happy mother's day. i don't know how she did it and i dope want to know. >> you know when you ask your parents what you were like, my mom says i was high energy. the translation to that was a horrible, horrible toddler. hor. mom, you did a great job. great job back here. "morning joe" starts right now. >> we republicans were in charge for eight years. when i was saying it in real-time, is that chris? >> hey, hey. >> good lord! >> how are you doing? >> this was a great story, chris christie! thanks for interrupting me! >> chris christie, say hi to everybody. >> good evening, everyone. most people think it's just an issue of willpower or that kind

of thing and it's a heck of lot more complicated than that. anybody who has had those problems over the years knows that and i think why your book is so important. >> here is joe. >> hey, hey, chris, i was in middle of a great story. >> good morning, it's friday. may 10th. chris christie calling in last night at a great politico event packed out for mika's book "obsessed." with us on the net is msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele and political editor and white house correspondent for the huffington host, sam stein. al hunt. and abc news political commentator cokie roberts will be here coming up. we begin with the politics of ben ghazi and the investigation. it's fating. it's pitting congressional republicans against both president obama and the democrat they believe may stand the best chance of succeeding him in the

white house. lawmakers are not ruling out the possibility of calling back secretary of state hillary clinton to capitol hill for another round of testimony and dick cheney good into the debate yesterday considering the republicans consider issuing subpoenas. john boehner is under pressure from his own party to step up investigation. yesterday he called release of an e-mail from the state department the day after the attack saying that it will prove the administration suspected that islamic extremists were responsible from the start. >> understand the reason this is still under way is because the white house has done everything possible to block access to the information that would outline the truth. the question you have to ask is why. somebody, clearly, decided they didn't like the references to islamic terrorism and made

changes in this document. the american people deserve the truth and they will get the truth. >> we are also getting a look at how ben ghazi could have played an even more prominent role in last year's presidential election and how it may play a promise meant role in the next presidential election. here is an ad from the rnc they didn't air but word is they may go back to something like this. >> it's 3:00 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. but there is a phone in the white house and it's ringing. something is happening in the world.

al, maybe a preview of the next presidential campaign. it's unbelievable. we have de we have dick cheney wag in and john boehner being pressured. it looks like hillary clinton is not going to be able to go quietly into that dark night the next few years. >> maybe not but if that is the best they got, i wouldn't worry a lot if i was hillary. i think more of a problem for susan rice who wants to move into the white house and not a confirmable post but it might have been embarrassing. i think it's rather clear she misled people that sunday afterwards. the notion of some huge cover-up or some huge scandal or as one republican senator put it this is worse than watergate. no. it is a terrible and it was a tragedy. >> i think you said ten times as bad as watergate and the black

plague. >> maybe combined. >> you put that altogether -- it's not even august, cokie! >> and it's not 2014 yet! >> and the birds are circling. dick cheney is stepping in and energize the democratic base as well. >> i don't think it helps the republicans a lot to have dick cheney stepping in, frankly. but, look. the state department and the white house have screwed up here. they didn't -- they didn't need to do this. >> right. >> and abc's john carl has a report out this morning gone through the e-mails and see that victoria newland changes the talking points and, of course, the white house said nobody changed the talking points and they all came from the intelligence community. why do that? >> clear that up for me. what did jonathan carl find out? because that is the response from susan rice and supporters saying she just read the cia

talking points. >> yes. well, they have found that victoria newland, the state department spokesperson for hillary clinton at that particular time, wrote, in an e-mail, this requires glasses. >> that's fine. that's fine. we will show the same v.o. 12 seconds of ben ghazi while you put your glasses on! do that one right there! >> perfect. yes,ier. >> what did he say? >> so the talking points had that the agency had produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremist link to ben ghazi and a eastern libya, et cetera, and she said get those out of there and she says it just could be abused by members of congress to beat up the state department for not paying attention to warnings so why would we feed that? >> oh, my gosh. >> so that paragraph is now gone. >> so it wasn't just a cold, calculated cia analyst at

langley putting these talking points together? >> no. and now -- so then the white house says, well, but we really didn't do it. >> who did? so, michael. >> yes. >> this is politics. there are a lot of things to be concerned about. certainly this, you've got the state department officials that have worked for this country for decades being reprimanded. it is bad. the question is how much mileage can the republican get from this? >> i think they can get some to be honest because of exactly what cokie just said, the administration and the state department have bungled this thing from the very beginning. so now you have faces. hicks and others who have come out and to put context to it. now you've got people who, you know, they are not flies. these are serious state department officials, diplomats, who have grown concerned the way

this has progressed and store line has turned out. you have the chairman and others banging their sabers and dick cheney coming to the table. the party has a chance and that commercial is actually, i think, a little bit more effective in some means because it does, again, that context. you know? harking back to hillary's 3:00 morning when you call barack obama. >> makes it so political! >> it does, it does. but that is the point. >> i don't disagree with the point you're making, michael, but i'll tell you the gift that hillary clinton and the white house has, the gift, is daryl isa. he goes a step too far. when you really go after someone, you do it, first of all, on a bit of a bipartisan basis. carl levin on wall street and henry waxman on baseball some years ago. all darryl does is divide that committee on partisan grounds and makes it look like he said,

she said. >> you think that will begin to contextualize daryl a issa and bring him to bring in more democrats. >> i don't think the democrats will go anywhere near this. what is the mileage in it for them? zero. >> right. the bipartisan point goes out the window. >> here is a question as you look at this. at the end of the day, does this have president obama's fingerprints on it or secretary of state hillary clinton fingerprints on it? i ask that question because it's certainly seemed recommend in addition reminiscent. you have people brushing this aside and 22-yered state department official up there that everybody respects. he is called by a clinton chief

of staff. yelled at inappropriately and told not to talk to congressional investigators. he goes out and he gives that testimony, cokie, then what do they do? then they come out and say what is he saying is not the truth. then they say he is a liar or he can't remember the most important night of his life. this sounds -- this has the dna of a clinton scandal more than it does an obama scandal, does it not? >> scandal is a strong word. >> but what is a couple of notches below scandal? four people are dead. >> four people are dead. >> an first ambassador killed since 1979. it is serious. you talk about overplaying your hand. if a lot of people on the far right hadn't overplayed their hand on ben ghazi and were screaming and before they knew it, they were screaming about, i think we would all be much harder on the administration right now. >> and, again, these e-mails

that john carl has -- is stunning. >> abc will let more people come on the show. no, it is fascinating. >> newland writes at one point after they changed some of them, she says these changes don't resolve all of my issues or those of my building's leadership. >> when is this? when did he report this story? >> this is breaking as we speak. >> is it really? >> yes. >> so this is huge news, al. >> it is. >> and maybe it doesn't ratchet it up to scandal level, but this, again, and we saw this in clinton's scandals in the past, whether this is a scandal or not, this is really an abuse to -- you know, this blows up their story from yesterday and the day before, which is, this is cia just put these talking points together. this is really rough stuff. >> i'm still not sure how much it connects to or injures

hillary clinton. >> what was that last line? >> building's leadership. >> the building's leadership. >> now, the -- >> what you're saying is because when hillary runs something, she really is more of a hands-off person? >> i don't think anyone is -- >> right. >> i think it's safe to say that building's leadership is hillary. >> i think what hillary clinton -- first of all, the state department, as moen and pickering make clear, it was dreadfully prepared for these embassy is in general. whether hillary clinton played a role she was smart enough not to go on the sunday television shows. as for a cover-up, i find the cover- cover-up, maybe a little bit of one but not the cover-up we are used to seeing big stuff here. >> sam is going to tell you about the cover-ups that have happened since he has been in high school the past three years! see?

you can rise up and write all of the notes you can write and you can prepare all you want to! we were actually -- we were -- we all show up and we just sort of talk. >> i write a lot of note. >> sam writes a lot of notes. i'm proud of you. >> full disclosure, my wife works on congressional matters. >> you've been on this show a thousand times and just saying this? >> she just started working for the administration and i love my marriage. >> that's a lead. >> until after this show, i will be married. >> first of all, i do think there are big problems and i think jonathan carl e-mails raise additional questions. however, this debate has always been sort of missing the forest from the trees for me, which is that what is more important? whether or not they adjust to the talking points after the fact or why we miss the intelligence sense before the fact? what is it that we missed prior to the attack that maybe could

have prevented the attack? why was it we didn't have these compounds guard inside a better fashion than they obviously should have been guarded and a debate is happening in the diplomatic core is whether or not you need additional security. people like chris stevens were torn on this. >> right. >> some people don't want that security. >> well. >> we have to start asking ourselves what are the cost benefits for guarding the people we have in these very important and very delicate situations out there in places like libya? >> it is a problem. because our embassies are like armed fortresses as it is. so you go to them and it's really off -- to put it mildly. >> you drive through foreign countries and you see suddenly cement walls and barbed wire. >> guys are driving you around. >> that is the u.s. impembassie. >> you don't want that and chris

stevens want to be out among the people. >> when the call comes in, "send me help!" what was the breakdown there? why was it such a -- >> this is what bothers me about this. to suggest that the administration held back on sending help for whatever reason they did, is to suggest they were comfortable with people dying and i don't really see any evidence to suggest that that is the case. in fact, anyone who is actually looked at this from, you know, sober standpoint, i know tom ricks has done a very good analysis what could have happened that night, has included it was either way too crazy to send additional forces in the environment or it would have been impossible to get them there in time. >> we will be following that. jonathan carl's story today is going to be light up the wires this morning and also light up and warming the hearts of republicans all across the country. speaking of republicans.

the immigration bill, that is on the front of -- >> i thought you were going to say mark sanford. >> well, yeah. but speaking of republicans, you have the immigration bill going right now. yesterday, some amendments were passed, cokie. what i find fascinating is what is happening in this debate with the heritage foundation and the heritage foundation has come out. they have been talking about how much this bill is going to cost. they are getting lambasted from the left and right and apparently one of the authors said that hispanics had lower i.q.s of that bill. jim demint has come in here and he has really stepped in it. they are talking about getting outside pr firms. we all remember -- at least i do -- the heritage foundation wasn't a quirky conservative think tank. i mean, the heritage foundation is where people like bill bennett and jack kemp went, very

serious conservative institution. it's being battered now. >> well, they wanted to, you know, to sort of get sexier and have more edge and be out there more. they thought they were getting -- clearly thought they were getting to sort of old and stuck in the concrete. and jim demint is, you know, a darling of the tea party. he's a very smart guy but he decided to take this position. i think it's a disaster for the republicans. if they just keep doing this, forget ben ghazi. that is not going to be their concern. their concern is going to be that they keep turning off the fastest growing group in the population. we have the census numbers out this week that the african-american turnout was the higher in history and higher than whites for the first time in history. the republicans got 6% of that vote in the last election. >> hey, that's up from the 4%! looking good! >> progress. >> so let me -- >> progress. >> al, jason richwine, a senior

analyst wrote this in his harvard dissertation. quote, the average i.q. of immigrants in the united states is substantially lower than the white native population. the difference is likely to persist over several generations. al, it's -- >> that is a swamp when you -- is that true of asian immigrants? it's a prelude what is going to happen. i tell you a story i find the most interesting of all potentially. that is ted cruz versus marco rubio. if that happens the ambitious cuban americans, if that happens bring home the prize in 2016 i

think it will get past the committee. >> what is important about the heritage study is that republicans basically took the -- >> right. >> that is -- >> listen, this guy, obviously, has some, you know, crazy beliefs that he put in a dissertation a while back but it's heartening for reform advocates to see rubio say this study does not have legitimacy and we should ignore it because it gives the clearest indication today they are committed to it making sure this happens in part because they see this census data too. >> what do you think, michael? what do you see happening with our republican party on the issue of immigration reform? >> they are certainly not getting their sexy back on this type of stuff, that's for sure. they are in a whole other landscape if they continue down this road. number one. number two, i've said before on this show, joe, i think the play is going to be paul ryan in the house. i think you're right. you're going to get it out of the senate. it will pass.

and it will have a strong number, not a great number, but a number that can sail across the street to the house. i think ryan has been working very diligently to pull together those republicans that he knows he can get. we waste -- >> are we talking legalization or citizenship? >> i think there's a combination there that ryan is trying to put together in the house that touches on both of those. you got to deal with both of them at some point. so you can't do this piecemeal. that is the problem. >> that is such a tough nut. >> i agree with you. especially on citizenship. i just don't think that is going to happen. >> i tell you a funny story. the last year of president bush's presidency i got a call from dana perrino who i didn't know. ji saw her on tv. cokie, the president wants to know if you want to ride with him in the limousine out at

andrews force base when he meets the pope because i speak pope. i said, okay. >> hold on. let me tell you -- >> exactly. i'll clear the schedule. what he wanted to talk to me about was how he respected the pope so much that he was breaking precedent to go to andrews instead of having the instead of state come to the white house. then we got into a conversation about the church and the role of the church in america, which led to the conversation about immigration. and he said, and i'm quoting here, he said, i tried and tried and tried to get my party to do the right thing on immigration. and he said, and i couldn't do it because of the way district lines are drawn in the house of representatives. >> yeah. >> and they are just -- everybody was so terrified about their primaries and doing anything on immigration and that has just gotten worse, not better. >> i was going to say it's gotten worse since you had that conversation with him. i bring up background checks and

90% issue. i've said that if people are terrified to support a 90% proposition because they are primaried, what about immigration reform. >> really tough. >> i say this all the time. people in washington, people in manhattan, people on national shows say, oh, this is the right and lofty thing to do. >> not what you're hearing in a lot of of america. >> a lot of districts, especially when you talk about citizenship. >> i think you make a good point, joe, however. >> let's underline the however. >> if this bill passes the senate with 70 votes and including a substantial number of republicans and the house blocks a bill, blocks a immigration bill, it is just lethal for michael's party. >> it is. >> absolutely lethal. >> that's true. >> a good point which is why the house will produce -- much different bill and have to figure out how to -- >> and that is where the rubber hits the road. >> what we found in the

background check for criminal debate is these individual house members and the way it's always been, they don't care about the national party. they care about their district. they care about their re-election and, you know, lots of luck going to a town hall meeting in a lot of these districts saying, you know what? it's really good for the republican brand to allow, you know, immigrants become a u.s. citizen. >> the same factors that make it very, very difficult for the republicans to lose the house, make it very difficult for them to win statewide or for the presidency. >> no doubt about it. >> mirror reflection of where the democrats were 30 years ago, really is. >> coming up next, the top stories in the politico

playbook. first, bill karins has a check on the forecast. looks like a great mother's day for so many of us. first, we have to get there. we are watching heavy rain moving through the gulf coast states. if you're in new orleans your early morning commute at the peak of it strong thunderstorms and possibly hail and gusty winds. the green is the rain. the red is the thunderstorms. right now they just moved through lafayette, louisiana and slide towards new orleans an hour to two hours from right now. we are getting drenched up in mississippi too. this is where the severe weather will be today. sweeping across the gulf of louisiana and new storms will redevelop back towards houston and austin and san antonio and a little spot from columbus to pittsburgh you have a chance of getting some strong storms. here is your forecast. break it down for the weekend. first, today. on the east coast, no jacket needed. a very warm day. 81 in new york city this afternoon and humidity out there too. d.c., 85 and possibility of a much late day storm and most of the daylight hours will be dry. saturday is the murky day for the east coast. clear it out in the middle of

the country and nice refreshing air mass but lingering showers and storms. east coast and especially on the gulf as we go through saturday. finally, we get that push to the east coast. mother's day, literally a thumb's up for 95% of us are looking fantastic! just down there in central florida, a chance of some isolated storms. but even 88 and a slight chance of storms shouldn't ruin your plans with mom. a beautiful start to our friday morning at the capitol. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ one more day your way ♪ the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on all purchases, plus a 50% annual bonus. and everyone but her... no. no! no. ...likes 50% more cash. but i don't give up easy... do you want 50% more cash? yes! yes?! ♪ [ male announcer ] the capital one cash rewards card gives you 1% cash back on every purchase, plus a 50% annual bonus on the cash you earn. it's the card for people who like more cash.

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workers. relief crews are using heavy machinery to remove larger pieces of the building. remarkably, just this morning, bangladesh rescuers may have found a survivor in the rubble 17 days after the building collapsed. ""the washington times."" department removed the hand print from the 3d frgun manufacturer. by pofg the information online the company may be in violation of the nation's export controls. senator john mccain is preparation legislation that on would change the television business. he wants to give entertainment consumers the option to purchase channels al acart e.

>> this is going to make him really popular. >> really popular. let's -- lots of luck. the "chicago tribune." mcdonald's has announced it will stop selling its angus burger because of the rising cost of beef. they will offset the cost by replacing with chicken options. beef prices in the midst of ten-year high. a special mother's day edition. military mom sarah smiley's inspired way to fill her husband's empty seat at the dinner table after he was deployed overseas. with us now is politico's mike allen and jim vandehei with the morning playbook. >> can you imagine going into burger king and ordering the new burger that replaces the other tha meat that was too expensive?

>> this is the changed cpi. >> guys, great to see you again. >> amazing night last night. last night playbook cocktails where we talked to mika and joe about "obsessed" already in its second printing and great for mother's day. >> bravo, mika. >> the biggest playbook draw ever. you outdrew bill gates by hundreds! >> by hundreds! >> by hundreds! >> is that audience or money? >> it was all mika. >> both. >> unfortunately, it was audience. >> we had an amazing moment which i think we may have here of on stage in the middle of our conversation, mika's cell phone rings and mika's iphone rings and it is? you should get it! drum roll! yes, governor christie called in and he had very frank observations with "obsessed." and he says he feel good chance

for success and he said he kept it a secret because he didn't want to go out and have a press conference about it. he thought it was a family thing but said he would never lie about it so when a reporter from the "new york post" called hm, he went on record. >> you are reporting a conservative group is coming to the aid of kelly ayotte. it's so fascinating. in the past it was just pro gun money going into these states. but we are going to have it a back and forth. let's look at the ad that is going to be airing in new hampshire. >> those commercials from out of state groups attacking kelly ayotte are flat out wrong. >> those attack groups are partisan and misleading. >> when it comes to preventing gun violence kelly voted for what works. fixing background checks and strengthening mental health screenings. >> she is worked to put violent criminals behind bars. >> she has the courage to stand up and do what is right for new hampshire. >> she has helped make our community safer.

>> what we support is common sense gun reforms and that is what kelly voted for. >> jim vandehei, i am moved by watching that commercial. i am a son sewconnoisseur of so politics. i am moved by them using out of state money. these poor people in new hampshire! she is not up until 2016! this is going on for a long time! >> wthere is a response to this. what is so fascinating, jim, you will find the pro gun forces are going to find that whatever they put up there, they are going to be outgunned financially by those supporting background checks. that is what makes it so fascinating. >> used to be the nra controlled the game itself. there was no money on the other side and now multiple groups sprouting up on the other side where there is tens of millions of dollars behind them and they are able to run ads.

she is not up until 2016. the idea there are these political ads both defending and criticizing her is very, very unusual. i think the reason is that both groups have a lot of money, both see this as an issue that is resonating and one that is going to continue to be a live debate the next six months. >> mike, the thing that kelly doesn't want this going on because this a 75%, 80% issue. if i'm on the wrong side of that issue, i tell my staff, which somebody writes a nasty op-ed, we will not respond to and move on. look over here! i'm for tax cuts! >> what do you think ben ghazi is all about? >> right. you run from these issues. >> we have the nra defending her which you knew she doesn't like. this is a real buy. it's going to boston broadcast tv and as jim mentioned we are going to have both mayor bloomberg's group and gabby

giffords' group jumping in and trying to tee up 2014. how much of an issue can you make it nen? president obama believes the way you are actually going to get this passed, short of another event, which both sides think will sadly happen, is the way you have this past is have voters vote people out and voters vote on it, not just supporting it. >> al, fascinating. we sue a phew poll coming out say on the gun issue, americans are split. basically like 43% support the republican view and 41%, 40% support the democratic view. also gun deaths way down the past decade or spoke. i guess we are talking about really in places like new hampshire with swing voters. that's not nationwide. it's these individual senators. >> that's true, joe. we are also talking about issues like background checks which are different. and that is the issue there. i love that ad. you noticed all of those cops were retired? >> yeah!

>> they don't have any active cops out there because the law enforcement overwhelmingly supports background checks. i heard some of the gabby giffords ads up there. kelly does not want gabby giffords to come to new hampshire to campaign against her. will there be a sustain long-term effort? will mike bloomberg be spending money two or three years from now and will mark kelly and gabby gifforvffords stay involv which i think they will be. >> what you're living with here -- >> in you're the nra, why do you want? something i don't understand about the nra. so short sided. why do you want to fight a battle on a 90/10 ground on background checks and move it to assault weapons and if it's assault weapons, that gets muddy very quickly because it's semiautomatics. >> we have the clout. that's what it's all about. but i tell you what we are dealing with here is the permanent campaign.

never a moment when there is not a campaign and that is so much part of why this congress is so polarized. >> and it's also keeping their people ginned up and their membership is up to 5 million, record membership. and that is a huge part of this. >> and weakness invites change and attacks. if they were although to see on this even if it is an insignificant piece of legislation in the larger scheme of what is happening in the gun control debate, if they lose it, it's going to be a lot easier to get the forces to pour in more money and do something much more stricter on gun control and why they don't want to give. >> thanks for being us. we had a great time last night. >> you're on fire. >> thank you so much. >> love shaking hands. >> that's known as a politician! >> i love people! >> people love you. >> just hugging people. >> governor christie interrupted your story so rudely. >> it was a great story! it was a great story! i was just talking about newt

and i said to newt. >> got the story out and it's up on politico.com. the whole video is right there. playbook cocktails. >> thank you so much. >> thanks for being here. >> happy mother's day, everyone. >> happy mother's day. red sox slugger big papi is speaking out against allegations he may be using performance-enhancing drugs. i'm a red sox fan but, dude, it's like gun control in new hampshire, don't talk about it, we will look the other way. we will talk about that next. 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. walmart choice premium steak in the black package. it's 100% satisfaction guaranteed. try it.

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hearses. david ortiz is speaking out about new questions he may be using performance-enhancing drugs. a column by boston globe sports writer dna shaughnessy suggested that ortiz was hitting too well at his old age of 37. shaughnessy made with his heritage making the link to others have tested positive to performance-enhancing drugs. ortiz responded yesterday saying, crazy. i'm dominican and many dominicans have been caught using steroids and what about americans? if you're from the middle east because there are some people there who put bombs and terrorize civilians, i have to see you like that as well? if you are a white american, i have to call you a racist because white americans are in the ku klux klan? ortiz has been linked to ped

linkage in the past. he chalks it up to legal substances and vitamins. >> yes, vitamins. orange juice. >> where does it go from here? nowhere, right? >> i think dan shaughnessy what a lot of people around -- we will just say fans of the red sox have suspected for a very long time but we will see what happens. yeah, it's pretty significant that a boston writer like dan shaughnessy who is a bit of a legend up there, would actually talk about this. i don't know. i'm just focusing right now on the red sox getting out of the losing streak. >> lost 6 out of 7. three-way tie for first place. >> not the best week for the red sox. >> a rough week. >> thank you so much. coming up, former counsel to president clinton lanny davis will be here and talk about ben ghazi and how it was handled. lisa myers will be here as well. you're watching "morning joe,"

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earlier this morning cokie and i were debating whether you could call ben ghazi a scandal or not. she said it probably wasn't. i said it could be. proving that i'm probably right is the fact that with us now to talk about a possible clinton scandal, cofounder of "purple nation solutions and principle of lani j. davis and associates, lanny davis. >> thank you for that great introduction! >> it feels, lani, oddly, like 1999 again. he is the author of "crisis tales." also joining the table nbc senior investigative correspondent lisa myers. cokie, lanny was going to come

on and talk about what the administration should have done, how they should have done it and, of course, going to say that no clinton was involved in anything, that could be criticized. but the jonathan karl this morning, talk about it briefly. >> it shows us that the state department certainly was involved in changing the talking points that came on ben ghazi, that the white house insisted came straight from the cia and was only the intelligence community involved in. >> so, lisa, this isn't surprising to you, right? you had heard that there were e-mails out there that were going to pull the state department in and you suspect there may be more like this? >> i do. i suspect now that -- the fact that john boehner, speaker boehner has now said that he will allow the chairman in the house to issue subpoenas is a big step in the investigation. before, he had not been willing

to do that and that is the only way they are going to get a lot of these documents. if subpoenas are going to arrive, the white house is going to follow lanny's playbook. i was told there was a paper trail in a way that made the white house less vulnerable. >> which, nof course, is important because the word is all susan rice was doing was reading cold, hard analysis from the cia and that is not the truth. >> that's not the case. tor another part of her talking points was that there was significant security in ben ghazi which we all know now was not the case. that was something the state department knew because they had, in fact, reduced security in libya, despite requests by the embassy to have it increased. at a minimum, susan rice should have known through the state

department that security was not robust in ben ghazi. >> lanny, whether this is political scandal or not or plilt implications or not a u.s. ambassador is dead, the first dead on assignment since 1979 and susan rice less likely to move into the white house of this scandal keeps growing. what did they wrong? >> first of all, the talking points, e-mails, the evolution of those talking points, the fact there were changes should have been put out immediately after the ben ghazi tragedy. if it had been i i would say the e-mails are coming out sooner later. this is a big issue. if there is an explanation for these changes, whatever they are, changes were made, let's explain why we made the changes and let's get it out and explain it fully, transparentally and

get tovit over with. the other note i note on the e-mails is the biggest hot language did come from the cia. the cia in these e-mails disclosed this morning said spontaneous demonstration linked to the protesters in cairo. that is guted by these e-mails. the other point to make is that hillary clinton still a great defender and friend of mine and i'm still a great defender, did order a full investigation. ambassador pickering for -- >> he still got it. after all these years. >> time-out. >> let me make -- >> listen. >> we never let harold ford get his three talking points out. wer werpt going let you. >> he has to. >> we are not going to let you get your talking points out. this is not 1998. it's not hannity and combs. we don't allow that here. the question is.

>> it is cross-fire when we used to debate. >> what did hillary clinton, what mistakes did hillary clinton make here? >> well, i think that from the very beginning, hillary clinton and the white house should have put everything out on the table and explained what happened, but i do think what hillary clinton -- >> what about the security issues, though? she had an ambassador saying i need more security. as lisa said. the state department gets information out there. it's just not true about this level of security. >> i'm going to get this fact out whether it's hannity and combs or not. >> thank you so much, lanny davis! great to have you here! >> she wanted a complete investigation. harley criticized ambassador pickering and admiral mullens the senior department and she took responsibility and did the right thing in that occasion. >> lisa, what are you working on right now? what is next? >> there is something called ben ghazi going on. i think the democrats now are

starting to worry about it. i got calls from a number of democrats yesterday trying to undermine greg hicks testimony saying he wasn't demoted, et cetera, et cetera. i think they feel that some damage was done by those three witnesses on wednesday. >> okay. we shall see. we will be right back with more "morning joe." straight ahead, lanny is working on more talking points. also dr. brzezinski about join us on the debt. for seeing your business in a whole new way. for seeing what cash is coming in and going out... so you can understand every angle of your cash flow- last week, this month, and even next year. for seeing your business's cash flow like never before, introducing cash flow insight powered by pnc cfo.

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in about 18 months from now, hopefully, he will have sent nikki haley back to wherever the hell she came from. >> now the inflammatory comment riddle. will the apology dig him out or bury him further? >> i apologize yesterday if anyone inferred. i'm the grandson of immigrants. she not from india. she is from bamburg, south carolina, where she was an accountant and her parents clothing store called exotica. i'm suggesting she needs to go back to being an accountant in a dress store. >> see? he wasn't doing the nativist, go back to where you came from, foreigner. he is doing the ladies keep the books in a dress store. apology accepted! >> welcome back to "morning joe." with us abc news cokie roberts.

former special counsel so the president clinton lanny davis is with us. and also joining the column associate editor of "the washington post" eugene robinson and moderator of "meet the press," david gregory. cokie, that sounds like what we were talking about what was used against your father! >> back in the '50s! >> he is not a communist! he's a south carolina clown. that's your state actually. >> i have a sweater from exotica. my mother bought me a sweater from there. >> this guy chaired nikki haley to adolf hitler's mistress and then he made inflammatory bigoted statements. wonder why this guy was allowed to stay around. >> your point would be? this is south carolina. >> why he is running the south

carolina democratic party? >> you see how well they are doing. >> exactly! that explains it an awful lot. we have a lot to talk about this morning. david gregory, you've got daryl e issa? ion and dianne feinstein as well. >> they will be talking about the jonathan karl story. you don't have to know when the state department knew and if they knew it but now we have the e-mails and those cia talking points were actually altered and changed. they specifically said the people who run this building don't want to give republicans ammunition. >> look. we know what the backdrop is. there was a deteriorating security situation in ben ghazi and the reason that chris stevens was going there is because he had to go there by september 30th, in part, to prepare for a potential visit by the secretary of state. >> it just strikes me.

we are talking about ben ghazi, right? leach here, why are they talking about ben ghazi? this is a great example, david. if they had done what lanny davis said they had done, just put the documents out, we wouldn't be talking about this this morning but this is a perfect example in washington, d.c. how you handle the screw-ups. >> why do they think you can hide anything? >> e-mail! >> i think part of the point is that nobody has answered the substantive questions about what they were thinking and when, why they made certain decisions or did not make certain decisions and i think the talking point issue comes down to one point which is why wouldn't you put out a bigger net of possible explanations even at a point of confusion? >> right. >> when we know everybody on the ground was talking about linked to a jihadist group and some decision made not to do that. >> not clear why. >> gene, they are all talking

about it because as cokie said, we know this stuff comes out. we know the e-mails come out. why are you talking about five days later a youtube video? >> well, has. everything -- this ben ghazi thing, it drives knee crazme cr right? four diplomats, including an ambassador, first ambassador since 1979, an awful thing happened. but these things happen. especially in a war zone, in libya, after a civil war! after you get -- >> we are not talking about these things happening. we are talking about how the white house handled it afterwards. >> exactly. so they didn't handle it well. they didn't handle it as well as they should have. but there are like seven attacks on u.s. diplomatic installations under george w. bush and how much clinton and how many under reagan? i mean, these awful things happen because of our global

footprint and the idea that this becomes an obsession about whether a talking point was changed here or there, when, obviously, all of the information comes out, obviously, you know it and obviously, mistakes are made because somebody died and nobody wanted that to happen. >> i can say as far as we go here and i think most people in the press, we haven't been obsessed over this. i know, but i'm saying we haven't been talking about it and if the white house had handled it correctly and not misled the american people, we wouldn't be talking about it. >> crazy republicans are trying to make a point because they were losing on every other point. so that was the place that they were sort of making this stand. with that being the case, then that argues even more than getting everything out there and having it over with. >> i think the big disagreement here is i talked to a republican on the hill yesterday. i said, let's be honest, there are some republican overreach here. this isn't really watergate,

right? this person said to me, no, it's not watergate. this is somebody who is prominently involved. what this is about fundamentally is a disagreement how light a footprint the united states will have in parts of the world where we are partly engaged and facing a terrorist threat and the white house disagrees with the republicans and the democrats about the -- >> that's totally disingenuous! >> i don't think it is, cokie. >> i think what it's about is trying to get the democrats -- >> cokie, it could be partially about that, of course. but this is also -- >> democrats never want to just get the republicans, do they? >> of course, they do! >> there is a disagreement the receding and others think no, we have to find some middle ground between the bush era occupy the country and obama, you know, let's be involved -- >> leave them behind. >> more u fa mystic. the point is let's be involved but not own it. >> an excellent thing to have a

hearing about and excellent question. >> i don't disagree and i think overtaken by the sense of blood in the water here. >> if we can stop for one moment. this just in. lanny davis is now going to get in his third talking point. >> i was going to say, please don't accuse me of saying this is a talking point. >> too late! it's too late! >> the document dumped that mike mcqueary taught me when i was working for president clinton if it's out there, it's coming out there any way so do it all at once. i would have taken all of these e-mails and insisted on putting them out. >> and added a few. >> and added more. there is a good explanation and that is the trouble with not doing it right is that it's a worse story because you don't put everything out there. >> what is a good explanation for the cia giving you information and then the state department saying we have got to alter these -- the cia information because it's going to make us look bad on the

sunday morning talk shows when susan rice, or you, as an ambassador, goes on "meet the press." we are going to alter the talking points and screw around with what the cia has said and, i mean, this is not nothing. >> let's assume there is no political motivation, that there is a lot of confusion. >> wait a minute. >> time-out. >> no. we can't assume that because what is the exact language in this e-mail? >> here we go again. >> you can't make that i assumption because it is false on its face. where her exact words -- >> it says the congressional republicans may hammer us and that would be what you're looking for. >> it says the congress -- >> the congress may hammer us and there was certainly political. >> could be abused by members of congress to beat up the state department for not paying attention to warnings. why would we want to -- >> why would you want to tell the truth what the cia told you, people were saying on the ground? >> first of all, it's going to come out any way so you got to

do it and not deny it. secondly what i really think happened is the cia were the ones who started with the expression. obama advanced an agenda by saying it was spontaneous demonstrations. that came from the cia in these e-mails. >> again, we have to put this into proper context, david gregory. president obama was political about this too. we were in the middle of a presidential campaign. he was running around the country saying i killed osama bin laden and al qaeda is on the run and dropping drones all over the world and bad guys are dropping left and right. i'm tough. the last thing he wanted was republicans be able to say in the middle of a campaign we have the first u.s. ambassador since 1979 killed in the line of duty and he was killed by al qaeda terrorists. >> right, in a part of the world where the united states was involved militarily, but -- and

had a footprint of having appear ambassador there and having a diplomatic compound there what wasn't providing adequate security. one of the things that i've been researching this week thinking about the historical context is the beirut bombing of 1993. cokie, you're not old enough to remember this. >> david and i do. >> what did the democrats say after the beirut bombing? what was the charge humbled to rodney reagan? why were our troops in a precarious position surrounded by grenades? >> then the next day we invaded them. >> how the world would have been digit, gene! >> to get us. >> we allowed the communist to keep control of them. venezuela may have fallen into the hands of -- >> or we could have lost aruba. >> if you read and you not allowed me to finish this point.

>> oh, no! >> if you read the report by ambassador pickering. >> you know i book this show, don't you? >> if you read the error report, which i have from cover to cover by ambassador pickering and admiral mullens was tough and the secretary of state took every word and said i take responsibility and implemented the recommendations. as a crisis manager, i would have put all of this stuff out earlier and they should have done that. she did the right thing. >> gene, let's talk about because a lot of people are saying why are you talking about ben ghazi? it's a big story. another story out there that the inspector general, that was looking at afghanistan was shieded by administration official and yelled at because he actually was talking to the press getting talking points from them. there is going to be talk about how the white house mishandled this but, more specifically, you got susan rice who the president wants to move in to the white house. >> yeah. >> isn't that going to be

changed by the events? >> i'm not sure. if he has confidence in her. >> his choice. >> then he'll do it. >> and cokie, do you think the president will -- >> i think he feels very strongly at this point she has been wronged' that he is going to give her a good job and that he also likes her advice. >> you know, you can say that he felt sensitive enough about events not to make her secretary of state. but that would assume that -- she was actually his first choice which appears to be the case. but i do think here, i agree with cokie on this, that it's his chose and that he feels strongly enough. part of the question about where we are is where does this go? if there there are additional e-mails that you come out, does the president decide to answer some of these substantive questions and does former secretary of state hillary clinton come out? otherwise i think continued pressure from republicans and i'm not sure where else it goes

at this point. >> let's talk about immigration. "the washington post" talking about this. we have a couple of fascinating things going on. one is the battle between marco rubio and ted cruz. for the future of the hispanics wing of the republican party. >> such as it is. >> all 3%. you have heritage foundation jim demint making a splash early on but not the type of splash you want to make. we talked about jason richwine, a senior policy analyst at heritage who co-authored the immigration study is controversial not just with democrats but a lot of republicans coming out right now and bashing heritage for this study. he wrote this in his harvard dissertation. quote, the average i.q. of immigrants in the united states is substantially lower than that of white native population. and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. >> we have seen this throughout our history, you know? the italians were supposed to not have an i.q. the irish before them were not

supposed to. this is a -- >> this columnist believe that the welsh are dumber than the english, seriously he does. so, you know, this -- >> you know what is interesting is unlike 2007, the huge debate about this which was amnesty versus not back then. i talk to democrats and republicans about this here, it's a little bit more benign. do we do a comprehensive bill or break it up into thirds. a lot of mistrust on both sides. can you get enough border security in the front end to make republicans comfortable with, you know, giving a pathway to citizenship to the 11 million who are here illegally on the back end. >> do you agree with cokie and me actually. this is going to be a pretty heavy lift in the house. >> yeah. >> i don't see -- you know, people are looking past that. i don't see the republican house as it is, george w. bush complained about that back six

years ago, i don't see this -- i certainly don't see legalization passing in the house. >> i just think the willingness of chuck schumer talked about it and marco rubio talks about the willingness to make changes. i talked to a senator yesterday who said rubio is all round edges. if you don't like something, we can do this. so a spirit of compromise. >> that is way they lafayetwork >> we were talking about background checks. it's these districts are so jerry make any difference nderr >> this is a perfect test of the republican staebleted which clearly wants something to pass, right? >> who is the republican establishment? >> that's a good question. >> i'm serious. what is the answer? because i don't know -- if there were a republican establishment,

ted cruz would have been -- >> not elected. >> -- talked to a long time ago. >> the difference is unlike guns, republicans have a vested interest. >> exactly. >> huge interest makes a difference i. >> in moving forward. the future of the party. >> it's really up to john boehner. because if he is willing to put together a coalition of democrats and some republicans. >> that's it. >> then they can get it through. if he is feeling very beat up by the republicans and who are saying, you know, you have to have a majority of the majority, then it will not get through the house. >> he wants cover from the senate too. he gets a senate bill out there and it gets a lot easier. >> cokie, thank you so much for being with us. >> good to be with you. >> see you soon again. >> breaking news. lanny, thank you. >> it's been a great experience. >> i'm sure it has! we look forward to having you back very soon. david and gene, stay with us. still ahead, ben ghazi

hearings is being called a smear campaign and elijah cummings will join us. up next, jane harman and dr. brzezinski will join us on the set. keep it here on "morning joe." when our little girl was born, we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) designed for your most precious cargo. (girl) what? (announcer) the all-new subaru forester. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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♪ well, it's all right >> women always come up to mika and they go, i read your book. i followed every bit of advice. and i got a raise. and i know my value now and they will start tearing up and mika will tear up. and they will hug and i'll realize how i really accomplished nothing of worth in my life. so this lady comes up and we are signing all of the books. she said, i read your value and i followed every bit of advice! and i got fired!

>> that's a comedy act. >> sometimes it works! sometimes it doesn't. we are at a signing yesterday and mika got the news yesterday and kind of hard to focus on signing the books after that. with us now is former national security adviser for president carter, the proud father of mika and author of "strategic vision." dr. brzezinski and former representative of california, and now can the scholars foundation is jane harman. more fascinating than my jokes at mika's signing event, the struggle is between forces funded and armed by outside sponsors notably saudi arabia, qatar and iran. also participating is foreign religious groups not directly controlled by the sponsors and

american involvement -- against the u.s. and post danger that the conflict would spill over into the neighborhood and set jordan, iraq and lebanon on fire. we hear a crisis in jordan and spill over. >> even doing nothing wright means we are not involved in it and not paying the price for it because if we become involved we will be one of the potential practici -- what we have to face is this simple fact. this is not a struggle for democracy. she a struggle between sunnis and shiites and special national interests of neighbors involved. unless we can go in with

overwhelming force and settle the problem, it's better not to go in and tiddly winks suggestion we do this and that and no fly zones and bump on somebody, something like that, don't solve the problem. simply get us in. >> and americans are in no mood to go in with overwhelming force. as colin powell always said we don't want to go to war and you throw everything in it and we look at the polls and we don't have the support. >> overwhelming force prevailed in the days in which you were fighting in these organized armies but you get involved with overwhelming force against a popular conflict, of the people spo speak, you get bogged down and we have seen this happen. >> jane? >> first of all, i was in the neighborhood so i stopped by the book signing yesterday and mika was holding somebody else's baby and you were there in full support, joe. so i want to congratulate you. i think she's a marvel. daddy, i think she is a marvel. on this, i agree, it's a

sectarian conflict but exploited by extremist islamic. that will terrify russia next door and bad news for lebanon and jordan. 10% of their population is going to 25% by the end of this year in 40 percent by next year and that government could fall because of this. it's big. i love you. we work together in the carter white house but i think we have to ramp it up. i hope that we are having -- >> define ramp it up for you. what does that mean? >> my view is working with the neighborhood, especially the turks, provide more than humanitarian aid to those we trust and we can identify some of these elements and if, only if these talks between russia, the u.s. and others don't work, i hope that john kerry said a lot of things that are not yet reported in the press and he

didn't write e-mails that are going to leak somewhere but i hope we have a strategy to work this out diplomat cically with e russians on the other side and the leader is move moved out even if he stays in the country and another transitional government takes his place. >> that was the conclusion of my piece, actually. i think we -- when the crisis started two years ago, the president immediately announced assad has to go. fine. he is entitle to do that opinion. whether he should announce it is a different issue. once he announced it people asked how do you make him leave? we didn't know how to make him leave. if we want him to leave, we have to get some of his supporters to leave and you mentioned russia. precisely why we talk to the russians to convince him maybe he should leave. if we do it we don't do it by announcing it and demanding he leaves. i suggested a long time ago elections in which everyone can compete. which means he can compete if he

wishes. and then he concludes that it is better for him to withdraw. that's a much smarter way of doing it than plunging in and doing all sorts of military things which simply escalate the involvement and bog us down and don't solve the problem and probably make it even worse. >> is there some military intervention by someone? who is that and what does that look like? >> who other than us. conceivably i could imagine the iranians doing that but they aren't that crazy and don't want to be the cause of a war. maybe the turks but the turks have a serious kurdish problem and wouldn't want to do it alone. i doubt that the turks would want to do it. so there is no one other than us. now the israelis can do some thing but contribute to more massive explosions because they have special interest, such as example the hezbollah don't threaten them. >> i think the israelis were

justified in doing what they did taking out a missile shipment twice intended for them. that is self-protection. i don't see a military intervention, david. i see arms flowing to groups inside. it is a sectarian conflict so, of course, the neighborhood, those that are sunni are fueling the sunnis and we have to be careful but we should do nothing unilaterally and work through the turks and others in the area whose help we need to justify this as a multinational action to help those inside. i mean, if there is regime change, it has to come from inside. your idea is inintriguing and i hadn't heard that. >> other than turkey, the other parties that have potential influence here and not the traditional ones. ones who are sort of semiinvolved from the outside are the british and the french. but they are hated in the region. they literally are hated in the region and the former colonial powers. so they can cannot be part this.

a new global relate is the russia and china. look at their efforts with netanyahu. they are beginning to be involved in the middle east. the russians have rieds wall interest in syria which they would like to protect and they might lose if there is a total conflict. >> so we should be talking about that. >> one plilt note is interesting in terms of how congress is viewing this. we have seen lindsey graham and senator mccain talking most about no fly zones intervention. i think the thing to watch out for is the role that senator -- excuse me. that secretary kerry is playing within the administration. >> i agree. >> is he breaking ranks a little bit and trying to push the president harder? and other democrats, karl levin and others who might ratchet up their calls for some kind of intervention. >> this administration, i think, is happy to have contrakerry oue and he has contacts and

experience. if he fails it's his failure and if he succeeds, it's obama's success. so i applaud what kerry is doing. our not intervening has a cost. john mccain was touring the refugee camps in jordan and they pointed him to the kids, the 1.5 million refugees and saying these are the next generation of jihadis. if we become hated by the next generation for not helping, i think we have a problem. >> if we are intervene we will be hated too because we will have to kill a lot of people. >> i'm not saying we intervene. >> that begs the question. john mccain noted in the piece our interests, our values and our values are our interests. do we lead because this is about what is important to the u.s. in terms of its military strategic interest? or are we leading here to go into this because we want to continue to sort of neocon idea of spreading diagnosis democracy

and building our system. >> i think our values and our interests align. our values are against a purge of a whole population. our interests, our strategicic interests this is the buffer or the bad guy between iran, lo lebanon and it will never come out right. >> as with mother's day coming up this weekend, i'm reminded of my mother's favorite saying. doctor, they would always tell me the road to hell is paved with good intentions. people like myself a decade ago and 75% of the american people ik were saying saddam hussein has killed more muslims than anybody else in the history of the world and we believe he has wmds. our values aligned and there were comparisons drawn with the cold war and what happened. this seems to be as much of a mess or even more of a mess than

i iraq was in 2003. >> and people were urging us to go into iraq for our own beliefs and now urging us to go into military service. there is no solution until we go all out and means we have to have turkey on our side. >> even if we go all out, we went all out in iraq and ten years later. you look at afghanistan. this is -- i'm not arguing with you but, jane, let's look at every war we have been involved with since world war ii. as dr. brzezinski said not one huge army against another huge army. korea, a tragedy. vietnam, a tragedy. the first gulf war a tragedies and so was the second gulf war. afghanistan, a tragedies. we cannot find a leader stupid

enough to meet us on a battlefield in europe so we can wipe them off the face of the earth. i don't see a good ending to any military conflict. >> one of our problems is we have tactics to deal with all of these problems. our narrative is poor. at least my view is we need to close guantanamo. we need to project our values. the rule of law use federal courts to try those suspected of terrorism. >> not to cut you off but our tactics are not working in afghanistan. >> part of the reason this stuff isn't working is we don't explain what we are doing. in this case, i am not for u.s. boots on the ground. i am not for intervention other than helping those there on the ground in a multinational coalition and i'm hoping that this diplomatic initiative that kerry and hopefully putin are taking will work. with russia on the same side and china on the same side as we are, we have the best chance and i agree on that.

>> the narratives and how -- you know, the president said, look. how does the united states make a difference here? and i think that speaks for it. i never used his first name before. was that successful? if you don't even use his first name that is daring and i just did it! >> he told me to use his first name and he refuse to but you go ahead! >> why don't you call him sunny boy? >> that's good. >> i want to go for the pronunciation. the point is it's not clear how the united states makes a difference to dr. brzezinski's point. >> that is more appropriate. >> more appropriate. >> but that is what the president -- i don't think we have resolved that question. >> we are way over, dr. brzezinski and we need to go. vladimir putin, you talk about resentment. russian resentment. ruling putin and russian leadership and that has been the case for some time. i remember the first time president obama went to talk to

him. putin was slouched in his chair. just showing contempt. visual contempt for the man. john kerry goes there. he keeps him waiting three hours and purposefully insults him. who is the audience and is that more for the russian people or is this a guy that does this publicly and then does business with us behind the scenes or is the contempt continuous when the doors are closed? >> no, i think he does business behind closed doors but the attempt is real and visceral and rooted in a sense of resentment that russia lost the great cold war and seething with nostalgia and resentment and the new middle class that is coming up, the younger middle class is internationalists and increasing democratic and i think putin years are not going to be very numerous and that could change. >> putin's story about that sense of losing the great fight,

he and bush are in russia at his weekend place and barney, the dog, is who bush had and when he came to the ranch, putin saw the dog and putin has a white huge akita. the dog jumps up and he says, "that's a dog!" >> dr. brzezinski, thank you for being with us and jane, thank you as well. fascinating discussion and david, we will watch on sunday. what a "meet the press" this sunday with the news breaking this morning about the state department e-mails. going to be a heck of a "meet the press." >> you can call me sunny boy. >> all right, sunny boy, thank you. why the presidency world's important job and loneliest, we get a unique take inside the bubble. also the $45 million atm hack and how they did it and how investigators caught them. that and more when "morning joe"

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an amazing story in survival from bang bangladesh. they rescued a woman who was in that rubble for 17 days. the death toll has passed 1,000 and making it the worst traditional tragedy in history. relief crews are bringing in heavy machinery to remove the larger pieces of the building. investigatoors a calling ita global crime ring responsible for stealing millions of dollars from thousands of atm machines in a matter of hours. nbc's tom costello that has store. >> reporter: investigators say a highly sophisticated global bank height that used the computers and internet in place of guns' masks in the end the district attorney says a conspiracy got away with $45 million in a coordinated attack on atms

worldwide. >> moving literally speak speed of the internet the organization meated its way from the computer systems of international corporations to the streets of new york, as well as major cities around the world. >> reporter: how did they do it? investigators believe the suspects hacked into global financial institutions, then stole prepaid debit card numbers and eliminated the maximum withdrawal limits and that stolen data was transmitted around the world where an army of suspects and more than two dozen countries encoded the data on to magnetic strips and began withdrawing money from atms. >> they become a virtual criminal flash mob going from machine-to-machine, drawing as much money as they can before these accounts are shutdown. >> our financial systems are so interconnected you can lilt commit a crime halfway around the world and get away with the money before anyone could dial 911. >> reporter: the man investigators leave was the new york ring leader was murdered in the dominican republic while seven u.s. suspects arrested many more are thought to be on

the loose worldwide. tom costello, nbc news, washington. 11 years, 9 months and 1 day after the september 11th attacks you're looking at what happened just moments ago. workers at one world trade began the final stages of reaching the building's full height of 1,776 feet. workers are now lifting the final sections of the silver spire this morning. it's 408 feet tall and weigh 750 tons. the spire's light will be seen from miles away. you're looking at live pictures as this building, my gosh, gene, it has been such a long time. there has been so much infighting in new york city. finally thankfully coming to a completion. >> it is. once again, it kind of completes the new york sky line. you know? you missed it. you saw that avoid there for so many years and you saw this

building rising. now the tallest in new york. >> looking good. >> inspiring site. really is. >> look at those workers up there working! >> that is what i marvel. >> yeah. you would not -- no! >> not see me up there! that is 1,776 feet high. you wouldn't see me 76 feet high working on anything like that. it's just extraordinary. but what a proud day for the people of new york and all across the country. i'm so glad they are finally completing it. coming up next, senator debbie sabignaw will with us. can they make it through a gridlock senate? we will ask senator debbie stabenow about that next. [ female announcer ] love.

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♪ with us now democratic senator sfr michigan debbie stabenow and talking about a new bill involving mental health. >> in the middle of everything that is happening on the gun debate and i want to thank you for your efforts because i think it has made a difference on what we ought to on comprehensive background checks. everyone says we should do something with mental services is what they are saying. we have come together and put together a bipartisan bill and offer it the next time the gun bill comes back because it will, at some point. it was the next amendment when they stopped the debate or we will do it separately. either way. it's about making sure there is comprehensive community mental health services.

we have the iraq and afghanistan veterans supporting us and law enforcement supporting us. mental health service supporting us in the community right now, we can getus. in the community right now we can get health care services. there's a way to get reimbursed for it. but they can't get reimbursed for mental health services. >> there's such a stigma in the past. that's changing. >> that's changing. a lot of things are happening that have been great. bradley cooper has been here, "silver linings playbook." >> right. >> if you are bipolar -- my dad went undiagnosed ten years fwit that. you can get medication just like you can get medication for checking your sugar if you're a diabetic and get treatment. >> right. >> a third of the folks who are bipolar get zero treatment in a year. over 50% of people that are seriously mentally ill get nothing. nothing. >> yeah. >> and so how is it on one hand, you know, we need these services no matter what. here is what we also know.

with studies on young people. if you don't get help after your first psychotic episode, you are 15 times more likely to commit a violent act. >> wow! >> there is a connection. >> this is just so important. it touches so many families. >> it does. it does. >> in this country. and if this helps us finally kind of bridge that gap, people understand physical ailments and physical health services. >> right. >> yet there still is something of a stigma, i think, about mental health. if we just get rid of that, it would make such a huge difference. >> it would. >> not just in the gun debate but just in the quality of life in this country. >> in general. yeah. >> and so many families who str struggle with this. >> we hate to bring it up, on one hand, on the gun debate. a person with mental illness is more likely to be a victim rather than a perpetrator. >> high profile cases that we see, whether it's aurora,

columbine or newtown. >> exactly. i applaud you for bringing this up to the fore. the question i have, though, do you have a concern that this legislation, as gene noted is very important, gets bogged down or lost in translation as a result of where we are right now on the gun debate, that even though this is a separate track, so to speak, it sort of gets pushed to the side? are you trying to raise it up, link it? how do you guys plan to move this thing forward? >> that's a good question. we are committed to moving this forward regardless, gun debate, no debate. the truth of the matter is that in the context of the gun debate, one thing that everybody has said is that we need to increase mental health services. fine. let's do that. if, when we are finished, we have a comprehensive background check and community mental health services so people got the help they needed, reduced the stigma, providing health

services for the neck up, like we do for the neck down frankly, we would have done something. background checks, community mental health services for veterans coming home, for people in the community. we could say at the end of the day, okay, we have done something that is meaningful and will change lives. >> senator, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you so much. >> and thank you michigan for running ads. >> i thought it was my introduction. pure michigan. come to michigan this summer. it's a beautiful place to be. >> we'll be coming out that way ourselves. looking forward to it. >> good. >> it's so important. as gene said, it touches the lives of so many families out there. >> it does. >> more now than ever. coming up next, congressman elijah cummings, michael crowley and kelly o'donnell will be joining the table. you're watching "morning joe" sponsored by starbucks.

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coming up next, a new report, benghazi talking points that came over to the cia weren't just doctored once but 12 different times, including extensive edit from the defense department. coky roberts joins the table for this discussion when "morning joe" comes back.

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it's 8:00 am on the east coast. 5:00 am on the west coast. taking a live look at washington, d.c., home of the nationals. michael steele is here along with sam stein. al hunt, who is very excited about that, and cokie roberts. we begin with the politics of benghazi and the investigation. it's fascinating, pitting congressional republicans against both president obama and the democrat they believe may stand the best chance of succ d

succeeding him in the white house. lawmakers are not ruling out the possibility of calling back secretary of state hillary clinton to capitol hill for another round of testimony. and dick cheney got into the debate yesterday, encouraging republicans to consider issuie i and john bany says it will show thati islamic extremists were responsible for the attack. >> i believe the reason this is still under way is because the white house has done everything possible to block access to the information that would outline the truth. and the question you have to ask is why. somebody clearly decided they didn't like the references to

islamic terrorism. and made changes in this document. american people deserve the truth. and they will get the truth. >> we're also logetting a look how benghazi may have played a more prominent role in last year's election and how it may play a prominent role in the next presidential election. an ad from the rnc that they didn't air. word is that they may go back to something like this. >> your children are safe and asleep but there's a phone in the white house and it's ringing. something's happening in the world. [ phone ringing ]

[ busy signal ] >> al, maybe a preview of the next presidential campaign. it is unbelievable, we have dick cheney weighing in. you've got john boehner being pressured. it looks like hillary clinton is going to -- she's not going to be able to go quietly into that dark night for the next few years. >> maybe not, joe. if that's the best they got, i wouldn't worry a whole lot if i were hillary. frank frankly, i think it's more of a problem for susan rice, who they would like to move into the white house. it's rather clear she misled people the sunday afterwards. the notion that some huge cover-up, some huge scandal or one senator put it, this is worse than watergate. no. there's a little investigation of it. probably more has come out. >> i think he said ten times

more than watergate, iran-contra and the black plague, put that all together. >> it's not just -- >> it's not even august yet, cokie. >> no, and it's not even 2014 yet. >> and the vultures are circling. dick cheney stepping in, which, of course, will just energize the democratic base as well. >> i don't think it helps the republicans a lot to have dick cheney stepping in, frankly. the state department and the white house have screwed up here. they didn't need to do this. >> right. >> and abc's john carl has a report out this morning where he has gone through all the e-mails and seen the victoria nuland change, the talking points and, of course, the white house said nobody changed the talking points, that they all came from the intelligence community. why do that? >> so clear that up for me. what did jonathan carl find out? >> so, he found out -- >> because that is the response from susan rice's supporters,

saying she just read the cia's talking points. >> they found that victoria nuland, state department spokesperson for hillary clinton at that point, wrote in an e-mail -- this requires glasses. >> that's fine. that's fine. 12 seconds of benghazi while you're putting your glasses on. that one right there. >> perfect. yes, yes. >> so what did he say? >> so the talking points had that the agency had produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremist link to al qaeda, benghazi in eastern libya, et cetera. and she says get those out of there. >> wow! >> and it was eventually -- it could be used -- abused by members of congress to beat up the state department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we feed that? >> oh, my gosh. >> so that paragraph is now gone. >> it wasn't just a cold,

calculated cia analyst at langley putting these talking points together? >> no. so now the white house says, well, but we really didn't do it. >> who did? so, michael? >> yes, sir? >> this is politics. >> yes. >> but there's obviously -- there are a lot of things to be concerned about. certainly, this. you've got the state department officials that have worked for this country for decades being reprimanded. it is bad. the question is, how much mileage can the republican party get from this? >> i think they can get some, to be honest, because of what cokie just said. the administration and state department have bungled this thing from the very beginning. now you have faces, hicks and others, who have come out. to put context to it. now you've got people who -- they're not gadflies. these are serious state

department officials, diplomats who have grown concerned at the way this thing has progressed and how the story line has turned out. politically, you have the committee, chairman issa and others, banging their sabres and cheney coming to the table. the party has a chance. thats commercial is actually a little more effective in some mean means because it does put -- again, that context. harking back to hillary's 3:00 in the morning when you call barack obama. >> although it makes it so political. >> oh, it does. it does. but that's the point. >> i don't disagree with the points you're making, michael. i'll tell you the gift that hillary clinton and the white house has. the gift is darrell issa, because he always goes a step too far. when you really go after someone you do it, first of all, on a bit of a bipartisan basis. henry waxman on baseball some years ago. all darrell does is divide that committee on partisan grounds and that then makes it look like

he said, she said. >> opined a little bit more on this than he has in the past. do you think that's going to contentualize somewhat darrell issa and give him the point to bring in more democrats? >> i don't think the democrats are going to go anywhere near this. i don't see the democrats going anywhere -- what's the mileage in it for them? zero. >> right. so that bipartisan point goes out the window. >> is this, at the end of the day, does this have president obama's fingerprints on it or secretary of state hillary clinton's fingerprints on it? i ask that question because it certainly seems reminiscent of the clinton playbook in the 1990s. you have people brushing this aside, saying oh, this is just politics and nothing but politics. then you get a 22-year state department official up there that everybody respects. he's called by a clinton chief

of staff, yelled at inappropriately, told not to talk to congressional investigators. he goes out and gives that testimony, cokie. then what do they do? they come out and say what he's saying is not the truth. then they're saying he's a liar or he just can't remember the most important night of his life. this sounds -- this has the dna of a clinton scandal more than it does an obama scandal. does it not? >> scandal is a strong word, but -- >> what is a couple of notches below scandal? four people are dead. >> four people are dead. >> first ambassador killed since 1979. it is serious. you talk about overplaying your hand. if a lot of people on the far right hadn't overplayed their hand on benghazi and were screaming before, they knew what they were screaming about, i think we would all -- >> i agree with that. >> be much harder on the administration right now.

>> well, and again these e-mails that john carl has unearthed -- >> a few more times and abc is going to let more people come to their show. >> no, because -- >> it is fascinating. >> nuland writes athe one point, these changes do not resolve all of my issues or those of my building's leadership. >> when did he report this? >> breaking as we speak. >> is it really? >> yes. >> this is huge news, al. >> it is. >> maybe it doesn't ratchet up to the scandal level but this, again -- we saw this in clinton scandals in the past, whether this is a scandal or not. this is really an abuse to -- and this blows up their story from yesterday and the day before, which is, oh, this is cia just put these talking points together. this is really rough stuff. >> i'm still not sure how much

it connects to or injures hillary clinton. >> buildings leadership. >> building's leadership. >> and what you're saying is because when hillary runs something, she really is more of a hands-on person. >> i don't think anyone has accused her of that, joe. i think it's safe to take that one off the table. >> it's safe to say building's leadership is hillary. >> it was dreadfully prepared for these embassies in general. there was a real letdown in the state department. that's a problem. second secondly, no question that the administration in the beginning misled, whether hillary clinton play aid role or no matter how big a role, at least she was smart enough not to go on those sunday television shows. i find the cover-up -- there may be a little bit of one. it's not the kind of cover-up we're used to seeing in big stuff here. >> you have the immigration bill going right now. yesterday some amendments, republican and democratic amendments were passed, cokie.

what i find fascinating is what's happening in this debate with the heritage foundation. and the heritage foundation has come out. they've been talking about how much this bill is going to cost. getting lambasted from the left and lambasted from the right. apparently they said hispanics had lower iqs of that bill. jim demint has come in here and really stepped in it. they're talking about getting outside pr firms. we all remember the -- at least i do. the heritage foundation wasn't a quirky conservative think tank. the heritage foundation is where people like bill bennett and jack kemp went, very serious conservative institution. it's being battered. >> well, they wanted to, you know, sort of get sexier and have more edge and be out there more. they thought they were getting -- clearly thought they were getting too, sort of

stoddard and old and stuck in the concrete. and jim demint is a darling of the tea party. he is a very smart guy. but he decided to take this position. i think, you know, it's a disaster for the republicans. if they just keep doing this, forget benghazi. that's not going to be their concern. their concern is going to be they keep turning off the fastest growing group in the population. we have the census numbers out this week that the african-american turnout was the highest in history and higher than whites for the first time in history. republicans got 6% of that vote in the last election. >> hey, that's up from the 4% we usually get. looking good. >> progress. >> is so, let me -- >> it's progress. >> let me read this for you, al. co-authored this immigration study wrote this in his harvard d dissertat dissertation. quote, the average iq of immigrants in the united states is substantially lower than that

of the white native proposition population. the difference is likely to persist over several generations. >> boy, that's a swamp when you -- is that true of asian immigrants? is that true of all immigrants? i agree with cokie. that really set back heritage. yesterday was fascinating. it's a prelude to what's going to happen. what i find the most interesting potentially, ted cruz versus marco rubio. if that happens, these two young, smart, attractive ambitious cuban americans, one taking on the other, both of whom hope the prize will be 2016. if that happens, it will be a great narrative, great coverage i still think an immigration bill will get through that committee 13-5 and pass the senate. >> what was the big story about this heritage coverage is that republicans took -- >> that is the storyline. >> this guy obviously has some crazy beliefs that he put in a

dissertation a while back. it's heartening to see republicans like rubio who says this study does not have validation and we should ignore it. in part because they see the census data, too. >> still ahead on "morning joe," why the world's most important job can also be the loneliest. ken walsh will be here with his new book "prisoners of the white house." elijah cummings is here with nbc's kelly o'donnell. first, bill karins, who has a look at the forecast. bill? so far, so good. it looks like we're in for a fantastic mother's day. what's happening right now, worst weather by far is heading for new orleans. it's just starting to rain in new orleans. very strong thunderstorms are sweeping across lake pontchartrain. we've even had tornado warnings on the north side of the lake half an hour ago. take cover in new orleans. you have about half an hour till the worst of the weather will be gone and then you can get back to your morning routine.

further north over mississippi and alabama, a wide shield of light rain covering much of tennessee, heading for the greater louisville area, and places like cincinnati, pittsburgh later today. we have those thunderstorms up here in ohio, heading for pennsylvania and right along the gulf. those are the two threat regions for strong storms. a breakdown of your three-day weekend forecast. thunderstorms on the gulf. little bit better in areas like kansas city and chicago. you'll be chillier this weekend but at least you'll be dry. saturday damp weather will linger on the east coast. not a washout but on and off showers, maybe a thunderstorm. by the time we get to sunday, right in time to treat mom for a great brunch, chance of light rain up in the northwest. maybe a thunderstorm in florida, but overall probably one of the best mother's day forecasts i've ever given. you're welcome, mom. this is over new york harbor on

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22-year diplomatic veteran intimidated for daring to blow the whistle, all under hillary clinton's watch. how could this happen? why did she blame a video? and was she part of a cover-up. >> was it because of a protest

or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to go kill some americans? what difference, at this point does it make? >> the the difference is a cover-up and four american lives that deserve the truth. >> wow! that was a new ad out this morning from karl rove's group, american crossroads. with us now, democratic representative elijah cummings and correspondent kelly o'donnell. also deputy washington bureau chief for "time" magazine, michael crowley, who looks very dangerous in the new mug shot we put up. you were just saying something coming in, kelly, about that hillary clinton line. we have the jonathan carl -- we don't want to confuse our carls. >> right. >> report out this morning. fascinating. he has, i think, the weekly standard was talking about this, too. e-mails talking. they changed the talking points 12 times that the cia sent over to them. you now have the karl rove ad

and dick cheney is coming out saying let's litter the place with supbpoenas. >> i so remember watching every hour of her testimony on both sides of the capital. she had been so strong all day long and with ron johnson, republican of wisconsin, who just poked a little too far and she sort of exploded in that moment and on reflection she might have toned some of those comments down. the intent was let's talk about how to fix it and not keep dissecting the past. that is a moment that certainly has been grabbed by crit ics of the administration and there was an intensity about that moment that might have reflected her day in the chair more than her real feeling about the subject. >> elijah, you're obviously on the committee that was part of this week's benghazi hearings. this morning, abc's jonathan carl is reporting there were 12 different changes, revisions of

the first talking points written by the cia. >> yeah. >> so this wasn't cia talking points. these were state department talking points to try to protect hillary clinton's state department. is that fair to say? >> i have not seen the e-mails. but i do know for a fact that our intelligence committee, house intelligence committee has seen every single one of the changes. and they have concluded that there was no manipulation for political reasons. general clapper, head of cia, had said that this was the best judgment that they had at the time that the report -- miss rice submitted this statement. finally, you know, on the day of the -- this unfortunate incid t incident, went on facebook and said they had done it. a few hours later they pulled back from it and said we didn't

do it. and so that showed that a lot was going on there. things were changing. and i've seen a lot of things that the public hasn't seen. i can say that, you know, there are some issues here. but, you know, i think what happens happened in this committee, though -- and i was talking a little bit earlier about this. this thing has been so politicized and is so much an effort -- it's not -- it used to be kind of -- they were saying, well, disguising this effort to go after hillary, to harm her before she even makes a decision and then make sure they've got some material after she decides to run for president, assuming she does. so, you know -- but i've listened to your discussion all morning. it's been interesting. oh, yeah, i've listened. oh, yeah. it's interesting. the four people who are dead -- they're dead. i mean, they seem to have gotten sort of pushed in the background

and the biggest scandal "the new york times" has said in the editorial this morning, which i would recommend to the world, is that the real scandal is us not addressing our embassies security, us not addressing keeping our diplomats safe. and so i'm trying to wave through the political stuff. >> right. >> and try to make sure as i said on this show many times. i don't want motion, commotion, emotion and no result. >> that is what matters at the end of the day, how do we protect our diplomats moving forward? we wouldn't be talking about this this morning, jonathan carl wouldn't be reporting on it this morning, lisa myers wouldn't be reporting on it if they had done what lanny davis suggested, which is get the information out ear early. they've not been straightforward and they've been caught in a tail that didn't line up. so they took a situation that may have been -- not benign but not a scandal and made it much worse. haven't they? >> i think that's right. for me, the focus has been

slightly misplaced. what i find more puzzling is the amount of time it took president obama to really acknowledge what the rest of the world seemed to know, that this did appear to be a premeditated attack. he clung to the idea of demonstrations and videos for a large amount of time. that wasn't the focus in the hearing. >> why did he he do that, by the way? he had information from the cia. was that because he was in the middle of a political campaign? >> well, i don't think we know, joe. i do think that, to me, is the most interesting facet of this story, that i want to know more about. he did say -- it gets complicated. in the rose garden the day after this happened, he did refer to acts of terror, but the contents was broad. he was talking about september 11th. and then he stepped back from that rhetoric. i don't remember all the ins and outs but it did take him several weeks to catch up with what the rest of the world had come to figure out. i don't know why. that's more interesting. we know a lot about some of the things we're talking about right now. i want to say three quick

things. one to the congressman, the pentagon has now stepped up its ability to respond rapidly. they've beefed up their operations. that's good news. a couple of important facts. firstity ration of the talking points did talk about a demonstration. it was not like the white house and state department deleted islamist references and said we'll make up a story about a demonstration. that wasn't fiction created by political people. that was there the whole time. and let's remember, david petraeus, who was cia director at the time testified that he wanted the reference to al qaeda extremists link out because that would tip them off that we were on their tail. he is probably happy to be out of the public eye at this

moment. i'm as interested in hearing from him as i am hearing from hillary clinton, cheryl mills, all these other people whose name was coming up. i'm not saying they did anything wrong. i think there's been selective focus here. we're getting more of the story but it's still not the whole story. >> michael, is there a danger? now there's a suggestion republicans may be overreaching here. if there hadn't been such a steady, loud drum beat from the very beginning till right now when people were talking about things they didn't know about, people talking about the size of the scandal and how horrible this was and it was going to take down the obama administration. he was going to be driven from office. we heard that actually going back to september. if there hadn't been an overreach, i think this story today would explode much more than it's going to. >> i think there's a lot of truth -- >> because of the overreach. >> because of the overreach. there's a real legitimate concern republicans should have about the overreach.

running an anti-hillary ad by the crossroads of the rnc is a little premature. >> by about three years. >> and can really have the effect, until we know more, of deleg delegitimizing this. you have hicks and others, 22-year veterans out there who are now the new face here. let them frame this argument. but i think the other side of this, i would say, is the overreach by the gop had some value. remember, this has largely been ignored. we're talking now for the last three days about benghazi. but this is now eight, nine months after the fact. so there is legitimacy to it. >> they had hearings. and they had information coming out of the hearings that warrants us talking about it. >> that's true, but i'm saying -- >> people telling me about black helicopters circling around benghazi or whatever, the conspiracy theories, we don't

follow conspiracy theories. >> i'm not saying we get into that. >> the press comes to it now because there are -- when you have a 22-year foreign service veteran saying that he was mistreated, the way he was mistreated. >> with gripping testimony. >> with gripping testimony. >> and that is not political. >> i agree with you. >> that is where we all turn and start focusing and reporting on. >> i really hate doing this. if this were a republican administration but there's a legitimate point to be made that if this were a john mccain presidential, you know, faux w pas, if you will, in his presidency or even bush's, that the press' coverage of this at the onset would have been vastly different. >> and in the middle of a preside presidential campaign. >> and in the middle of a presidential campaign would have been very different than what we saw and that irks a lot of republicans. >> i was just out for the

campaign of colbert-bush and mark sanford. sort of an agitating way. are you talking about it? are you reporting on it? that's happened for a long time. some of the conspiracy theories, some of the extreme agitation among conservatives and legitimate hearings now and new information coming forward. there's sort of this wave that's come together. you have to be able to separate some of the more heated parts of it. >> right. >> we were talking about honoring the families who want answers as well as the public servants who were involved and looking forward. how do you make changes -- >> family members obviously very angry at the administration for what happened. i don't think they were given -- so what's next, elijah? >> let me say this, first of all. what's next is a search for the truth that. 's what we want. mr. nordstrom, one of the whistleblowers. i'm so glad we had these hearings. i really am. hopefully we'll get to the truth. he said he wanted a full

picture, mr. nordstrom. mr. hicks -- this is one of the thing that is really upset me. there is sworn testimony from mr. hicks that's said nobody tried to change his -- what he had to say to the investigators. nobody coerced him and said -- laid them out afterwards. you all reported on this that he was being yell ed at. he never said that. what's interesting is that in the hearing one of our members tried to put the words in his mouth which was the opposite of what he just testified to in a sworn testimony a few days before. that's not the search for the truth. you know. so when republicans do that, it takes away from our credibility and it goes on record to that -- >> what are you suggesting, that cheryl mills did not call him and was upset with him because -- >> top aide to hillary clinton. >> yeah, top aide. because you just said on this show we're saying certain things. hold on. putting words in our mouth. i think i read that from "the

new york times," actually, in the morning, that cheryl mills called him up and yelled at him. "new york times," not a right-wing media outlet. >> all i'm basing it on is what he said in sworn testimony on april 11th before republican investigators. they tried to get him to say that she was -- they were trying to -- >> are you saying -- >> i'm telling you -- >> this isn't be cross examination. i'm genuinely curious. are you telling me mr. hicks changed his story is this. >> that's exactly right. >> you think he has changed his story? >> no, no, no. i don't blame him. i blame the republicans on our committee trying to put words in his mouth. we put out a piece yesterday to show what he said in sworn testimony on april 11th before a republican investigator and then what he said at the hearing but, again, the republicans were trying to get him to say things. >> was he explicitly asked in

that testimony? >> that's right. and what he said in his sworn testimony, he said they asked me to have a state department lawyer with me because they were concerned that there was an fbi investigation. but he was specifically asked, did they try to alter his testimony or anything like that, and he said no. >> this is fascinating. we'll continue this conversation, i'm sure, in the days ahead. elijah, thanks for being with us. >> always a pleasure. >> great to have you here. it is always a pleasure. things were so peaceful when we were on the committee together. >> bipartisanship. >> bipartisanship, long-term health care. it was unbelievable. >> you know about that. >> i do know about that. >> michael, stay with us. commander in chief, author kenk walsh joins us with his new book "prisoners of the white house: the isolation of the

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with us now, chief white house correspondent for u.s. news & world report, ken walsh "prisoners of the white house: the isolation of america's presidents and the crisis of leadership." barack obama said his biggest mistake in his first term was got getting out of the white house more. talk about how these powerful men are actually c lly captive

their jobs. >> i've covered the white house since 1986, very long time now and under five presidents. all the modern presidents since franklin roosevelt have felt that they live a very abnormal existence. and they really do. >> and it's cost them politically. george h.w. bush, barack obama. >> absolutely. they have this desperate need after struggling so hard to get to the white house to get out of the place. we saw that yesterday. president obama was in texas. and what they tried to do was not only create a public relations moment where they can show that they're trying to get a message out but also to try to observe something about what's going on in the country. it's very difficult and very frustrating for them to do that. in the book i talk about some of the techniques they use and sometimes it fails. presidents lose touch. lyndon johnson at the end of his presidency, richard nixon, of

course. >> who did it right? who figured out how to get out? >> a couple of people did. bill clinton really was always reaching out. and he took polling, actually, to another level. that's another way pres try to keep in touch. and the pollsters have become very, very important in the white house and president obama does try to keep in touch. >> fdr was able to. >> it's interesting with fdr. he had one of the best pollsters around, eleanor roosevelt, went out on fact-finding missions and would come back and brief him three or four hours over dinner. a terrific reporter. >> kelly? >> ken and i worked at the same time covering the bush white house. what i was struck by during those years in purely the physical sense of how when you were in the white house, you can hear the protesters on the street very loudly. there isn't this sense of being in a bubble where you are removed from some of the outside effects, but in a post 9/11 world, the president can't even walk on the north lawn or south

lawn very easily without all of the security apparatus. even stepping outside to breathe in the fresh air becomes a difficult thing. so when they're on the road, the apparatus of the presidency goes with them, too. having a real moment with anyone becomes much more difficult. >> it does. it was interesting, so poignant. president obama at one point talked about when he was at the white house and a friend brought over one of these hybrid cars and said would you like to get behind the wheel? he was so excited because he never gets to drive. he drove it up and down the highway and the secret service said, that's it. people can see you. it's too dangerous. >> were you ever able to be able to sneak out -- sometimes first ladies go out in disguise and go shopping and maybe one discreet guard. is a president ever able to get away without the motorcade and machine guns? >> jimmy carter got away from camp david, presidential retreat. he boasts about it to this day. we didn't know in the media. i didn't cover carter. >> he went fishing or something?

>> he just went fishing, off into the maryland trout stream. >> is that when the -- >> do not go away. it's not like "dave," a secret tunnel. they don't get out and get to -- >> the whole concept of getting in touch and being in touch with the american people. kelly, you talked about the bubble kind of goes with the president even when he does that. how much are you really getting in touch when krur standing before a crowd of people that have been preselected and they're all, you know, with you on everything you're saying that's coming out of your mouth. you don't have that kind of -- >> no, you don't. >> that's exactly part of the problem. it's very difficult for presidents to get sort of normal human contact aside from his very close advisers. this is where you get the notion of the idolizers. presidents always have people around them who worship them. how do you break through that part of the bubble, people who want to protect the president, don't want to deliver bad news. want to make things as easy as

possible. >> is there a president who succeeded in doing that, getting someone who stayed with him that was always a tough truth teller? >> they hope that the pollster will do this but under president bush, the son, karl rove delivered the news of the polling. under president barack obama, david axelrod did during the first term. the pollster wasn't in direct contact with the president. in other cases, the pollster was, as for ronald reagan that. served him very well. as to getting out of the country, ronald reagan, more insulated than others really did try to get around the country and learn from people, it's very interesting. his correspondence was very important to him, letters he read. and president obama does that today. he actually had -- below the radar he had a correspondence with a young boy from an elementary school in d.c. named rudolph heinz, which he conducted throughout his presidency. didn't get a lot of attention.

ronald and nancy reagan went to their home and actually had dinner with this young after risk an american family and had them to the white house. the media didn't basically understand what he was doing here to try to keep in touch. but presidents are often desperate to do this. it's very difficult to do. >> very difficult. >> prisoners of the white house. ken walsh, thanks. an absolutely fascinating read. we really appreciate you being here. >> thanks for having me. business headlines with cnbc's brian shactman, straight ahead. mine was earned in djibouti, africa. 2004.

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sullivan. brian? >> thank you very much, michael steele. i know you guys will probably be hot on this story. california has filed a lawsuit against jp morgan chase, essentially accusing them of becoming a debt collection mill, if you will, saying they flooded the system, court system in california to collect debts and in one case filed 469 lawsuits in just one day. california going after jp morgan chase. two other stories of note, wall street journal citing that amazon may be coming out with a smart phone and it may be a 3-d smart phone does not require you wear those funky glasses and faa reportedly set to offer faster wi-fi on airplanes, opening up new broadband airwaves. that means corporate america can

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welcome back. it's time to talk about what we learned today. i will tell you what i learned, calling me sonny boy. i never would have done that. >> you saw me sitting back. >> i know. >> what did you learn? >> i learned that doc and others are right about benghazi. i think benghazi, benghazi, benghazi, the tip of the spear for this administration now. >> do you really? >> i think it's got to have a lot more legs than people believe. >> we shall see. amichael, what did you learn? >> key witness at that hearing seems to have changed his story. i'm not sure i followed exactly what the congressman was saying. >> that is fascinating. >> as soon as i get back to my desk, i'm going to figure it out. >> seemed like elijah was suggesting -- top-ranking democrat saying the star witness changed his story. >> that's something we've got to look at. i'm going to go back and look at

the transcript, too. he said he did believe the witness felt pressured but perhaps he thought he was being drawn out by republicans to say something more than that. >> that's a bright way of saying he changed his story. he kept talking about sworn testimony. >> sworn testimony. we'll look into that. >> thank you so much. way too early, "morning joe," but in a freaky reversal we now go to chuck todd in new york. i don't get it. >> it is freaky friday. >> welcome to a freaky friday edition. healthy reminder over guns, immigration and the budget, president obama delivers a mother's day message about health care. as tries to urge more young people to sign up for coverage. their response could make or break obamacare. meanwhile, as hillary clinton feels increased heat over benghazi, there's a whole bunch of other 2016 possibilities making their own headlines in key states on big issues and in grand fashion. it's our friday