>> 13. >> shut up! >> what! >> he's got big feet. i'm a 10. he's a 13. >> i got to go do this thing. >> don't get thing. >> settle down! >> "morning joe" begins -- thank you. right now. ♪ for the present spokesman to say that, well, there was only words or technical changes made in those e-mails is a flat out untruth. any reference to al qaeda was removed from those talking points and it was done at a deputy's meeting just before susan rice went on television. >> -- a cover-up? >> i would call it a cover-up. i would call it a cover-up in the extent there was willful, removal of information which was

obvious. >> all right. good morning! >> good morning. >> it is monday, may 13th. welcome to "morning joe," everybody. >> i know. with us on the set, we have msnbc "time" magazine senior political analyst, mark halpern here and of "new york" magazine john heilemann. the entire plot for game change was over the weekend as we were walking around the streets of brooklyn. i found out who won. >> yeah. >> john heilemann, good to have you here. >> the spoilers. >> look at the book beard too. >> he is so busy. he is haggard from writing and thinking. >> also from what we were doing on sunday. >> exactly. >> i don't think you were doing that on sunday on mother's day. you went to eureka college and spoke there. that was amazing. my twitter -- what are you doing? my twitter was exploding and

people were so excited. >> it was a special campus, the history is just remarkable. ronald reagan, of course, graduated from eureka and mikhail gorbachev and san dah day o'cornennor. it surprises me the coffee shop there i didn't know they had a marxist coffee shop in illinois, and it was called mika's. >> my gosh. i would have to go there. would i be allowed? they want you there. >> i love it. >> few democrats would come up and whisper. >> thank you! >> no, he is mine. >> it was great. your weekend, you, of course, mother's day weekend. but before you got to that, r.j.

julie up in madison. >> they had two events there and it was really very wonderful. it was like a homecoming. i worked in connecticut years ago as reporter and anchor. we had two massive crowds there. i don't know how you did this. you met us up at a library there on saturday evening with another packed crowd. you must be tired. >> people were so wonderful. we have so much to talk about, guys. >> yes, we do. >> my lord. friday, mark friday was -- i haven't seen a day quite like friday in washington in some time. of course, jay carney's press conference was one of the most unbelievable presidential press conferences i had seen in 15 years maybe. and then i was out with jack getting him some legos. my alarm goes off. it's the a.p. reporting that they had targeted on friday, of course, that the irs had targeted these conservative

groups. a lot of stuff going on with this white house. >> there's big unanswered questions in both cases. if you look -- if you take a breath and say what is speculation and what is fact in both of those stories, there are still a lot of unanswered questions and republicans as a political and substantive matter, i think, are going to have to do a better job than they have in the past if they are going to serve the public interest and help to get to the unanswer the questions as opposed the breathless hysteria to things that aren't real. >> to get to the truth because a lot of things are real here. let's get to the facts. >> the irs we start with which is under fire accused of targeting conservative nonprofit groups for additional scrutiny for years. the independent agency already has apologized but there are a lot of questions yet to be answered this morning. low level employees at the cincinnati field office started looking into groups with patriot and tea party in the name. about 300 in all.

dating back to 2010. some of the groups were reportedly targeted because they were critical of how the country was being run. and other groups that were investigated were involved in educating americans on the constitution and the bill of rights. a draft of the inspector general's report obtained by the a.p. showing groups instead of the exempt division were aware of the practice as early as 2011. "the new york times" report the audit shows she tried to shift the focus from just conservative groups to all political advocation groups. comments from democrats and the aclu, republicans have called for a government-wide probe and apology from the president himself. >> this is truly outrageous. and it contributes to the profound distrust that the american people have in government.

it is absolutely chilling that the irs was singling out conservative groups for extra review and i think that it's very disappointing that the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out. >> before the ig's report comes to the public or congress as required by law, it's leaked by the irs to try to spin the output this mea culpa is not an honest one. >> "the washington post" saying this morning the president actually needs to come out and apologize. jack lunn needs to do the same and "the washington post" is critical of the white house for not doing that. also wider problems found at the irs and finding out it waevent just if tea party was in their name or if patriot was in their name. also included those worried about government spend, debt,

taxes. basically, any conservative fiscal approach, the irs decided -- this is -- this is mind boggling. i want you to continue, mika, but what is mind boggling also is the headline on the front page of "the new york times" which didn't even put this on the front page of its national edition this weekend. their headline? irs focus on conservatives gives gop a path -- an issue to seize on. this -- this, while, mika, the aclu is coming out talking about how chilling this is, how frightening this is that this government is using the internal revenue service to target people with whom they disagree. >> it does not look good at all and it looks i'd say embarrassing is a way to start but we will find out much more.

joining from washington is senior investigative correspondent lisa myers is joining us now. great to have you back on the show. what you hearing there? >> well, people i talked to over the weekend in both parties were absolutely dumb founded that something like this could happen in the irs. do these people not remember the nixon administration? i mean, one of the abuses of power was his use of the irs against his political enemies. clearly what the irs has said so far doesn't add up and an official on friday said, well, conservative groups were targeted but this wasn't politically motivated. huh? and then the acknowledgment that senior officials knew and did not inform congress. in fact, they told congress that the claims that conservative groups were being targeted were untrue. >> lisa, can i stop you right there? >> you bet. >> just on that point, mika, read this time line, if you will. >> okay. >> and then have lisa move on

that because she was just about talking about what the -- what the irs said. >> here is the time line of the irs' position on the issue. according to reports obtained by the associated press, the findings seem to contradict public statements made by the agency's commissioner. in march of 2012, irs commissioner douglas schulman testified there absolutely no target adding that the investigations were, quote, the kind of back and forth that happens to people. >> a year ago, absolutely no targeting. >> on saturday, the irs put out a statement reading, quote, senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the march 2012 hearing. >> so they were saying it was just low-level employees in ohio. that was on friday. >> it goes on to say, quote, senior leadership did not have this level of detail. but the associated press reports that back in june of 2011, the official who heads the irs division that oversees ta

tax-exempt organizations learned that groups were being targeted and two months later in august of 2011, staffers in the irs rules and agreement office, quote, held a meeting with chief counsel so everyone would have the latest information on the issue. >> lisa myers, people sort of tried to clean things up and they will say, you know, they misspoke or there were falsehoods. these are out and out lies. people in middle america would call these out and out lies. the irs has been lying. i'm kind of shocked. even mother jones, a very progressive site, was shocked this weekend and said, seriously? the irs knew this was coming and they still were misleading people on friday. >> it is amazing to me that when -- the senior irs officials, once they learned this was happening, didn't try to fire the individuals involved. i mean, i know it's very tough in the civil service. but the idea that this seemingly

was greeted with shrugs within the agency, certainly there doesn't appear to be, at this point, any strong action that was taken. i agree with mark, there is a great deal we do not know, but certainly what is showing is pretty indefensible. >> loowhen we mention richard nexton the irs scandal is tied back to the white house and driven by the white house, we should pause, though here. any indication the white house knew about this and ordered the irs to go after opponents? >> zero. nothing that takes this outside of the irs itself. >> wow. >> let's -- first of all, john heilemann, of course, it's in the administration, joe klein this weekend wrote something -- nixonian, we keep hearing it coming up. of course, a lot more to be connect. at the very least, president obama, do you agree with the

"the washington post" should come out, should have come out on friday forcefully along with jack lew condemning this action? should people be fired? what more should happen? >> it doesn't bother he didn't come out on friday. a lot of advance in terms of the facts of the last 48 hours. for the president to want to wait to get the full facts before he makes a statement is reasonable to me. but look. the integrity of the irs is absolutely essential. we all understand why that is. not it's the irs. it is one that can induce extraordinary levels of professional personal torment upon people as groups, as individuals. so if we don't have utter faith in the a political nature of the irs we have a huge problem. the core of a lot of people's liv lives. >> also when you talk about speech and protected speech, the thing you learn in law school very early on is all speech, for

the most part. the government can step in and they can figure out how to regulate speech but when it comes to political speech, political speech, it's sacrosan sacrosanct. supreme court, liberal and conservative supreme courts do not allow the government to tread on political speech. there is a wall around that and the wall has been knocked down by the irs for several years now. >> to answer your first question the president needs to get involved and public on it at some level. i will say the question about -- i mean, the interesting thing here is that we are talking about not to get too far into the weeds, but 501c4 groups which are supposedly social welfare groups that are tax exempt and subsidized by the

public. on the left and the right about the abuse of the 501c 4s. whether they are social welfare groups or political action committees. >> that is independent of this issue. >> let's see the evidence. >> i'm saying a big issue around the abuse of the 501c4 issue. to have it focused on one side is not fine and the president needs to say that. >> one other point to make there. there is many overblown claims of tyranny and abusive power of the government the last few years. like we are coming after your guns. this is tyranny. a nonpartisan agency coming after specific groups, this time it's real. >> i'll be honest. i can't imagine anything much

more worse than this. the tax man, who, after all we patriots, our forefathers and foremothers did break away from the british government based on taxes, on a tax revolt. for the irs to go after people because of their political beliefs, i'd be saying the same thing. obviously, if it was happening on the left. i would be shocked. it's unspeakable and the president of the united states, the head of the administration, the head of this government, needs to come out today and condemn this in the harshest terms and demand answers and fire people. >> let's applaud groups by the alcu and liberal news organizations and liberal advocacy groups that are aggressive about this. we need to be aggressive about it because governments when they have scandaled tend to not tell the truth and tend to protects

themselves. >> like jay carney onfriday. >> all right, you two. >> have you ever seen anything like that? >> as an extraordinary performance. >> we like jay. you know him very well. we know him very well. i like jay before and i like him now and when he leaves the white house. we have been around unfortunately sometimes people inside the white house forget and the gig ends and they have to walk out of those doors and their reputation follows them. i was really sad for jay that he was not telling the truth to people that he worked with and they all knew he wasn't telling the truth and he did it shamelessly. it was one of the more discouraging, depressing things. i hurt for jay. i felt horrible for america. he did a great disservice on friday to the american people. >> part of why there's so much concern on these two issues. both the irs and the ben ghazi issues as there are unanswered questions on friday. part of the concern on a lot of people are based on the way the two issues were handled by the

government. in the case of ben ghazi the way jay handled it. >> have you ever seen anything like that? >> i don't recall anything where he said things on the face of them were not supported by the facts. >> let's assess the press conference later and get to the heart of the story which is the controversy surrounding ben ghazi. eight months after the attack on the consulate there the issue is more highly charged than ever. a number of republicans are calling for a special select committee to investigate how the administration handled the deadly raid and another gop lawmakers suggested more whistle blowers are likely to come forward while the leads of an independent review board will be asked to formally answer questions about their inquiry that critics say came up short. the new push stems from revelations that the cia's original talking points used by ambassador susan rice in the days after the attack had undergone significant edits by senior administration officials. former defense secretary robert

gates, meanwhile, is defending the administration's handling of the attacks in libya. >> based on everything i've read, people really didn't know what was going on in ben ghazi contemporaneously. and to send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, i think, would have been very dangerous and, personally i would not have proofed that -- approved that because it is sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces. the one thing that our forces are noted for are planning and preparation before we send people in harm's way. and there just wasn't time to do that. >> of course, willie, we are not talking here about -- as far as friday goes, about whether we use the military or not on that night on september 11th. we are talking specifically about whether or not the white

house was telling the truth back in the fall or not. >> right. senator mccain called this a cover-up. he was asked whether or not it was a cover-up and said i can call it a cover-up. we played that bite coming in. i guess the overriding question i have what was the incentive if there was a coveroff? why would the white house cover it up? because an election was coming up and the president didn't want to look weak? there has to be an incentive or motive for the cover-up. >> it's in the middle of a campaign and that drives whis. it drove the bush white house and it drove the clinton white house and it drove the reagan white house. but, again, just like the irs time line, mika, the time line on ben ghazi not -- back in october, of course, jay carney said, quo, we provided information based on the facts as we knew became available based on the assessments of the intelligence community, not opinions. so he said by the intelligence community. not opinions.

on friday the talking points had been changed 12 different times over a 24-hour period. not by the intelligence community. but by a state department official and others in the state department embarrassed that republicans would be given talking points. then on friday, carney doubled down on his original position saying, quote, the white house made one minor change to the talking points drafted by the cia. >> jay, you told us that the only changes that were made were stylistic. is it a stylistic change to take out all references to previous terror threats in ben ghazi? >> i appreciate the question again. i think what i was referring to was the talking points that the cia drafted, and sent around, to which one change was made and i accept it's stylistic may not precisely describe a change of one word to another. >> jay this was not a change of one word to another.

these underwent extensive changes after they were written by the cia. >> an interagency process because a lot of agencies have stakes in a matter like this. >> so that was jonathan karl who, at abc news, broke this. a week earlier, steven hayes. the specific when a week early, steven hayes with the weekly standard did incredible work on this and really broke this originally and jonathan karl followed up with a specific part of it. but what is your take on jay carney still claiming it was only changed one time? >> look. i've read those stories and still a little bit unclear about the precise time line of exactly who was doing what, when. what is absolutely clear is that there was an interagency battle going on between the cia and the state department over these talking points. and the notion -- i mean, one of the things -- this is not unique

inside on my part or point on my part -- one of the things that people have seen this through the prism of the cia knows about this and the state department is trying to change what the cia is saying. cia was -- is a political operation in this case. and they had essentially a cia site that was attacked in ben ghazi. they were in cya mode over this entire thing. so you have the state department and the cia in a push and pull. >> okay, but -- >> who was going to get blame blamed. >> the specifics are you have a state department spokesperson. >> yes. >> pushing back saying let's scrub all mention of al qaeda and al qaeda-related groups because republicans will really come after us then. and then saying this went to the top of the food chain inside the state department, that's not a push and pull. that's pure politics in the

middle of a political campaign. >> i'm not sure that that is true exactly. it's not -- >> what is it? >> it's not clear to me -- >> hold on! let's scrub the facts? let's scrub the facts because the republicans will be upset? >> i'm not saying there is no politics involved but i'm saying politics involved on both sides of this battle which is a -- >> you mean the state department versus the cia? >> let's end with lisa myers whose job is to ask questions. from watching this story play out, what is the conclusion or the questions that are being elude to do here ultimately? >> well, i think one of the questions is whether the administration was invested early on in not seeing this as a terror attack and casting it in another matter. i don't think you can exclude the fact that this was eight weeks before the presidential election. there also is the question of why early on the state department decided not to

activate its only counterterror team which has responded to many incidents like this around the world. i think there are questions also after this weekend, renewed questions after the questioning of ambassador pickering who headed the independent review, there are added questions about the sh let's say, the thoroughness of that process. we learned that not only was secretary of state hillary clinton not interviewed, who two top deputies weren't interviewed. there were no transcripts that people just took notes. >> what is the explanation as to why you wouldn't interview hillary clinton or her top two deputies when you're doing what is supposed to be an exhaustive report on this crisis? >> i interviewed ambassador pickering about this last week. he said, i didn't ask hillary clinton any questions because i didn't have any questions for her. he said that he felt that he had

sufficient information by talking to other people who had been in meetings with her. but you would think, if nothing else from an optics standpoint, that you would question the secretary of state. after all, she testified before congress that she was directing the response, leading the response at the state department. >> this is what is happening here, mika, in both of these cases there is a drip, drip, drip, hurting the administration. it's happened with the irs. now it's happening in this case where you had democrats and administration defenders saying these are cia talking points. that's what we have heard for months now. all season rice did was read cia talking points and they september saying that. in fact, i was talking to a republican last week on the phone. i said, listen. i understand what you're saying about ben ghazi. you know what your biggest problem is? that when i hear and when

americans hear that all she was doing and all of the administration was following with cia talking points, well, then you're out of luck. and then that blows up. then we hear the same thing too. what about pickering? pickering's report and now we are hearing that they didn't each talk to hillary clinton or the top two people underneath her at the state department. the white house needs to aggressively get out in front of these things because a press is not just going to say these are republicans, these are crazy right wing republicans who are trying to embarrass the president. no, this is a serious problem. they need to get out in front of it. >> i would agree. >> because their tactics up to this point are not work being. >> a lot of the documents were seen by top republicans including speaker boehner and his office on march 19th and they didn't have an issue then. they did now. they need to get in front of it. lisa myers, thank you so much. coming up on the show, newt

gingrich will joining us and tom brokaw will be with us, along with thomas pickering. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ baby baby it's monday, a brand new start. with centurylink visionary cloud infrastructure,

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♪ it is 30 past the hour. willie, time for the morning papers. we start with "wall street journal." the editor in chief at blookberg news has apologized for actions taken by reporters who used client data to gain than unfair advantage over that competitors. they were made of the practices after executives at goldman sachs voiced concerns about bloomberg last week. >> boy, that is not good. >> not good. >> bloomberg is selling

terminals and they, mark halpern, the report is that they were actually looking at the terminals? >> journalists on ad hoc. used the access to the terminal data of clients on the business side to kind of guide their questioning to organizations. >> ben bernanke, i understand? >> this employee hasn't been using his terminal much so he must not have been in his office. >> unbelievable. >> it is unbelievable. >> guys add goldman sachs were getting reports you weren't on yourterm national at the time. how would you know that? >> oh, my lord. >> if somebody did that to me, i would take the terminal and throw it out of my window and raise hell. it's unbelievable! >> there aren't that many of those terminals in the world but the people who have them are masters of the universe. >> correct. >> i think masters of the universe probably -- wow. scandaling are just erupting all around us. that is horrible. that is just unbelievable.

>> speaking of a mass master of the universe. from the "los angeles times" barbara walters officially announce her plans to retire next year. the 83 has been in the industry more than 50 years. in 1976 she became the first woman to host an evening newscast and she said, this is it. she is not going to do a show at cnn. a year from now, it's over with. >> amazing career. >> barbara is walking away. >> wow. >> "the boston globe." nbc has announced that seth myers will be taking over jimmy fallon at late night. he will be the host next year when jimmy fallon moves into "the tonight show." both shows taped here at 30 rock. >> a really good pick. >> great "snl" on saturday night. >> vampire weekend and christian wig. hard to beat that combination. our favorite sketch was the

ghost mom. >> it was a little dark. >> a little dark. >> i mean, a little dark. >> sprigpretty good special eff >> climbing the ceiling. >> more good news from the houston chronicle. netflix bringing back "arrested development." making all 15 episodes available on may 26th. less than two weeks away. here's a look at the upcoming trailer. >> that's not a great sign. >> i would love to help you. we like to pull together around here. you watch your back, mister! oh, my god! >> got to have a job where incompetence won't be out of play! ♪ the final countdown. >> >> there is a girl here. didn't say it was your cousin. >> lindsey? >> george michael? >> george? >> austin. >> ♪ >> oh, my gosh! we have to have the father on,

jeffrey. >> that is the best show ever! >> i miss will in that role. great to see him back. >> the never knew? >> oh, my god. great show. >> may 26th. >> may 27th, all three hours of "morning joe"? >> we need to have them all on. >> could rev. >> believe me, we connect. we feel a lot of connection to the family on "arrested development." >> what a brilliant move by netflix. >> again. >> the guy decides he is going to like wallpaper all of -- yeah, just made the worst decisions with that company. that company tanks, right? just completely tanks. and then he saves it with house of cards and this. brilliant. he had sophomore jinx. he is past it now. >> he is back now. >> he is back and better than ever. >> good show. >> check out politico with the

chief white house correspondent mike allen with a look at the playbook. >> good morning, guys. >> i think last thursday, we were talking about gallup polling. joe, you expressed concerns they had a mea culpa in the polling that led up to the presidential election. mike, you heard from the head of gallup. what did he say? >> "morning joe" gets results. frank newport the head of gallup was watching those show and reached out to me right away and said that gallup recognizes they had mae a lot of mistakes in a phone conversation. he told me twice we were disappointed. we want to be dead on. i think that qualifies as the mea culpa that joe has been waiting for. and frank newport said he has already made changes in their ongoing sampling and their testing further changes for the election to come. specifically the head of gallup told me that they have changed the way they ask people about their race. they used to do it following the wording of the census bureau and think maybe that is not getting

the best results. they have changed that. they have changed how they are waiting cell phones and land lines in their samples to get the people they want. >> frank had e-mailed us after he talked to you, i guess, and we great deal appreciate that. what did he say went wrong when you talked to him? because what we found is a lot of the established polling outfits didn't get it as well as people -- like pppp, for instance. that sort of the more established polsters looked down their noses at. what did frank say gallup got wrong and you're talking about how he is going to fix it? gallup is reluctant to make changes to their formula to the wording of their questions because one of the reasons that we use it all the time, that you used it all the time, is that they have a longer data set than anyone. you can look back to the '70s and '80s and see what people were saying about an identically

worded question. that is one of the reasons that these -- the newer groups had an advantage. so gallup says that on june 4th, they are going to here at an event in their headquarters in washington and they are going to announce a lot of these changes but they already started to make some permanently, test others. they recognize that they got a big corporate black eye during the last election. >> that's really good to hear. >> lost a blue ribbon panel and look into the problems they had leading up to. a good piece on your site with john boehner saying he is making ben ghazi a political fight of him against the white house. mike allen, thanks for a look at the playbook. >> have a great week. coming up a little sports. tiger woods hitting his stride and winning his fourth tournament of the year. yesterday at the players championship but not without a little drama on one of the famous holes in golf. sports is next.

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time for a little sports. the final round of the players championship the backdrop over the weekend is sergio garcia who was complaining about tiger

woods. >> of course, he was. >> these two don't get along and never have and don't like each other. it's a golf things. he said when he was in his backswing tiger pulled the club out 50 yards away and the crowd cheered and made it sound like he was swinging his precious swing. >> he is a little precious. >> tiger said after that round we shouldn't be surprised that sergio is complaining. woods cruising along until this tee shot on 14. he yanks one left and into the water. double bogey opening up the tournament. but a nice shot out of the bunker. 16 helps him knock in easy birdie and tiger kept everything on land in those final dangerous holes and tapping in for par on 18th. he finishes 13 under and sergio still in it until this. the 17th hole. island green and tied for the lead! >> yes, yes! >> kerplunk. >> don't worry about it, joe. he's got it. >> like "tin cup."

>> it bounced back! winds up with a quadruple bogey on 17 and he drops out of contention and that gives tiger the trophy. his 78th career -- >> look at that trophy! >> his fourth win. >> look at those biceps! he has bulked up. >> he did not win in augusta but he has four wins before june 1st which is as well as he's done in his career. >> tiger is back. >> tiger is back, baby. coming up, former presidential candidate newt gingrich will join the conversation. first, carl bernstein is here for mika's must read opinion pages. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. [ ice freezing ]

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♪ all right. a live shot of new york city. that was joe at eureka college on saturday. >> what a great place. a special place. >> i'm telling you. they were talking about it. they were very happy. >> wonderful. joining us is the best selling authorest and award winning journalist carl bernstein. first from the "the washington post." a bedrock principle of u.s. ghox democracy. the law is blind to political vup and so are its enforcers especially the fbi and irs. any violation of this principle threatens the trust and voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends so appalling to learn on friday the irs had

improperly targeted conservative groups for joe klein writes the irs mess and this is in "time." yet again an example of democrats simply not managing the government properly and with discipline. this is just poisonous at a time of skepticism about the efficient cass y efficacy. the president's unwilling to concentrate obsessively on making sure that government is managed efficiently will be part of his regullegacy. i don't think obama wanted to be on the same page as richard nixon. in this specific case, he now is. >> carl?

>> you, obviously, were part of an investigation that led to the downfall of a president who used the irs. nobody is making -- lisa myers earlier said we have zero evidence right now there is any connection between president obama and the irs. just talk generally about how disturbing it is when the irs uses their powers to target political groups. >> it's terrible. outrageous. simple as that. and some high up heads it looks like from what we know so far, but lisa myers point is correct. in the nixon white house, we heard the president of the united states on tape saying use the irs to get back at our enemies. i'd be very surprised -- >> that is what you would call a smoking gun, right? >> i think -- >> we know a lot about president obama. >> buchanan was right. they should have burned the tapes! but go ahead. >> we know a lot about president

obama and i think the idea that he would want the irs used for retribution we have no evidence of any such thing. i think we also got a look at all of these events in the last couple of days in terms of the poisonous hyperpartisanship and ideological war fare in washington that is making governance on both sides. that is not to say a real investigation of what happened in ben ghazi shouldn't take place, that a real investigation, including a grand jury investigation of what happened at the irs, ought to take place. but the politicalization of what goes for policy in washington is crippling us. we can't get anything done in terms of real governance in this country. >> you said before we know president obama, we can't make any connection. we are not saying because you like the guy that we should take his word that we should go unfazed. this deserves a full hearing. >> absolutely. look.

in fact, some people high up in the irs and if there is anybody in the white house which i cannot imagine but if it turns out to be the case, there ought to be a full investigation of this. there also is a problem -- >> can i ask you about that? you just said something interesting, you can't imagine anybody in the white house would know. isn't that the benefit of the doubt that perhaps democratic administrations get that republican administrations do not get because you get this sense that the press has not been as aggressive on ben ghazi because of the people that ven beating the drum on ben gasshaz from the very beginning? >> i think the press all around has been impressive on ben ghazi. >> the friday press conference because they seemed far more compliant if -- >> reporters i think are trying to determine what is political spin in an election campaign and

what is really impossible, outrageous conduct in terms of not providing the kind of security that an embassy ought to have. look. i think there is a real difference between all this talk about watergate and impeachment with some really irresponsible people are talking about. what we're talking about here is trying to differentiate between a criminal presidency, which the nixon presidency was, and political spin that becomes irresponsible and for which people ought to be held accountable and there ought to be transparency. >> carl, political spin. i think the kindest thing to say about the obama presidency right now. it certainly looks like an incompetent presidency. is it fair to say they are, at

the very least, in these two cases male, incompetent? >> i think that the irs case might not be about the presidency. i don't know that it is. >> the treasury department. >> well, it's not that go. >> it is that simple. >> the idea that the president -- >> would it be that simply if george w. bush was the president of the united states? >> i think the same -- >> and the irs scalded democratic groups specifically? >> look. i think this is indefensible. >> right. >> the question of whether the white house knows, he certainly think the white house ought to be demanding to know all of the facts. i think that putting any of this in this hyperpartisan ideological cultural war fare context continues down the road both in the press and -- >> all i have to say, thank god when you were investigating richard nixon in 1972 and 1973 and 1974, there was no hyperpartisanship there. >> there was not.

>> oh, my god, carl, where were you in 1973? could you name one person "the washington post" newsroom that supported richard nixon in 1972? no. >> maybe bob woodward. >> i don't think so. >> i think if you did diamondback -- you should talk to bob who he voted for. >> there wasn't a more hyperpartisan time than when you guys were investigating nixon. >> look. >> was there? >> let's look where watergate was. it was not about republicans. it was barry goldwater who said that richard nixon must go. this was about a criminal -- no, let me finish. >> no, no, no. >> a criminal president. >> you keep talking about political spin. we got to go to break and let you talk after the top of the hour. you keep talking about political spin in his hyperpartisan times. i would say the late '60s and early '70s when the fighting was spilling out into the streets

there was no more hyperpartisan time than that. that doesn't mean the press corps doesn't hold the administration accountable. >> it began in the streets with lyndon johnson and not richard nixon that this was bipartisan poop opposition to the war in vietnam. >> we have chuck todd joining the conversation and tom brokaw will be in the studio. more "morning joe" when we come back. >> carl, thanks for coming in this morning. flying is old hat for business travelers. the act of soaring across an ocean in a three-hundred-ton rocket doesn't raise as much as an eyebrow for these veterans of the sky. however, seeing this little beauty over international waters is enough to bring a traveler to tears. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving.

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coming up next, former house speaker newt gingrich grins us along with former governor ed rendell here in new york. >> carl is sticking around too. >> carl is still here. we will be right back. ♪ have a gooood nig. here youou go. you, , too. i'm goining to dream about t that steaka. i'i'm going toto dream about thatat tiramisu.u. whwhat a nightht, huh? but, u um, can thehe test drivie be over nonow? head b back to the d dealership?p? [ mamale announcncer ] it's praractically y yours. but we stitill need yourur signaturere. volklkswagen sigign then dririe is back. anand it's nevever been eaeasir to get a a passat. that's's the powerer of german n engineerining. get $0$0 down, $0 0 due at sig, $0 depososit, anand $0 firstst month's p pt on any n new volkswawagen. vivisit vwdealaler.com tododay.

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♪ welcome back to "morning joe."

john heilemann and carl bernstein are swtill bus and joining the table is co-chair of the fix the debt campaign ed rendell. ed, another tightly. there you go. >> yeah. >> and in washington, former speaker of the house and former republican presidential candidate, newt gingrich. very good to have you, mr. speaker, back on the show. all right. we head into the news. the irs is under fire accused of targeting conservative nonprofit groups for additional scrutiny for years. the independent agency already apologized but there are a lot of questions yet to be answered this morning. low-level employees at the cincinnati field office started looking into groups with patriot and tea party in the name. about 300 in all dating back to 2010. some of the groups were reportedly targeted because they were critical of how the country was being run. and other groups that were investigated were involved in educating americans on the constitution and bill of rights.

a draft of inspector general's report obtained by the a.p. shows senior officials including head of the tax exempt division were aware of the practice as early as 2011. "the new york times" reports the audit shows tried to shift the focus from just conservative groups to all political advocacy groups. the criticism has been universal including comments from democrats and the aclu. the results of the full investigation are expected to be relieved later this morning. >> governor ed rendell, you've run a state and big city and the democratic party. let's talk about just this is mind boggling, "wall street journal" reporting this morning that the probe is showing it's far wired than just groups that were called patriot or tea party. they also included groups that were worried about government spending. the debt. i guess fix the debt would now come under irs scrutiny.

taxes. even ones that may lobby to make america a better place to live. this was purely political. what does president obama need to do this morning? this is about as bad as it gets, isn't it? >> absolutely. i think you said in the first hour he has to hammer this loud and clear. again, there's abuses on both sides here. as john pointed out in his earlier comments, 501-c4 area is an area that has been to looked at because subsidizing things. >> the irs didn't look at both sides. >> absolutely. >> we might as well not talk about that? >> i agree. >> talk about both sides and then we could have the discussion. they only chose to attack conservatives. >> i think action has to be taken. the people that knew about this and allowed it to go on should be fired. but i also think one of the

problems is, john and i talked about this off screen, is now, once this happens, i think the irs will investigate nobody. >> what does the president need to do to get ahead of this? >> as strongly as possible, get out there and a make sure there -- people who knew about this and didn't take action, get fired. >> newt gingrich, what does the president of the united statesed into to do today? >> i has a huge problem because obama care relies very heavily on the irs. now every american understands elements of the irs that go off on their own, do what they want to. the effort now is to say it was low level employees. yet, those low level employees apparently saw public reports that they waern doing wheren't they were doing and nobody informed the irs or the treasury. i think the president has to say he is opening it up totally and demand everybody meet with

congress, go to the hearings. he is going to fire everybody he can legally fire who has been involved in this. and they have got to look at changes. how can you put obama care under the internal revenue service? remember. is this the administration which will not profile terrorists but profile patriots? profile constitutional groups? i mean, this is almost madness. >> here is the time line of the irs' position on the issue. according to reports obtained by the associated press the findings seem to contradict public statements made by the agency's commissioner. in march of 2012, irs commission douglas schulman testified there absolutely no target adding that the investigations were, quote, the kind of back and forth that happens to people. they were not away of the level of specific details at the time of the march 2012 hearing. >> they are saying low-level

employees. >> it says senior leadership did not have this level of detail. >> that's false. >> the associated press reports in june of 2011 the official who heads the irs division that overseas tax-exempt organizations learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted and just two months later, in august of 2011, staffers in the irs and rulings and agreement office, quote, held a meeting with chief counsel so everyone would have the latest information on the issue. >> i don't understand. why would they lie on friday afternoon if they knew, carl, back in 2011, what was going on? >> first of all, it's not -- let's talk about top and middle. >> no. irs. it goes to some of the top people in the irs. >> the other thing is the whole unit in cincinnati was especially charged as if it were a washington entity. >> could we just stop and talk about the geography of this

quickly? hold on. we were talking about ben ghazi happening before an election. it's not a coincide that they charged a group in the swing state of 2012 as going after groups. let's look at the geography. >> i wouldn't jump to that conclusion. >> you think ohio is just a coincide? >> i don't know. i don't know. i think one of the things as the speaker said we ought to look at the idea of globalizing this as if it had something to do with obama care is part of the difficulty here. let's say we have a huge problem in the irs. we need to find out how politicalized this was personally they ought to go before a grand jury and there ought to be a criminal

investigation if it's warranted and that is it. but making the global pronouncements where it goes and it affects obama care seems to me is part of the problem. >> carl, it's really sad to see somebody who was so willing to take on government 40 years ago as apologizing for the government. if you're a normal citizen and anonymous irs agent comes after you, you're in big trouble. we were told this was centralized in one city and all the irs commissioner had to do was pick up the phone and call cincinnati. they knew where this was. apparently, even inside the irs if you want to take that their version they couldn't get the bureaucracy to tell them the truth. why would you trust the bureaucracy with your health if you can't trust the bureaucracy are your politics? even taking your analysis, there are bureaucrats in the irs who are capable of ruining your life while lying about it and that is what we have up against. the parallel between ben ghazi and the irs story is amazing.

lying and then lying about lying and hiding from the fact they are lying and seeking to apologize for the lies they claim they they didn't tell. this is a pattern of big government that believes it's more important than the american people. >> again, i agree with the speaker about the question of how egregiousness what occurred is, but the notion that bureaucracy someone is always bad. the government does some very good things that we got to look at the government not as this monolith that does all bad and all good. we have to look specifically what we are talking about. here, you are absolutely right, mr. speaker, that if the irs bureaucracy at any level all the way up to the top, whoever is responsible, ought to go. it's simple as that. and we ought to find out what the hell were they thinking. >> i want to know what they were saying. >> that is right appear at the we ought to find out what they

were saying and thinking and i think john is on to something as well about the difficulties of 5034c. >> that is irrelevant unless they went after democratic groups as well. >> i'd like to bring my friends carl and speaker gingrich on this point. i believe they agree. what they are both saying, the integrity of the irs which is involved in every american's life should be sacrosicnt. the speaker is right in the sense that americans need to trust the irs because they will be administering a lot of different things, including obama care. carl wants the american people to trust the government. the speaker thinks it's crucial for obama care to be administer administered effectively, people trust the irs. not that the president is

somehow culpable here but the president is head of the entire federal government so he needs to get on top of pj not in front of it because it's a political problem but on top of it because americans need to be able to believe in this agency. >> newt, let us break bread together. john heilemann bringing us together again as only he can do. this is so critical. i know when i ran the first time in '94, it was about taxes. so many other people do. you and i both know there is nothing that horrifies our constituents more than when the irs comes after them and won't let them go. i remember several times picking up the phone. i know you did the same thing. i'd call an irs person that had been auditing a small business for years. and i say you either charge them or drop the case. you're destroying their lives and you're destroying their family and you're destroying their business. if you got something, do it! i've got to say personally, i always had a lot of luck with the irs. they were reasonable once you

talked to them. but there is no agency that strikes fear in the hearts of americans more. that is why these stories are so damming and why the guy that runs the administration, the president, needs to get out today and tell the american people i'm going to clean this up so you can trust him again, right? >> he also owes every tea party in america, every group called patriot, i mean, every group that wants to study the constitution an apology. how can you have an american government profiled against the word patriot? there is something cultally sick if the american government says you put that word constitution in your name, we are going to come after you. again, this isn't an administration shocked at the idea of profiling for terrorism but apparently had an entire part of the irs that was profiling for patriotism. i find that to be very, very chilling in terms of our political liberty. >> i got to say, for people out

there that might be rolling their eyes with what the speaker said, everybody should agree with him. >> totally. >> everybody should agree with him. >> the aclu and newt gingrich are on the same side in this and in terms of the abuse and president getting in front. >> the word patriot, think about it. it has the irs flag your organization. is there anything sicker than that. >> it's pretty sad and the president should apologize. >> i think more needs to be done. obviously, clearly, people's jobs are on the line here. a white house joint news conference between the president and david cameron at 11:15 today in the rose garden. i can't imagine he won't be fielding questions. >> would the ex-checker do this? >> you know, newt said something before, mika, about in these two

cases, whether it's the irs or the administration lying, being caught lying, and then lying about lying. certainly that is the case with the irs. we have got the time line. it's very straightforward. i've already said what other people have said off the record, but probably won't say on the record. jay carney did not tell the truth in the briefing on friday. somebody that knows and likes jay, it was very discouraging. really, it was depressing because you've seen it and i've seen it. people get inside the white house. by the way, i had a talk with a republican friend back in 2005. i went after the bush administration. they weren't telling the truth on something. and somebody very high up pushed back like this and were rough. i said, listen, you've got a decision to make. i've been in washington long enough to know bush is going to lead the white house. you decide today whether you're my friend or not because i'm not going to be your friend afterwards for you pushing back. i said you better also remember you take your integrity with you

when this administration ends. they all end. you only rent the office. when i saw jay, i knew him before and know him after, really like the guy, i was really depressed. >> transparency is always what you need in that job so you can be transparent is what you need to do in that place. everybody president is lousy at it. >> is first thing i would take anybody who takes office, when you make a mistake, say you made a mistake and don't try to cover it up. say you screwed up and you will do something about it. >> let's show the ben ghazi time line. according to the weekly standard, back in october, white house president secretary jay carney said, quote, we have provided information based on the facts that we knew as they became available. based on assessments by the intelligence community, not opinions. on friday, reports surfaced that the talking points had undergone

12 different revisions including extensive edits by the state department. also on friday, carney doubled on his original position saying, quote, the white house made one minor change to the talking points drafted by the cia. >> jay, you told us that the only changes that were made were stylistic. is it a stylistic change to take out all references to previous terror threats in ben ghazi? >> i appreciate the question again. i think what i was referring to was the talking points that the cia drafted, and sent around, to which one change was made and i accept it's stylistic may not precisely describe a change of one word to another. >> jay, this was not a change of one word to another. these underwent extensive changes after they were written by the cia. >> there was an interagency process because a lot of agencies have stakes in a matter like this. >> karl was actually laughing and everybody was laughing at

just how outrageous it is. mr. speaker-- >> should be threading the needle. should be saying what happened? >> come on. >> the weekly standards reports this. 12 changes in 24 hours. everybody in that briefing room, newt, knew that what jay was saying on friday just wasn't the truth. i was stunned that he stuck to a line that had been blown apart by the "weekly standard" first and then jonathan karl, second. steven hayes, great job at the "weekly standard" by the way. >> this sglans why conservatives are so continually afraid of big government. bring in the secretary of aajs who is getting money probably illegal and ben ghazi the top people in the administration, the president and the secretary of state and the ambassador to the united nations lied to the american people and the irs which has the power to go into any business, any foundation, any home, and destroy a person

with the power that they have got. the reason conservative distrust big government is because in the end, this is the kind of stuff you drift towards and you look at ben ghazi, the fact that general petraeus said we they wd not using the talking points and he was the head of the cia. the leadership in the building, referring to the state department. the leadership in the building didn't like the cia talking about it. now, who was the leads? was it secretary clinton? was there a secretary leader? you just look at the record. you look at the transcripts. you look at the e-mails. ben ghazi is a case study. this doesn't have the president's fingerprints and this isn't in the white house and this isn't what you used to investigate. >> i think we need very careful to look at a politicized reaction which, obviously, occurred and the politicized reaction was irresponsible,

especially at the level of the state department, that hillary clinton should have got out in front and said exactly what happened, but the notion that this is back to some idea of criminality, conservatives can't trust this and liberals can't trust that, i think we got to put this back into the realm of good government. it's not about conservatives. it's not about liberals. we have a problem in washington that nothing is getting done because we cast everything in this hyperideological way, including pavolian responses that democrats make because they think republicans are accusing them of something and vice versa. it is terrible, mr. speaker, it is awful. >> don't forget this is the province of big government. >> that's right. >> ronald reagan, conservative, smaller government. iran/contra, remember? >> which is why reagan would have said he wanted smaller

government. i'm just pointing out government bureaucracies -- >> no, i didn't say it was. i said big government. >> that's not the problem. >> big government. >> it's about bad government. >> right. >> big government risk being bad government. >> so do small ones. >> newt gingrich, thank you very much. carl bern shortstop stein. >> >> carl bernstein. >> you ought to take it on the road, you and newt. >> we will take a tour, newt and i. the silver haired guys. >> as john said, you all agree more than disagree. still ahead on "morning joe," former ambassador thomas pickering said he didn't need to interview hillary clinton for his ben ghazi report because, quote, he knew where the responsibility rested. he joins us straight ahead. up next, tom brokaw and chuck todd join the conversation. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ message in a bottle

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i think the talking points were wrong. i think the talking points should not be written by the intelligence community. >> if there is something you would have liked to have seen, the president or the secretary of state do differently after this broke, it would have been what? >> oh, to move faster, to say, yes, this was, in fact, a terrorist act. i mean it was so evident and training camps all around. >> if you believe that, why -- >> because -- i think this is a cautious administration. you see it in other respects. >> all right. joining us now nbc tom brokaw and in washington, nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director and host of "the daily rundown," chuck

todd. >> still at the table is mark halpern and ed rendell. >> to play off what senator feinstein said evident this was a terror attack from the very beginning and susan rice is sent out five days later with talking points that have been changed from the cia 12 times in 24 hours. the white house just not being straightforward about it from the very beginning. the susan -- susan rice calling five days after? >> that is the part still insplikabi inexplicable to me. what a -- you cannot explain susan rice's performance on those sunday talk shows in which she said it was not a terrorist attack and grew out of a domestic demonstration of some kind and they replayed it and

rewrote the script and i think we deserve to who it is. that is what the american public finally tuned into and the first public spobs and we have not had an adequate notice from the white house why she was allowed to say what she did. did flags go off in her own mind? did she go down and say, wait a minute? nonetheless she went on all of those shows in a very emphatic way and said it was not a terrorist attack and this grew out of a demonstration that was spontaneous and that turned out to be not so true whatsoever. >> the cia saying from the beginning that al qaeda was involved. >> yeah. >> and they got changed 12 times in 24 hours, chuck todd, because the state department official said, boy, if we don't do this, republican congressmen are going to come after us. what ed rendell said in the breck and what i thought from the very beginning is this is another example of politicians

being too clever going, wait we want the narrative that we are tough on al qaeda. instead of being smart enough to say it wasn't al qaeda attack. we have killed osama bin laden. we have done great things. but the far on terror continues and we're going to keep fighting. that americans would have rallied around the president? it always helps an incumbent president. this is mind boggling. >> stupid. >> it's stupidity and incompetence at the highest level and then they are having to be untruthful to cover their competence. >> something was covered up here, right? were they trying to cover up that it was a terrorist attack? the one thing these release of the e-mails show is that it seems as if the white house was comfortable allowing that to be in the talking points that state department wasn't. was the cia trying to cover up the aspect that the ben ghazi annex was a cia outpost? was the state department trying

to cover up the fact that they dropped the ball? the question is what was being covered up? whose decision was it to just then suddenly say, you know what? the implication the white house is now throwing out there for what it's worth, is that this was a bureaucratic or they want folks to believe this was a bureaucratic fight between the state and the chachlt and could be what it was and the white house said, forget it, let's limit information as minimal as possible. that potentially is the case. but somebody -- i mean, there are more unanswered questions at stake than any other of the three areas. right? there is a little bit at cia. you feel like we have got an idea of where their head was. you do seem to think you've got an idea where the white house was. at least in the early parts. it's state that seem to have been raising the most red flags

on the original set of talking points. >> it's clear the president will be getting questions on this at the 11:15 news conference with david cameron in the white house rose garden and also tom brokaw, on the irs story. i'd like to get your take on what could be, if possible, the best possible spin on this? because i can't see one. this one, to me, is just kind of bad up and down. >> only one spin for the president to make which is come out and say this is outrageous and i have asked the people who are responsible to building this to be removed from their jobs and we will have an complete investigation and thorough house cleaning if necessary of the irs. i'm offended by it. this is not a political issue or conservative world liberal issue. it is about trusteding your government especially when it comes to one of the most sensitive parts -- >> do you think this should have been done already? >> no, no. well, i'm sure they will take the weekend to find out who was

c culpable here and what the details are. the president should have already had a statement saying there was, in fact, a targeting of conservative groups that was admitted by the irs. once that came out, the president should have had a statement, it seems to me off the bat, but now it's time for action. statement. then action. let's get this cleaned up and move on. it's welcome to the second term, mr. president. >> wow. >> that's what is really going on here. >> i have to say, tom, he had a chance on friday afternoon. this thing broke a lot earlier, this irs agent. had he a health care event at 3:00 in the afternoon. he had an opportunity to say something. i think the -- they let jay carney's words speak. i thought they were very weak. it didn't seem like they had a real sense of outrage. look at the reaction of the entire democratic party. the republican party is jumping

on this and standing up for members of their base constituency and, at the same time, beating up the irs is always good politics. why aren't there more democrats jumping on this? this is outrageous no matter what political party you are, that an arm of the government, maybe it's a set of people just in one office but, mind you, that one office was put in charge of dealing with these 501c4s and things like that. >> why didn't the president say something on friday? >> i don't know. maybe they were distracted by ben ghazi and didn't want the decision they wanted it to be on health care. i said where is the sense of outrage and the only pushback was, like, jay carney speak about this at the press briefing. he was pretty strong. i have to say it didn't sound very strong to me. i don't know fountain white house realizes. i think this story that more legs in 2014 than ben ghazi. >> chuck todd, we will see you

on "the daily rundown" at 9:00. tom, stay with us if you can. tomorrow, former senator olympia snow and also keith ellison. we will be right back with more "morning joe." my mantra? always go the extra mile. to treat my low testosterone, i did my research.

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sometimes you lose ♪ ♪ >> over the weekend, joe delivered the commencement address at eureka college. take a look. >> perhaps the most eloquent speech writer of our time, peggy reminded me, in no uncertain terms, that i am the only thing that is standing between you and your first celebratory beer, so keep it short, buster! and i will! we live in a self-absorbed age. a generation that gave us such culturally destructive forces as woodstock, disco, polyester, wall street greed and bill clinton. the me generation of the baby

boomers has given away to the me, me, me generation. there is a generation where every human emotion can be reduced to 140 characters. it is important to cling to your faith. faith in yourself, faith in your country, and faith in your god. you know one of my favorite speeches ronald reagan gave, at least part of that speech that ronald reagan gave was at a commencement. he went to harvard where professors had been mocking him as an dunce for years that didn't have a good enough education to run this country. he said, you know, sometimes i lie awake in bed at night and i wonder, just what i would have accomplished if i had a good education. the class of 2013, i can tell you that you didn't have a good education here over your four years. you had a great education.

so cling to your faith. >> up next, it's part three of a pulitzer surprise winning trilogy on world war two. the author of the book will join us next. "guns at last light." do we have a mower? no. a trimmer? no. we got nothing. we just bought our first house, we're on a budget. we're not ready for spring.

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♪ joining us now pulitzer prize wing author steve atkinsons. tom brokaw says it is a treasure. >> it is a national treasure

forever for friends. i'd say that even if i didn't know him. this is a remarkable conclusion of three parts on world war ii and it comes at a time when we are losing that generation very rapidly, the most touching moment for me in the last three months, rick, was bob dole standing over danny's casket and saluting it and that was for me the kind of summary those guys were, wound inside italy at the same time and served their country, one a republican, one a democrat. i didn't how, fabulous book. >> you talk about how war is the -- you always eisenhower. >> a way it reveals the interim spectrum of light. eisenhower has great flaws as a

great captain but not his job. the phrase he uses is chairman of the most fractionus marshal enterprise on earth and i think he is quite brilliant at that. i have lived with him now 14 years and my administration for him has only grown in that time. i certainly see he has got enormous feet of clay like all of us and that makes him more interesting to me as a writer. >> explain his feet of clay. >> well, he's -- he comes in tow the war in north africa having never commanded a platoon in combat and suddenly he is a theater commander. a very steep learning curve. he makes many mistakes. he doesn't see the battlefield in the same way so consequently he makes a number of mistakes and those mistakes go into late 1944. >> you know, i went back and i looked at "life" magazine from 1945 and we sit here and, of course, we -- tom knows this

better than anybody -- from a distance we look back at the glories from june 6th, 1944 all the way through april of '45 and the surrender, german surrender. but there were people complaining during this time we are not moving fast enough through europe. what is happening? why are we being let down? >> great anxiety that, in fact, we would stall as that we would be jammed up on the beaches or subsequently when the breakout from normandi that we would be stalled there. april the 1945 the last full month of the war in europe almost 11,000 americans killed in germany. that is almost as many as were killed in june of 1944, the month of invasion. it was brutal bloody and awful right almost to the last gun

shot. >> what is so compelling about this book is the first two books, rick has heard from a lot of combatants who participated in those battles and they have shared with him their diaries and family members have as well in the reports so it has a real human quality. talking about eisenhower i will pick up on something. he not only had to fight the britiwar but british generals as well. this is what was said to him in fall of 1944. he is completely out of touch what is has gone on and issues young telegraphic directives an germany as germans. this was one of the disasters on our way to germany. >> this is your closest ally. >> who had side are they on? >> the book looked at the a

absurdities of the war. didn't have white flags to surrender and waving chickens instead and retreating across the river water wings from -- oh, good lord. inflated condoms. >> very effective and something to remember if you're in a pinch. >> and then the darkness of war that this excerpt i think really sums up. blanks of typists in adjacent room up to 30,000 letters a month asking where they should be sent. over the years they have found swords and machine gun and t italian accordion and japanese life raft and thousands of diaries. even when the last soldier gone to the grave and made the earth lie lightly on his bones the

cause he fought is sure to live on. the war and all of the war contained. >> it's interesting. they use the term nobility of war. there is no nobility in afghanistan, there is no nobility in iraq. you know, i had to explain to guardsmen families why they died. i usually can phrase things pretty well. i have a hard time saying why their sons died. >> when you say nobility, into cause? into cause. >> hard to say. >> no, the troops are nobility with you but the cause itself. >> i would never argue that any war is noble, even necessary wars. and i'm not sure that we have seen necessary wars recently but there is a nobility of camaraderie of sacrifice, of commitment, of friendship that comes out of it. it is, as we all know, we all know many world war ii veterans,

it is the salient moment of their lives and shapes them forever and consequently shaped the country for years now. that is what i talk nobility i what they managed to accomplish, despite as with eisenhower, and to do what needs to be done despite that. >> the guns at last light," rick, thank you so much. tom brokaw, thank you so much. the football frenzy with roger benoit. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ male announcer ] ah... retirement. sit back, relax,

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with us now, roger benoit. thanks for being here. sunday a historic day and, of course, manu and sir alax goes out the only way you would expect sir alex to go out. >> with a win. >> at the very end. >> manchester united, little bit like vince lombardi and 26 years, 13 championships, 2

champion leagues. he invented the term that will fully be his legacy. his surprise resignation announcement that fitting ly an the ball home in the 86th minute. >> no comparison, other than maybe john wooden. ask the red sox owner what a maddening sport this is. for this guy to win 13 league championships over three, four eras, just unbelievable. >> he's built manchester united into a global brand. on the new york stock exchange. the succession will be handled as a corporation, but winning is in its dna. >> can i ask a journalistic question, why is he quitting? >> no one knows. he is 71 and just said he was going to stay in and he is in complete control of his team. he just announced on thursday.

he wanted to leave his final game will be his 1,500th, just won his 13th title and wanted to go out as a winner. for the football world, trying to understand why he's retired right now. they replaced him with a jerry sloan character, and we'll see if he will be a great manager. >> jerry sloanesque character when he was coaching your team? >> now he's not. feel like jennifer aniston, i'm about to see brad pitt ripped out of my arms. >> so, let me ask you another question. do you follow soccer and follow football, what was sir alex's secret? why was he the greatest coach in soccer history? >> he made the front page of "new york times" even when he resigned. winning was in his dna, complete control and the ability to take players that were good, but not great and make that collective. believe that he was cut throat.

he did a harvard case study that was released a couple months ago. david beckham was a great example of this. when they step out of line, they're dead to me. >> that is the secret, is it not. he told everybody you're wearing that shirt. you don't, even when he was saying good-bye, you know, most of the time coaches will go, thank you. he said, remember, you're wearing the shirt. don't embarrass yourself. >> those were his final words and that will be emblazoned. >> he stood up to beckham. beckham stepped out of line and trashed him unmercifully. it was always the team concept and that was a secret. >> maybe we should get him to come over and coach an nba team. >> roger, always unusual to see you, thank you very much. >> lovely to be with you. up next, the irs says senior officials didn't know they were targeting tea party groups until

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[ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? [ crows ] now where's the snooze button? good morning, it's 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. willy and i suggest if you're still on the west coast, stay in bed. take a live look right now at new york city. beautiful out there. about 28 degrees. is it ever going to get warm

here? back with us on set, you know, it's kind of warm inside. mark halprin. >> the irs under fire accused of targeting conservative nonprofit groups for additional scrutiny for years. the independent agency already has apologized, but there are a lot of questions yet to be answered this morning. employees at the cincinnati field office started looking into groups with patriot and tea party in the name. about 300 in all. dating back to 2010. some of the groups were reportedly targeted because they were critical of how the country was being run and other groups that were investigated were educating americans on institution and bill of rights. a draft of the inspector general's report obtained by the ap shows tax officials were aware of the practice as early as 2011. "new york times" reports the

audit shows she tried to shift the focus from just conservative groups to all political advocacy groups. now, the criticism has been universal. including comments from democrats and the aclu. republicans have called for a government-wide probe and an apology from the president himself. >> this is truly outrageous. and it contradicts to the profound distrust that the american people have in government. it is absolutely chilling that the irs was singling out conservative groups for extra review. and i think that it's very disappointing that the president hasn't personally condemned this and spoken out. >> before the igs report comes to the public or congress as required by law, it's leaked by the irs to try to spin the output. this maya copa is not an honest

one. >> "washington post" also saying the president needs to come out and apologize, jack lu neeew neo do the same. this morning breaking "wall street journal" wider problems and finding out not if just tea party was in their name and not if just patriot was in their name, but those worried about government spending, debt, ta s taxes. basically any conservative fiscal approach. this is, this is mind boggling. i'm going to say what else, i want you to continue, mika. what is mind boggling, also, is the headline on the front page of "new york times" which didn't even put this on the front page of its national edition this weekend. their headline, irs focus on conservatives gives gop a path,

an issue to seize on. this while, mika, the aclu is coming out talking about how chilling this is. how frightening this is. that this government is using the internal revenue service to target people with whom they disagree. >> it does not look good at all. it looks, i'd say, embarrassing is a way to start. we'll find out much more. joining us from washington, nbc news senior correspondent lisa myers joining us now. lisa, great to have you back on the show. what are you hearing there? >> people i talked to over the weekend in both parties were absolutely dumb founded that something like this could happen in the irs. do these people not remember the nixon administration? i mean, the abuses of power was his use of the irs against his political enemies. clearly, what the irs has said so far doesn't add up when an

official on friday said, well, conservative groups were targeted, but this wasn't politically motivated. huh? and then the acknowledgment that senior officials knew and did not inform congress. in fact, they told congress that the claims that conservative groups were being targeted were untrue. >> lisa, can i stop you right there? >> you bet. >> mika, read this timeline, if you will. then have lisa move on that because she was just talking about what the irs said. >> all right, here's the timeline of the irs' position on the issue. according to reports obtained by the associated press, the findings seem to contradict public statements made by the agency's commissioner. in march of 2012, irs commissioner testified that there was absolutely no targeting. adding that the investigations were the kind of back and forth that happens to people. >> so a year ago, absolutely no

targeting. >> on saturday, the irs put a statement reading, "senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the march 2012 hearing." >> so, they were saying it was low-level employees in ohio. that was on friday. >> it goes on to say, "senior leadership did not have this level of detail, but the associated press reports that back in june of 2011, the official who heads the irs division that oversees tax exempt organizations learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted. just two months later, in august of 2011, staffers in the irs' rulings and agreements office, "held a meeting with chief council so that everyone would have the latest information on the event." >> lisa myers, people sort of tried to clean things up and they'll say, well, they misspoke. or there were falsehoods. these are just out in out lies.

the irs has been lying and i'm kind of shocked, even mother jones, a very progressive site was shocked this weekend and said, seriously? the irs knew this was coming and they still were misleading people on friday. >> it is amazing to me that when senior, that senior irs officials, once they learned this was happening, didn't try to fire the individuals involved. i mean, i know it's very tough in the civil service, but the idea that this seemingly was greeted with shrugs within the agency, certainly there doesn't appear to be at this point any strong action that was taken. i agree with mark, a great deal we do not know. but certainly what is showing is pretty indefensible. >> lisa, it's willy. when we mention people like richard nixon, the implication that this irs scandal is tied back to the white house and driven by the white house. we should pause here, though. is there any indication that the white house knew about this, that in some way ordered the irs

to go after political apone instants. >> zero. absolutely nothing so far that takes this outside the irs itself. >> wow. >> all right. let's -- first of all, john, of course, it's in the administration. joe klein, of course, wrote something about talking, nixon. nix owni nixonian coming up. at the very least, president obama, do you agree with "the washington post." should come out, should have come out on friday forcefully condemning this action? should he do it today? should people be fired? what should happen? >> i think as more, it doesn't bother me so much that he didn't come out on friday. again, a lot of advance in terms of the facts just in the last 48 hours. for the president to want to wait before he gets the full facts is reasonable to me. but, look, the integrity of the irs is absolutely essential.

not that just it's an independent agency a, but the irs. one that can induce extraordinary levels of professional, personal torment upon people, as groups and individuals. if we don't have other faith in the political nature of the irs, we have a huge problem. the core of a lot of people's lives. >> also, when you talk about speech and protected speech, the thing you learn in law school very early on is all speech, for the most part, can be the government can step in and they can figure out how to regulate speech. but when it comes to political speech, political speech. it's sack rosianked. it does not allow the government to tread on political speech. there is a wall around that. and that wall has been knocked down by the irs for several years now. >> it's true.

and, look, i think to answer your first question, again, the president needs to get involved in this at some level. and needs to be public about it on some level. i would say, the interesting thing here is that we are talking about, not to get too far into the weeds. but 504c groups. social welfare groups that are tax exempt, right? they're subsidized by the pub c public. there is a big question about on the left and on the right across the board about the abuse of 504c4s. there's a reason why the irs should look carefully at all these groups whether these groups deserve tax exempt status whether they're social welfare groups or effectively political action committees. >> independent of this issue. >> let's see the evidence that they did this on the left. >> i agree. a big issue around the abuse of 504c4 status. to have an irs aggressively investigating both sides is fine

and to have them focusing on one side is not fine and the president needs to say that. >> one other point to make, there's been many overblown claims of tyranny and abuse of power in the government in the last few years. this is tyranny. >> this is. >> if this is the government, a nonpartisan agency coming after specific groups, this time it's real. >> i can't, i'll just be honest with you, i can't imagine much, mark halprin, worse than this. the internal revenue service, the tax man who, after all, we patriots, our forefathers and formothers did breakaway from the british government based on taxes. on a tax revolt. for the irs to go after people because of their political beliefs -- i'd be saying the same thing. obviously, if it was happening on the left, it would be shock. it's just unspeakable and the president of the united states,

the head of the administration, the head of this government needs to come out today and condemn this in the harshest terms. demand answers and fire people. >> let's applaud groups like the aclu and liberal news organizations or liberal advocacy groups and journalists outfits that are being aggressive about this because we as a country need to be aggressive about it because governments, when they have scandals tend to not tell the truth and tend to protect themselves. >> like jay carney on friday. >> another example of where we need aggressiveness. >> have you ever seen anything like that? >> we like jake. we know him very well. i like jay before and i'll like him when he leaves the white house. we've all been around to know, unfortunately, sometimes people inside the white house forget, the gig ends. and they've got to walk out of those doors and then their reputation follows them. i was sad for jay that he was not telling the truth to people

he worked with. they all knew he wasn't telling the truth. he did it shamelessly. it was one of the more discouraging, depressing things. i hurt for jay. and i felt horrible for america. he did a great disservice on friday to the american people. >> part of why there's so much concern on these two issues, both the irs and the benghazi issue coming out of friday. there are unanswered questions. but part of the concern on the part of a lot of people, based on the way the two issues were handled by the government in the case of benghazi and the way jay handled it and the case of the irs. >> have you seen anything like jay's press conference? >> i don't recall anything quite like that when he came out and said things that on the face of them they were not supported by this. still ahead, the untold story about the beatles revolution. how fans of a rock band risk repression to listen to their favorite music. we'll talk to leslie in just a few minutes. he's at the center of the

debate in benghazi. thomas pickering joins us on the set of "morning joe." bill karins always in the center of a controversy over the weather. he never gets it right. instead of just admitting, he's just throwing darts at the wall. >> just weaving story. timeline keeps changing. you know, you never know. >> i mean, jay carney's got nothing on this guy. >> check out his maps. >> holy cow. >> i will stick to my claim as being the most accurate meteorologist here on "morning joe." only one. good morning, everyone. as far as the cold goes. continuing the great lakes. can you believe we had a freeze last night. here we are in the middle of may, snowed over the weekend in northern minnesota and also portions of northern michigan. incredible stuff. the temperatures going down to 31 this morning and finally turning the corner. 36 right now in detroit. i mean, that's chilly stuff for this time of the year. here's the good news, cold air engulfing the eastern third of

the country, it's here for literally one day and then all the warmth out in the west. record heat areas like salt lake city and 90s into montana heading east in a hurry. areas like chicago we'll warm up 50 degrees literally in one day because all that warm air will go all the way to the eastern seaboard. as far as the forecast goes, cool this morning, chicago at 62 and minneapolis 68. watch what happens as we go monday into tuesday. and notice the 90s in billings. we could be 94 degrees in minneapolis on tuesday. it snowed in minneapolis, literally two weeks ago. already big changes in the midwest. one area that was awful chilly around the weekend was st. louis. you're also one of the spots that will head up near 90 degrees tomorrow. we go from heater to air conditioner in a day. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. it's monday.

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>> for the president's spokesman to say, well, there was only words or technical changes made in those e-mails is a flat out untruth. what we now know any reference to active terror, any reference

to al qaeda were removed from those talking points and it was done at a deputy's meeting just before susan rice went on television. >> whas it a cover up? >> i would call it a cover up that there was willful removal of information which was obvious. all right 21 past the hour. joining us now from washington, former ambassador, thomas pickering, chair of the state department's accountability review board on the 2012 attacks in benghazi. mark halperin and mr. ambassador, i'll start with one of the key questions being raised repeatedly. the fact is that you did not include secretary clinton in your questioning. in retrospect, do you think it would have been a good idea to ask her a few questions? >> mika, thank you very much. i'm in very clear on this that we had a very clear and, i

think, very obvious, at the time, indication of precisely where the decisions were made and where they were reviewed. she was not involved in it. and, therefore, there was no reason to question her on that line and there were no other questions that we had in mind. all five of us. so, i don't believe at this stage anything has changed by the testimony last week. in fact, i think it's been reinforced. >> having said that, she's the secretary of state. and it just seems like the security of the embassy and surrounding related buildings would be all the way up to her office. >> she made very clear, mika, she took that responsibility on several occasions, including in testimony she gave to the congress after our report came out. and i think that that's obvious. but the whole purpose of the accountability review board act by the congress was to go below those who take responsibility as

a result of the requirements and, indeed, the responsibilities of their office to where the decisions were made. the congress wanted to know who made the decisions. >> so, greg hicks, the lawyer says that when you told that ambassador stevens was in benghazi because hillary clinton was coming to libya and wanted a diplomatic outpost in benghazi you visibly flinched and said, "does the seventh floor know about this?" that would be where the office of the secretary of state is. is that true? >> i'm not sure precisely to what mr. hicks is referring. in our conversation s with mr. hicks, we went through all of this. i assume in effect that what he was saying related to our discussion with him at the accountability review board. and i'll have to say i reviewed the record of that conversation. i see nothing that is concerned with that. however, i do remember testimony along those lines and,

certainly, i had not known about it up to that point. >> mark halperin. >> ambassador pickering, you are charged with investigating all the questions and all the phases involved with these issues. but you weren't supposed to be looking at what happened in terms of the security at that facility, what decisions were made both before and during and after the crisis. based on what you know and your report and other things you've seen, do you have any unanswered questions or do you believe your investigation put to rest any charge you were looking at? >> i believe that we on the basis of the people we interviewed, over 100 and the pages of testimony and the video films we saw did, as responsible a job as could be done under the circumstances. it would not be, it would not be right for me to say that nothing will ever turn up. that, in fact, would produce something different. what i will say is from what i have heard and what i have seen and what i have read since our

report came out, i see nothing at this stage that would in any material way change the conclusions that i reached in that report. others will have to speak for themselves, but we had unanimity on the report at the time that we produced it. it is important to note, as well, that other concerns are being looked at by the federal bureau of investigation. which is an important point and i don't know the answer to those questions. including the questions of what was the motive and who was involved. >> mr. ambassador, if i could because of the phrasing you used beg a question this focus of not interviewing secretary clinton. you said it wasn't required. is there anyone you didn't interview who you think could shed additional light on the questions that you were charged with looking at or you interviewed everybody? >> let's be clear. we had a discussion with secretary clinton. we had discussion with her two immediate subordants.

we interviewed other people. at the moment, i don't see any need to do more interviews or to return interviews, even if that were possible. but our report was completed on december 19th and it was given to the secretary and she said she would carry out its conclusions. >> john? >> ama bbassador pickering, congressman issa will hold more investigations on this going forward are you willing to be deposed in front of that committee and make public the names of all the people you interviewed? >> i am willing, as i have said continually, to go to that committee. i had regrets about going there first when it looked like this was an entire political circus. but i have now made it clear that i am prepared as all the other witnesses have to appear before that committee. i would like to do that as all the other witnesses apparently have in public testimony before that committee.

where not only my words can be recorded, but can be seen. >> and the second question. congressman issa saying they had difficulty of getting a list of the names of the people that you interviewed. are you willing to turn that over? >> my understanding is that the names of the people we interviewed are part of the classified report. obviously, to protect their own personal situations. that's part of the way things work. i believe he has access to the unclassified report. i spoke to him yesterday about that and told him that and he said he would follow up. >> all right, ambassador thomas pickering, thank you very much for answering our questions this morning. >> thank you, mika. coming up, a noisy resolution. lessee woodhead joins us with the story on how the beatles rocked the kremlin. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪

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leslie woodhead, the author of the new book "how the beatles rocked the kremlin." of course, we've always heard the stories about levis and the black market, the western

influence. subversively created a cultural revolution inside the soviet union but the beatles rocked the kremlin and you say it is the same time they came to america in february of '64 and started rocking america. >> pretty well exactly that time. of course, the huge difference is that the beatles were absolutely illegal in the former soviet union. >> you say if somebody were caught with a beatles album in the soviet union, bad things happened. >> you could lose your job, lose your education. they were very serious about this. somebody trying to smuggle the albums into the country, they had a special scratching machine at the airport that could destroy the albums. so, they really meant it. >> and this is, of course, part of the very long and dubious tradition inside the soviet union, crushing western music out of the culture. >> absolutely. in fact, that goes right back to stalin days, the standoff

between the kremlin and any kind of popular music because, remember, this is a country where standard political action and protest was not available. so, people resorted to culture as a way of challenging the system. >> so, the beatles, obviously, changed western culture. but there are actually russian historians that you spoke to that were, obviously, there when it happened that said the beatles actually broke the first hole. knocked the first hole in the iron curtain. >> that's exactly right. and i was disbelieving initially when i heard about it. come on, that can't be true. again and again, people insisted to me that this is, indeed, and finally i met up with putin's chief deputy who confirmed this and he's a beatles nut himself. >> putin's -- >> putin's number one deputy. he's a massive beatles fan who learned his language from beatles lyric.

>> rock 'n' roll can change the world. i'm curious about this, 20 years later in czechoslovakia that became not just a broad thing, but a very specific thing of the rallying point for the opposition there. were there dissident leaders in the soviet union specifically who rallied around the beatles in the same way 20 years earlier? >> i don't think so. i think it was very widespread amongst the kid who really defected it internally from building socialism and went in their apartments and listened to beeltles music and i always wanted to say to them, what the heck was it that made you want to make this change? and they all said the same thing, sound like a cliche but they all said the freedom in it. it somehow freed us internally. >> brian. >> you know what's funny about music. i can't see anything, if you buy into it wholeheartedly nothing

repeating itself in contemporary times. the magnitude of their stardom. the magnitude of the oppositional forces of soviet communism and the western world, almost like it will never happen like that again. >> i think you're right, actually. i can't imagine those circumstances would play out, again, and in that way. and what constantly amazed me, as i would say, i was slow to believe this stuff. is that by complete accident i made the first ever fillwomm of beatles -- >> just for people who ever watched a beatles documentary, that is such an iconic piece of the beatles history, seeing that shot of the beatles inside the cabin club. unbelievable. >> you, go ahead. >> it is unbelievable. what staggered me is when i started working in the soviet union, people came up to me and talked about this film and i thought, how in the world have they ever managed to see it?

they knew more about it than we did. they knew about the numbers we shot that day and didn't use. >> you had other photos. >> what do you have there? >> which camera. >> let's see. >> these are photographs i took of the beatles when they came to our studios. >> these are originals? >> yeah. >> ringo. >> reasonable chance those will not get out of here. >> what year was this? '65? >> '64. when they came to the studio to do -- >> what an amazing shot. >> yeah, they're fun. >> hey, brian, pick that one up for me. >> hold them for him so they don't fall off. >> no, don't touch them. don't even look at them. this one goes -- >> look at that. >> look at paul -- >> were they ever so young. >> as you show the picture of paul there, remind me, of course, being john, paul and

george but being a huge paul nut, specifically, i was excited when mccartney went to the kremlin. >> yeah. >> 100,000 people there. >> yeah. >> it was amazing. it was a madhouse. that is the first time, actually, was it not, that the russian government officially -- >> it was. oddly enough, ringo had done a failure on the remarked gig in '98 in moscow. but that event in red square was, 100,000 people in tears in red square and putin was sitting out front tapping his feet, incredibly. >> paul mccartney in between two people he probably didn't want to be in between. exactly. and also mccartney released a remarkable cd. >> fantastic cd. >> what was that event like for mccartney? what did you learn about that event? >> i think he was just blown away by the force of the response.

all these tens of thousands of people standing around in tears and wanting to kiss his shoes. it was just absolutely blown away by it. and i think it is surprising. the beatles were not fully aware of what was going on there. >> i don't know how anybody could be aware of playing music, creating a cultural revolution. let me ask you a question going back to the club, was that in '62 you filmed it? >> yeah. >> i am always struck because we look back at the beatles as the music gods. ayou assume they were the music gods. george martin talked about, the beatles weren't the beatles until about the third album. he said, we started recording the third album and he said, i just sat back and looked at him. i said, oh, my god, these guys had figured out in effect how to

bend history. talk about seeing them in 1962. there's no way you could have assumed that this was going to change the world. >> no. >> what were your impressions? >> i never forget meeting up with brian epshteyn, he took me down the scummy stairs and feeling the sound coming up through the floor, through my feet and through the stomach. just simply overwhelming. i mean, it was not my music. i am a modern jazz fan. but i was completely blown away by this, it was extraordinary. and the rawness and, in a way, the simplicity of it. i remember when i got back stage after the dgig that they had doe and ringing out his sweaty shirt into a bucket and they had absolutely around them at all. paul said to me in the pub afterwards, it must be really glamorous working in tv.

lit. >> little known fact, he brings up brian epshteyn, that's the other thing with liverpool, you don't realize how small of a community it is. >> how oppressing that scouts are walking out of these shows, oh, just a band. just another band. maybe they'll make it. >> by the way, if you were the head of a certain record company at the time, you said, if you heard the tape, fans with guitars are on their way out. one of the most famous declarations. >> thank you so much. you made joe's day. he's sort of a fanatic, as you can imagine. up next, today's business headlines with brian sullivan, including big news for you arrested development fans out there. >> the book is "how the beatles rocked the kremlin." leslie, thank you for being with us. >> thank you.

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>> that's not a great sign. >> i would love to help you. we like to pull together around here. no, you watch your back, mister! >> have a job where his incompetence won't be out of place. >> this -- >> there is kind of a girl here. didn't say it was your cousin. >> lindsay -- >> george michael -- >> george -- >> oh, i love that show. that was part of the trailer for the upcoming forth season of "arrested development" with all 15 episodes debuting on netflix on may 26th. and, oh, my, this just in.

jeffrey tambor our guest on may 24th. that is awesome. how did that happen? did you do that just now? >> you asked for it and delivered it. >> we met him on the street, he's fantastic. w us now with business before the bell, cnbc's not so fantastic brian sullivan. brian? >> wow. >> yeah. >> and go. >> it was going to be such a good hit. >> well, really? one of your hits. >> what was going to be. sunday we'll be able to access all the "morning joe" episodes on netflix and i can sit down with a bag of bonbons watching all 6,000 "morning joes" in one day. sounds like a new way to go out on a new low. >> my status gets elevated. >> i have been reading the book, to be honest with you.

and i just started. i was going to compliment on how wonderful it was. >> that's kind of nice of you, i guess. >> i tell you what, this whole bloomberg thing is shocking our world, our financial media world, as well. taking on broader tones at the "new york times" and sort of accelerating here. the concept being that there is a lot of concern now with bloomberg lp, which i worked for for 12 years. mike bloomberg gave me my start, i appreciate that. but a lot of questions there about what bloomberg reporters knew and what they were able to see in terms of the information that the clients. because this is a computer system, folks, that costs about $20,000 a year. more than 300,000 out there. that's why mike is a multi, multibillionaire and always a wall between what the reporters and what the clients could see and some concerns about whether or not that wall was breached by some reporters. i know it's become a big story

there. >> who knows what else they might have accessed, we don't know. you had no clue of this when you were there. >> listen, the reality, as an employee you had certain information access, which was not able to see financial data, trading data. all the real meat stuff of the financial side on the bloomberg terminal. but what i think, and this is what bloomberg has admitted to. this is not inside information. basically this. you can see things like login information. imagine if i was able to see through our, you know, login, when media got into the office. rolls in at 5:58 and leaves at 9:02. i can see that kind of stuff. she can see login information a, that type of stuff. at least that's the initial read on what people were able to see. bloomberg admitted that. the editor in chief, matt winkler, apologized and put out an op-ed last night which is

making the rounds saying we shouldn't allowed some of that access and we removed it and the ceo also saying they removed that access to information. >> we'll be following that. brian sullivan, thank you, great hit. >> thank you, mika. >> "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ] thto fight chronic. ] osteoarthritis pain. now a waiting room is just a room.

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barnes & noble in union q r square to talk about mika's new book. food, the beatles you want to talk about sec football, you want to talk about heilemann. we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about. >> are there cocktails at this event? >> you can bring your own cocktails in flasks. >> where are we going tomorrow, joe? >> princeton, new jersey, signing at barnes & noble there at 7:00 p.m. and i think we might have a special guest showing up there who just had surgery. dealing with food. and then there was last week when we had a great conversation with the political boys. >> they sent us a tape, wanted to show you.

>> how do you stick up for yourself and not get fired? >> oh, you drop f bombs. i don't know, that works for you. >> this mindset that she had her entire life stays with her. she's out, you know, she's doing this book "obsessed" i feel good about myself. i'm mary tyler moore, i'm going to make it after all. >> chris, i was in the middle of a great story -- >> i was in the middle of a great story. >> i was in the middle of a great story about how i was going to save the republican party and then you called. >> the amount of self-discipline i would actually say the word is control. that i put over my eating, my exercising and my life as it pertained to food was extreme, unhealthy. for me, writing about it has now made everybody part of my therapy because i am called out. i've called myself out.

i'm not the person you are watching on television and it wasn't that easy to look that way. that's because it wasn't me. i'm going to get over that because this looks good, too. >> i'm a teenage -- >> wow. >> you're bald, first of all. you're going to have a hard time finding a date to prom. >> and it's okay, you're beautiful. >> okay. >> should we tell the follow up? >> no, joe, just leave it right the there. >> you're so brave. coming up next, what, if anything, did we learn? diane is going to be there tonight, right? amazing story. diane does have an amazing story. ♪

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you want to be sure the money you're about to spend is money well spent. angie's list -- reviews you can trust. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity, you could also set up free account alerts. okay. [ female announcer ] at wells fargo we're working around the clock to help protect your money and financial information. here's your temporary card. welcome back. how was london? [ female announcer ] when people talk, great things happen. time to talk about what we learned today. mika, what did you learn? >> i learned we should have rethought this. look what we found in the archives of shactman. >> who is our next contestant?

>> bob, it's brian shactman. you're the next contestant on "the price is right." >> oh, baby! those are stone washed mom jeans. >> look at that sweatshirt. >> look at that hair. >> look at that. looks like tony danza. >> i was about 205. >> you had to do that, right? >> look like tony danza. >> welcome. this is how we welcome everybody. what have you learned today? >> profits 101. make a mistake, admit it. >> what did you learn, mark halhal halperin? >> wedding of the millennium. >> what did you learn today? >> shact will be in rehab in six months and rock 'n' roll change

the world. >> class of 2013. >> eureka. it's an amazing place, wasn't it? >> unbelievable. >> and, man, these picture right here by leslie woodhead. living history. >> that is amazing. what are we going to do with louis? >> hug him. love him up. i am reminded if a river runs through it and the line you must completely love, even if we don't completely understand. i think that says it all about louis. do you have a birthday cake to throw in his face? >> all right, we're over. we're over. got to go. it's way too early. now it's time for chuck todd. bye-bye. joe, you always owe me 30 seconds. did irs officials target tea party groups for political reasons? why is