♪ good morning everybody. it's friday, december 27th. i'm brian shactman in for joe. in mika's seat. you're in for joe. how many inches, how many pounds, how many years. >> a few less, a few less, many less. >> sam stein, of course and white house dpoereporter for "huffington post." lee gallagher.

joy reed host of the "ed show" last night. and josh barrow. my clothes are a little closer, a little tighter. >> how long do you keep that tree up at rockefeller center >> hanukkah bush stays up all year. they keep it up as long as they can. it's beautiful. walking around here is insane. >> people in this building rebel because we can't leave the building. >> tourists are so thick. they will take it down as soon as possible. >> fortunately you can get sandwiches and everything you need. >> go down the new york city and casey anthonykra crannies. >> the dow jones industrial average will look for its

seventh straight day of gains. another record close yesterday. up 122 points. that's the 50th record high of 2013. they are getting closer to 17,000 and the dow -- that came amid news first time unemployment claims fell by 42,000 to 338,000. the number could be seen as the latest positive sign for the job market another sign of a stronger economy. investors reaction to fed chairman ben bernanke's decision so scale back on the monthly bond purchases starting next month. they roll back to 75 bill lorngs koend the entire program by the end of 2014 if the economy stays strong. now last week the commerce department announced the economy grew by 1.4% in the third quarter. long term unemployment benefits will expire for 1.3 million americans tomorrow. this program goes back to the great recession and george w. bush. 300 a week for people. expenditures is 225 billion by

the federal government. the democrats tried pushing republicans to get this in the bipartisan budget deal. it did not work out. now, joy, i'll put it to you first and lee you can chime in as well. because the whole argument for a lot of these programs is the recovery is on shaky ground. the economy is still -- but if you're growing at 4%, jobless claims are down, stock market are at new highs, less cover to push for this. >> we are becoming two economy, two countries. you have one for the very well off which are doing great in the stock market. but then you have this other economy, i think paul krugman called it the fear economy. that's true. we're whisking the safety net out from under people who are at the bottom. there's three applicants for every one job right now in this economy. it's not that people are lazy and don't look for work. they can't find work. the longer you are unemployed the harder it is to find a job.

there's a lot of factors stacked against these folks. they don't have a lobby. they don't have anybody arguing for their interest. there's no cost to republicans. they can prove their cost-cutting bona fide with their people. it's a cruel way we can practice economics. >> i agree. it's really a shame. it's sad we've gotten to this point. seems like a long way away when we were talking about it a month ago. everything is going fairly well in the economy right now. there are many other indicators along with the ones you mentioned but this is it. this is it for us. jobs is going to be what's hanging us down and it's because we don't have the demand. we don't have the growth that's needed for all the thing that the fed has done this is the thing it can't do. the other thing to get these benefits you need to be looking for a job to qualify. what this means this pushes many

more people, tip them over to the side of the scale where they are dropping out of the workforce entirely and that's exactly what we don't want. >> that's what mark zandi was saying. you can create a class of people that will leave the workforce. just say i'm done searching for a job. i put in my time and just stop it. there's another misconception out there that this is a program for the poor. this is not a program for the poor. this is a program for the unemployed which tends to gravitate across social strat us the. we talked to someone who made six figures a year ago. and he lost his job and he wanted to get back into that business that he was in and it was a year, he couldn't find any work. he depleetd his entire savings but was living off of unemployment insurance and his wife's income. he needs to make some serious lifestyle changes. i'm not saying this program should go on forever but we're at a point where it doesn't make

as much sense as people think to rip out that rug from under people. >> what do you do? what's the alternative. do you do it in perpetuity? what's the alternative to do for these people. i want to put to it josh specifically and then you can comment. politically is there any way that this will be resurfaced in january and pass? >> i think it's very difficult to figure out where you get the money for that. the way it is in congress you have to come up with $25 billion. why didn't it end up in the budget deal. the budget deal created $65 billion in head room. if you wanted to do the unemployment benefits extension it would have taken up 63% of all of the room for new federal spending, there are a lot of other competing priorities and democrats decided this was not their first priority. they wanted to get back closer to normal across the federal discretionary budget. i agree it was too early.

i think this was a much better time than six months ago to cut this off. we needed about another year. but the favorable economic indicators we're starting to see is not purely in the stock market and other areas. we see an uptick in wage growth. you have almost three job applicant per job opening at the worst of the recession you had about six applicants per job opening. we're starting to see an increase in housing starts. job growth has gone above the 200,000 a month pace that's been typical. the recovery is still fragile. you have twice as many long term unemployed. but we're nine months to a year too early. >> these conversations are so difficult because we want to have an objective conversation when real lives are involved. we're lucky. we have jobs. and so our perspective might, a little bit different. i've said this a lot of times in

the past. i still believe there's a structural employment issue in this country and maybe there's a large swath joy of people who might have trouble getting the lifestyle and job they had before back. and there might be a whole generation lost. that's why some people look forward to education. we can't duplicate this. let's not care about 1.3 million people. look at it more objectively what else can you do for this community of people who don't have jobs? which is you got to educate for the future generation. at some point you need to move on. >> there was already an unemployment bulge among the very young. youth unemployment across spectrum particularly african-american youth unemployment was high. recession exacerbated that. it added a layer of people over 30, over 40, over 50. they come in with a great deal

of skill set, employers don't want to pay for that. so for people in that situation, taking away their one source of income also robs the greater economy. they would spend that money. that's money that would be spent in their local stores, would be spent in their neighborhoods and communities. you're hurting them and their communities simultaneously. >> and their children. you can't move on to this. six to nine months too early is a lifetime compared to the effect this will have on generations. this tends to spiral from generation to generation and joe talks about growing up when his father was -- >> democrats assume that republicans were okay because they thought they did it done twice in the past, easy political hit for them to put on republicans. i wouldn't rule out on retroactive action. and you can apply these benefits retroactively. i would suggest it be a three

month extension as opposed to a year. but they have to find some money to pay for it. >> let's talk about the political appetite, and the gop, because business interest is stepping up for the gop in the 2014 mid-terms. according to the "wall street journal," republican leaders are teaming up with corporate interest to marginalize the conservative wing of the party. u.s. chamber of commerce and karl rove's group american crossroads launching efforts to launch centrist gop candidates. the strategists define the effort like this. our number one focus is to make sure when it comes to the senate that we have no loser candidates. that's our mantra. no fools on our ticket. republicans don't want to squander recent political gains partly thanks to the botched roll out of obamacare. a new poll shows republicans now have a slight edge over the democrats in the mid-terms, two months ago democrats had an eight-point lead. 36% of republicans say they are

extremely or very enthusiastic voting. 22% of democrats say the same. 55% of people say they will vote for the candidate who is opposed to president obama. josh, people laughed at me two weeks ago when i talked about paul ryan making this budget deal. you have john boehner slapping back at the tea party wing in the house. is it possible that a moderate republican stance can win? >> in a republican primary? i think there are two separate things here. paul ryan, john boehner and mitch mcconnell figured out how to push back on tea party forces particularly because they demonstrated that the government shutdown didn't work out too well. in washington these groups are having success in fighting back. this chamber initiative to spend money on campaigns is likely to be a big waste of money. what will a tea party candidate like better oh, look here's the

rhinos in new york and washington sending in this money to tell you how to vote. these strategies are not effective in party primaries. you can't do this on the left either. >> the more chamber fingerprints republican candidate has on him or her the more likely the tea party is all over the place. that alabama election was one of these instances where it might have worked but there was so much money thrown at the guy but he did end up being in the tea party challenger. it's a pipe dream in many respects. it can backfire in some respects. i would put it to you guys, how much power does the chamber have, political power. they want imfwrags reform it didn't happen. they want to stop obamacare it didn't happen. they wanted to shut down the government. that did happen. >> look how we've changed the terms of the debate. suddenly we have to do pay for anything congress has to do. now we're talking about a karl

rove backed candidate being a moderate. that's insane. in any parlance these are conservative candidates. john boehner is a conservative. but we've moved the needle so far to the right in the republican party that now the tea party is considered just the conservative wing rather than what they were called ten years ago. >> this doesn't concern you at all? >> the republicans having lots of money and spending a lot of money is a concern to democrats because they have to find a way to match it. but essentially karl rove and the establishment guys came in 2012 and impose opened the tea party mitt romney. it's not what they wanted. >> inspiring things for republicans is to be anti-establishment. to be within your own party against the business interest. that's what gets them going. >> not the business interest. >> the bulls win elections not primaries. it's unavoidable to have some

move back to the middle if they want to win. >> but i think it has to come from people realizing they will lose elections over and over again not from money spent on business. you dump this money in local races and there's a backlash against it. they say this is foreign. this is not what we want and we won't vote for it. democrats worry about republican money but republicans seem to spend their money tearing each other apart. >> let's go to breaking news overseas. in lebanon five people were killed by a large explosion in beirut. nbc news confirmed a target a senior aide to the former prime minister was killed in the attack. his car was totally destroyed and near by restaurants were also damaged. at this hour much of the city has been on lock down. we go to cairo for more. tell us more. >> reporter: the explosion happened this morning as you

mentioned about 9:30 a.m. local time in beirut and as senior members of this political party were all getting together to attend a weekly meeting. it was considered to be somewhat of an important meeting for these political figures, all of them from what is called the march 14th political bloc. this political party is one of the major parties in lebanon that opposes the rule of bashir al assad and oppose hezbollah. the former prime minister was a notable lebanese politician. he was a former finance minister, imf executive and at one point served as lebanon's ambassador to washington. so he was a very well-respected individual. he, in fact, with several of his body guards and others were killed in this morning's deadly bomb blast. just a few hours, in fact an

hour before his death a very ominous tweet was sent from his twitter account in which he said hezbollah this group we're talking about, the powerful militant group had actually tried to exercise more control over lebanon security forces and its foreign policy. he was very critical of this organization and more importantly very critical of it because it supported this syrian president bashir al assad in neighboring syria. it's another bloody and deadly day in lebanon, pushing that country to more violence over the course of the last three years civil war that engulfed neighboring syria. >> you're in egypt and we have the news that the intradition military government called the muslim brotherhood a terrorist group and there's fears of more civil unrest. give us some perspective of what's going on today in egypt? >> reporter: today is friday, first day of the weekend and notoriously very prominent day for street protests.

the muslim brotherhood is being undeterred by the fact that its labelled a terrorist organization. its called on its supporters in various cities across the country to go to the streets despite the fact that the egyptian government as you mentioned has warned a very severe crackdown would take place if anybody demonstrates on behalf of the muslim brotherhood. there's a few hundred protesters taking place here in cairo and other cities across the country. no reports ever violence from today's demonstrations alone. >> live for us in cairo. thank you. coming up on "morning joe," waiting for rescue. how a ship with 74 passengers wound up getting stuck in the ice in the antarctic. up next the top stories in the political playbook. here's dylan dreyer with a check on your forecast. >> it's going to be a pretty nice weekend across most of the country except the southeast. right now the weather remains fairly quiet, chilly in the

northeast. we're starting off below freezing but warm up nicely throughout the day. 29 in boston. 32 in new york and 32 in washington, d.c. we do have lake-effect snow. there's a little disturbance moving through the eastern great lakes right now. most of the snow we see will be north of syracuse. we could end up with six to 12 inches today. but across the east coast itself we're looking for a good amount of sunshine, 49 degrees in washington, d.c. it is going to be a nice pleasant day. further south down across southern texas that's where we have a bigger storm system that will affect the southeast by saturday and eventually the northeast by sunday. we'll see perhaps as much as a couple of inches of run across parts of southern texas. temperatures should be in the 50s. as we head into the weekend we should see rain in atlanta. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

"stubborn love" by the lumineers did you get my email? i did.

let's take a look at the morning papers here from our parade of papers. "chicago tribune," u.p.s. trying to deliver christmas packages that didn't arrive on time and trying to get them there as we speak. the world's biggest delivery company said perfect storm of bad weather, increase on line shopping and shorter shopping season caused delays. amazon is offering $25 gift cards and refunds. this is a head scratcher. >> is it 2001 or 2013. this is what they do. >> this is why you need the flying drone delivery. >> don't get me started on that. this is as insane as the government can't get the health care website up and running. none of these things should be a surprise. we had a shorter season, yes. there was a bad weather. it's december.

that's when these companies do the bulk of their business. i got my stuff on time. i ordered my mother the wonderful collection of norah efron and it came fine on time and i opened it up there was a giant crack. i'll be emailing amazon. it's a little unforgivable. it may be too harsh. >> they are offering $25. i want $23. i spent $23 extra. i ordered gifts for my nieces and they are little kids and they want to open their kids on christmas not two days later. what's ironic is doesn't the right want to replace the post office with u.p.s. and fedex. >> i think people should be grateful if you forgot to get a gift for anybody you have a ready made excuse. it teaches children a useful lesson about waiting. >> i'm with lee. i did a documentary on both of these companies and they brag

how they can handle anything and everything. the weather doesn't matter. if you don't know what they do, everything goes into their central hub, one in louisville, one in memphis and they chop it up and it all goes back out. >> remember where you would hire someone to pretend they were lay it on delivery, stomp on the box, i take blame for your late birthday gift. billion dollar deal. >> you're being asked by amazon to pay extra money. >> everybody is at fault. you're at fault for ordering on the 24th expecting to it get there the next day. amazon is at fault for over promising and fedex and ups conditioned us. >> all these companies now the next goal for them is like same hour delivery. this is what they are looking for now. >> i'm lasering printing by gift. governor nicki hally sparked

controversy an sharing her christmas gift. our family had a wonderful christmas together i must have been good santa gave me a baretta px 4 storm. the picture of the gun which retails for $575 pulled in thousands of comments in the social media site. >> trying too hard. #tryingtoohard. you want to be on the 2016 ticket. >> "usa today," twitter shares continue to soar up nearly 182% since trading began in november. that makes the social media company once of the best performing ipos of the year. twitter sports 29.9 billion dollar market cap. ahead of target, time warner cable, shares closed above $73. the average person, although for the average person bought when

it popped at the ipo price. >> isn't that the story of 2013. you know, i also think twitter does have some issues. i think it's a very -- it did what we all expected it to do. largely. but there's a moneticization issue. many accounts are not real. and, you know, this is a company that still has a lot of work in front of it. >> wasn't facebook the answer to that. people that invested at the ipo lost a lot of money in the first couple of months. >> if you were involved in that ipo you lost a ton if you bought at the bottom you did extremely well. that's 100% true. if twitter becomes the news feed of the world it's one thing but they've infiltrate main street america which in our circles we love it and use it but the average joe is still not fully bought in.

>> some communities are. for twitter it's become also a secondary source of marketing for traditional media. if you look at michele scandal that was restored by twitter and the fact it creates a need to watch something in real-time as opposed to dvring. it's a way to use it. >> "salt lake tribune," utah is trying to put a stop to same sex marriage. the attorney general's office plans to file an appeal with the supreme court after state officials after consulting with an outside firm. a judge ruled the ban was unconstitutional. the state's previous four appeals were denied. >> houston chronicle, 74 tourist, scientists and crew members strand aboard a ship that is trapped in the ice off the coast of antarctica. the special research voyage got stuck at sea on christmas morning. the passengers are not in any immediate danger.

i hope they are in good company and have enough at the bar. three ice breaker vessels are scheduled to reach the ship sometime today. it's memorable. >> who does that? i saw the movie "the day after tomorrow," i got a flashback of that. >> why would you willingingly go up there? >> "wall street journal," no big winners at the box office this holiday except the industry as a whole, movies pulled in a total of $78 million on wednesday. that's the second highest christmas day total of all time. "the hobbitt" held at number one taking in $9.3 million. "wolf of wall street" took second place. anchorman 2 rounded out the top three pulling in $8 million. i have seen none of those. i saw "american hustle." >> it was a little oversold. jennifer lawrence was phenomenal. head and shoulders above

everybody else. i saw "frozen" with the kids which was solid. >> just stop the show. it's over. >> let's go to the "new york times." for the second year in a row hbo "game of thrones" most pirated show on television. they were illegally downloaded nearly 6 million times. amc's "breaking bad" and "walking dead" round out the top three. >> that's my whole binge watching schedule. get your ipad and binge watch for the entire week. >> 6 million doesn't sound that much. the vast majority of people watching these series are watching them legally.

>> here with us now from washington with the morning playbook, jonathan allen. happy holidays. >> i hope this clip is downloaded 6 million times. probably not. >> sorry. yesterday the president signed the defense bill. there was a battle between senator hildebrand. >> hildebrand fought the army and the army won. to get the sexual assault cases removed from the military command failed. she promise ad vote next year. with a republican house it's unlikely to happen. couple other big issues. guantanamo bay, the president is unhappy. can't transfer prisoners from guantanamo bay to the united states soil. it's been made a little bit easier to transfer them to other

countries but that's still an issue. >> claire mccaskill came on one side for jill hildebrand. will it come back? >> hildebrand deserves a lot of credit for being the driving source of making sexual assault in the military a front page issue and pushing to get reform. in the end a lot of democrats don't want to put themselves i guess in their mind on the wrong side of the military. the military was not for moving these cases out of the chain of mand. but hildebrand even though this particular piece didn't get through she deserves enormous credit. >> absolutely. they have now a year review that the president has ordered for military forces to look at this issue in more depth. i wouldn't rule out it becoming an issue once again if this problem persists. she did a world of good i think on this front. >> americans for prosperity targeting democrats up for re-election in key districts with a major ad buy.

their spots showcase americans who claim they lost their insurance plans because of obamacare. >> it's the lie of the year. >> if you like the plan you have can you can keep it. >> 140,000 minnesotans have already lost their coverage. people like randy. >> i received notice that my current insurance was no longer qualified. i've had three heart attacks in the last six years. health care is something that's essential and my life depends on it. >> obamacare is hurting minnesotans and congressman rick nolan voted to keep it. >> obamacare needs to be repealed. >> jonathan do you think this stuff will get some traction? january we start to get the health care plan kicking in. you would think we would get marketing push the other way as well. >> we'll see 11 months of ads just like that against the 200 plus democrats in the house and senate running for re-election plus some candidates who weren't even in congress to vote for obamacare or to defend it.

but do i think we'll also see push in the other direction. you'll start to see some positive stories of people getting insurance that needed it that didn't have it before coming out of the white house in the near future. we'll see how that battle plays out. those are pretty strong ads and we've seen some on the senate side. this one for americans for prosperity. expect to see it again and again from them and in different forms from other organizations. >> obamacare, affordable care, so many problems. it's been hard for the white house and the democrats sort of push back, but come january 1, would you think with the coverage kicking in, they could counter this. >> you know, it's going to be interesting. there's a big "new york times" story now that the benefits are there you'll have 2 million people in the private insurance markets not to count the 4 million or so estimated to be in medicaid. what will republicans do? will they still go full board saying it is to be repealed or

find their talk points and attack ads. josh, you have been following this issue. i'm curious if there's an alternative health care plan they will put out there. rally around it or keep going with ads like this. >> they won't go with any alternative plan. any alternative plan you create creates a new set of losers. the republican party has opposed whatever has come out from the left but hasn't pushed their own plans. it's been smart. when you try to reform health care and create access for people who don't have it it cost as lot of money. a key part of how they paid obamacare are measures that's causing premium increase forkrc substantial number of people. >> how the republicans message this for the mid-terms is going to really dictate how it goes for them in many ways. we'll talk about this more.

jonathan allen we appreciate the time. happy new year. coming up a couple of major injury updates for the last week of the nfl regular season. lee is focused on football. who is in and who is out next in sports. mine was earned orbiting the moon in 1971. afghanistan in 2009. on the u.s.s. saratoga in 1982. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve current and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

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the regular season in the nfl and plenty to play for. let's go to the nfc first. we'll do all the scenarios so get out your pen and note pad. you want to write this down. seattle can lock up number one seed with a win. if they lose oakland top spot for the panthers. panthers lose, the niners could slide in. green bay chicago straight up. battle for the nfc central crown. aaron rodgers will suit up for the packers. cowboys and eagles play for the nfc east. tony romo may not play because of a back injury. cardinals can sneaking in the wild card and saints loss. >> cardinals can end up 11-5 and out of the playoffs. >> happened the year tom brady got hurt. they were up 11-5 and didn't

make it. afc, this is tough, lee. >> i'm with the eagles. >> all right. broncos clinch the top spot but pats can steal it. bengals can jump into the number two seed and first-round buy if the patriots lose and they beat the ravens. chiefs they are locked into first wild card four teams left vying for the final spot. this is where it gets complicated. dolphins are in with a win and the charters win or ravens loss. ravens are in with a win and dolphins loss or chargers loss. the chargers will make it with a win and ravens and dolphins loss. if all three lose and the steelers win pittsburgh makes it. of course that 50 seconds i just did nobody will remember any of that. and it doesn't matter. >> but you said the word if broncos lose which is heresy.

>> i want them to lose because of the tiebreaker and we get the buy. >> i don't think we can be friends. >> got cold in here. >> we'll have to do a little side wager on the afc title game. >> your fantasy season is over. >> no. it sucks to have a fantasy playoff in week 17. you loved these guys. now benched. >> your commissioner should end the playoffs. >> i'm the commissioner. >> so, this is an interesting story. tony romo's back injury is leaving them in flux and they had to sign another quarterback. so they signed current math teacher concern itna. he'll get 53 grand. he'll donate the check to the high school where he has been teaching in tacoma, washington. it's his home town. he'll not be missing any school days. >> this is like a good disney

movie. he gets into the game and leads them on the last drive for a touchdown and all the math kids run out on the field. >> we can't afford to lose any of our math teachers. it's true. at least he won't be missing any school. i hope he doesn't give it up. >> he won't continue to play. >> have you ever seen him play? don't worry about that tacoma kid. >> coming up next most read opinion pages. "morning joe" comes right back.

live picture of the capitol in washington, d.c. time for the must reed op-ed. in the "wall street journal," peggy noonan, finding the good in an uninspiring year. on the upside, republicans proved to be right on the health care law and have room now to be right on other things. democrats could, if they choose see their position this way. they are taking a drubbing on obamacare but the very catastrophe of that program has highlighted the fact that they kind of won the argument on the need to do something big on health care. people aren't saying get rid of obamacare and then do nothing. they are saying repeal it and replace it with something. democrats are so concussed they've barely noticed that people do want health care help and it will probably have to be national in scope. looking at it, this way democrats have to do something.

progress is always possible. the world is full of surprise. josh, you said kind of the opposite in the sense that you don't think the republicans should offer up anything. >> politically i don't think they would be wise to. i don't know what planet peggy noonan is filing this column from. for republicans to turn it into a negotiation in remaking the american health care situation this is a discussion that should have been had on 2009. the president wanted republican votes on the bill. if republicans say we're not going to repeal this we have to replace it with something what will they replace it with? a lot of people won't be able to afford a plan we have to give out subsidies, you built obamacare. >> most conservative republicans don't want another big government program so they don't

want anything. they just want to get rid of it all together and that ship has sailed. >> right. i think josh is absolutely right. the most insane political advice you could give to a party is, remember that long drawn out year long excruciating fight over remaking the health care system let's do it again. but you drive it this time. fundamentally the core of the party doesn't believe if you can't afford health care you should get it by virtue of subsidy from the government. they don't believe in the fundamental principle. there's this principle within the conservative movement that you deserve just the amount of health care you can afford. beyond that you shouldn't get anything. >> she says democrats have won a 30 year argument but now they should start create something that will work. i'm fascinated by our rush to quick judgment on a program that's supposed to take effect in several years. it's two months old. how can you say a national system like this two months in

the making. >> people don't want it there at all. they want to wipe i want from existence. >> we have to step back and say are we rushing to judgment too quickly. should we give it some space. will our assessments after january 1st be different than our assessment on 234069. >> it would be nice if this was a signature piece of legislation. >> clearly. >> i think there's a lot of -- 30 days of website didn't work. it was a disaster. >> they have three years to make it work and they screwed that up. you have to step back and let the reforms take place and see fit works. >> what did we waste our year on? we wasted a lot on nfl playoff matchups but we'll take a bigger look at it next on "morning joe". ♪

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♪ willie's mustache looks good. >> all right. willie geist hosting one hour special that takes a look back at what we wasted our time on over the past year. willie joined by a panel of comedians as they go through the most talked about things which includes one person that we talked about way too much on this show. kim kardashian. >> i have to confess again, i don't like to brag too much but i learned from the master. a selfie this year. this is an actual photograph of

me and our dear friend kim k. how about that? i have to tell you let's take a picture and she said let's do it. i think she takes her own selfie. >> only one angle where you can't tell that there's nothing behind her eyes. [ laughter ] it's like right here. because you go right there and the truth is out. >> let's move on to the jonas brothers. quickly who can name all three of them. >> dopey, vanity, gluttony. >> two out of the three. >> i was devastated when i found out they broke up because now i'm going to have to spend all that time ignoring their careers individually. >> for me i have a pop culture one and a political one. the miley cyrus thing just drove

me crazy. >> breaking ball? >> it's a young woman going through obviously a bit of -- she's got some things to work out. >> clearly. >> i didn't think it was very interesting at all. >> you got a good one. i'll give you my political one. >> "duck dynasty" which we spent the last month on. i write mostly about the economy. i wrote two pieces about "duck dynasty" in the last week. so if we're wasting time on this it's really the reader's fault that they are making us waste time on that. >> anthony weiner thing another waste of time. i don't know him personally at all. we're supposed to have a certain bar for our elected people and the fact that we had to devote so much time on him and so many people put so much time on his examine and for that to go on like that. it made me uncomfortable talking about it that much. >> one news story that i feel like we waste ad lot of time on

and we spent a lot of time to debunk it was this whole knock out game story. it started out with two videos that went online. every time you clicked on one same two videos. we turned it into a trend. it was an antsy racial polarization moment for the country where certain people were trying to find a horrible trend that proved that african-american boys were going after -- >> in terms of stirring up fear it worked. i know people walked down the street differently, patterned their behavior differently because of those stories. it frightened people. >> really? >> you guys turned a comedic segment into something serious. >> miley cyrus. breaking ball. >> what we wasted our year on tonight on msnbc at 9:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m. central. coming up alan greenspan talks

about the economy, past present and future and the comedian less intelligent carol burnett talks about breaking barriers in the comedy world. "morning joe" will be right back. it gets an impressive 34 highway mpg and comes with no charge scheduled maintenance. and right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature. sign. then drive. get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on any new 2014 volkswagen. hurry, this offer ends january 2nd. visit vwdealer.com today

♪ welcome back to "morning joe." brian shactman here this morning, in for mika. and sam is in for joe. >> that's right. that's what they told me. >> feeling okay? >> feel great. feeling confident. talking about my career in

congress. taking notes. >> i had to do some sort of -- lee gallagher, joy reed back with us. in washington national political correspondent for the "new york times" jonathan martin. jonathan i have to ask you quickly because i'm a big football fan. has the twitter furor over your name has it calmed down for you? can you go out? >> it has calmed down. there was one last dying gasp over the weekend. the dolphins had a poor performance. it's nowhere near what it was a couple of months ago. >> of course he has the same name as lineman for the miami dolphins who left the team because of bullying allegations. >> i was very confused. he was a tackle. >> you lost quite a bit of

weight. we appreciate you being -- >> about five inches too. >> exactly. we want to start off with snowden here. for national security reporters edward snowden is the gift that keeps on giving. in a recent interview he declared with no tongue in cheek george w. type line mission accomplished. even delivered an alternative christmas message that was broad in the uk comparing the state of the u.s. and british surveillance to the world of george orwell. >> we have sensors in our pocket that track us. think of what this means for the privacy of the average person. a child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. they will never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves. and unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. together we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance, and remind the government that

if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying. >> of course they don't know then they will think it's private. in a piece for "the guardian," rhoden wrote a separate issue. quote trillions of new pages of text remember classified each year. more than 4.8 million people now have security clearance including low level contractors like edward snowden. committee established by congress the public interest declassification board warned in december rampant over classification is impeding informed government decisions and informed public and worse enabling corruption and malfeasance. this is balanced. the public trust and then safeguarding, you know, our national security. so, where do they meet? >> i think the point is this. he declares mission accomplished indeed he's topped debate the latest pew poll shows a majority

of the young people think the leaks were in public interest. but what's been lost in this debate is he a her jobs isn't' her jobs all the personality driven pieces of this conversation is the array of large engineer systemic problems one of which you highlighted, which is for anyone who has seen the security apparatus from the inside it's wildly apparent that we clarify too many documents, we keep too many secrets, and there's not enough space for people to actually talk about the problem itself. which is why we get these whistle blowers that turn into an explosive national issue in the first place. >> that also brings up the issue of if with more contractors, more classified information are we going to enable more snowdens, more contractors or lower level employees wanting to make themselves some kind of hero. >> it's interesting. what was news to me was the fact you have this extensive network of contractors people given

security clearances and the fact they have security clearances and someone like edward snowden could have access to this information and walk out the door with it is terrifying. with the overclassification piece you have ron white and members of congress that have been alarmed by these patriot act provisions but couldn't publicly protest them or publicly discuss them. >> it took on a comical tone when others tried to discuss tissue because they would cite problems with the nsa problems that they couldn't refer to in specific terms. they would send letters with the issue or the problem. when you got to that point -- >> that classic moment with general alexander. i want to turn this to jonathan. the proposals for reforming the nsa and our intelligence gathering apparatus were made, the president will look at them. talk to us how you see this debate playing out in the next

year and the odd bed fellows, the coalitions that are developing with civil libetarians and republicans. >> you do have an element in both parties, you mentioned civil libertarians on the left. libertarians on the right. you got this issue. rand paul from kentucky who wants to run for president on the right. folks who are sort of in the left stream of the democratic party, people like bernie sanders, for example, from vermont who feel very passionate about this issue as well and so i think you're going to see pressure applied to sort of national security establishmen that's personified by the nsa by the executive branch and frankly

by sort of the intelligence committee culture in both parties. you got folks like diane feinstein that are much more hawkish. >> can they make it an issue in the republican primary where rand paul has a different ideology. >> it can help his base. galvanize his father's libertarian base. if he's savvy enough to portray this as an example of obama's excess, president obama's overreach he can use it in a primary context. what's interesting is when he gets to more hawkish states like south carolina can he portray this as an obama issue or are people going say hold on a second we actually like a touch national security approach regardless of who is in the oval office. that's going the real test. >> let's talk about obama especially as it leads up to the mid-term elections.

as he puts 2013 behind him and of course it's nice to do that on the warm shores of hawaii, let's look ahead. "usa today" and this is a very dynamic topic and i want to stop on one of them later. "usa today" put together the critical dates for the president in 2014 and the logical place to begin is the state of the union next month. in 2013 he focused on the health of the economy, getting the budget in line, the affordable care act, job creation, especially through the energy sector but also highlighted the suffering middle class and growing income gap. joy, i'm a little more cynical on these kind of speeches. i feel they have to touch on every subject and a platformy kind of thing and i don't know what gets down. what do you think is the one or two things that he needs to talk about and follow through on. >> the president opened up a conversation on inequality. it's the seminal issue of our time. it's something he can address that's a table setter for

himself and the last two years of his presidency. he can talk about national security. that debate is here and has arrived and something that he can directly impact because of the oversight of the nsa. so i think if does those two things but it's go to be about the economy, jobs and inequality. >> can i jump in here? >> sure. >> frankly i don't think the president has opened the conversation. the president is responding to the conversation on inequality. this conversation began before president obama really turned his focus to it. he's catching up frankly with where his party is. as sam knows because he's done reporting on this as well. sort of the, you know, tale of two cities. it's really shaping up now where the party is. one of the more fascinating things to see play out is not only president obama catching up to it in the coming months, it's hillary clinton catching up to

it as well. >> i'm old enough to remember a presidential candidate that talked about two americas. i forgot his name. things worked out well for him. >> the problem is this also. the prior year he made a variety of promises that we're not even talking about any more. obama's promises on early education where he said every preschooler should get a quality education. that's been lost in the partisanship and gridlock of washington. unfortunately i don't foresee circumstance arising this year where he has a lot of leeway to make those promise particularly with his democratic colleagues about to go up for the mudd terms. >> this is what i want to get into. the deadline is set in march to enroll for health care before penalties kick in. most major deadlines have been quite flexible. so i goth hammered yesterday on twitter. we talked earlier in this conversation about how it's here so, you know, these are small

problems in the bigger picture of health care. but i think it is a major issue whether they get to the 7 million or not doesn't matter. i use the metaphor with academics. if your professor says your final is due on this date and someone says i didn't get the work done can i get it in on following tuesday and everybody else chimes in. what is the deadline. if people don't usual in to get in the deadline. the whole point of these deadlines is they think that's when people will rush to sign up. >> brian is a better student. >> signing up for my own company's health care plan every november do you know how many times i have to get that e-mail. i always miss it. it's not just me. they give me another weekend or whatever. i do think, you know, the most important people as we all know to sign up here are the young and healthy and they are the last people to sign up because they don't need it.

>> this is so complicated, so much more complicated. >> please illuminate. please give us your wisdom. >> give me two minutes. within these individual markets you have to have a mix. it's not just young healthy people nationally. within different states, within markets, within different states, within certain plans winter different markets you have to have a good mix of healthy individuals and unhealthy individuals so it works. these deadlines, everything we've read about this january 1st, about december 23rd deadline even though it was moved back seemed to encourage information sign up. 2 million were visiting the website on the day before. even though there was obviously recognition that they are going to fudge the deadline and still to the end of march. there certainly is an appetite for purchasing insurance out there. i would gather the march date is fudged like this one was. people want to buy the product. they know they need insurance. i wouldn't be surprised if they exceeded the expectations.

>> massachusetts is a model. this is the way it works. >> all the young healthy people lined up at the last minute because other than brian we're procrastinators. we'll see the numbers surge. >> this can be played two ways. the republicans are going to say this is a sign of total desperation and democrats say we're getting bum rushed at the end. >> go ahead, jonathan. >> my colleague had a great story. political approach if republicans who are now trying to adjust their message to a health care law that's now real. you're talking about people who do have a tangible product health insurance and how do you adjust your political message to reflect that reality. >> let's go to july where the nuclear deal with iran will end.

>> they are considering additional sanctions. that's coming from within the president's own party. how do you prove to a skeptical audience that iran followed the blueprint of this deal six months in that you have pushed back the nuclear missions. i'm not sure how you actually make that affirmative case in a way that's acceptable to skeptical members of congress. >> they have to make a longer term deal and big legacy issue not just for barack obama but john kerry who staked the first portion of his term as secretary of state but also years before that where he was honing in on these mid east issues. he has narrowed now to exclusively focused on those issues which means that this is everything for him. servicing riding on this. in turn president obama's legacy will be affected acutely if they

crash and burn. what they need to do to make the case to congress is that good negotiation requires carrots not just sticks. it's a tough sell. >> what happens at the end of the six month window what do you say to congress. iran they stopped enrichment on that part. >> one problem is that clear metrics weren't built into the agreement in a public way that was communicated well. right now they are working on the final touches in geneva. my hope is we can get some messaging out of the administration in the wake of those final negotiations and actually hear what are we going see in six months. >> november we have the mid-term elections. we'll determine the balance of power in congress. most recent cnn poll shows republicans with a slight edge in generic battles. so much will happen between now and then that could sway it in another direction. where you sit right now how is your sense how the mid-terms will go particularly in the

senate? >> it's interesting because do you have a great number of swing state governorships up. so in those states it's important. democrats have some worrying states like arkansas they have worries. democrats want to change the mix, change the could position of the electorate. if they can get out more minority voters, more women more single voters. >> that's the big challenge for democrats next year. how do they get a turn out that reflects the america of presidential years not the america of off year elections. that was their challenge in 2010 when they had the big loss. if they can up their turn next year they will be more competitive. if not republicans could have a really big year. two things to watch next year in terms of turn out. the minimum wage issue not just on the federal level as a wage issue but a lot of states have ballot initiatives to increase the minimum wage that could be less verse to boost democratic turn out in some of those swing

states. keep in mind also you'll have a lot of republican primaries this spring right around the time of the debt ceiling increase. how do republicans in congress vote on that debt ceiling increase when they have primaries just around the corner. >> the numbers are stacked dense the democrats going into this mid-term. they need to gain 17 states to reclaim house to. by contrast gop needs just six more seats to regain the senate. authors tough odds. >> i look at it the other way. that's the best thing that democrats have going information. they can't lose many more seats. >> let's bring in peter alexander. by the way, if you know peter, if you watched him on the "today" show correspondent he swam with the dolphins. >> i'm so jel allows right now. >> have you gone surfing. >> we built a propel line from our third floor balcony which is

the quickest way to the ocean. >> this is kalikimaka. >> working on happy hanukkah. >> i want to ask you quickly, we start this whole segment off with the state of the union. have you started to get any rumblings or grumblings what he's going to say or is it "way too early" in the process? >> we know one person who is not here right now is the president's speech writer who is back in washington, d.c. focused on exactly what the president will say while the president is out here enjoying some of the time. they will revisit what a lot of you guys were talking about, immigration, the idea of income in equality and one of the topics that plays to that, which is this long term unemployment, this emergency benefit that's going to end beginning tomorrow. this is 1.3 million americans

who have their state benefits running out, those last about 26 weeks, six months and now this benefit that was set up during the great depression to try to accommodate months americans runs out saturday. they get their last check early next week. those checks average $300 a week for americans. this is one issue that the white house thinks is a no brainer, democrats have said should be a political hammer. but there appears to be -- >> the table here and some even the more progressive reporters think it's going to be a tough sell in congress. is the president going to dig his heels and really press to try to get it done? >> i think you're right. it will be a tough sell in congress. the only optimistic news i guess in terms of the president is the fact that there's this bipartisan deal that's being discussed right now maybe a three month extension on this, retroactive, these people would get paid back to this coming weekend beginning early next year. it would also give them more time to try to figure out how to

cover the cost this. john boehner is good with it if they can find a way to offset $25 billion which isn't going to be simple. this plays in to that conversation that the president will bring before americans once again which is that idea of two americas, income in equalikom c. >> jonathan your take on whether the extension for the 1.3 million has a chance when session begins. >> i think it's going a very tough sell. peter's sources are right. look, the fact is you have a house majority and republicans that's not going be apt to do that. in an election year, again w-the possibility of primaries around the corner you have to keep that in mind. what republicans in congress and the house especially are going to be looking at when they come back in january are filing deadlines for the primaries

coming up and those deadlines are largely going to be in february, march and april in the house. they are going to be acting with that firmly in mind. >> one thing to bear in mind is public opinion. two it doesn't play out on the hill it plays out in the hearts and minds of americans every where. latest andy poling show majority of americans feel these unemployment benefits should be extended. i don't know how it will play out. >> is gerrymandering doesn't reflect the rest of the country. the house is drawn in a certain way that's not sort of mass public opinion. >> i would one optimistic thing identify heard from people that support an extension is the local coverage of this issue has been bad. people are upset. it's very easy to break down how many people in specific counties will be hurt by this. so there is a little bit of political pressure locally. the key is where do you find money to cover the cost whether it's three month or a year long. >> legislators wants to get the

military benefits brought back that were cut in the boej deal. so conflicting argument which is one to prioritize. peter, aloha. do something fun for all of us, please. >> we got plenty of fun things to do four. don't worry. >> thanks. we'll see you soon rhoden. still ahead they say the best time for bargains is right after christmas but some lucky delta customers got a whole lot more than they expected. up next former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan joins the conversation. we'll ask him if we should have seen the recession coming and if there's a new bubble on the horizon. "morning joe" will be right cash

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bubbles and having them burst. it's been a staple of the american economic system for several decades but can they be prevented. we recently sat down with one of the most influential economists

of our generation and the man who led federal reserve before the 2008 crash. here with us now former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan who is the author of "the map and the territory, risk, human nature and the future of forecasting." >> mr. chairman, thank you for being with us. >> my pleasure. >> what are the most fascinating parts of the book, you talk about the risk and you talk about what happened with the housing bubble and the mistake we made. you say one of the mistakes is that we assumed that human beings were ration enamel decisi -- rational decision makers. >> everybody assumed a substantial part of human, were rational. big disagreements on what proportion was not only irrational but systematically so. exists would essentially say if it were random you could just forget it but it's not it's

systematic. >> talk about how that over the years leading up to september 15th, 2008, how that led up to the crash. >> well, there's one way of looking at this. it's the way we looked at the federal reserve. federal reserve was always concerned about the fact that if you do a terrific job the economy is balanced and moving forward. as it was leading up to 2008, beware. there's a bubble out there. in fact, necessary and sufficient condition for a bulb told be created is everything looks extraordinarily tranquil because that's when people jump in. >> okay. so i want to know what you think looking back what can prevent financial crises and also on npr you said you could have caught a number of crises. which ones and how so?

>> it's a question of what's causing these various crises. the basic problem that we have is we can't, in fact, forecast beyond the immediate horizon. everyone wants us to. everyone wants to forecast but no one in the real world can do that. so what i found myself doing looking back, is there anything that told me things were about to crack, and i would say no. there is no bubble out there which you can tell when it was going burst. kou te you could tell we have a bubble. most bubbles are benign. >> let's talk about the housing bubble that's being blown up in front of our eyes from 2004 to 2007. when people were given homes, purchasing homes that people knew they couldn't afford.

people issuing mortgage, companies issuing mortgages. what can be done prevent that from happening again. >> the first thing i would say is a simple and very important decision is to raise the regulatory capital levels that banks are required to hold. because i've been in the business for a long time. can you try regulate this or regulate that, people will behave in very unusual ways. but if you for the banks to have enough capital they can absorb whatever losses occur because of very poor underwriting standards. to me that's the big solution. >> so during that time that you're talking about, mike barn cal, it was quite apparent what was going on, was it not? i was in the process of buying and selling homes and i can't tell you what they were trying to get me to buy versus what i knew in common practical terms

what i could afford. it was obvious. >> my banker in pensacola said say joe -- i can't afford this house. here's a great thing. we have an interest-only loan. i said sign me up. and there's suckers like that all over america like me. >> with all due respect, this was obvious, people were being sold homes they can't afford across the board. how does someone not forecast that that's not going to end well? >> well the problem is you can forecast it's not going to end well but you can't forecast when. >> you can prevent it not ending well. by forecasting -- >> you had policymakers on capitol hill on both sides that were invested in pumping up the bubble as much as possible. george w. bush talked about the opportunities in society where everybody can own a house. barney frank was running around

saying you're a racist if you're against getting people into homes that they can't afford with fannie mae and freddie mac. you had both sides pushing. everybody wants low interest rates. you're not going paul volcker in 2006, 2007, 2008. it seemed the whole system was rigged at the time to encourage this speculative behavior because it was good for politicians on both sides. >> when you're at the tail end of the bubble it's inconceivable to say something against it. i'm on record -- i will tell you in transcripts, public remarks, making cautious statements they are completely eliminated from the text. you don't see it any more. >> can i really quickly, brian, instead of directing this to the chairman i'll direct it to you.

it sounds self-serving. i've been saying this for five years. it blows me away alan greenspan was attacked after barney frank and george w. bush got what they wanted and it was his mistake to keep interest rates artificially low. since alan greenspan has retired our monetary policy has become even more aggressive. >> right. >> first of all they condemn what we did over 15, 20 years of extraordinary economic growth and then they double down on that same behavior. >> are there lawmakers in washington, anyone who stands occupant as a thought leader on tissues we've been talking about. >> work on this book, put together the political nature, the political structure of the four caucuses of the house and senate, republican and democrat going all the way back into the 19th-century. we get in every single case sort

of symmetrical distributions. the problem is not that this is so severely different from then, it's that back then we talked to each other. and i recall, i was in the ford administration. jerry ford used to rail at tip o'neill from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and tip shot back with more power than jerry was able to muster. but then at 6:00 tip shows up at the west wing for a bourbon with his old buddy jerry and work got done and the president would call me into the office the next day and said i had an interesting conversation with tip last night. he suggests such and such.

you could see events happening. what we need is daniel patrick moynihan, i would say, bob dole and those types of people who spoke to each other, and we don't have that. and until we get that we're in trouble as a country. as pointed out in your book, ronald reagan was very much that sort of person and it worked. >> what can janet yellen do moving forward to address this challenge? >> she's very skilled economist. she knows what the problems are. the problem of the federal reserve is going to be confronted in the years ahead is to reverse the process of this huge expansion in basically bank reserves and my experience over 18 1/2 years is the worst thing

you want to do if you're in the federal reserve is to tighten up the markets which is what that would do. i never received a single letter in 18 1/2 years coming from anybody including joe saying we ought to tighten. ton was mail came in on the other side. >> the book is "the map and the territory." alan greenspan thank you very much. >> a great honor to have you here. >> we'll be right back with much more "morning joe."

welcome back to "morning joe." and, of course, after the holidays there's some good stories and some bad shopping stories. how about a good christmas surprise for consumers looking to fly on delta. kerry sanders live at the delta terminal in florida why some people got to cash in. >> reporter: brian, there's no catch here. it was just a computer glitch and that computer glitch gave some passengers booking airline tickets unheard of low prices.

delta airlines calls their holiday message the cheer card. >> ladies and gentlemen fasten your seat belts. >> reporter: the real cheers were from those who hit on the unplanned price drop at delta airlines customers who surfed online thursday between 9:30 a.m. until tune saw santa delivering presents. >> i got new york to puerto rico, $73. >> reporter: usual price was 308. new york to las vegas $81. usually $741. >> i was in complete shock. i was oh, my god. wow. for 81 bucks. merry christmas to me. >> reporter: it took just minutes for folks to boast on twirt. kelly wood, christmas miracle alert. just bought a round trip ticket

from charlotte to l.a. for $46. elizabeth, me too. raleigh to philly for $35. i spoke with a rep on the phone and she said if you purchased them they will honor the prices. amy saw tickets from indianapolis to honolulu for $70, first class $88. $3396 ticket. she writes i feel like i won the lottery. committed grand larceny. just three months ago a similar glitch hit united airlines site. united honored every ticket and delta says it will too. jamie who works at travel zoo calls her trip to puerto rico a baby moon. last big trip before giving birth. >> made for a lovely post-christmas gift for us. >> reporter: delta will not reveal how many tickets it sold in that period. call me suspicious but i thought maybe this was some sort of

stealth marketing campaign but delta airlines assures me this was a costly unplanned mistake. >> in the end it's not that costly. they got their marketing dollars out of it. happy new year. appreciate it. kerry sanders live for us. whether it was -- it seems like it wasn't on purpose but a net positive for the airlines. >> they should have said it was on purpose because this is an industry that's so desperately needs consumers to like it again and this would have been an easy way to do it. the problem is now in the day of twitter -- in the old days a couple of people would have done it. it probably exploded. >> i got a ticket from new york to l.a. and delta is paying me to fly on the flight, $25 giving me for that round trip ticket. >> you have to do the inflight announcements. >> incredible. thank you delta. >> thank you, sam. coming up the super bowl. more than a month away and first time in new york and that means ticket prices are at levels that you would not believe.

coming up next author richard north patterson talks about his novel about the 1960s. more "morning joe" in two minutes. (vo) you are a business pro. seeker of the sublime. you can separate runway ridiculousness...

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ah speak to customer service, check on a claim...you know, all with the ah, tap of my geico app. oh, that's so cool. well, i would disagree with you but, ah, that would make me a liar. no dude, you're on the jumbotron! whoa. ah...yeah, pretty much walked into that one. geico anywhere anytime. just a tap away on the geico app. ♪ 1968, it was a historic year for u.s. politics and culture. prolific author richard north patterson sat down with mike are barn cal, katty kay to discuss his latest novel during that era. >> joining us now award-winning author richard north patterson out with his latest book "loss of innocence" which focuses on a girl's coming of age in the

historic summer of 1968. in it mr. patterson writes in part for whitney the memory was piercing, girls crowded around the tv in me do, south, black faces shouting or sobbing, newsmen barking updates that changed nothing, whitney imagined the young black boy she was tutoring in roxbury and feared she would never see him again. who could black people bleen in. the book is "loss of innocence." do you have trouble selling books? you sell about 8 million books every time one comes out. >> my children have their needs. i often say alimony and tuition are great inspiration to your art. >> 1968, though, was such a cataclysmic, compelling year that in my opinion affects us still today as does the war in vietnam affects us still today. give us the root the nature of

this story? >> well, essentially it concerns whitney who is a 21-year-old graduate. she comes to put the finishes touches on her wedding. over the summer everything changes. her relationship with her mother, father, best friend, certificate, her sense of where she wants to go in the world. through a few shock events towards the end of her summer her life is turned upside down. i tried to do through whitney what happened to american women at the time because the feminist movement was one of the most dramatic and long lasting of the moments that came from the '60s and still with us in various ways. >> also, the pegs that she would have in that year that would move anyone's life or all terrify anyone's almost life. robert kennedy is assassinated. >> we had mccarthy rally the anti-war kids, kennedy jumping

into the race, johnson going out, martin luther king killed, riots in the city, kennedy killed, police riots at chicago convention. what's going on with kids people my age sexual revolution, allenation of parents. >> why did you choose to tell it through a female protaganist. you don't get men writing love stories. >> it was a challenge. but it seemed to me if i was going to write about '68 and the women's movement which i thought was so important that hit to be from the point of view of a woman. i had to express how she changed. obviously the feminist movement was a great help to me because men and women started to talk to each other more honestly about sex, careers, what they wanted from life. also i talked to graduates of wheaton college in 1968.

we had a great time. i sent the block to gloria steinham. women today i think, think they are living in tumultuous times, but it seems like today's times don't hold a candle to the time you wrote about. what are the parallels between what they were going through and what a 21-year-old woman might being going through now. >> few young women understood what their mothers and grandmothers went through. how different it was and the beast of burden and the homemakers were women. there were opportunities for women in the workplace. there were problems as they indicated. i think that they are standing in the shoulders of women who went through sexual harassment

that they don't have to face and went through difficulties of finding jobs they don't have to face and what had very little help from a lot of people. >> that part of the motivation. was it part of the motivation to remind women on whose shoulders they stand? >> i have daughters and you remember paul mccartney's group, wings. they're so anti-historical. i thought i would write about a young woman and it would get to them in a moving way rather than me talking about it. >> talk about the interviews you did and what kind of things you did. >> what they did about birth control in 1967. it was about everything about how they saw themselves and how when they had ambitions and perhaps because they were feeling defensive about their

own role in the family and how they saw man and how they managed their marriages and how they changed. the more remarkable story about the woman who planned a wedding with the same minster and the bride's maids and the dresses and the place to have the wedding and the get away. the guy dumped her over summer. she found another in the same ceremony and same brides maid. only the guy was different. it's a measure of the way things changed. they stopped doing that in the same way. >> the book is loss of innocence. thanks very much. more "morning joe" in a moment. heart healthy, huh?!

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>> next on "morning joe," the fed is scaling back bond buying and the economy growing at the fastest pace in two years. is it time to start calling the economy strong? also the pick for the top interview of the year, carol burnett. "morning joe" will be right back. this is the quicksilver cash back card from capital one.

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it is friday, december 27th. in for joe, you are in for joe. >> how many inches and how many pounds and how many years? >> i feel it's less. i have to say i'm sorry. the editor and white house correspondent for the post.

assistant managing editor from the grio and msnbc contributor and host of the ed show. feeling good. feeling really good. watch out, folks. it's a little cliche, but it's tighter. i feel like i ate a lot. >> when do you take down the tree and how long do you keep that? >> the hanukkah bush stays up all year. i think they keep it up as long as they can. it's beautiful. the walking around here is insane. >> in the tunnels. it's the favorites.

they had another record close yesterday. 122 points. that's the 50th record high of 2013. they are getting closer to 17,000 in the dow. that came amid unemployment claims that fell to 338,000. that can be seen as the latest positive sign for the job market and investors react to the fed at ben bernanke's decision with the bond purchases next month. they roll back about 10 billion a month that could end the program by the end of 2014 if the economy stays strong. last week they announced they went by 4.1%, the fastest in about two years. unemployment benefits will expire for 1.3 million americans tomorrow. it goes back to the great

recession and about 300 a week for people and expenditures of $325 billion. the democrats pushed to get this in the bipartisan deal and it did not work out. i will put it to you first. the whole argument for a lot of these programs, if you are growing at 4%, jobless rates are down and stock marks are higher and there is less coverage. >> we are becoming two countries. you have one for the very well off who do great in the stock market and doing great, but this other economy, i think it's the fear economy. that's true. he had the safety net at the bottom. they have three africans for every one job in this economy. it's not that people are lazy and don't want to look for work. people can't find work and the

longer it is to get a job. employers look unfavorable against somebody who has been unemployed for a long time. they don't a lobby and anyone to argue for their interests. there is a cost to conservatives. they can prove the cost cutting with the base and there is no one to get them out as a result. it's the cruel way to practice. >> i agree. it's a shame. it's sad that we got to this point and it seems like a long way away. the thing is, everything is going fairly well in the economy. there other indicators along with the ones you mentioned. this is it. jobs is our thing. we don't have the demand and we don't have the growth and all the things that are done. this is the thing they cannot do. the other thing is to get these

benefits you need to qualify. what this means is this can push many more people to the side of the scale where they are dropping out of the workforce entirely. that's what we don't want. >> that's what mark was saying. you can create a class of people who leave the workforce. they will say i'm done searching if are a job and i put in my time and i'm going to stop it. there is another misconception that this is a program for the poor. this is not a program for the poor. this is a program for the unemployed that tends to go across social stratas. some made six figures a year ago. he lot of his job and he wanted to get back into that business he was in. after a year he couldn't find any work. he depleted his savings and was living off of his wife's income. his benefits were set to expire and he had to make serious lifestyle changes because of it.

we are at a point where it doesn't make as much sense as people think to rip out the rug. >> there is what do do you? do you do it? perpetuity? what is the alternative to do for these people? >> i will put it to josh specifically. politically, is there any way that this will be resurfacing in january? >> i think it's difficult to figure out where you get the money for that. they have to come up with a $25 billion force and why didn't it end up in the budget deal? they created about $65 billion for adding spending. it's about 40 billion in the first yore and 25 in the second year. if you wanted to do the unemployment benefits extension, it takes up about 63%. there were a lot of other priorities and democrats decided it was not the first priority. they wanted to get back to normalcy and it was across the

discretionary budget. this fell by the wayside and agree it was too early. this was a much better time than six months ago. probably about another year. favorably it might have been we are starting to see it's not purely in the stock markets and other areas that affected the wealthy. we started to see an up tick in wage growth. at the worst we had about six applicants per job opening. we are starting to see housing starts and job growth had gone above the 200,000 a month pace that was typical. the recovery is still fragile and you have twice as many unemployed than last time. we are probably nine months to a year too early to say. >> these conversations are so difficult. we want to have an objective conversation with real lives involved. we are lucky we have jobs and so

so our perspective might be different. i still believe there is a structural employment problem in this country. there is a large swath of people who might have trouble getting the lifestyle they had before back. it might be a generation lot of. people look forward to education and say we can't duplicate this. it's not that we don't care about 1.throw million people, but what can we do about the community of people who don't have jobs? we have to educate for the future and move on. there was already unemployment and youth unemployment and african-american unemployment has been that way for a long time. it added a layer of people over 30. some are over 50. it's more difficult to find a

job because they come in with a great deal of skill set where they don't want to pay. they have less experience. for people in that situation, taking away the one source of income robs the greater economy. the money would be spent in the local community. you are hurting them simultaneously. >> i don't think you can move o. to nine months too early is a time compared to what effect it has on the generations. it tends to spiral from generation to generation. >> in politics, one of the things is that the democrats assume they had done it twice in the past and it was an easy gift for them to put on. it was a retroactive action when they come back in january. it's press coverage for them as

republicans. you can apply them retroactively. it's a three-month extension, but they have to find some money to pay for it. >> let's talk about the political appetite. they are stepping up in the 2013 mid-terms. republican leaders are teaming up with corporate interests to marginalize the party. they are calling those who are launching efforts to support centrist gop candidates. they have the local strategists to define the effort like this. the number one focus is to make sure when it comes to the senate, we have no loser candidates. no fools on our ticket. republicans don't want to squander political gains thanks to obamacare. republicans have a slight edge in the mid-terms.

two months ago democrats had an eight-point let. 36% say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. 22% of democrats say the same. 55% say say will vote for the candidates who is opposed to president obama. people laughed at me when i talked about paul ryan and it's a tea party in the wing. is it possible that they could win? >> in a republican primary? >> i think there two things here. paul ryan and john boehner and mitch connell figured out how to push back, particularly because they demonstrated to members of the house that the shut down cannot work out too well for anybody. in washington they are having success in fighting back. the chamber spent monocampaigns and ended up being a waste of

money. they are sending this money and telling me how to vote. >> stuck in antarctic a the latest on the effort to free those stranded in an expedition. widespread issues with christmas deliveries and amazon is offering an i'm sorry gift. first here's dylan with a check on the forecast. >> it is going to be a nice weekend except the southeast. the weather remains quiet and chilly in the northeast. below freezing. it should warm up as we go through the day. 29 in boston and 32 in new york and down in washington, d.c. we have lake effect snow most of the snow north of kir suze and the area that normally gets

snow. we could have to 12 inches there today. across the east coast, we are looking for sunshine and even 49 degrees in washington, d.c. it is going to be a nice pleasant day. further south in parts of texas, we have a bigger system developing and it will affect the southeast by saturday and the northeast by sunday. as much as a couple of inches of rain across parts of southern texas. temperatures should be in the 50s. we will start to see rain in atlanta and that will make its way into the northeast by sunday. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. bl are you ready grandma? just a second, sweetie.

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>> let's take a look at the morning paper.

u.p.s. are trying to deliver christmas packages. the perfect storm of bad weather and increased shopping caused delays and amazon is offering $20 gift cards and shipping refunds on late packages. this is a head scratcher. >> sorry this 2001 or 2013? this is what they do. >> this is why you need the flying drone. >> as the government said that, there is no reason. none of these things should be a surprise. these companies do the business and i got my stuff on time, but i ordered the nora efron collection and it came fine and on time, but there was a giant package. the whole inner bindings are

ripping out. i think it's a little bit harsh. >> they are offering $20. i wanted $23. you can't get the time back. you can't put a price on that. >> i ordered gifts for my nieces and they are little kids and they want to open gifts on christmas and not two days later. what about the post office? >> i think people should be grateful for not getting gifts from anybody. it teaches children the useful lesson about waiting. >> i did a documentary and they brag about how they can handle anything and everything and the weather doesn't matter. everything goes into the central hub and they chop it up and it goes back out. >> it's amazing. >> you would hire to pretend

that they were late. i take your birthday gift and all that stuff. >> they are paying for you. you are being and expect amazon and they screwed up. >> they finished us and the next goal is like the same hour delivery. >> charleston and nicky haley. our family had a wonderful christmas and i must have been good. santa gave me a px 4 storm. it's about $575 and posted

thousands of comments in the social media sites. >> #tryingtoohard. >> twitter shares continue to soar, up 182%. that makes the company one of the best performing ipos of the year. they sport a $39.9 billion market cap ahead of time-warner cable and shares about $73. this is the thing, it drives me crazy. the average person although if they bought when it popped on the idea, you did very well. most people can't get it. this is a classic rich getting richer story. >> i think twitter does have issues. it did what we expected it to

do, but there is a money issue here. issues of having to prove a number of accounts. many are not real as we know and this is a company that has a lot of work to do. >> they lot of a lot of money. >> if you had that ipo, you lot of that and if you bought it, you did well in the open market. >> you had to infiltrate in america because we love it and use it and the average joe is still not -- >> some communities are. for twitter it's become a secondary source of marks. if you look at the scandal which was a story by twitter and the fact that it creates a need to watch something in realtime.

there was a way to get the smart traditionals. >> utah is trying to put a stop to same-sex marriages. they plan to file an appeal with the supreme court after state officials consulted with an outside firm. this comes after a district judge with the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. the previous four appeals were denied. >> "houston chronicle," scientists and crew members were stranded aboard a ship on the coast of and arctica. this was on christmas. they say they are not in immediate danger. three ice breaker vessels are scheduled to reach the ship sometime today.

>> then the "wall street journal." they pulled in $78 million on wednesday, the second highest christmas day total of all time. the hobbit held that, taking in $9.3 million. wall street starring leonardo dicaprio pulling in about $8 million. i have seen it. >> i did not see that. >> you like it? >> i thought it was oversold. incredible actors. she was phenomenal. head and shoulders above everywhere else. >> can't speak. >> stop the show. it's over.

>> let's go to new york. the game of throwns, the most pirated show on television. according to sources, the episodes were illegally downloaded nearly $6 million. breaking bad and the walking dead round out the top. >> it's my whole binge walking. >> and torn. >> the binge walking. >> it's torn. happy holidays. i hope this is downloaded 60

million times. >> we have the president signed the defense bill and there was a battle for reform. what happened in the end? he fought the army and the army won. it was an honor to get the cases moved from the military chape of command and ended up failing. a couple other big issues in his defense, guantanamo bay, the president is not happy and he won't be able to transfer prisoners to the united states soil. it has been made a little bit easier to transfer them to other countries. >> coming up next, our pick for the best interview of the year. comedy legend and a pi year for women across the entertainment industry, carol burnett.

"stubborn love" by the lumineers did you get my email? i did.

>> she was a true trailblazer. carol burnett joined us to share

stories about her groundbreaking career and emotional life. here's the best of 2013. that's real pretty, but that don't answer my question. >> you, you vixen, you. that town is gorgeous.

i couldn't resist it. >> that costume is in the smithsonian as we speak. that was one of the most famous moments from the carol burnett show. joining us now, legender comedienne carol burnett. a love story. "time" magazine's joe. this is big. i'm sorry. i can't believe it. i'm so excited to meet you. >> even at this hour. it's a little early. do you mind looking at that. seriously. after you, things start to -- everything else after that. >> it's part of the magic of

that show. and to sit around and watch the show. >> that are doesn't happen anymore. i love it when you laugh yourself. you crack yourself up. we didn't mean to. we will stop and do pick ups. we wanted to be dangerous. i wanted to stop and start with that. to 1978. we always talked about trailblaze trailblazers. i love trailblazers as far as women go. starting back in 1967 in an industry that is me soj news and backward looking.

>> they a clause in the contract that they told me they had forgotten. they put a clause in that was never before and i'm sure never again where it was in the first five years of the contract. if i wanted to do an hour long variety show, they would have to put it on for 30 shows, pay or play. i didn't think i would ever do that, so the last part of the fifth year, the last week i called and i said you know i think i want to do that variety show. they said what? i said the exact same thing. i remember they tried to talk me out of it. they said carol, it's a man's game. it's dean martin and gleason and milton burle and all of these guys. there has never been a woman doing a comedy variety show, but they had to put it on the air.

do you remember how that came about? >> i was in demand at that time because i had just come off of the show. they put it in. >> good age. >> it never would have happened. >> i'm curious at that time, were there areas that were no go areas? was there anything you felt you couldn't do? >> we were fine. in those days, it was -- everything was. wasn't edgy or hard. >> there is a lot of power behind it. >> oh, yeah. >> when you went forward with the show because you said look at my contract and you were being told this is not for you. it's the guys or whatever. how did you know that you could do this? >> because that was all i knew. i had done the gary moore show

before that and that was a musical comedy show before that. that's what i loved. i loved the music and the guest stars and all of that. i didn't want to do a sitcom. >> they were all wrong. >> yes. i knew that's what i could do. they wanted me to do a sitcom and i didn't want to do the same person week after week. what was the secret. what made the show work so well? what makes it so i see that click? with my parents and grandma laughing hysterically. what made that show so incredibly successful? >> the variety. we had wonderful writers and the fact that we had a family-type thing and we all really -- i know it sounds like a cliche,

but we really did love each other. i wanted every one of my cohorts to shine. i learned that from barry moore. i can't say that. that's the way i felt about harvey and tim. let them shine. if they shine, we are going to shine. >> that's how we feel on this show. we love everybody on this show, except for barnacle. nobody likes barnacle, but we understand that from the very beginning. when that's the case, you want the other person to do better. if they do better -- >> you have a good tennis player against you, you will play a better game of tennis. >> carey and me, we were talking

about the most difficult relationship. there is not a close second. talk about the ups and downs of that. >> i wrote the book because the former musician and actress and a writer and singer. she did everything. she was writing a story about a bohemian girl named kate who takes a road trip to graceland with a cowboy. she fashioned the character after herself and decided to take that trip herself and soak up the vibe from hollywood and in the meantime they send these scenes.

she would e-mail me and after she was diagnosed with cancer, she said mom, can you finish sunrise in memphis for me. she had a beginning and end and part of the middle. i said i don't think i can. they are your characters to write. she said that's okay. i wanted to write about her because she was a force. everybody loved her. she was funny and up. talented. i wanted to write about everything i went through. and how we were joined at the hip. in the later years, they worked together. part two, iedaed sunrise in memphis. she was writing.

that's how it came about. >> here you are. mama are forgive me. she is in the hospital. for what. maybe you can finish. i'm not sure i can write what you were aiming for. it's okay, mom. >> yes, baby. >> am i headed for grisland, she asked. how hard was this to write? >> actually it wasn't that hard because it was pouring out of me. it was a release. i felt good about it. i also felt caro my shoulder. there was a presence there. i could almost hear her say go for it, mom. it freed me to write this and as i was writing, and i do write, i felt good about it.

it wasn't ha hard. something i felt i had to do. >> she said she was a force. what drew to you her the most? >> her smile and optimism. saying on the road trip she had gone into a family-type restaurant. she said mama, i don't know why people don't smile more. if you walk in and smile, the world opens up to you. that's all she was. even in the hospital one afternoon, i was there to see carrie. the nurse came up to me and she said i have to tell you something about your daughter. she cheers us up.

i asked carrie how come she was so cheerful. her reply was every morning i wake up and decide, and this is a key word. decide. i decide today i'm going to love my life. that's who she was. >> wow. >> how did your other two daughters recover from the loss? >> we have all felt -- it was devastating. the two girls were with her. they were with her when she passed away. they loved their sister. it's devastating, but you do learn to cope. not a day goes by that cary is not in my heart, but i learned to cope.

she was here for a brief time on earth, but she made a mark. she was on you tube. you tube and some of her performances on fame. you can see her and she gets fan mail. on you tube. >> everybody knows your body of work. we are so excited to have you on today. this clearly is the most important thing you have ever done. >> yes, it is. >> i encourage everybody to get the book. a love story. a mother-daughter story. we'll be right back with more "morning joe."

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that's a live shot of met life stadium. the game is more than a month away. we have seen the numbers there. eye-popping. >> good morning to you. what i would give to be sitting here. the view is unbelievable. we will know that officially and some of the other seats in this stadium is sky high. it isn't called the super bowl for nothing. security almost as tight as a presidential inauguration. >> it's the biggest game in america's biggest sport. >> tickets are likely to fetch

the price of a used car or a vacation. it is expected around $2600. the reality is what's driving prices up, it gets a record territory. you guessed it. location, location, location. up first for the big game. >> this is new york city. look what is based here. >> and pay dearly. at the website, the packages start at $5600. start and just in case you are wondering, that's per person. >> it's always driven by two factors. one is the city it's played in and the teams that are playing. >> the cheapest ticket on stub hub is about $3200.

getting to the super bowl will be different than the others and a bargain at about $5. >> the best way is on mass transit. >>. >> it will have an estimated 12,000 people arriving by train and another 35,000 expected by bus. >> take mass transit. >> then the x factor. something irrelevant. >> something that controls every aspect of the super bowl. when you look at the weather, that's something they can't control. >> snow and bitter cold are possibilities. when it's bad out, games in philadelphia and baltimore, the nfl floated the idea to another day. super bowl saturday. how this super bowl monday night sound. >> we are still weeks away from the big game and the wind chill of about 23. back to tickets. how do you get them?

the nfl does not sell to the general public and you have to find a resaler. plenty of those, but they are making a warning. buyers beware. if you don't buy through the exchange, it's ticket master.com. >> you are cold there. can they sit without getting warmed up, it would be okay. >> i think it depends on the spirit of the day. also in the area of new york city, they are 5,000 a night. to do the game in new york. what if there is a game. what if the saints make a super bowl. it is so much easier to watch

and nice to watch on tv. if you have to sit in 20 degree weather for four hours, i would want to stay up and watch it anyway. >> i wanted to rent out the west village. i don't like to be here for new york city. >> i definitely think it's the most fun. up next, is governor christie trying to be too much of a tough guy. we will have that for you ahead on "morning joe". bl [ male announcer ] if you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours.

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>> we all know chris christie can ruffle feathers, but an article is painting a picture of bullying in the garden state. here over the closure of watch, causing gridlock for days in the month of september and the traffic is incredible. the mayor of new jersey on the new jersey side of the bridge

did not endorse his reelection. they called the claim preposterous and other incidents were a former government stripped of security and a rut gers professor. another who was distanced by an event in his own district. the time said they denied what occurred in those cases. they said we all know this style. it is in keeping with style. they have a double-edged sword. they are a straight talker and there will be times. >> coming up next, what if anything did we learn today?

>> what if anything did we learn today? >> let's start. >> great fun being on in the morning. it's different, but it's a lot of fun. i learned that i am totally okay being in my apartment. >> i learned that in the new york post, even an innocuous story led to quite the headline. read it for us. >> it's right there.

>> he tweeted it out. >> you did well. conservative views that i don't know about. if it's way too early, it's time for "morning joe." up next is "the daily rundown." we there yet? one thing president obama and republicans can agree on is 2013 was a mess. they can't wait to ring in the new year politically. the mid-term mayhem may start with a series of seven senate primaries that can make or break republican hopes for complete capital control. with just about 750 days before the first votes for 2016, both partieses aing a fight between the establish and outsiders. welcome to the special edition of the daily run down. looking back of the highs and lows of this year. shay shape the next two years of american