political force of people representing and supporting your side of the case? >> the chief justice of the united states supreme court also faulted president obama for supporting doma and not enforcing it.

>> enforcing the terms is unconstitutional. i don't see why he doesn't have the courage and execute not only the statute, but do it with his view of the constitution rather than wait until the supreme court told us we have no choice. >> the president enforces plenty of laws he doesn't agree with. that was interesting. >> especially the council could barely get a word in edge wise. i can tell you who has been silent and that's republicans. >> and clarence thomas. they recognized this is moving much faster. i know that the republican party, several of the likely candidates thought they could say we will leave this to the state and that would be the way out of the issue with young people. so the new formulation for republicans is to say this is up for the church and not the

state. >> a colleague of ours that said republicans are rooting for this to be law of the land and that's the approach a lot of people took on obama care. >> if you use and think about the ark of politics, doma becomes law. 2004 you think about the bush presidential campaign and the linchpin was opposition to gay marriage. how much public opinion changed over two decades? there was a debate about whether or not that's true or not and if the states moved. public opinion moved decisively. a third of the country supported gay marriage and now it's getting close to 2/3. this is an amazing change in attitude about this issue in the 90s. >> in the same week you had mark

warner in virginia and clair mccaskle in missouri. the pace of this thing is incredible. >> rob portman. >> everybody. >> patalk about the train leaving. unfortunately no other senate republicans have followed him. no other elected republican on the national stage anyway has come out in favor of marriage equality in the way rob portman did. something else going back to chief justice roberts knocked on the president for not having the courage to not enforce the law. isn't it in the constitution that the president has to enforce the laws even if he doesn't agree or am i wrong? >> i didn't complete that third year of harvard law.

>> that color i think is unconstitutional. >> i trimmed the hedges and paved the sidewalks. >> hard to argue that this president hasn't done. even reluctant for purely political reasons. it's kind of shocking to the ear when you hear any supreme court say, the chief justice take a slap at the president of the united states. >> they do have a history. >> i wish these sessions would televise. it would be such an education for the american public and for me. it would open up the doors, no pun intended. no metaphor excluded. it would be a terrific thing. president obama will be spending more time with senate republicans. the a fore-mentioned senate republicans, a spokesperson said the president asked the georgia republican to put together a list of those sharing another

dinner next month. the guest list is those attending a last outing when he invited a group of republicans to the hotel. that was a series of visits in an effort the white house hopes will rerule is new compromise and gun legislation. >> that is the key question. >> how do you enforce this? >> do you get anything out of it at the end of the day. i was skeptical because the president doesn't want to dine with them from the washington establishment to do it. to pay dividends on immigration reform. the one issue where the incentive for both parties is to get a deal done. he wants a legacy and supports the issue. they can't have future states that have a large hispanic

population with this. can marco rubio sit down and agree on legislation? in theory it looks like it's possible. it's difficult. they haven't reported a bill because it's painfully difficult when you get down to the specifics of imgrigz craft something that can pass and effective. >> we keep hearing from chuck schumer that we are close. getting close. every other day. my god. >> every day. >> how does chuck schumer and senator rubio sell the same bill? it's difficult. rubio thinks he built insurance and the border security part is built on specific measurements we are told will take years to make. people will be able to apply right away for temporary status and not for green cards for years. the republicans hope that brings

down the temperature while they sell this to the base. >> the last dinner they had proposed with johnny isaac and the president, i don't live in washington, thank god. >> i don't either. >> i do. >> you keep hearing over and over again from senators and various members of congress with regard to the president, i don't really know the guy. >> that's the democrats. >> that's true. >> it's going to be a net positive any meeting he has. >> absolutely. i agree with him. i think yes, he is never going to be one and i don't think we are going to see. >> why do you think that is? >> i don't think he is a needy human being. >> good for him. >> as a long time democrat said to me. i don't think he needs that interaction and feedback the way

bill clinton does. you see it on the way with bill clinton and the amount of work he does. i think we agree he was out there. >> president clinton worked it and won people over. this president makes so little effort to work it. people don't know why. friends say people don't change, they just get more like themselves. >> do you have a sense of the why? >> feels like he doesn't get anything for it. he and his staff helped convince him to do these first dinners. they took a little in from lindsay graham and said why not try it. he feels like he has put in the time. >> the numbers have gone down. >> it often feels like there is two obamas at war with each other. the pragmatist who would like to get the immigration deal and another egged on to fight, fight, fight. believe republicans are not on

the level and did not cut a deal. if you think relationships don't matter, why is it that every time they are at a budget impasse and something has to get done, they come in and talk to mitch mcconnell. they come from different worlds and have a relationship and they trust each other to get a deal. it does matter on the margins and it is tough. republicans don't like him. they say nasty things about him. . >> speaking of mitch mcconnell, ashley judd is not running against him. that would have been great. who runs? >> the secretary of state. he is doing everything he can not to have a challenge from the right. so far there is none on the horizon. >> she is tougher because she's young and doesn't have a record. >> encouraged by bill clinton.

>> he and secretary clinton will support her. they can put together a campaign quickly. you will not have the circus you will have with ashley judd. you will have a campaign and with senator mcconnell's approval ratings. he can talk about san francisco. >> connell wanted ashley judd. much easier to defeat and lampoon. he sees he is unpopular despite being a conservative state. >> why? >> because he's a conservative guy who has a track record for getting involved in ideological battles. he is not warm and personal and fuzzy, but he is powerful. he is ruthless in a good way. he will destroy anybody who comes up. they were popping off about ashley judd when she was a rumored candidate. >> say mcconnell doesn't get a

primary challenge. how does that impact connell's impact in washington. from my perspective, the idea that mitch mcconnell is afraid of talent from the right makes them afraid to do anything and a deal of any kind. does it make it easier? >> certainly if he doesn't have a challenge from the right. if he thinks you are an alien and a group of republicans think he is not conservative enough, can you say a lot of things, but the guy is a pretty conservative fellow. if he doesn't have someone from the right, it makes it easier. not like he is looking for a lot of deals. >> his interview with politico, he did show and didn't rule out the idea of having some revenues in a budget deal. he is talking to both sides.

>> still ahead, the unsung heroes of world war ii. thousands were recruited by the government to help put together the atomic bomb. a project was so secret, the workers didn't know what they were doing until that day in hiroshima. first, fuel grace. the search for redemption after going from the top tier of politics to the tabloids. next with a look at the new hbo documentary. first a yacontractural obligati. we will have a check on the forecast. >> i heart a great quote this morning. so far this spring we had a great winter. that sums it up. this is the time where the kids get out of school and it has been a couple of days. a huge roller coaster park there in missouri. they will open up tomorrow.

it will be interesting. there will be snow, but they will open on schedule. it's still very cold too in the southeast. not as much as yesterday, but a couple of freeze warnings. we will head in the right direction and i think this will be the coldest morning you will see for a long time. 33 in tallahassee. florida had 33 degrees at the end of march. crazy. as far as the forecast, let's track it into the holiday weekend. a few showers and not much of a concern from the northwest to the california coastline. we will see the warming trend and go from 60 to 64 for your good friday forecast. i don't see a huge travel concern. the best chance of rainy weather from oklahoma to arkansas and memphis. on saturday it's not a rain out, but we will have damp weather from chicago to kansas city and easter egg hunts that will be

the day before easter. we will watch those and for easter sunday, that rain that was in the middle of the country will slide to the east it. does look like washington, d.c. will be a cloudy and more gloomy easter sunday. baltimore and think new york city will see rain moving in from about noon 2:00 p.m. you may get away with an early sunday with dry weather. it will go downhill quickly throughout the easter afternoon. we leave you with st. louis. we melted a lot of snow. we are not done yet. "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

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. >> it's understanding that the punishment is in the sin. the harm is to ourselves. >> being in the closet is a prison of sorts. for a gay man, there were so many times where i felt filled with shame and guilt and ugliness and now it's sort of to move through this, i hope to do that for these women. i am that woman in jail. no different. >> that was a clip from the new document fall to grace that followed jim greevey from the governor of new jersey tow as role as a spiritual adviser to women in prison. here now is jim mcgreevey along with the producer. does your journey seem as long as painful now as it probably

did when you were on that journey? >> i'm in a really good place now and working with these extraordinary women and i'm blessed because as of today, al zandt ra pelosi's camera won't be following me. >> don't be sure. >> it has been an honor working with these women and turning the focus on prisoners in general, if i can, america does so many things right. one of the few blatant things we do very badly is prison. conservative republicans and liberal democrats agree, we have 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's population and 66% recidivism rate. it's broken and when 77% of the people behind bars are addict and we treat only 11% of those.

that's a sin. what alexandra did was shine a bright light in a dark place. >> a two-part question. one you feel blessed because she won't be following with her camera. i read that initially you were surprised when you found out she was making a dot. the first question is, what did you think she was doing? the second question is how many people who you see in front of you in prison as you speak, how many when you lock at them do you see yourself? >> let me answer them in reverse order. i see myself in all of them. i think part of my journey is understanding my brokenness and bringing that close to my heart. i see in these women, women who are struggling and they started so much further back at a different starting line. their starting line was in the

project and the grittiest ugliest places in new jersey. family systems that didn't work and people popping bags of dope and running and gunning. they replicated the behavior for them and they wind up in the place and they want to do things differently and they have to be taught. i think i do see a lot of myself in them. as to alexandra, i thought that the story was told ad nauseam. we love peace and quiet. alexandra doesn't stop. she puts a lot of the focus on the women with whom i worked. on their story. >> before we get to you, let's take a look. we want to show you. >> it's remarkable how great it is when we are broken, we begin

to understand that there is a potential to have a different value shift. to live a different way. >> he is so uplifted. >> you can tell. you apply to the people they love. >> alexandra, as mike said, initially how did this happen? >> i saw jim and i -- >> what did you do? >> their benchmark is higher or lower. >> we can ask you why you are a tabloid fixture in a second. >> you asked permission and he said no. >> i met with him and his partner and i explained i was interested in the team of redemption. who earned it or deserves it or

gets it. there a lost broken public figures. i was fascinated by the work he was doing and i wanted to see for myself whether or not it was sincere and whether or not he deserved redemption. i talked about it because i am a cynic. so i went to them and asked them about it and they said no, please, get lost. don't come anywhere near us. i said respect 3 okay and i decided that i had to take visits to the jail to see what he was doing and see if he showed up. >> and he did. let's talk about this thing that made you a tabloid fixture. you called august 12th 2004, the day you resigned as governor a train wreck. why? >> i think obvious reasons. i came out of the closet in the messiest of circumstances. what we saw yesterday and the day before in terms of the supreme court is a very different sense of understanding

of where gay rights are in this country. my dream is at some point in terms of young women and men growing up, they will have a different sense of themselves and gay rights. to paraphrase the ark of freedom in this country does move in the right direction and believe americans will embrace that so that young people do it in a far more healthy and appropriate way than i did. >> do you think if august 12th, 2004 was march 2013, do you think you would have felt compelled to resign? >> i try never to play the what if. i think i made the right moral and ethical decision at long last and the right decision for me personally for the state and my family. i would say i think the calculus

has changed so profoundly in this nation and it's invigorating. if i thought i would see an african-american president and if i see lgbt rights and people will be examined based on content of their character and not based on other items. i think america is moving in what i perceive to be the right direction. >> in terms of what they may or may not do. we going to talk about prison rights? >> sure. in terms of the supreme court, we have seen brought outlines and what they are likely to do. in your own mind as a gay person, what do you look for and how far do you want them to go and do they need to go to reassure we are in this ark. >> steven, i think based on justice kennedy's questioning, the court particularly as to

doma will decide the civil issues based on federalism as opposed to the question of equal protection. obviously as a gay person i would like the supreme court to say that all persons ought to be afforded the same rights. i received a birth certificate and when i die i receive a death certificate. i would like to have a marriage certificate and not a less than marriage certificate. it's one of the basic notions that the notion of equality is that there no different standards. no greater than and lesser than. justice ginsburg put it the way i would like to. there is a lesser quality. listening to the pundits yesterday and reading this morning's times, you get the possibility that the supreme court can allow the state to be incubators of change.

i believe the integrity of the issue is such that as a matter of law we need the courts to enshrine the basic laws. >> i think the popular culture is so far ahead of the elite, but it makes a difference. i was with young people and one young girl came out as being gay and these boys chastised her and knocked her down and the teacher didn't do anything and the principal didn't do anything. it makes a difference when the supreme court of the united states says this is the law of the line and is who we are as a people. i hope they will become -- i'm confident it will. >> i have a question that perhaps you can't answer. of the inmates that you have encountered in your journey who are kept in prison, what

percentage of them do you think are kept in prison because they were not kept in fifth, 6th or seventh grade? >> a few things that make me more angry than the fact that we read psalms every morning. they come through and can't read the king james version. some of the most beautiful language. it's frustrating. that goes to the heart of what's wrong with prisons? people don't get educate and don't get punished. they do nothing. they play dominos and guys weight lift. nothing is happening. what is frustrating to me is one, we have to make amends for the failures in public

education. prison should be places where we focus treatment, particularly for addicts and we understand the importance of changing behaviors which is critically important and work. i grew up seeing my father get ready for work and my mother go on to work. many of these women never saw somebody go to work. we have to change the ethos and bring back the dignity of work. the fact that these women can't read. we wouldn't have let that happen to our children. the subtle racism of what i feel that we can have a different set of expectations for kids because they are brown or black and happen to live in urban wherever. we ought to have the highest expectations and demand that level of proficiency. >> what time is it on tonight? >> 8:00 p.m.

that's my job to say that. hbo, 8:00 p.m. >> very well, alexandra. your mother will be proud. >> thanks very much for joining us. up next, they didn't know what they were working on and they knew it was top secret. this is a fascinating story. denise reveals the story of the young americans whouz work helped win world war ii. the girls of atomic city, next on "morning joe." easter's here, and i'm with janette talking about the walmart low price guarantee. that's your receipt from another store? yep. let's go! check out that price. that's walmart's every day low price. that's what i'm talking about! yes, yes! oh my goodness! that's the walmart low price guarantee! bring in your last grocery receipt and see for yourself. save more on the candy your family loves. with low prices on reese's eggs and bunnies, cadbury creme eggs, and all their hershey's favorites. get more easter for your money, guaranteed. with our low price guarantee backed by ad match. walmart.

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the b 29 dropped and exploded with 20,000 tons of tnt. >> footage from august 6th, 1945. when the u.s. military dropped an atomic on hiroshima, japan. it was a product of the manhattan project and worked with thousands of young american women who are never told what they were working on. joining us, denise and her new book. the girls of atomic city, the untold story of the women who helped win world war ii. this is a fascinating story. oak ridge, tennessee. a secret city. >> really very much a secret

city. it was fascinating for me to work on every step of the way. as a writer you hope it will be something you can continue to be fascinated with throughout the process which can be long. i have to say i was there the whole time. >> how is it, we are semi well informed here or at least i am. it leads to a very well-informed. >> i was too. >> how did you come across it? why is this a secret? >> i was working on another completely different topic and i was researching and online and i came across this picture that just totally hooked me. it was these young women sitting in front of these very large panels that had all these knobs and dials and gauges and things. the caption, it was the picture right there. i loved the picture here with the point at the end of the

room. the lovely young ladies with the 1940s hairstyles and the posture. i read this caption and it says these young women, many of them high school graduates from rural tennessee were enriching fuel for the world's first atomic bomb, only they did know that at the time. i thought okay. at first i thought like you just said, i think i'm pretty well-informed. i thought it was a knowledge gap. we all have them. i asked other people who i thought were well-informed. their understanding was exactly was mine was. los alamos. that was the understanding of the manhattan project. however there were a number of facilities involved somehow in the project, but three main sites. los alamos and hanford, washington and the most populous and administrative headquarters

for the project was oak ridge, tennessee. >> what are did they think they were doing? >> what's funny is 50 of all they knew from the get go they were not allowed to know what they were doing. it's not as though they were told you are making chairs. then surprise. it wasn't like that. you don't get to know. >> look at the picture. >> that is -- what you see here and what you hear here let it stay here. they knew it was a strict project and they were told you cannot know for security reasons and all we can tell you is we hope it will help end the war. basically everything was extremely compartmentalized. >> what were their lives like apart from work? >> on a daily basis apart from work there was dorm life for the

young single women. for the women who never left home at 17, 18 years old, for them it was like what they thought college was. college they probably cooperate attend. you are living in a dorm and in a confined space. this was a reservation. there were a bunch of young single men. they are working intently, but there dances almost every night and lots of hooking up. >> sorry that what they called it? >> that's what they called it. the 89-year-old women are calling it today. sure. yeah, we were hooking up. sure. never get serious with anybody. >> as always with any great story it's greater when you put a face on the story. there human beings on the story. there is a woman thaw write about.

>> sealia i met in oak ridge early on in the process. that's her on the left when she was a young lady working. she originally worked for the manhattan project here in manhattan. that's where the name comes from. the original headquarters were here. she gets called into the office and said we need to move and we would like you to come with us. where are we going? can't get into that. how long will we be gone? to nine months. how am i going to get there? you get on a train and you will be heading down south to the state of tennessee and someone will tell you when to get off and you will be given more information. that's how it was. when i think of a daughter of a coal miner. she is still there today. you will be there six to nine months and she has been there 70 years now. >> how many of these women are

still alive? >> i found quite a few. one of the difficult things is always kind of deciding who to focus on and who to leave on the cutting room floor, so to speak. it became a very tight knit community because you are in that badge and a pass and you are part of that community or you are not. not all of them, but for a lot it was not a community they wanted to leave. oak ridge change and grew and more opportunities were available. a lot of them stayed. >> amazing story. a great story. great, great story. the book is the girls of atomic city. this is terrific. >> thank you so much for having me. >> up next, new data shows more people applying for jobless benefits. what does that say about the economy? the shack man is next on "morning joe." what can i get you?

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. >> look at that. ice skating on a nice december day. giving us this cold forecast and people still ice skating. we have the shackman across the river. how is it going? >> it's going well. always a good day to skate and play hockey even in august in my opinion. >> stop it. >> come on now. >> let's talk a little business here, folks. we had a couple of pieces of data that are important. stocks are slightly higher. the final revision on fourth quarter gdp and plus .4%. it was a little bit

disappointing, but the initial print on this you may recall was negative. at least we are not on a trajectory. picking up and mildly concerting and disconcerting. something to keep an eye on and it's not near 400,000 and that's when it will be a problem. the banks are open and they did have a bit of a frantic rush to the door. they did open and things have calmed down. there limitations. you can only take out 300 euros. they will review a transaction over 5,000. scrutinize any transaction over 200,000 and you can only leave the island with 1,000 euros. >> brian, i think not with standing that new claims number, generally the economics have been positive. the forecast would have been raising the estimates for first quarter gdp and confidence and

spending. it's getting a bit stronger. >> no doubt. to your point, if you had a 357, huh to put it in perspective, profits were better than expected. i think you are correct. the question is now the debate is well, we get the grand bargain, is that the spring board or will we get the near record levels in the stock market before the retail investors feel like they get burned again. >> we haven't really seen the full effects of the sequester yet. >> we have not brought that up at all these days. that will be more of a q2 issue. later in the spring into the early summer is when we feel it. you guys brought up when we get to a debt ceiling debate, it could be reset anyway. >> when you mentioned q2, i

thought you were talking about a cruise ship. >> you did good this week. you wore a tie and did sports. you looked solid. thank you. you are the first person who hasn't dumped on me this week. >> you did good. >> i appreciate it. up next, a look at this morning's headlines including a big change in boston politics. keep it here. more than two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we've shared what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. bp's also committed to america. we support nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs

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>> time for a look at a couple of headlines. oscar pistorius will be allowed to travel abroad for track events. he is being charged in the murder of his supermodel girlfriend. he has been under strict travel restrictions. his lawyers appealed this morning and the judge granted the judge. he is not yet competing internationally, but his attorneys say he may in the future. in the boston herald as well as the boston globe, mayor thomas menino is expected to announce he will not seek a 6th office. he told the associated press the 70-year-old democrat will make it official later today. they said the mayor did plan to make an announcement. he faced health problems recently including an eight-week hospitalization in the fall.

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with miracle-gro. . america has been waiting for this moment. people sit down and wait and take note. what did they learn today? what did you learn today? >> i learned about the girls of atomic city. we thought it was the manhattan project and a lot of women were sworn toy is creaty. >> a time capsule and a group of women not told and they do it anyway. what did you learn? >> i could stump you on sports. >> you didn't learn that. >> i thought that was for real. i