russia is a country or a gas station. >> the irish mayor gets his green on. if you were looking for outfit inspiration when you get dressed, this might be whatnot to wear. this is "way too early." hi, everybody. good morning. i'm thomas roberts. it is monday, march 17th. welcome to "way too early." how was that? no. "way too early." not good? okay. the show that will never steal your lucky charms, we just enhance them around here. they dared me to do it. i tried and i failed. anyway, it's great to have you with us this morning. we start off with serious news. the search for the missing flight 370 has now entered an unprecedented stage. it is the 10th day of the search efforts. they continue. officials are taking a much closer look at the pilots of the plane, keir simmons has more. >> reporter: this is a navy p-3

ryan an advanced submarine sensor that can look under the ocean. today it will be flying over the indian ocean as the flight for 370 is vastly expanded. there are 25 countries helping in the search. over the ocean they are searching over 11 separate countries. an incredible operation. to try to establish what happened, the investigation continues back here in malaysia. now the focus is increasingly on the pilots. harry shaw and fariq muhammad. they're honest men. the authorities here are making clear that they are not just looking into the two pilots, that they are looking into the

passengers and the crew but the news through the weekend that flight 317 was being controlled by someone is resetting the investigation and opened up a whole new set of questions about what exactly happened. back to you. >> keir simmons reporting. as far as russia is concerned, the country is set to become bigger. voters in crimea adopted yesterday to leave it behind and join the russian federation. the outcome was never involved. exit polls suggest 93% supported secession. becoming part of ukraine was not even a question. thousands of russian troops are in that area and they're warning moscow for additional costs. pro russian celebrations, they lasted well into the night after this vote. now moscow must decide how to

move forward. the government of vladimir putin who spoke with president obama by phone yesterday will now have to contend with crimea's economic and energy needs. putin must address the russian forces on the embattled peninsula. on the border scuffles broke out. russia has built up the forces along the border. prior to the vote at least 80 russian troops seized a national gas terminal near crimea. the pro russian leadership claims self-defense for taking over the facility, but listen to how senator john mccain spoke about this on sunday. >> russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. it's cleptocracy, it's corruption, it's a nation that is really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy and so economic sanctions are important. get some military assistance to

ukrainians at least so they can defend themselves. resume the missile defense system in poland and the czech republic. look at moldova who is invaded by russia as we speak. there are a myriad of steps we can take and it will be interesting to see to what degree are people joining us who are dependent on russian energy slice. >> rand paul took home 15% of the vote on saturday's northeast republican leadership conference in new hampshire. new jersey governor chris christie came in second with 13% and rick santorum, scott walker and ben carson were tied in third each with 11%. senator paul also has an early lead among possible 2016 candidates according to a new cnn opinion research poll involving 16% of the vote. while paul did not attend the

conference, u.s. senator scott brown did and he spoke about his immediate future and his desire to return to the senate. >> it won't surprise you that i've been over the last year paying special attention to my wife gayle of the last 30 years. gayle's been telling me if i really want to make a difference, number one, i should stop complaining and, number two, i should run for the united states senate in new hampshire. starting tomg morning for the next several weeks gayle and i will be traveling around this great state to introduce ourselves, to ask questions, to speak with everyone of every background, republicans, independents, democrats alike, and above all to listen and learn of all of your concerns because i cannot know it all and like some people in washington who think they do. >> less than eight months away from election day and there is real concern that democrats could lose control of the senate in the mid terms. in fact, yesterday there was a bipartisan agreement between two of the nations top political

advisors. democrats are in serious trouble. >> with 14 seats in play on the democratic side and a couple seats in play potentially on the republican side, i think it's highly likely the republicans pick up a majority. >> i think if the republicans are going to participate that way, democrats are going to get involved. if the democrats are going to have any hope of keeping the senate. if he doesn't get, as i said, more involved in raising money, in getting voters excited, we know, as you said, that obama care is going to bring republicans out. what issues can the president put on the table to get democrats exsited. if he doesn't get more involved in raising money and making this a choice as dan pfeiffer said you lose the senate and if you lose the senate, turn out the lights because the party is over. >> the republican party is looking to unify its message on obama care. it goes beyond the rallying call that we've heard of repeal and

replace. gop leaders are looking to draw distinctions with the president as voters head to the polls. according to the washington post the plan would expand high risk insurance polls, promote health savings accounts and encourage small businesses to purchase coverage together. the main focus will be to shift it to the states and away from the government. some far right conservatives are said to be skeptical. new information is now emerging about the drunk driving suspect who allegedly plowed his car into crowds at the south by southwest festival in austin last week. 21-year-old rashaad owens accelerated the car as he approached the crowds, did not use the brakes on the vehicle. he remains in jail. he's been charged with one count of capital murder. his bail was set as $3 million. one of the crash victims is showing signs of improvement this morning.

29-year-old evan west was upgraded to fair condition. he's one of seven people who remains hospitalized. his injuries are very serious that he sustained during that crash which also claimed the life of his wife. there's a new spy heading up the cia's iran division amid what they're calling chief of the iran division. he was sent home following accusations of a hostile work environment. jonathan bank was placed on administrative leave. the report says that several key employees were demanding to be transferred from the unit after complaining of disarray within the unit particularly stemming from banks' management style. the iran office is considered one of the agency's most critical divisions. now we shift our attention to business for monday. in a few hours we see how the markets will shift after crimea's vote.

all three markets closed in negative territory. jeff cuttmore is live. what do you anticipate? >> it will be a brighter start, i think. we've already had a positive open for the european trading session here, and it seems that investors currently are willing to put aside some of these crimea-related jitters and go back into the market and buy on what they see is value after last week's declines. currently you are predicted an open ten points higher on the s&p. that's in the futures. a little over 90 points on the dow here. another story the markets are watching, go daddy. you remember the racy adverts with the scantily clad ladies. they're cleaning up their image in the ad market a little bit. you'll notice that a lot of the scantily clad ladies have disappeared. perhaps this is because they're going to ipo. there are rumors out there, sources suggesting that there is an ipo in the pipeline for this

registrar business, and tlag kkr and silverlake who pay, what, $2.75 billion might be looking to exit. keep your eye on go daddy. it looks like it's a story that may have legs here. thomas, back to you. >> another story, tesla, the ceo of that story, elon musk, accusing the governor of new jersey from keeping his cars out of the state. explain that. >> we know elan musk is no shrinking violet. he doesn't mind who he has a go at here, but it does look as though this time around chris christie may have a need to answer the criticism here. the new jersey governor being said to be involved in a back room deal by elan musk as it looks as though there will be a ruling that they have to shut down their direct selling mobile so ultimately this will mean they'll have to go through the dealer network.

elan musk says it's not in the dealer's interests to sell cars. it will not be good for business for tesla so he's seeking a judicial ruling that would overthrow this decision in new jersey. >> it will be one to watch. highly popular cars. still ahead on "way too early," who's in, who's out. we're going to be breaking down the march madness brackets. later, one diver gets attacked by an angry reef shark and lives to tell you about it. we'll show you the video. that story and weather when "way too early" comes back. stick around. this was the first sunday at the vatican for pope francis who made it clear that he enjoys connecting with the fateful face to face. he spent part of this day working the crowd. ♪

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welcome back, everybody. it is time to set up your office pools. the march madness brackets are set. the ncaa committee has spoken. the florida gators are the number one overall seed. virginia in the east, the arizona wildcats in the west and the undefeated wichita shockers in the midwest. it was really an emotional afternoon for the virginia team. earlier in the day they defeated duke to win their first acc title. on the way home for the game the team stopped at a restaurant for the tournament announcements. here's the reaction. >> the ncaa, the east region, fourth overall number one seed is virginia. >> pretty nice, right? so some snubs to talk about, surprises. smu left out of the tournament or the southern methodist must

tangs. it would have been their first ncaa tournament in 21 year. louisville cardinals were dropped to fourth seed. nc state gets in on friday. they were just as surprised as the rest of us so we send our congrats to them. as i mentioned though, florida locked in their overall number one seed on this tournament. yesterday the gators earning a top honor. they beat their s.e.c. rivals, the kentucky wildcats, to win the title. in the final minute kentucky's james young draining a three to make it a one-point game. in the final possession kentucky loses the ball and the gators win 61-60. there is $1 billion on the table for one lucky person who can

fill out the lucky bracket. that's done by warren buffet. fill it out on yahoo!. the odds of picking a perfect bracket, 1 in 9.2 quintillion. that's a 9, a 2, and 17 zeroes. >> finally our favorite video of the morning comes to us from the st. joe's, vcu game. >> joe martelly, 19 years as a head coach on the left. look at him with his arms folded. his 4-year-old grand child, 4-year-old steven martelly, he even has his grease board. he's 4 years old. >> i love that. he has the big red marker. he'll do the hand move. there it is. he even has the pocket square. really good impression of his grandfather. the coach is all about the look

and very intense. let's get a check of your weather. we have nbc meteorologist dylan dreyer here. >> i'm not out in the snow. there's a big storm going on in d.c. >> we're going to keep you locked inside. >> it's nice to be here. nice and warm. can you believe we're talking about another snowstorm. this is the fifth time the federal offices in d.c. have been shut down this winter because of snow. that's five snowstorms. you can see the snow is still coming down very heavy. we could also see some very strong storms today down through parts of florida. first, i want to show you that the snow is still coming down. looking at a pretty nice picture of the capital there. the roads not looking so nice. it's a good thing a lot of things are shut down this morning. we are going to see a chance of some of this heavier snow move into delaware and southern new jersey. most of what we're going to get is already on the ground but it is still making a mess in some areas in parts of the nation's capital already picked up about 7 to 9 inches of snow. now this is already pretty much

what we're going to see in parts of virginia, but we could still see another couple of inches in delaware and southern new jersey. florida today, you could end up with an isolated tornado out of some of these storms that we'll see later on this afternoon. it looks like we'll see heavier downpours and isolated wind gusts. we should top out at 70 degrees. it cools down as we go into tomorrow. unbelievable we're still talking about snow. it has to be over soon, right? >> we're not going to blame you. we blame bill karins. do you and your husband fill out brackets for basketball? >> i make him do my bracket. >> yeah. >> we won last year on "the today show" pool. >> nice. >> you should sign up for the warren buffet thing. >> quintillion, that's happening. coming up at the top of the hour on the "morning joe," the latest and why the investigators are looking at pilots and new theories on where the plane might be.

we'll have bob hayinger straight a -- hagger straight ahead. we'll have a brand new video. some tough las vegas

caught our attention. >> i covered all the highlights and cover the highlights at news

10. i'm going to sign off because i want to get there by the time everything tips off. i'm going to hand the microphone over to my buddy, gowild accounts. >> we'll see you back here at 10:00. >> boom. down he goes. paul sacala took the fall in stride and tweeting afterwards. not to run in traffic and trip. >> i was saying, don't get hit by a car. don't get hit by a car. he stumbles. >> it was good it was just a fall. you know, we have a tough job, tom. especially when you're out in the field. you never know what's going to happen. >> did he drink a live raw egg on television? i don't think so. >> he did not do that and i did not get sick this weekend which i'm happy about. >> you still have three to four days left until you're all clear. >> i'm not in the clear yet? >> you're not in the clear. louis, thank you. >> happy st. patrick's day. >> you, too.

thank you. "way too early" will be right back. how do you spend st. patty's day. how do you spend the day. "morning joe" just moments away. stick around. ♪ ♪

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so how do you spend your st. patrick's day. we asked for your tweets. robert says he saws to the gas station at 7:00 a.m., buys with change and passes out by noon. >> i buys beer with change? i like that. i live in florida, i spend time with eye irish pal, paddy o'furniture. get it? "way too early" is over. "morning joe" starts right now. thanks, gang. ♪ ♪ yea ♪ >> the fbi could have been called to help that and interpol could have been called in. there has be