>> new jersey governor chris christie, did you hear about this? did you hear what is going on? he had the stomach surgery so he won't be so big. did you hear about that? >> yeah. >> what year is this? but his family gave him the choice. they said, look, you either have that surgery or get your own zip code but with every surgery, there is always some after the fact. it's like a punch list like a contractor goes through the house. okay, okay. same thing happens with major surgery and it's happening to chris christie after he had this lap belt or whatever they call it surgery. >> yeah. >> you know? here is what i'm talking about. >> our handling of the budget is one example to change. so it has arrived. >> all right. good morning. >> what in the world? >> the jokes are going to stop,

joe. >> yeah, they will never stop. but it's news. you talk to brian williams. it's wednesday, may 8th. good morning. with us is mike barnicle and jon meacham and tv's own willie geist. >> special every day for the last six years. >> today is a special day. >> extra special. >> because it's special. >> yes. >> he is here today. >> any way a lot to talk about. mark sanford wins. >> yeah. ? is your mike off or somebody creeping behind you for no reason? >> no. >> all right. >> people just usually come up like a petting zoo. then they go home. >> that is what she said. >> a lot to talk about today. mark sanford wins. in the end it wasn't even close on capitol hill today. ben ghazi hearings go. the "the washington post" reporting that the focus now has turned directly to hillary clinton. a lot of democrats are trying to undo her for 2016 already and

bill clinton saying let's stop talking about 2016. i think he is recognizing making her too big of a target. you have wiretapping? >> i do. >> easier for the feds to wiretap us. they can can go into our e-mails and instant messages. >> instant messages? >> you should see the snap chats willie sends me. good lord. >> as long as you stay away from the snap chats. >> willie, you need to stop. my daughter saw one of those. >> they disappear. >> poof shroom. >> but not before i'm disturbed. >> why would they create a technology like that, willie? we will talk about that later too. vladimir putin, did you see how rude he was to john kerry? >> we will get to that. we had a great time in philadelphia last night. we thank the folks there to the

philadelphia free library. >> newfound woman for three young woman who were held captainive and kidnapped in a cleveland home. the three vanished between august of 2002 and april of 2004 in separate incidents. they were between 14 and 20 years old. on monday, after years of being locked away from family and friends, berry broke free and held by a neighbor who heard her cries and kicked open the front door to her. investigators are looking back to see how the victims could have been held so long without being detected. nbc's ron allen reports. >> the three brothers are aerial castro, 52 and pedro, 54 and o'neill 50. it is aerial who neighbors knew best as the school bus driver and gave kids ride in an altering vehicle on the streets of this blue collar hispanics neighborhood. the three women who each

disappeared a year apart were last seen within a five-block radius and held in castro's house three miles away. the castro brothers uncle owns a neighborhood corner store. >> they might have been living two different lives. >> reporter: some neighbors thought the house was vacant a place that he checked on from time to time. but now a few were concerned. >> no windows, no doors. only the attic window. >> i've had family members who have phoned the police and they have come and knocked down the door and nothing. >> reporter: police say they only answered calls twice on the street and once before the women disappeared and in 2004 to question aril castro about a child left behind on his school bus. no charges were filed. >> what we have here is a psychopath or possibly three. usually when you have three team involved in something you do have a ring leader and my guess is the person owning that house and how much his brothers were involved, we done yet. >> reporter: it turns out the castros have ties to one of the women rescued.

gene a de jesus. arlene appeared in this episode of "america's most wanted." and said she was the last to see gene a alive. >> my mom said, no, i can't go over to her house. and so i told her i couldn't and she said, well, okay, i'll talk to you later and she -- >> aerial's son wrote an article in 2004. yet another strange twist, pedro castro also now in custody was near the scene of a search for amanda berry's body last year, castro told reporters the search was a waste of money. >> according to one local reporter, the victims were chained by the neck and waist. in fact, details were so horrible, some investigators had to leave the room as the women described their abuse. a neighbor tells roieuters saw

aril comforting one of the mothers at a vigil and acted as if nothing was wrong. the same report said castro would take the little girl who was removed from the home to the park in the early morning. >> so many horrible parts of this story. you just wonder how it happens, how this has happened and that it went on for so long. >> and how they survived which we will hear more about in the coming days. we will get to a lot of other news this morning. former south carolina governor mark sanford is returning to elected office. he beat elizabeth colbert hsh busch last night. sanford had massive wins in conservative outlying counties and some by as much as 40% and a huge cash advantage for colbert-busch and took in almost a million dollars, sanford received about a fifth of that amount. last night, mark sanford touched

on a familiar theme from his campaign, second chances. >> i am one imperfect man saved by god's grace but one who has a conviction on the importance of doing something about spending in washington, d.c. and it's my pledge to every one of you here from this day going forward that i am going to be trying to be the best congressman that i could have ever been in working towards -- >> you know, willie, it's interesting. politico as they were talking about the race last night as the results came in said it wasn't even close. said the turning point was something that caused a lot of us to sort of raise our eye borro eyebrows. they said when sanford was mocked of debating the cardboard cutout of nancy pelosi they cheered because that was bringing nancy pelosi into the race and they knew the more that it was about nancy pelosi, the less it was about him and what he did.

and it paid off. he won. >> he effectively moved past his own past and the voters did that with him. he talked about nancy pelosi. he talked about president obama. he talked about washington. he remained people in that district why they elected him in 1994 in the first place. because of cutting down government spending. he said if you can get past what i've done i'm not proud of what i've done three years ago, come with me and we will change the way things are done in washington. he did it, remember, with no backing from the national republican party. they pulled out of this race. the d-triple c went in on this race and he still won by nine points. >> he ended up winning and very conservative district. mitt romney won it by 20 points. this is a critical time for president obama. so certainly republicans are going to come out on this. south carolina fascinating state. one of the most conservative

socially but they have sent mark sanford back to congress and newt gingrich won the republican primary famously twice divorced and gingrich still won. does that say about the changing electorate that americans are moving past, a more pure approach to what they expect from their candidates? >> i think we saw that in the impeachment process. the man who was impeached for this was made popular. i do think that is a technical -- i mean, a practical example of moving past politics of the bedroom. >> can i turn it around and ask if a woman in this position had run, would she have won? >> i don't think she would have come back to try to run. >> depends on how conservative she was. >> do you? >> you know what i found is both sides are willing to forgive just about anything, as long as their person is -- see it time

and time again. remember how outraged my democrats were at john tower. not the john tower that works for us. he outrages them every day. john tower, a senator from texas and going to be secretary of defense and democrats would stand up on the senate floor and say this man is sixth in line to be president of the united states and he has been known to drink and convert with women and this was two years ago they nominatno nominated diagram. >> can we have a woman in a similar situation? i can't think of one. >> maybe they have healthier reactions to personal crises than running for office. >> let's stay on this. i think mike was touched on the point. >> steve schmidt raised it a bit yesterday in that he was initial stunned that elizabeth colbert had come as close as she had given the conservative roots of that district. that's what it is.

>> 45% -- >> it's not forgiveness. >> interesting. >> it's ideology. >> liberals forgive conservative and it's a conservative district and he is going to vote conservative. by the way, if he also is, love him or hate him, he is one hell of a grassroots campaigner and goes back to the pat buchanan rule, mika. political athletes win and he is a political athlete. the guy was about as good on the campaign trail as anybody could have been in this situation. >> really interesting test question to this is if the gary hart matter happened now that happened pre'88, what would happen to presidential politics? >> let me turn that question around to you. what if gary hart had behaved differently? what, instead of taking it all on his shoulders and being so angst ridden and crying for help, what if he said to the

"the washington post" reporting who ever said have you ever converted adultery? he said have responded have you? i'll talk to my preacher and tell him but not you. what if gary hart had said that? >> instead of "follow me." >> i've been clear, willie, do not follow us. but clinton four years later, things didn't change that much between '88 and '92. clinton was ready to fight it out and gary hart in '88 wasn't. such a shock to him. if he had told the guy screw off, it's none of your business, then we would have had that debate in '88 instead of '92 and hart may have won. >> i he may well have won. talk about a political athlete. >> just read frank bruni's comment from last sunday. >> they didn't look past his personal life but the fact he left his office as governor. that's what a lot of that was

not so much judgment about who he was but about the idea he would leave his office and not tell anyone where he was. that was a problem. >> or president and stayed in his office. >> in the day of turning things around. let's say this was a democrat in san francisco that had done something terrible and was running against a republican right now. what would happen there? i mean, you know? vote for the democrats. >> sure. >> journey of self-reflection on the appalachian trail. >> exactly. a male journey. >> i don't know how deep it makes but be about ideology. i'm in napa valley. i'll be back next week. is that what they do out there? >> i'm touring. >> wine tasting! >> i'm sorry. >> the gallo brothers! okay. later this morning, a house committee set to hold a hearing on last summer's deadly attack

in ben ghazi. conservative lawmakers are already characterized as a scandal and senator lindsey graham said the dam is about to break. congressman steve king's words, if you link watergate and iran/contra together and multiply it ten times or so you're in the zone where ben ghazi is. >> i'm sorry. >> testimony has already leaked from one of the witnesses who reportedly said that a special forces unit was ready to fly from tripli. a report in december found no wrong doing in the handling of hillary clinton in the incident. he admitted he never interviewed hillary clinton and said he thought he had enough information from staffers in meetings with her.

some democrats are arguing the real aim to republicans is damage a potential 2016 presidential bid by former secretary of state hillary clinton. i tend to agree with that. >> let's see how the investigation goes. >> i think we have guests going on today that will talk about this but it does seem a little extreme the parallels being made. is that okay to say? >> that's one congressman from western iowa who is comparing -- yeah, listen. there is no doubt that a lot of conservative groups out there have been talking about ben ghazi from day one and talking about what a huge scandal it's going to be. let's have the investigations. we will see what the truth of the matter is and there is some questions, for instance, about the special ops wanting to go and held back. some say they wouldn't have gotten there in time. let's have full and open

hearings and see what happens. the obama administration is on the brink of backing an fbi plan that will fundamentally change wirehappening in -- wiretapping in the united states and making it easier for officials to eavesdrop on communication over the intent. since 2010 the bureau has pushed for a legal mandate to make it possible for google and facebook to wiretap conversations. that is loaded. >> that is loaded. mike barnicle, a quote from an expert in this field saying that these rules make us look more like china than america because you got the federal government, the justice department that is demanding that google, verizon and other companies slow down certain technological advances because they want to be able to wiretap on whatever communications, e-mail communications or text communication or instant messaging communications that they want to wiretap. a lot of privacy concerns here.

>> i don't know how they would do that because they have already been inundated with information. the boston bombings when they flashed those pictures up and said contact us if you've seen these men or know these men. the fbi computer crashed. their system crashed within the first half hour. they got so many responses. i don't know how -- i don't know what kind of system they would have in place to collect this information, immense, immense amount of data that is spewed out every day. just his alone. just his texting alone. >> the fbi's argument for this is that -- >> what -- >> tapping phones is no longer getting the information they need. they said they have, quote, gone dark because it's all happening online and they need access to get it from there. >> you go online, you can build a bomb. >> would there be authority here? would there have to be a warrant

here or warrantless wiretapping? >> i believe it's warrantless. >> some sort of roaming system. you know, trigger words that appear. >> if you're worried about stopping frisk, worry about -- >> exactly. a good story, too. so one last story here before we go to break. we talked about this yesterday a little bit. the political world has been watching new jersey governor chris christie's weight for some time and, yesterday, it was revealed he secretly had lapband surgery back in february which restricts the amount of food a person can actually take in. christie has reportedly dropped 40 pounds since he underwent the procedure. the possible presidential contender addressed his health and career aspirations head-on. >> it's not a career issue for me. it is a long-term health issue for me. and that is the basis upon which i made the decision. everybody is going to have opinions as is obvious from this, you know, scrum of people here today, but i don't -- with

all due respect, everybody here, you're opinions on this issue really don't matter a whole hell of a lot to me. >> not really sure what they were asking him because it was a good decision. christie discussed the moment that led to the change and appearance with david letterman back in february. >> the doughnut incident with david letterman was kind of my -- my good-bye. >> your curtain call? >> it was. dave, obviously, didn't know that and nor did anybody else. i needed to do something. i did not want to take the risk of becoming unhealthy and the ramifications it would have for mary pat and my four children. i still have children in elementary school so i have a long road here as a father and i don't want to miss any of it. >> willie, i wish -- we should have talked to him. i wish he could have held this back and said a book that he read that caused his decision. >> he's in the book. we talked about his options a few months ago doing research

for it. >> coincide? i think not. >> during obsessed week he comes out. mika said, read my book, right? >> no. i actually have a friend in the book who was a step before having that surgery. i know how serious it is. i'm happy for him. he saved his life. >> i'm not saying i'm not happy. >> it's amazing. i don't know how he did that secretly! >> we talk about advice c and cocaine and speed and a lot of pills, right? chris said i'm not going that way and get the surgery as well. >> wise man. >> he didn't follow the grateful dead's advice. >> rex ryan on this show he lost a hundred pounds with this exact surgery and chris christie said in that interview with brian he consulted rex ryan. when ryan was in here, he said it saved my life and changed my life and i don't know why more people don't do it. you have to check with your doctor to make sure it's the right thing for you but saved his life. >> when you get to a certain weight it's dangerous to be that

weight. it's an option for people that saves their lives and extend their lives. >> rex ryan is also on the verge of shedding his job. >> different story. different story. >> it should have been shedded last year. you want to talk about a terrible human being. ed rendell. >> oh, lord! >> he did it -- >> last night. we were in philadelphia and mika is there. i swear to god she is signing about a thousand books. it's like jfk 1964. massive crowd. nothing like loaded. but it was a massive crowd. and so mika is signing books. i swear. she goes to whole foods and gets kale chips. the worst tasting thing i've ever tasted. then baby comes in. i thought she was going to eat that baby. ed rendell comes in with federal doughnuts. have you heard of that?

and fried chicken. i ate all of those doughnuts and fried chicken. she is signing the books and i'm eating doughnuts. >> that's what you did. >> i'm telling you, those were the best doughnuts! >> that is the cradle of -- >> we brought them back. i think they are somewhere around here. federal doughnuts in philadelphia. the best doughnuts you've ever had. >> the problem is you can't just have one bite. that's what we address in the book that we talked about yesterday evening as well. >> did the governor give a reading? >> he did! it was ridiculous! it was unbelievable. i couldn't believe it. yes, he did a dramatic reading from "obsessed" did ed rendell. >> was he invited or just showed up? >> no. seriously. every time we go to philadelphia, he just shows up. >> thank you, ed. >> we love you. >> coming up on "morning joe," outspoken critic of the obama administration's handling of ben ghazi. republican senator lindsey graham will be here. also a new effort on background

checks gains momentum in the house. congressman peter king joins us to preview his bill. we have to show you the critter too. and later, a shocking new look at our -- the cricket. is it the cricket or the crit r critter? >> a cricket. >> and steven brill will be here and dr. zeke emanuel will join that conversation. up next, the political playbook. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> messy out there. rain around new york city and summer like feel to it and humidity way up overnight and now heavy rain with it and have significant travel implications in the air. and on the roads. especially right through new york city. the green on the map is the rain where you can see the white strokes here that is a thunderstorm coming up along the jersey shore that should move through the greater new york city area with heavy rain the next hour to hour and a half and i expect when the airports get going here the next hour and a half where we will see more

significant delays there. we have rain further out that is rotating through the pittsburgh area. but that is drying up. also look south of boston. additional thunderstorms out in the ocean. that will swing up into southern new england by about mid-morning. so keep that in mind for your plans. as far as the rest of the forecast, again, not too many other big troubles out there around the country. the worst is definitely by far in the greater new york city area. we will keep an eye on that for you. as of now, no significant airport delays. i bet by about 8:00 or 9:00 that will significantly change. the only other big pautopic is oklahoma city. i don't think it's too bad with tornadoes. mostly large hail and damaging winds. once again, i'd have to argue the worst weather in the country this morning found right here in new york city. slow commute. umbrellas needed. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ shadows on the wall

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you're kind of shocked by that, aren't you? >> when does that end? >> just give me a moment. >> mika just flinched at this. >> no, i didn't. >> show her the pages from the "new york post." mika just didn't get this. a newsman becomes a news woman. come on. it's 2013. didn't mike brady do this in a movie in the '70s. >> let's go to morning papers. >> hold on! willie has something. >> another headline. great news, everybody. il i'm giving away money today. trump tower. he is giving away money. >> like crazy eddie! >> fundanything.com.

>> wow. >> no question about it. >> are we done? let's take a look at the morning papers. "wall street journal" the dow closed above 15,000 for the first time ever on tuesday. the dow is off to hits fastest start since 1999. >> that was a good year. wi mike, i tell you what, the disconnect between main street and wall street that never been greater. you got this story and another story, i think in "the washington post" that was talking about that most of the jobs that are being added are people making 24,000 a year, or less. >> it might be the largest gap in history. wall street soars above 15,000 and stays there, the dow. one of the reasons they say above 15 thousand is they shed jobs and become more profitable. it's been months and months and

months since hourly wage workers received a pay rage and corporations becoming increasingly popular and middle class increasingly from a decade ago. at frightening prospect. >> so, mika, is the next story this "the washington post" story i sent you. read this. it's amazing and feeds into the problem. >> here it is. "the washington post." according to a new study federal taxpayers employ more low income workers than walmart and mcdonald combined. 2 million people make under $24,000 a year. by comparison walmart and mcdonald's have 1.4 millions such employees. if the contractor's pay goes up the report shows wages of federal employees do not. >> one of the new net jobs at the labor department were added in april came in low wage

sectors. a study last year found that low wage occupations accounted for 1 in 5 jobs lost during the recession. but they accounted for 3 out of 5 jobs that have been added in the recovery. again, the jobs that are coming in are majority low wage jobs. this is a generational shift and massive problem. >> then the other element of it, the people who have lost jobs that they had held most of their lifetimes and between the ages of 45 and 55. those jobs are never coming back. they might be chronically unemployed. >> begun related homicide fell 40% in last 20 years and other gun crime is down. more than half of all people believe gun violence is up according to a report.

>> cell phones play a larger role in more car crashes than initially believed. a new report says many drives don't admit to using their phones during incidents and widespread lack of consistency in reporting whether cell phones were involved. for instance, in one year, tennessee had 93 traffic fatalities related to cell phones and new york state reported just one and washington, d.c. reported zero. >> this report suggests that 1 in 4 accidents are now related to cell phones. >> i believe it. willie? >> finally, a little living proof that bacon is, in fact, good for you 37. >> i love bacon! >> look at pearl, richland, springs, texas. she is 105 years old. >> god love her. >> she claims -- why with re looking at the wiener mobile? her tale diet of bacon keeps her going. bacon is the fountain of youth there in the kitchen! her story a has gotten a lot of

attention so much so that oscar mayer brought her a massive supply. >> she had a hard life raising all us so she deserves all of this. >> reporter: with her stomach and heart full, pearl says this day marks a special memory on her lengthy time line. >> i will never, never forget it as long as i live. >> reporter: the 105-year-old serves as a reminder to us all the importance of family, a positive attitude, and, of course, bacon. >> all right! >> sitting in front of us all this time! >> i would love a kiss from pearl. >> god bless texas right there. >> and oscar mayer. >> they are doing the right thing. >> the wiener mobile. they drove her around in a wiener. 105th birthday. think about that. >> you don't have many opportunities like that. >> welcome to america. >> very impressed.

>> thank you. >> pork is health. that's what i always say. pork is health. >> the fountain of youth. end of story. >> why don't we go to politico? >> would love that. >> joining us for the playbook is john harris. good morning. >> good morning. >> let's talk a little immigration, john, shall we? conservatives duking it out over immigration reform and one round is between marco rubio of jim deminute and heritage foundation. they lined up over their careers but rubio says the one place where i leave jim demint. >> no question, willie. they are both heroes of the tea party movement and that is one of the big variables. maybe the biggest variable in terms of what happens to the cause of comprehensive immigration reform. is there a tea party style revolt within the republican party? you have these two individuals both of whom are on important

figures. they are both heroes and on different sides of the issue. yesterday, in marco rubio's office he hosted a group of conservatives trying to get them on board with immigration reform. that's probably a stretch but if he can keep them from having this negative reaction the way they did to, say, health reform that is important in terms of giving other republicans cover. jim demint is on the other side of this and his big report out the other day saying immigration reform would lead to trillions of new cost. demint versus rubio for the hearts and minds of the conservative base. >> you know what? i think rubio, jon, is fighting an uphill battle between those. you know, we have had very little talk about pushback defen against this but i think moving from where we were until this point where we are not even

talking about legalization, we are talking about citizenship. i think that's going to be a heavy lift at the end of the day. i think jeb who i know he has gone back and forth. i think is now back to the citizenship part. but in his book, he talks about a pathway to legalization. i think that's -- i can't see the republicans going past that and i think people in the press have overlooked this fact a little bit too much. i think this is going to be a really heavy lift for marco rubio who may find himself isolated by the end of the day. >> yeah, i think he knows what a heavy lift it is and i think he feels he has cover on this issue that other politicians wouldn't because of his personal background but i totally agree with you, joe. i think the press, because we know the republican elite, by and large, is in favor of comprehensive immigration reform were underestimating how volatile this issue is.

>> jon, you remember back, obviously, in '05, '06, i guess '07, busch pushing for immigration. you had the republican president of the united states. you had the "the wall street journal," the most powerful conservative media outlet there is, they are both pushing for aggressively for immigration reform and the conservative base rose up and stopped it. i don't see why that doesn't happen again this time. >> the difference now, of course, is republicans have gotten shellacked in a presidential election they thought they should have won given the larger political conditions. the question is does that lessen which i think the republican elite really believes in deeply, is it felt at all at the lower sort of populace level of the party if we don't do this we will never win elections again? i think a lot of people aren't looking at it that way and thinking this is an issue of right and wrong and many people sincerely feel it's wrong to have a pathway to citizenship

for illegals and i think this is in the hands of marco rubio. >> a guy like mark could be chefed by the press and national media and wake up one day and find that the conservative base has gone the other way on this. again, i'd be surprised if the conservative basis didn't follow demint and heritage on this and say -- legalization, fine, but citizenship for illegals? as jon said, i don't see it. >> do you, as a conservative, believe the press overstates that this is an existential crisis for the republican party if they walk away from immigration reform and lose -- >> yes. generals always fight the last war. the media always fights the last war. jon and i have talked about this pretty extensively. you read the press clippings that the week after goldwater's 1964 victory. my god.

it was the end of the republican party. the quotes that jon and i were talking about just -- it was stunning. two years later in 1966, what happened? the revolution started in california with reagan. the republicans won in the south for the first time. i don't think it is, but this happens all the time. >> it does happen all the time and understandably because we get so invest inside an election and it's results unlike a lot of our political conversation, there are numbers to go with it. one of the things i wonder about the immigration debate is if it is not at the risk of suffering the same kind of fate as the health care debate in that there hasn't been an enormous amount of public education what this is actually about. i think president obama suffered a great deal never explaining what was in the bill necessarily. i don't think many people, even pretty sharp folks could tell you the great distinction

between legalization and citizenship pathway. >> by the way, a huge difference between legalization and citizenship and i think a conservative could make the argument that it's humane to support the legalization of these people who have been here for a long time with families and have been working hard and even benefits for their children and citizenship for their children possibly. but for everybody else rges they have they have to play by the rules that immigrants have to play by. i'd be comfortable making that argument at any district on any national stage and if they want to call me a bigot, it's about fairness. be fair to the people that are contributing so much to our economy but also to immigrants across the world that want to be american citizens too and been waiting in line for ten years. but, again, no debate. there is no discussion.

so is the president going to be shocked when he is blindsided a month or two from now? i don't know. we will see. i'm just simple country lawyer. >> john harris with a look at the poe little ko playbook. >> thank you, john. alec, for this mission i upgraded your smart phone. ♪ right. but the most important feature of all is... the capital one purchase eraser. i can redeem the double miles i earned with my venture card to erase recent travel purchases. and with a few clicks, this mission never happened.

uh, what's this button do? [ electricity zaps ] ♪ you requested backup? yes. yes i did. what's in your wallet? yes i did. all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one. standing by for capture. the most innovative software on the planet... dragon is captured. is connecting today's leading companies to places beyond it. siemens. answers. i don'without goingcisions to angie's list first. you'll find reviews on home repair to healthcare written by people just like you. with angie's list, i know who to call, and i know the results will be fantastic. angie's list -- reviews you can trust.

playoffs last night. knicks and pacers at the garden.

pacers were celebrating the 18th anniversary of reggie miller incredible eight points in nine seconds moment against the knicks. indiana hoping some of that magic still in the building but not so much. a close game into the second half but then the knicks ran away. this is the second quarter. look at that follow by iman shumpert cleaning it up. he had 15 points. jordanesque, dare i kay. carmelo had 16 points during a 30-2 run to blow this thing open in the second half. patrick ewing likes it. knicks beat up on the pacers in game two. >> how many assists definitid h? >> he is not an assist guy, he's a scorer. memphis won over oklahoma city. >> matt harvey almost a perfect game. >> knocking on the door. still ahead on "morning joe." >> i've never eaton a hot pocket

and then, afterwards, "i'm glad i ate that." more like "i'm going to die! i paid for that? did i eat it or rub it it on my face?" >> jim gaffigan on the set with us. he has a new book called "dad is fat." that is the name of his new book. >> i love it! that's perfect! >> mika must read opinion pages up next. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks.

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as you look at the nation's capital, we have an update on the story that you broke earlier this morning, willie. willie, first, show your story. >> we record exclusively a few minutes ago that donald trump is giving away money at 10:30 a.m. >> in the "new york post"?

>> yes. jon meacham is at the update desk. what do you have? >> i also have it in "the new york times." a larger picture. >> how much money did that cost? >> this guy is giving away a lot of money. >> 10:30, if you're in new york city. >> worth braving the rain. >> cold, hard cash! willie geist, i don't know if the police -- i don't know if real esta ray kelly has set up enough barricades. he is giving away he money. if you're in new york city, what is he doing? >> he is standing on the roof of the building and throwing money. >> i don't think that picture could be any larger. >> let's move on. >> that is massive. >> look at that. >> i'm leaving in five minutes to get in line. >> did you get the wrist band to get in early? >> yeah. i have it right here. >> massive picture of a very good looking man. >> are you done? >> i'm done. the situation in syria isn't getting any better and president

obama says the united states have a moral interest in bringing the civil war to an end. >> understandably, there's a desire for easy answers. that's not the situation there. i'm making decisions not based on a hope and a prayer. but on hardheaded analysis in terms of what will actually make us safer and stabilize the region. >> jon meacham, all due respect, nobody is expecting easy answers but 80,000 people are dead. this has been going on for a year. the president can't glibly throw this away like we are asking him to come forward and make a snap decision. people have been deg. we were talking last fall about 20,000 dead and by december we were talking about 40,000 or 50,000 dead. there are 80,000 dead now. you have a refugee crisis spilling over across the middle east and it is becoming more unstable by the day. i'm not proposing that we invade but seriously the president just

sitting there and glibly saying, oh, people just want easy answers. no, we don't want easy answers. we wanted leadership, strong leadership. we want a vision. i haven't seen a vision from this man on a massive humanitarian crisis that is destabilizing the middle east right now. >> every president has a verbal safety net. with nixon, it was always some say i should do this but i'm not and it would be some ridiculous thing. president obama's fallback is to say that things are complex and complicated and no easy answers, even all of which is true. but it's often when no one is suggesting there is a straightforward answer. >> we didn't elect him for easy answers but we elected him for tough answers. that's why we elect presidents. >> he has that -- he's right in saying the only tough issues reach that desk but, again, he saw it at the office. >> yes, he did. tomorrow on "morning joe,"

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♪ christie revealing he had lap band surgery. >> some say he will run for president in 2016. >> of course, some say that! some say that he is running for president. a sure sign. why else with a 50-year-old man with children and a loving family take steps to address

obesity and extend his life? >> welcome back. joining the set, the editor in chief of "the daily beast" tina brown and in washington nbc news chief white house correspondent and host of "the daily rundown" chuck todd. >> next hour we are at all to lindsey graham. he is going to be discussing the ben ghazi hearing. chuck todd, really quickly, before we break into news, i'm just curious what you thought "the washington post" today reporting that the ben ghazi hearings are really starting to turn focus up more exclusively to hillary clinton. democrats, of course, are saying this is all about 2016. at the same time, bill clinton is now saying let's stop talking about 2016 opinion it's becoming too much of a distraction. the clinton side show begins in earnest four years early almost. what do you make of this "the washington post" story and do

you think republicans are hammering the next years over ben ghazi? >> we have a congressional probe that wants to focus in on this and focus on state. you know, the outside report investigation of what went wrong actually really beat the living daylights out of the state department. the report that pickering and mullen did. there was not a lot of kind words about how state handled ben ghazi. >> in what ways? what were the biggest criticisms? >> i think it has to do with the security situation. is there enough focus on diplomatic security? has there been -- were those things looked out for? were requests for security ignored -- ignored is not the right word, maybe. not prioritized in the right way and that seemed the heart of this report. so that is what is kind of ironic here.

a lot of criticism at the state department at the time, but all of the focus of folks that we are talking about ben ghazi, they have been trying to get this tied to the president when, actually, it's been the state department handling of security for diplomats of the situation in general, of what exactly they were doing when it came to finding out what the ambassador was up to when he was going to travel, how much security he was going to have. all of those things. the sort of everything has been pointing at the state department for a lock ting time and now th house republicans seem to be catching up with it. >> we will be talking to lindsey graham coming up the next hour. we are learning more details about the newfound freedom for three young women who were kidnapped and held captive in a cleveland home. berry and knight and de jesus

disappeared between 2:00 and four. on monday, after years of being locked away from family and friends, berry broke free and held by a neighbor who heard her cries and kicked open the front door to her. three brothers were arrested. all in their 50s, ariel and julio. investigators are looking back to see how the victims could have been held so long without being detected. >> i have family members who have called police and knocked down the door and nothing. >> according to one local reporter the victims were chained by the neck and waist. the place was so horrible some investigators had to leave the room. a neighbor tells reuters saw aril comforting one of the mothers at a vigil and acted as if nothing was wrong. the same report said castro would take the little girl who

was removed from the home to the park in the early morning. heard reports that neighbors said they had called the police. they complained to the police. >> they had been there. >> the police would come over, knock on the door, nobody would answer so they would go away. another time, somebody said they saw something very suspicious. one of the castro brothers parked a school bus on the street and he would bring food in and somebody said, something is just not right there. the cops came, knocked on the door, he answered and they said, you can't park the bus on the street. >> it's amazing. >> you got to look at the cops and you got to look at the neighbors and you've got to ask how did this go on for so long? >> actually, we have a great piece today on "the daily beast" another about another house of horrors the cleveland police were appalling delinquent about the case of the serial killer, the sex offender. he murdered 11 women. won woman -- he wasn't arrested in 2009. in 2008, a woman called the

police terrified and beaten and shocked by this guy and escaped and when she was there she saw a headless woman in the bathtub and they still didn't arrest this man. what do the women have to do and say to get heard in cleveland when they have been undergoing the most horrendous abuse? it's like the complete police force were asleep. >> it's not just cleveland. people in poor neighborhoods have no clout with the police, with the school committee, with no one. if this happens in an upper middle class neighborhood, you know, the complaints who is in the house and who is not in the house, it gets resolved years ago. the other aspect of this you're going to get numerous numbers of people now coming forward who live in a neighborhood saying i saw this. or i saw that. and i said this and i said that. >> it will be staggering. >> there will be numbers of people reporting things that occurred and perhaps weren't responded to. the third aspect is, look. watch the number of people today

who just walk around looking at their cell phones, texting and that. we don't know each other any more! and especially in neighborhoods like that where people live in constant fear of crime, economics, unemployment. they are obsessed with their own lives. god loves them, they ought to be because no one else cares about them. it's an astonishing story but let's not be that surprised about the ripple effect. >> let's not judge the job the 911 operator does but they get a call from a neighborhood like that and literally says to amanda berry when a car frees up, we will send one. really? i was sitting there thinking don't you hear the voice of this hysterical woman who needs help? >> how about the detail of reporting the fact a neighbor had seen him leading around the garden naked girls on leashes and they just said it was, quote, probably just a prank. there is no interest, it seems, in asking what the heck is going on with these women.

i think that's, as you said, a repeated problem. >> that's why the guy who was eating his mcdonald's sandwich and responded, went across the street is such a unique individual. >> he is but i have to say he is now the hero of the hour but it seems like our bar is pretty low here. >> yes, it is. >> you're a hero if you report something weird is going on with this woman screaming and coming out with a 6-year-old child? he is now the hero of the hour. >> unbelievable. former south carolina governor mark sanford is returning to elected office. he beat elizabeth colbert-busch by nine points last night in a special election for congress. sanford had massive wins in conservative outlying counties and some by as much as 40% and a huge cash advantage for colbert-busch and took in almost a million dollars, sanford received about a fifth of that amount. last night, mark sanford touched on a familiar theme from his campaign, second chances. >> i am one imperfect man saved

by god's grace but one who has a conviction on the importance of doing something about spending in washington, d.c. and it's my pledge to every one of you here from this day going forward that i am going to be trying to be the best congressman that i could have ever been in working towards -- >> chuck, a lot of republicans in south carolina didn't even want mark sanford to run. >> right. >> in washington. >> and in washington. were very skeptical from the beginning and sent me e-mails knowing, as a friend of him, and texts, saying what a horrible idea they thought it was. so he wins. and it's a hell of a comeback but the question is what now? how do the republicans treat him in d.c.? >> and what did he win? look. he always had had a pretty good, i think, personal relationship with boehner. so i suspect, you know, he won't be a total treated as if he belongs on a leopard colony but

others will steel clear of him for a while. i think every politician dreams of being able to win without help. right? and he won -- no, i say this because then you sit there and say, i owe you nothing. right? you know? he can go in there and he's a wild card. the question is -- >> mark was one of these guys, too. then tell me what you think. i mean, when i ran the first time, the national republicans, the state republicans, the local republicans worked aggressively against me and tried to get behind a moderate the state party tried to sanction me and it was ugly. i lot 63% of the vote and won and like you said i went to washington and the first time they threatened me, i said what

are you going to do? not support me? i won by 75%. it is such a freeing -- you just get empowered. what does mark sanford do with all of that power now? >> that is the thing. what do you do with all of that po power but it's the house. only so much you can do and impact. that said, he has to bully pulpit if he wants it. one thing about mark sanford if he asks cameras to show up for something, cameras will show up to something. he has gotten ability to use -- he has a unique asset there and sort of the gee whiz press corps on capitol hill will be curious of his every move. he can use that. you saw him dabble in that. he sort is fearless on these things. a reporter once asked about the women's vote, fine, let's walk around town and find a woman who

hates hee. you want to talk about the relationship pooh with my son? let's call up my son on the cell phone. there is a fearless to him and he has freedom. yeah, i think some house republicans a little nervous about him coming back today. >> mika has heard the story a lot. >> yeah. >> but you talk about the fearlessness. one of the many times going after gingrich for spending too much, sanford was threatened. i was sitting next to sanford and gingrich and his people said they are going to strip all of the funding from sanford's district and he laughed, looked at me and said, are they threatening me? i said, yeah. he goes, i thought they were. he got up laughing in their face. he walked out the door and he scared the hell out of them and they scurried and ran after him and tried to bring him back in. there is a fearlessness. i will tell you, tina, we are talking about him more i was expecting to this morning. unlike a lot of republicans that

share -- claim to share his views, i say a lot. the most vocal. he's not a wing nut. i mean, he is very conservative physically and can activate any democrat on issues and separates him from a lot of the more conservative republicans up there. >> he is definitely not a wing nut. a lot of details that stuck with me over this whole win. people assume when he was caught trespassing in his former wife's house and i thought he came over pretty attractive. what he was doing there was to watch the super bowl with his son who said he didn't want to be in the house alone. here is another blot on sanford. i think a lot of people related it draconian. he wanted to be with his son and watch the super bowl. >> south carolina is

interesting. we were talking about this before. newt gingrich who has had a couple of divorces obviously. he won the primary. one of the most conservative states in america are american attitudes towards sex and sex scandals, moving more towards -- spartanburg becoming more french? >> i'm sure anthony weiner is high fiving himself in the mirror this morning thinking this is great for me. i always think the american public is far more forgiving of personal trespassing. >> would they be if it was a woman? >> women tend to be frankly shall we say less sexually incontinent on the public life. we haven't really see the fil t of woman in the office. i think americans are less dra

to draconian about that. what do you think? >> absolutely. where is my pay raise? i don't care what you do. where is my pay raise. moving on to other news. later this morning, a house commit set to hold a hearing on the u.s. consulate in benef gha. some call it rivalling in american history. from congressman steve king if you link watergate and iran/contra together and multiply it by ten. >> i can't do it. >> come on, man. chuck todd, explain what is going on with people like steve king -- i was on the house floor

and talked to a leading republican the day that they got sworn in. and it's time we were talking about taxes. we were talking about budgets and these other things. this republican i got great respect for said ben ghazi. this will turn the american people against barack obama. i looked at my friend of 20 years, i said, "are you kidding me?" listen, i want the investigation. wrong doers need to be -- but i don't understand why conservatives believe that this is somehow the holy grail politically. >> this is it, right. >> but they do. they do. >> i know. no, you're right. >> let me just say again for my conservative friends on the internet, if there is wrongdoing, i want it sniffed out and i want them thrown in jail if they have committed crimes, blah, blah, blah. but this, chuck, is not the

republican pathway to victory in 2014. explain what is going on in washington with this conservative base that is -- from the beginning has believed to have been that bn ghazi is their watergate. >> by the way, you'll get your set of twitter hate and i'll get my set of twitter hate for this but there is always -- there is always a set of folks in the house -- there is always a set of folks in the house that believe that if they just have subpoena power, they can drag any president into scandal and they can drag any president down. right? in some form or another. you know, you saw democrats thought they were going just drag bush into every scandal they possibly could. republicans did it a little bit with clinton an impeachment and the sex scandal a little bit.

>> we did it just a little bit, just a tad. >> i think there is something, there is sense there has got to be something. they have to get this guy on scandal rather than the fact they won on the issues in 2010 when they were able to win on health care. you would say wouldn't you rather win that way is number one. for this conspiracy theory that some people believe is out there, that the white house was trying to downplay a terrorist attack because of the election, then they did a really poor job of it. because within three or four days, it was pretty clear to the entire world this was a terrorist attack from a group that had some sort of extremist al qaeda ties. >> chuck, quick question and add to the twitter hate this morning. this seems to revolve around the lack of military response to the american ambassador being killed in an attack ongoing in ben ghazi and seems to respond what happened to four of the special ops group in trip oli.

do we have the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or the head of the tampa special operations committee? are they on the witness list? >> nors no, this is just about the state department folks. >> this is about politics. >> i think greg hicks is potentially a very krshl witness here inspect he is somebody within the state department a foreign career officer but i think we forget what was going on at that time. we did have multiple embassies in the region both in north africa and the middle east dealing with protests. remember they raised a black flag on the embassy in tunisia. you had -- in fact, one of the reason they didn't send all six special ops they say at the time was they didn't want tripoli unguarded at all. that was the u.s. embassy and considering what is happening to

the embassies in the region at the time a thought laets dispatch two guys to ben ghazi for that. >> as we go to break and move past this. it's on the daily beast right now. as we do go to break, chuck, it is important to remind people we are not brushing aside any allegations. the state department has already been hammered and hillary clinton has testified. >> and there is more coming. >> and there should be more coming because the fact is hillary clinton and the state department did not heed the concerns of a u.s. ambassador who ended up dead. that does warrant investigation. >> everybody there wants answers. >> this will be bigger than watergate and iran/contra, i don't know. let's wait and see. >> chuck todd, thank you. see you later this morning on "the daily rundown." tina brown, thank you as well.

>> thank you so much and good luck tonight. a big party for mika tonight. i will be celebrating. >> thank you for coming. still ahead, senator lindsey graham joins us and senator claire mccaskill. up next, a ground breaking piece in "time" magazine examining the cost of care. we have details next. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by sguks. starbucks. we're at the exclusive el chorro lodge

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♪ one of the emanuel brothers. when the red light comes on, we all get in line and we work together. >> not if -- for the first time we are getting a look at what hospitals charge for medical care costs that vary dramatically from state-to-state and even within the same city. according to data released by the federal government the bill for a common procedure in montana, for example, could be tens of thousands of dollars less than the same procedure in a different part of the country.

some examples, for a joint replacement, the difference is more than $200,000 between what different hospitals are charging. when it comes to heart failure, one hospital might charge $170,000 and another charges $7,000. pneumonia, more than 7,000 separate the high end and low end costs. in new york city two hospitals are 63 blocks apart, varied by 321%. in the prices they charged to treat asthma and bronchitis. are you kidding me? the release of that information follows a ground breaking report in "time" magazine last month by author and journalist steven brill. he wrote about why medical pills are killing us. also with us for global initiatives of the university of pennsylvania is zeke emanuel.

>> this article is written in "the new york times" this morning. and it follows up your ground breaking work that just shows how uneven charging is, billing is. >> it's just totally irrational because it's completely unaccountable. told the department of health and human services crunch that data, it really depended on someone like me just doing it by hand, bill by bill, line by line to figure this out. but, for example, mt. sinai hospital, which is on the upper east side of manhattan, charges a lot less than your hometown hospital sacred heart for the treatment of a routine heart attack. who knew that you can go to fifth avenue, mt. sinai hospital, and pay less than you would in pensacola where the ceo

of that hospital makes over a million 400,000 dollars and 840 million dollar business that is highly profitable. it depends very little on the charity dinner that you probably went to as a congressman. that accounts for 0.3 of 1% of its revenue. what accounts for all of its revenue are the charges like you see in the "time" piece. >> you have zeke also. from this report in the times today that you not only we talk about montana, pensacola, fifth avenue, even in new york city, 20 blocks, 30 blocks apart. two different hospital charging two different prices. >> when steve's article came out i said this is i think is the silent spring of health care prices. experts in the community have known this for more than a decade. certainly decades that these different charges exist. now some of these charges are,

you have sicker patients and it's hard to know. some of the charges are because some of these are training hospitals and others are not. the fact is there is no rational as steve said to the pricing. >> there's no market there. we know how much a car is going to cost and we can go to cars.com and how much it should cost. >> i don't want to defend health care but difference between pneumonia and some people who have pneumonia with other implicating conditions. nonetheless that being said you should look at simple and straightforward things and the joint data is probably the best. colonoscopies could carry by 3, 4, 5, 20-fold. we have seen that prices have no relationship what is being done. so i think we are going to get price contraction and get people going to a reasonable place. you should also look at your map. where are the high prices? places we know that have been, i don't want to say scamming too much but have been doing lots of

things and going to the maximum to get most profits. texas, florida, wait a second, texas, florida, california and low price states are rural states, by and large, montana, south dakota have smaller hospitals and have not gone into this -- >> the highest place for a heart attack is brooklyn. >> it's new york city. >> the other thing to look at is prices for a 77 dollar charge for a box of gauze pads. the next frontier in transparency that counts is not the charge master prices but looking at what hospitals and clinics and outpatient clinics charge insurance companies. you could go to same hospital for the same procedure but if you're insured by aetna, aetna hasn't cut as good a deal with the hospital as united has.

that is the next frontier is figuring all of that out. >> steve, i would say the next frontier is really going to be quality. what we really need to know how do the prices relate to the quality of care because a low price could be bad quality or good quality done very well. that is the key. price alone is not the factor here. >> speaking of quality of care. how much of a factor is it, you need bypass surgery and you know that four of the five leading bypass surgeons in the world are located in one specific hospital rather than another hospital 15 miles away. you go to the best. >> the best doesn't necessarily charge the most. that is what zeke is saying, no correlation. >> first of all, you don't know who the four or five best are. cardiac surgery is one area we do have quality metric. we know no good relationship

now, but what we need to know who is the good people and how much are they charging? >> real expense is not in cardiac surgery but the routine cat scans that can vary by a thousand percent. these are rip-offs and all over the place and no rhyme or reason. >> explain that. >> you go into the emergency room at stanford hospital, one of the patients in my -- and you get, you know, a radioactive imagi imagi imaging ct scan. that has nothing to do with quality. that has zero to do with quality. >> steven brill, thank you very much. >> happy to do it and i'm glad the government went ahead and did this. >> and zeke emanuel. >> zeke, we need you to stick around. >> i have to! talk about the report in the book. >> are you yep set? he's in the book. >> he does need an agent!

hey, phil griffith, zeke needs to be a contributor. we can't say he is a contributor until you pay him! i'm being aurie this morning. i'm being ari for you. i'm being your brother. coming up, we are going to get parenting advice from this guy? >> he is the best. even the frying of bacon sounds like a plaapplause. yeah, bacon. you know how good it is? to improve other food, they wrap it in bacon. if it weren't for bacon we wouldn't know what a water chestnut is. >> no but he is pretty funny. >> comedian and author jim gaffigan is with us with his great book. follows up with the 105-year-old lady who ate bacon every day.

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up next, could the household the key to reforming the nation's gun laws? congressman peter king and mike thompson join us next with their bipartisan push for extended background checks. "morning joe" back in a moment.

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39 past the hour. with us from capitol hill, democratic representative from california, congressman mike thompson. and republican representative from new york, congressman peter king. they are out with a bipartisan bill that expands background checks and already has more than 150 cosponsors. gentlemen, good morning. welcome to the show. first of all, tell us about the bill. how does it compare to the one that failed in the senate? >> basically, it's -- give mike thompson so much credit for this but the bill is almost identical to the manchin and toomey bill. we thought it was important to have this bill in the house. as a republican i think this is a very legitimate and rational way to stop gun violence. i don't see it in any way infringing on the second amendment and right now i think

it's going to be difficult but i wanted to get the bill there and work off especially if things move in the senate and hopefully day-by-day, week-by-week, we can build up some support. >> 150 cosponsors, right? that is pretty darn good start. >> correct. we have got over 150. the bill mirrors the amendment that mika talked about in the senate. and it's a pro second amendment, pro gun violence prevention bill take that requires background checks if you guy a been through a gun show or advertised sale. nothing in this bill anybody should have any concern with. as a matter of fact, it strengthens the law that prohibits the federal government from keeping a registry. >> pete king, this is like the manchin/toomey bill that actually if somebody tries to create a gun registry, it actually is a felony punishable up to 15 years in prison. >> yeah, it is.

it's identical to manchin/toomey. >> let me ask you this in long island speak. anybody who says this would lead to a gun registry is a liar. would that be correct to say? >> it's entirely untrue, joe. you guys in florida don't speak as sophisticated as we do in new york. you're right, they are liars, absolutely! you got me to say it! >> i know. i know. >> intellectually dishonest at best. >> you're sounding so northern california on us! so let me ask you, pete, because, obviously, we're going to get most of the democrats on a bill like this. what is the attitude inside the republican caucus? do they reflect 86% of republicans nationwide that don't really see a problem with background checks for criminals, for people with serious mental health issues, for terrorists? >> to be honest, the situation in the house is similar to that in the senate.

we only have a few republicans who have gone on the bill and others are considering. . that's why i don't see it moving in the short term but i want it there as we can slowly bring people on and if it starts to move in the senate, they have a vehicle to work from. i would say the attitude in the house is similar to the senate. i understand there is a cultural and regional differences and i think, unfortunately, when it comes to guns some republicans don't see any movement at all toward any type of regulation, no matter how or minimal really as being a severe infringement on the second amendment. we don't see it in new york. it's difficult but we can't give up. >> i can say most people in northwest florida don't like terrorists to be able to guy guns on the internet either. >> that's why it's so important, joe. joe, that's why it's so important. your viewers need to contact their members of congress and need to let them know this is important. it keeps guns away from criminals and guns away from the

mentally ill and you can't be against criminals and dangerously mentally ill getting guns and against background checks. >> congressman king, in particular, rank the nra, if you would, on a cultural level in terms of what it's like on capitol hill as a lobbying force. is this the most powerful lobby in washington or in the top three? >> i wouldn't even overemphasize it. i think members of congress. joe has been there. in their districts, whether or not an nra they would still have strong opposition to this because the base of the party is against them. if not the nra, it would be somebody else. i don't have a good relationship with the nra so i have no way of knowing and people in the country feel guns are -- if not them, another group.

>> the gun lobby, is the gun lobby as significant a force after any other on the hill? >> it is significant but it's not just lobby itself. unfortunately to me people in the country and congress who genuinely look upon any attempt to regulate any type of control of background checks being an infringement on the second amendment. the point i'm trying to make try to demonize. i strong disagree with the nra but if it went away tomorrow still a lot of opposition to bills like this and really why education and working through shows like yours is important. >> we had a moment last night in philadelphia at the end when you told everyone to send pat toomey a note thanking him for his efforts and the room, 500 people burst into applause. >> by the way, pat toomey's numbers have gone up. kelly ayotte's have collapsed.

indicate ha kate hagan numbers have gone up and jeff flake's have collapsed. this is a political winner so people who fear the nra on this issue need not fear the nra. if you're a politician and you want your poll numbers to go up, support background checks so terrorists can't go on the internet and buy weapons. pretty easy political calculation. congressmen mike thompson and peter king, thank you. peter, thank you for explaining to me why people in long island are of more defining than my friends in my hometown in pensacola. the man who told "the washington post" when he was in a fight with me. he walked out without any shoes on. coming up, we have comedian jim gaffigan.

i love him! >> people are already laughing at him. >> bacon. >> he leaves a trail of bacon wherever he goes. jim is here harassing our staff with his new book on being a dad and what it's like raising five kids in a two bedroom apartment in lower manhattan! >> that is work. >> that is wrapped entirely in bacon. >> that doesn't work. >> you're watching "morning joe." the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on all purchases plus a 50% annual bonus. and everyone wants... ♪ 50% more doo wop ♪ 50% more buckarooooooooos

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responsibility. what's your policy?

daddy's book is dad is fat. >> gaffigan. >> this is jack gaffigan. what inspired you to write? >> my dad's fat. >> this is katie. catty, what do you think of your father writing this book? >> this is patrick. let's get right to it. what do you think of your dad's book? i'll take that as a, i sort of like it. this has been book chat. >> that is adorable. oh, my gosh. >> that's only a fraction of all the children i have. that's one tenth of them.

>> that was jim gaffigan. father of five, author of "dad is fat." >> of course, your book came out -- >> it's perfect. >> as jim said, this is going to be on amazon. you said you wrote this as a companion to mika's hard hitting -- >> it's the yin and yang of eating. >> you love bacon. >> i love all food. even in the book, yen mcdonald's is horrible, but as a parent of young children, you get in the car and you have to drive anywhere -- >> here's jim, kids in the car on a vacation, where ever. lawrence oliver and hamlet's got nothing on this. >> they could provide small

packs of cigarettes in happy meals and i would still go. me, okay, you can have the apple dippers, but not the cig setting. the 5-year-old. just one? all right, just one, but don't smoke when you're pregnant. >> it's an amazing equation, mcdonald's. it's like their drug addicts, they're buying another generation of consumers. >> how can you not, who's going to want to break their kid's heart? >> you want them to be happy. >> when did you ever get a toy with a meal at home? >> i got nothing. >> forget about dessert. you get a toy? >> just in case the ingredients don't hook you, you get a toy to reward you for eating the bad food. that's just sick. >> why did you write, what makes you you and why did you write

this book? look at this really quickly. look at the back cover. >> a good writer. i like the prescription bottle there next to you. >> why did you write this book? >> i wrote this book as a comedian, i attempt to always have my material appeal to the largest audience, i would sensor how much i would talk about my kids because i was on twitter, i felt like i could just talk about my kids and it's just tweets. it's just throwing it out there, so i ended up compiling a bunch of funny observations that my wife and i would write everything together and we decided we were going to turn these into essays and it was fun to really kind of -- and i've had five chances to go through these individual topics, whether

it be diapers or pregnancy or toddl toddlerhood. >> you can actually cast the christmas pageant yourself? >> yes, i have a whole basketball team. i'm just following in the spirited steps of joe jackson. he's inpyreded me spired me to have a big family and bring them into the entertainment industry. >> kids themselves add to the natural humor. kids are funny in the context of every day life. >> yeah, they're very funny. i think there's something about a kid, there's a creativity that gets censored eas we learn abou roo canals and have a fear of bankruptcy. there's something about hanging around a kid, it's a refreshing point of view. just you know, some of them mouth off. >> i love the section on babysitters.

>> there's no such thing as a free babysitter. >> there isn't. when you have a baby, there's always every friend's like call us if you ever need us to watch this little darling -- >> and the babysitter will be anazing as first. >> people will volunteer they want to baby sit, but they really don't. then the sitters, there's different types of them and you go through a period where you're like who could watch my precious newborn, then you're like, how long were you in jail? make an adjustment. >> yes. there's different type of babysitters. the blackmailer, the mary p poppins. >> the warm body. there is someone to where, all they need to be is an adult that can breathe and kind of move

slowly and those are, there's different types of them. >> except when you get to the attention seeker. >> where you almost, they -- >> they have personal problems. >> they end up consuming a lot of time and they want as much attention as a child so you almost have to get rid of them because you're dealing with their issues more than your children's. zwl. >> so, tell me -- tell me about this photo. >> this photo is, this is what my daughter drew, family portrait, but supposedly -- >> you look like a tennis ball. >> what someone told me the larger you are, the more important you are to a child. so i must be very important. there's a level, there's a level of respect that, like i feared my father and you know, the name of this book, "dad is fat," was the first really complete sentence that my son who is now

7, wrote. dad is fat. and that drawing, there's a little bit of ribbing going on among my kids, but i love it. >> it's adorable. the book is "dad is fat." thank you so much. we'll be right back. much more "morning joe." what do you think? that's great. it won't take long, will it? nah. okay. this, won't take long will it? no, not at all. how many of these can we do on our budget? more than you think. didn't take very long, did it? this spring, dig in and save. that's nice. post it.

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5:00 a.m. on the west coast. back with us, mike barnacle, john meacham and willie geist. >> we begin in ohio where we're learning more about the newfound free dom for the women who were kidnapped. amanda berry, gina dejesus and michelle knight vanished. they were between 14 and 20 years old. on monday, after years of being locked away from family and friends, berry broke free. she was help ed by a neighbor wo heard her cries and kicked open the front door with her. now, investigators are loo lookinging back to see how they could have been held for that long. >> the three brothers -- it is ariel who neighbors knew best as the schoolbus driver, who also

gave kids rides in an all terrain vehicle on the street of his blue collar hispanic neighborhood. the three women who each d disappeared about a year apart were all last seen within a five block radius and held in castro's house about three miles away. the uncle owns a neighborhood corner store. some neighbors thought the house was vacant, the place ariel castro checked on from time to time, but a few now say they were concerned. >> wouldn't open the windows, no doors, only the attic window. >> i've had family members that have phoned the police and they've come and knocked on the door and nothing. >> police say they only answered kaus twice on the street. once before the women disappeared, then in 2004, about a child left behind on his schoolbus. >> what we have here is a

psychopath or three. how much his brothers were involved, we don't know yet. >> turns out the castros have tied to one of the women rescued. >> gina vanished in broad daylight. >> arlene castro, the daughter, appeared in this episode and said she was the last to see gina alive. >> my mom said no, that i can't go over to her house and so i told her i couldn't, she said sh okay, well, i'll talk to you later. >> and ariel's son, anthony, as a college student, wrote an article about the disappearance in 2004. yet another strange twist. pedro castro was near the scene of a search for amanda berry's body last year. castro told reporters the search was quote a waste of money. >> according to one local reporter, the victims were chained by the neck and waist.

in fact, the details were so horrible, some investigators had to leave the room as the women described their abuse. a neighbor telled reuters he saw ariel castro comforting one of the girl's mothers just last year in which he quote acted as if nothing was wrong. the same report says castro would take the little girl to the park in the early morning. >> so many horrible -- parts of this story. again, you just wonder how this has happened and went on for so long. zwl and. >> and how they survived. we're going to get to a lot of other news this morning. mark sanford is returning to elected office. he beat elizabeth colbert bush by nine points last night in a special election last night. sanford racked up massive wins in conservative outlying counties, some by as much as 40%, this despite a huge cash

advantage for busch. sanford received about a fifth of that. last night, he touched on a familiar theme, second chances. >> i am one imperfect man saved by god's grace, but one who wants to do something about spending in washington, d.c. it's my pledge that i am going to try and be the best congressman that i could have ever been. >> it's interesting. politico as they were dissecting this race last night, wasn't even close. said the turning point was something that caused a lot of us to raise our eyebrows. a card board cutout of nancy pelosi. they said every time mark sanford got mocked ed for debating the card board cutout of nancy pelosi, they were happy, they cheered, because

that was bringing nancy pelosi into the race and they knew the more that it was about nancy pelosi, the less it was about him and what he did. and if they don't, he won. will he effectively move past his own past? he talked about nancy pelosi, president obama, washington. he reminded people in that district why they elected him in 1994 in the first place and because of cutting down government spending. said if you can get past what i've done, i'm not proud of what i've done three years ago, come with me and we'll change the way things are done in washington. he did it with no backing from the republican party. the d triple c went all in on this race and he still won by nine points. >> very conservative district, by the way. mitt romney won it by 20 points. so he was not swimming completely upstream and this is a critical time. for president obama, so

certainly republicans are going to come out on this, but south carolina, fascinating state. one of the most conservative socially, but we have sent mark sanford back to con congress and also, newt gingrich won the republican primary. famously twice divorced and gingrich still won. >> right. >> does that say something about the changing electorate? that americans are moving past a more puritanical approach to what they expect in their candidates? >> i think we saw that in the impeachment process. and so i do think that's a practical example of moving past politics of the bedroom. >> can i ask if a woman in this position had run, woud chef won? >> i don't think she would have come back to try to win. do you? >> it depends.

>> you know what i find is that both sides are willing to forgive just about anything as long as their person is, time and time again, people -- remember how outraged democrats were at john tower, a senator from texas. he was going to be secretary of defense and democrats would stand up from the senate floor and go, this man is sixth in line to be president of the united states and he has been known to drink and cavort with women and this was two years before they nominated an elected clinton. >> can we think of a woman in a similar situation? i can't think. >> it maybe that they have healthier reactions. it may be they have healthier reactions to crisis than running for office. >> steve schmidt raised it a bit

yesterday in that he was initially stunned she had come as close as she had, given the conservative roots of that district. that's what it is. >> 45% -- >> not forgiveness. >> interesting. later this morning, a house committee is set to hold a hearing on last september's deadly attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. some conservative lawmakers are characterizing it as a scandal, rivalli inling some of the biggn american history. lindsey graham said the dam is about to break. said if you link iran and water gate together and multiply it, maybe ten times or so, you're going to get in the zone where benghazi is. sorry, i'm a little skeptical. >> there was no black and death comparison. >> testimony has already leaked from one of the witnesses who reportedly said that a special forces unit was ready to fly

from tripoli during the raid, but was told to stand down. and there's ongoing skcrutiny o the role play by secretary hillary clinton. the leader of the independent review admits he never actually interviewed mrs. clinton, telling nbc news he believed he had enough information from other staffers who were in meetings with her. some democrats are arguing the real aim of republicans is the damage a potential 2016 presidential bid by former secretary of state hillary clinton. i tend to agree with that. >> let's see how the investigation goes. >> we'll talk about this more. i think we have some guests coming on today to talk about this. but it does seem a little extreme. >> that's one congressman from western iowa who's comparing, it's a pretty -- there's no doubt that a lot of -- lot of conservative groups out there

have been talking about benghazi from day one and have been talking about what a huge scandal it's going to be. let's have the investigatioinve we'll see what the truth of the matter is and there's some questions for instance about the special ops wanting to go and being held back, some people are saying if you look at the timeline, they wouldn't have gotten there in time. let's have full and open hear ings and see what happens. >> the obama administration is on the brink of backing an fbi plan that will change wiretapping in the u.s. according to the "new york times," the plan will overhaul the nation's surveillance laws, makie ining it easier to eavesdn the internet. they have pushed for a legal mandate to make it technologically possible to wiretap conversations. that's loaded. >> that is loaded and there's a quote from an expert saying these rules make us look more like chain than america because

you've got the federal government, the justice department, demanding that google, verizon, other companies, slow down certain technological advances because they want to be able to wiretap on whatever communications or text communications or instant message communications. a lot of concerns here. >> i do not know how they would do that. because they've already been inundated with information. the boston bombing, when they flash those pictures up and ask people contact us if you've ever seen these pictures, if you know these men. the computers crashed. the fbi computer crashed. their system crashed within the first half hour. i don't know how, i don't know what kind of system they would have in place to collect this immense, immense amount of data that is spewed out every day. just his alone.

his texting alone. >> yeah. >> the fbi's argument for this is that -- tapping phones is is no longer getting if information they need. they say they've quote gone dark because it's all happening online. >> i don't know young people don't even use phones. >> right. still ahead on "morning joe," she's not going to be at the hearings this morning, but hillary clinton is likely to be the focus of the questioning. we've got lindsey graham, he's going to join us to talk about those hearings and what he hopes to find out, but before we do that, let's get another real look life of making your book obsessed. claire mccaskill's going to be here to discuss her experiences with food, how she lost 50 pounds with the help of twitter and how she said she hated you. we're also going to have the author of "salt, sugar, fat" with michael moss.

but first, here's bill karins with a check of the forecast. >> good morning. new york city in the mid of one of its worst morning commutes in recent history. heavy rain and thunderstorms moving through. already, we've picked up over an inch of rain in new york city and it's still coming down hard even lightning reported with this, too. with heavy rain, more could be on the way. i think this next batch, you look south of long island, that should head up more for connecticut and long island and rhode island. the new york city airports are starting to back up. i would imagine hardly any are taking off and landing right now. laguardia, one-hour delays. the ripple effects behind it. as far as new england goes, the best chance of rain will be through the noon hours. d.c. and pittsburgh, just a few showers hit and miss. a chance of getting some break of sunshine. southeast is perfect. from the great lakes, we have

another storm in the middle of the country and we are expecting a little bit of severe weather today, maybe a few tornados, we haven't had many this may, hopefully not too many in the populated areas. oklahoma, texas and areas of kansas. once again, new york city, a horrible morning commute. it's duck and cover weather in new york city. you're watching "morning joe", brewed by starbucks. where tonight we've switched their steaks with walmart's choice premium steak. it's a steakover. it's tender. good flavor. it just melts in your mouth. mine's perfect -- man! we're actually eating walmart steaks. to tell you the truth -- they're pretty good. are you serious? that was a good cut of meat! [ earl ] these are perfectly aged for flavor and tenderness. i would definitely go to walmart to buy steaks.

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mika, look how beautiful you are. sitting there in your size 2 dress. we have all noticed your passion and dedication to good health. nutrition, exercise, less fatty foods. a strong and consistent message of better eating and more exercise. and i would like to say on behalf of all the middle-aged, overweight women in america, just shut up. >> that was claire mccaskill for some choice words for mika in 2010. senator mccaskill is featured in my ka's new book and joins us now from capitol hill. >> looking beautiful. >> the author of the book "salt,

sugar, fat." mike and i will present the other side of the case. so, yeah, the bacon sandwich. bacon and bacon sandwich. so, claire, you are portrayed in this book, pretty importantly and between the time of that speech and the time mika started writing this book, you underwent some pret the ty dramatic chang your life, too. >> yeah, i just decided that i didn't want to have insulin shots when i was my mom's age and i needed to get healthy and quit focusing on what size i was and focus on feeling better and moving more and with the help of a great weight loss coach by the name of charles deangelo in st. louis, we were able to knock off 50 pounds in about a year. >> wow. >> so, claire -- >> that's great. >> that is an incredible story.

your friend diane also lost an incredible amount. >> 75 pounds. >> it's very interesting. we need to talk about this. forget about the dress size. forget about the waist size. forget about being thin. and start obsessing on being healthy. >> right. >> not thin, healthy. >> everyone has a set point of what is healthy and i found out mine was about 15 pounds more than i was. being healthy doesn't necessarily mean you look like some of the people you see on television and i'm going to stop looking like them, too, because it's exhausting. i think we have a distorting sense of what is appropriate. that is the woman claire was talking about in a size 2 dress. i was 118 pounds. >> what are you now? >> 133, size 6 and still working on it. >> you look really good, mika

and you look really healthy and and i am still really tired of those bare arms. >> about six months away. >> seriously, the bare arms every morning, i can still kind of get mad at you about that. >> oh, good. she's feisty. >> it's nice to know you still piss her off on one point or two even 15, 20 pounds later. i've got a young daughter, for men out there watching. there is such an unhealthy cultural norm from the time little girls look at barbie dolls and it tortures women. >> you make a great point that it's the extremes which are the problems. whether it's extreme overweight or underweight. if you're too skinny, it can be bad for your health as well. the important point is is to get in the middle and as mika points out, feeling healthy and not aiming at a necessary number, but being healthy is is important as well as eating healthy food.

you can be a normal weight and eating junk. >> that's not healthy. models famously will smoke cigarettes an drink diet coke. >> and the refrigerators will be empty with no fruits and vegetables. >> it's not sustainable either. i want to get to how claire did it. first, michael, in your book, let's talk about these extremes and how we get there because it has a lot to do with the ingredients that is now in most of the food we eat. >> salt, sugar, fat, the hoely trinity of the processed food industry. they know when they get the perfect amounts of these ingredients, the exact formulas, they'll send us over the moon and their products will be irresistible. i'm struck on how difficult it is to shop healthy in the supermarkets. >> it's impossible. >> you walk in the door and everything is set up to make you make this spontaneous decision.

you have to remember that the fruits and vegetables are way off in the corner of the store. >> and really ek pensive. >> the high fat, high sugar items are placed at eye level in the center of the aisle because they've done studies where they put devices on people's heads and the second you step into an aisle, you gravitate to that part. >> a guy in markets said supermarkets have these devices, you can walk around and just order what you want, they'll deliver it, but here's the marketing tool to it. it's not so much b about your convenience is that they can track you. they see where you stop. where you move. they see where you look and they're getting, it's all about again, pushing stuff, a lot of it that is addictive. >> in the cereal aisle, absolutely. it's classic, right? the most sugary things are there. if you're looking for plain

oatmeal, you've got to look low or high. >> and so claire, over time, you lost a lot of weight, you look fantastic. but given the job you have, how busy your life is, add to the fact you're always eating out, the chips are stacked against you in so many ways. what was the struggle like for you and how did you do it? >> well, it's you know, first of all, you know, just deciding, having the discipline that what is sitting there is not worth it. usually, it's not that good. i mean, if i'm going to have a night where i want to celebrate food, i want to do it with stuff that's really delicious and very special and not waste it on cocktail party you know, appetizers that really usually stink or bad buffet meals. it's also scheduling a time for exercise. my coach said to me you're disciplined enough to have achieved what you have in your career, why can't you be

disciplined enough to schedule one hour a day to exercise. >> for parents who are concerned about their kids, and after all, tha the next generation. two important things to do. one as senator mccaskill said, make sure they exercise, get out and run around. family meals make a big difference. kids eat less and more healthy when you sit down to a family meal. those are other long-term benefits. as a parent, one of the most important things we can to is to schedule dinner and make everyone sit down. >> how about make our own food? >> that's another big issue. eating out now is a huge part of our diet. >> michael pollen has a new book outside called cooked. he's making that point, when you cook your own meals, you will eat less. i write about the demise of the home economics. it's amazing how little kids know about nutrition. we found with our own boys, 9 and 13, just a little bit of talking to them encourages them

when they go shopping with us, to look for healthier products and then we sort of find they enjoy them. they'd rather have the sugary stuff if they were shopping on their own, but we find they like the less sweet stuff once they find out. >> as everyone in this country knows, we have had this wonderful program for years and years and years to help people acknowledge, realize, the dangers of smoking. when are we going to get a truly concerted effort equal to the epic we've had on smoking about food and nutrition and what happens when there's no recess in public schools and you're eating a happy meal for lunch and stuff like that? >> i think we can do some things about recess in schools through curriculum changes. hopefully this comes from the bottom at school boards and not from washington. i think we've got to be a little careful. i'm from a state where most of

us in the missouri don't want the government telling us what to eat. i think we need to do a better education. i think dr. emanuel makes great points about our kids, making sure they understand what those charts mean on the side of the box. there's some really inventive programs being run in missouri where instead of having a class set aside just to learn about the dangers of drugs, they're setting aside class time in elementary schools to teach kids how to read nutrition labels. that's the kind of stuff that's really going to make a difference and politically, it would be absolutely impossible to even consider the notion that the federal government's going to start telling people what they should eat. >> you talked to so many different people, claire, of course, norah efron, a wonderful interview with her. chris christie. so many people. you touched on with some,

discrimination. >> when we talk about the secrets of thin women, the secrets they keep from the rest of the world because for many of them, it's not as easy as they make it look -- we can't talk about it like this conversation i had with my friend for this book was tryinging to talk about something that even two friends who share everything can't talk about. we can't talk about it with people we know in our society, and yet we sub consciously or openly judge people struggling with obesity. we pay them less. we don't want to hire them as much. the data shows they are seen as undisciplined and their lives are a mess and honestly, when you look at what you have found in your book and your investigative reporting and some of the experts we spoke to for this book, it's much more than that and we need to stop looking

at people this way. first of all, because the problem is becoming more prevalent and secondly, because it's wrong and claire, you felt it, too. when you had more weight on you and you were struggle with it. you heard from people online and they would say extremely nasty things and judge you. >> they still do. >> the topic's changed. it's not about your weight anymore. >> the haters are out there, but it's funny, i can have people tweet at me very hateful things about my political point of view. but when they say really cruel things about your physical appearance, you can act like it doesn't bother you and a lot of us do, but it's hard. it's hard. it feels more personal. >> that's one of the things that chris christie is so gruff, but mika, you talk to chris and find out just how sensitive --

>> he went on his twitter feed -- >> like claire said, attack him about anything, but call him a fat slob and it really upsets him and hurts. >> we've heard on one side about how much money there is. and this food addiction, but can you talk also what you want to talk about, but then really quickly, what's the cost as we have a u.s. senator here, what's the cost over the next generation of this obesity epidemic. >> i just want to say something about the psychology. there's studies of kids who are overweight and they have worse mental health than kids who have cancer. that's how bad it can be. >> we can't talk about it. >> obesity is hundreds of billions of dollars per year. that's a pretty conservative estimate. doesn't include things like lower productivity. this is going to be a lot of people in the health care vito are worried this is a tsunami

that's going to overwhelm the system if we have a doubling, tripling of diabetes. i always that the first lady's initiative was a parallel to trap reform. we have to get on this now. she's changed the attitude. the fact we're having the discussion, that this book has come out, all these books, it's a result of the fact that the nation has begun to focus on this, like smoking. >> we and really do need to put our arms around this and claire, when mika tries to, i think they need to be covered. >> it would make me feel better. >> you're great. my favorite senator. thank you so much. michael moss, thank you. >> thanks for coming back. >> thanks for all your help. up next, republican senator lindsey graham joins the discussion. >> he's going to be talking about benghazi and not bare arms. >> diverse show. we went out and asked people a simple question:

how old is the oldest person you've known? we gave people a sticker and had them show us. we learned a lot of us have known someone who's lived well into their 90s. and that's a great thing. but even though we're living longer, one thing that hasn't changed much is the official retirement age. ♪

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washington, d.c. how about that? we have 94 reunion, can't we? >> yes, and we will be buying just as it was in '94. >> this guy lived op a plantation, but i think he's the cheapest guy i met in washington, d.c. >> he gives cheap a bad name. >> so, you said quite a few things over the past several months on september 11th about benghazi. you say the dam is about to break. what should americans be looking for? >> people there coming forward say i saying it was a terrorist attack from the get go. there have been other assets in the region that may have been deployed. when the attack began, nobody knew how long it was going to last. the spin from the white house -- people who are involved in the attack are ge going to put it in better context. zpl i know you have serious

concerns about what happened there. i'm just wondering because some in the white house or others who don't see your point of view say this has been thoroughly investigated by the review board, chaired by admiral mullen and ambassador pickering. does that not allay any of the concerns you may have? >> the accountability review board never talked to secretary clinton. these are good people who are doing it. i know if it's staff driven or not, but we know who recommended the talking points to be changed. the spokesman from the state department saying the first version of talking points given by the cia would be use d by congress to attack the state department for denying security requests. that's not exactly the way to embed information and that wasn't found out by the accountability review board. i think the story of benghazi is that after the attack, there was an effort by some senior people

to put some spin on this. because they were so close to the election. >> so, is that your biggest concern about the fact that the president had a political message seven weeks before an election that while beating al-qaeda or is the bigger concern that ambassador asked for more security. we're now hearing others ask for more security and those requests seem to be if not completely ignored, dismissed. >> my biggest concern is that this is an example of how the light footprint is not working. we understood quickly this wasn't just a few dead enders. remember when secretary cheney said this is just a few dead enders, iraq is really okay. we had the wrong footprint, the wrong strategy. i see the same thing in libya. i think a foreign policy gone wrong here. syria, libya, egypt, i think the

greater story is that the light footprint approach to the mideast is not working and here's another story. when secretary clinton toll on the 14th of september family members, we're going to prosecute the guy who made that video, how could she possibly have said that? either she was totally detached from reality in benghazi or putting political spin and on the 18th of september when the president whent on letterman and said this was the result of a hateful video, i think the president needs to explain that statement. either he's really detached or p putting a political spin on it and that's really important. >> given the drone policy, the president's broad anti terror policy over the last five years, where do you rank him in terms of his stewardship on the issue? >> i think on the drone side, he's upped his game in a very good way. he's used drones in the most

effective way of any president since the technology has been deployed. we have heard al-qaeda along the tribal regions. when it comes to managing the arab screen, but not having a trained army, outsourcing security in libya to a nonexistent government, leading -- i would say his approach to the arab spring, which nobody could see coming has been a failure and i'm not very impressed by what they're doing with iran. i hope he ups his game because the biggest fear i have is radical islamists getting ahold of weapons. >> come back on the show. it's good to have you on. the senator and i tend not to agree on -- >> really? >> we don't at all. >> and say that loudly in south carolina. >> i'll say it loud and clear.

but it's great that you came on. it's not about experience. we ask questions. our viewers are smart. well, i'm just thinking it's too bad that some folks who work in washington can't come on. >> thank you for being with us. good luck with mark sanford when he gets back. >> we'll buy him dinner. >> very good. >> business headlines with brian shactman coming up next. keep it right here on "morning joe." we're going to be talking about the stock market exploding while more and more people are being stuck in low wage jobs. she's always been able to brighten your day.

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here's a slice of life for you. you have to have 16 to drive, 21 to drink, but if you want a gun, you can be, i don't know, 5, 6 or 7. my husband's a investigator reporter for wabc tv and take a look at this report he did yesterday. >> hey, where are you going? >> shooting my new cricket rifle. >> the cricket, a lightweight .22 caliber rifle is a big seller. >> my first rifle. a moment you never forget. >> the manufacturer sold 60,000 of them in one year. last year, one was used by a 5-year-old boy in kentucky in the accidental shooting death of his 2-year-old sister. to learn more about guns made for children, i went undercover to this duchess county walmart and bought one. we then took the small rifle to the harrison police department's

weapons expert. who demonstrated the crickett's deadly power. >> they're a rifle just like any other and can kill animals, humans. >> this pink rifle we also bought designed for girls, is just as deadly. while the proper age of these guns is up for debate, it is clear the firearms industry has made marketing of guns for children a priority. this report by called the need for aggressive recruitment of youth urgent. >> that's unbelievable, mike. reminds me after newtown, nra having that out for kids 4 and up on shootinging. pink ones, green ones. >> this is not the membership of the nra. this is the talk of the house. this is about money.

that's what this is about. >> it's about money. you see it's urgent. they're trying to urgently target young children. the number of households with guns falling from 50 to 33% and it reminds you of one of those -- cigarette companies used to talk about targeting youth. it's all about money. >> and speaking of money, time for business before the bell. brian shactman, another record start for the dow and s&p. >> a gun free environment for 60 seconds guys. want to talk about one company, then a labor issue. disney by the way, had great profits and great revenue. one of the reasons, their theme parks are just showing incredible growth. the dow closing 15,000 for the first time. that's a real symbol of consumer spending. people are taking vacations again and that is most impressive thing from a macro perspective, but i want to point out a study that takes a look at

global unemployment and the youth of the world. about 12% plus of ages 50 to 24 will be unemployed in 2013. that's over 70 million people and they really talk about the long-term damage of being unemployed in that age bracket and whether it be confidence in the system, their potential earnings when they do get jobs moving forward and they pointed to europe being a bigger problem than the united states. but long-term unemployment is a major issue. >> speaking of psychological issues, you're going to be waking up very early starting monday. >> you're going to have a lot of psychological issues. >> and you're having to work with us. >> just add it to the pool of psychological issues. >> dysfunctional. >> way too early, 5:30, starting on monday. welcome aboard. >> i'd like to say something with you guy, but i'm just extremely excited and grateful for the opportunity and i'll be there between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. if anyone wants to say hello. >> don't screw this up, brian.

>> thanks, mike. >> a big red sox fan. >> brian shactman, thank you. >> geist legacy. >> we'll be right back. >> that was a good book. i got this. [thinking] is it that time? the son picks up the check?

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will run for president in 2016. >> of course some say that. some say that he's running for president, it's a sure sign, because why else would a 50-year-old man with young children and a loving family take steps to address obesity and extend his life? why else? >> fantastic. >> time now to talk about what we learned today. what did you learn? >> i learneded so much. that obsessed is selling like crazy. we had a huge event last night in philadelphia. >> they loved you. >> tomorrow, and barnic cal, th kept asking. tomorrow in washington -- >> politico. >> and friday -- madison, connecticut. >> that's a great bookstore. >> i learned that i now have an ally in my quest to convince people that bacon sandwiches are not that bad for you. look at this woman.

like 150 years old. >> 105. >> her secret she claims is she eats a lot of bacon every day. >> i love pearl. what did you learn? >> it's ve day. hinge of the century. amazing alleyed effort. >> if it's way too early, what time is it, joe? >> "morning joe." >> well, what time is it now? >> didn't get the joke yet? coming up next, we've got chuck todd. with "the daily rundown." see you tomorrow. a new poll shows chris christie coasting to a new term as governor, but hurting for some home state health if he's got his eyes on 2016. it's a different story