him cry! we got some others. >> we have some others. meatloaf and gary busey. mary had mika because she would be fun while she's drinking. hue hugh hefner and jesus is also on the list. >> good stuff. appreciate it. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ "time" magazine just published president obama's prom photos and there he is.

he's with a friend and their date. i would say the girls in kenya are very good looking. obama is 17 years old here. notice, he is the only one not holding champagne. that's called plausible deniability. the girl on the right side of the screen is his date, her name is megan hughes and here is another photo. the other two are of his friends kelly and greg. he seems so happy back then. like he was allowed to eat junk food or something. looks like he took two women to the prom and greg is crashing the threesome, right? kelly is the one who gave the photos to "time." she also gave them a copy what the president wrote in her high school yearbook. kelly so nice getting to know you this year. you are extremely sweet and foxy. i don't know why greg would want to spend any time with me at all. you laugh at my jokes and i hope we can keep in touch this summer

even though greg will be gone. call me up and i'll buy you lunch some time. good luck in everything you do. love barry obama with a heart. barry was on the prowl, wasn't he? >> wow. >> good morning. it's friday, may 24th. so much to talk about today. with us on the set msnbc and "time" magazine and political analyst, mark halpern. richard haass. the case for putting america's house in order, author. former white house press secretary and now an msnbc political analyst, robert gibbs and nbc news capitol hill correspondent kelly o'donnell. so much to talk about. "the wall street journal" talking about how the president of the united states is resetting the war on terror and also "the new york times" leads with that. reviving the debate on national security. president obama delivers a speech and he seeks to narrow

the fight on terror. "the new york times" on the inside editorial page very complimentary of that. also, of course, news from the irs. news from the justice department. eric holder we find out knows a lot more about these press leak investigations than we originally thought. in fact, he signed off on a very controversial search warrant. also -- >> no. you were doing so well, joe! >> this is a serious day. the new york tabloids talking about our fair governor and possibly our future mayor and "the daily news" you can't leave it out. also another great tabloid. what is going on with news? how do you not get the feel for new york? a sense, the smell. the aura without looking "the

daily news." ." a tabloid pun who can make the most egregious pun. >> how much did they pay anthony weiner to get in the mayor's race? >> box office. >> the gift that keeps on giving. >> he rode the subway yesterday. >> the great news is, mika, the winner of the -- award will be the american peek. >> i want you all to stop on that. i want to have one store about anthony weiner where we just do straight news. can we do that? >> i'm just reading the newspaper. when is that a crime? let's get to the news. lois lerner is off the job at the irs today two days after she refused to answer questions on capitol hill about the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups. lerner who was placed on administrative leave after reportedly refusing to resign is the third senior irs official to lose their stop or step aside. her suspension follows a letter

to the agency's acting commissioner by senator karl levin and john mccain who echoed the same sort of frustration put forward by us on "morning joe" last week. we have been including the different players in this including lois lerner who was aware from nearly the beginning of all of this. i'm assuming that is next. i'm not sure. i'm not sure about this firing. i think it, obviously, makes sense because the guy is at the top but i would expect more. lerner denied any wrongdoing during a congressional hearing on wednesday before invoking her fifth amendment right but congressman darrell issa is now planning to haul her back to capitol hill saying that because she delivered an opening statement, she has lost the right not to testify. lawmakers are particularly interested in when lerner first

became aware of the agency's actions and whether or not she kept that information from congress. according to the inspector general lerner was alerted to the targeting of groups with the word tea party or patriots in their names back in june of 2011. at that time, june of 2011 -- >> that is two years ago. >> yeah. >> two years ago she is aware that conservative groups are being targeted. >> at that time she ordered the criteria to be revived to make changes to that. "the wall street journal" reports that in april and may of 2012, letters from miss lerner to republican lawmakers made no mention of the problems that had surfaced and just two weeks ago, lerner suggested that she only found out about the issue in february and march of 2012 after reading news reports on that same day. so from the news, lerner offered an apology to the targeted groups in response to what turned out to be a planted question during a conference in washington.

she also seemed somewhat confused while responding to a question from nbc tom costello. take a listen. >> reporter: you're saying a quarter of the 300 were associated with tea party or republican issues, correct? >> no. i said that about a quarter of the cases that were selected for full development had either tea party or patriot in their name. >> reporter: okay. so just -- sorry. thank you for the clarification. but that would be a quarter of the 300 they. so we are talking 75 or so? >> that's correct. is that a quarter? that's right. thank you! i'm not good at math! that's correct. >> reporter: you're with the irs. thank you. >> i'm not an accountant. sorry. >> okay. i had asked our team to find that clip of you saying why are they not moving faster. i want to bring in robert gibbs. robert, we have been talking about the white house's handling of a lot of these problems.

the irs problem and justice department problem and a.p. problem and we are going to get into eric holder and what he knew and didn't know about these leak investigations later. but it seems to me that lois lerner is either incompetent, has a terrible memory, or she just doesn't tell the truth. you go back to that friday press conference, there was one bit of misleading information after another piece of misleading information that she had to come back and correct after that. the white house also seemed to be dragged along, revelation by revelation by revelation on a story that their chief of staff and the chief counsel knew about the president's counsel. how does the white house get ahead of these stories moving forward? they haven't done a good job yet, have they? >> well, look. i think this week has certainly been much better obviously than last week, and i think the news that lois lorenerner is on leavd the process of removing her from the irs is a very good start. >> are we being impatient?

>> a couple of weeks ago she had misled the american people, why didn't they move faster? >> or seems jumbled. >> i think part of it, as i understand it, there are two political appointees at the irs. the commissioner and the deputy commissioner. now an acting commissioner that the president appointed and folks under that in the irs are civil service employees and there's a process to this. but, look. i think this is a good start and my guess is that for the acting commissioner, this is the beginning and certainly not close to the end of people that are involved that you should put on administrative leave and figure out how deep does this problem go and who was responsible for these things? >> on that, especially on this story, robert, i just have to ask you when we first heard from lois lerner a couple of weeks ago and heard how she framed this at the very least she sounded jumbled and from your expertise, wouldn't you, on this story, do something or urge the

white house to do something if you were back at working there to stop the bleeding? because you know this story is going to explode. >> look. mika, no doubt. i think, again, and i don't understand the intricacies and civil service tenure and things like that. i'm sure people at the white house wanted to put the irs on leave the moment they heard about this. i think it's unfortunately harder to do. i think this is a good step by the acting irs commissioner. again, i doubt it's the last one we will hear about. and, look. i know for those guys in the white house, i'm sure this didn't come -- couldn't have come fast enough. >> you also have insight to the white house and jay carney shifting that irs time line time and time again through the last couple of weeks and you wonder what is going on inside the white house that they are not able to manage these things better. you get the facts and get

everybody together and get the facts and you go out and give them information. we had jay carney yesterday to appear to contradict himself again on yet another issue regarding the james rosen case. >> one thing that the people around the president say good policy is good politics. right now, they seem to be as focused on the politics as the policy. this needs to be investigated, explained. people need to be held accountable and too much of the rhetoric from the white house is about shifting stories but not about the specific plan. what are they going to do? what are they going to do to solve it? >> before you start talking about solving it, you need to figure out what happened. you grab everybody and richard knows this. you grab everybody in the room. you go what the hell happened? before i send jay carney out again to babble and to get mauled by the press, we are going to figure out what happened and then figure out what he can say and if he can't say it, he will say i cannot

tell you that instead of jay having to shift his story day in and day out. this looks like bush's white house press secretary mcclellan who got beat up like that. >> it is reminiscent of that. they need to explain who is held accountable and can't be in conflict with capitol hill on areas they disagree. >> robert gibbs, is it not the responsibility of a press secretary be or she a republican or democrat to get the facts and go out there and not be blindsided the way mcclellan was blindsided by the bush administration and i think the way jay carney is blindsided the past couple of weeks. >> i think it's clearly the responsibility of the press secretary to do some of that and i think jay has probably done some of that. i think it's also the responsibility of people inside the west wing who know that they have information or knowledge of this to go to jay and make jay's job easier.

look. i've done these things before. you're walking around the building and you're knocking on doors and you're asking people what do they know and when did they know it because i need to know it before i get surprised with it in a question or somebody else knows that information. so i want to make sure people understand that jay understands that part of the job but there is also people throughout government with information that have to come to jay and make that data collection a bit easier. >> make his job easier, yeah. >> it seems very difficult at this point. kelly o'donnell, your insights. you were watching every moment of these hearings. is there something we're missing as we sit here very, very confused as to how this could be rolled out so badly? >> i think there are some different things that have gotten less attention especially when it comes to lois lerner and her testimony. when she appeared before the house committee one of the congressmen was talking about the bonuses she was paid the last couple of years and that

was getting some excrete knee. also the inspector general talking about the fact when she gave this information two weeks ago with that some say the planted question at a conference, by doing that in that way at that time before the report was signed off on, she may have violated the rules and there are questions about is any of this going from simply sort of bad management over into a criminal case and they are saying they don't know if there is any criminal activity yet but that is one of the areas they are are looking at. for lois lerner she is trying to take the position she has done nothing wrong. we heard her say that and there is going to be a the although more scrutiny on details here coming forward. >> i used to work in the government, we used to call it powell's law. the first reports and first accounts are never accurate and never complete. what we are seeing here is the second and third reports are also not complete and not accurate. this is bad. they have to stop as best they can and get the story together. >> then moving on to this one. president obama has ordered the justice department to review

its guidelines when it comes to investigations involving reporters. it comes a bid new revelations that attorney general eric holder signed off on a search warrant to seize reports from rosen. an after the said rosen had solicited and encouraged a source to disclose documents and intelligence information relating to north korea's nuclear program. the search warrant for rosen's communications which were approved by holder in the spring of 2010 fell under the espionage act. >> unbelievable. what chuck todd talked about a couple of days ago. it seems the justice department is, quote, criminalizing journalism to have a journalist who is doing his job. first of all, seizing his phone records, seizing phone records at fox, fox news and then following him throughout, you know, where he is scanning passes and when he is going in and outs inside the state

department? >> and maybe even further. >> as if he is a soviet spy. unbelievable. >> they also labeled him as a coconspirator. on sunday "the washington post" record that the justice department used records to track the reporter's trips to the state department. two days later, the new yorker reporter dozens of phone records were monitored by the doj and appeared to be associated with fox news. on wednesday the department of justice denied claims that the home phone of rosen's parents was also monitored. although holder recused himself from a separate investigation into the leak of classified information to the associated press. he made no mention at the time of approving the warrant targeting mr. rosen. president obama addressed the larger issue during a speech at the national defense university. >> journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. our focus must be on those who break the law.

that is why i've called on congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach and i've raised these issues with the attorney general who shares my concerns. so he's agreed to review existing department of justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters. >> i think it's pretty incredible actually that he brought it up at that speech. do you agree, mark halpern? >> well, it's obviously connected and about balancing national security which is a lot of what he was talking about yesterday. robert was on this program few days ago and talked about this. it needs to be explained. eric holder has not explained sufficiently, not just the general principles but the specifics of this case so troubling to people in journalism and should be troubling to the whole country. >> robert, we were talking about jay carney and how you make his job easier. my god. the guy is going -- he has got a target on him now from the press and, in fact, doesn't this entire case, whether you're talking about the a.p. or fox

news, doesn't this entire case make the white house's efforts moving forward over the next three, three and a half years much more difficult? because the press is going to be suspicious. when you start grabbing guys and trying to charge them with espiona espionage? not great for press relations. >> no. i don't think you need to be -- you don't need to be the white house press secretary to know this complicates your job. to build off what mark talked about and what i talked about earlier this week. it is incumbent upon the justice department and the attorney general to come out and give an explanation about why they have done this, why they need to do this. if the president of the united states can talk about how this is inappropriate and having had that conversation with the attorney general, then the attorney general can have this conversation with the american people. it's not going to threaten the case because they clearly have the records.

presumably, they subpoenaed the records to look at them and look at the record who might have called james rosen. the president said we are looking for the law breakers and not the reporters doing their job. >> right. >> the attorney general should come out today and talk about why this is and why this needs to happen. so there is not, as you've talked about, joe, a chilling effect on investigative journalism. we don't want that to happen. we want a vibrant free press in this country. >> robert, also for the best interests of the white house and for eric holder and the justice department, don't allow this drip, drip, drip to continue which has happened in the irs case and happened here. you know what? it would have been painful but they probably should have got the information out about james rosen when the a.p. story was out because you have eric holder saying, hey, i had nothing to do with this. i didn't know anything was going on. and then we find out he signed off actually on a warrant that was far more chilling than the

a.p. warrant. >> well, i remember the day all of this came out with the a.p. information and i literally was thinking to myself somebody should be on the phone -- trying to be on the phone to justice department, yelling, if need be, to get out and try to explain some of this, because, you know, the white house is at a significant disadvantage in trying to explain this because it's clear that somebody at the justice department has clearly decided it's a criminal case. you do not want the white house involved. >> easier said than done. >> the back and forth of a criminal case but, at the same time, the absence of any explanation is hugely damaged. >> it is. richard? >> one of the differences between the united states and britain is britain has an act that journalists are held liable under the law. we don't. it's government officials who sign an oath not to disclose classified information and it seems to me to be going after the wrong parties. rather than going after the journalist you ought to go after

people in government who signed a pledge not to disclose. >> great point. kelly? >> one of the things that strikes me about this is there more to come? anybody who covers national security must be thinking were my phone records also taken? have they been looking at me? when we hear the officials tell us they learn about these important events through news reports there is sort of a chilling effect on news and so you have the president saying, oh, i learned about this through news reports and lois lerner saying i learned about this through news reports. a circle here you don't want to put a chill on news coverage. it's ironic. >> it is. >> we have to get to funerals in moore, oklahoma, and children going back to school there and trying to restorm some err sort of normalcy. >> people in oklahoma again having to rebuild their lives. >> nvenl. coming up on "morning joe" is zbigniew brzezinski and jeffrey tambor and also david

ignatius and ugueth robinson. >> richard haass, we will get into that later. a leader on wall street says one thing keeping women from being self traders, i can't say it! because when i read this, i was like this. >> you were a little thrown off by this, weren't you? >> yeah, childbirth and having kids. we will discuss his comments with a panel of female business leaders. >> he specifically said that once they start breastfeeding, they are finished as traders. >> that's right. up next in the politico playbook, anthony weiner tough first day on the campaign trail. he better learn the difference between new york and pittsburgh before the election. we will sprain alrea we will explain coming up. first, the forecast with bill karins who knows the difference. >> probably the worst two-day start to memorial day weekend ever in new england. as ugly as it possibly can get. yesterday, the rain was

horrendo horrendous. rain in nyack, you know, the rain flowed down the streets. here it is. somebody taking video from inside one of the stores. a river going down through main street and three inches of rain fell in a short period of time. the rain has kicked up through northern new england and it's raining now and probably won't stop until about sunday afternoon. i want to show you western new york. it is 40 degrees and raining in buffalo and white on that map, my radar is showing some wet snow! yes, snow! it is mixing in right now in western new york. it may get even worse. that cold air continues into saturday night. my computer is predicting snow in the higher elevations of the higher mountains. some of the ski resorts, how crazy is that going to be? take you through your holiday weekend forecast. again, the northeast, the airports won't be as bad as yesterday because the rain is lighter but not a pretty day. middle of the country, not

looking bad. chance of a storm there around dallas. now into the holiday weekend, rainy. like a nor'easter type storm on saturday in new england. typically thunderstorms in the midwest and i don't think see too many tornadoes. the southeast is probably the place to be this holiday weekend. low humidity. sunny. beautiful and warm. we are still dodging those showers, though, on sunday in areas around st. louis and finally by memorial day, new england improves. you get maybe one of the next four days to be even half decent. taking you to a shot of new york city. you can't see the top of the empire state building. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. [ jennifer garner ] why can't powerful sunscreen feel great?

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over any other carrier? many choose us because we have the largest 4glte network. others, because of our reputation for reliability. or maybe it's because we've received jd power and associates' customer service award 4x in a row. in the end, there are countless reasons. but one choice. let's take a look at the morning papers, mika. by the way, our friends down in washington very excited. rg3 feeling good and braced and

ready to go. if you don't think that is not the most important story for a lot of people in washington then you don't follow washington. >> a terrible situation with a soldier who was killed in the streets with these men with butcher knives but this woman who is a cub scout leader and she had children around so she went up to confront the killers because she wanted to distract them and if they were going to kill anyone else, she would rather it be her than the children around. >> so the kids could get away. what a remarkable story. >> a great story amid a absolutely horrific story. the parade of papers. "dallas morning news." the cub scouts accepted to accept ga scouts. the organization upheld the ban on ga scout leaders. a bridge in washington state collapsed on thursday sending drivers into the river. remarkably only three people

needed to be rescued and no one killed. thank goodness. a semitruck with oversized load struck the bridge's beams and possibly causing the collapse. the bridge was built in 1955 and listed as structurally obsolete by the national bridge inventory and doing it right to whoever the congress or senators are. >> if that isn't enough of an example. how bridges are obsolete that people are driving over? >> how many times is this going to happen. i know you do because you were a reporter there in connecticut. the bridge collapsed there. >> right. yeah. here are some of the pictures coming in of this situation here. we are going to go to "usa today." national oceanic and atmospheric

administration predicts as many as 11 hurricanes this season with three to six of those likely to be major hurricanes. long-term atmosphere climate patterns and warmer than average water temperatures are contributing factors to this year's predicted above average hurricane activity. >> from "the cleveland plain dealer," charles ramsey the hero who helped assist the escape of four kidnapping victims in cleveland is getting an unlikely reward to his heroism. here he was after the rescue. >> i was at mcdonald's. i came home and i was in my living room eating my big mac! we heard this girl going nuts on the door! so when i come out of the house and looked, i say, well, that don't look right. that girl is like 30 years old and she is counute! so no way he got her. when she said her last name was barry, it naturally clicked in, do you know what i mean? >> now a dozen mcdonald's are offering ramsey free burgers for

life. he is will be presented with his own chuck card he can use at any of the part be locations any time he wants! >> okay. we do have a mcdonald's story to counteract that. but also right now, in the sunday's parade features accomplished author stephen king who talks about his new novel joy land which is out june 4th. >> time for the politico playbook and let's bring in john harris. anthony weiner not the best opening day on the campaign trail, john. >> joe, there are days i wish i was a new york politico reporter rather than a washington politico reporter and yesterday was one of them with that circus yesterday when anthony weiner started his campaign tour. there were some glitches as you've seen the website with a sky line and turned out the sky line was pittsburgh and they brought it down and changed it and a little bit of a stumble.

basically, a carnival out on the streets of new york. harlem and touring around parts of the city. look. americans, new yorkers and elsewhere they love a revival story. they love somebody in the midst of a personal and professional comeback. the question is with anthony weiner, what are we watching? are we watching somebody who has looked deep into himself and now ready to take on the world again and face all things? or witnessing the example of a needy, that isbehavior that got the first place. >> i think he and his wife need to sit down and do an extended interview about the process how they came back from this. i really do. >> you know what? they can talk to hillary what they did in the '91 super bowl, i think it was, before the soon to be president started his campaign and he was dogged with a lot of questions. you got to sit down and answer the tough questions. >> face it all head on. >> you might be right, mika, but

you have to be first off ready to answer those questions in some kind of honest way. the other thing with bill clinton and i say governor sanford was there always a pretty impressive public record to fall back on. some substantive achievement. sanford had been governor and weiner has not told that story beyond the story of him personally what does he stand for beyond the scandal? >> i've made mistakes and it doesn't apply to this because it's so hard for people to get their arms around so they are going to have to deal with it in a very raw way. >> the big problem is he says still more pictures out there. as you're sitting there talking, people are wondering if i support this guy, when is the next shoe going to drop? if mark sanford had been in a more competitive district he would have lost that race and because of the revelations that came out after he won the primary. >> you're going to love this story coming up about mcdonald's even though you're starting to warm up a little bit to the

golden arches. the mcdonald's ceo is put in a hot seat after he gets a lecture on healthy eating from a 9-year-old girl. that store is next when "morning joe" comes back. what do you think? that's great. it won't take long, will it? nah. okay. this, won't take long will it? no, not at all. how many of these can we do on our budget? more than you think. didn't take very long, did it?

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generation not understanding the younger jgeneration and i feel old when i talk about the values of this generation have been eroded so much and i worry about like pat buchanan, i worry about western civilization. you see this in so many examples. >> texting and sexting. this is a law as gertrude stein said to ernest hemmingway this is a lost generation and we have an example of that in the next story. this girl, why didn't she just burn an american flag? she attacks mcdonald's which i think is the bedrock of free enterprise. mark halpern, the bedrock of everything we hold dear? >> apple pie, baseball, mom, mcdonald's. >> and a big mac. >> wash it down with a mcrib sandwich. >> she is actually a very impressive young lady. during mcdonald's annual

shareholder meeting in illinois the ceo faced tough line of questioning from a 9-year-old. >> what? >> my name is hanna and i'm 9. my mom taught me things in life aren't fair. like when your pet dies or you have to miss a special event because you have a cold. something that i don't think is fair is when big companies trying to trick kids into eating food that isn't good for them by using toys and koor tocartoon characters. don't you want kids healthy so they can live a long and healthy life? >> first off, we don't serve junk food. my kids eat mcdonald's when they were about your size and they cook at home with me and i love to cook. we cook fruits and veggies at home and we sell a lot of fruits and veggies and trying to sell more. >> why does he care so much? >> the little girl you heard there is identified by "usa today" as hanna robertson whose north is a nutritional activist.

she raises a very good point. i take issue with him saying we don't sell junk food. >> they don't. >> but -- their menu is changing and we need to look at that and we are going to try to get somebody from mcdonald on. >> like go to supreme court and become literal? they are evolving. >> they are evolving very slowly. richard wolffe will join us for the must read opinion pages coming up next. you, my friend, have you a long way to go as well. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. ♪ alec, for this mission i upgraded your smart phone.

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sometimes it feels so far away ♪ >> with us from new jersey, is our willie geist ahead of the big memorial day weekend on the shore. you know willie geist for you and me, memorial day weekend meanwhile, only one thing. get a carton of cigarettes and going, you know, off track betting and, you know, betting on the dogs. >> what? >> this one is a little different, though. this is special. >> you told me cigarettes on the beach is god's ashtray is what you always told me! >> that's wrong! >> i thought that was really special. i think this weekend will be a little different. i'm down in seaside park and you can see the rides here and the boardwalk. you were down here october 29th, sandy comes through here. the boardwalk was just a pile of lumber. you thought to yourself no way they will come back from this at least this summer. governor christie came out and said, like a good politician, we will be back for merle. well, they are. as of today, the entire

boardwalk will have been rebuilt 16 blocks of. 80% of the businesses that were washed out, seven months ago, they will be open or open some time this summer. the comeback is nothing short of incredible. one of the piers washed away casino pier is half open starting today and 1 rides open imagine that after you saw some of the rides sitting out, the roller coaster in the sea. the comeback is real and governor christie was right. still some homes out here. a lot of work ahead for them but at least for that boardwalk, it's back today. guys? >> willie geist, thank you so much. i now have a new word added to the "morning joe" lexicon, the beach is an ashtray. you can tell he hangs out in the hamptons. >> with us now is executive editor of msnbc.com richard wolffe and mark halpern is still bus and richard haass. a fly in my soup he says.

horrible customer service is what the newly fired irs commissioner. horrible customer service is when every patron in a restaurant finds a fly in his soup but when they scream for their politics and only they find flies it's not poor service but harassment. and discrimination. i think there's a point being made which is why whatever happened and i still want to believe the best, they should clamped down on it a lot quicker and a lot more -- i don't know. i think this has come out in pieces. let's get to the president's address yesterday. the end of the perpetual war. president obama's speech on thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks. momentous turning point in a post 9/11 america. for the first time, a president

stated clearly that the state of perpetual war fare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not too distant future. >> richard haass, that speech from the president yesterday that momentous? >> absolutely. it was i thought one of the most important and one of the best speeches of his presidency. i really liked the way he did. he had big ideas. he talked about not just where he came out but how he got there. one of the few times in a sense he used his position as a classroom explaining these were tough issues, tradeoffs and here is why he got to where he got and -- >> wait. what is important policy objective that he advanced yesterday? >> downsizing or downscaling the centrality of the, quote/unquote, war on terrific as a centerpiece of national security. essentially saying we will continue with this but no longer central and not dominate and it's going to be a concern, no longer going to be the concern. and consistent with that, making

drones now an exceptional rather than a frequent or regular instrument of carrying out counterterrorism policy. this was a really important foreign policy in the national security -- >> national halpern, i just don't understand why the same president who actually caused an explosion in drone attacks is now the one pulling back. the same guy that decided not to close gitmo four years and sounding like the president obama of 2008, the candidate obama which, again, i'm not criticizing him for this. we will talk about that later. but why this speech now? >> almost 7,000 words. very long speech. they thoughtful speech and i agree with richard. a remarkable speech. look. there's a lot of contradictions of president obama and in 2008. to me what is important about this is he basically is saying, all right we are now far enough into this and turned enough corners that we need to rethink about checks and balances.

remarkable for a president to propose checks on the power of his presidency and future presidents to say the war on terror can't be done by an executive who can just do whatever he or she wants. that is coming out of the the bush/cheney years and remarkable thing to say. >> very remarkable because this president centralized and making powers and built on the bush/cheney models. calling gitmo is something that undermines american values and talking about limiting drone attacks and a good day for progressives, right? >> yeah. i think a lot of skepticism you were voicing. >> skepticism from progressives? >> for sure. starting in 2008 he did actually say he would targeted core al qaeda and was going take the war to afghanistan which is precisely what he did. the skepticism i think is very real. what are the practical limits? a lot of great recognize rick and the policy shifts are real.

i'm not disputing any of that. but moving drone attacks, the authority for drone attacks or the execution of drone attacks from the cia into the defense department doesn't make you transparent. it doesn't actually, in effect, any real limits on drone attacks. >> the pentagon is not transparent? >> really. really. >> really? >> having said that, i think the most significant limit on presidential power that he discussed was actually very important, to repeal the authorization that came after 9/11. it is a huge deal. he was so broad and expansive. look. the nation was in fear and i think it was a significant proposal and congress should -- >> in light of that let's go to kelly o'donnell on capitol hill. reaction there negative from some republicans. >> saxby chambliss playing golf with the president gets a hole in one and said the speech yesterday was a victory for terrorism. it must have been a terrible 17 holes after the hole in one.

>> a mix of reviews. people jumped on the piece related to gauantanamo bay. there will are questions because certainly the republicans who are more hawkish, if you will, have some doubts about how the president will carry some of this out but there was some support as well. i think the breadth of the speech makes it, in some ways, a challenge if members of congress to just see how it will play out because the president hit so many key areas. >> robert gibbs, the president may be coming full circle now. may be going back to the barack obama of 2008. do you believe that's the case? >> i think the president desperately wants to close the detention facility at guantanamo bay. congress, through a series of votes, prevented him from transferring inmates in that detention facility either out of it into foreign countries or

into the united states, but i agree with several on the panel. this was a hugely important speech and defines a lot of, i think, what you'll be seeing in the second term from president obama. >> all right. richard haass, final? >> a larger point. i would hope this becomes a model for his presidency. i would like him to give the equivalent speech on, say, long-term entitlements. he laid open his thinking in this speech and if he did this i think he could be a more effective president. >> richard haass, thank you. kelly o'donnell, thank you as well. >> richard's book, "foreign policy begins at home." it's got a lot of excellent reviews. this one may be the most impressive. mika likes it. >> i just blotted my lipstick. that's all. >> five kisses. >> tom brokaw is with us on the set along with eugene robinson from washington. more "morning joe" in a moment. ♪ pressure pushing down on me ♪ ♪ pressing down on you all business purchases.

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♪ i got a confession to make. i'm no fan of barack obama. there, i said it. somebody had to. i am a fan how he handled the war on terror by following the exact same policies laid out by president bush who followed the exact same policies laid out by president cheney. >> welcome back to "morning joe." great to have you with us. mark halpern and richard wolffe are with us and robert gibbs is still along with us in washington. joining us in d.c. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," msnbc political analyst, our friend eugene robinson. with us here on the set is nbc

news tom brokaw who is going to take a look at the top news stories with us and later this hour, talking about memorial day weekend. you look at the papers, though, mika. >> yeah. >> "the wall street journal" talking about how president obama is resetting the war on terror and "the new york times" headline talks about how the president is seeking to reframe the debate on terror. and "the boston globe" talks about the president recasting the war on terror. richard haass, just this past hour on "morning joe," saying that this is one of the president's most important speeches. why don't we get right into it and see what he said and get a response. >> president obama is moving to rein in the use of drones and at the same time, taking steps to closing the guantanamo bay military prison in cuba. the president vowed to battle terrorism and said the u.s. would only use targeted drone strikes when there is a clear threat to national security.

>> america does not take strikes to punish individuals. we act against terrorists who pose imminent threat to the american people and before any strike is taken, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured. the highest standard we can set. >> still, the president admitted there were instances when innocent people were caught in the cross-fire. the pentagon will be taking over some parts of the drone program from the cia, putting it under greater scrutiny from congress. also an interesting interaction with three interruptions to the speech by a woman from, i believe, code pink, that organization. >> right. >> talking about gitmo and the hunger strikes there. and the president had a very interesting reaction each time. actually, let's take a listen to some of it. >> we will insist that judicial

review be available for every detainee. now, ma'am, let me -- let me -- let me finish. let me finish, ma'am. you know, this is part of free speech is you being able to speak, but also you listening. and me being able to speak. all right? >> there were a few more interceptions which really underline what richard wolffe was saying before, skepticism from progressives. code pink has been muted the first four years of president obama's administration. you think if they decided to go to hawaii for a long vacation but yesterday i guess they decided when he is final changing his policies before it's too late. >> she made comments you could clearly hear and the president after the third one say -- actually, her voice in this debate is important because we have to think about all of these

issues when we think about who we are as a nation. it was fascinating. it engaged her concerns into the concept of what he was bringing to the table. >> it's just ironic for me and a lot of other conservatives that code pink, which showed themselves at every possible hearing, where administration officials stood up and shouted and yelled, actually had been muted for the past four years for the most part, and they wait for this president to change his policy before they speak out. i guess, oh, boy, i guess we better go you own at least phone it in. it's absolutely a choke what she did yesterday and the entire group should be ashamed of themselves because they have been just -- again, they have been quiet the past four years. drone strikes have proliferated. mark halpern, that begs the question why, as a president, who has caused proliferation of drone strikes, attacks into countries where we weren't at war and he admitted this past week the killing of four americans in knows drone

strikes, what was the motivation behind changing his policy on drones and going back and sounding like the candidate obama of 2008? >> speech long in the works. look. the president is -- >> how do you know that? how long have they been working on this? >> months. the topics he is talking about have been in the news. part of the reason the speech was so long whatever you think about the president's policies or leadership is extraordinarily thaust on these issues and why it was long he talked about the arguments on both sides of a lot of these things saying here is what some people and another point of view and here is where i'm coming down on this. monstrous speech in the number of tappics he took. he wants to leave office having change the policy and want to accommodate the realities of being commander in chief with his own views about what the responsibilities of the executive branch is. >> you understand the irony of this. tom brokaw, who you were

reporting throughout vietnam, there is a sort of irony ear where richard nixon decides he is going to end the war by ramping up the war. this president the last four and a half years has wrapped up the cheney/bush war on terror and now i guess he wants to leave office being able to say i changed the analytical construct on the war on terror. >> a different kind of war, vietnam, the kind of war we're engaged in now. this debate has been going on behind the scenes not just in the white house, but in the pentagon and in the intelligence community as well about the use of drones and the kind of success that we are having. a couple of weeks ago, i said after the boston bombing on "meet the press" we should examine our drone policy. i meant no more than that, just take a look at it. what works and what doesn't work. it lit up a lot of opposition. i was taken to task by a lot of people. you might be able to guess who they are on their blogs and web sites and so on but behind the scenes, both in the intel community and in the military community, there has been a very vigorous debate. military is not happy about the

cia running these. they know there are consequences when they hit a target. for example, that there is something called a significant strike. it just looks like somebody might be a terrorist so they go after them. there are consequences when civilians get killed and that inflames that particular area. these drones have been critically important to the country in terms of garnling intelligence and when they have a specific threat they can take it out without engaging combat and combatant. this is a debate has been going on for a long time. hank crampton who was a super cia guy who actually organized it first phase of the war in afghanistan studied it for a long time and just came out with a paper recently. several points. among them, he said we have to examine when we use a drone whether we lose the intel that may be available in kaucapturin live terrorist. >> and what people inside the

agency have been saying since 2005 and 2006 when they shut down the program. sure. there was one person in the agency who was asked by a very high ranking administration official. in case the program shut down, what do you do now? two choices. either try to capture them and interrogate them or kill them. you have just made killing everybody that you may consider a terrorist to be the only thing we can do which, fine, fine. if that is your approach, great. think about all of the intel that goes with that policy and, gene robinson, there has to be a middle ground here. you got a president that is talking about we are going to make sure no civilians are killed. we are going to have the highest possible standards. it's not a state secret any more to -- i'm sure you and a lot of other people, david ignatius has talked about it too. we have had very low standards as far as drone strikes go, as far as firing drones. if you are between the ages of

18 and 35 and you're a male and you are within the scope of a suspected terrorist, you are presumed guilty by the united states government and they drop a drone on you. >> yeah. >> there had to be a middle ground. i guess i'm confused. why are we going all the way to the other side here from a policy that has been very, very aggressive? >> i think there is an explanation of that. >> well, let's set the context. first of all, a few minutes ago, you asked why had progressives and the code pink group been silent for so long. keep in mind, that when he came into office, president obama did some significant things. first of all, he ended and foreswore torture which had been a policy of the bush/cheney administration. and that was an important thing for a lot of progressives. he also closed the cia prisons

overseas that we had maintained as interrogation centers. now, but, yes, it kind of brings it down to drones. you know, this speech had been -- >> exactly. it does bring it down. if you end the torture policy. >> right. >> then you kill them. >> well, look. that has been. >> okay. >> i mean, that is the choice that was made and let's be very realistic about it and he is commander in chief. >> that is the net result. i mean, there are at least in the minds of the administration, there is a box around -- around drone policy and as he articulated, for example, some countries where you don't use it and some countries where you might use it. protocol is supposed to be to use it -- use drones only when there is no possibility of capturing the terrorist.

now, you know, again, in most cases, i think, if there is, you know, a terrorist in yemen or somewhere like that plotting an attack on the united states it's difficult to imagine how you send in a team to capture that person. >> to move on. i'm sorry, gene just made a really important point. gene, these tight new standards, these tight new standards are going to be tight new standards until we get intel on the most important al qaeda terrorists who happens to be in a country that doesn't fit into this tight framework and guess what? they decide to kill him. >> that is title allowed by the tight new framework. it says, look. if it's a country where you can't conceivably go in, the host government won't do anything to capture this person and the only thing you can eliminate the threat is to kill them, you kill them with a drone. you know, i've written columns asking questions about the drone

policy. i think this speech was a start. i don't want to minimize the thoughtfulness and the -- and the detail that went into a speech that it's actually more than a speech. they have been working for months, probably years, to try to sort of codify what it is they are doing and codify a way of fighting this war against terrorists going forward and put it inside of some legal framework. i don't think the speech yesterday succeeded in doing all of that, but i do think it was a step along that road. >> of course, mika, richard haass this past hour said this is is one of the president's most important speeches. >> i agree. >> over the past five years. >> we have robert gibbs still with us. robert. >> yes, ma'am. >> what i saw in this speech and everyone has their different point of views but i saw something evolving that we haven't seen in a while but that is the guy who ran for office six years ago.

the candidate obama and some of his philosophies and moral concepts coming to the table, especially when he talked about gitmo and said, come on, let's think who we are as a country. 20 years from now, do we really want to be doing this? where are we going to go? >> i think no doubt that a huge portion of this speech was the unfinished agenda from the first term for president obama, particularly around terror. i think as it relates to drones a couple of points i would make on this discussion. you got areas like the federally administered areas in pakistan that the government of pakistan doesn't extend to. right? this is where terrorists hang out knowing that the pakistani government is incapable of getting them and we have had to take some action. i think the president, though, and his national security team have determined that the drone policy is, in some ways, unsustainable. our view or the way america is viewed in the world in some parts of the world is only through the drone program and

that, again, is unsustainable. i also think this is a result, quite frankly, of an increased tempo over 2009 and 2010 that has taken out a huge chunk of the very senior operational leadership of al qaeda and, quite frankly, we can now turn the page on some of the drones and the drone war because the sort of top 20 leaders has been great deal, great deal diminished. >> robert gibbs, you should know as a former presidential spokesman, never say that, words like that always come back and robert gibbs said this! i'm half joking but half not, you know? >> i know, i know, i know. again, i think if you listen to the president, he doesn't say we should root out terrorism. >> right. >> look. i don't think anybody would disagree that the operational capabilities of al qaeda is diminished from where it was when the president walked into the white house in the beginning of 2009. >> right. so richard wolffe, i have

inflated myself to such a degree on this issue. i now hand you the pen. >> please. >> please. >> go. >> i do find this conversation frankly a little bit unreal. we are not going to go capture terrorists. we, as a country, are not going to put enough troops on the ground to protect those forces to capture terrorists in the bad lands of afghanistan and pakistan. >> like khalid sheikh mohammed? >> we will not throw enough navy s.e.a.l.s out there who is low level jihadi targets and if we are not going to keep on filling up a place like guantanamo or some equivalent on the home land where we lock people up indefinitely because we really don't have the evidence to try them but if we do have the evidence we have tortured them. if we are not filling up a place like that then you're left with one option which is to kill them. tom, you talked to the intelligence people all the

time. we use the the words like al qaeda. al qaeda, today, we have been talking about them around this table and what does that represent and when you back to your reporting in the '80s to the iranian revolution, jihadist colony, what are we talking about today? >> you're talking about a scattered landscape and it changes from battlefield to battlefield and country to country. it's hard to know institutionalally what is al qaeda. so what they end up with is what i described earlier the signature strikes looks like a bad guy and hanging around with bad people and now in a white chevy pickup, let's take him out. >> is there an organization? >> they say the command and control has been greatly broken up and as a result you have scattered around the world to the kinds of attacks we saw in boston, for example. and for some of them, they think this is far more dangerous because they are not able to pick up radio intercepts and

can't keep track of a centralized -- >> compare to the plo at its height, is it really as dangerous as, say, plo? >> can i just ask are these leading questions suggesting that al qaeda is -- >> it's a shell. it's a term. it's a buzz word for something that preexisted at 9/11. >> you don't think al qaeda exists any more? >> i'm not saying that. i think a movement preexisting. >> a great deal diminishly dimi activity? >> i think is spewed to this point. >> that is absolutely true, it doesn't have what they once had to -- not in person military terms but they did have a kind of command and control apparatus and they were able to be in touch with each other. now it is broken up in many more parts and you have to take it kind of case by case and country by country of the terrorists cells, if you will, that exist around the world. it's harder to keep track of all

of that and that is what happens. the bombings are still going on in afghanistan. we know that. i think part of the problem with this discussion that we are having this morning that we should be having this almost every day. we have been at this for ten years and i said the last time i was on the air here about ten days ago, two young west point graduates killed the preceding week and nobody paid any attention to it. young people going "there today in afghanistan and locking and loading weapons. we know the chaos we have going on in iraq right now. yemen is in play and very concerned about the horn of africa and what goes on in somalia. these are not discussions that have gone on the table. when you talk about the peace groups, for example, they have been not been part of a dialogue because they have just kind of turned their back on it and we are to one degree or another, however you want to define it, we are at war in many parts of the world and what does not mean? and what kind of war are we conducting?

these are very important issues for our time and there's been no discussion like we are having around this table on a regular basis in this country. >> this is why you all are stable at the table. get to another important news story from moore, oklahoma. it is taking the first painful steps forward following monday's deadly tornado. the victims of the storm are being remembered while those who remain look to rebuild their shattered community. >> reporter: the children of moore, oklahoma, headed back to school days after the tornado ripped through two of their buildings and killing seven of their classmates. >> how are you, sweetheart? >> we talk to each other and say hi to each other again. >> reporter: students from the two devastated schools were is sent to other schools for the finally assembly. a chance for closure, to see friends. to say good-bye. >> this will bring a little more impact to what happened because you're not going to see some of your friends there. >> we didn't get to say good-bye

to our classes and it was really good to see them and to be able to love on them. >> reporter: it was also an opportunity to reconnect. and in some cases, express thanks to teachers for guarding what every parent cherishes most. >> i'm never going to have anything, you know, any words to, you know, to repay her for what she did. she, you know, she flu threw hears herself to protect my daughter. >> reporter: 9-year-old antonio was laid to rest and she is among the seven children who died when the tornado flattened pla plaza towers elementary. likelily traumatized by what they saw monday, who they didn't see today. for a community that suffered a lifetime of heartache in only days, one child's words may sum up more's resilient spirit. >> it makes me real glad because some of my house got ripped down

and it makes me glad to see my friends and that they are alive and that i'm alive and that i'm okay. so that's all. >> great piece by janet shamlian. still ahead on "morning joe," the official at the center of the scandal surrounding the irs targeting of conservative groups is suspended from her job. of course, she is still collecting a paycheck. those details are next. plus, is childbirth keeping women from being successful on wall street? one powerful hedge fund billionaire thinks so and we will discuss it with joanna coles and wall street titan alexandria coming up next. [ male announcer ] there are many ways to thank our military families. walmart and operation homefront are thanking them by offering a little help when they need it the most.

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♪ lois lerner is off the job at the irs this morning, two days after she refused to answer

questions on capitol hill about the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups. lerner who was placed on administrative leave after reportedly refufg sing to resigs the third official of the irs to lose their job or step aside. eugene robinson is still with us. >> why didn't they do this earlier if they knew she wasn't telling the truth in her first statements? >> what exactly did they know about whether or not she was telling the truth, it confuses me, because you have to wonder why put her on administrative leave now if you didn't do it at the beginning, if you were going to do it all along, it looks as if their hand was somehow forced perhaps by her taking the fifth which isn't supposed to force anybody's hand. >> i was just going to say we thought she should have been put on administrative leave a couple

of weeks ago but the attorney in me says it's bad to put her on administrative leave for using her constitutional rights. >> yeah. yeah. that's, of course, her right. and that, frankly is what any competent attorney, i think, would have advised her to do the other day. given the tenor of the likely committee questioning and the jeopardy that she could put herself in whether she did anything wrong or not. i, as her attorney, not that i am one, would have said take the fifth. that said, you can't be punished for that or it shouldn't seem that you are punished for that and so if there was cause to put her on administrative leave, you think they would have recognized that ahead of time, it would have been a lot better sequence. >> i think is problematic. the sequence is problematic. robert gibbs, what have we learned from this controversy and what should the white house learn from it moving forward? well, obviously i think

everybody learns that you have to act as quickly as humanly possible. i do think when you get into these legal arguments, it's interesting that she goes in front of this committee and says she has done nothing wrong and invokes her privilege not to incriminate herself she did nothing wrong and i think hard for people to digest. i think to sustain that momentum and make sure they are rooting out the problem that clearly exists there, this is only really be the beginning. they have to drill down and look who is under lois lerner and who else was implementing part of this policy and how were they involved and put more people on leave. quite frankly, this should really only be the beginning, certainly not the end. >> robert, you explained a little earlier about the problems that jay has, jay carney has in netting information. he has to go door-to-door at the white house as you used to do have to do to figure out the

facts. take us inside the white house and why aren't they firing people at the irs having an investigation and getting all of the facts and doing regular briefings? what is the inhibiting that from going faster? >> well, my hunch is what is inhibiting firings is the fact that the irs is compromised largely of only two political appointees which the is way utah want the irs and mostly of civil servants who have a process for firing. having them resign and putting them on leave. she has 30 days to prove she shouldn't be put on leave and essentially fired. there is that process and i'm sure everybody in the white house would love that process to be much, much quicker. i do think the acting irs chief that the president installed a few days ago is clearly making some good and important steps quickly. look. i think in this situation, you know, you always -- if you're a staffer in these situations, you're trying to drill down and figure out basically what you all have talked about that is

what people do people know and when do people know it. sometimes it's easy to get those information and sometimes, quite frankly, drilling down is hard to get that information. >> there are procedures and probably impatience on the part of the media. richard wolffe, is it possible that the people who first heard about this didn't say, my god, this is going to be just a gusher. i mean, this is going to be horrible and we need to even make the appearance of clamping down. i hate to think about only pr and communications, but on this issue with the irs and conservative groups, my god, it seems to me -- >> it's not just possible. it actually happened. rumblings in the press and congress and this stuff was going enno one paid attention until they understood the full scale of it. i'd like to ask gene about this. i was reading a colleague of yours on "the washington post" op-ed page michael gerstein

trying to wrap together the skajed with obama care and saying a big expansion of irs powers under health care reform and the irs is clearly isn't the place to do this that is, obviously, one op-ed but a bigger debate the conservatives are trying to have in saying the irs is another way to get at health care reform. do you think that has traction? >> well, i think it might have a little traction. the political problem here really not that the administration is going to be by conservatives. guess what? that is going to happen. irs scandal or no irs scandal, if president obama issues a proclamation in favor of mother's day he is going to be criticized by the far right. it's with the public's trust in the irs to be fair and even-handed and nonpolitical. nobody is going to love the irs,

but you have to anticipate it's going to do its job in a nonpolitical way and that does extend to health care reform because they play a role in it and it's going to be, you know, it's going to raise questions in some people's minds. >> eugene robinson and robert gibbs, thank you very much. up next on "morning joe," controversy on wall street after a billionaire hedge fund ceo claims childbirth gets in the way of women being successful as traders. really? we will discuss with our power panel. more "morning joe" when we come back. what do you think? that's great. it won't take long, will it? nah. okay. this, won't take long will it? no, not at all. how many of these can we do on our budget? more than you think.

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all right. 36 past the hour. according to a hedge fund billionaire quite frankly, a friend of ours. >> right. >> paul jones. >> we know paul and been out to events with him a good bit. >> nice people. >> a lot of the robin hood charity foundation which he helps know so i know paul very well but he didn't call me before he said this. >> paul, we need to talk to you. a clear reason why there aren't more women on wall street according to paul jones who participated in a panel of prominent investors at a

symposium at the university of virginia school of commerce. he responded to a question about why the panel featured, quote, rich white middle-aged men and he was quite frank in his answer. here is a portion of it. >> take a girl that was my age at this point in time and particularly back in the '70s. i can think of two that actually started ef hutton with me. within four years, by 1980, right when i was getting ready to launch my company, they both got married. they both got married and then they both had, which, in my mind, is as big of a killer as divorce is, they both had children, and as soon as that baby's lips touched that girl's bosom, forget it. every single investment idea, every desire to understand, every desire to understand what is going to make this go up or going to go down is going to be

overwhelmed by the most beautiful experience which a man will never -- which a man will never share without a mode of connection between that mother and that baby. >> what is that beautiful experience? changing diapers and not getting any sleep and not having any support to go back to work? that one? i wonder about that! joining us now is editor in chief of "cosmopolitan" joanne cole and lisa miller and alexandra. >> i spoke with your husband and your husband said everybody has a chance to get foot and mouth disease and he saw the clip and i said, never mind. >> my lord. who wants to start and go there? come on, alexandra. >> i think you can speak to this. >> i can. first of all, i guess i'm a bad mother because i work. >> you didn't have that whole melt down? >> no, i didn't have a melt down. first of all, i'm not sure that that bonding experience of

breastfeedizing all that wonderful. it hurts! >> i think it hurts. >> it just -- i was watching it and it just -- still when i watched it again, that pit in my stomach of how 1950s that is! >> he was talking about the '70s, to be fair and i'll play devil's advocate because i think there is another side to this. i think back then especially, and even for a lot of women now who maybe are not in the high financial bracket, it's not the beautiful experience that keeps you from being focused and going back to work. >> it's being completely overwhelmed. >> i think this is wall street having a dark moment. i think what you see in this is actually what a lot of men on wall street still actually think. >> i was going to say, paul is not alone here. >> that is what is so interesting. when you see him talking on the panel and you see a couple of the other members shifting but when he says, i felt, rather than creepily the word bosom.

you felt there was a saw inside him saying it and you saw a couple of other guys on the panel which were all old white men start to gilg aggle and wha they think. guys, girls don't want to work with people like you. we want to work somewhere else. >> as the only guy on the panel i will be the first to admit that guys have it so much easier. a lot of times when women go to work they have to focus on the kids at home because the guy is focused just on the numbers in front of him! >> right. i had a boss -- >> by the way, that is a responsible thing to do because you know you're married to fred flintstone. >> that's right. i had a boss before i went on maternity leave said to me don't worry about your job, there is nobody more efficient than a woman with little kids at home. >> right. >> his complaint was about focus and women's focus at the workplace but, in fact, when you have a little kid at home and

you need to rush home to that kid, you can kill anything! >> his complaint also actually was about men getting divorced because he said divorce is a tremendous attention taker away from work and you're like, well, who are you going employee? you don't want anybody who is getting a divorce and you don't want anybody he mentioned a death in the family and you don't want women with a children. >> nobody can have a life. >> you know what, though? part of his argument is women can't be good traders because they don't have that instinct. i would argue that women actually are more intuitive and that makes them know when that moment is that you can make that trade. let me first of all, just completely blow his argument out of the water. there was a study that came out this year that looked at women-run hedge funds versus an index of other hedge funds. here are the numbers. women-run hedge funds the last year 8.95%. men, 2.65. there you go! women are actually better

traders. >> all of the empirical evidence shows it is much more productive when you have women. it's a business decision. >> the reality he is describing has to do with the differences between men and women that i think are slowly changing. cheryl sandberg brought this up you marry someone who is a partner with you and support your cause. >> i liked your book a lot. the second type through, it was awesome! >> fantastic. >> you know what? i like this book. it's as good the second time. >> you're making it hard for me to say about what i'm about to say because you're so nice to me. men in the past and a lot of men in the present can only thing on one thing. doh. while women multitask and that multitasking brain is becoming amazingly effective and i would say that those quick decisions that we make all the time, all day long, all night, be perfect on wall street. >> let me follow-up on this. this week is a great example.

mika and i were in minnesota one day and flew back. got about hour fours of sleep. we were in new york monday and then oklahoma tuesday. on wednesday, we were in washington. on thursday, we were in boston. guess what? when we come home, i'm exhausted and i've been working on three hours sleep a night and what do i do? go to sleep. i go straight to bed. what does mika go? she is a wife and mother and takes her daughter to the doctor. >> i take my daughter to the doctor. >> i want to say the internet is going to explode on these comments yesterday and rightfully so. i think they obscure an important thing happening in culture and you were talking about this mika, what extent to our biological imperatives define and what extent do they not and the question i don't think we fully grapple with in culture and business and at home at work at with our bosses and the thing we need to deal with.

women are more pulled to home. men are more pulled to work. how do we deal with that? >> i would take issue with that and say women aren't necessarily more pulled to home. it's just it's incredibly hard to find the cultural values that have been instilled in us and frankly everybody around this table has got children and we have all managed to hold down jobs. some of us at very senior levels. i am absurd to say women can't do that. do you want to go to the office and breastfeed? possibly not but the idea that women be at home is crazy. >> i think my husband is pulled at home than i am. i look at women on wall street and other women who are successful hedge fund tradesers and i look at other women who are successful. there are women who have children and have extremely powerful jobs and are proving this and to have somebody like

paul who is as powerful as he is taking us back is just so detrimental to where we have come. >> i think the university put him on lockdown too. they were trying to silence that thing and keep it out. it only came to light. the actual debate happened in april and the freedom of information request by the "the washington post." you can see how sensitive the university was about it. >> whoa! >> we could go on and on. >> oh, yes. >> for three hours. >> ladies, thank you so much! >> paul responded and has a comment. he said, a statement to "the washington post" after this unfortunate video got out. i told my three daughters who i've encouraged one day or another to go into trading anybody can do anything they set their heart and mind. my off the cuff marks at the university of virginia were with regard to macro traders on 24/7

and 6 whom there are likely only a few thousand successful practitioners in the world today. he also said the following. >> this makes sense. that's fair. there are arguments to be made. it just really -- we happen to have -- >> at this point, paul, less is more. quickly, mika has a column coming up and i can't read it because i read cosmo for one reason and one reason old and nothing with the different figures you have and the crazy things they are doing. it's for mika's column. >> mika has a fantastic column coming up in the next issue of "cosmo" how to speak and present things successfully and if you know what you're talking about which is extremely useful. >> thank you so much for that. thank you, joe. up next -- >> i love your tweets. >> i'm blocking it on your twitter. up next, volunteers plan a

trip of a lifetime to our nation's capital for a group of surviving world war ii jets. jack jacobs and the executive producer of the next documentary honor flight camille foster joins us next when we comeback. with the spark cash card

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when i was liberated, i only weighed about 70 pounds. >> he was in life magazine as a skeleton. >> i was wondering if that picture and what my mother would say if she knew. that was one thing that bothered me. you can't have a defeated attitude. every day is a bonus. >> that was a clip from honor flight.

a film about a community racing against the clock to send living world war ii veterans on the trip of a lifetime. here with us now executive producer of the film and nbc news military analyst retired general jack jacobs, tom brokaw still at the table. >> amazing story. >> great for them to bring it to national attention. in fact, it is going on around the country. a lot are reading honor flights. i'm reading all the obituaries of men of a certain age more carefully because we're losing them at such a rapid clip. when you read -- there was something in the "new york times" this week, a man who devoted his life to social work. fourth paragraph, third marines on okinawa. >> is that what this is about, remembering these men, helping these men right now. >> absolutely. and preserving their stories. there are about 100 chapters doing this work, 1.5 million of these world war ii vets.

>> what's at the heart, what are honor flights? >> they take world war ii veterans around the country to d.c. to the war memorial built in their honor. it's completely all volunteers, funded by volunteer donations and donations from all sorts of americans who just care a great deal about this. the vets pay absolutely nothing. they spend the entire day in d.c. and visit all of the important memorials and they are treated like kings. it's a real thank you and welcome home for them. >> i was down there not long ago, just a couple weeks ago. an honor flight came in from dayton, ohio, brought in a few dozen and every single one were coming to the memorial for the first time. we had a camera down there and shot a package that will be shown monday night on "nbc nightly news." honor flights. these guys, really tough guys, until they see the memorial.

what do you think now that you've seen it? it starts to bring back memories, brings tears to their eyes. it reminds them of the big cr s contribution they made. >> it focuses on four. >> yes. we talked to hundreds. that's been one of the most incredible thing about all of this. the man you just saw there was held in a nazi p.o.w. camp and nearly died being held there. one of the most wonderful things about this entire project is get to know the veterans themselves. such humble men. in a number of cases they have never talked about their stories before until this interview in some instances. >> one of the things they do in some flights as well, they have mail call. they will send out a notice to the friends of the people who are going to be on the flight and say write a letter. so then at the end of the flight they will have mail call, like military. >> oh, my gosh. >> a dear family friend i wrote about in "the greatest

generation" hack hagan came in with his son. the family is close. he had an amazing day in washington and was able to go back and read the mail that all the family and friends had sent to hakuho was in the last naval battle of world war ii. >> that's beautiful. watch "honor flight" digital, dvd, on demand. for more details, camil foster. >> you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. we're here with sonya talking about the walmart low price guarantee. charcoal. if someone else advertises a lower price, walmart will match it at the register. i didn't know that. i'm full of good ideas! okay. not so much muscle! wow! that's the walmart low price guarantee! bring your last grocery receipt and see for yourself. that's the walmart low price guarantee!

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>> if you're an "arrested development" fan, mark halperin, mika, you are. i have to admit, i only saw three or four of these things. when they burned down the banana stand, i walked away from it. >> there's money in the banana stand. seriously. didn't he know that. >> jeffrey tambor will be here on this set. this weekend tv history is going to be made. they have the entire season of episodes, the entire cast is back.

if you're an "arrested development" fan, this is arguably the biggest weekend of your entire life. >> this show was supposed to be dead, canceled. >> canceled three years. >> i don't know who would do that, by the way, some sicko. >> as pointed out in the "new york times," when the show was on, we didn't have twitter, social media. this show is made for social media. you have jokes that play out over multiple episodes. >> what a remarkable story, netflix on its way out. they were like a dinosaur, they are coming back. >> so jeffrey tambor will be on in just a few min. right now we're going to toss to jimmy kimmel making fun of president obama's prom picture. >> did you see the photo? >> "time" magazine just published president obama's prom photos. there he is with a friend and their dates. i'd say the girls in kenya are very good looking. obama is 17 years old here. notice he's the only one not

holding champagne. that's called plausible deniability. the girl on the right side of the screen is his date, megan hughes. here is another photo. the other two are his friends kelly and greg. he seemed so happy back then, like he was allowed to eat junk food or something. it almost looks like he took two women to the prom and greg is crashing the three some. kelly is the one who gave the photos to "time." she also gave a copy of what the president wrote in her high school year book. it said, kelly, it's been so nice getting to know you here. you are extremely sweet and foxy. i don't know why greg would want to spend any time with me at all. you really deserve better than clowns like us. you even laugh at my jokes. i hope we keep in touch this summer, even though greg will be gone. call me up. i'll buy you lunch. stay happy. your friend barry obama with a heart. wow, barry was on the prowl,

wasn't he? >> good morning on the east coast. it's 5:00 a.m. on the west coast. >> wake up. >> i tell you please. >> it's time. >> it is friday. >> memorial day weekend is here. >> one more day. >> you can do it. >> your boss isn't going to miss you. stay in bed. >> just get up. >> tell them you're sick. just tell them you're sick, sick of work. mark halperin is here. richard haass also in washington, d.c., kelly o'donnell and robert gibbs. >> lets get to the headlines. we have a lot to get to this morning. well beyond that. lois lerner is off the job two days after she refused to answer questions about the targeting of conservative groups. being placed on administrative leave after reportedly refusing to resign is now the third senior irs official to lose their job or step aside. her suspension follows a letter to the agency's acting

commissioner by senator levin and mccain who echoed the same frustration put forward by us on "morning joe" last week. >> we've been covering the different players in this including lois lerner who heads up the irs's defense on tax exempt organizations and was aware nearly from the beginning of all of this. i'm assuming that's next. i'm not sure about this firing. i think it obviously makes sense because the guys at the top. but i would expect more. lerner denied any wrongdoing during a congressional hearing wednesday before invoking her fifth amendment right. congressman darrell issa, i was wondering about this, is now planning to haul her back to capitol hill saying because she entered an opening statement, she's lost the right not to testify. lawmakers are particularly interested in when lerner first

became aware of the agency's actions and whether or not she kept that information from congress. according to the inspector general she was alerted to tea party or patriots in their name june 2011. >> that's two years ago she is aware -- two years ago she's aware conservative groups are being targeted. >> she ordered the criteria to be revised, to make changes to that. "the wall street journal" reports in april and may of 2012 letters from miss lerner to republican lawmakers made no mention to the problems that surfaced. just two weeks ago lerner suggested she only found out about the issue in february and march of 2012 after reading news reports on that same day. so from the news. lerner offered an apology to the target groups in response to what turned out to be a planted question during a conference in washington. she also seemed somewhat

confused while responding to a question from nbc's tom costello. take a listen. >> you're saying a quarter of the 300 were associated with tea party or republican issues, correct? >> no. i said that about a quarter of the cases that were selected for full development had either tea party or patriot in their name. >> okay. so sorry, thank you for the clarification. but that would be a quarter of the 300, though, so we're talking 75 or so? >> that's correct. is that a quarter? that's right. thank you. i'm not good at math. that's correct. >> you're with the irs. thank you. >> but i'm a lawyer, not an accountant. >> so i had asked our team to find that clip of you saying why are they not moving faster. i want to bring in robert gibbs. robert, we've been talking about the white house's handling of a lot of these problems. the irs problem, the justice

department problem, the ap problem. we're going to get into eric holder and what he knew and didn't know about these leak investigations later. but it seems to me that lois lerner is either incompetent, has a terrible memory or just doesn't tell the truth. you go back to that friday press conference, there was one bit of misleading information after another piece of misleading information she had to come back and correct. soon after that, the white house also seemed to be dragged along, revelation by revelation by revelation on a story the chief of staff and chief counsel knew about, the president's counsel. how does the white house get ahead of these stories moving forward? they haven't done a good job yet, have they? >> this week has been much better than last week. the news that lois lerner is on leave and the process largely of removing her from the irs has begun. >> why did it take so long, robert. >> are we being impatient?

>> we all knew a couple weeks ago she had misled the american people. >> or seemed jumbled. >> i think part of it is, as i understand it, there are two political appointees at the irs, the commissioner and deputy commissioner. there's now an acting commissioner that the president appointed. folks under that in the irs are civil service employees and there's a process to this. look, i think this is a good start. my guess is that for the acting commissioner, this is the beginning and certainly not close to the end of people that are involved that you should put on administrative leave and figure out how deep does this problem go and who was responsible for these. >> okay. so on that -- especially on this story, robert, i just have to ask you when we first heard from lois lerner a couple weeks ago and heard how she framed this, from the very least, she sounded jumbled. on your expertise, wouldn't you do something or urge the white

house to do something if you were back working there to stop the bleeding. you know this story is going to explode. >> look, mika, no doubt, i don't understand all the intricacies of civil service tenure and things like this, look, i'm sure there are people at the white house that wanted to put half of the irs on leave the moment they heard about this. i think it's unfortunately harder to do. i think this is a good step by the acting irs commissioner. again, i doubt it's the last one we'll hear about. i know for those guys in the white house, i'm sure this didn't come -- couldn't have come fast enough. >> mark halperin, you also have insight at the white house. you have jay carney shifting that time line time and time again in the last couple of weeks. you wonder what's going on in the white house they aren't able to manage things better. you get everybody together, you

get all the facts. you go out and give them information. we have jay carney appearing to contradict himself again on yet another issue regarding the james rossen leak case. >> one of the things around the president like to say is good policy is good politics. right now they seem to be as focused on the politics as the policy. this needs to be investigated, explained. people need to be held accountable. too much of the rhetoric from the white house is about shifting stories but also not about the specific plan. what are they going to do to solve it. >> before you start talking about solving it, you need to figure out what happened. you grab everybody, richard knows this, you grab everybody in the room and go what the hell happened? before i send jay carney out again to babble and get mauled by the press, we're going to figure out what happened. then we're going to tell him what he can say. if he can't say it, he's going to say, i cannot tell you that,

instead of jay haven't to shift his story day in and day ow. this looks like bush's press secretary mcclellan that bought beat up a lot. >> moving on, president obama ordered justice department to review guidelines with investigations regarding reporters. comes amid new revelations attorney general eric holder signed off on a search warrant to seize personal e-mails of fox news reporter james rosen. a federal affidavit said rosen had solicited and encouraged a source for documents and intelligence relating to north korea's nuclear program. the search warrant for rosen's communications approved by holder in spring of 2010 fell under espionage act. >> unbelievable -- this is what chuck todd talked about a couple days ago. it seems the justice department is, quote, criminalizing journalism. to have a journalist, who is

doing his job -- first of all, seizing his phone records, seizing phone records at fox news and then following him throughout where he's scanning passes and when he's going in and out inside the state department as if he's a soviet spy and accusing -- it's unbelievable. >> yeah. they also labeled him as a co-conspirator. on sunday "washington post" reported justice department had used security badge access records to track the reporter's trips to the state department, as you mentioned, joe. two days later new yorker reported dozens of phone numbers monitored by doj, five associated with fox news. denied claims the home phone of rosen's parents was also monitored. he recused himself into a separate investigation into the leak from the "associated press." made no mention of the warrant targeting rosen. president obama addressed the

larger issue during a speech at the national defense university. >> journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. our fob us must be on those that break the law. that's why i've called on congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government overreach and i've raised these issues with an attorney general who shares my concern. he's agreed to review governing guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters. >> i think it's pretty incredible that he brought it up in that speech. do you agree, mark halperin? >> it's connected, balancing liberties, a lot of what he was talking about yesterday. robert was on this program a few days ago and talked about this. it needs to be explained. eric holder has not explained sufficiently. not just the general principles but the specifics of this case. so troubling to people in journalism and should be troubling to the whole country.

>> robert, talking about jay carney and how you make his job easier. my god, the guy has a target on him from the press. in fact, doesn't this entire case, whether you're talking about ap or fox news, doesn't this entire case make the white house's efforts moving forward over the next three, three and a half years much more difficult? the press is going to be suspicious. when you start grabbing guys and trying to charge them with espionage. >> sure. >> not great for press relations. >> no. i don't think you need to be -- you don't need to be the white house press secretary to know this complicates your job. i will say to build off what mark talked about and i talked about earlier this week. it is incumbent upon the justice department, incumbent on the attorney general to come out and give an explanation about why they have done this, why they need to do this. if the president of the united states can talk about how this

is inappropriate and having had that conversation with the attorney general, then the attorney general can have this conversation with the american people. it's not going to threaten the case, because they clearly have the records. presumably they subpoenaed the records to look at them and looked at the records about who may have called james rosen. as the president said we're looking for the law breakers, not the reporters doing their job. the attorney general should come out today and talk about why this is and why this needs to happen. >> it's government officials who sign an oath not to disclose information. this seems to be going after the wrong parties. rather than going after journalists you ought to go after people in government who signed a pledge not to disclose. >> kelly. >> one of the things that strikes me about this, is there more to come. anybody that covers national security must be thinking were my phone records taken, have they been looking at me. when we hear officials tell us they learn about these important events through news reports,

there's sort of a chilling effect on news. you hear the president saying i heard about this through news reports. there's kind of a circle here you don't want to put a chill on news coverage. it's ironic. >> still ahead this morning, arrested development makes its triumphant return. >> i ought to pull down your pants and spank you raw. >> have we met? >> this is larry middleman, your father surrogate. >> surrogate. >> i hired this guy to be my camera to be my eyes and ears while i'm in the penthouse. >> this camera helps me keep tabs on you while this camera rubs me wrong. >> i can't go in the hallway without hearing beep, beep. >> why do i love him so much. >> it's very easy. >> jeffrey tambor. >> did you see how he looked in his boxers. who couldn't love that guy. he's here. we bump into him on the street.

he's wandering around aimlessly. >> i hugged him. i was like a rabid fan. i took a picture with my iphone. >> netflix are so smart after being so stupid. how can that happen. >> from him we go to doctors ignatius and brzezinski. i'm going to hit you. here is bill garrin with a check of the forecast. >> that was a hit, too, you can believe it. it's friday, everyone. one huge big apology to everyone in new england for this memorial day weekend. it's going to snow -- snow in some of the highest peaks and elevations. it's 39 in buffalo. that's the cold air that's going to mix with the rain and then turns to snow as we go to the upcoming weekend. just ridiculous. soggy forecast, rain filling in now from d.c. up to eastern pennsylvania. it's raining pretty good from boston northward. we got the rain. it's going to continue, maybe flooding problems in new

england. weekend forecast today's getaway, besides new england it's not that bad out there. as we go through the weekend forecast it doesn't change. middle of the country chance of rain. rain in new england. new storm coming in memorial day for the west coast. we're looking okay actually on the east coast for all those memorial day parades and just a few thunderstorms as we go throughout the midwest. no tornadoes or anything like that. doesn't look to be too violent. leave you with a shot of a gloomy new york city. wait for the sun, maybe sunday afternoon if we're lucky. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪

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america does not take strikes to punish individuals. we act against terrorist who pose a continuing and imment threat to the american people. and when there are no other governments capable of effectively addressing the threat. and before any strike is taken, there must be near certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured. the highest standard we can set. >> all right. joining us now from washington, former national security adviser for president carter and author of "strategic vision, america and the crisis of global power" dr. zibigniew brzezinski.

>> the lead editorial says president obama's speech on thursday was the most important statement on counter-terrorism policy since 2011 attacks while a menace turning point in post 9/11 america. >> basically agree. i think after the 9/11 attack, we formulated a reaction which had excessive focus on jihadist terrorism, which, by implication, meant islamic terrorism. i think we have to get away from sectarian definition of terrorism. >> what was the importance -- talked about the president's drone poll sichlt it's a policy that's been controversial, though very popular with the public. how do you believe the president framed a drone debate moving forward. >> on the whole i was rather

favorably impressed by his judgments and his prudential approach. we need a drone campaign. we need to strike occasionally when others strike at us from asylums, from protected areas. we have to be able to respond but we have to do it prudentially. drones are useful instruments. >> richard haass, president on council of foreign relations said it was one of the most important speeches of the obama administration. >> i agree with richard and dr. brzezinski. i thought it was an important speech, well thought through. the president's quality as an analyst, intellectual engagement on this issue were evident to me. i thought there were two basics parts of it. one, his call for new limits on the use of drones, this weapon that's been so powerful, so effective can't be used in ever widening ways in different theaters. the president has a new set of rules. not exactly clear how those are

going to work, and they are certainly not doing to work until u.s. troops are gone from afghanistan, but the beginnings of a new policy. the other thing, the president wants to rewrite, reconsider the basic law that's allowed the war on terror, what he calls the war on extremists, authorization to use miller force dating back to 2001. he's saying explicitly no war can last forever. this one shouldn't. i shouldn't as president have unlimited war making powers. i think that statement, more than anything i've heard from him, really does mark turning a corner away from the world we've been living in since 9/11 to something different. i applaud the president for being forthright and saying some things people aren't going to want to hear. i do think it does as dr. brzezinski and richard said begin a new era and debate. >> saying both rhetoric and some of the specific policy pronouncements that the

president is giving up on the war on terror. what do you make of that argument? >> i don't think he's giving up on it. i think he's indicating this phenomenon ebbs and flows. that's been historically the case with terrorism. from roughly 1880 until about 1910, there was a wave of terrorism not only all over europe but even struck in the united states. a president, our president was assassinated by terrorists of foreign origins. terrorism is a phenomenon but not an enduring reality. what is an enduring reality is that we're now in a phase of widespread global turmoil. many parts of the world are asserting themselves having been dominated at different stages by colonialism, imperialism, by racism. and we have to be very careful not to become to them a symbol of the past. we were never guilty of these crimes towards them.

we pursue certain policies particularly in the middle east and southeast asia that we have lately been leaning towards, we could easily become the standard bearer of these forces which the new wave, the new awakening of the world is reacting against. >> richard wolffe. >> david ignatius, you have great sources in the intelligence community. there's a lot of attention on the president's comments on guantanamo bay. can it be closed, what happens to detainees, can they be transferred to places like yemen. lots of high-sounding talk yesterday but how practical is it based on what you're hearing from your sources? >> richard, i think first the intelligence community generally would welcome the moves the president is describing. he specifically wants to get the cia out of the targeted killing business to the extent possible. and intelligence officers i talked to would very much like to be back to their traditional mission of stealing secrets, of

trying to protect the country by spying. that's what they are there for. they are not there to kill people from drones or any other way. i think that will be popular. that's the mission of the new cia director john brennan. on the question of closing guantanamo, president obama is going to need political allies. he's got to have cooperation from congress. i admired him for, again, saying this should be closed. look at the logical case and it's hard to disagree with him. the problem is, it's really politically unpopular. some other people in washington have to step up and courageously say, the president is right. i think he would get support on this from everybody in the beaurocracy. guantanamo is a mess. they don't like to run it. they don't like to be associated for what it does. they know how poifbous it is for the image. they know how courageous it is to say these things. who else in washington is prepared to come along with him

and we'll watch. >> dad, on a final note, this is on the issue of al qaeda. senator john mccain said this, we're still in a long drawn out conflict with al qaeda. to somehow argue al qaeda is on the run comes from a degree of unreality that to me is really incredible. how would we define al qaeda right now, and does john mccain have a point or is he missing it? >> al qaeda has splintered up, it's leader, profit, strategist is dead. it's becoming more of a symbolic phenomenon arising in different circumstances and different parts of the post colonial, post imperial world. so in a sense, i think the president is right but the problem persist's in other forms. we have to be very deliberate in our policies not to become engaged in conflicts which would be interpreted in some parts of the world, by many people in it as an extension of the colonial era.

this is what makes me so concerned about syria, where france and britain are seen as our principle allies and where the region has very bitter memories of their connection with france and britain. we get involved in that and wider aspects of it, for example, iran, we could become the boogie man of much of the first half of the century. this is my grave concern about what we're facing and the kind of decisions we need to make now in the near future. >> all right, dr. brzezinski. david ignatius, great to see you guys again. >> thanks. >> they were so nice to come to your book party. >> we saw them earlier in the week. >> it was a great book party. >> i know it was hard for you. i know it was hard. >> i'm actually reading the book and i'm learning -- >> no, you're not. >> and i'm learning things in it i didn't know, and i intend to interrogate mika personally alone. >> that will be torture. >> we expected nothing less, dr. brzezinski. david, thanks for being with us.

>> thank you very much, gentlemen. nbc's kate snow with a firsthand account of some of the survivors inside plaza towers elementary school as the tornado bore down on moore, oklahoma. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." it's time... for aveeno® positively radiant face moisturizer. [ female announcer ] only aveeno® has an active naturals total soy formula that instantly brightens skin. and helps reduce the look of brown spots in just 4 weeks. for healthy radiant skin. try it for a month. then go ahead and try to spot a spot. aveeno® positively radiant. naturally beautiful results.

32 past the hour. the tornado cleanup continues in moore, oklahoma, this weekend as residents try to get semblance of normality back in their lives. nbc's kate snow joins us with an incredible firsthand account. kate. >> mika, on thursday parents, teachers, children finally got together again from plaza towers elementary school. there were a lot of hugs. they lost seven children at this school. now the principal and several teachers from plaza towers agreed to sit down and talk with us exclusively at rock center to tell what it was like to live through that day and how they are working on healing together. thursday was a day for hugs. one last day to be together before the summer break. >> this is her classroom right here. >> reporter: their school will be bulldozed. this is the first time principal amy simpson has been back since late monday. she was on this p.a. system moments before the tornado hit. >> i got on the intercom and

said, it's here. all of a sudden i could hear the air duct crash down and the p e pipe. i could hear the other four ladies in there. that's when i started to yell. >> what did you yell? >> in god's name, go away. go away. i yelled it four or five times. then it was gone. >> reporter: and when it was gone, the scene was beyond belief. >> what blew on top of you? >> a wall, some two-by-fours, a car. >> a car? >> a car was there on top of this debris. >> you understand how unbelievable this sounds. >> i wasn't feeling any of it. my feelings were for those kids underneath me. i could tell they were okay.

i could feel they are okay. >> they were still talking to you? >> they were still talking. >> this is her classroom. >> right here. >> in the third grade building, there was no talking. the principal told us where the teacher and her kids were trapped. she was draped over two little boys, on top of them. >> she was hearing crying and crying and crying. after the tornado the crying stopped. what she said was the crying was horrible, but when it stopped it was worse. >> seven students were gone. kindergarten teacher erin baxter said like everyone at the school she's still in a state of disbelief and shock. >> when i stopped moving and sit down, it just comes back. >> your voice broke when you said it comes back. >> yeah. >> you having bad dreams? >> no. i haven't really slept. it's so hard.

>> reporter: it's going to take a long time for that hurt to go away. they know that. also important to remember that while there was so much loss, mika and joe, there were a lot of acts of heroism. those teachers saved a lot of lives. >> kate snow, incredible storytelling. we'll have much more of the report on rock center tonight on 10:00 eastern, 9:00 central on nbc. kate, thank you very much. >> thank you, kate. up next, "arrested development" is back. we have jeffrey tambor in the studio to talk about the highly anticipated return. he's crazy and there's brian sullivan. great. keep it here on -- >> they are both crazy. >> that's what i'm saying. right. we'll be right back.

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we didn't want to cut you in. we didn't want to did he mean you. like tipping an african-american. you wouldn't tip an african-american would you? >> of course i would. >> on a train? >> did you know about all this? >> no, i've been tipping them. even a waiter? >> okay. the treadmill is up and running. we got the door on and we were able to match the paint. >> thank you so much for your hard work. >> so long. >> he gives me notes. >> he does? >> i have tweeting notes. >> can i ask a question? who was sitting in this seat before me? >> richard wolffe? tom brokaw. >> they are sick. they have a temperature. this is the hottest seat.

>> you do understand since you've been sitting down here you've been commenting on everybody. you're sitting with brian sullivan, you call him a bore, anti-semitic. >> i didn't say a bore. i said boring. >> what about us? >> i'm on cnbc who needs this. >> there we go. lets move forward. lets move forward. >> i asked to be on this show. >> no, no, no. i asked for you. >> i did, because i am a fan. 6:00. >> alex. >> 6:00. >> that's my iv. >> do you watch for joe? >> i watched this morning, at 6:01 i was watching. >> really? >> we're going outside, as you know we write up the show, go out to the orphanage. we go out a couple of weeks ago, before we go to the orphanage and see the kids you come up to us, wander up to us, carry a

bag, like a plastic bag and say you're a huge fan of the show. >> plastic bag. only vinyl. >> you got out and we all took pictures. >> look at my hair. >> memoirs. will that story make your memoirs. >> will you talk louder? >> will that story make your memoirs? >> yes. >> i love your show. >> mika doesn't get out much. this is the only show she likes. she's excited. >> at 12:01, 3:01 our time, 12:01 someone is pressing a button and this thing goes all over the world. isn't that amazing. >> let me explain this. netflix at 3:01. >> 3:01 our time. >> eastern time. >> 12:01 -- >> they press a button and we see the whole season. do you know my son is going to be pasty -- he is pasty white. he's going to do nothing all

weekend. we can watch all 15 segments this weekend. >> i don't watch in blocks. do i about 30 seconds and that's it. i'm old. >> my word. >> it's really good and i'm very, very proud. i'm also doing a thing on amazon.com. apparently i'm the internet god. next thing i'm going to do something with the u.s. post office and mail my performance. >> i love the -- >> he tweets me. >> does he really? >> he tweets me like don't be nervous today. he's my coach all of a sudden. he's friendly. since i've come here -- >> he's hateful in person. >> i got you mixed up with ron howard. >> can i ask a serious -- >> let him ask a question first. he was about to ask. >> i'm going to ask you a semiserious question to commemorate this event. >> i won't read for game change

2. i won't read. i'll do a meeting. >> i can do chaney. >> serious question. casting is so key. everybody came back. why did everyone agree to do this? >> we love mitch. it changed all of our lives. in fact, that clip you just showed, that was the first night we got together. this is an unsentimental group. everyone burst into applause. at the screen in l.a. they gave mitch about a seven-minute ovation before he talked. >> just for being mitch. >> just thank you. how i feel about you. >> tell me why people like us love this show so rabidly. what is it about the show? >> i think honestly it's the same cache your show has. it doesn't dumb down. it has a great respect for the audience. it is delivered -- >> speak for yourself but go ahead. >> it's fantastic. >> it doesn't have its hat in the hand, the same as you guys. it's great. it's kind of like, this is where we are. >> every single character has

some serious deficiency. >> brian shactman. >> somebody who is scared of mika, might be you. >> just now cooling down. >> humid temperature. >> you need to see somebody. i think like 110 temperature. he's burning up. >> if it had come out after your "modern family," four or five years later, do you think it would still be on? it's almost ahead of its time, the humor. >> as we know, everything is timing. everything has worked out just fine. thank god fox picked us up. we did our little dance and now we're here and we have the biggest fan in the world which is ted from netflix. who doesn't need an atta boy. it's great. >> what about that, netflix. they were drunk for a couple of

years. >> drunk. >> the stock went down. they may have dabbled in heroin. they got smart. they cleaned up, did house of cards, a revolutionary -- >> my dad used to be in the stands and say atta boy. >> if it crashes, so many people on, can we call you? >> it crashes. >> can we call you. >> i'm so glad we found you on the street. it's really great to meet you. >> does that mean i'm going? he's got nothing. >> i know. we have to let him on. >> what about the banking crisis, where do you stand on that? >> i'm just right here. >> lets get him on, help -- >> you just got that in the ear, didn't you? >> watch all episodes of "arrested development." >> brian sullivan looks on in horror. we'll be right back. [ both ] we're foodies.

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cnbc's brian sullivan. business has been transacted. you've got a watch. he gave you a watch. >> my bar mitzvah. >> he insults you by giving you

a watch. >> happy bar mitzvah. how did you know? >> that's what we do. >> my old colleague here. nothing is bs on the set here, almost the same tie. >> we're looking at your watch now on jeffrey's hand, tell us what's happening in business today. >> you can have that, $8. >> don't be nervous. >> don't try to psych me out. apple under the gun. i want to pitch an idea and i want you to dig into it. >> look at your watch. >> corporate tax, infrastructure bank, repatriated tax fra infrastructure bank matched one by one federal funds to rebuild this nation's crap infrastructure. right, i can say that. it's cable tv. also get corporate money over here and corporations will build their own customer base by bringing money here so they can employ machinery and goods and people they hire. i'm going to dig into it more on my show.

>> since you've been on, numbers have gone up exponentially. people have tuned in from other networks. >> including my own. >> you are really good. >> i was going to ask how did he do. >> you're magnetic. i didn't understand one word you said, by the way. >> jeffrey, can i ask this question? >> please. >> you talked in there for just a few minutes. >> him? >> you guys talked, but you came in here, you sat down and you said i only met brian for a couple of minutes but i hate him. >> i do. >> 30 seconds. >> have things changed? he's given you a watch. >> since i heard what he had to say. no, he's really good. he's good. >> he's olivier. >> we gambled. that was fun. >> how long did it take you to hate me. >> that was good. >> we're back. >> why did you put all those

doughnuts in your pocket? >> food obsession. >> obsession. >> thank you so much. >> i am honored to be here. >> i'm obsessed with jeffrey. >> we're honored to have you here. please come back. >> have him do what we learned? >> we'll be right back. changing the world is exhausting business. with the innovating and the transforming and the revolutionizing. it's enough to make you forget that you're flying five hundred miles an hour on a chair that just became a bed. you see, we're doing some changing of our own. ah, we can talk about it later. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving. actually it can. neutrogena® ultra sheer. its superior uva uvb protection helps prevent early skin aging and skin cancer, all with the cleanest feel. it's the best for your skin.

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you know, mika, it's been an emotional week going to oklahoma city. it's surreal, you're there, you see devastation there. there's no way to describe it. pictures can't describe it. we come back a day later. you're looking at pictures we took the day before. it's like a foreign land. >> a different planet. >> those people have suffered in oklahoma so much but they are going to come back. they came back after '95 and '99. they are going to do it again. >> here is a "morning joe" look back at the devastation and more. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> the scene behind us is like from a post apocalyptic movie. >> it's hard to wrap your mind around what you're seeing. >> when you get here on the ground and you look at the devastation, you look at how these buildings are literally torn to shreds. >> you literally have the inside of people's home, a snowman teddy bear, christmas wreath here. even though i have no idea who these people are, you can't help but get a little bit emotional about what you see. >> this is a picture that came 80 miles away from the tornado. >> they are piled up one after another after another. it is hard for us to imagine the totality, the power of this

storm. >> i keep getting completely overwhelmed by these sights. this is a little girl's room. you see the cds, a butterfly lamp, even the clothes still hanging. >> there was a closet in my bedroom we got into and laid down. everything went around us. >> the last thing i heard before my feed went dead was get out of the way or get under ground. this thing is huge. if you're aboveground, you're not going to make it. all things running through my head is, dear god, lay your hands over me and my kids. protect us. >> what do you think you're going to do now? >> get me a new house. >> think it might be time.

♪ ♪ ♪ i once was lost but now i'm found was blind but now i see ♪ president obama delivers a major address refining the country's battle against terrorism, outlining a plan to narrow the focus of the fight and significantly shifting away from some post 9/11 practices. a major change for the boy scouts of america as the group ends a long-standing ban on openly gay members. we're going to take you live to texas where that decision was made and also get the latest on the court action that could come quickly from opponents of this new policy. it is time for a friday roundup on 2016, never too early. a lot of republicans making news from