. we had some good ones, diesel rechter, fishran cliff,busterbluejay. "morning joe" starts right now. he's our last successful politician. let's start with that since you said politics. you know, every republican took for granted bugeorge w. bush wh he was there. guy won two national elections.

he was, first, an outstanding political candidate. and i think he was grossly underappreciated by his own party and by the country as a politician. this was a guy who did things like no child left behind with ted kennedy. you can agree or disagree with the policy, but you don't see any that stuff happening now, do you? >> see, that's the guy that i -- sorry, can we say that we like? do you think we can still say that? makes you think about the income inequality issue and perhaps the counter to it. but, hey, who am i to say, i'm fully dressed. >> good morning, everyone. >> i don't even know what that means. what are you talking about? >> with us today, pulitzer prize winner john meacham. so good to see you here.

and we have former communication director for president george w. bush, nicole wallace. >> dressed beautifully. >> and the host of "way too early" thomas roberts. >> tuffy brayton. >> tuffy, was that the name of the dog? >> yes, but then he ate our neighbor's dog, in front of me. a i was a little girl. >> and also with us ron fornier. >> fully clothed. >> i have my boots on. it's going to be snowy. >> the chris christie, what did you think? >> since i heard it, it was pretty good. there's more to update on the scandal, the new jersey thing. that helicopter this evening was horrible. oh, wait, he didn't flight over the bridge, that's right. >> are we going to do the

point/counterpoint? >> yeah and lennon may have flown over -- oh, wait, he didn't. >> let's start with the storm that forecasters say could be catastrophic for portions of the south. atlanta is bracing for the worst. the national weather service is calling the storm mind boggling if not historical. many expect the conditions to be even more severe than the system that crippled the city two weeks ago. let's go to bill karins for a check on the storm's path. bill? >> the catastrophic historical part is really for georgia and south carolina. the nor'easter part of it that

will effect the rest of the roast, but t coast. already the ice storm has begun throughout portions of the deep south. myrtle, south carolina, is getting this of all place. there's a civil emergency in the state of south carolina, asking everyone to stay at home today during the day, do not go out on the roads. they could see up to 3/4 inch of an ice and power crews will probably be working right through the upcoming weekend to get a lot of people back their power and we could see some of that ice going up to new york. when upstate south carolina gets 6 to 12 inches, that's a big day deal, charlotte 4-8, 3-6 riley

and up to a foot of snow in the mountains. and the snow about 6 to 10 p.m. moves into washington, d.c. and then the heaviest snow in the morning looks to be from philly to new york city and then thursday night into friday morning, northern new england is going to get nailed. notice boston is a little bit warmer. the good news tomorrow, if can you get into work, it will get warmer during the day and temperatures will be above freezing. it's really a morning hit and then we'll get a couple more inches thursday night into friday. it's a lot. >> bill, thank you. we'll talk to the weather channel's jim cantore live in

georgia in just a few minutes. we'll be updating throughout the show. >> members of congress were able to pass a bipartisan deal to lift the debt ceiling. however, after months of back door negotiating, republicans have walked away empty handed. speaker of the house john boehner had to turn again to democrats for support. the house passed a clean bill be 221-201. boehner reportedly told his conference yesterday, quote, we're going to get this done. we're not going to make ourselves the story. "the washington post" robert costa described the seen as boehner broke the news to his caucus. they didn't speak up or clap. boehner just stood there for a moment after he finished, eyed

the room and walked toward a seat. i'm getting this monkey off your bark and you're not even going to clap, boehner asked. with the move boehner once again puts himself in the loon of fire from conservative groups. the club for growth called the clean bill a joke. while heritage action said it was irresponsible. and the sena-- >> to shut down the government, to fund obamacare because the president would never agree to it was a bad idea. it's not like we didn't know this was coming. wasn't there like some plan they could have come up with to at least make big spending democrats feel uncomfortable?

i'm reading about ted cruz in the parp going, you know, i'm going to make him get at least 60 votes. i'm going, heck, yeah, go, ted! does it have to be one thing or another? do we have to either fall on our sword or surrender right out of the gate? >> i understand that boehner tried some plans that were accompanied by cuts and that he couldn't rally his own caucus around it. and i hate using southern expressions because i'm from san francisco, what do i know. but i think it was mitch mcconnell that said there was no education in the second kick of a mule. i think boehner spared them that second kick. as he said, you're not giving me a round of applause. i think boehner deserves the medal of freedom for his courage for standing nearly alone and doing what he thought was best for the party. now put the substance aside for a second because we all do that anyway. >> try to at least.

>> what he did was he had a long view on what was good for the country and good for the party. i don't remember the last time anyone in my party did that. >> that's a good point. >> but it's not like he didn't know this date was coming. it's not like as leader -- >> well, ryan didn't have support around an alternative proposal. >> but this is a bigger problem with our party. we can't come together and come up with a strategy that at least will make democrats uncomfortable? when they cast a vote against it? >> it's not that we can't come up with it, we can't agree with it. >> but that comes down to leadership. john boehner can't rally the troops together. >> that's true but i think seas separate from leadership. i think what he did yesterday was lead. >> but again -- there's no education in the second kick of a donkey. >> is that the same thing as a mule? >> or a mule. >> certainly in san francisco.

>> if you spin -- john meacham, you're from the south. >> and i've been kicked by many mules. >> if you stand behind mules all the time, you're likely to great second kick. >> fair enough. we have to get away from the mule. >> i'm tired of these 11th hour crises that actually could have been avoided if you had leadership and you figured out how to rally troops around and come up with something again that might not pass but might make democrats feelin comfortable when they sign it. politico had it right. this was an absolute, outright surrender. i'm wondering what they were think about since the last government shutdown and this. >> henry kissinger used to say

the national security adviser would always give you option a, b and c and they haven't gotten here to an option c. >> you were a football coach. have you ever had a bad team? >> well -- >> yes. >> a bunch of hoodlums? >> no, i never have. >> most of them are watching right now. >> what do you when they didn't perform, joe? >> i inspired them. >> yes, you do. >> hold on a second. you inspire people, you rally them together. if john boehner and the republican leadership can't figure out a way to either watch everything go up in smoke or, you know, have abject surrender, then they're not the leaders the republican party need in the

house. >> listen, if in a week we're back to talking about the deficiencies in the health care we form law, if we're back on to ground that favors republicans -- >> but isn't that a false choice? >> it's not a false choice. it is a reality he was faced with. >> he's speaker of the house. he can work 20 hours a day to figure out a way to do this so he avoids the -- i guarantee you, if we were sitting around and you gave us six months to figure this out, you wouldn't have a headline in politico or any other publication that says republicans surrender. come on. it's not that hard. >> i think he decided that it beats government shuts down the -- government rattles the markets. i think he chose the best of the worst. >> i've got a couple of other stories to get to. >> let's get ron fornier since

he's in washington. i'm sorry, i'm probably make nothing as soon as. i'm cheering for cruz tonight. i want at least 60 votes before we surrender. >> it's never a good idea to cheer with cruz. i happen to agree with nicole on this. congress has already run up the debts. these bills have already been put against us. we now have to pay the bill. a good leader does not choose to die on this hill and president clinton -- president clinton. president obama, there's no way he was going to let the republicans hold the nation hostage over this and he shouldn't. and the republicans, there was no way they were going to win, they were going to be in the same position they were in last time. >> ron, what did the president do when he was senator obama? >> he's being hypocritical here. he did vote against raising the debt limit and that was the wrong this evening to do. that was the wrong this evening -- thing to do.

>> did he hold the nation hostage. >> you can come together with a grand bargain. you doesn't mess with the faith of our credit and the economy at this stage. i think this is a rare case where boehner showed some leadership and it might tell us what boehner plans to do with the rest of his future. it will be interesting to talk about what he'll be doing a year out from now and i think president obama did the right thing by not caving. so you sometimes have to do the right thing and take the bad headline. >> but you don't have to have a bad headline. barack obama voted against raising the debt ceiling and he made a point. the raspberry epublicans could least made a point about a debt,

about a medicare and medicaid social security system that is not going to be solvent for the next johnson racial generation . you pick it, we got it. they could have made the point. or the fact that we're spending trillions of dollars every year and the on way they can come up with a budget compromise is by ripping off military retirees in the futures. that would have been a good point to make. say, democrats, would you like to restore benefits to military retirees as part of this debt ceiling battle? make the democrats vote against military retirees and go ahead and pass the bill and go at least i love military retirees. be the guy that wipes the tear. it just to go i give up. >> you're so good. >> i surrender.

i mean -- >> he said he didn't want to be the story. but -- >> well, he's the story. he's the leader. >> by showing leadership. >> democrats would define that as leadership. >> ron fornier, are you going to write an editorial now about john boehner growing? >> growing in office. >> a couple of the members of the leadership team yesterday are speculating maybe he's looking for a legacy and looking beyond his role. >> he need as good offensive line. >> i was trying to do that with joe because he's had bad football team that's ended up in the dirt. >> trying to pivot on getting democrats back on voting against

military benefits. >> bad coaches, though, if we're going to go with the sports analogy, bad coaches make bad teams sometimes. great coaches make bad teams good. i'm just saying we didn't have to fall on our sword. i didn't say i want to default on america's debt, blah, blah, blah. >> led by fear. chris christie -- >> that's just not true. that's not true. >> joe has never had a woody hayes moment. >> there was that one -- anyhow. >> but this is offense. in is a good offensive story. >> only with my son. as far as the coaches go. no, not that. i coached baseball and my son talked back to me on the baseball field. i walked up to him on the baseball field and said if you do that again on the field, i'm

going to make you get down and eat dirt and all his friends came up and said don't be so tough on joey. i wanted to make sure early on that nobody on the team thought, oh, you know, joe is being -- nobody thought jov joey got spe treatment. i took care of that early and i was tn times rougher. one time we got in the car and he's just looking forward and he goes "dad, i think you made your point." >> you did a good job. he's a lovely i don't thinkmyou. >> one of the best scenes in modern dramatic history is in a largely forgettable movie with billy crystal about grandparents. >> "bad grandpa." >> no, i can't remember. >> it was just out a couple

years ago. >> and he goes to a little league game there and are no strikeouts. billy crystal's a sports announce are in his grandson's game, and his grandson gets strike three and the umpire goes, we don't have strikeouts here. >> joe is a little worried about me. he thinks things go off the rails a little too much. the group claimed he helped drum up $1 million in donation, on top of the 6 million he helped bring in last month. he met with two of the four republican gubernatorial candidates in the state and was asked about the continuing bridge scandal back in new jersey. >> does the g.w. bridge situation impact your ability to execute in your state? >> i'm shocked you brought that

up. i don't think it will curtail for the long haul a second-term agenda because i think the public in new jersey won't tolerate it. >> i think he did very well yesterday. >> are we allowed to say that? >> everybody's reading his body language. if we had everybody that comes on -- we need like a body language expert come on. >> she's awesome. >> does she know body language? >> i don't know anything so i think she does. >> no, no, there are people that you hire -- like great law firms hire people that can do this. >> we need one. >> if we're all going to sit around the table and read chris christie's body language and everyone's going, oh, look at him, he's not himself. then are we not allowed to say he looked really good yesterday. >> he looked really good yesterday. i feel like i have been saying

for three weeks that this experience, if he doesn't run for president, if he doesn't prevail in the republican primary, it will have nothing to do in the bridgegate scandal. it has not affected the things republicans like about him. >> you know what else i've seen, too, and i think this is -- only republicans would understand it. so sometimes the best thing that can happen is the media goes after you. >> and turns on you, guts you. >> i have had the nastiest tweets in my twitter feed over the past month for defending chris christie and calling him my friend. i had some republicans -- i'm glad for chris that this happened. now some republicans are saying you sellout, why are you betraying chris and whatever. it's the first time i saw people like care enough to rally behind chris.

up kn you know what i'm saying? i looked at it they were calling me whatever, a communist pig, this is a good sign that actually -- >> can i play the sound bite we were going to play from the speech? >> well, i'd rather just hear myself talk but go ahead. >> i don't think the american people want income equality. what they want is income opportunity if i go to somebody right now and i say to them i can guarantee you x dollars a year for the rest of your life, there may be some in america who would accept that but i think most people in america would say how do we get a little more of that? that's the spirit of this country, how do i get a little more? one of the big discussions in conversations over the course of the next two years in national politics will be do you want

mediocrity or greatness? you want income equality? you want mediocrity. government cannot be the perpetual referee between what sounds like a fight between my 13-year-old son and my 10-year-old daughter. you did this for him, that's not fair. i grew up in an america that said life isn't fair. >> that's offense talking about income inequality, eight bit's conversation in the country again -- >> you guys talk about the bridge, i'm going to talk about

the country. >> to your point about republicans supporting him while everybody else goes after him, it's basically like your family narrative. you can't talk about my sister, i can talk about my sister. republicans who were giving him the heisman after his president obama hug sandy now are saying we want to send you to cpac. >> if he had gone into cpac being the media darling and the post-romney guy there would have been boos or at least would have been quiet. >> now he goes in -- >> standing ovation. >> standing ovation because he's been besieged by the left-wing media. >> exactly right. >> and they'll cheer him. >> weird. >> the -- to my mind the language he's using there is the kind of language that bill clinton used in 1992.

it's about the public sector creating difference for growth. >> and george w. bush. >> we built a defense establishment to defend ourselves. that's the kind of language that i think will, whether it's christie or whoever wants to be president needs to adopt that kind of language. >> interesting day, mika. >> yes. >> we have a lot to talk about today. >> i wanted to show veep sitting next to veep. and we needed to update the storm. >> coming up on "morning joe," peter king, chuck today, david axelrod and actor henry winkler. >> he's so nice. >> he is so nice.

>> he's got a new book. >> coming up, the politico play book and a new study on breast cancer screenings. >> that's a scary studying, a long-term study that shows no benefits. ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money? uhhh. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last. everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive.. confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor can get the real answers you need. well, knowing gives you confidence. start building your confident retirement today.

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let's take a look at the "morning papers." wall street journal, the stock market had its biggest increase of the year, jumping nearly 200 points after yellin indicated the federal reserve would continue its low-interest policies. it was the dow's fourth straight day of gains after a rocky start to the year. >> and, meekia dika, did you se

from the "charleston daily mail"? hours passed before employees new about the slurry leak because an alarm wasn't working. they say the water should be safe but they're testing it to see if more chemicals got in. "usa today" reports that routine mammogra mammograms raise the alarms of slow growing -- >> it's a long-term study and they found no difference in survival rates between women who

take the mammograms and women who did not as far as mammograms. >> they're going to really have to look at this. >> the "daily news," a group of fans won a lawsuit saying they were distraught over michael jackson's death. what the -- >> and in "new york times," sky, the female wire fox terrier takes best in show at the westminster dog show. this year a standard poodle was

runner-up but the crowd favorite, mika, and always is mine, the bloodhounds. i love the bloodhounds whenever i go to the westminster dog show. >> you know they have a category for mutts? >> what about spice? if you don't put spice down. >> are you going to put spice down or not? >> i'm just saying that he needs some work. we are working with someone today and hopefully he will stop doing what he is doing that will stop causing some problems. >> do you know who can fix that? >> who? >> a zoo keeper in denmark. >> he's really cute. he runs around in circles. he's so happy. >> i have that image in my mind. i'm not going to tell what you he does when he runs around in circles. >> that's because you were there. >> politico is reporting rand paul is going to bring a lawsuit

against president obama. why is he suing the president? >> this is going to be a real spectacle. today at 11:00, senator paul will be down on the steps of the u.s. district courthouse and we got a copy of the complaint he's going to file. this is a big class action. the people in his class are anyone in the u.s. who has a phone. and he's going to ask the court to declare the patriot acts allowing of the monitoring of phone calls unconstitutional, he's going to ask the government to stop and say that the government is going to have to purge from its database any of the meta data it's collected about these calls. this is part of rand paul's efforts to show republicans around the country that he's a fighter. he's been out talking about the clintons at time when a lot of republicans wish he would shut up about that but he has a very specific audience and that is right-wing republicans who want

someone out there who is going to be tough and not tafraid of anyone. >> that clinton stuff is going to back fire on him. >> i don't think he's going to do it much longer. >> i hope he does it more. >> you have mark warner up 6 against ed gillespie. and then there was another poll in there that i saw. oh, never mind. but ed gillespie, is he going to have any challenges from the right in that primary? >> he does have a challenge on paper, but ed gillespie is going to have so much money that his problem is not going to be the challenge from the right. the challenge, joe, is that unless there's some huge wave in the country and in the state and there's no sign of this yet, mark warner is so strong, as you nope, a strong former governor, he's pretty moderate in a purple state. a lot of people think ed gillespie may be trying to run

for an office he can win. >> the tennessee race where alexander -- thank you so much, mike allen, we appreciate it. sometimes worlds collide. >> yeah. >> and this morning worlds collided in headlines in the daily news and the "new york post." so let's have a vote. do you like -- so this is a story about mayor de blasio called to get one of his friends out of jail, a supporter out of jail. so can you vote for jail of two cities or bail of two cities. >> oh. >> i'm going to go with bail. >> yeah, it's pretty good. de blasio. >> coming up, willie. we'd do that for willie, though. >> look at willie. we got a snowstorm. will live looks like he's on south beach. he's got a tan!

by the way, we're going to also talk about carl bernstein. >> oh, i don't like you anymore. >> willie e-mailed me last week. he said carl bernstein had gone over to cnn, we couldn't have him on our show anymore. he said we should ring the bell 21 times and salute our dear friend carl. >> okay. and you were worried about me. we'll be back with willie in just a moment. your fidelity green line do for you? just take a closer look. it works how you want to work -- on your own... or with a fidelity investment professional, helping you find new ways to plan for retirement and save on taxes where you can so you can invest in the life that you want today. tap into the full power of your fidelity green line. call or come in today for a free one-on-one review. i'm bethand i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store.

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skiing today is nothing short of a medical marvel. and oh! >> now for the final jump. grabbing the ski, having cleared and that is a nasty looking fall. >> what? >> they have to have better snow, meacham, in chattanooga. >> are they okay? >> i don't, i don't think so. >> we wouldn't show the clip if they weren't. >> they're going to have better snow in chattanooga. this is becoming a real problem, white talking about it.

a lot of people getting injured. first we do need to talk about carl bernstein. we love having carl here. carl was seriously one of our -- >> i already miss him. >> we miss him. he's one of our favorite guests and a really good friend of ours and we love him, we miss him but he's over at cnn. they said he can't come back over here. but willie e-mailed me last night and tell him what we're going to miss the most. it's time to mourn. >> as you said, we love carl, we love having him on in every time he would bring up republicans in congress, specifically eric cantor, he would say eric cantor and the mccarthyites. every time he would say that, we'd ring a bell and i'm worried we'll never hear that bell given. >> let's have a seven-bell salute. >> long time. >> show respect. >> that's five. >> six. >> this doesn't work.

>> we wish him well. >> we do wish carl well. nobody misread this. >> go ahead, thomas. you take it away. >> willie, you look incredible. >> look how tan he is. >> you look rested. >> he's in palm springs. >> honestly, the phone says it's 62 degrees but with the sun out, it's got to be high 60s, maybe 70. there were many days in london in the summer olympics that were a lot, lot cooler than this. i assure you there is snow up on those mountains. >> and the false and mess-ups and shaun white coming in fourth, he had been very vocal about the conditions. but they may have gotten into the psychology of himself

performance. >> he pulled out of the slope style and as he practiced he said the conditions are not good. he said i don't want to bag on anybody but this is not olympic quality snow we're dealing with. he had a great first run, scored over a 95, looked like the old shaun white but when he came down on the second run, he needed a big one if he was going to medal and win a third consecutive gold on the halfpipe. here's how it went down last night. >> boom. >> shaun white gets it going. he wants to put this run down solid and be able to sit pretty -- there it is -- oh, unfortunately that was his move! shaun is not stopping, though. >> oh, my goodness. white comes in with heavy contact on the deck. >> so he didn't go down but you can see he didn't land a couple of those exactly the way he wanted to or the way he needed

to because the guys who had gone in front of him, the gold medal went to a guy nicknamed ipod who pald -- pulled off what's call a yolo flip. >> i'm disappointed in myself. i've been here too long. i usually show up a day or two before, do the practice and i think i've been thinking about it too much. >> davis is an olympic legend, could become a legend if he wins today. >> norway has 11, canada with 9,

the netherlands with 8 and the u.s. and russia with 7. >> single payor countries. >> leave it to meacham. >> we heard horror stories on about hotels and security, et cetera, et cetera. you've been to several. how is this matching up compared to the snores. >> i think there was so much buildup, you don't feel it. it's a lot more discrete than i would say it's been in the past. i think because the bar was pretty low, they've, seed excee expectations. i almost feel guilty saying, i'm in a russian hotel, it's been great, it's been clean, the water's been clean.

>> usually one, two, maybe 12 hotels that don't work. a lot of people are saying it's really been an enjoyable olympics over there. >> hey, willie -- >> yeah? >> go ahead, finish up. >> and the people have been great. you expect the russian disposition. clearly there's been some hospitality training. >> thank you, willie. >> adorable. >> can the republican party have some of that? >> up next, the must-read opinion pages. we'll being right back.

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ron fornier wrote a piece entitled "why i'm getting sick of defending obamacare." >> come orange rn, ron. >> ron doesn't want people to have health care. >> or puppies. >> "the delays punt impleme implementation beyond congressional elections in november, which raises the first problem with defending obamacare, the white house has politicized its signature policy, the win at all cost mentality.

if you like your health plan, you'll be able to keep your health plan and political expediency and p led obama to repeat the line over and offer given when he knew or should have known it was false. >> i think there's the loathers that no matter what president obama does, they're going to hate it, demonize it. there's the loyalloyalists, tha mart what president obama does, they're going to love it and then there's those of us who want to close that gap but are very frustrated and confused by the way the administration's been handling it. this week with changing the rules again, it's just baffling and frustrating and it's just hard to understand what the white house is doing and how they're bungling this. >> john meecham. >> ron, square two this evenings for me.

you're criticizing him for plet sizing a signature policy when it seems to me he had to do so in this climate. how do you square the fact that people want him to be a happy warrior and here he is being a warrior and he's being hit for that. >> obviously any president, any governor, any mayor or politics come together know how to manage an eintersection. i think this president too many times took the easy way out, surrendered to the notion he couldn't get anything done with republicans, giving up on his brand, that he could do anything in the government. he should have known he probably did know that it was a cheap line that would eventually come

back and bite him in the butt. so i don't have a severe problem with the president. i really want the aca to work or something like it but they're not implementing it very well and they're not doing their politics very well. the numbers show it out. >> all right, ron. thank you very much. >> still ahead, we'll ask republican congressman peter king about his support of the debt ceiling hike. plus, why he's not ruling out the possibility that edward snowden is working with the russians. more "morning joe" in just a moment. er consumption in china, impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

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my favorite part of the

westminster dog show is watching the owners prance around the obstacle course. i'm much more interested in the owners than i am the dogs. in fact, i asked my crack graphics team to remove the dogs from the following clips and this to me is what the westminster dog show is all about. we finally found something sadder than an imagery friend. >> i'm going to start getting videos spice out at this rate. >> joining us from chicago, former senior adviser to president obama at the university chicago institute of politics david axelrod and political director and host of

"the daily rundown" chuck todd. >> chuck, chris christie had a pretty good day yesterday, didn't he? >> okay. i mean, how do you define -- >> come on! oh, my god! >> i guess it's a good day that what, he didn't have more indictments come? >> nicole, i don't -- >> your legacy. >> hank on. we're doing feeding frenzy on somebody we're not actually sitting back and -- we're -- we're overdoing it now. i think everybody's just trying to will him back into something. >> overdoing what? >> oh, my god. so you have spent -- oh, okay. >> let nicole respond. >> what have i been doing?

>> i haven't finished a sentence yet. so much time has been spent in the last four weeks spending every tiny, minuscule, nonbreaking news event -- >> not on my show. >> well, on the network on which you and i appear, the fact he had an event, former white house chief of staff said he had a great performance yesterday, republicans remain incredibly focused on everything he says and does because at the moment he leads the rga and as a guy who is mired in the scandal, i can't think of a politician in either party who has remained more focus on his day job despite the fact that every single, you know, formerly object of member of the political press is coming after him. the fact that it doesn't warrant more attention where he speaks eloquently on inequality, an

issue you spent a great time talk about -- >> no, i just think it's -- i'm not treating him as a presidential candidate in my mind right now. i think he's got to get through this mess. >> whatever. who cares what he is in your mind. but as a journalist you should cover a day like yesterday. >> that's fine weeks did cover it. >> i'm glad i asked that question. oh, my god! >> i don't sort of get it. it was a weird question. okay. >> i want to show the bite. >> i don't think it was that weird of a question. we do it every day. if jeb bush says we club baby seals for three hours, we talk about it. >> i don't think the american people want income equality. what they want is income opportunity. [ applause ] >> see, if i go to someone and

say to them i can guarantee you x dollars of years the rest of your life, there may be some in america that who would accept that but i think most people in america would say how do i get a little more of that? that's the spirit of this country. how do i get a little more? within of the big courses of discussion over the next two years is do you want mediocrity or do you want greatness? you want income equality, that's mediocrity. everybody can have an equal mediocre salary. that's not greatness. government cannot be the perpetual referee of what sounds like a fight between my 13-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. you did this for him, that's not fair? i grew up in an america that

said life isn't fair but opportunity is. >> i'm going to give this a try again. >> you can do it. >> david axelrod, chris christie had a good day yesterday, didn't he? >> yeah, you know what? let me associate myself with nicole wallace. >> oh, i love you! mustache, no mustache, i love you! >> i'm not cheerleading. you're asking me to cheerlead one side or the other. i know others on the show are cheerleading. that's fine. >> okay, i asked the same question. >> i got it. >> i think what you saw yesterday was the two sides of the chris christie story here. he was very, very good out here and i thought the news reports out here were very positive. obviously he's presenting himself with great confidence in these settings and chuck says in his mind he's not a presidential

candidate but in christie's mind he clearly still is a presidential candidate until further notice. on the other hand more subpoenas went out in new jersey and the story continues to be what it's always been. if there is evidence that points to his knowledge of what happens, he's gone. and if there's not, he could survive. and i think washington generally is very, very quick to judge the story in the moment and i think the story has a lot of pages left to be turned in it. so i'm not willing to write christie off but obviously he's in great peril and his fate lies not in his own performance but with the evidence that is collected by the folks in new jersey. >> so if i could be the family diplomat for a second -- >> i love chuck. chuck's a great guy and i think he's great. >> everybody at the table could be seen as correct, including chuck todd. >> i love chuck todd. i embrace him wholeheartedly. >> i believe your point is the

party has been so damaging, it's very hard to see a good day given that more subpoenas are going out. can you easily make the analysis, and many have, that it's over. there's nothing wrong with that. it seemed to us politically like he was having a good day yesterday. >> look, i thought his answer -- let's talk about the messaging. i thought that was a smart way to message, you're having the democratic party push income inequality and he changes the conversation. i think it's a smart way of trying to say, hey, we're for it, too, but this is the way republicans are for it. i agree on the messaging front, i thought it was really smart messaging. i just -- i'm watching christie here and i'm thinking to me a good day is whether he cleans house, when he hires a new staff. that to me is what it means when he has a good day, when he gets control of his governor's office so they're not sending out press

releases he doesn't know about. that to me is when you see him turn the corner as a potential leader, as somebody who is ready to be an executive again and get those credentials back because that to me is the biggest credential he lost. >> the first three, four minutes of the hour was like that scene out of "anchor man" where it was like, boy, that escalated quick. >> and nicole used a trident against me. >> this is how brittle republicans feel when we watch some of our most beloved figures get ham nemered in the opening s in what is a story with many, many, many more pages to turn. this is how brittle and emotional it comes for republicans who are watching some in the media, chuck i don't put you in this category,

gleefully, gleefully cover this scandal. >> i can't underline what nicole just said enough about chuck todd that i love his show and i love his work. no, i'm dead serious. and john meacham has wanted to talk for a while. >> good. nicole, you're having a good morning. >> i feel better now. >> now that you got that out of your system. >> we're moving to decaf. >> i want to ask david a question. if you were to put your oppositional cap on, if you were running a republican presidential race, wouldn't you want a candidate speaking the language christie was speaking in terms of how the public sector creates conditions for prosperity? isn't that a centrist place to be that would be effective at least in a general? i'm not sure how it works in the primary. >> i think what he articulated is the big debate.

i don't think the democrats should be about guaranteed outcomes. democrats should be about opportunity, which i think we are. the real stance is where do you stand on education, where do you stand on investing and research and doing the things that are necessary to create those conditions for opportunity. that's the big debate we should have in 2016. he would be a great exponent of the republican party if he can get clear of this. i think if it nets out over the course of hours on msnbc, it probably is at least a balanced picture. he's gotten pummelled on some other programs and i think that's been to his benefit with the base. the enact he got a cpac invitation finally tells you something about the benefits of being on the other side of it.

i don't want to sugar coat it. i think the guy is in significant distress here and unless he gets a clean bill from the prosecutors and legislators, i think he's got real problems but he also has real talent and if he does get through it, he shouldn't be discounted. >> anybody who has watched this show from the very beginning of this crisis knows we aren't cheerleading for chris christie, we've identified him as a friend. i've started hammering for a couple of things he's done, for the statement, not knowing, et cetera,et cetera, et cetera. i'm very confident the people who watch this show, we've been crystal clear from the very beginning and we will continue to be. >> and we happen to be friends with him, too. >> and we're friends with him. and, by the way, i still assume he didn't do it and the evidence comes in, though. we'll know and when the evidence comes in, the evidence comes in. >> can i just say one other thing before we get to the debt limit story, another story, nothing about chris christie. it's this story. lawyers are pitching state

attorney generals in 16 states with radical idea of making the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs. it's a move straight from the play book of big tobacco and, may i just say one other thing, the lead attorney is paul mcdonald, mcdonald's firm has sent proposals to attorney generals from california to mississippi explaining how suing big food could help their states close budget gaps as billions in medicare expenditures eat a growing share of tax revenue. >> okay. on capitol hill -- >> i told you you had would happen. >> republicans walked away empty handed, unable to get his party to rally around a so-called add-on bill. speaker boehner again had to turn to democrats for support. >> 193 democrats supported the

bill, 2 voted against it. faces the prospect of negative headlines just months before the midterm elections, boehner reportedly told his conference yesterday, quote, we're going to get this done. we're not going to make ourselves the story. sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? "the washington post" robert costa quoting members describe the scene as boehner broke the news to his caucus. quote, they didn't speak up or clap. boehner just stood there for a moment. after he finished, he eyed the room, walked toward a seat and said i'm getting this monkey off your back and you're not even going to clap?" with the move boehner once again puts himself in the line of fire with conservative groups. the club for growth called the clean bill a growth and the heritage action called it irresponsible and the senate

conservatives fund called for him to be replaced. >> i think he asserted his leadership and he kept his eye on the 2014 ball. think about the decisions he made the last two weeks, immigration and debt ceiling, which is they're both basically he came to the same conclusion, trying to deal with them will only divide the party, will only create a story and create problems for the party in 2014. so immigration punt. it probably going to cause problems for the party in 2016 but probably keeps things cleaner for 2014. debt ceiling, if you have the fight some want to have, you take the focus off of president obama and off of health care. that was the point he was trying to make. so here's boehner trying to be the rational political leader of his party and he's right, it the sound of one hand clapping. he's trying to save their majority and he's trying to get

the senate republicans -- i tell you who really had a good day yesterday, mitch mcconnell because boehner didn't pick this fight. >> let ask you the same question we followed up with the last time around. did boehner have a good day yesterday? as chuck is saying, he's showing leadership and maybe against the intransigence that exists against his caucus but he is showing leadership, at least knowing what fight to pick. >> i didn't get a chance to join you all before in lionizing chuck. he is the standard in political reporting so i believe with him on this. i think th i agree with him. he should have gotten thunderous applause. he created a situation where they didn't have to do what they wanted to do. i disagree only slightly on

immigration because i don't think you should roll out your principles one week and roll them back in the next. i think that if you're going to go, you're going to go and he should have known where that was going to wind up. to do it the month before most of these guys have to file for primaries was i think a bad political calculation. so on immigration i wouldn't give him a bad grade but on this i think he did exactly what the leader should do. >> do you agree with that? don't answer. >> i think politically it was a missed opportunity by republicans. i love what john meacham said about national security adviser goes to the president and says you can choose a nuclear war or abject surrender, there's always a middle ground. when the republicans chose nuclear war, i'll stand alone

and say it was a short sighted approach and boehner had a -- >> joe, didn't he offer a whole series of alternatives to the caucus, including the one you mentioned in the previous hour on the veterans' pensions. he gave them all those opportunities. they did not want to vote for an increase in the debt ceiling under any circumstance. once he determined that, he did what i think he had to do. >> well, that goes to my larger point, which is if john boehner has six months to prepare a caucus, to not face these sort of headlines this morning and he can't move them an inch, then maybe john boehner shouldn't be speaker of the house. maybe they should get somebody -- as you guys know, leadership, especially in this position, is having your caucus, knowing when to bend to the will of your caucus but also having the authority and the power and the trust and the confidence to

have your caucus bend to your will sometimes and there's absolutely none of that there. >> joe, i don't think spencer tracy in boystown could get this caucus under control. this caucus is beyond control. >> that's for a chicago liberal. this isn't a bad caucus. i will tell you we get a few things done in the 90s with the caucus everybody bit as conservative as this. i know people don't like thinking about that, like saying that but, chuck, i don't think things have changed all that much since '94. >> he had to me the smartest political maneuver would have been to do keystone. why? because keystone would have driven a wedge into the senate democrats. you have a bunch of those red state senate democrats who want keystone, mark pryor, mary landry, you name it, that was the only thing they did a release on with the president, i'm disappointed he didn't talk about keystone. would you have created a wedge, probably potentially brought the

debt ceiling back into the tool box as a tool to use to negotiate. because the one criticism here that i think conservatives are -- wa really makes them angry at boehner on this one is that while i do believe boehner did the smart political decision, if republicans want to win the mid term is he basically conceded to president, which is, you know what, the debt ceiling is no longer a tool to be used for negotiation because -- and that's something that i think the right is apoplectic about. but they're the ones that rejected what i think particularly in key stostone wo have been their way of resuscitating -- >> that's my point, i didn't expect them to default on the nation's debt but i did expect them to move forward to an issue important to conservatives, whether you're talking about keystone or military benefits.

as chuck said, make the democrats make a difficult choice. put them in a difficult position to vote against something that their constituents would want them to vote for and let them explain, oh, this was about the debt ceiling and that's why i voted against veterans benefit or military retiree benefits. both parties when they have skillful legislators know how to do this. there were hundreds of votes where it like i can't believe have i to vote against this because the democrats have figured a way to attach it to a bigger bill. >> all right. >> there's something about the republican majority, when the republicans have the majority, though, where they almost always turn on their leaders at some point, whether it's gerald ford coming to power or the gingrich problems and now this. the republicans tend to eat their own more than democrats in the house. >> all right. david axelrod and chuck todd, thank you so much. >> i'll be watching, chuck, thank you. >> love you, chuck.

>> bye, nicole. love you, nicole. >> bye. bye, honey. >> boy, you came loaded today. >> there's a storm brewing. >> i can't take it anymore. >> there's a storm brewing. >> storm nicole. let's go now for the latest on the winter storm. forecasters say this could be catastrophic for portions of the south, atlanta, bracing for the worth as ice and freezing rain moves east. the national weather service is calling the storm, quote, mind boggling if not historical. many expect the storm to be more severe than the one that crippled the city two weeks ago. let's go to bill karins. >> good morning. things are going from bad to worse. the picture should be incredible by the end of the day. a lot of people waking up to tree limbs falling and power going out quickly from south

carolina to georgia and jim cantore joins us. jim, you are set up in the perfect spot for this historic ice storm. >> yeah. the good news is it was well forecast and it came in overnight. so when people got up this morning, it's like i'm not going up there. unlike the situation two weeks ago in atlanta when people were already out and then they had to drive into it. that right there is the saving grace, just getting people off the roads and they did that just swimmingly. but look at this. it's just like a frozen set here. we just got everything cased in ice, about an eighth of an inch on these limbs, not enough to totally weight them done. look at this. everything is weighed down. just before you came to me, the winds picked up, 20, 25 miles an hour. we're right here at the riverwalk in augusta, georgia. that's south carolina on the other side. everything is encased in ice here. everything is encased in ice.

trees, all these hollies here, you can see the ice dripping off them and we're just at the start of this event. some of the liquid forecast is about 2 to 2 1/2 inches. when you factor in some of that is going to not accrete or build up on the limbs, we're probably going to end up with an inch of ice here. we expecting hundreds of thousands without power. the same crews are here to help with this clean-up. from the looks of this eveninng what we're seeing, it's going to be bad. >> and speaking of the atlanta area, they just dropped down to 30 degrees. they had a lot of sleet. sleet is better than freezing rain. at least it doesn't knock power out.

richmond, 4 to 8 inches, mostly late today into this evening. further to the north, this is going to be a blockbuster nor'easter type storm. washington, d.c., possibility of the biggest snowstorm in four years, 6 to 10 inches, especially west of town. philadelphia this could be record breaking for you in could be your fourth six-inch snowstorm of the winter. that's never happened in recorded history and new york city looks to get about 4 to 6 tomorrow morning and another 2 to 4 as we go through tomorrow night. so, hemika, a travel nightmare. >> bill, can you just -- i want to confirm. so if you're running schools in atlanta, georgia, should over the next two days the school doors be open or closed? >> they should only be open in case people need someplace to go warm. that would be the only reason.

>> so children should probably not -- children should probably not be sent to school? i just want to make sure we're giving them warning. >> just so we're on the record. we don't really need like a two-hour delay. i think we can just keep them home. >> should city workers stay home or should they wait till it starts to snow and, i don't know, maybe at the height of the storm should they then drive home? >> i think there's a big storm forecast for atlanta. maybe you should keep them home. >> keep them home. >> if you guys had only given proper warning last time. thank you so much, bill. >> try and get it right this time, bill. >> coming up next, he was one of only 28 house republicans a back a higher debt limit. congressman peter king reacts to criticism of the vote and he has some things to say about edward snowden possibly working for russia. that's ahead on "morning joe." ♪ that won't happen to us because it's always been a matter of trust ♪

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okay, we stop talking about this now. >> meecham switched out my caffeinated beverage for nonalcoholic noncaffeinated beverage. >> here with us now from west babb ba babylon new york, new york, it's really good to you have on the show this morning, peter. >> thank you, mika. but i just want to drink whatever nicole is drinking. >> let's smell this. >> it's been replaced. >> peter, fascinating stuff about -- not so fascinating

about the debt ceiling. we could have that debate, blah, blah, blah. pete, you and i would probably disagree. no need to waste your time on this. your guy who knows a hell of a lot about homeland security, let's talk about edward snowden and russia. nicole was saying beforehand there is suspicion rising in the intelligence community that snowden may not have just been this lone wolf that was able to mcgyver his way through and get three toothpicks and gauze pads and 20-weight ball bearings and uncover the greatest secrets from the united states government. answer that, if there's a question in there. >> seriously joe. that is being looked at. i'm not in a position -- i'm at a number of these meetings.

i don't think there's enough known. there are people who do wonder how he was able to do what he did, the fact that he went to china, went to russia and is still there in russia apparently being treated very well. the russians had to have had access to all he brought over. it has been brought out the last few days the information involving the nsa is probably less than 1% or 2% of the information that snowden has made available, including countermeasures that we use to stop i.e.d.s. now the enemy can be aware of that. this goes far beyond the nsa. i don't want to go any further than that because this is very sensitive. chairman mike rogers is looking at this very carefully, i'm on the committee with him. that's as far as i want to go, other than to say this is a lot more than just metadata with the nsa. that's why i'm so angry that

rand paul is bringing this lawsuit today. in addition to that, the vast amounts of classified, top-secret information that has been made available about our military is disgraceful. >> the fact that these there, that he went to russia, isn't that enough of a concern that they will try to get at him, offer him whatever they can give him to get information from him? shouldn't we have been extremely concerned about this from the get-go and assumed it was happening? >> absolutely. and we have to assume, by the way, that all of the material he had, all of data he had is available to the russians. i mean, they can break any type code. once he brought it with him -- i think we have to assume the chinese have it all, too. they can extract that from the data he had. no doubt the chinese, especially the russians are using him.

>> i take my kid to the spy museum this past weekend in washington and they show the greatest spies of our time, aldridge ames and robert -- >> hanson. >> they hand over some document, a paper that is probably one millionth to a guy who considers himself our enemy, vladimir putin. that's why i find it shocking this guy should be given a ticker tape parade. guys are in jail for 25 years. >> joe, as republicans, do we really want people in our party saying they don't know whether he's a patriot or not, he may be, who actually put him in the same classification as the director of national intelligence. >> everyone is welcome to be in my party who wants to be in my

party but it's certainly not the position the republican party should take that, we're not sure if this guy is a hero or not. >> as far asom concerned, he's a traitor, a pacifier, he's an accomplice, he's not in any way heroic and he's an absolute disgrace. >> congressman, can you talk at all about what reforms have been put in place to keep this from happening given, now that all of this is, as joe said, easier to drop off than it used to be in a park in northern virginia, it's not just an envelope anymore, it can be an entire system. >> in many ways what the nsa did here is what the cia and fbi did. they're so concerned about being penetrated from the outside that they were in many ways oblivious to what could be happening internally. there's no way how snowden should be allowed to doing this, they are now putting very basic reforms that would make it very difficult or impossible for him to do it again. looking back, there's no reason why this was allowed to happen,

never should have. just like with ames and hanson, the fbi was spending hundreds and billions to find spice and they had spies working right there in their own operation. but they are taking measures. i think from what i can tell so far, this would prevent this from happening given. then you have to think about what else can happen. we have to be much more concerned about what's happening internally. jo want to duck this. i stand by what john boehner did. john tried everything. i was so disgusted with people in the republican conference. so many got up and said they knew they had to pass the debt ceiling but they didn't have the guts to vote for it and they wouldn't vote for anything. that's why he did what he had to do. >> you don't think there's a leader on capitol hill that couldn't have gotten the conference at least to stand behind at least one alternative

vote? >> i would like to hear the answer. >> we dealt with this all the time when we worked together. the democrats were actually very good at putting us in reallyin comfortable positions and voting against pieces of legislation that had really good parts of them that our district would have liked. >> joe, you guys were the ultimate reasonable men compare to what we have today. these guys would not budge. >> i don't believe that. >> i'll leave you out, i'll leave you out. >> you said publicly, peter king, that i was a red neck that walked out of a tent revival ba barefooted. you're calling me a reasonable man compared to that? >> by the way, you were that but now you're a reasonable person. joe, this is the same group at that back in september/october went into a government shutdown

that everybody knew was a disaster. they looked like morons. john boehner would not allow that to happen given. he was a real leader. >> congressman, back to the intelligence community issues, we have the two big stories, one is private first class manning, which some would consider a whistleblower and some would be considered a leaker and that brings us to edward snowden, who some would consider to be a whistleblower. you think he's a traitor. as we look at the reforms, what are the institutional reforms that can be implemented right away from a military practice to the contractor status because we know about the millions of people that have the contractor security statuses but it seems as if we're porous on the military front and the contractor front. >> you're right. not enough is being done on that. there's no way snowden should have been allowed to keep his

clearance. april pa apart from what he's doing, different events that occurred, he should not have been allowed to keep that security clearance. he was always one step ahead. he went from job to job. and the defects in clearance turned up after he left that job. how that wasn't able to be discerned -- that is one thing that has to be done. >> congressman king, thank you so much. >> how do you work with a barefooted guy like that, a woman of your distinction? >> i have no idea. it's very difficult. >> i plead guilty to the red neck charge. >> he's the lawyer in arrested development. he's crazy, he's crazy.

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[ telephone rings ] [ shirley ] edward jones. this is shirley speaking. how may i help you? oh hey, neill, how are you? how was the trip? [ male announcer ] with nearly 7 million investors... [ shirley ] he's right here. hold on one sec. [ male announcer ] ...you'd expect us to have a highly skilled call center. kevin, neill holley's on line one. ok, great. [ male announcer ] and we do.

it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. ♪ was it or was it not my client who put up the initial seed money for the blocked software that served as the architecture of think block? >> it was 99 cents. >> can i say something to my client? >> that is the latest season of "arrested development," one of

my favorite shows and you are my favorite character. you're perfect. you're perfect. >> thank you. i'm never considered part of the ensemble. i'm kind of like a guest. >> are you kidding me? >> no. >> oh, no, no, no. when i said take to the sea, they flashed back to young barry and it was my son, max, who is now a director who played me. >> no way! >> i like that a lot. >> we got a lot to talk about. >> first of all, is it going to become a movie, you think? >> i'm not sure. i know that it's going to come back. i just don't know in what form. it might be a mini series, it might be back on netflix. but i know that mitch wants all the actors together at once. >> let's talk about these books because these are important books. talk about "here's hank" and it's about a kid that makes his class laugh, doesn't try to make his class laugh. but there's a special -- there's

a special back story to this. >> yes. it is based on my life and wherever my dyslexia bumps up against the world, we put it into these books. there are 18 in the fourth grade, the fifth grade and the sixth grade and we just started the pre-quel that joe is kindly holding up and it is in the second grade. he is now in the second grade. >> talk about the fonz. i wanted people to see this, especially here. >> first time in america. it was created by a dad in holland for his dyslexic children so that the words are weighted more on the page and don't float. it is easier to read for everybody. >> oh, my gosh, it really is. and the publisher decided they were going to seek this out and we used it first time. >> great. >> it's really fantastic and this has been a passion project

for you as someone who is dyslexic. explain how you've been able to turn that around into a positive for yourself and now to be able to pay it forward in the books like this. >> what i realized is i could be held down by the frustration or i could just keep my eye on the prize. i now know that the phrase for my life is "if you will it, it is not a dream." and they're not just pretty words, they actually make this world spin. if you know what you want and you just put one foot in front of the other, you can actually get here to this table. >> nicole. >> what's your message for parents with kids that might be struggling? >> i'll tell you exactly what it is. a child knows they're not doing well. you don't need to remind them. so here it is -- all you need to do is keep that child buoyed

because when you're not doing well, your self-image plummets to your ankles. >> you were never diagnosed, right? >> never. it was when my son, jed, this smart, funny, verbal kid couldn't write a report about the nation we had just visited. we had him tested and everything they were saying to him i went so i'm not stupid, i have something with a name. >> wow. >> and then these books came as i was going to do this because there was a lull in my acting career, who knew there would be a lull? >> i can't believe it. >> how many people still talk to you about "happy days"? >> every day about a million people. >> we just celebrated 50 years of the beatles. >> look at you, henry! >> it's unbelievable. isn't that unbelievable? >> it's unbelievable. >> i move my chair over this way. >> remember when the diner

burned down? >> absolutely. >> so good. >> can i just ask him one thing? >> anything you want. >> what you said really struck me as a parent. a child knows they're not doing well. >> and a child doesn't wake up in the morning and go, wow, i'm going to be an idiot today, i'm going to cause trouble. i covered my shame and humiliation for not being able to figure out what was going on with humor. >> but i also think the message there and i don't know if you be meant it, sometimes to inspire them along. >> absolutely. >> it's just pointing out the deficiencies? >> can i say, i truly believe -- i'm not an expert. i truly believe we have to start teaching children the way they can learn and not what we think they should learn. >> right. >> i got a "d" minus.

never once in my career has somebody said to me hypotenuse. >> i know. >> i know. i know. >> that stuff scares me. i took geometry for one year. b-minus. >> i passed it. >> i got an "i" incomplete. here we are. >> we all made it. having a great time. >> and the s.a.t. scores. how were -- >> you get 200 for your name. i got 134 over my name. i applied to 28 colleges. i got into two. park university in missouri. i never met anybody who went to park -- i think it's a doorway in a prairie. >> you have to hedge your bets like that. >> i wasn't hedging my bets. it was humiliated. >> thank you. we have so much in common. >> yeah, thanks. >> it's a pleasure. >> also, we enjoyed the same play. >> we did.

yes, that was fun. the book,"here's hank." >> a great book. >> henry winkler, always good to you have. >> love henry. still ahead, we'll check in with politico to find out why senator rand paul is filing a lawsuit against president obama. you're watching "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] with five perfectly sweetened whole grains... you can't help but see the good. bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort,

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a big storm's a-brewin'. back with us on set -- [ laughter ] >> a-brewin'? >> yeah. we have jon meacham and nicolle wallace. thomas roberts. >> love that name. >> and in washington, ron fournier. >> and ron, is, like, throwing 98-mile-an-hour fastballs, every op-ed the guy -- >> i know. they're really good. >> every story, boom, right down the middle. >> thank you. >> on capitol hill, members of congress were able to pass a bipartisan deal to lift the debt ceiling. however, after months of back-room negotiating, republicans walk away mostly empty handed. unable to get his party to rally around a so-called add-on bill, house speaker john boehner once again had to turn to democrats for support, and with just 28 republicans voting yea, many in leadership positions -- the house passed a clean bill, 221-201. 193 democrats supported the bill, 2 voted against it. facing the prospect of

negative headlines just months before the midterm elections, boehner reportedly told his conference, yesterday, quote, we're going to get this done. we're not going to make ourselves the story. "washington post" robert costa described the scene as boehn boehner -- as boehner broke the news to his caucus. they didn't speak up or clap. boehner just stood there for a moment after he finished, eyed the room and walked toward a seat. i'm getting this monkey off your back, and you're not even going to clap, boehner asked? with the move, boehner once again puts himself in the line of fire with the conservative groups, the club for growth, called the clean bill a joke. while heritage action said it was irresponsible. and the senate conservatives fund is now calling for boehner to be replaced as speaker. that is unity. >> nicolle, let me ask you this, i don't want to give anybody vertigo, you were saying, to

shut done the government, to defund obamacare was a bad idea, because the president would never agree to it. but it's not like we didn't know this date was coming, we republicans, we small-government conservatives. wasn't there, like, some plan they could have come up with to at least make big spending democrats feel uncomfortable? i feel like -- you know, for instance, i actually -- i'm reading about ted cruz in the paper, going, you know, i'm going to make him get at least 60 votes. i'm going, heck ya, go, ted! i mean, it's -- does it have to be one thing or another? do we either have to fall on our sword or surrender right out of the gate, which is -- >> listen, i -- i understand that boehner tried some plans that were accompanied by cuts, and that he couldn't rally his own caucus around it, and i hate using southern expressions, because i'm from san francisco,

but mitch mcconnell said there's no education in the second kick of a all few. i think boehner spared them the second kick. as he said, you're not even giving me a round of applause. boehner deserves the congressional medal of freedom for his courage, for standing alone and doing what is best for the party. now, put the census aside for a second, because we all do that anyway. what he did -- >> try to, at least. >> -- he had a longview on what was good for the country and good for the party. i don't remember the last time anyone in my party did that. >> so what's the point? >> but it's not like he didn't know this date was coming. it's not like as leader -- >> right, but paul ryan didn't have support around an alternative proposal. >> this is a bigger problem with our party. we can't come together, and we can't come up with a strategy that at least will make democrats uncomfortable? when they cast a vote against -- >> it's not that we can't come

up with it. we can't agree on one. >> that comes down to leadership. john boehner can't rally the troops together. >> well, that's true, but i think that's separate from leadership. i think what he did yesterday was lead. >> but again, you just -- yeah, there's no education in the second kick from a donkey -- >> is that the same thing as a mule? >> -- or as a mule. >> certainly in san francisco. >> if you spend, and jon meacham, you're from the sou south -- >> and i've been kicked by many mules. >> if you stand behind mules all the time, you're more likely to get the second kick. >> fair enough. >> there are ways to avoid being kicked -- >> we haven't to get out from behind the mule. >> right. >> i tell you what i'm tired of as a republican. i'm tired of these 11th-hour crises -- >> right. >> -- that actually could have been avoided if you had leadership and you figured out how to rally troops around and come up with something, again, that might not pass but might

make democrats feel uncomfortable when they sign it. this was just -- politico had it right. this was an absolute outright surrender, and i'm just wondering what they were thinking between the last government shutdown, and this. don't overlearn the lessons of the last war. and that's what's happened here. >> you know, henry kissinger used to say the national security advisor would give you an option, option a nuclear war. option b, abject surrender. option c, what i want. >> right. >> and what neither side -- well, really, the republicans in this case, haven't gotten to a reasonable "c." >> we don't have a "c." >> you were a football coach, you had a bad team? yes, a bunch of hoodlums. >> no, i never have. most of them are watching right now. >> yeah, i know. what did do you when they didn't perform, joe? >> i inspired them. >> yes, you did. i thought putting them down onto

ground and -- >> leadership points -- >> that's inspiring. >> no, no, hold on a second. you inspire people, you rally them together. and if john boehner and the republican leadership can't figure out a way to either watch everything go up in smoke or, you know, have abject surrender, then they're not the leaders the republican party need in the house. >> listen, but in a week we're back to talking about the deficiencies in the health care reform law, we're back onto ground that favors republicans -- >> i understand, nicolle, isn't that a false choice? >> to john boehner, it's not a false choice. >> he's speaker of the house! he can work 20 hours a day to figure out a way to do this so he avoids the head -- i guarantee you. if we were sitting around and you gave us six months to figure this out, you wouldn't have a headline in politico or any

other publication that says republicans surrender. come on. it's not that hard. >> i think he decided that it beats government shuts down -- government rattles the market. i think he chose the best of the worst -- >> yeah, a couple of other stories. >> let's get ron fournier since he's in washington. i'm sorry, ron. i'm probably making no sense, and if i'm making no sense, then i -- i still, i'm cheering for cruz tonight. i want at least 60 votes before we surrender. >> i think it's never a good idea to cheer with cruz. i agree with nicolle on this. i'm pretty consistent about this. congress has already run up the debts. they have already -- the bills have already been put against us. we now have to pay the bills. we have to raise the debt limit. we don't have a choice. a good leader does not fight -- does not choose to die on this hill. and president clinton -- or president clinton. president obama, there's no way he was going to let the republicans hold a nation hostage over this.

and he shouldn't. and the republicans are, there was no way they would win. they would be in the same position they would be -- >> ron, what did the president do when he was senator obama? >> he actually -- he's being hypocritical here. he did vote against raising the debt limit, and that was the wrong thing to do. >> so did he hold the nation hostage? >> if your party -- if your party in the democrats really want to hold down the debt, what they can do is come together and come together with a grand bargain. you don't mess with the faith and credit and our economy at the 11th hour like this. >> right. >> we all know it has to be raised. >> right. >> what the leader -- i think this is a rare case where boehner showed some leadership. and i think it might tell us what boehner plans to do with the rest of his future. it will be interesting to talk about what he's going to be doing a year out from now. >> like golfing. >> and president obama did the right thing to not cave. you take the headlines, you surrender, you do the right things and take the bad headline. >> you don't have the bad

headline, that's what i'm saying. and my point to ron was, mika, that barack obama voted against raising the debt ceiling. he said it was irresponsible, et cetera, and he made a point. all i'm saying is the very least, the republicans could have made a point about a $17.3 trillion debt that when barack obama was president was $6 trillion less. about medicare and medicaid and social security system that is not going to be solvent for the next generation of retirees. there's so many things. or endless wars. or, you know, a defense budget that's absolutely exploded. you pick it, we got it. they could have made the point. or the fact that we're spending trillions of dollars every year, and the only way this he can come up with a budget compromise is by ripping off military retirees in the future. that would have been a good point to make. and say democrats would you like

to restore benefits to military retirees as part of this debt ceiling battle? make the democrats vote against military retirees, and go ahead and pass the bill. and go, okay, well, at least i love military retirees and be the guy that wipes the tear. i mean, it's just to go, i give up. >> you're so good. >> i surrender. >> he said he didn't want to be the story. i agree. >> well, he's the story. >> i see that, joe. >> by showing leadership. governing. >> democrats would define this as leadership. [ laughter ] >> ooh, okay. >> we're going to have the editorials -- are you going to write an editorial now about john boehner growing? >> growing in office. >> i'm curious, because i got out with a couple members of the leadership team yesterday, and they're speculating that maybe he's looking for a legacy, and maybe he's looking beyond his term of speaker. i think that's pretty

interesting. >> all right. >> i was going to say, boehner, and the sports analogy, needs a good offensive line. and if he doesn't have those people -- >> i was trying to do that with joe, because he's had bad football teams. >> -- get around the messes, trying to get democrats to pivot back on voting against military benefits, and if you don't have that, you can't go out and sell that. it's the aufoffensive line he needs. >> if we're going with the sports analogy, sometimes bad coaches make they are own fate. great coaches make bad teams good. i'm just saying, we didn't have to fall on our sword. i'm not saying i want to default on america's debt blah, blah, blah. >> can i tell the story? >> and my football teams are very good. >> are you sure? >> led by fear. >> chris christie -- >> that's just not true. that's not true. >> joe never had a woody hayes moment. >> there was that one -- anyhow --

>> this is offense. the story is offense. this is a good offensive story. >> only with my son. >> tell me about that. >> as far as the coaches go -- no, not that. i coached baseball and my son talked back to me one time on the field, and i walked up to him, i said, if you do that on the baseball field, i'm going to make you get down and eat that dirt. turned around and walked off, and all his friends said, don't be so tough on joey. i wanted the opposite thing. i always hated the coaches that would have their sons pitch when they threw like that. [ laughter ] and so, i wanted to make sure early on that nobody -- the team thought oh, you know -- >> joey does not -- he gets special treatment. >> yeah, nobody thought joey got special treatment. >> you took care of that. >> no, i take care of that early, and ten times rougher. one time he got in the car, looking forward, and he said, dad, i think you've made your point. >> did you a good job. he's a lovely young man. >> he is.

>> that could be a fatherhood guy, eating the dirt. >> joe's going to write a book on fatherhood. >> one of the best scenes in modern cinematic movie is a largely forgettable movie with billy crystal with -- >> "band grandpa." >> out a couple of years ago. and he goes to a little league game and no strikeouts. billy crystal is the sports announcer, his kid's son is pitching, strike three. and the umpire said, we don't have strikeouts here. >> bette midler is in that, right? >> yeah. >> and marisa tomei. chris christie is coming off a successful trip to raise money for the republican governors association. joe's worried about me. he thinks things go off the rail a little too much. he met with two of the four

republican gubernatorial candidates while in the state and was asked about continui continuing -- the continuing bridge scandal back in new jersey. >> does the g.w. bridge situation impact your ability to execute on those priorities for the state? >> i'm actually -- i'm shocked you brought that up. some people who work for me made some significant mistakes in judgment. i don't think that it will curtail for the long haul a second-term agenda, because i think the public in new jersey won't tolerate it. >> the new jersey -- >> yeah, i think he did very well. >> are we allowed to say that? >> everybody is reading his body language, you know, listen, if we had everybody come on -- we need to be like o'reilly, the body language expert -- [ laughter ] >> she's awesome. >> she is awesome. >> no, she is. >> no body language? >> i don't know anything, so i think she does. >> well, there you go. >> no, there are people that -- you know, you hire, like, a

great law firms hire people that can do this -- >> body language. >> if we're going to read christie's body language, and they're going, oh, look at him -- [ whispering ] -- he's not himself. are we allowed to say, he looked pretty good yesterday. ? >> he looked really good yesterday. and i feel like i've been saying for three weeks that this experience, if he doesn't run for president, if he doesn't prevail in the republican primary, it will have nothing to do with the bridgegate scandal. and i think that's abundantly clear in seeing him yesterday. it is not affected the things that republicans like about him. it has affected the way he's viewed by the mainstream media and the progressive left -- >> you know what else, this is only republicans would understand this. that sometimes the best thing that can happen is the media goes after you.

i had the nastiest tweets in my twitter feed over the past month for defending chris christie and call my friend, and i had some republicans -- and i was glad for chris -- now republicans, oh, you sellout, you betray chris, and it's the first time i saw people care enough to rally behind chris. you know what i'm saying? >> yeah, i do. >> i looked at it, as they were calling me, you know, whatever, communist pig, i actually looked at it, and i was, like, this is a good sign for him that people are actually -- >> can i play the sound bite we were going to play from the speech? >> well, i'd rather just hear myself talk. >> i know. >> sure. play the sound bite. >> it's so wonderful. >> i don't think the american people want income equality. what they want is income opportunity. see, if i go to somebody right now and i say, i can guarantee

you x dollars for the rest of your life, there may be some in america who would accept that, but there would be some who would go, how do i get a little more of that? that's the spirit of this country. how do i get a little more? one of the big discussions in the conversations over the next two years in national politics is, do you want mediocrity or greatness? you want income equality, that's mediocrity. everybody can have an equal, mediocre salary. that's what we can afford. or do you want the opportunity for greatness? government can play a role in creating that opportunity. but not in being the perpetual referee of what sounds like a fight between my 13-year-old son and my 10-year-old daughter. did you this for him, that's not fair. well, that's not fair, i want this to be fair. i grew up in an america that said life isn't fair. but opportunity is. >> you said pretty good.

>> uh-huh. >> the republican -- >> great. >> -- primary voter said great. and a lot of primary voters are looking to that -- >> chris christie's performance, that's offense, talking about income inequality, a big conversation in the country. so he's getting big again. >> you worry about the bridge, i'm worrying about the country. >> getting donations, going around the country, more for the rga, and, joe, to your point, republicans supporting him while everybody else goes after him, it's like your family narrative. you can talk about my sister, but you can't talk about my sister, now i'll go to florida and chicago and raise money. it gets back to the narrative, the republicans who were giving him the heisman after the president obama hug and sandy, now want to rally around, we'll see you to cpac. >> that's exactly right. >> the point on cpac, if he had gone into cpac sort of being the media darling -- >> post-romney image. >> -- the post-romney guy, there

would have been boos, or quiet. >> a standing ovation. >> now, a standing ovation, because he's been besieged by the left-wing media, et cetera, and, you can't talk about my sister. >> we're just way -- >> the language -- to my mind, the language he's using there is the kind of language that bill clinton used in 1992. it's about the public sector creating conditions for growth, about a proposition -- >> and george w. bush. >> -- and president bush, which is a great american tradition. we had the g.i. bill to educate people to make money. we built the defense of establishment to defend ourselves. we created a middle class that for 20 years has been in decline, and that's the kind of language that, i think, will -- whether it's christie or whoever wants to be president needs to adopt that kind of language. >> coming up on "morning joe," a new study is questioning the value of mammograms. what researchers are now saying about detecting breast cancer. plus, bill karins has an update on the dangerous storm

system battering the south. more "morning joe" when we come back. ameriprise asked people a simple question: can you keep your lifestyle in retirement? i don't want to think about the alternative. i don't even know how to answer that. i mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. i try not to worry, but you worry. what happens when your paychecks stop? because everyone has retirement questions. ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. to get the real answers you need. start building your confident retirement today.

♪ 24 hours from right now, times square will have about 4 inches of snow on the ground, and it'll be snowing hard in new york city for a miserable morning commute. now, the morning commute is miserable down in areas of the southeast. actually, it hasn't been that bad, because a lot of people are just staying home. schools cancelled, employees told to stay home in many areas of georgia and south carolina, and even north carolina for that matter. we look at the atlanta area. thankfully, so far, primarily sleet.

sleet's a lot better than freezing rain, because it doesn't knock down the power lines, and you don't lose power. still makes the roads extremely treacherous. the freezing rain is a huge issue in a few areas, especially along i-20 coming out of atlanta. areas near augusta, georgia, talking about as much as an inch of freezing rain throughout the day today, and that's going to take down some -- substantial amount of tree limbs and trees, and the area of dark purple, fayetteville, to raleigh, going throughout the day. the snow side of the storm, snow is about to begin if charlotte, north carolina, and you're in for a decent snowstorm. up to 8 inches. richmond, yours will be later this afternoon into this evening, up to about 8 inches. raleigh, 3 to 6 before it turns to ice for you. further to the north, primarily d.c., overnight storm for you. by tomorrow morning, you'll have about 6 to 10 inches on the ground. it'll be snowing hard early tomorrow morning for the morning commute from philly to hartford, to new york.

and up in new england, it will be more later in the day. there's also a back side to the storm. everyone get as break tuesday -- thursday afternoon. and then we get a little slap as the storm leaves, with another 2 to 4 inches up there in new england. so a pretty decent storm up here in new england, but a crippling storm with the ice down in the deep south. back to you, mika. >> thank you, bill. let's turn now to the morning paymers. "wall street journal," the stock market had the biggest game of the year as congressional testimony by new fed chair janet yellen appeared to calm nervous investors. the dow jumped 200 points after yellen indicated that the federal reserve would continue its low-interest policies. it was the dow's fourth straight day of gains after a rocky start to the year. mika, did you see this from the charleston daily mail? there are more water troubles in west virginia. >> oh, no, no. >> after 100,000 gallons of coal slurry spilled into a stream. environmental officials say that hours passed before the employees knew about it because

an alarm system wasn't working and a spokesman for the west virginia american water says the drinking water should still be safe, but they're testing that water to see if even more harmful chemicals got in. >> "usa today," a new long-term study reveals routine mammograms result in an overdiagnosis of breast cancer. the study says mammograms often find slow-growing forms of cancer that are mostly harmless. the women are then subjected to unnecessary treatment or surgery. more than 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year. >> you know, the most frightening part of the study, mika, it's a long-term study, and they found no difference in survival rates between women who take the mammograms and women who did not as far as breast cancer goes. >> they'll really have to look at this and what alternatives there are. "the new york daily news" a group of michael jackson fans in france won a lawsuit by proving they suffered emotional distress

by the singer's death. they were awarded one euro each in damages, which is $1.74. >> okay. >> the group's lawyer said they won't collect the money, but hope to get permission to visit jackson's grave in -- >> okay! and "the new york times" -- >> what the -- >> female wire fox terrier is the winner of the west minister dog show in madison square garden. it's the breed's 14th win at westminister. they always win. all terriers, won 46 times, the most of any group. this year, the dog show boasted more than 2,800 competitors, from 187 breeds and varieties, and a standard poodle was a runner-up, but the crowd favorite, mika, always, and is always mine, the bloodhound. i love the bloodhounds whenever i go. >> they have a category for mutts? >> do they really? >> yes, cajun will do it --

>> what about spice? >> if you don't put spice down. are you going to put spice down, or not? >> i'm just saying that he needs some work. we're working with someone today, and hopefully he will stop doing what he is doing that's causing some problems. >> do you know what -- do you know who can fix that actually? >> a zookeeper in denmark. >> ooh. >> no. >> he's really cute. he runs around in circles. he's so happy. >> i had that image in my mind, and i'm not going to tell you what he does when he runs around in circles. >> that's because you were there. >> with us now mike allen with politico, who does not run around in circles, here with the "morning playbook." politico is reporting that rand paul's actually going to bring a lawsuit against president obama. why is he suing the president? >> joe, this will be a real spectacle. today at 11:00, senator paul will be down on the steps of the u.s. district courthouse here, the courthouse where scooter libby's trial and other big events have been, and we got a

copy of the complaint that he's going to file. and he's going to have -- this is a big class action. the people in his class are anyone in the u.s. who has a phone. and he's going to ask the court to declare the patriot act's allowing of the monitoring of phone calls unconstitutional and going to ask the government to stop and say that the government will have to purge from its database any of the meta data it's collected about the calls. this is part of rand paul's effort to show republicans around the country that he's a fighter. we've seen here on the show he's been out talking about the clintons at a time when a lot of republicans wish he would shut up about that. but he has a very specific audience, and that is this right-wing republicans who want someone out there who's going to be tough, not afraid of anyone. >> politico's mike allen. >> thank you, mike. >> it's always great to have mike. >> amazing. so adorable. >> -- doesn't run around in circles like your dog. >> well, my dog did what he did because you were present. and i think that was a sign of affection. >> it was disturbing.

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okay. now we can stop talking about this -- >> how you doing, nicolle? meacham switched out my caffeinated beverage -- i think chuck should come back, because i'm good now. >> yeah, i know. >> thomas was shattered. >> this is what i was talking about nuance. >> this is, when she was talking -- >> best for irish catholic tongue like my way to lean -- >> babylon, new york, new york, republican congressman peter king, who sits both on the house homeland security and intelligence committees, really good to have you on the show this morning. peter. >> thank you, mika. i just want to drink whatever nicolle is drinking. >> i'll have what she's having. >> let's smell this. >> it's -- i mean, it's been replaced. >> peter, hey, fascinating stuff about -- not so fascinating about the debt ceiling -- well,

pete, i think you and i will probably disagree on this, there's no need to waste your time on it. yoo you are a guy that knows a hell of a lot about homeland security. it's been your life since september 11th. let's talk about edward snowden and russia. nicolle was saying beforehand there is suspicions rising in the community, intelligence community, that snowden may not have just been this lone wolf that was able to macgyver his way through and get three toothpicks and gauzepads and 28 ballbearings and uncover the greatest secrets ever uncovered from the united states government. answer that, if there's even a question in there. >> no, somewhere there's a question. no, seriously, joe, that's in discussion. ive been in a number of the meetings, but i don't think there's enough known.

people are wondering how he was able to do what he did. the fact he went to china, went to russia, still there in russia, apparently being treated very well. the russians had to had access to all you brought over. and it really was in many ways treasonous, because it has been brought out in the last few days the information involving the nsa is probably less than 1% or 2% of the information that snowden has made available, including countermeasures that we use to stop ieds. now, the enemy can be aware of that. this goes far beyond the nsa. and that's really -- i don't want to go any further than that, because again, it's sensitive. i know chairman mike rogers is looking at this carefully. i'm on the committee with him. that's certainly as far as i want to go, other than to say there's a lot more than just meta data with the nsa. i think it was bad enough he did that. i think that's really hurt the country. that's why i'm so angry that rand paul is bringing this lawsuit. in addition to that, the vast

amounts of other information, that's sensitive information, classified, top-secret information involving our military, does remain available, it's disgraceful. >> okay, i know you don't want to go further, so let me just ask for you to confirm something. the fact that he's there, that he went to russia, isn't that enough of a concern that they will try to get at him, offer him whatever they can give him to get information from him? i mean, shouldn't we have been extremely concerned about this from the get-go? and assumed it was happening? >> absolutely. and we have to assume, by the way, that all of the material he had, all of the data he had, is available to the russians. i mean, they can break any type of code. once he brought it with hem -- we have to assume the chinese have it all, too. they can extract that from the data that he had. so, no, there's no doubt in my mind the chinese, especially the russians, are us aing him. how early -- and i think you always -- >> exactly. >> so i take my kids to the spy museum this past weekend in washington, and they show the

greatest spies of our time. you know, aldridge emas, that's his name, and robert hanson. >> hanson, yeah. >> and they hand over some documents, some paper that probably 1/1 millionth of what snowden has passed along to a guy who considers hillself our enemy, vladimir putin. that's why i find it so shocking that people feel like he should be given a tickertape parade. >> absolutely. >> guys that have done one-one millionth of this, are in jail for 25 years. >> as republicans, okay, joe, do we want people in our party somehow saying we don't know whether he's a patriot or not, he may be, who put him in the same classification as the director of -- it's scandalous. >> i welcome anybody that wants to be in my party, but that's certainly not the position the republican party should take. we're not sure whether this guy is a hero or not. >> right.

>> as far as i'm concerned, he's a traitor, a pacifier, an apiecer, whatever you want to call him, he's an accomplice. an absolute disgrace. >> can you talk about what reforms have been put in place to keep this from happening again now that this is all, as joe said, esier to drop off than it used to be in a park in northern have vachlt it's not just an energy. it can be an entire system. >> in many ways what the nsa did is what the cia and fbi did. they're so concerned about being penetrated from the outside that they were, in many ways, oblivious to what could be happening internally. there's no way, again, without going into details, how snowden should have been allowed to do this. they are now putting into very basic reforms that would make it very difficult or impossible for him to do it again. but looking back on it now, there's no reason at all why this was allowed to happen. it never should have happen, just as with ames and hanson,

the cia and fbi spending hundreds of millions -- billions of trying to find spies, and they had spies right there in their own operation. that's what happened with snowden. they are taking measures. i think, what i can tell so far, this would prevent this from happening again, but then you have to think about what else can happen, and we have to be much more concerned what's happened internally. joe, if i could go back to the other point, i stand by what john boehner did, and i know all the points you were making about the veterans benefits and all that. john tried everything. i was so disgusted with people in the republican conference, so many got up and said, they knew they had to pass the debt ceiling, but didn't have the guts to vote for it, and wouldn't vote anything. that's why he did what he did. i give him credit. >> you really think that there's not a leader on capitol hill that couldn't have gotten the conference at least to stand behind at least one alternative vote, at least one -- because, you know, we dealt with this all the time. >> right. >> when we worked together, the

democrats were actually very good at putting us in really uncomfortable positions, and voting against pieces of legislation that had really good parts of them that our district would have liked. >> joe, you guys were the ultimate reasonable men compared to what we have today. these guys would not budge. john tried everything. >> i don't believe that. no, i don't believe that. you said publicly, peter king, that i was a redneck that walked out of a tent revival barefooted, and so you're calling me the ultimate reasonable man -- >> compared to these guys. joe, let me say, also, with that -- remember, this is the same group -- this is the same group -- by the way, you were that. but now, you're a very reasonable person. >> i came to set without shoes on today. >> joe, this is the same group that back in september and october, went into a government shutdown that everybody knew was a disaster. they ended up looking like morans following ted cruz over the cliff. >> thank you, peter.

>> john boehner was not going to allow it to happen. he was a real leader. >> congressman peter king, thank you so much. up next, business before the bell with brian sullivan. more "morning joe" when we come back.

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[ dog barks ] because right after they get married, they'll find some financial folks who will talk to them about preparing early for retirement and be able to focus on other things, like each other, which isn't rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. let's get to work. "business before the bell" with cnbc's brian sullivan, physically here in the building. we dragged you in. >> yes, i am. >> because january is so tough and february is so great. >> yeah, january, the end of the world for the stock market. we were tanking. everybody, here's the correction for stocks, blah, blah, blah. all of a sudden, in january, we're doing great. you know, february, the last week, we're doing -- we're up about 3.5%, so what has changed from the j to the f? i think the world is not ending.

janet yellen's testimony was very soothing. she did a great job. she comforted the stock market. you got that. you had good china data. and people realized it's not the end of the world. the weather is terrible, it's going to hurt the economy, we know that. it's not going to end the economy. >> and when you bring unjanet yellen, too, the task she's bernanke-esque, not a ripple effect coming from the switch -- >> yeah, if anything, she's what they call more dovish, more accommodative to growth and credit, because cheaper credit means easier to borrow money, more stimulative, and she, if anything, might be more dovish. the market was comforted, and we had a huge stock day yesterday. >> explain how traders are using lasers -- >> oh, my, yeah, unbelievable. high-speed traders try to get any edge, right? it's like the steroids of the stock market. it's all legal. now they're using the same lasers that fighter jets use to communicate to try to transmit information faster than the

other guy. we're talking literally millionths of a second, levels of time that my small brain can't fathom are being installed, because -- it's ridiculous. >> it's a good thing we have mandy drury here, because come on up, you can fathom -- >> it just worked out that mandy happened to be in the building -- >> what are you doing here? >> it's an embarrassment of riches to have -- >> cnbc is just taking over. >> you like what quewe're doing here? >> i feel outnumbers. >> and tomorrow, more. we'll multiply. >> yeah, thanks, guys. thank you, thomas. i'll see you 2:00 eastern. did i say 2:00 eastern? >> a great tease for cnbc. coming up next, the best of late night. don't go anywhere. honestly? my kids were always on my laptop. i didn't think i could buy them their own, let alone for under $300. but this asus with windows is lightweight

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my favorite part of the westminster dog show is watching the owners. i'm much more interested in the owners than i am the dogs. in fact, i asked my crack graphics team to remove the dogs from the following clips. and this, to me, is what the

westminster dog show is all about. [ applause ] we finally found something sadder than an imaginary friend. >> very proud owners there. hey, we're going to give you this programming note. later this morning, joe and mika will be joining the ladies over on "the view." so set your dvrs or stay home from work and watch it. up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? we asked people a question, how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old.

i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪

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so you can. yevette from russia. hey, thomas, how's it going? right now, in sochi, russia. it's amazing having an amazing time here. the weather is phenomenal. who would have thought i'd have -- >> god, a hateful soul. i don't want edward snowden or jim back in this country. >> it's a good stand-up. >> yeah, i know. >> it follows you and you get to see the whole scene. >> oh, my gosh. >> thomas, i think what you learned today is what we all

learned today. >> yes. >> let me start with you. and she is to your left, what have you learned today? >> nuances in art, and sometimes i need a fan to really cool me down. >> and i learned that i am going to couples counselling not with my husband but with the -- >> oh, my gosh. >> that's good. >> i learned that when you put the jack daniels in nicolle's coffee, it has an impact. >> i learned that republicans all over this country cheered nicolle except for her husband, and nicolle said, thank god he's out of town. >> yeah, he said, when you don't vote for your own candidate, you don't get to be mad. >> exactly. mika, what about our dear friend, tom? >> yes, tom brokaw facing some health challenges, but we send our love and cheers to you, as well. and tom has been such a backer of this show. a tireless fighter for cancer research. >> yeah.

>> and we hope to have you back on the show soon. >> it's way too early, it's "morning joe." and now, to our dear friend -- >> todd. what a difference a shutdown makes. picking their poison. republican leaders retreat on the debt limit handing president obama a victory. this hour, we'll talk to one of the republicans who voted with the democrats, a conservative who opposed the deal, and the ranking democrat on the house budget committee. are we done with the days of the debt ceiling being wielded as a political weapon? plus, taking a "deep dive" and what's become the easy way out of a congressional ethics investigation. and the historical storm. winter storm watches and warnings from texas to new england. ice and snow already blanketing much of the south. the latest on the dangerous weather affecting tens of millions of americans. good morning from washington. it's wednesday, february 12th,