when they return. then this, new mexico governor martinez facing criticism after newly released audio tapes catch the governor speaking more candidly than she doespublic. she is blaming the media for the quote, desperate attacks. and talk about a golden parachute. a fired yahoo exec is leaving with a $58 million severance package. he worked for yahoo for more than just 15 months. that's it for "way too early." "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ good morning. it is thursday, april 17th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. where've you been? >> i've been here when you haven't been here. >> he was here.

you were in niese. you were in monaco. >> no, i wasn't. i will tell you where i was. but first also with us former treasurer official and "morning joe" analyst steve radnor. >> how is monaco in the spring? >> and thomas roberts. how are you? did you like my selfie with my sunglasses? >> i loved it. i might show it to joe. >> where've you been? >> i got you a t-shirt. you are now part of the johns hopkins family. >> i bet they're sorry about that. >> you may have to come speak there. my daughter and i went to look. i got you both because i didn't know what you like. larry told me what restaurant to go to. >> did you go there? >> i went there. it was amazing. >> did you get the chopped salad? >> amelia did. and our waitress had been there over 20 years.

you went to yale. i went to johns hopkins. >> i was going to say joe went to yale. >> it was the only time they let me on the campus. yeah for the program up there. our good friend jack got me up there and talked to the group. and they are, you know, i had to go underground and knock on three pipes and they opened up this room and there was actually a group of conservatives huddled. >> we were in a shelter? >> they were in a shelter. yeah. sort of like uc berkeley. no, it was actually a great event. great program. and a lot of young people there that are very bright. there was one request from a gentleman in the audience what watches the show. he said when i leave and leave the show to you, he said you need to have at least one conservative within like ten

miles of the set. there you go. a lot of news to cover today. vladimir putin just spoke. we're going to talk about that. also the south korean ferry. >> why don't we start there. this developing story is bound to become even more heart breaking if that's possible. it is the disaster at sea in south korea. at this hour nine people are confirmed dead and nearly 300 still missing after a ferry loaded with high school students capsized off the country's coast. rescue crews are racing to find survivors. but strong currents are hampering efforts to get inside the crippled ship. video shows stranded students yelling for rescuers to save a young girl. she was pulled to safety and is expected to be okay. she's six years old. and her parents and brother are still missing. we're following all angles of this story. joining us now from seoul, south

korea, cnbc senior correspondent eunice yun. >> reporter: it is a heart breaking tragedy. fast currents and poor visibility have delayed attempts by the divers to reach the innermost part of the ship where they have hoped to find some of the mississippiing still alive. out of the 475 people on board, 179 have been rescued. 287 are missing. and nine are confirmed dead though many here expect that number to rise dramatically. more than 34 hours since the ferry sank. families of the passengers on board mostly students on a field trip are gathering at a gym in jindo on the coast close to where the tragedy took place. they have been furious with what they call a slow government response. the prime minister visited the families and was greeted with

relatives hurling water bottles at him saying how could you let this happen. the president of the country was debriefed by the coast guard and urged rescuers to double their efforts to find survivors. some of the students had sent text messages from inside the vessel telling their parents that they love them asking their friends for forgiveness for recent arguments that now to them seem trivial. the captain of the ship is in custody and the crew is being questioned. the captain has apologized and said that he feels ashamed. as for the cause of the crash and ferry sinking, that is still unknown. officials are investigating and looging for more answers. >> eunice yoon, thank you so much. also vladimir putin is speaking to a nationwide broadcast on russian television. being carried out by local citizens adding it is, quote,

nonsense to claim russian forces are there. putin also said it is, quote, a grave crime for ukraine to send soldiers into the region. meanwhile, diplomats from russia and ukraine are in geneva this morning to try to put an end in the violence between the countries. both sides o skeptical of a resolution. pro-russian separatists attacked a guard post with bombs. three of the militants were killed. elsewhere ukraines push against pro-russian rebels ended in glaring humiliation. video posted online shows troops being forced to hand over their assault rifles to separatists. they also surrendered armored vehicles that were paraded through the streets by militants. one even did some tricks in the town's square. this is not going well. president obama, of course, spoke about this at the white house to major garett yesterday.

we'll get to that in a moment. at this point, though, we're hearing lots of different points of view that the u.s. should be doing. and they will hurt, it will just take time. >> putin again speaking to the russian people. he's talking about how ukraine and not just ukraine but other areas south and west of russia have traditionally been russian. and that the entire country of ukraine is a fiction that was created basically by map drawers. there's no doubt he's staking a claim at least in the hearts of russians to that territory. >> let's go to eastern ukraine. joining us now jim maceda with the latest. >> they have taken over police

and state headquarters in close to a dozen cities here including where i am in donetsk. they don't believe the ukrainian military poses a threat to them anymore. you just have to look at how that launch of an operation back to take back, i should say, ukraine from the insurgents has gone the past couple days. you mentioned humiliation of the units that surrendered their tanks and armored equipment. still others were blocked and ridiculed by crowds of angry civilians who had to retreat. it's no surprise that overnight there was that gang of 300 pro-russians who used their fire bombs and automatic weapons and tried to storm that guard base in another town occupied to the east of us. this time the ukrainian military did react forcefully, as you

say. it killed three, wounded 13, dozens were arrested. president putin called that attack on the pro-russian protesters a grave crime. back to you. >> all right. jim maceda, thank you very much. steve radnor, are you looking at charts on this? no. >> we have charts on oil and natural gas -- >> let me get to obama first. okay. as the crisis continues, president obama says the united states and the eu are prepared to act if russia does not stop its aggression. take a look. >> each time russia takes these kinds of steps that are designed to destabilize ukraine and violate their sovereignty, there are going to be consequences. what you've already seen is the russian economy weaker, capital fleeing out of russia. mr. putin's decisions are not just bad for ukraine. over the long-term, they're going to be bad for russia. >> steve, let's talk about that. you've got some charts about

oil. let's talk specifically about what john mccain said, that russia is little more than a glorified gas station. we've had other people coming on saying it is not going to be that difficult to make russia feel pain. >> so i think there's a little bit of an element of mutually destruction here. russia's economy is already weak as "the new york times" is reporting today. their stock market is down. their currency is down. they're at risk of slipping into recession on the one hand. so that is to some degree the effect of our sanctions, to some degree people being scared in russia getting their money out and the economy just starting to crumble as well. when we start to talk about more sanctions and we start focusing on the energy sector, that's where it gets more complicated because there is a huge inter-dependence. >> let's do that. . how they're facing an economy

where unemployment is as high as 12%. the last thing they want to do is have an economic shock as well. >> yeah. i heard katty say that. i think it's an important point. what underlies some of that is the energy situation. if you look at where europe gets its gas, 24% of europe's gas comes from russia. and it comes -- actually about half of that comes across the ukraine through pipelines. be that as it may, i've given you a sampling of countries here. but you have a whole bunch of countries that get 100% of their gas from russia including finn lands and the baltic states, places like that. then when you look at poland, 59%, germany 37%, 29% italy. you've got a very significant dependence upon russian gas. >> i would have to think that the energy oligarchs would be doing more than whispering in putin's ear because they have to understand even if they don't feel the pinch now, they're

going to feel it in the future on the countries that know they can't rely on them for years to come on steady energy supply. >> it's mutual destruction. >> it is right now. i'm just saying -- >> going forward. >> yes. merkel in germany, obviously you're already looking at other options. >> they're all looking at other options, but the options are tough. >> let's look at oil for a second. you can see that europe is also hugely dependent on russia for oil. it's by far europe's biggest supplier of oil. up about four times over the last 20 years. the oil fields are running down. so places like norway are supplying less oil. and russia is supplying more. but here's the really important point if we can turn to the question of what are the alternatives for europe and for russia. remember, natural gas can't be moved around easily. you can't put it in a tanker and

move it. you can liquefy it and do it that way. you need five years probably to build these facilities. we're not going to be able to take our natural gas for a long time and send it to russia. but if you look at the world oil situation and see who are the big producers and consumers, so russia is the third largest oil producer in the world. this is not iran or iraq. this is the third largest oil producer in the world we're fooling around with. secondly, for all of the good things that's happened in the u.s. with energy supply, we're still the world's largest importer. >> that's mainly from canada? >> venezuela, places like that. but soil a worldwide commodity. >> right. >> here is the key point. the key point is that russia is the second largest oil exporter in the world. 7.2 billion barrels a day. 8% of the world supply comes out of russia. a lot of it goes to europe.

so the idea that we're going to put on embargo around russian oil to get around iran would have a devastating effect on us as well as on russia. >> mike? >> what happens if the european union -- and this would obviously be almost impossible to pull off -- but the european union decides rather than importing their oil from russia, they get it from saudi arabia, united states. >> the problem is first of all we don't export oil. we import oil. if they take ours, we'll have to get it somewhere else. oil is a worldwide commodity. there's about 90 billion barrels a day of this stuff consumed all over the world. if you take that out of the system, oil prices just go up and go up a lot. yes, europe can get it from the middle east the way it used to before russia produced as much,

but the people who are already getting their oil from the middle east, japan specifically, are going to need that oil too. oil prices will go up by a significant amount. >> so which sanctions would hurt russia the most? >> sanctions against their energy would hurt immensely. but it's going to hurt us just as much. i think financial sanctions are probably the way to go. what we've already seen is capital flight out of europe, stock markets down 12% so far this year. the ruble is falling. it could have a significant impact on russia. >> of course "new york times" this morning, that russia's economy is already fragile. >> yeah. >> and you just wonder how many economic shocks it can face over the next six months to a year. >> i think at some point people might not be as happy with this. president putin may not care. "the new york times" read

russia's economy worsens even before sanctions hit. $70 billion in capital has left the country. russia's also suffering from st stag stagnant growth. the economy could shrink more. the white house says they have more sanctions prepared but did not provide further details on what they are. >> that's another question. what can be done? i was struck -- your father when he was on the other day was talking about how the president needs to be more assertive. and of course we also had had jane harman here. >> did you read nick kristoff this morning? >> no. >> wh what did he say? >> arm 'em. >> that's what mr. brzezinski said. >> that's shocking from nick

kristoff. >> it's like arming them with a pancake. >> who said that? >> your father. >> he did not. >> yes. >> because we supplied them with mres. >> i could hear him saying pancake. >> you can't win a war by throwing a pancake at them. but the thing is you have people like your father who has obviously warned against intervention in iraq in the past, has warned against intervention in syria, who has warned against intervention obviously in iran. he's much more for on old hawk like your father, he's -- even though i'm really restrained when it comes to foreign policy, i think he's even more restrained. but in this case enough is enough. >> because he knows where this is going. you have to look at the math. you know where this is going. nick kristoff writes this. for decades ukrainians have been starved, depressed, and bullied

by russians and with russia now citing instability, plenty of brave ukrainians here are saying they've had it and are ready to go bear hunting if they could equip themselves. i do think the white house can do more. when ukrainians ask me what i think, i tell them i admire their spirit but that courage is sadly no match for a tank. they disagree. when we're fighting against the police, we had just wooden sticks. we can manage against russia as well. these people don't have much, but they have heart. we should do more to back them up. . >> and again, that's what your father's saying. you know, people saying, again, more people on this show coming on saying we shouldn't do anything to provoke putin. he may act badly. i'm sorry. you can see where this is going. he goes into crimea, now the march is moving westward every day. steve radnor, this is a man who sees it is russia's right.

it's sort of manifest destiny to take back ukraine and belarus and other countries. >> i think the only thing that bear in mind is that the eastern part of ukraine is heavily russian. if you look where jim was just reporting from, it is over 70% ethnic russian. it is a complicated situation. and you do have the risk that you provoke putin. you have the risk the local populous in the eastern part of ukraine say we want to be closer to russia. >> where does putin stop though? first of all, he had no right to go into crimea. whether there were russians there or not. we signed a deal with ukrainians and as you know very well, we're going to do everything we could to protect their borders in return for the nuclear weapons and he goes into crimea. >> he had no right to go into crimea. >> and now he's marching eastward. >> but you get back to the question as a practical matter.

i saw jane harman the other day. i agree with her. when you get down to the practical matter, what do you do about it? we're obviously not going to put boots on the ground. we can arm ukrainians for giving putin an excuse to come across the border. i don't think we can do energy sanctions for the reasons i said earlier. you could use some financial sanctions, but i think you have a limited tool box. >> so we're going to arm the ukrainian rebels but not the syrian rebels? >> i was just going to say that and i thought you would laugh me off the set. >> when it comes to putin, what is his main game? this is a guy that can be easily profiled because he's been a player so long. you can look at what he's done in the past to figure out what he wants to do in the future. but there are two things driving him. is it money or renationalization? and right now we look at the expansive control that they're trying to take by readjusting borders in crimea and it makes you wonder. as steve points out, that's

where all the spider veins are for the natural gas. it gets further away from moscow and that's a big concern. but i think angela merkel holds a lot of the cards in her sway in being able to help. >> should be able to help. >> and the g7 to be almost perpetually weakened by the fact they will not do anything constructive. >> that's why i highlighted europe's dependence on russian energy. it's easy for us to say europe, you got to be tough. but the fact is they have a lot at stake there. london has a lot at stake. so we'll have to see how tough the europeans will be. >> all right. we'll continue to talk about this. coming up on "morning joe," dr. sikh emanuel, ezra klein, and arianna huffington. also ahead, we're going to talk about elizabeth warren's new book. she's going to be on next book. behave yourself. don't ruin my booking.

>> can i come back on? >> you can. she has amazing things to say. especially about an interesting run-in she had with the president. >> really? >> yes. we have highlights coming up. >> you know whose book i love, bill kairns' book. >> the book of bill. >> i don't like your book. it was freezing and it snowed on me in baltimore. >> it's not pretty, but it's a good read. >> there's a lot wrong. the book spells it all out. >> it bet it does. >> the last chapter will be the best. trust me. let's talk about the temperatures this morning. you need the heavy coat. you need the gloves. you need the hats. all the way through new england. one of the colder spots up in northern new england. there are temperatures in the teens. windchills down towards the single digits. but at least we have clear skies. you can see the picture of lower manhattan. picture perfect skies. with a strong sun angle, we'll warm it up like yesterday afternoon. somewhere probably in the 50s maybe even as warm as near 60

degrees down there near d.c. we're still very cold in minnesota. some areas picked up a foot of snow just north of minneapolis yesterday and last night. so they're shoveling this morning. think of them throughout your morning routine. the forecast today, chicago we're better. no significant airport delays. if you're down in the southeast, that's where the worst weather will be over the next about four to five days right into the easter weekend. a lot of rain down there from new orleans into florida. into saturday we'll watch a windy rainy forecast on the coast. as we look at easter sunday, many areas are going to be just fine. just some few showers and storms from iowa to wisconsin. but much of the country is actually going to look for a very nice holiday weekend. cold start, nice finish. you're watching "morning joe." ♪ vé

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♪ let's take a look at the morning papers. "the washington post," experts are analyzing data from the marine sub that has completed its first day of search for the flight 370. the sub covered about 35 square miles so far. that is so little compared to what they have to search. >> i know. and "the new york times" recently fired yahoo executive took home a severance package of $58 million after only 15 months on the job. >> castro? >> yeah. the coo also received $96 million while he was employed at the company. that's more than ceo who made $62 million. most of this payment comes from the cost of luring him from his

former job. >> i don't get it. >> i don't know. >> the stars and stripes, pentagon warning sequestration military cuts will severely impact national security. it would leave the military too small to properly respond to short and long-term risks. there are more than $1 trillion worth of defense cuts slated from now through 2021. >> and from "the new york post," two kids had a chance. when the pope got out of the pope mobile yesterday, he gave a t-shirt. that's when he asked if they wanted a lift. the kids hopped in and the pope gave them a ride around st. peters square. he then gave them a kiss on the cheek before dropping them off. >> i love him. that's nice. let's go to thomas. >> two kids and the pope mobile. something to remember.

with us now the chief correspondent for politico mike allen with the morning playbook. good morning. >> good morning, guys. >> let's start with politico reporting there maybe some reluctance with jeb bush because of concerns over his family. now not necessarily because of his brother george w. bush. what's the big concern? >> well, it's a holding pattern. there's all these bush family supporters over the years of people out there. people who supported president bush 41 and 43. and they're frozen while they're waiting for jeb bush's decision. as politico poked around, spoke to those supporters in florida and elsewhere, they found part of the concern about a jeb candidacy is whether or not his immediate family would be on board. friends of the family say that his wife has long been reluctant to do it. no one knows like the bushes what a political pylon can be if you get in. a couple of his children have been in the news over the years. they know that that would come back out. we talked to one fund raiser for

him saying he has a tough spine. if he decides to do this, he would make sure his family was on board. the twist here is we're told by some of these donors they're being asked to go to the president to jeb bush's family members and encourage them. one person who is on board, his son george p. bush who's running for statewide office in texas. he says he hopes his dad runs. and he's telling the people they should urge him to do exactly that. >> it's such a great point, though, when you think about the immediate family of jeb bush and the buy-in that they have to provide, the sacrifice that goes into doing something like that. we've all seen what can happen to families in the past. you have an update on ted cruz, the fund raising totals for him so far and whether or not they're meeting expectations. >> if you've been watching "morning joe," you could have predicted this. joe said his role in the

shoutdown would hurt him. the fund raising is off after people were excited for him with the filibuster. now ted cruz's campaign points out that these are still very strong numbers for someone who is a junior senator from texas. but looks like that there may have been a ted cruz bubble in the fund raising numbers earlier. >> all right. nothing to sneeze at, but still off the mark. politico's mike allen, great to see you. >> have a great day. >> you too. coming up, fighting for playoff position. ball in the hand of kevin durant. but did he carry it off? we'll talk about it after this. ♪ [ male announcer ] this is joe woods' first day of work.

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♪ to sports. last night of the regular season in the nba. >> oh, really? >> hockey starts up now? >> playoffs started last night. >> for what? >> hockey. >> simmer down, joe. >> i got to get to this whole kevin durant thing. >> they get the win. >> okay. >> drives quickly. scores! and here we go.

durant and monroe. and jennings turns and fires the three. and the thunder wins. >> i love the passion of a thousand suns. so don't mess me up. >> he made his shot. wow. >> of a thousand suns. >> i got to get my sunglasses on. >> to the ice and opening night of the stanley cup playoffs. take a peek. >> into the dallas end with nine minutes gone by. they score! it's 4-0 ducks! >> roaring back is benedict down to center. scores! >> behind the net. they score! fired all by dale weiss in and out of the net. and the canadiens win it in the first overtime at 18:08. >> but a huge game tonight between the rangers and the

flyers. i mean, that's just going to be a great one. >> my dvr is set. we turn our focus to the pitch. real madrid and barcelona. match tied for one in the 84th minute. watch this. >> taken out of it. tried to. but the referee has a good advantage. can he finish it? oh! what a goal! solo spectacular from garreth bale! >> grreth bale, put that in the highlight reels for the year. former tottenham player. >> what about liverpool this year? liverpool unbelievable. liverpool moves one step closer to just doing what they haven't done in 24 years. unimaginable year with a chance to win it all. >> all right. let's take you to baseball now. we've got mariners and rangers. all tied bottom of the ninth.

texas up at bat with two on. take a peek. >> swing, floater, drops in. and the rangers walked off with their fourth walkoff win of the season. >> it drops with a hop. a shallow fly ball scores the game winner. rangers take it 3-2. >> three words you don't hear on espn, take a peek. thomas goes, it drops. >> and if they say that on espn, i wouldn't blame them. >> you wouldn't? >> no. take a peek at this. so to new york, tanaka making his third major league career start. struck out ten scattering just two. yanks win it 3-0 earning tanaka his second win. he now has 28 strikeouts in 22 innings in his first three starts. >> hot arm. >> we are hardly halfway through april, but my gosh already, this is looking like a good

acquisition. >> he's the real deal. >> unbelievable. >> and the guy who pitched the night cap for the yankees last night, they won in a shutout again last night. michael pineda who's they've been waiting on to arrive for three years. he had a hurt shoulder. he was good last night. there's hope in the bronx. >> let's talk about this quickly though. we've got the three-time pro bowler chris johnson, he has a new home. new york jets signing him to a two-year deal after he got cut by the titans. the deal is worth 8 million bucks in guaranteed cash. >> my goodness. >> with another million in incentives. people are saying take a peek at his bank account. >> it's no ratt nerner, but it' good. >> the jets hope he's going to bring explosiveness to the offense. >> you know what happens. >> what? >> mika wears a pink "way too early" one ssionesie.

in chicago we won't let mika wear these sunglasses. thank you for taking that -- >> is it mika or mary kate olsen? i'm confused. >> we'll be live from wrigley field celebrating 100 years of baseball in chicago on wednesday, april 23rd. very excited about that. stop doing that, mika. >> i'm mary kate olsen. >> all right. so mika you got these where? >> in baltimore at a vintage antique store. all french. >> definitely vintage. >> i heard there are a lot of french people in baltimore, just so you know. >> i hope you can get your money back. what's coming up next? >> up next does avoiding darkness get us to enlightenment? don't go away. back with more "morning joe" after this. ♪

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♪ it is 43 past the hour. joining us now managing editor of "time" magazine nancy gibbs. latest issue of "time" is available now. and the cover story is entitled finding god in the dark. a look at how strength, purpose, and true faith can be found in shadows. interesting. >> interesting. so one of america's greatest preachers, barbara brown taylor, is arguing that we have become scared of the dark figuratively and literally to a point that really holds us back. and that we need to have a new way of thinking about darkness. and it is a very interesting and provocative argument. to her dark is basically where we put all the things we're avoiding in our lives. our fears for our kids and our health and our jobs. and the meaning of life. and that if we don't get comfortable going into those dark places and exploring that

you can never learn to be brave if you're never scared, essentially. and so she's challenging people to walk away from the pure, everything that's good and godly and holy is light and everything dark is bad and evil and scary and to think differently. >> a walk in the dark can deliver us from fear and taylor believes bring us closer to god. >> that's right. and her own story is a very interesting one. she was from divinity school to hospital chaplain to a very successful preaching ministry. and then she's named one of the best preachers in the english-speaking world. and it all falls apart. she leaves her church. she goes on her own long and fascinating journey. she's now become one of the more provocative writers on faith and spirituality. she has a new book learning to walk in the dark. and what she's saying is we're basically suffering from light pollution. and that we need to be thinking differently about our willingness to wrestle with the dark places.

and she's talking both literally and figuratively as i say. >> i would think also in this world we live in now where we are completely wired and we don't even go to -- our kids don't go to bed without connecting constantly with people that being alone would be something that's harder for a lot of people. >> that's the literal part of it. how much harder it is to go asleep because the screens are telling the body it's daytime and it's hard to shut down. >> connecting always. >> when it comes to fear and shame, those two things have run in tandem in a parallel way to be great religious motivators. so how do we take ownership of that back to actually use it to not be afraid of embracing what it means to have fear or shame and still be connected spiritually? >> it's a really good question, but i'm betting if most of us are honest, we would acknowledge that some of the most important

muscles we've ever built, we built because we had to. not because we wanted to. we built because we were in a bad place, because we were frightened, because we were lost. and had to find our way out. and that's when you become stronger. and a lot of what she is saying is that if we hide and bury and medicate and try to cure our sadness and our sorrow rather than embracing it and trying to learn from it, you're missing an opportunity. and that it is often in those dark places you become closest to god. >> and you were talking about people being plugged in all the time. there is also medication. you have doctors, you have psychiatrists. you have a society now that throws pills at every problem that people have. you know, you're going through a difficult time, try this. try that. >> there's something wrong with you -- >> but instead of walking through the shadow of the valley of death by yourself -- >> that's exactly right. >> -- and making that spiritual death march and making it through and coming out the other

side being stronger. it sounds like the equivalent of the saying you're stronger in the broken places. you come out of every challenge, every difficulty stronger. >> that's exactly right. and i think what she's doing in this book, it's a very personal -- i mean, this journey is different for everyone. this is not a how-to book. >> just a different way of looking at things. >> yeah. >> yeah. and mike barnicle, there are two different ways. i think people from outside the church look at god. and i'm speaking mainly of my faith, christianity. they either see god as, you know, throwing thunder bolts from the heavens or they see jesus as santa claus. sort of a have a nice day spiritual figure. and that's just not who he was. >> the stories -- i can -- as i've been listening to nancy, i

can recount multiple stories of people in grief, people plunge into the darkness of despair. and the further they go into despair, the further they go into the darkness, they find what? they find salvation. and spirituality. because at the end, that's what sustains you. i was thinking about multiple members of the victims of the marathon just a year ago. shattered, grief stricken, what's happened to my life. pretty dark era and sense of foreboding. and yet they sustained in the end by spirituality and hope. >> as she points out, new life starts in the dark. it's the seed in the ground. it's the baby in the womb. it's jesus in the tomb. that's where life starts. it starts in the dark. >> i know we're talking about religion. we're talking about outlook. but this same concept applies to, if i may, parenting. like i always want my children to be okay. and one of them i had to

basically do something fairly severe and she's lonely, she's depressed. i said well you have to embrace that. you have to own that. that is all yours. and really, really experience it. >> i think it's one of the hardest things for parents to reckon with the fact we would do anything to prevent our child from tripping and falling down and getting hurt. and we recognize that if they don't trip and don't fall down, they don't get hurt, they're never going to learn to really to run. >> right. >> i will say, if you do want to find god, if you do -- without going into great detail -- if you do yearn to find god in difficult times, you're not going to find it at the pot tom of a pill bottle. you're not going to find it by medicating. you're going to find it by going to that dark place. and again without being, you know -- in the most difficult moment in my life after going as low as i could possibly go and thinking i could go no lower, you know, the words that came to

me and they shocked me. they were god is good. god is good. and i moved on through it, but there's so many people that think when you go through these difficult times, well, i'll just medicate. or i'll just do this. i will stay busy. i'm going to, you know, run away from it. >> but that's really going to mess you up. >> yeah. you face it head on. this is fascinating. i can't wait to read the book. thomas? >> i like this conversation. i feel like we're going to church. i like this. also another great phrase, this too shall pass which is something that will get you through in dark times. nancy, before we let you go, i know you had a great conversation with the japanese prime minister that's also featured. >> i was in tokyo last week with our correspondent based in beijing. tensions in the region are rising between china and japan. shinzo abe is trying to bring japan back both economically from this horrible deflationary cycle they've been in. but also this sort of

nationalist spirit that japan should be a great nation and that is very controversial. about whether he is appropriately acknowledging japan's conduct before and after the war. he is a fascinating figure. probably the most consequential asian leader right now. wanted a look at it before president obama goes there next month. >> nancy gibbs, thank you so much. still ahead, funding cuts of some of the country's top scientists seeking opportunities elsewhere. how can we keep america's best and brightest right here in the united states? keep it right here on "morning joe." ♪ ♪

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w. bush's paintings went on display at the george w. bush presidential library. now critics are divided about how good they are. here's his portrait of putin next to a photograph of putin. that's not bad. here's his portrait of hamid karsai which i thought was not bad also. here's his portrait of angela merkel. not bad. now, you know, president bill clinton's also been painting and he has a contrasting style to bush. here's clinton's painting of angela merkel. i thought it was interesting.

here's clinton's painting of nancy pelosi. finally president clinton as he sees himself. >> wow. okay. >> it would be funny if it -- >> i didn't know that. >> coming up at the top of the hour, we've got ezra klein and harold ford jr. joining the conversation. can't wait for that. we shall return. ♪

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look at that. beautiful chopper shot overlooking a very -- >> live over new york city. >> very cold new york city. i'm looking at the extended forecast here as we look over the city. it looks beautiful. >> no. it was freezing walking out of the house. >> but it's -- yeah. it was like 30 this morning. and my gosh. i'm looking at extended forecast. it's going to be, like, in the 50s for the next eight months. >> welcome back to "morning joe." here with us now, msnbc political analyst and visiting professor at nyu, former democratic senator harold ford jr. >> when are you going to get a full position? >> i'm going to use you as my advocate. >> you ought to use me. associate better and more effectively. >> mika actually gets things done. joe just blows the place up. >> we may need him though. >> it's like the one-two.

she gets it done, but -- >> if not -- >> i'd go in with the dynamite attached. so what's up, y'all? >> just visiting. sometimes you got to move in. >> how's your little baby? >> he's fantastic. >> can you bring her in so i can hold her? >> that's her right there. >> oh, my god. she's perfect. look at her. joe, look at this baby. >> can you please bring her in? >> look at that. >> whenever y'all say so. >> i want to hold her. i want to for a whole show. we had a cat in here. we can have a baby. and from washington -- >> let's just hope the child is transported better than the cat. >> exactly. let's also bring in the editor in chief of the new box.com and analyst ezra klein. >> it's not as cute as his baby.

>> no. >> talk about vox. white house it going? >> it's going great. it's a new site. we're trying to figure ways to build out larger frame news stories. if you come in the middle with something like ukraine, we can take you from the beginning to the end. and it's hard. you've got to figure out the entire news story which is a tough task. but it's thrilling to be doing. >> it is a tough task, ezra. and that's why we don't do it here. we rely on you. >> right. come join us and fill us in. >> we talk about finding god in the dark. okay, that's fine. but it gets too tough with news stories so we call ezra on. that's why he's here this morning. >> we're here for you. >> let's get to the news. president vladimir putin is speaking this morning on a nationwide broadcast on russian television. he insisted the protests in eastern ukraine are being carried out by local citizens adding it is quote, nonsense to claim russian forces are operating there. putin also said it was a grave

crime for ukraine to send soldiers into the region. tensions turned deadly overnight when three militants were killed after attacking a ukrainian national guard post. meanwhile diplomats from russia and ukraine are in geneva this morning to try to put an end in the violence between the two countries. the u.s. is already prepping more punishments. >> each time russia takes these kinds of steps that are designed to destabilize ukraine and violate their sovereignty, that there are going to be consequences. what you've already seen is the russian economy weaker, capital fleeing out of russia. you know, mr. putin's decisions are not just bad for ukraine. over the long-term, they're going to be bad for russia. >> ezra klein, by the way, just across the wire of vladimir putin with this national address just asked a question by none other than edward snowden. no seriously. >> come on.

>> no. you can't make it up. ezra, there's been a lot of hammering of the united states, not so much so in europe because they certainly want a more hands-off approach about what we do. what are good options out there for vladimir putin looking at the entire story and looking at all the different opinions that you've heard over the past several weeks from america's foreign policy experts. what are america's best options right now? >> well, nair not great options. and i think we have to decide what it is we want as an outcome. if we really, really, really want russia out of ukraine, it's not obviously clear that we can do that short of force. now, we can punish them. we can unleash sanctions of varying levels of crippling to the russian economy. but i think the thing that you see a lot of indecision about both in america and in europe is how much we want that kind of an economic war with russia.

how much folks actually think the fate of crimea or other parts of eastern ukraine are actually essential to american interests. i mean, one of the tough things here, the feeling i think among folks in the foreign policy community is that russia has violated an important part of law. but not something that directly hurts america. with a country that is economically powerful like russia, how much blowback do you want to expose yourself to? russia is important in helping us deal with iran's nuclear ambitions. they're important in afghanistan. how much blowback and how much pain do you want to expose yourself to elsewhere in order to sort of uphold more abstract standards? >> harold ford, you had dr. brzezinski coming on talking about how the united states should at least verbally ask the ukrainians what weapons they need. nick kristof suggesting as much.

is that is viable option that we actually start talking about the possibility of arming the ukraines? >> the president at one point when we talk about syria has allowed his secretary of state and others to make strong and assertive statements. advised we should think about this. i think they probably went too far suggesting congress should look at all this after they signalled one thing. but i think fundamentally we have to decide what we want. and has to involve congress in the conversation in a serious way. and if so, if we decided we want to stop russia where they are now, then perhaps we have to give a stronger consideration to arming the ukrainians or giving them an ability to push back. what has not been articulated is what are our goals. to enlist russia more so on our side. or are we going to -- are we willing to -- >> i mean, is that an option?

putin has not helped in syria or iran. >> presumably we're not being stronger against him in ukraine because we understand we need him in other parts of the world. i think that's one angle and one argument that can be made. i think ezra's point, what is it going to accomplish? that's not been fully articulated. at this point i don't fully get it. what the president said so far is sanctions will punish russia. where natural gas or oil is so imported. eventually it will become our way. >> i don't think it will. >> i think what the president was trying to say is that the russians should be out of crimea, out of eastern ukraine and respect the borders and all that. but in the real world, that's just not going to happen. the russians are not going to leave crimea. we don't have, i think, the muscle to get them to do that. and i think the reason the administration is reluctant to arm the ukrainians is because you give -- you potentially give russia an excuse to simply come in.

there's no way we're going to arm ukrainians, i don't think, that they're going to be a serious threat to the russian military. >> they're already in there. >> they're in there in a submersive way. the thing is they could come in more overtly if the russians are, quote, threatening. >> ezra, sometimes you look at a situation and we have a need -- a gut reaction, sort of a knee jerk reaction against a certain country thinking, for instance, the french in 2003 at the start of the iraq war. but it wasn't that easy. because actually the french intelligence agencies were helping us chase down the bad guys. after 9/11. it's the same thing with iranians. i moo en, the iranians were even helping us with afghanistan. because the afghans were an enemy of theirs. in this case, though, you look at putin. it seems to me going off of harold's conversation, to actually find a place in the

world over the past six months to a year, where vladimir putin has been a willing partner. he has gotten in the way in syria. in a negative way. he has not helped in iran from at least what seems obvious from reading newspaper accounts. and certainly he's not being helpful right now in ukraine. is there -- am i missing something here? is there something that putin has done that should cause us restraint moving forward? >> so i want to just say here that i'm not an expert on this. so i don't want to say any of this with too much confidence, but my understanding from folks who know this much better than i do, putin can be a whole lot more unhelpful in the areas we were just talking about than he has been. so russia did pick up on kerry's idea about beginning to disarm chemical weapons in syria. there are differing accounts of how that's going. but that did give not just america an out but given our

stated goals of reducing chemical weapons in syria, that was actually a big win at that moment. and in iran, the crippling sanctions really have made a huge difference over the last couple years. russia's not been a hugely enthusiastic participant, but not nearly as unhelpful as they could have been. so there's been no doubt that our relationship with russia, the great reset that was supposed to happen did not last for very long. it has not been a good relationship. edward snowden is obviously the high profile example of that. but there are a lot of places where there has been an asserted amount of cooperation. and on the -- none of this is black and white. the cooperation isn't sort of zero or one. russia can become a lot more unhelpful in things we need than they have been. and maybe that's the direction they're going in. but they haven't gone all the way there yet and could get worse if we begin arming the ukrainians against them. >> mika, there's a lot of talk about how barack obama has not been a strong enough commander

in chief in this crisis. and i was wondering when we have our next commander in chief, do you think she will be -- do you think she will be stronger? if she were in power right now, would she be a tougher commander in chief than barack obama? >> i think she would defy all odds. and just like another potential presidential candidate, i am going to turn out to be right about this. this is the first politician i've met ever who i actually think is in your corner. >> other than harold ford jr. you know he's in your corner. >> i'd like to think that. >> in a dishonest kind of way. >> we're talking about democratic senator elizabeth warren. >> yes. she is sure to reignite buzz for a run for president with a soon to be released memoir. her new book titled "a fighting chance." >> that looks like she's sitting in the white house right there. >> she should be.

it will be released next week. gives a look at her dealings with the administration including president obama himself. she tells of a tense conversation at the white house when she was first told she wouldn't be picked to lead the consumer financial protection bureau. according to warren, president obama was concerned about republican opposition and pushback from the banking industry. she created, by the way, the consumer financial protection bureau. he said, quote, you make them very nervous. when indicated she wouldn't be chosen, she said you're jamming me elizabeth. adding sometimes you have to trust the president. let me work this out. senator warren also writes about a 2009 conversation with one of president obama's top economic advisers larry summers. she says after talking for several hours, summers gave her a warning. she writes he teed it up this way, i had a choice. i could be an insider or i could be an outsider. but insiders also understand one unbreakable rule.

they don't criticize other insiders. i had been warned. and senator warren also takes exception to when an unnamed adviser urged her to become a, quote, cheerleader for the consumer bureau after being passed over. she writes, quote, i assume that was meant as a metaphor, but i had to wonder. cheerleader? would the same suggestion have been made to a man in my position? i did not rush out to buy my pom-poms. >> what do you think, mika? now doubt she's not interested in by summers' cheerleader. >> a lot of really intelligent good people. look. i think the story speaks for itself. i think it's all very interesting. i really do. >> you really do think she could run for president and win. >> i do. i think she could also ignite a movement that is already in her by the message that she has built. i don't think there's anybody out there that doesn't have a message that isn't contrived in

some way in some sort of insatiable need to win. >> ezra, i'm curious. what do you hear progressives saying about the possibility of an elizabeth warren candidacy looking at hillary clinton where it seems the logic of a clinton candidacy right now is she can win. >> you hear -- i mean, there's been for a long time a lot of excitement among progressives about elizabeth warren. particularly when you look at big progressive groups, campaign change committee. they've been huge elizabeth warren backers. i think it's worth distinguishing progressives and progressive groups. if you look at liberals just self-identified liberals, they love hillary clinton. and there isn't exactly the really large split in the party if there wasn't -- there isn't in 2012 at least that i can see anything that quite rises to the level of the iraq war where then-candidate obama who opposed the war really had a gigantic

distinguishing policy position from then-candidate hillary clinton. there is definitely a difference in emphasis between elizabeth warren and clinton, but there isn't so much different in the kinds of policy proposals they put forth. so one of the interesting things about this kind of collision is that where it is considered to be the case that warren is much more populous than clinton. that's probably true. it's not exactly as obvious what that manifests in. what is the big policy or the big idea that warren will be able to champion that clinton will absolutely not be able to champion in the way that iraq was for obama and clinton. >> steve rattner? >> i don't disagree with ezra. i think she's said clearly she's not going to run, but i do think that there is a progressive element of the democratic party that's trying to reassert itself. you saw that in the message of mayor de blasio here in new york. and there are quite a number of democrats, harold i'd love to hear your view on this, that

feel that the party has been more centrist than it should have been and should be leaning in more and where it should be more muscular. which is the banks, the rich getting richer, the rest of america not doing as well. i think she's staked out a piece of territory for herself in that area. but as i said, i take her word that she's not going to run. >> and that she's supporting hillary clinton. >> and that she's supporting hillary clinton. >> i think the winner of the democratic primary remains hillary clinton. the winner will be those who talk in the most visionary way of creating jobs, how to restore the middle class and how to keep america strong. we've seen the president now dealing with an avalanche of foreign policy. the democratic nominee is going to be looked to -- democrats are going to look at someone who has the maturity and judgment to lead. as much as i respect elizabeth warren, i think hillary clinton still stands -- >> what is the justification of hillary clinton?

here we are and i know we have a long way to go -- >> people are going to look -- >> back to 1980 when roger mud asked the famous question of ted kennedy why do you want to be president of the united states, and he couldn't answer. >> hillary has to be able to answer that. >> look at foreign policy. the base didn't like her back in 2008 because she supported the iraq war. as we go to 2016, i've said it before, she's more of a neocon than a lot of people in the mainstream of the republican party. she's -- she and her husband are more comfortable with wall street than the overwhelming majority of republican candidates that she's going to be running against. this is a woman that while she brings a lot of assets to the democratic party is also going to blur the line so much with the republican party in 2016 that the right kind of candidate could keep her -- >> if you mention her husband and their approach, i think most american business people, middle

class americans would agree it's one of the greatest era of economic growth in the country. if you could bring us that hillary, we'll vote for you. >> i'm wondering why the base is excited about hillary clinton in 2016. >> well, there's obviously two different things that go on when we think of the type of leaders that elizabeth warren is and the type of leader that hillary clinton is. there's popularity and then there's message. so hillary clinton has the popularity and the universal appeal because she's been in our lives for decades now. >> recognition. >> certainly has a great team around her. >> international popularity. >> and great family that supports her going for this if she chooses to do so. elizabeth warren has a more defined message. but as harold points out, is the maturity will? the leadership? has that been displayed long enough for her to throw her hat in the ring against someone like hillary clinton who has the desire to do so. >> i think thomas put it exactly right. but i do think at this moment in

time while there is an element of the democratic party that elizabeth warren represents, i think it's still a minority of the democratic party. i think most of the democratic party, joe, and i don't disagree with you about hillary being more muscular and centrist in a lot of was. but i do think the majority of the democratic party is still behind her for all the reasons we're talking about. >> to your best point, she's gotten to be able to articulate with why she wants to be president. i don't disagree at all. that's the most important point for the clinton team. i think she has a good answer, but she's got to articulate it clearly. >> ezra, what do you have on vox.com this morning? what are you working on today? >> we have a very, very large feature which i'm incredibly excited about about what it is like for porn stars to come out to their families. >> what? >> this is not our normal morning fare. but we talked to about 20 folks. it's going to be a fascinating piece. >> well, you got joe's

attention. >> i think that was the idea. ezra, thank you so much. >> that's a grabber. >> it is. >> i leaned in. >> you did. >> i leaned in on that. >> all right. dr. zeke emanuel on the serious brain drain of american researchers. also best-selling author james grippando. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [ male announcer] surprise -- you're having triplets.

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♪ we got a guy running the show now, mike barnicle, that went to the same prep school. >> 7:45 the bus comes. >> we go from licht to corson to this kid? look at this kid.

>> he's got his lunch beside him in a paper bag. >> it's disappointing. speaking of prep school stars, let's bring in from washington senior political editor and white house correspondent for "the huffington post" sam stein. >> nice transition there, i like that. >> that was a nice transition as if you couldn't see that coming a mile away. like a freight train slowly coming out of the mist right at you. also from champaign, illinois, the professor of material science and engineering at the university of illinois at urban a. and vice provost of global initiatives at the university of pennsylvania, dr. zeke emanuel. sam, you have been reporting on this story for quite some time. of course a lot of it has to do with the fact your parents are both doctors and you understand this as well as anybody. but, man, you have really done a great job shedding light on this crisis. let me just read a little bit of what you've written in the

"huffington post." >> fewer opportunities, the science and medical opportunities have watched community leave their ranks. assistant professor at the department of psychological at the university of texas at austin suggested how he recently thought of leaving switzerland. the climate was appealing. he acknowledged and several of his colleagues had already moved to europe. for many years the united states has benefitted from the kind of reverse brain drain which is at the best and the brightest from other countries would come to the united states to do research because we had longtime generous support for basic science. but i have seen recently the trend starting to reverse itself. there is a brain drain. we're cutting research. >> yeah. >> we're cutting funding in some areas in the nih. and it's having a very real impact on where the best and

brightest are moving. talk about it. >> absolutely. so it happened even before sequestration. but sequestration made it worse. what happened was in 2013 about $1.5 billion was cut from the nih budget. that's the national institutes of health. that affected about 1,000 scientists. so what ended up happening was the pool of money available to people who wanted to do medical research, scientific research was much more -- was narrowed zrasticily. but the number of people that wanted to do research stayed the same. you see a generation of young people saying this is not the field for me. several of them have looked abroad. they've gone to europe or to asia. a number of them have gone to private enterprise. and a number of them have just left the field altogether. in a previous piece i wrote, one of the most drastic examples of

this was someone who suddenly couldn't find a job and ended up as a secretary at an automobile company. it was not her field at pall. she didn't want to be there at all but she needed to pay the bills. so we're taking an incredibly well educated portion of our society and denying them the resources to do this incredibly important work. >> zeke, what are the practical impacts of this brain drain on the united states? >> well, when i was at the nih, one of the things commented on to me by one of the researchers is that people in the labs had changed dramatically. americans who had been doing research and had been the post-docs and the young scientists no longer were there. and we had a lot of people coming from china, india, singapore. that's the problem. they go back home. not many of them stay. i think one of the other effects we're seeing to emphasize one point sam makes, is even the private sector, the drug companies and the start-ups that used to hire a lot of these people have started to slow down

their hiring, stopped doing as much basic science research. so there's a concern that it's not just the academics that are slowing down. i would say another aspect of this is the defense department used to be a very big investor in scientific research, basic science research. and that, too, as the defense department budget has become squeezed, the funding has slowed down too. many people are seeing a sort of triple whammy on that. >> yeah. mike, there's that triple whammy as he said. there's also a multiplier effect that this started -- you know, you start losing the best and brightest to other countries or they don't go into the field. suddenly there is a multiplier effect and it affects research for alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer. the long-term impact of this could be devastating. >> i think we're already feeling the impact of it. we don't have to wait for the

long-term impact. but dr. martin, you rely on defense department grants for research. how has it impacted you? >> right. so i think the message has been right on from all the comments so far. you know, we have -- we try to have a diverse portfolio of research funds, but like we said, it's kind of been this triple whammy where there's cuts across the board in all these different areas. and it impacts your ability to recruit the best and brightest students and really keep them working towards a goal. and, you know, we've had programs that end after really successful first stages including some darpa programs. we've had some good ideas that just go unfunded because there's just not enough money to go around. and, you know, my main concern -- i think we've touched on this already -- that this has

huge implications for 10, 20 years down the road if we're not training the students to pick up the torge and run with it. we're going to be in trouble. innovation is a huge part of what america exports and what we bring to the world. this is troublesome. >> can i jump in on that? one of the things i hear when i talk to scientists is with this limited pool of funding, a lot of the funds go to the surefire science. things people have a generally good idea it will succeed. what ends up being sacrificed are some of the things that could 30, 20 years down the road have real advantages but we just can't conceive those advantages in present day. and so you end up seeing all this money funneled to the very basic stuff, the obvious stuff, the sexy stuff, so to speak. and at risk of the more ambitious experiments that could really have huge ramifications for biomedical research and other applications. >> yeah. and that is really -- that's a

great challenge, steve rattner. if you cut rnd funding, the implications obviously have an impact now, but also down the road. >> yeah. look. i think one of the things that strikes me -- >> you're absolutely right. >> -- is that this is a microcosm of the broader issues of the budget that we talk about in trillions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars and how money gets spent. now you can see in real life what happens when you have misguided budget priorities, money being spent on the wrong stuff and how it actually affects an important part of our whole ecosystem. maybe i could turn to zeke because there's obviously a lot still in the news about obamacare and the redoing of the census and whether that was somehow a conspiracy or whether it was bureaucracy run amok. >> i don't know the particulars of that, but i assume it's been the bureau run amok in part

because it's been a long time coming what i think is important to recognize is that the actual numbers now that you're going to have 2013 assessed with this new question, that's going to shoot the number down. the baseline number you're going to have. what i would have liked was to see both questions, the old question and the new question, so we would be sure what the delta, what the spread between them are. you need to ask both questions for a couple of years. that would also require more money because you'd have to ask a bigger pool of people. but in previous tests, it's been about a 2% change down. so you'll have a 2013 number that will be 2% lower in terms of the number on the insured. and you'll also remember that 2013 number will have a lot of 26-year-olds and younger who've been on their parents' plan. it will look like the uninsured rate was lower. i don't think this is cooking the books. or if it is, they really screwed it up. i think this is just a bureaucratic -- the bureaucracy on its own train heedless of

what, you know, the perceptions are. >> okay. dr. zeke emanuel, good to have you. sam stein, thank you. dr. lane martin, thank you as well. and zeke, your new book is "reinventing american health care." >> we really need to. we need to reinvest. >> oh, my gosh is that my favorite reporter in the whole wide world? the cost of bacon is on a rise. nbc's kerry sanders standing by. >> i don't see any pigs. what? >> those are not pigs. >> much more on "morning joe." >> i'm a city boy, but those don't look like pigs to me. ♪ ♪ ♪

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look who we have. your favorite, favorite reporter in the world. >> he is. he's the best. >> mika loves kerry sanders. >> he's the best and the brightest. >> she loves him. >> been around the block. he's not jaded by it. >> he's the one with the spots -- no there he is. behind the one with the spots. >> behind the butt of the cow. barbecue season is right around the corner and meat lovers everywhere -- who wrote this? my god. >> meat lovers everywhere better prepare for some very costly

cookouts. let's go to kerry sanders joining us from okeechobee, florida. this is going to really impact the people moving forward. >> okay, first of all because joe's a floridian mika let's see if he knows this. i don't think most people know it. but florida is actually integral to the cattle industry in the united states. why? well, the momma cows here give birth to the baby cows. and those calves are then shipped out of florida. they go to the midwest. they go to texas. they go to california. and as a result of the drought, they have not been shipping those cavs to fatten them up to send them to market. that's a big part -- that drought is a big part of why the price of beef has gone up. >> reporter: barbecue season is just around the corner in washington, d.c. where juan manuel rubio and his friends never miss a chance to get together for a cookout. >> this is the main -- the structure, the backbone of my

social life. >> reporter: but from barbecues to butcher shops to restaurants, americans are facing sticker shock in the form of ballooning beef and bacon prices. the average retail cost of beef is $5.36 a pound. up 32 cents since january and highest price since 198737 jim guthrie blames the severe drought in the southwest for reducing cattle herds and pushing up prices. >> people liquidated the herds because they didn't have enough forage or feed to keep their cows. >> reporter: pork prices are also up. thanks to a virus that killed millions of pigs in the u.s. the retail price of bacon has spiked to $5.55 a pound. up 64 cents in a year. consumers are feeling the squeeze. >> yeah. definitely looking at the price. you have to save money wherever you can. >> reporter: still some butchers say they're being cautious and won't raise retail prices too

quickly. >> if i change them daily, they get upset. >> i like may bacon in the morning. everything tastes good with bacon. >> reporter: for those who can't stomach the rising costs, the alternative in america is chicken. poultry farmers say they expect 2014 sales to sizzle. so, mika, there is also politics involved in all of this. in all likelihood we're not going to see the price of beef going down any time soon. because we have the asian market. and as you know, the president will be traveling to asia soon. right now the tariffs on beef heading out of the united states is about 38.5%. the cattle industry here is hoping to get it down to 10% which for american consumers means you'll see beef prices stay up for awhile if they're successful there. >> that's going to hit people really hard. all right. you're on a quarter horse. and are you a rider? can you make it happen? >> i am.

in fact, i've got property not too far from here. >> well, take off. >> ride off into the sunset. kerry sanders. >> come on kerry. get out of here. >> oh, yeah. >> look at that. he's the best. >> oh, my god. seriously. >> thank you so much. >> into the sunset. this is, though, as we were talking while the package was running a lot of consumers will really feel the impact this summer. you talk about prices going up that much, it has a real impact. >> people are not going to buy beef. they're going to avoid it if they can. because that's just impossible to keep up with. >> still going to have a huge cookout for the kids. >> in nantucket. but what else do they have? the polo shirts are frayed. it's horrible. africans are adopting a new set of rules to adapt to life in the 21st century. and perhaps it's time for the rest of the world to take notice. that story is next on "morning joe."

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♪ all right. 46 past the hour. >> oh, my lord. >> here with us now dayo olopade. she's author of "the bright continent." and it is great to have you on the show. you come to the table with at lo lot of great ideas. >> let's start with your thought on america's impression of africa and the impression they give to viewers. >> i'm a nigerian-american. so i have a sense of where the

narrative goes wrong. so much of the focus on africa has been about what its leaders do worst rather than on what africa does best. so i set out across 17 countries over three years to look at innovations from the bottom up. >> what does africa do best? >> do more with less. i think there's such a need for resource -- in resource scarcity, people nood to do things with less. so the informal sector in africa is much more interesting and robust and fills all these gaps that the governments in africa don't necessarily fill. and in an extraordinary way. i'll give an example. when it comes to mobile financial services, right? you have cell phones that are proliferated all across the continent. you have very few atms, few mortgages, no access to credit. so people -- it's a cash economy. so in kenya where i lived while i was reporting the book, you've had this explosion of mobile financial services. i have a piece in the atlantic that sort of explains how people are able to use cell phones to send money back and forth, to

save, and increasingly to build access to credit, insurance, and other complicated financial products that the big banks were not offering to the middle market in africa. >> compare africa of 2014 to, say, 50 years ago. what -- how much of an advance has been made over the past 50 years? is the trend line positive? >> enormously positive. >> you have a class of 300 million consumers making more than the poverty benchmark of $2 a day. you have this enormous technological boom. you have a huge youth bubble. you have 70% of the continent under 30 years old. and the thing that surprises me is why africa doesn't get any credit for this incredible leap forward. i think there's the media bias. there's a bunch of poverty porn as i call it. and there's this emphasis on governments which in my experience -- >> and violence and war that we

have -- obviously some systemic problems that lead to the fact that you sometimes can't see the positive. >> that's completely right, but i think people -- if there was violence in central african republic, doesn't mean your investments in johannesburg are at risk. i think there's a blanket brush of the continent and not focus what the people do well. there's a big emphasis on corruption which is a big problem in governments all across the continent. but what i see that helps get people to work is not corruption. right? it's just people trying to do more with less and make do in adverse circumstances. so there's a big important distinction between corruption and the informal sector which i celebrate and focus on in the book. >> global growth data shows that perhaps five of the ten fastest growing economies are in africa. >> uh-huh. >> you mention there are things that the west has done, is doing that could be counterproductive. in light of this foundation of growth, what can the west and america specifically do to be

more helpful to bring about the kind of change and accelerate the kind of change that's happening in spite of the challenges and the corruption image we have here in america? >> half the job is just showing up. right? i think the investor class should take africa seriously as a market for consumers, as a place to do what happened in china. you know, 25 years ago. i think when you look at microfinance which has been the big push at least in folks who think about poverty e leavuation. it is not bill enough. i am more interested in the small to medium sized business class. these are between 30,000 and a million dollars. it surprised people to know that the average microfinance loan is only $500. you're not going to build a middle class out of $500 at a time. there's much more need to see it as an investment opportunity. there's a lot of low hanging fruit for any kind of person that wants to show up and play. and, you know, generally

speaking the youth and the technology, those are huge advantages for africa. when you look at countries like italy and japan, france, the eu. their demographic profile does not look as good. even the sort of chinese growth story i think is slowing down. >> for critics, though, that would look at your book and say maybe you're painting with a broad brush on the brighter spots to critics that would say there's still problems with government fall structure, with famine, with disease. how do you counter that? >> i think the public sector dubts meet the needs of its people. they have development goals that have made schooling free. and so schools are free in sub save harn africa but they're bad. one sahara africa but they're bad.

i love bridge academies. they educate 50,000 kids in kenya and they plan to educate 10 million by 2025 in many different countries. so this takes parents seriously as consumers, rather than getting them a free product that's bad, they offer a low-cost product, $5 a semester that provides an exit from the public sector that isn't providing the kind of future people need. >> by the way, they're great myths here, mika. myth west is the best. my favorite myth, send us your t-shirts because too many -- if we're not wearing them here, they don't want to wear them there. so the phil graham for president t-shirts -- >> the mitt romney t-shirts. >> where they get the scarborough country t-shirts, nobody will say a white person has died, which is sort of --

what's the expression when they get the t-shirt? >> a white man has died. >> they won't say that when they're holding the scarborough country t-shirts. >> thank you. >> thank you so much! >> we'll be right back with much more "morning joe." ♪ we can't feel ordinary love hey. i'm ted and this is rudy.

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coming up, vladimir putin

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mike barnicle. even he's happy. thomas roberts and steve rattner. so you went to yale. i was at johns hopkins. >> i was going to say, joe went to yale. >> it was the only time they let me on the campus, for the william f. buckley program up there. our good friend jack got me up there and talked to the group and they are, you know, i had to go underground and knock on three pipes and they opened up this room and there were actually a group of conservatives huddled. they of court -- >> were they in like a shelter? >> they were in a shelter. sort of like u.c. berkeley. >> they don't look like conservatives. >> no, it was a great event. great program. and a lot of young people there that are very bright and there was one request from a gentleman in the audience who watches the show.

he said when i leave and just leave the show to you, he said you need to have at least one conservative within like ten miles of the set. so there you go. >> okay. >> so a lot of news to cover today. vladimir putin just spoke. also the south korea -- >> why don't we start there. this developing story is bound to become even more heart breaking if that's possible. it is the disaster at sea in south korea. nine are conformed dead and nearly 300 still missing after a ferry of high school students capsized yesterday. they are racing to find survivors but strong currents and bad weather are hampering of thes to get inside the crippled ship. more than 170 people have been found alive so far. videos show stranded students yelling for rescuers to save a young girl. she was pulled to safety and is expected to be okay.

she's 6 years old and her parents and brother are still missing. we're following all angles of this story. joining us now from seoul, south carolina, eunice yoon. >> it is a heart breaking tragedy at this time. attempts have been delayed to reach the inner most part of the ship where they hope to find some of the hundreds of missing still alive. out of the 475 people on board, 179 have been rescued, 287 are missing and nine are confirmed dead, though many here expect that number to rise dramatically, more than 34 hours sense the ferry sank. now, families of the passengers on board, mostly students on a field trip are gathering at a city along the coast close to where the tragedy took place. they have been furious with what they call a slow government

response. earlier this morning the prime minister visited the family and was greeted with relatives hurling water bottles at him asking how could you let this happen? the president of the company has also arrived. she urged rescuers to double their of thes. so -- double their efforts. students have been texting messages. the captain has apologized and said that he feels ashamed. as for the cause of the ferry sinking, still that is unknown. authorities are still investigating and looking for more answers into the incident. >> thank you so much. also new this morning, vladimir putin is speaking to a major nationwide broadcast on russian television. the russian president says the protest in eastern ukraine are

being carried out by local citizens, adding it's nonsense to claim russian forces are there. he said it's a grave crime for ukraine to send soldiers into the region. diplomats are in russia this morning to try to put an end of the violence between the two countries. both sides are skeptical of a resolution as there was much more bloodshed last night. officials said three militants were killed. elsewhere ukraine's push against pro-russian rebels ended in what the "new york times" calls glaring humiliation. video shows troops being forced to handover their assault rifles to separatists. they surrendered armored vehicles, which were paraded through the streets. one even did tricks through the square. this is not going well.

president obama spoke about this at the white house with major garrett yesterday. we'll get to that in just a moment. at this point, though, we're hearing lots of different points of view as to what the united states should be doing. clearly the sanctions that are expected now that they're moving forward, the russians will happen and they will hurt. it will just take time. >> no doubt about it. putin again speaking to the russian people. he's talking about how ukraine and not just ukraine but other areas south and west of russia have traditionally been russian and that the entire country of ukraine is a fiction that was created basically by map drawers. and there's no doubt that he's staking a claim, at least in the hearts of russians, to that territory. >> let's go to eastern ukraine. joining us now, nbc news correspondent jim maceda with the latest. jim? >> reporter: hi there, mika. the pro-russian militias have

already overtaken police and state headquarters in close to a dozen towns and cities here in the east, including where i am in donetsk. they told us they don't believe the ukrainian military pose as real threat to them anymore. you just have to look at how that announced launch of an operation to take back ukraine from the insurgents has been going over the past couple of days. you mentioned humiliation of the two paratroopon it's that surrendered their tanks and armored carriers to the militiamen. some said they even defected because they couldn't shoot their own ethnically ukrainian people. others were ridiculed and blocked by angry civilians that had to retreat. it's no surprise there was that gang of 300 pro-russians that tried to storm that ukrainian national guard base in another town occupied to the east of us.

this time the ukrainian military did react forcefully. they killed three, wounded 13, dozens were arrested. president putin called that attack on the pro-russian protesters a grave crime. back to you. >> all right, jim, thank you very much. >> steve rattner, are you looking at charts on this? >> we have charts on oil and natural gas -- >> let me get to obama first. as the crisis continues, president obama says the united states and e.u. are prepared to act if russia does not stop its aggression. take a look. >> each time russia takes these kinds of steps that are designed to destabilize ukraine and violate their sovereignty, there are going to be consequences. and what you've already seen is the russian economy weaker, capital fleeing out of russia. you know, mr. putin's decisions are not just bad for ukraine. over the long term they're going to be bad for russia. >> steve, let's talk about that.

you've got some charts about oil. let's talk specifically about what john mccain said, what others have said that russia is little more it and a glorified gas station. we've had other people coming on saying it's not going to be that difficult to make russia feel pain. >> so i think there's a little bit of an element of mutually assured potential destruction here. russia's economy is already weak, as the "new york times" is reporting today. they've had a lot of capital flight, their stock market is down, their currency is down. they're at risk of slipping into recession on one hand. it's partly due to our sanctions and partly people being scared in russia. when we start talking about more sanctions and focus on the energy sector, that's where it gets more complicated because there's a huge interdependence between europe and russia over its energy. we can talk about that. >> let's do that. katty kay talking about how a lot of european governments are

facing an economy where unemployment is as high as 12%. the last thing they want to do is have an economic shock as well. >> i heard katty say that. i think it's an important point. what underlies some of that is the energy situation. if you look at where europe gets its gas, 24% of europe's gas comes from russia. about half of that comes across the ukraine through pipelines. be that as it may, i've given you a sampling of countries here but you have a whole bunch of countries that get 100% of their gas from russia, including the finland states. when you start looking at major countries in europe, poland, 59% germany, 29% italy, you've got a very significant dependence upon russian gas. >> i would have to think that the energy oligarchs would be more than whispering in putin's ears because they have to

understand that even if they don't feel the pinch now, they're going to feel it in the future from the european countries who know they can't depend on vladimir putin and russia in the years to come for a steady energy supply. >> it's mutually assured destruction. >> it is right now. i'm just saying -- >> going forward. >> yeah. merkel in germany, obviously they're already looking at other options. >> they're all looking at other options but the options are tough. we talked about natural gas. let's look at oil for a second. you can see europe is also hugely dependent on russia for oil. it's by far russia's biggest supplier of oil, up about four times over the last 20 years. places like norway are supplying less oil and russia is supplying more. but here's the really important point, if we can turn to the question of what are the alternatives for europe and for russia. remember natural gas can't be moved around very easily. it not look oil.

you can't just sort of put it into a tanker and move it. you can liquify it and do it that way, it long, expensive, you need five years to build these facilities. we're not going to be able to take our natural gas for a long time and send it to russia. but if you look at the world oil situation and see who are the big producers and the big consumers, russia is the third largest oil producer in the world. this is not iran, this is not iraq, this is the third largest oil producer in the world we're fooling around with. secondly, for all of the good things that have happened in the u.s. with our energy supply, we are still importing 7.4 million barrels a day of oil. we're still the world's largest importer. >> that's mainly from canada? >> venezuela, places like that. >> it's all connected. >> the key point is russia is the second largest oil, po expo in the world, 7.2 million barrels a day, about 8% of the

world's supply. 30% of europe's oil comes from russia. the rest goes to the world oil market. the idea we're going to put an embargo around russian oil the way we did around iran would have a devastating effect on us, as well as on russia. >> mike. >> what happens if the european union, and this would obviously be almost impossible to pull off, but the unieuropean union decide rather than importing oil from russia, they decide to import more from the u.s., saudi arabia, canada? >> we do not export oil, we import oil. if they take some of our oil, we're going to have to go get it somewhere else. oil is a worldwide commodity. there's about 90 billion barrels a day of the stuff consumed around the world. russia is about 8% of that. if you take that out of the system, oil prices just go up and they go up a lot.

the people who are already getting their oil from the middle east, japan specifically, are going to need that oil, too. so oil prices would go up bay significa -- by a significant amount. >> so what sanctions would hurt russia the most? >> sanctions against oil would hurt enormously but it's going to hurt us as well. the stock market is down 12% this year. those kinds of sanctions have less of a negative impact on us and can have a significant impact on russia. >> so news reports and "new york times" this morning report that russia's economy already is fragile. you wonder how many economic socks it can face over the next six months to a year. >> president putin may not care. this morning the "new york times" echos the president's

remarks reading russian's economy worsens even before sanctions hit. $70 billion capital has left the country, they're suffering from stagnant growth, its main stock market fell by 10%. and consumer demand has been stalled for nearly a year. that's before new economic sanctions from the west. the white house says they have more sanctions prepared but did not provide further details on what they are. >> what can be done? i was struck your father the other day was talking about how the president needs to be more assertive. >> did you read nick kristoff

today? >> no, what did he say? >> arm them. >> you can't fight a war by throwing a pancake at them. >> who said that? >> your father. >> he did not. >> yes, he did. >> we were talking about mres. >> i can hear him saying "pancake." >> you have people like your father, who has obviously warned against intervention in iraq in the past, who has warned against intervention in syria, who has warned against intervention obviously in iran. he's much more for an old hawk like your father, even though i'm really restrained when it comes to foreign policy, i think he's even more restrained. but in this case -- >> because he knows where this is going. you have to look at the math. you know where this is going. talk to my brother ian and other things would happen. nick kristoff in the new york

city writes this: "for decades, ukrainians have been stafford, oppressed and bullied by russians and with russia now inciting instability, plenty of brave ukrainians here say they've had it and are ready to go bear hunting. when we're fighting against the police, we had just wooden sticks. we can manage against russia as well. these people don't have much but they have heart. we should do more to back them up." >> again, that's what your father is saying. and more people coming on the show saying we shouldn't do anything to provoke putin. he may act badly. i'm sorry. you're right, can you see where this is going. he goes into crimea. now the march is moving westward every day. steve rattner, this is a man who

sees it as russia's right. it's sort of manifest destiny to take back ukraine and belarus and other countries. >> i think the only thing to bear in mind, the eastern part of ukraine is heavily russian. it's over 90% ethnically russian. so it is a complicated situation, and you do have the risk that you provoke putin, you do have the risk that the local populous in the eastern part of ukraine says we want to be part of russia. >> so where does putin stop, though? first of all, he had no right to go into crimea. whether there are russian there is or not, we signed a deal with the ukrainians and we were going to do everything we could to protect their borders in exchange for nuclear weapons and he goes into crimea. >> yeah, no right to go into crimea. >> and he's marching eastward.

whether they're russian speaking or not -- >> i saw jane harmon the other day and i admire and agree with her spirit. when you get down to the practical matter, what is it that you do about it? you're not going to put boots on the ground. we can arm the ukrainians, giving putin an excuse to come across the border. i don't think we can do energy sanctions, can you do financial sanctions against russia but we have a limited tool box. >> so we can arm the ukrainian rebels but we can't arm the serbiserb reb -- serbian rebels? >> there are two things driving putin. is it money or renationalization. we look at the control they're

trying to take. that's where all the spider veins are for the natural gas. the more it gets seduced by the west, it gets further away from moscow. i think angela merkel holds a lot of the cards with her sway and her ability to help and the g-7 seems to be almost perpetually weakened by the fact they will not do anything constructively. >> that's why i highlighted europe's dependence on russia's energy. they have a lot of stake there and london has a lot of stake with the russian money that funnels through london. we're going to have to see how tough the europeans are going to be. >> coming up on "morning joe," redefining success. in today's day and age, how you can live a more fulfilled life and you can work more effectively if you follow her advice. >> who is her?

>> arianna huffington. but first bill karins. >> i was looking at the site of the white house and all of a sudden the leaves are coming out on the trees in the mid-atlantic region. i know we've been cold but the sun is going to work. you can see the proof there in the background. the worst of the weather in the entire country has been through minnesota and wisconsin the last 24 hours. this is the end of our snowstorm and it snowed hard. some areas got 12 inches of snow. this is marquette, michigan. you were negative 12 yesterday and now you're dealing with this. i want to be tan. i don't want to be shoveling. d.c. not bad at 56 after a cold start. we could see probably the worst weather from say thursday night through the holiday weekend. it will be down along the gulf

coast. so soaking ran in the southeast for your good friday. as we take you through your holiday weekend, that storm lingers right off the southeast coastline. it's definitely not going to be beach weather through the carolinas and north florida, it will be windy with periods of rain. the rest of the country looks okay. new storm will be coming into the pacific northwest. for your easter soon, still some lingering showers on the south to east coast. middle of the country, maybe a few showers with a cold front. really nothing that's going to rain out your sunday. overall from coast to coast, looks like a pretty nice easter sunday. i'm sure they'll be doing the easter egg roll on the lawn of the white house. looking green and sunny on a beautiful afternoon. you're watching "morning joe." ♪ ♪ ♪

[ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today...and tomorrow. so let's see what we can do about that... remodel. motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. they take a banker. make a my financial priorities appointment today. because when people talk, great things happen. make a my financial priorities appointment today. at your ford dealer think? they think about tires. and what they've been through lately.

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less take a look at the morning papers from our parade of papers. "the washington post" experts are analyzing new data from a robotic sub that completed its first full 16-hour day searching for the record of flight 370. two previous bluefin missions were cut short because of technical issues. it's covered about 35 square miles so far. that is so little compared to what they have to search. >> the "new york times" recently fired a yahoo! executive that took home a severance package of

$15. he earned $96 million while he was at the company. most of the payment comes from the cost of luring decastro from his former job at google. >> why would you lure somebody and pay him and then get rid of him? i don't get it. >> "stars and stripes." >> for men. >> a new report shows cuts would leave the military too small to properly respond to both short and long-term risks. there are more than $1 trillion worth of defense cuts slated from now through 2021. >> and from the new york post, two lucky kids had a once in a lifetime opportunity thanks to pope francis. >> get out! >> a group of students gave him a t-shirt when he got out of the pope mobile yesterday. that's when the pontiff asked if he wanted a lift. they hopped on and the pope gave them a ride around st. peter's square.

the pope then gave them a kiss on the cheek before dropping them off. >> i love him. >> two kids on the pope mobile. a thing to remember. >> mike al i don't know is here with the "morning playbook." good morning, sir. >> good morning, guys. >> let's start out with there may be some reluctance among conservatives to embrace jeb bush because of concerns over his family, specifically his brother george w. bush. what's the big concern? >> there's a holding pattern. there are all these bush family supporters from over the years, people who supported president bush 41 and president bush 43. as politico poked around, talked to a lot of those supporters both in florida and elsewhere, they fond part of their concern about a jeb candidacy is whether or not his immediate family would be on board. friends of the family say his wife has long been reluck tucta

do it. nobody knows like the bushes what a political pile on it can be if you get in. a couple of his children have been in the news over the years. that would come back out. one fund-raiser for him said he has a tough spine. if he decides to do this, he would make sure his family was on board. the twist here is we're told by some of these donors that they're being asked to go to the president to jeb bush's family members and encourage them. one person who is on board, his son george p. bush, who is running for statewide office in texas. he's out there saying he hopes his dad runs and he's telling people they should urge him to do exactly that. >> it's such a great point when you think of the immediate family of jeb bush and the buy-in they have to provide to do something like that. we've seen what can happen in the past. and you have an update on senator ted cruz, the fund-raising totals and whether they're meeting expectations.

>> you could have predicted this if you were watching "morning joe." joe has said his fund-raising would hurt him. it is off after the filibuster. his campaign points out these are still strong numbers for someone who is a junior senator from texas. looks like there may have been a ted cruz bubble in the political fund-raising earlier. >> much more of "morning joe" coming your way after this. ♪ i used to be disgusted, but now i try to be amused ♪

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how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪

♪ ♪ millions of americans are waking up to the fact that their pursuit of success and the american dream comes at a cost. that's why we're looking for something beyond money and power, a so-called third metric to redefine success. not only is that the subject of arianna huffington's new book, but it's also the focus of a live event i'm co-hosting with arianna later this month. i recently spoke with my friend about why a third metric is so important.

>> you came up with something recently when i was so tired and talking and i read it afterwards, it was an ad week video. they called it the reverse glass ceiling. in the interview i talked about how the women who is made it to "the top" have worked harder, have paid a higher price, have made more sacrifices and have had to be more scrappy than anybody. and i think it kind of struck me that that's kind of like the way we think we have to be constantly, constantly trying to make success happen. >> you put your finger on it. this is collective delusion that because a lot of very successful women and men have gotten where they are and have in the process burned out, that this is the only way to do it. i was even talking to oprah, and

when we were doing the super sunday interview and she said she remembers in the early days, she would get into bed with her clothes on because she was too tired to take them off. but looking back, she clearly didn't have to do that. it's like looking back at my life, a lot of the way i worked and all the attendant worries and anxieties about the future were unnecessary. that's really my biggest realization now. >> were they unnecessary then or are they unnecessary now? >> no, i think they were unnecessary then. and that's why i think it's important to give that message to women starting in their careers, that what actually brings success has to do with our talents, our gifts and our passions for what we are doing. of course we're working hard. this not about working hard.

it's the expense of overworking at the expense of recharges ourselves. >> when i hear you say those things i feel like such a hypocrite because i am all those things and i've been all those things for 30 years. i don't know who i would be if i wasn't overworking. >> if we like it, we have 30,000 days to play the game of life, right? how we play depends on what we value. if we are not clear on what we value, we end up thinking it's all about more money and more success the way the world defines it. and we know that money by itself is never going to make us feel truly fulfilled. >> you could have money, you could have power, but if you don't have the people you're sharing it with, who you've been with every step of the way. like i think of my daughters on the day i was fired and i was so proud of myself. i walked out of cbs and i thought have i the two most beautiful kids in the world, thank god i didn't pass up on the most important thing in the world.

i could have. >> and you see, i think what you said about thank god that, is so key. one of the steps is gratitude. every day coming up with at least three things we're grateful for. they can be tiny things. it just shifts us from focusing on the problems that we're all facing every day to all the things that we're grateful for. and it changes the way we approach life. >> what i see from you is that this is actually -- thrive is a business model, not just a book that makes money because people are buying it like crazy, but the concept is a business model. love, sleep, connections with people, wisdom, religion make you better at what you do? >> absolutely. that's the paradox. and that all these elements of the third metric of success that you mentioned are performance enhancement tools. they make us better at our jobs. at the same time they make us

realize that the job does not define us. look who you are is not just the co-host of "morning joe." who i am is not just the editor in chief of "the huffington post." when we define ourselves by our jobs, however successful our jobs may be, we are shrinking ourselves and kind of missing out on all the possibilities in us. >> and you can hear a whole lot more about how we are redefining success at our third metric event, thrive, next week on thursday, april 24th and friday, april 25th here in new york city. head over to huffingtonpost.thirdmetric.com for more information. "business before the bell" is next. ♪ ♪

america's conversation starts here on "morning joe." >> and it continues here on mojoe. >> i like to remind people it takes ten years of constant failure to become an overnight success. at your ford dealer think? they think about tires. and what they've been through lately. polar vortexes, road construction, and gaping potholes. so with all that behind you, you might want to make sure you're safe and in control. ford technicians are ready to find the right tires for your vehicle. get up to $120 in mail-in rebates on four select tires when you use the ford service credit card at the big tire event. see what the ford experts think about your tires. at your ford dealer.

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here with some money saving easter tips once again is our prop master, bill tull. bill. [ applause ] >> take a chocolate santa, stick two kit cat bars on him, boom, chocolate bunny. take a dozen eggs, leave them on your radiator for eight months, boom, colored eggs. take a bottle of scotch and some porn, boom, good friday. take a jesus figurine, stick him on some jiffy pop, boom, he has risen. >> that's good stuff. that could be sacrilegious. >> could be? >> could?

>> we're all good catholics around the table. >> i can't match that. >> you don't want to. >> but that's -- you're good friday. >> yeah. i like the first one the best. the other ones a little questionable, i suppose. but today is a big day, by the way. >> today is a big day. cnbc is celebrating a big anniversary. >> 25 years today on the air, cnbc. >> it's amazing. >> it is. i've only been there three years, an amazing team, amazing people. in this day and age to do what cnbc has done, it's a great job, 25 years. >> let's celebrate the brand and remind us where we've come from. >> i think it's important, too. listen, the stock market has taken its lumps in the media and everything else. probably a lot of it deserved. but in 1989 the s&p 500, the

broad stock index, was at 301. yesterday it closed at 1862. the gain is 517%. that is not including reinvesting dividends, right? the money that you get paid back from companies, it would be higher. if you had $1,000, you'd have about -- and this is a rough estimate because names chang in the index, $6,100. i know the stock market wiped out ten years of gains, i understand wall street has its issues. the reality is if you look at your grandparents and parent over 100 years, the stock market has still proven to be the best single asset class, better than gold, better than real estate, better than bonds. >> if you look at the investments of somebody in the early stages of their career getting involved and contributing the last 25 years, you see incredible growth. >> if you start putting around

$50 a week when you're 25. i know it's tough. i didn't have $50 when i was 22 or 23 to spare, i wish i started earlier. the exponential growth, it's incredible. start young. >> in 1989 the average cost of a new car was about $15,000, now it's 31. the average price of a new home was about $148,000, now it's about $275,000. by the way, those 148 and 14,000, 15,000 numbers are not inflation adjusted. still, they've more than doubled. the housing market has underperformed the return of the equity market but it shows you how much everything goes up in price. >> what's the best advice on nest egg appropriation? >> the best advice i ever got

was basically pay yourself first. >> i gave you that advice. >> thank you. i knew it was somebody smart. >> pay yourself first, put away a little money, savings, mortgage, money in a stock market, whatever it is before you do anything else. when you work, give yourself the payment and pay your other bills. >> otherwise when i come back in my other life, i'm going to be enrique decastro. >> the audience is saying who is that? >> the number two guy at yahoo! brought in by melissa myer. they did not get along. he was fired. he was canned. 15 months at work, $58 million severance package, barnicle. that's wall street by the way. >> plus what he walked into yahoo! with. >> yeah, they had to pay him to get him away from google. >> you're worth more than that, tom. >> i would think so.

>> beat it. >> still ahead a, a thrilling n novel ripped from the headlines. the author will join us. to be this awesome. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle... and go. and only national is ranked highest in car rental customer satisfaction by j.d. power. (aaron) purrrfect. (vo) meee-ow, business pro. meee-ow. go national. go like a pro. [ 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. ♪ my mom works at ge.

♪ [ banker ] sydney needed some financial guidance so she could take her dream to the next level. so we talked about her options. her valuable assets were staying. and selling her car wouldn't fly. we helped sydney manage her debt and prioritize her goals, so she could really turn up the volume on her dreams today...and tomorrow. so let's see what we can do about that... remodel. motorcycle. [ female announcer ] some questions take more than a bank. they take a banker. make a my financial priorities appointment today. because when people talk, great things happen.

joining us right now, "new york times" best selling author james grippando. his book "black horizon," the latest thriller. this has to do with b.p., correct? we're talking about an oil rig

explosion. >> that's the inspiration of it. and black horizon is tied to a real life danger looming right off florida's coast right now. >> and florida is home for you. >> it is. i was there when the b.p. explosion occurred. so this inspiration is tied to this danger that is literally 50 miles from florida's coast. the cubans are working with the chinese and the russians, and they are drilling in 5,000 feet of water 50 miles from key west, which already gives you shades of b.p. because that was 48 miles from the coast in 5,000 feet of water. and "black horizon" raises the question what would happen if a spill of the magnitude of deepwater horizon happened in cuban waters. would the cubans let us in? would we have to force our way in? the russians and the chinese would be in control of the

situation and we would be on the receiving end of this oil that would wreak havoc on our $57 billion a year tourist industry in florida, not to say the least of what it might do to the everglades, which are a source of our drinking water. >> it sounds very personal what you've done here. >> i always try to tie the jack swytack books to what's going on in my life or what's going on in the world. jack started out as a single, unmarried guy. now he's married in "black horizon" and so forth. i really love the angle here of tying it on to what's going on in the world. i'm looking pretty smart right now. when i made the russians kind of the looming threat, none of what's going on in the news was happening right now. but the thought right now of the

russians in control of an oil rig that is made in china literally because of the trade embargo, we cannot be involved, the u.s. companies cannot be involved in any clean-up operation. the u.s. coast guard cannot be involved in any clean-up efforts because of the trade embargo. so we leave it up to the cubans, the chinese and the russians. and there's a great scene from "black horizon" where jack lands at the airport in cuba and there's crop dusters being assembled on the runway. and that's -- people are going to say now grippando's really taken this to a ridiculous extreme, the idea cuba would be spreading oil disbursements with crop dusters, but that's actually taken from a report from the "washington post." that is their response plan right now -- >> 1959. >> exactly. it vintage world war ii crop dusters are going to be

spreading chemical disbursements to stop the worst oil spill in history. >> let me ask you about the craft of this novel and past novels? what do you do? you get up, you read a hundred newspapers online? what triggers something more it and another thing? >> with "black horizon" it's what you say. sometimes it's thumbing through the newspapers. i found a report where a spanish company was drilling for oil 50 miles from key west. the report said something to the effect of the spanish company has been very forth coming with information about the safety standards they are employing and what plan they would have in case of a spill. however, the russians and the chinese who are up next might not be as forthcoming. and i thought you think? and i thought, well, now there's

a promiemise for a novel. >> the book is called "black horizon." thank you for being here. more "morning joe" when we come back. ♪ toaster strudel! best morning ever! [ hans ] warm, flaky, gooey. toaster strudel! a man who doesn't stand still. but jim has afib, atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. that puts jim at a greater risk of stroke. for years, jim's medicine tied him to a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood tested. but now, with once-a-day xarelto jim's on the move. jim's doctor recommended xarelto. like warfarin, xarelto is proven effective to reduce afib-related stroke risk. but xarelto is the first and only once-a-day prescription blood thinner for patients with afib not caused by a heart valve problem that doesn't require routine blood monitoring. so jim's not tied to that monitoring routine.

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welcome back to "morning joe." talk about what we learned today. thomas, what have you learned? >> box.com. provocative insight into a story you need to click on. just don't do it at work.

>> what is it, porn stars and their families? >> maybe. geor >> mike barnicle, what did you learn? >> that kerry sanders is going to enter the kentucky derby. >> what have you learned harold? >> ukraine is a lot more complicated than any of us have an appreciation for. >> steve rattner? >> we realize how important budget decisions are. >> mika? >> you should read "thrive" cover to cover and i'm still learning how. >> number one on the best sellers list. >> she's amazing, darling. what did you learn, darling? >> i learned if it's way too early, it's "morning joe" but stick around because luke russert is just ahead. thank you always for your pati