earlier, we asked for reaction to the new kimye "vogue" cover. >> you have a few a sliply slop? >> yes. mr. nelson says it is all down hill from here on out. he added a picture of honey boo-boo's mamma june. >> who doesn't love her? >> she is wonderful. erika donald says i'd buy this over kim yang any day. >> we have the pictures of louis as the professional animal castrator? he is not answering me. john tower, thanks! you're the greatest! "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ come take my hand

tonight in the promise land ♪ >> it's certainly disappointed in myself that i wasn't able to pick up these traits in these people. i'm disappointed in myself that i didn't look closer, that i trusted too much. >> you don't think a single possibility they thought of your rough and tumble style and jersey politics style that they thought this would please you? >> no. >> that this was for you? >> no, i don't believe it was for me. >> good morning. friday, march 28th. what happened today, 87 years ago? with us on set -- only 86? >> only 86. >> senior political editor and white house corporate for the huffing post, sam stein. "the new york times" reporters jeremy peters and senior political analyst for msnbc mark halpern. >> markie. >> markie?

>> i was wayny sammy. >> columnist for "the bloomberg news" al hunt. >> good to see you. >> we are talking about markie and sammy? >> whammy sammy. >> i want to run it. >> so you are absolutely in love with samantha b. you always have been. >> always. >> they did this take-down on "morning joe" and you love her even more now? >> if you watch it, it's funny. if you watch it again, it's even funnier which is a good sign of a good comedienne. she nailed it! >> where did the apple pie come from? >> so good. frightening fantastic. >> you got to love people who throw themselves at it. >> she threw herself all in. look! your cover is on the cover of "the atlantic"! that's great! too bad. he is missing his little bubble but, otherwise, that is your 5-year-old. >> don't talk about him like that. >> the overprotected kid.

>> come on! he is rough and tumble. >> first of all, you got -- your rough and tumble son? you got your son a helmet. you also got wall-to-wall carpeting because you were afraid he would fall down. >> actually, while you continue to attack poor jack. >> you made that poor boy wear a helmet. >> al, you understand. you've had kids. one kid always falls down and hits his head. >> that is what happens when they fall down, they hit their head. >> if that kid, if we had wood floors, i thought it was irresponsible as a parent. maybe i could be be accused of loving my children too much. i first got him a helmet and then we had the carpet. he never wore it. >> my wife gets wall-to-wall carpeting for me. >> if you've ever been to al's house, you know he also has a bill holden drinking helmet just in case he falls over. >> in all seriousness, this article is great. >>. hanna rosen --

>> it's your dad's birthday. we will get to this later on. your dad turns 86 today! >> 86, yes. i'm going to go see him and bring him a present. i remembered. thank you, mike allen! >> a question. what did they do in the carter white house? we had jimmy carter on about to turn 90. the man every bit as elusive and sharp as he was in 1976 when he was running. >> more so. >> i got to say, jimmy carter, it's amazing how long. his post-presidency, what he has accomplished in his post-presidency is extraordinary and he really provided the model, not only for bill clinton, but for every president after they left the white house. >> he has traveled the world. he has gotten engaged in all sorts of activities and written now about 20, 25 books. he is unbelievable and as energetic at ever. my wife tells me that rosalyn carter is too. >> i hear she is too.

>> i think it's marriage. >> dr. brzezinski, 86 today. that guy scares me every bit as much today as he did before i even knew who he was. >> stunningly unsuperficial. >> i'm bringing him a cake. >> if anything, he is even sharper than he was in 1978 and '79. >> it is unbelievable. >> we will get to that. quickly, tell us about you went to an important event last night. i did too but i can't tell you what event i went to because it's part of the vast right wing conspiracy but you went to an event last night. what was it? >> it was for an incredible organization put together by vanessa carey and raising money ai was a complete flop. i brought my new york approach to washington. >> it was great. >> it was a great event. they raised over a hundred thousand dollars. they tried to raise more and wait until you hear about this organization enwhat vanessa has

done. actually offered to -- well, let andrea push me in the pool but she is coming on later to talk about it. >> there were no takers? >> none, none. >> it was a great event. when we have some news. i'm so glad we do because i've got some theories i want to share with you. >> no theories. we are just going to do the facts and then get to obamacare, 6 million. >> 6 million disappointed what? >> no, 6 million. by the way, more medicare part d and adjustments during medicare part d as well. sorry. >> i can't wait to hear about obamacare. i'm very excited. let's start with the plane and then dive into chris christie. we have, i think it's safe to say even though i buy everything he says we have some skeptics here. >> it is 21 days since flight 370 disappeared and search leads are chasing leads. they are searching a new area 700 miles northeast of the

previously announced zone of debris. nbc's ian williams joins us live from perth, australia. ian, what does this mean for the old search area and the newest information and the facts as they stand right now? >> reporter: this is a pretty big shift in focus, mika. 700 miles almost north of the previous search area. and it does kind of suggest that all those multiple images we saw from satellites and from aircraft may have been false leads. it does suggest perhaps there is a concern that this could have been something different other than the debris from the aircraft. now, the new area they are now focusing on is closer to mainland australia, just 400 or 500 miles out of the western australia which means aircraft

can get there rather more quickly and an area they say the weather is better than it has been down in the south. but it's still very deep there. we are talking about 6 to 13,000 feet in depth and now the size of new mexico or poland. aircraft were in the area today, although we have had no sightings of anything suspicious. they are moving ships up there by end of tomorrow and repositioning satellites. but this is a pretty radical change in direction. australian officials say today that they didn't regard the search in the south as a waste of time, but clearly this is a very new direction, mika. >> all right. nbc's ian williams, thank you very much. we will get back to that. >> isn't that amazing? they have been searching in the wrong place all the time. all of the satellite imagery that has come back that people

pored over for days and days. they have been speculating for the past, what? >> did cnn cover this? >> i don't know if cnn covered this or not. i don't know. >> it reminds me of another story they covered wall-to-wall to get ratings. >> are they covering it? >> is cnn covering this? >> did they really. >> i think they are on it right now. >> a lot of false information. who is the great hollywood type that said nobody knows nothing? >> let's build a cockpit. >> monte hall. >> i don't think it was him. one of the early kings of hollywood saying nobody knows nothing. if you want to hear nobody talking about nothing and no one knows and endless speculation, you can turn to another channel. >> let's watch people dance around information a long time when they are bored stiff. >> we have nothing to talking about here and keep talking about it for 24 straight hours. >> cue. go to your co-anchor and have her talk about nothing too.

>> william goldman. he famously said, "nobody knows nothing" out of hollywood. i got an idea. instead of speculating 24 hours a day and pretending we are doing a news show, let's actually do news and let others speculate forever. this is interesting. the report by governor chris christie himself and funded by taxpayers concludes he had no involvement in the closure of lane closure of the george washington brimming. >> shut the investigation up. close it down. >> here we go. >> we found that governor christie had no knowledge beforehand of this george washington bridge realignment idea. governor christie had no involvement in the decision to close these lanes and no prior knowledge of it. not a shred of evidence of it.

ourn our findings is what he said all along. >> 340 pages. >> stop. >> that is a shame. 340 millions and a million dollars later, questions are still unsettled. the focus forces the blame on david wildstein and bridget anne kelly who covered up the lane closur closures. they are comparing it to so many other crazy ones wildstein had before that never got off the ground. and it says -- >> that's in the report. >> yeah. and it says fired campaign manager bill stepien was we're of the scenes and report talks about a romantic relationship

between he and kelly. he discussed the lane closures with governor christie during a november 11 meeting. >> david wildstein said at a 9/11 event he talked to you about traffic. did he? >> i don't have any recollection of that. david was one of hundreds of people i spoke to that day. we stood around and spoke to briefly that day. i don't have a recollection of him saying anything. i'll tell you what he didn't say. he daep say, hey, by the way, governor, i'm closing down some lanes on the george washington to stick it to the mayor, is that okay? that, i'd remember. >> the report goes on to say even if wildstein did bring it up, it would have not have been, quote, meaningful to the governor and saying it unlikely would have re679s rechgistered .

the document also tackles another scandal. hoboken mayor dawn zimmer's name her city was denied hurricane sandy relief funding. the law firm disputes the mayor's claims because photos show her smiling and yawning. the report concludes a person does not yawn when threatened and spoken to improperly. i have so many things i could say right now. >> mark halpern. what is your takeaway on the report? >> this is a good illustration of what is throughout the report. an attempt to put all of the evidence in the best light for governor christie which is a strange thing to do for something that is supposed to be findings. this is not a complete report.

they didn't interview a lot of the people. two, i think the attacks on bridget kelly as "the new york times" points are so sexist and gratuitous. >> thank you. >> a very strange decision to make and i think goes almost to improper. they talk about her being emotional and raddic and crying and talking about her personal relationship to no apparent end and that xumed with saying a former prosecutor and a thing bill stepien made the argument. for a prosecutor say presume some guilty because you're taking the fifth. >> even if you don't believe in the constitution. >> right. >> come on. >> details. >> details, details. >> the last thing is for those who have been skeptical that governor christie is telling the truth, this report under his auspices, makes the he is

basically now saying there is going to be no evidence that comes out ever that implicates him. >> you better be innocent is what you're saying. >> he has motivated them to come forward and none of them spoke for this report. but, you know, they absolutely are saying, you know, we have all assumed even if it didn't get to governor christie, this would go higher within his circle. they are saying in this report it stops -- >> i agree. i think the incentive now is on bridget anne kelly and wildstein to cooperate. more so than prior than it was. this basically puts them squarely at fault for all of the events. it basically exonerates governor christie entirely. i was struck about bridget anne kel kelly. >> why wouldn't they mention it -- let me ask maybe they do and i didn't find it. why didn't they mention it as stepien had relationship with bridget anne kelly and stepien

or something caused her her to be emotional and why is it always focused on the woman and the woman's inability to keep herself together? if there is a relationship causing problem, the man is involved in that relationship too and the focus is on him and whatever vicious behavior he is putting on this woman and putting her in a terrible position or vice versa. >> that's what we are saying. i think bridget anne kelly will emerge from this probably feeling she should participate with -- >> oh, man, i would if i were her. >> an odd report that she is this jilted woman. >> really? >> he broke up the relationship with her and she is therefore carrying this grudge. >> and she is losing her grip on reality? did she freak out? >> a good question to ask how many women were involved in putting this report together. i don't know. i think beyond, that there is a larger question. the purpose of this report was a hit on this a lot. this has all of the markings a very carefully rollout campaign by the governor. he went on diane sawyer last

night and going on megan kelly tonight. >> wow. >> it doesn't seem to me like there is really much else there other than a public relations campaign. >> al? what is your takeaway? >> people break up a lot. and they have all kinds of reactions. men and women. i don't think a reaction when you break up is let's close the george washington bridge. it seems to me that is very rational. >> that is one option. >> i think that lawyer from the white shoe law firm did a disservice to chris christie. it he didn't look like a detached lawyer analyzing what happened and given the facts, absolutely no evidence! >> al, let's look at this entire episode. there was skepticism about this investigation from the beginning and it seems to me an litically, whether the investigation is correct, whether it ends up that the governor is going to be

exonerated 100%, it seems to me the only thing the morning after that this has accomplished has enrage three people would used to be close to the governor and give them every incentive in the world to work with prosecutors now while you have a healthy dose of septembkepticism i wouls from the republicans looking from the outside in. >> he would be better served by a detached analytical report saying no evidence the governor knew about this but some things we don't know and at least he would have said that is a start. i think this looks like an inside job and i think that hurts him. >> the emphasis and the report in the press conference what clears the governor in his operation not the unanswered questions but they raise an unanswered question the most specific one wildstein claims he talked to the governor about it but still in the december period that mika and others have focused on when the two guys quit the port authority, a lot of unanswered questions about the governor's role in that and

new information from the report about that. >> here is what we have learned. i think putin's lawyers agree. obviously, there are connections with chris christie on this set and yet another example of him putting people around him that don't serve him well. thank you for that lawyer. that was pathetic, actually. >> i still believe chris christie. >> i do too but i think the lawyer did a terrible job. terrible. go on tv and say he is exonerated and accuse him of being emotional and having an affair? are you kidding me? i'm really disappointed. >> a smack of about 1991, but still. >> i will say say this. there are, though, following up on what al said, even if you're like me and you believe chris christie, there are much better ways to presented this than it was presented. mark halpern, let's break this

down really quickly and then go to break and have everybody weigh? . there are such important political implications how this unwinds. the reason is that power was filled by chris christie. jeb bush, over the last month and a half, is aggressively started looking at running for president of the united states. his people are engaged since this scandal began and jeb is calling donors all across america and top donors and people who helped his father saying, stand by, don't get on anybody's side, i may be running for president. it's very simple. if chris christie survives this, chris christie is going to run for president. and i suspect jeb bush is not. so i guess the 64,000 question this morning, if you're jeb bush and his team that are working to get him into the race, mark halpern, if you look at what is unfolding here, is this -- does this make jeb more or less

likely this morning on the conference call to say, you know what? christie did really well last night, maybe we need to back off, or do they say, boy, this is a total mess, we need to double our efforts? >> slightly more likely only because i think he did pretty well in that interview in calming people. he has got a story to tell now and hang it on this report but kind of meaningless because the reports that matter and the investigations that matter are the legislative one and the u.s. attorney. >> how long can democrats strike that out? >> forever. >> that is the problem. chris christie would be fighting this for a year. >> the thing with this scandal as most political scandals you want to put everything out at once and get everything behind you at once. it was written by christie's lawyers and no one is going to believe it fully at least. >> other than me. >> other than you, of course. but still waiting for the other two reports as mark said and until we get those reports, this will be a topic of conversation

and of concern. >> in the next hour let's show more clips from the interview. i wondered if he had just done the interview and not letter that lawyer spew out that awful political mess. >> the lawyer should have presented it -- the taxpayers, yes. >> the taxpayers defense. >> you can release a report without going on stage and sinking everything and just completely -- >> what are they saying in jeb bush's xa bush's camp this morning? trust me, it's a zero sum game. either chris christie wins or jeb bush wins. what happens? >> i would think, i haven't talked to any of them, i would think they would probably be more encouraged rather than less encouraged. if something happened yet to take it off the charts. i happen to not think jeb bush is not going to run. not because of any inside information. i cannot see jeb bush spending 70 days in iowa and new hampshire. the other indicator i think i think he would probably govern

pretty darn well. he is overweight, joe. and overweight people tend not to run for president. there are exceptions, but not many. >> not in this case. you're wrong about that. >> are you talking about jeb bush or chris christie. >> chris christie is not overweight from where he was. >> wait. wait, wait. >> i think jeb bush is a good looking man and you're saying he is overweight? how did we get to this? what is wrong with you, al? >> i thought you were talking about christie! >> i hope you're friends with jeb because he is a big guy! >> it's hunt's third rule. >> it is. you know what? i know what you're all doing, joe. >> what am i doing? >> you don't want me to get to my headline on obamacare which is the most fantastic news. 6 million people before the deadline, before the deadline! >> i am staggered. hold on. i'm staggered you're talking about jeb bush's weight. what are you talking about? i hope you're friends with the bush's because, if not, you owe him an apology. >> joe, i like jeb bush. i think he would be a good president and a good candidate but i think it's tough to run

for president! and i think you want to be in fighting shape. every time you ran, joe, you were in fighting shape. >> no, i wasn't. i puked up aboicked up about 80 every campaign. >> you're looking better. >> we will talk about obamacare in the next block. it is incredible news given the fact there has been a political party trying to bring down this law even though supreme court endorsed it. >> you should get a job at that guy's law firm and you could do a brief on obamacare. >> he was terrible, that lawyer! >> not as bad as you were just saying incredible news they got 6 million people to sign up. >> they got to their deadline and they thought they wouldn't make it. take a look during the bush administration and had lots of adjustments and didn't have this party and this environment and this toxic mess of washington spewing hatred toward anything this president does. chris matthews is coming up and

andrea mitchell and dr. nancy snyderman. first, forecast with bill karins. >> what happened to friendly families? poor jeb is trying to eat his breakfast now and we are calling him names. >> are we going to beat that baby for three hours too? >> we need to talk to someone. >> we need to talk to bill karins. >> i have nothing better to talk about. in northern new england a snowstorm is coming and everybody else in the new england area and mid-atlantic it's going to rain all weekend. the deep south we are going to have a severe weather threat. active weather heading into your weekend. main concern is severe weather late this afternoon into this evening. maybe even a few tornadoes. we are talking east texas including dallas, houston, san antonio, to new orleans. memphis and late tonight heading into areas of mississippi and alabama. a lot of rain down here in the south but this isn't the main event. the main event will be later on tonight.

the rain is going to be plentiful. maybe this is mother nature's way of cleaning up the east coast after a horrible winter but we are going to get 2 to 4 inches of rain from the appalachians to southern new england. i mending the snow. northern new england, especially in the mountains and ski resorts you could get another 3 to 6 inches saturday night into sunday. you know april really is your spring month. march can be cruel. and oh, has it been. so much for in like a lamb and out like a lion. you're watching "morning joe." [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

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♪ ♪ ♪ hae from the parade of papers, seattle times. search efforts continue in

washington state this morning following saturday's devastating mudslide. the death toll has risen to 17 with the latest victim, a 4-month-old baby girl. the fire chief fears the number will continue to rise. at least 90 people remain missing. hundreds of local, state, and federal officials are aiding in the search. >> such a terrible story. from "the boston globe." the cdc estimates 1 in 68 children in the u.s. have been identified with autism spectrum disorder. the number is up from 1 out of 88 children two years ago. that is 30% higher than previous reports and to put that in perspective that means virtually every grade in elementary school in the nation has at least one child with autism. >> nancy snyderman is coming up to talk about that. the new haven register is the first state to raise its minute wage to $10.10 an hour by november 17.

it's stalled in washington. congratulations to dannell malloy. >> taco bell is offering up to trade to our neighbors to the north. the restaurant executive was asked online when the breakfast menu was coming to canada. he responded, quote, when you take justin bieber back. let's look at the stakes. on one side you have a delicious waffle taco wrapped around sausage patty or bacon and scrambled eggs and cheese and a side of syrup. >> gross! >> on the other side you got a 20-year-old bad boy heart throb with recent address on drunken drag racing. a tough call, my friends. to revoke his green card has over 200,000 signatures. i'm going with the taco waffle. >> my daughter thinks he should be deported. get him out of here. on this weekend's "parade" magazine, actress eva longoria

talks about her interests beyond acting, including politics? let's go to politico. >> with us now the chief white house correspondent for politico, mike allen. you have an exclusive on what has happened in new york city with bill de blasio and the charter schools and we have been talking about it on this show. we interviewed the mayor and have been looking at his success in the academy. he seemed to make a turn and that was positive. then he had a little help from a friend. >> he did. this was so surprising. last sunday, very abruptly, no lead-in, no roll-out. mayor de blasio abruptly changed his positions on charters. turns out he had talked a couple of days before president bill clinton. a story that capital new york put together. they found that the president called and said you want to talk about education? and in a gentle, but

unmistakable way, he said, you don't want to take a substantive issue and make it personal, as the mayor had with eva moskowitz but it was too late. the final deals on the budget are being made in albany today and governor cuomo has wrapped away that issue and a bunch of funding for charter schools, both for location and to fund the schools. >> it does say something, doesn't it, about politicians, al hunt? we have seen politicians get their feet in cement and then refuse to move afterwards. de blasio for a man who is suspected to be such an ideologue actually showed a bit more flexibility. yeah, everybody makes mistakes. everybody steps out. >> ronald reagan one time said his feet were locked in kron create on any kind of tax withholding in california and he changed his position in the press conference, he said, ladies and gentlemen, that sound you have just heard is the

uncracking. and i think that should be encouraging. >> i think it should be encouraging. >> he was smart enough to listen. bill clinton knows the city, knows where people are and mayor de blasio had worked for him. >> they have charter schools up there in. >> bill clinton, obviously, has seen the effects firsthand. he has got an office up in harlem. whether you're in harlem or whether you're in the bronx, it's extraordinary what some of these charter schools are doing. you know bill clinton has been touched by that. i think each more importantly, charter school issue the fact what bill clinton, we were at an event with him maybe a year ago, and bill clinton was talking about what it takes to be a good politician and he said, it can't be personal and you can't have any memory. if you're a governor or a president or, in this case, a mayor, and you have a memory, you're going to be a terrible, terrible president. i think he gave that advice to

bill de blasio and it was great advice and i think it was great. >> i think bill clinton does have great political acuemen and was probably helpful. bill de blasio was great on our show, having said that. he admitted part of the pr thing was horrible. he actually came back and said he is going to fix up the mess he made with the school that he shut down. he is going to find a place for the kids and he evolved on the air, he didn't change his positions. he's got a problem with eva moskowitz and a problem with charter schools what he does with the rest of the schools in new york. clearly if it was an easy issue to deal with, obviously, somebody would have done it. it's so convoluted and a mess and he stepped in it. >> you can afford to be an ideologue when you're in washington, d.c. but not in you're mayor in the largest city of america. >> he sat here.

>> across the spectrum they are questioning the mayor's competence and ideology and who he is getting advice from and whether he has senior enough people with political smarts. having bill clinton give you advice -- >> i wouldn't underestimate bill de blasio. this is all about bill de blasio, not about bill clinton. the fact he would listen, take the advice, move forward and shift on something. it is sort of one of those reagan moments that al was talking about, where you have your feet planted in cement but it's cracking. >> joe, to your point about taking that advice, not having a long memory as a politician, i think there are probably a lot of democrats who would find that ironic coming from the clinton's giving a lot of democrats who still they are being punished. >> but bill clinton, i always say this joke about bill clinton but it's true. you could impeach him in the morning and he would go golfing with you in the afternoon because he it goes back to the

wonderful scene at the end of david marisin book where david was showing bill clinton the morning after he lost his first race when he was running for congress and they looked down and he was shaking hands with people in the courtyard and they said, poor guy, he doesn't know he lost the election. the response was he knows he lost the election. he is campaigning for the next election. bill clinton always knew there was another vote. there is never the signing ceremony. the other side never surrenders like the japanese on the "uss missouri." it goes on and on and on. >> to your point and your point, publicly you have no memory and he does a very good job at that. >> yeah. the democrats do have a reason to say that about the clinton's politically but when you're governing, you just can't afford to hold grudges. >> right. breaking news on the wire. republican congressman mike rogers of michigan says he will

not seek re-election. michael and, i know we have to go but this is huge. >> he is running a committee and a force on capitol hill. >> former fbi and looked at for the senate race. >> what is going on there? >> joe, this is a quiz. he has announced his next profession. it will be what? >> what? talk radio. he is doing a show for westwood one after he leaves congress at the end of this year. he is youngish and just remarried. >> is it mr. rogers some what is the show called? >> it is now. mr. rogers neighborhood. the neighborhood. >> latest in a string of very serious minded legislators who are deciding they have had it with congress. there has been a wave of retirements this year. he is just the latest. >> it's becoming, al, less fulfilling to be a senator or a congressman. >> less impactful.

>> less impactful. you never would have heard ten years ago somebody as a united states senator saying you know what? i'm quitting to run a think tank like jim de mint did or i'm quitting. >> to do a radio talk show. >> yes. >> mike rogers was supposed to do an interview with me on bloomberg television on friday and he backed out of it and i wrote a blistering memo what possible excuse could you have? i am sorry, rogers staff! >> i meant to tell you, it does not make sense to go to washington if you want to make a difference and this is a great example. i bet you he will say, he has more of a platform to make a difference and to reach people with a message on the radio than he does going to washington and dealing with that big pile of -- >> you guys are on the hill. listen. basically, in the senate you've got harry reid and i've said and it irritates people but it's the truth. basically a pocket veto for

barack obama. he doesn't let anything that the house pass even get debated and pushed through there. in the house, it has never been a democratic institution. it's a to ttal tearian regime. >> it was like house of cards what they did yesterday. they rammed through this vote without even actually recording it. >> we will talk about it more. politico's mike allen, thank you very much. top seeds arizona and wisconsin two of the teams in the sweet 16. full highlights of the sweet 16 next on "morning joe." are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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now let's go to whammy sammy with sports. >> last night, four games in march madness. let's take a look at the big games. >> don't look at me. look at the camera. >> handled by davis. the slam! pops it back out. yes! arizona is a thriller.

wisconsin going old school. puts it down! he passed on it and the drive. yes and the foul! >> wisconsin on to the elite eight. >> frazier three. again! a sharp-shooter! the spin. the lead. stanford has collected its third. off to oliver. sliding inside! dayton flyers are going to the elite eight for the first time in 30 years! >> look at dayton! >> what a cinderella run. a lot of these teams are better than the 76ers who are on a 26-game losing streak and i'd like to see them in the ncaa tournament. four great games tonight. louisville and kentucky the big one. close to my heart, uconn and iowa state at the garden. >> that will be great.

virginia and michigan at the garden is a big game, baby. >> that is going to be huge. >> huge. >> sam, you're better than louis. >> florida? >> florida looks really good. i think the winner of michigan state/virginia is going to be tough to contend with. louisville has not impressed me as much as i thought they would of. >> kentucky has a shot? >> definitely. >> they are hot. >> they are hot right now. >> thank you so much. coming up next, gwyneth paltrow. tough to be a mom on the movie set than a mom with, quote, a regular job. and there was a response to that in the "new york post." we will play it for you when we return. latte or au lait?

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it is time now for the must read opinion pages. we will touch on gwyneth paltrow because i think it works very well with another segment we have coming up on parenting. >> before we do that, let's introduce margaret carlson. >> i love your scarf. >> did you see chris christie yesterday? >> i did. >> what did you think of the interview? >> if he had only done the interview and not put out the whitewash, it would have been great. >> a good interview? >> great. >> he did really well. that is his strength. look at the press conference, you snow these are -- he should just rely on that and not on some hired guns from gibson dunn and kruhcher. the whole thing was too self serving. >> his performance on diane

sawyer, very strong. >> very strong. >> and talk more about the lane realignments. there are several. >> actress gwyneth paltrow is making headlines with an interview with "e!" where regular moms have it easier. she said it's much harder for me. i think it's difference when you have an office job because it's routine and you know you can do all of the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening. when you're shooting a movie and you work 14 hours a day, that very difficult. i have to think a regular job and to be a mom -- i can't even read this. they stepped in it so bad and i feel bad for her. she says it's not like being on set. in the "new york post," this regular working mom writes this. a working mom's open letter to

begint gwyneth. as a mom for a toddler thank god i don't make millions film the one movie per year. i know all of my fellow working mom friends feel the same. am i right? is it the female bredwinners who work around the clock to make sure their mortgages get paid overnight or their mothers who get mommy tracked and denied promotions? what about the moms with regular 9:00 to 5:00 jobs who are penalized when their kids are sick and don't have backup child care and she goes on to think -- >> you said you felt sorry for gwyneth? >> i do. they stepped in it. it was a very stupid thing to say. i've caught myself, i think, every mother works hard and i think that when you have great success, it's you your responsibility to keep your complaints to yourself. >> yeah. >> it's not as hard for you,

gwyneth or me, as it is for the mother who is on the metro north platform and might need a job who works 14 hours a day every day. >> margaret carlson? >> well, she is a little out of touch. >> she is totally out of touch. >> but it's like the bankers like tom peters, comparing themselves to being in the middle of crystal knock because somebody said you should pay taxes on carrieded interest or -- from the bankers. >> 0.1% out there. >> they see themselves persecuted and they are so little hurting them. they have no idea about the woman on the platform waiting for the subway or what happens if you miss your shift. you remember the show "roseanne" she had to leave her meeting and had to run out?

>> you talk about, though, these bankers at the 0.1% comparing the situation to hitler's germany from, you know, 35 -- >> from the mild criticism about income and equality they are being persecuted like somebody taken off to a camp. >> i was joking with jeffrey sachs. whether you support 35% tax rate or a 39% tax rate, it is really -- it's just over the top. >> i know. but is pop pop uism working? >> i think you can talk about income inequality where you couldn't before and i think talk about fair taxes but i think the idea of massive income redistribution usually is not a winner. >> that's not really good here, is it? >> not on this set. >> no. all right. >> or with gwyneth.

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coming up at the top of the hour, "hardball's" chris matthews joins us. later, connecticut governor dannell malloy who is just on a great thing. keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats

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♪ you don't sleep. you don't eat. you struggle. >> did you at any point thought maybe i'll step down, this is too much? >> never. never. i'm not a quitter. >> don't bury the lead here. >> look how beautiful that sunshine is. isn't that happy? >> you would not know it's 14 degrees in march in new york city. actually, good news. i think it's going to get a little bit warmer in new york. any way.

welcome back to "morning joe." mika, seriously? god it good. >> yes, he is. >> god is so good. we have been blessed with presence of? >> the host of "hardball." >> tv's chris matthews. >> why are you looking at your watch? >> i did to bring attention to my watch. i decided which watch to bring and i knew this would do it. >> it's a blue watch. i like it. >> it's my dad's birthday. will you say happy birthday? >> happy birthday, zbigniew. >> we were both wearing tuxes and going to a press dinner that night and i tried to get a speech approved attacking the soviets for attacking afghanistan and calling it bashourist. >> my dad said that? >> i think we have to think about that before we rush out to a black tie event. the next day, he approved it. >> oh, good. >> we were talking dr.

brzezinski is 86 today. we had jimmy carter last week. i was stunned that jimmy carter was actually just as sharp and just as on point as he was in 1976. he's remarkable man. is a remarkable man. think about what he has done since his presidency. >> yeah. >> he has reshaped what pr presidents do. >> he was really good at whatever he could do himself. you know? >> right. >> he was really good at whatever he could do personally. he wasn't a natural leader. he wasn't a corporate leader like reagan who had fit into a big corporate situation. camp david was a one-man operation and whenever he could do one thing like running a small business, he was really good at but he didn't have the corporate ability to bring other people in and work effectively but he was great at the stuff he

has done by himself like the things he has done since. >> he came at an extraordinary time in this country. you know what? i'm a romantic when it comes to america. i see god's hand in our history. and i will tell you, even if you don't, you've got to agree with me that after nixon, after watergate, after vietnam, jimmy carter, for those four years, it was refreshing to have a man that cog and ghok knock on dokn iowa with nobody backing from plains, georgia, saying i will never lie to you. i think the time for jimmy carter was perfect and as an american, i'm grateful, even though we have worked like hell for gerald ford and i was never a fan of him in the white house, historically, what a great anecdote for the nixon saga. >> plooolitically it's what you with what you got. he never been to washington and never been a lawyer and never knew anybody big.

he was religious and played those cards against the liberals he beat. >> let's not talk about the christie report now. first the diane sawyer interview. how did he perform? >> i was on the air. i didn't see it. >> mika is going to talk about obamacare and then we will talk about the report. >> okay! >> you can talk about your obamacare. go ahead. >> thank you. the affordable care act -- >> i'm just going to sit here and stew. go ahead. signaling that obamacare may be on the mend after the troubled rollout. >> who wrote this script? >> me! president obama announced yesterday that more than 6 million americans, 6 million enrolled for coverage. that exceeds the government's revised goal but falls short of the initial target of 7 million by monday's march 31st deadline. white house official say there has been a significant surge in interest in recent weeks. 1.8 million enrolled in march and on wednesday alone 1.5 million visited healthcare.gov.

call centers received more than 430,000 calls. >> chris matthews, tends of the day, americans are pragmatic. if obamacare works, it will succeed. if it doesn't work, it won't succeed. if it makes americans lives easier, it will succeed. if it doesn't, it won't, right? all of the score keeping right now in the early stages totally irrelevant. >> i think so. i also think that the sad part of the rollout, besides the screw-ups, is the working poor, the people it was aimed at but road to bus and that don't have health care are the ones that should be benefiting from it and talking it up. i don't hear that. >> why is that? >> i don't know. the people this was aimed at, the working poor, not down and out but the working poor who to don't have health insurance should be working on it and grabbing at it. >> i think it's very hard to reach people. >> and limited income to pay for stuff.

>> look. i think you're right. the score keeping is silly. having said that a lot of negative score keeping. you look at the numbers it reached in terms of its goals, this surpasses it and it's worth reporting on. i'll move on. >> talking about score keeping. i was talking about the negative score keeping. >> the people who don't like it. do you see the numbers that want it fixed? the people that just don't like the whole idea ideologically. >> americans will look at it and say it's got to be fixed. >> we have dannel malloy coming up and talk to him about minimum wage. this report commissioned by governor chris christie and funded by taxpayers concludes he had no involvement in the closure of the lanes on the george washington bridge. >> we found that governor christie had no knowledge

beforehand of this george washington bridge realignment idea. governor christie had no involvement in the decision to close these lanes and no prior knowledge of it. not a shred of evidence of it. so, yes. our findings today are a vindication of governor christie and what he said all along. >> what do you think? >> love it. >> 340 pages. a million dollars lace, questioned surrounding the governor are far from settled is what i think. the report focuses the blame on david wildstein and bridget anne kelly who covered up the lane closures. the report says wildstein seemed to be the instigator of the plan including ones before that that never got off the ground. it says fired campaign manager

bill stepien was aware of the scheme and refers to a romantic relationship between he and bridget anne kelly. the report firewalls the governor himself saying the report rings true. wildstein claims he discussed the event with a september 11th event. >> david wildstein said at a 9/11 event, he talked to you about traffic. it's a little ambiguous exactly what. did he? >> yeah. i don't have any recollection of that, diane. david was one of hundreds of people that i spoke to that day. we stood around and spoke briefly that day. i don't have any recollection of him saying anything but i'll tell you this. i'll tell you what he didn't say. he didn't say, hey, by the was he, governor, i'm closing down some lanes on the george washington to stick it to the mayor, is that okay? that, i'd remember. >> as you know, the word bully, bullying comes up over and over again. have you asked yourself, did i do anything to create the

climate in which this happened? >> sure. spent a lot of time the last 11 weeks thinking about what did i do, if anything, to contribute to this, and i don't believe that i did. but i'm certainly disappointed in myself that i wasn't able to pick up these traits in these people. i'm disappointed in myself that i didn't look closer, that i trusted too much. >> i think it's remarkable, talking about, quote, these people, what traits he didn't pick up and, quote, these people. these, quote, people were extraordinarily close to him. these people ran his campaigns. these people ran his political operation. i'm just saying, that language, quote, these people, seem certainly impersonal for people that helped run chris christie. that woman, these people. i do remember that one. let's just move past that one, though, right now. you talk about the euphemisms in

this report. >> first it's my understanding we will hear more from the governor this this morning and he'll have a press conference. to me that kind of illustrates what all of this really is. which is a very carefully o orchestrated of his rollout as a presidential contender. you look at the language. it's a very carefully use of euphemisms in this report. lane realignments instead of lane closures. >> getting your tires realigned. realign bridges. >> one of of the key omissions as mark pointed out early, samson's refusal to testify. as close of an ally as you get to governor christie and he refuses to testify. what does the lawyer say? they decline to be interviewed. >> this is a huge issue because lack of cooperation from the three people who govern christie have cut off, that's not pricing surprising but samson's lack of cooperation. he's still at the authority and a huge ally of governor christie. at this press conference today i

predict that will be a huge topic to ask him does he want samson to cooperate and did he urge samson to cooperate? for the guy to still be at the port authority at a senior position and refuse to cooperate with governor christie's investigation will raise a lot of questions. >> it's tough to take a report like this seriously when you have key figures who are now thrown under the proverbial bus and refuse to participate and some figure did not speak under oath. it just says that the report is one-sided or incomplete and i just don't see how governor christie gets beyond this by putting this out even if it's a carefully orchestrated way to revamp himself politically, i think it raises more questions than it answers. >> it's hard to imagine christie pointing to this in a campaign saying, no, i was exonerated of all that. the article writes itself. this is not going to be seen as a very credible vindication of the governor. >> mika, certainly the

performance of the lawyer that the taxpayers paid for is something that, obviously, you have a great deal of concern about. >> al hunt calling him, it looks like putin's lawyer, kind of summed it up. it was -- you know, it just kind of adds to the narrative that christie doesn't know who to put around him. that lawyer ruined whatever positive that he created in that interview with diane sawyer, whatever goodness he got out of it with those lovely questions. >> why would he tell us that there was a relationship between bill stepien and bridget kelly and then add in that he dumped her? why do we need that kind of information? >> someone tell me -- >> that stepien dumped the relationship with bridget kelly. >> why is that? >> yet he doesn't know the motive for the bridge closures. >> did bill stepien cry and talk about any man's physical state?

>> they said he was used to crazy ideas. but the -- >> behavior -- >> i think used that euphemism that cranky euphemism about realignment and everybody knows it was a bridge closing. why would they put their chin out' saen and say a realignment? >> by putting this report out and by portraying bridget anne kelly you increase the odds she will cooperate with the prosecutor. >> oh, my lord. >> i said last hour, there is, mark halpern, the goal of stopping the political bleeding on the national scale for chris christie, because jeb bush's people are gearing up. people are not talking about chris christie running in 2016. i had somebody telling me last night about all of the operations that are starting to come to life in iowa and new

hampshire and chris christie is seeing this parade going by. maybe it was the idea of let's get a report out. i can get on diane sawyer and i can send a message to my supporters, hey, i'm going to be okay here. but at the end of the day, like we said last hour, seems like the only thing this report is going to do is inflame, enrage three people and encourage them to talk to investigators. >> everything that is happening this weekend, right? not only is he doing another interview today and the press conference but going out to las vegas where he is appearing with jeb bush and scott walker and john kasich with pretty important republican donors including sheldon adelson. he wants to preserve the option to run and keep the moment run. i think the thing this is coming out on the eve in las vegas saying if it turned a lot of fence posts you know it didn't get there by itself. this is a big time competing with jeb and others to say i'm

alive and most republican donors i talked to before and after the report came out saying, so far, so good. >> he within striking distance of secretary clinton after all of this pounding and shows you the problem with the party. you mentioned jeb. jeb doesn't so well in these matchups. aren't you amazed that christie does better than jeb? >> i'm amazed that jeb bush does so poorly in head-to-head matchups. a matchup had him 15 points down from hillary, i think. >> are you hearing that those people down there, are they talking, jeb? is jeb getting in this thing? >> i was down last week. florida people are telling me really close to him that they are having daily phone calls, his foundation is gearing up and they are getting ready for him to run. nobody was talking about this before chris christie's problem and why i say this is relevant. >> this was the middle sweet spot in the republican party and jeb is going to grab your slot?

>> excuse me? what? >> are you saying -- what, jeb wants to host "morning joe"? >> this is what i call a tease. >> i never knew that jeb bush wanted to host "morning joe" but if he does, he has to fight me. he has to fight me. >> maybe he is making the move. >> but jeb, though, i got to say -- this is what people watching this need to understand what this report is all about, what the interview is all about. you may sit there going you're talking about lane closclosures. chris christie doesn't care what we think about his performance. he doesn't care what "the new york times" or new jersey papers think about the performance. he doesn't even care what his constituents think about the performance. he cares about what the republican donors who are going to decide pretty soon whether their team jeb or team chris, what they think about this. >> you didn't go on new jersey talk radio to defend himself yesterday. he went on diane sawyer. >> for good reason. he has got to get the message out there i'm alive, i'm well,

my campaign is not over. >> so fascinating. you see him getting that close to a big leap. a big running. >> i feel like -- >> but still good. >> the question whether this is a legal case and i don't know. the key question we talk about bridget kelly testifying or wildstein is there going to be a court, a venue for that kind of open perry mason moments when they come out with the truth? >> we will know that when they come back with their findings? >> i don't know. the democrats in new jersey that have been frustrated by chris christie for five years, want to get even with chris christie. they are just going to drag this investigation out for a year, year and a half, which will really get in the way of his presidential chances. >> push this report and went on diane sawyer trying to sort of cut through that. i will say politically you might be right. there may be some overarching. he may still do well on a national level according to the poll numbers, but this morning, i think he is waking up and looking around at the newspaper, probably looking at conversations like this and

looking at his lawyer on camera and going you know what? i got to do everything myself. i can't depend on anybody any more because i do my best for myself. there is no one who speaks better for chris christie than chris christie himself. if that is the best we do in terms of a lawyer, he should just do everything himself. he really needs to just get everybody out of there and talk to people himself because that was pathetic. do you not agree? >> i don't think the lawyer paid for by the taxpayers of new jersey did chris christie any political favors. >> i would be insulted if i were a taxpayer in new jersey right now. >> i don't think the report did chris christie any favors nothing either because people are going to be skeptical. again, his audience is not here. his audience are the republican donors. >> if i were bridget anne kelly, i would stop protecting whoever she is protecting because a woman should not be treated that way in any type of report in any way, shape, or form. i always knew from watching this story unfold and even just watching the look on her face there was something more and i don't know if what the report

reveals is it, but she has not been treated well. that's my instinct. chris matthews, stay with us if you can, if you lel like it. >> -- feel like it. >> look at that blue watch. it pops on tv. >> that is a beer company freebie? >> it's a beer company freebie, moulson. >> did you take a freebie from a beer company? >> okay! >> trust me, trust me, jeremy. he did not. connecticut governor dannel malloy will join us next. a new report finds that autism is much more common than previously thought, especially among young boys and we will have the latest from dr. nancy snyderman. be back with our beer sponsored watches. ♪ wasted away again

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♪ here with us now from hartford, connecticut, the governor of connecticut, dannel malloy. i hear you are the first in 50 states to do what the president wanted to do which is raise the minimum wage. gout it done. >> we are the first state in 50 states to do what the people want us to do and that is raise the minimum wage to $10.10. this is going to take a whole bunch of people who are working 40 hours a week and living in poverty, out of poverty. that is the goal in connecticut, to get people working at a job that allows them to support their families. the vast majority of people, women who are earning the minimum wage or raising families on the minimum wage we have to help those families and this is

it. the first step to get there by january 1, 2017. >> let me tell you about your re-election campaign, governor. this is going to be a tough one for you. i wonder what you think are the issues coming in november that is going to make this election a win for you. >> you know, we have created 52,000 private sector jobs since i became governor. we have gone from 3. billion deficit to 500 million surplus and gone from no money in the rainy day to 550 million in the rainy day fund and having what is happening in new jersey right now, where they are not funding the pension plan properly but we are funding our pension plan and going from worst in the nation funded pension plan and making substantial progress all of that in the last three and a half years. i have to get the story out and have people understand it. >> are the republicans going to make an issue of gun control or be with you with that up there in connecticut? >> i think they will probably 2

out of 3 leaning candidates are against what we did in connecticut universal background checks, limiting the sale of assault weapons and that sort of thing. i suspect they will come after me. the nra had me on the front page of their magazine and i know they are coming after me. i suspect a whole bunch of folks are going to try to have that discussion in the not too distant future. >> margaret carlson? >> governor, good morning. >> hey, how are you? >> hi. i'm good. nice to see you. even electronically. republicans in washington think the world is going to end if you raise the minimum wage. how did you bring republicans on in connecticut? >> we didn't have them. i didn't have a single republican vote in the house. i didn't have a single republican vote in the senate. >> that is the answer! >> that is the answer. i think that that is going to cause a lot of folks to reflect on this. 78% of women in the state of connecticut support raising the

minimum wage because they understand more than perhaps men do. the reliance on minimum paid jobs to support their families or their friend's family. this is a great divide in our country. i've been watching the debate down in washington. i've even watched the debate on some morning shows from time to time. a whole bunch of folks are backing up and saying, maybe we don't want to spend so much time talking about the minimum wage. you know why? because the american people get it. if it came up to a vote in the congress, it would probably pick up 20 republican votes in the congress if they would allow it to happen. the american people understand that nobody, nobody should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty. >> "the new york times" jeremy peters. >> governor, you mentioned you had no republican support for raising the minimum wage but it's my understanding that you also had considerable amount of difficulty getting democrats on board. they were a point of resistance. that is also the case in maryland. >> no. >> i'm sorry.

you had a democrat vote against it. you had democrats vote against it in both the house and the senate. i wonder what is the resistance there? this is something we are seeing in maryland as maryland fights to raise its minimum wage. not all democrats are on board with this so what is going on there? >> well, first of all, you're allowed to disagree with the democratic party. we had one senator not vote for it and four members of the house not vote for it. i mean, i don't want to debate with you whether that is a lot of opposition but i'm going to make a statement. it's not. the reality is that democrats have braced this issue because they understand the importance to working men and women and that no -- >> actually -- >> we have got connecticut's own sam stein here with us. i know you like to call him favorite son sam stein. sam, do you have a question for your governor? >> i do, governor. you listed all of the reasons you should be re-elected to chris. on the list is obamacare.

your state has been a leading example of interrogate the uninsured. why did you not put that on your list? second, have you talked to any governors how to improve their own systems considering how well you've done with yours? >> any. we have been contacted by a number of states about using our technology and how we did it. so there are a number of states that are now looking at connecticut. the failure rate, as you know, was pretty high. we, on the other hand, have done extremely well. we're about 185,000 people covered. our goal is to get to 100,000. we did that by february. we think that we have a lot more people to sign up in the coming days. the phone lines are working. we have got the system up and running on the computer program. it just all came together for us because we put a lot of work into it from the day i got elected, i embraced this issue and i ran to it because i wanted to see -- >> why isn't you list that among the issues that you think you

could run on in your re-election campaign? >> it's a little early and i haven't had enough coffee, so i apologize. >> all right. very good. >> dannel, thank you very much. >> thank you, governor. good to see you. we greatly appreciate it. you know the thing about dannel malloy, chris matthews, i disagree with him on a lot of ideological issues and one of the reasons he is in a tough fight for re-election. had he a close battle four years ago and this one is going to be tough. >> i think he is -- i like the way he speaks about clarity. clarity and tough statements. you're right. you can disagree with him but i've watched the way he handled the shootings up there and the way he came off of that i thought was very first rate and i've watched him in a number of other cases about drug dependent and stuff like that involved with ted kennedy jr. up there and he has done a great job. >> jeb, you know what you said

before? >> i think it's fascinating. >> look. >> joe knows this better than anybody. >> sweet spot in the republican party is not hard right but somewhere in the mainstream conservative. nobody has filled that yet and why christie is still doing well despite all his hazards and there could be somebody else to come out of the media. >> i think he is definitely going to take your spot, joe. >> jeb is actually going after my show. can you believe that? >> it actually works, morning jeb. >> he will pull the mike rogers switch. >> let's make a bet here. will jeb bush run for president? >> yes. i think so. what about you? >> i'm with you. >> al hunt? >> he seems to want to. >> al hunt? al hunt doesn't think so! al says he needs to lose weight. do you believe that? i think jeb is a good looking guy. let's get a picture. >> he always has that hoss cartwright look. >> what? what are you saying? >> jeb is a good looking man.

>> but he always has the hoss cartwright look! >> no, no. he is adorable. >> just think of ponderosa. >> christie makes it safe for anyone. >> seriously. i'm going to let this go. i think jeb is a very good looking man, very fetching. coming up the cdc estimates 1 in 6 kids in american have been identified with autism disorder. dr. nancy snyderman is here with the latest. "morning joe" will be back. strange commentary about people's weight. ♪ we need it right away! we cannot let the fans down.

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a big day, of course. dr. brzezinski turns 86 today. >> happy birthday, dr. brzezinski. >> happy birthday, dad. >> trying to add an extra year. >> i'm coming over today with cake, sweet stuff. >> a brzezinski thing to do. they are always jabbing but dr. nancy had a birthday this week too! >> thank you. >> your daddy and i are both aries. >> what does that mean? >> strong independent leader and tough doesn't take too well. >> what a surprise so am i! april 9th. i kind of fit the bill. the rams. bull-headed. any way this is an important segment that touches families. >> alarming news about autism

getting a lot of attention this morning. joining the table is nancy. here is the news. the numbers on children with autism are surging. one kid for every school? are you kidding me? >> yeah. >> when did this happen? >> used to be 1 in 88 and now 1 in 68 and five times for boys and 1 in 45 boys and 1 in 98 girls. the cdc looked at 11 states. if you look carefully at the states more kids in new jersey and fewer kids in alabama. >> is california still up there? >> california is still up. but it raises the question if you look at like california and new york and new jersey, are those states that are more wired in their school systems to detect kids more often than perhaps some of the southern states? not everyone in the autism community believes these numbers are that every two years it's going to be up 30%. but one, taken the autism spectrum disorders and widen the goalposts so more kids are included.

asperbergs and may be increasing for reasons we haven't figured out. >> i have got a child on the spectrum. >> me too. >> he has asbergers and the question is whether 30 years ago when we were all in school were there those awkward kids that did really well in school but didn't fit in. they just went undiagnosed? >> yes. >> which might ask the for these numbers as much as anything. >> i say they were pocket protectors and went on to become je geneuss in high tech country. there is that spectrum on this pallet and i believe why the numbers go up. a study out of rockefeller yuve university. they look at developing brains in fetuses and found that brain development issues in the cortical layers in the second and third trimester which start to say, the environmental hit,

the genetic happens during fetal developed and not necessarily after the baby is born. i've said it already on "today" and i'm getting ready for my hate mail. it means we can take the van keen crazy idea and shove it aside. just because you get a vac keen doesn't mean you get autism. if advanced paternal age or a virus ma maybe mom gets or a stressor that happens to a grandparent that is then passed on to an child-bearing adult and then the child? we don't know. a whole world of the genetics and where the science comes in. >> margaret, you have a brother also who is on the spectrum so you've lived with this? >> i do. he has learning disabilities. so he is not going to turn into the genius with the pocket protector. but at least now, you know, as

he was growing up, so many of these things went unnoticed and untreated and undealt with in the schools. now at least this recognition, even if there is an overdiagnosis which you hear about, it's so much better. mainstream the kids. find a way to integrate them and treat them that way. >> you're right. there is a window. you have until about the age of 2 to really start to intervene. most kids are diagnosed around the age of 5 which is far too late! in my family, two cases. one child institutionalized and one kid got early intervention and came out of it and now is in college. when you look at your own family which is hard for people to do, you start to say, wow, we have severely trouble to brilliance to normal. if you really step back and look at it and really you're honest with yourself and it's hard for parents to do that, you intervene earlier. but if you're child of 6 months of age isn't sitting up and

cooing at you and 1 year of age your child is not responsibilitying responsibility i -- responding to his or her name, talk to your doctor and take care of it. >> what is behind this skepticism with respect to immunization and what can be done? >> there was an erroneous report in the medical journal which is fraudulent research which ranked mesles and mumps and rubella vaccines. the doctor lost his license in london, england. nonetheless the damage was done. parents said i haven't seen measles in years i'm not going to get it and not vaccinate my child. we have underpopulated

vaccinated children. well to do and college educated and suburban and people who say i know better, i haven't seen a case, therefore, it won't come. yesterday, india reported they have now three years without polio. who would have thought that india could have make that vaccination leap? some say polio could come back. >> give me your ipad. it will explode. i will not let you read those. >> a bumpy day. >> thank you. >> get your baby shots for your kids! >> yes. >> and it's chuck.to chuck.todd@msnbc.com. >> a great cause for a great event focusing on improving medical practices and developing countries around the world. we will be talking to the ceo and founder of global health dr. vanessa carey next on "morning joe."

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[ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees. ♪ my mom works at ge. ♪ ♪ all right. with us now, i'm glad she is still talking to me. ceo and founders of seed global health and a physician at massachusetts general hospital, dr. vanessa carey and with us chief foreign affairs correspondent, andrea mitchell. >> andrea said it was a fantastic event. >> thanks to you, joe, i have something to tell you. >> between ma invest a and mika, the whole group really

understood the mission and i'll leave that for you to describe the amazing things you did. mika, you could not be more helpful. >> it was fine but vanessa will describe the mission. i want you to know that signed thing you gave me for the president for our staff person? >> yes. >> well, i challenged everybody. >> right. >> this gentleman, you were on a plane with him from nantucket. >> yeah. what happened to my check? >> well, he matched it so i made it out for $10,000. >> okay. so, vanessa, you were here. i'm sweating a little bit. >> they actually need more. >> why don't you tell me what i gave $10,000 to? because it's very important to me personally. so go ahead. >> the best money ever spent irks j. >> joe, your contribution -- >> so mika said, i'll have somebody match somewhatever and a guy said $10,000 and she is like, okay. >> you unfortunately, missed the

event. you didn't get a chance to do firsthand what the organization is doing. >> i heard it's extraordinary what you guys are doing. >> i think the most illustrative way i can tell you is tell you a story about one of our volunteers that we showed a video about last night, maureen reese. she is an obstetrician and works in tanzania. within hours of her being there at the sight she was asked to assist in a case and she lost a mother and a baby and she was devastat devastated. a simple procedure could have been done having been in the united states that baby and we are mother would have lived. the next day maureen was confronted with another situation. she lost the baby this time but able to save the mother. she didn't save the mother's life but that mother can go home and take care of her five other children at home. they are less likely to be socially disadvantaged and maureen taught her colleagues how to perform that same life saving procedure so they now all can change the lives of the t s

tanzanian mothers. a child dies every hour in the tans knn tanzanian world. >> it is educating others around the world? >> this is the real thing. you move it forward. so there's this transition. i came back from the lebanon-syrian border, and there's a raging war, and fallout is always women and children. the idea that women die in child birth, you see it in subsarahan africa a lot, and now in destabilized countries. we can absolutely make a difference. when you save a mother's life, it means her children don't go into poverty, prostitution, bad things don't happen. you stabilize communities. >> you've got four applicants for every one doctor you can bring on board. the numbers now, you need more money to make this work, right?

>> we do. we take doctors and nurses. it's an innovative public-private partnership. but it doesn't cover all of the costs. you'll like this. we leverage the u.s. dollars, so 65 cents of every person we send is paid for but the u.s. government, but we provide essential support and leverage the doctors through loan repayment, offset debt. but funding is our big limitation. >> so we raised over $100,000 last night. here's the problem. i have pictures -- we have pictures of the beautiful home. has a pool downstairs. i spent your money, joe. >> and may i say you spent it well? >> thank you. >> an extraordinary operation. >> what i was told at washington's different than new york in fund-raising, and i made an offer that the ambassador would go down to the pool, and she or andrea could push me in for 50,000. >> it didn't work? >> now the sad picture. >> did it work? >> nobody wanted -- >> nobody wanted to have to get

wet, and her pool is so beautiful. >> wow, that's temping. >> talk about what you saw with this organization. >> well, what vanessa has created, and we tacked about this, i think, two years ago, clinton global initiative, or was it a year -- no, two years ago. people were so inspired just by her concept. and then she went to the peace corps and got this whole public-private partnership going. and the fact, as dr. nancy knows better than any of us, other than vanessa, when you go to these countries and actually teach people who can then go and teach these procedures. and what they need is money for, you know, blood pressure pumps and simple equipment that they can bring and leave with them, as well. so you never spent a better $10,000. >> well, as we found, vanessa, whether it's fighting malaria across the globe or a lot of the other diseases, there are so many people dying across the globe unnecessarily.

we don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to save lives. we can spend much, much less. i'm talking about each one of us. and make a real difference. a little bit goes a long, long way. >> i think the key here is that we're focusing on education. this is about training a new generation of local doctors and nurses in the countries where we work so that they can continue teaching. one doctor teaches ten, who goes on to teach ten more. >> it's a really great viral concept. >> it's fantastic. >> and it works. you just drop the seed and it goes and goes and goes. >> you've seen it? >> i've seen it. look, india just announced it's three years without a case of polio. who'd have thought we'd see that in india? so don't ever think global health can't be improved. it can be. >> look what jimmy carter has done. >> is the offer still out there? i was a little hurt -- >> i'll go swimming with you, mika. >> trust me, we'll make the same offer in, no. you need a fund-raiser in new

york. i promise donny deutsch will pay the $50,000 to get mika wet. >> oh, donny. >> seriously, let's have a fund-raiser in new york. >> until the meantime, go to seeglobalhealth.org. see what medical technology is helping global health succeed. we'll get to that in afternoon "mojoe." and andrea mitchell, who do you have? >> the veterans in action, and michael wilner who could not get the visa to cover the president. >> yes. >> an interesting story with mike rogers, going on radio. >> who didn't show up for our big interview yesterday. i guess he had other meetings. coming up on "morning joe," a warning to parents.

are you doing more harm than good by trying to keep your kids safe? is that your son, joe, on the cover of "the atlantic"? we have that story and a whole lot more when "morning joe" returns. ♪ [ girl ] my mom, she makes underwater fans that are powered by the moon. ♪ she can print amazing things, right from her computer. [ whirring ] [ train whistle blows ] she makes trains that are friends with trees.

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♪ all right. up next, governor christie had no involvement in the closure of lanes on the george washington bridge, so says a report commissioned by governor christie. >> well, i believe him. >> all the latest next on "morning joe." building up layer, upon layer, of bacteria. and to destroy those layers? you need listerine®. its unique formula penetrates these layers deeper than other mouthwashes, killing bacteria all the way down to the bottom layer. so for a cleaner, healthier mouth, go with #1 dentist recommended listerine®. power to your mouth™. also try new listerine® naturals. the only mouthwash that combines the power of listerine® with naturally sourced ingredients.

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast, 5:00 a.m. on the west coast, as you take a live look at the white house. back with us on set we've got sam stein, mark halperin, jeremy peters, and al hunt. all right. it has been 21 days since flight 370 disappeared, and search teams are still chasing leads to the missing plane's location. crews are now searching a new area some 700 miles northeast of the previously announced targeted zone for debris. this is based off of new data suggesting the aircraft was moving faster than previously thought, meaning it would have ran out of fuel faster. nbc's ian williams joins us from perth, australia. ian, what does this mean for the old search area? what's the newest information, the facts, as they stand right now? >> reporter: well, this is a pretty big shift in focus, mika. 700 miles almost north of the previous search area. and it does kind of suggest that all those multiple images we saw from satellites and from aircraft may have been false leads.

it does suggest that perhaps there is a concern that these areas -- this could have been something different other than the debris from the aircraft. now, the new area they're now focusing on is closer to mainland australia, just 400, 500 miles out of western australia, which means that aircraft can get there rather more quickly. it's also an area where they say the weather is better than it has been down in the south. it's still very deep there. we're talking about 6,000 to 13,000 feet in depth. and it's also now the size of new mexico or poland. it's a pretty big area. but they're rapidly shifting assets up there. aircraft were in the area today, although we have had no sightings of anything suspicious. they're moving ships, which will be up there by the end of tomorrow, and repositioning -- repositioning satellites. but this is a pretty radical change in direction. australia officials saying today that they didn't regard the search in the south as a waste

of time, but clearly this is a very new direction, mika. >> all right, nbc's ian williams, thank you very much. we'll get back to that. >> isn't that amazing they've been searching in the wrong place all the time, all the satellite -- all the satellite imagery that's come back, the people have pored over for days and days and days. i mean, they must be really crushed over at cnn that they've been speculating for the past -- >> is cnn covering this? >> i'm not sure if cnn is covering this or not. >> it reminds me of another story they covered wall to wall to get ratings. >> are they covering this? >> taking it live -- >> have they not -- >> oh, did they really? [ overlapping speakers ] >> a lot of false information being discussed. and the great hollywood titan that said nobody knows nothin'? >> let's build a cockpit. >> monty hall? >> i don't think it was monty hall. it was one of the early kings of hollywood, nobody knows nothin'

if you want to hear people talking about nothing that nobody knows, endless speculation, well, you can turn to another channel. let's go to news now. >> like people dancing around information for a long time when they're bored stiff. >> we have absolutely nothing to talk about here, and we're going to keep talking about it for 24 hours straight. >> oh, my gosh, cue, go to your co-anchor and have her talk about nothing, too. >> william goldman. it was william goldman who famously said, nobody knows nothin', out of hollywood. i just got that. thank you. so why do -- i have an idea. instead of speculating for 24 hours a day and pretending we do a news show, let's actually do news. we'll let others speculate forever. >> christie. this is interesting. the report commissioned by governor chris christie himself and funded by taxpayers concludes he had no involvement in the closure of lanes on the george washington -- >> see, there, that's it. let's just -- shut the investigation down. >> here we go. here we go, al.

>> we found that governor christie had no knowledge beforehand of this george washington bridge realignment idea. governor christie had no involvement in the decision to close these lanes, and no prior knowledge of it. not a shred of evidence of it. so, yes, our findings today are a vindication of governor christie and what he said all along. >> all right. 340 pages -- >> i trust him. >> stop. >> i know, i read the report. >> that was a shame. 340 pages and $1 million later, questions surrounding the governor are far from settled. the report focuses on the -- the blame on david wildstein of the port authority and bridget ann kelly, the chief of staff, as the ones who executed and covered up the lane closures. wildstein seemed to be the instigator of the plan,

considering so many crazy ones he had before that never got off the ground. >> that's in the report. >> yeah. and it says fired campaign manager bill steppian was aware of the scheme. the findings referred to a romantic relationship between he and bridget kelly. >> oh, my goodness. >> the report fire walls the governor himself saying the version of events rings true. wildstein, however, claims he discussed the lane closures with christie during a september 11th event, and this is what chris christie denies, of course. >> david wildstein has said that a 9/11 event he talked to you about traffic. it's a little ambiguous exactly what. did he? >> yeah, i don't have any recollection of that, diane. david was one of hundreds of people i spoke to that day. we stood around and spoke briefly that day. i don't have any recollection of him saying anything. i'll tell you this -- i'll tell you what he didn't say, he didn't say, hey, by the way, governor, i'm closing down some lanes on the george washington bridge to stick it to the mayor. is that okay? that, i'd remember.

>> the -- the report goes on to say even if wildstein did bring it up, it would not have been, quote, meaningful or memorable to the governor, saying it was unlikely to have registered at all. christie is described in the report over and over as being emotional in his meetings with staff while trying to get to the bottom of what happened. the document also tackles another scandal. hoboken mayor dawn zimmer's claims her city was denied hurricane relief funds over a dispute about a development project. zimmer says during a town hall meeting a commissioner pressured to go forward with the deal. the law firm's report disputes the mayor's claims in part because photos in the event show her smiling and yawning. the report says one does not normally yawn when being coerced, threatened or spoken to improperly. let's see. i have so many things i could say right now. >> mark halperin. what's your takeaway on the report? >> well, that example of the yawn thing is a good

illustration of what is throughout the report, an attempt to put all of the evidence in the best light for governor christie, which is a strange thing to do for something that's supposed to be fact-finding. it's more, in some ways, the press conference, was some spin. three things. one is, this is not a complete report. they didn't interview a lot of the people, including mr. sampson at the port authority, an ally of governor christie, still, but declined to participate. i think the attacks on the kelly as "the new york times" points out, so sexist and gratuitous, and -- >> specifically? >> they talk about her being emotional -- >> erratic and crying. >> -- erratic and crying, and her personal relationship to no apparent end. that coupled with, saying for a former prosecutor, and this is something bill stippian said, that he should presume there's some evidence of guilt, an extraordinary thing for a prosecutor to say, former prosecutor. >> well, i mean, only if you

don't believe in the constitution. >> right. >> i mean, come on. >> details. >> details! details! >> the last thing is, for those that have been skeptical to governor christie's telling the truth, he has now -- this report, under his auspices, makes the accusation that wildstein and steppian and kelly were solely responsible for this, all of them are up in arms about the accusation that they are. he's basically now saying there's going to be no evidence that comes out ever that implicates -- >> he better be innocent is what you're saying. >> he's motivated them to come forward. none of them spoke for this report. they absolutely are saying, you know, we've all assumed this would go higher within his circle. they're basically saying in this report, it stops with the three of them. >> i agree, mark. i think the incentive now is on bridget ann kelly and wildstein to cooperate, even if it maybe would be more son than prior was. this squarely puts them at fault for the events.

it exonerates christie entirely. i was struck by how bridget ann kelly, too. it was was -- >> well, let me say. why didn't they mention that steppian had a relationship with bridget ann kelly, and he was emotional? why is it always focused on a woman and a woman's inability to keep herself together. if there's a relationship causing problems, the man is involved in that, too. whatever vicious behavior he's putting on this woman and putting her in a terrible position, or vice versa. >> that's what we're saying. and i think bridget ann kelly will emerge from this probably feeling she should participate with the other investigations. >> oh, man, i would. >> there is this odd insinuation in the report that she's this jilted woman, right? he broke off the relationship with her, so therefore, she's carrying this grudge. >> and losing her grip on reality?

did she freak out? are you kidding me? >> it would be a good question in how many women were involved in putting this report together. i don't know. i think beyond that, there is a larger question here of what the purpose of this report was. and mark hit on this a lot. i mean, this has all the markings of a very carefully orchestrated rollout campaign by the governor. he went on diane sawyer last night. he's going on megan kelly tonight. >> wow. >> and it just doesn't seem to me like there's really much else there, other than a public relations campaign. >> al, what's your takeaway? >> you know, people break up a lot, and they have all kinds of reactions -- men and women. i don't think a reaction when you break up is let's close the george washington bridge. that seems irrational. >> that's one option. >> i think of that lawyer from the white, shu law firm did a disservice to christie. >> terrible. >> he looked like putin's press guy. it was absolutely -- it was propaganda. he didn't look like a detached

lawyer analyzing what happened. absolutely no evidence -- total vindication. >> al, let's look at this entire episode. there was skepticism about this investigation from the beginning, and it seems to me analytically whether the investigation is correct, whether it ends up that the governor's going to be exonerated 100%, it seems to me the only thing the morning after that this has accomplished is to enrage three people who used to be close to the governor and give them every incentive in the world to work with prosecutors now while you have a healthy dose of skepticism, i would guess, even from republicans looking at this from the outside-in. >> he would have been much better served by a more detached, analytical report that said there is no evidence that the governor knew about this, but there's some things we don't know, and at least would you have said, that's a start. i think this looks like an inside job. and i think that's -- that hurts him. >> the emphasis in the report

and the ess conference is, what clears the governor in this operation? not what are the unanswered questions? they do raise unanswered questions, the most significant one being wildstein claims he talked to the governor about it. but there's still, in the december period, that mika and others have focused on, when these two guys quit the port authority, a lot of unanswered questions about the governor's role in that. there's new information in the report about that. >> here's what we've learned. i think putin's lawyer is a great example, obviously there are connections with chris christie on this set, and this is hard to say, yet another example of him putting people around him that don't serve him well. thank you for that lawyer, it was pathetic, actually. >> actually, i still believe chris christie. >> i believe chris christie, too. i think the lawyer did a terrible job. terrible. go on tv and say he's exonerated? accuse a woman of being emotional and having an affair -- what is this? are you kidding me? >> okay, so there is a little smack of baghdad bob 1991. but still --

>> a smack of -- >> baghdad bob or putin. >> you know, i will say this, there are, though, following up on what al said, even if you're like me and you believe chris christie, there are much better ways to present this than it was presented. and so, mark halperin, let's break this down really quickly, and then we'll go to break and i'll have everybody weigh in. you know, there are such important political implications for how this unwinds, and the reason why is power ports a vacuum, and the power was filled by chris christie. jeb bush in the past month and a half, has aggressively started looking at running for the president of the united states. his people are engaged since the scandal began. jeb has been calling donors all across america, top donors, people that helped his father, and saying, just stand -- stand -- stand by. don't get on anybody's side. i may be running for president. and it's very simple. if chris christie survives this,

chris christie is going to run for president, and i suspect jeb bush is not. so i guess the $64,000 question this morning is, does this -- if you're jeb bush and his team that are working to get him into the race, mark halperin, if you look at what's unfolding here, is this -- does this make jeb more or less likely this morning on the conference call that they have to say, hey, you know what, christie did really well last night, maybe we need to back off? or do they say, boy, this is a total mess, we need to double our efforts? >> slightly more likely only because i think he did pretty well in that interview in calming people. he's got a story to tell now. he can hang it on this report. but kind of meaningless, because the reports that matter and the investigations that matter are the legislative one and the u.s. attorney. >> how long can democrats drag that out, sam stein? >> ooh, forever. >> i mean, that's the problem. chris christie could be fighting this for a year. >> with the scandal, as with most political scandals, you

probably want to put everything out all at once and get everything behind you at once, and this is why this report is sort of meaningless, because it was written essentially by christie's lawyers. no one will believe it fully at least. >> what are they saying in jeb bush's camp this morning? by the way, it's a zero sum game. i know people will whine and go, oh, no, it's -- trust me, it's a zero sum game. either chris christie wins or jeb bush wins. what happens? >> i would think, and i haven't talked to any of them, i think they would be more encouraged rather than less encouraged. if something that happened yesterday that took it off the charts. i happen to not think jeb bush is not going to run, not because of any inside information. i cannot see jeb bush spending 70 days in iowa and new hampshire. the other indicator i have, i think he would love to govern, and would probably govern pretty darn well, he's overweight, joe. and overweight people tend not to run for president. there are exceptions, but not many. >> not in this case, you're wrong about that. >> i'm talking about chris christie. >> wait.

>> i think jeb bush is a good-looking man. you're saying he's overweight? how did we get to this? >> what the heck? >> what's wrong with you, al hunt? >> we were talking about chris christie. >> i hope you're friends with jeb. was bill clinton the difference in new york city's charter school fight? hmm, did he make the difference? mike allen is here with the politico playbook. plus, a new norm when it comes to parenting, and it's all about risk. we'll explain the problems with that in just a bit. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> you know bill breastfed until he was 11? >> he's still breastfeeding. his mother is trying to wean. >> bill? >> it gets more difficult, the older you get. you get really attached. oh, dysfunctional. good morning, everyone. here we go. as far as the weekend, rainy weekend, a lot of us need our umbrellas. some people, the snow shovels. i apologize to you in northern new england. you're not going to like what's coming your way.

let's talk about it this morning. a lot of rain early in mississippi, also alabama. later today, though, you'll get the dangerous weather. we have a lot of storminess on the map. that's going to kick off some showers, thunderstorms, and maybe some severe storms late today. so the areas at risk, slight risk of severe weather, may be a few tornadoes, east texas, southern arkansas, louisiana, mississippi. maybe even some large hail with that and definitely damaging winds. we'll watch that. again, this evening, probably 6:00 p.m. till about midnight. so for the rainfall maps, going through the weekend, a saturday soaker in the mid-atlantic, up through new england saturday night and right through sunday morning. also, we're watching, of course, the horrible mudslide took place, you know, they're still trying to go through everything. it's been raining on and off every single day. there's more rain coming your way. and even northern california is going to get some of the rain. i teased you and mentioned northern new england with the snow coming. we're talking about the possibility of 3 to 6, maybe even 6 to 10 inches, for

burlington, vermont, and much of the state of maine. you usually wait until april, anyway, when spring rolls around. new york city, don't be fooled by the sunshine. clouds will increase during the day, clouds tonight, and a soaker throughout the weekend. you're watching "morning joe."

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♪ let's take a look at the

"morning papers. "requesting from our parade of papers, "the seattle times," search efforts continue in washington state following saturday's devastating mudslide. the death toll has risen to 17 with the latest victim a 4-month-old baby girl. the fire chief fears the number will continue to rise. at least 90 people remain missing. hundreds of local, state, and federal officials are aiding in the search. >> such a terrible story. from "the boston globe," the cdc estimates 1 in 68 children in the u.s. have been identified with autism spectrum disorder. >> this is incredible. >> the number is up from 1 out of 88 children two years ago. that's 30% higher than previous reports. to put that in perspective, that means virtually every grade in elementary school has at least one child with autism. >> connecticut, the first state to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2017. president obama's pushing for federal increase of the same

amount, but so far, it's been stalled down in washington, daniel milloy, congratulations. >> the president of taco bell is offering up to trade to our neighbors to the north. >> ah. >> the restaurant executive was asked online when the breakfast menu was coming to canada. he said, quote, when you take justin bieber back. let's look at the stakes. on one side, you have a delicious taco wrapped around scrambled eggs, sausage, syrup, and a 25-year-old heartthrob arrested for drunken drag rac g racing. a white house petition to deport him has over 270,000 signatures. i'm going with the taco waffle. >> so my daughter thinks he should be deported. get him out of here. >> of course, she does. >> yeah. and on this weekend's "parade"

magazine, actress eva longoria talks about her interests beyond acting including politics. interesting. all right. let's go to politico. >> with us is chief white house correspondent mike allen. he has the playbook. you have an exclusive on what's happened in new york city with bill de blasio, charter schools, and we've been talking about it a lot on this show, and looking at the success, academy. he seemed to make a turn. that was positive. he had a little help from a friend. >> he did. and this was so surprising. last sunday, very abruptly, no lead-in, no rule-out, mayor de blasio abruptly changed his position on charters. turns out he had talked a couple days before with president bill clinton. this was a story that politico's maggie heberman and capital new york's sally goldenberg put together. they found that the president called and he wanted to talk about education.

and in a gentle but unmistakable way, he said you don't want to take a substantive issue and make it personal, as the mayor had with eva. so he adjusted. but it was too late. the final deals on the budget are being made in albany today, and governor cuomo has grabbed away that issue. there will be a bunch of funding for charter schools, both for location and to fund the schools. >> but it does say something al hunt about politics? we've all seen politicians that get their feet in cement and then refuse to move afterwards. de blasio, for a man who was suspected to be such an ideologue actually showed a bit more flexibility than -- >> you should be encouraged by that. >> everybody makes mistakes. >> before you were born, ronald reagan one time said his feet was locked in concrete on any tax in california, and then he

changed his position, and he said, ladies and gentlemen, the sound you heard is the uncracking. it should be encouraging. >> he was smart enough to listen. bill clinton knows the city, knows where people are, and mayor de blasio had worked for him as -- >> they have charter schools up in chappaqua? >> they don't need them. bill clinton obviously has seen the effects firsthand. he's got an office up in harlem. and whether you're in harlem or whether you're in the bronx, it's extraordinary what some of the charter schools are doing. and you know bill clinton's been touched by that. i think even more importantly than charter school issue, mika, is the fact that what bill clinton -- we were at an event with him maybe a year ago -- and bill clinton was talking about what it takes to be a good politician. >> mm-hmm. >> and he said it can't be personal, and you can't have any memory. >> memory. >> if you're a governor or a president or in this case a mayor, and you have a memory, you're going to be a terrible, terrible president.

and i think he gave that advice to bill de blasio, and it was great advice, and bill de blasio, i think it's great he followed it. >> that's what i was going to say. i think bill clinton has great political acumen and was probably helpful. having said that, bill de blasio was great on our show. he was great. he admitted the p.r. part of the whole thing was horrible. >> right. >> he actually came back and said he's going to fix up the mess he made with the school that he shut down. he's going to find a place for the kids. he evolved on the air. he didn't change his positions. he's got a problem with eva and has a problem with charter schools versus the rest of the schools, and clearly if it was an easy issue to deal with, obviously somebody would have done it. this is so convoluted, and he stepped in. >> you can afford to be an ideologue if you're in the legislature in albany or washington, d.c. you can't if you're mayor of the largest city in america. and he certainly --

>> sat here for 20 minutes, took anything. >> -- sophisticated people in new york, across the spectrum, are questioning the mayor's competence and ideology, who he's getting advice from, and has enough senior people give you political advice. having bill clinton -- >> that's pretty senior. >> this is all about bill de blasio. this isn't about bill clinton. the fact he would listen, take the advice, move forward, and shift on something, it is sort of one of those reagan moments that al was talking about where you have your feet planted in cement, but it's cracking. >> joe, to your point about taking that advice, not having a long memory as a politician. i think there are probably a lot of democrats who would find that ironic coming from the clintons, given that there are a lot of democrats who still feel they're being punished for not supporting hillary. >> but when you're governing, bill clinton, i always say this joke about bill clinton, but it's really actually true, you could impeach him in the morning, and he would go golfing with you in the afternoon.

because bill clinton -- it goes back to the wonderful scene at the end of david maris' book, came out in '93, he was showing bill clinton the morning after he lost his first race when he was running for congress, and they looked down and he was shaking hands with people in the courtyard, and they said, poor guy, he doesn't even know that he lost the election. and the response was, oh, he knows he lost the election. he's campaigning for the next election. bill clinton always knew there was another vote. there's never the signing ceremony. the other side never surrenders, like the japanese on the "us missouri." it goes on and on. >> so to your point and your point, publicly you have no memory, and he does a very good job of that. >> the democrats, yeah. they do have a reason to say that about the clintons politically. but when you're governing, you just can't afford -- >> right. >> -- to hold grudges. >> we have breaking news on the wires. republican congressman mike

rogers of michigan says he will not seek re-election. mike allen, i know we have to go. >> mike, that's fascinating. a guy running the intel committee. a force on capitol hill. >> former fbi agent, looked at for the senate race. >> what's going on there? >> joe, this is a quiz. he's announced his next profession. it will be, what? >> what? >> talk radio. cumulus announced he'll do a show for them on westwood one after he leaves congress at the end of this year. so he's youngish, just remarried, going to make some money and -- >> is it mr. rogers? what's the show called? >> it is now. mr. rogers' neighborhood? the latest in a string of very serious-minded legislators who are deciding that they've had it with congress. this is -- there's been a wave of retirements this year. and he's just the latest. >> it's becoming, al, more -- it's becoming less fulfilling to be a senator or a congressman.

>> impactful. >> less impactful. you would never have heard ten years ago somebody as a united states senator saying, you know what, i'm quitting to run a think tank, like jim demint did. >> or a radio show. >> or i'm quitting -- >> to do a radio talk show. >> yes. >> i would just say mike ronalders was supposed to be an interview with me and bloomberg television, and he backed out of it. and i wrote a blistering letter, saying, what possibly could -- and now we know. >> oh, al. it does not make sense to go to washington if you want to make a difference, and this is a great example. i bet you he will say he has more of a platform to make a difference and to reach people with a message on the radio than he does going to washington and dealing with that big pile of -- >> you guys are on the hill. basically, in the senate you have harry reid who i've said it and it irritates people, but it's the truth, basically a

pocket veto for barack obama. he doesn't let anything that the house pass even get debated and pushed through there. and in the house, well, the house has never been a democratic institution. it's a totalitarian regime no matter who runs it. it is. it really is. they make the rules. it's like the most unfulfilling thing, jeremy, isn't it in. >> you saw what happened yesterday, right, where they ran -- it was like "house of cards" they rammed through this vote without recording it. >> politico's mike allen, thank you very much. up next, a special warning to parents. is it time to back off and just let kids be kids? we're exploring both sides of that argument next and talking about how mika is overprotective. keep it here on "morning joe." take a closer look at your fidelity green line and you'll see just how much it has to offer,

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♪ all right. here with us now, writer for "the atlantic," hannah rosen, who wrote the cover story on the overprotected kid -- joe. >> mika. >> is that your son on the cover? >> no, no, it's a version of your daughters. >> no, believe me, i let them break bones at a very young age. you, on the other hand, did get

a helmet for your son. >> whatever. he needed it. >> okay. let me read in part what you write, it's great to have you on the show. nancy, glad to have you back here. it's hard to absorb how much childhood norms have shifted in just one generation. actions that would have been considered paranoid in the '70s, walking third graders to school, forbidding your kid playing ball in the street, going down the slide with the child in your lap, are now routine. when you ask parents why they are more protective than their parents were, they might answer that the world is more dangerous than it was when they were growing up. but this isn't true, or not in the way we think. for example, parents now routinely tell their children never to talk to strangers, even though all available evidence suggests that children have about the same very slim chance of being abducted by a stranger as they did a generation ago. maybe the real question is, how did the fears come to have a hold over us, and what have our children lost and gained as we've succumbed to them? that's a great question.

>> why are we more fearful? >> why are we more fearful? >> you asked the question. why? >> the world is different, but it's not different. we don't have neighborhoods the way we used to have neighborhoods. mothers aren't around. a lot more divorce. things are different, but we localize those fears into stranger danger or some kind of moral panic. again, this idea of don't talk to strangers, you are much more likely to be abducted by your father, who's divorcing your mother, than you are by a stranger. >> at the same time -- at the same time, my siblings and i would leave our house at 9:00, 8:00 in the morning in summers and we'd ride our bikes around and go to swimming pools and go here and we'd go there. and if we got in trouble, there was always a parent who was a friend of my mom's who would come out and grab me by the ear and drag me back to my house and say, joey did this. that doesn't exist now. >> there would be people in the neighborhood -- it's like we've come to think of the neighborhood as dangerous and the public place is dangerous. nobody would come up to your kid

and say that now because you would think there was something wrong with them, oer they were going to abduct your kid. it used to be natural for someone in the grocery store to give you a piece of candy. imagine if somebody did that now. >> my only point is, and i think you hit it with the neighborhoods, a lot of reasons why parents felt a lot safer, let their 7-year-old go out on a bike, is they knew up and down the street there were parents who also had kids out on bikes, and it was, like, that was the version of neighborhood watch in the 1960s, 1970s. >> so why don't kids walk to school? why can't -- there's no stream of children walking down the block from my house to school. >> we made ours do it. >> if i let my third grader walk, people would think i was crazy, even though there was a stream of children walking -- >> mika, do you let your children walk around the neighborhood, your girls walk around the neighborhood? >> now that they're teenager, i'm more leery, from my own personal experience, actually, for a different show. when i was younger, my husband and i made them walk half a mile to school.

no big deal. >> and they enjoyed it. >> it was good for them, carrying a heavy bag. >> in bare feet. >> first of all, i make monday of you, been doing it all day. you're the most protective and caring father i've known in a long time. >> not overprotective. >> very overprotective, but in a sweet way. >> but i'm intense as far as i want to know where my kids are. >> knowing where they are is very different, i think. that's a responsibility of your kids checking back. when i was a kid, my mother gave me a dime, so if there were trouble, i could call on the pay phone. the connection, of responsibility, giving kids a loose line, but knowing there has to be open communication, that's how i think you give your kids a chance to take risks and learn about failure, but be smart about being responsible for their activities and where they are in the world. and that makes parents less frightened. >> i have a question. how much does -- do the media culture play into this? you see obviously on local news

a lot of times abductions and -- >> yeah, of course. >> -- and maybe they overplay the significance -- not the significance, but the amount of times it's happened, and overemphasize it in the media? >> it's a huge part of it. seeing an abduction story is horrible. you can't get it out of your head. you can't get the images out of your head. this started in the '70s with the famous abduction case in new york, all over the news and the nation. since then, that's when stranger -- that's when we date stranger danger back -- >> the stories have a bigger platform than maybe they should have. joe? >> let's talk about the research. how does this hurt kids? how does it help kids? what does the research show? >> what helps kids is we're closer to them, we know what's going on with them, we're in tune. people felt neglected in the '70s. what hurts them is they're afraid to fail. afraid to take risks. they're afraid to do anything without -- they have this expectation that adult is going to intervene for them. we used to think, okay, a good parent, maybe someone who creates opportunities for their

kids to grow and learn and ma e maybe, you know, develop their character, that's what we thought in the '40s and '50s. and now a good parent is one that totally protects their kids. >> i've said this before that i -- by the time i came along, i was the youngest child, and my mom was, like -- >> you were an accident. >> whatever. i was an accident. you know, she said she just -- the door would be closed, i was 5, i would be playing in my room, imagination. i'm making a point, though, i actually -- it helped me that i was given this space instead of parents, you know, sitting down and reading and playing games, you know, smothering their children. >> you parent too much. you are home all the time with -- >> just -- why is this always about me? she's attacking me. terrible. >> well, no. >> i think her parents ignored her too much, what do you think? >> she looks fine to me. so do you. >> really quickly -- >> so it's the funny thing about being neglected in the '70s, taking you back to my childhood,

growing up in indiana in the '60s and '70s meant bikes, freedom, backyard bells, be home by dusk for dinner, you never disobeyed your mother. sitdown family dinners. i think part of the disillusion of the fabric of america are two things -- we don't have sitdown family dinners, and sidewalks. >> the sidewalks are important. >> on both sides of the street. not just one. >> that is one thing i insist on. we sit down for dinner every night. it does make a big difference. >> it makes a huge difference. >> you got something else that says stop helping kids with homework. i know we have to g also, the burdens we place on our children from going from one extra school activity to another to another to another to another, and then they get home and there's homework. kate, my 10-year-old, doesn't get out of school until 10:00 -- i mean, 4:00. and then, there's so much homework, and parents have been complaining about this.

but it's -- kids are smothered. >> i made the greatest project for social studies last week. >> mika is still doing homework for her children. >> did you get an "a"? >> i'll find out. >> it would be embarrassing if you didn't. >> so don't do homework for kids? >> yes. don't do homework for kids. let them do things for themselves. let them get a "c" what's the big deal? >> exactly. the cover story, the overprotected story, hannah rosen, thank you so much. more "morning joe" straight ahead. salesperson #1: so again, throwing in the $1,000 fuel reward card

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it posted a loss, in tough shape. but the loss was smaller than analysts were expecting. they're clearly going to have an uphill battle when it comes to a comeback, but they have a new ceo, john chen, and amazingly managed to sell 3.4 million handsets during the quarter. actually, most of the blackberries were the old blackberry 7s, not the new ones. listen to this, guys. we're just learning that blackberry in the next 18 months is planning to launch a new high-end smartphone for keyboard lovers. it's all about the keyboard. that's why i still have mine. >> i love that. >> that could be good. >> always in search. that's surprising news. bad news for blackberry, but not as bad as we thought, sarah. >> exactly. >> thank you so much. great, we appreciate it. >> sarah eisen, thank you. >> and you'll go back at the end, trying samsung now, i think in the end you'll go back to that blackberry. >> i wonder. >> i'm telling you, so easy to type on. >> we'll see. on monday's show, we'll talk to

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♪ up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? >> we learned so much today. it was unbelievable how much we learned. >> a lot. we'll be right back. latte or au lait?

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♪ welcome back to "morning joe." what did we learn today? jeremy? >> i learned a new euphemism for lane closure. >> which is? >> lane realignment. >> i like it. >> sam stein? >> i learned al hunt is a weightist. >> is he a weightist. why does he hate when loving would be so much eacher? >> gaba gaba, chris christie, 2:30 press conference today. >> today. if you need a lawyer to speak for you, do not call gibson, dunn. any plans for the weekend, joe?

>> i think so. and what i learned today is chris christie -- >> i'm doing an all-you-can-eat buffet. >> -- still in good form. if it's way too early, it's "morning joe." stick around. it's exciting. >> right here, kristen welker. >> have a great weekend! and as always, thank you. for your patience. >> thanks, guys, great to have you in washington. trenton makes the world takes. breaking news this hour on the heels of his team of lawyers saying he's in the clear, governor christie plans to make the case himself at a press conference just hours from now. on the other end of the country, recovery efforts continue and the death toll is expected to rise even more from the tragic mudslide that wiped out a rural area outside of seattle. and across the pacific, the search area for missing malaysian airlines flight 370 shifts as even more new debris is spotted and the weather finally makes a turn to help the search.