medal of arts, the first lady is also going to attend. that's it for "way too early" and t.j. is back. "morning joe" starts right now. despite talk of a new temporary cease-fire in gaza today, both sides in that war launched new attacks. >> hamas rocket launches roar to life. >> in israeli, fired back. >> we have accepted five cease-fires acted upon hamas has rejected every single one of them. they have even violated their own cease-fire. >> you want to recognize israeli as a jewish state? >> no. >> more fighting in ukraine is preventing outsiders from reaching malaysia airlines flight 17. >> the fighting, some of the

worse of the fighting seems to center around the crash site itself. >> so much of what people do is psychologically annual lies so you tell us what is he like? you met him many times. >> he is very tough. if he wants to stare intently at you with his very bright blue eyes he can turn on the charm. >> the fighting in elaborate rages on tonight. >> so the u.s. embassy in triply is guarded. >> will you consider impeaching the president? >> you know, this might be the first white house in history that is trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president. good morning. it's monday, july 28th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, you're not going to believe this, joe. pulitzer prize winning jon

meacham. >> mark halpern, thank god you're back. we have some politics to talk to you about this morning. host of "way too early," thomas roberts. >> hello. >> in washington, national security correspondent for "the new york times" david singer with new reporting this morning out of eastern ukraine. t.j. is back. you're not going to look good, nor am i this morning. >> none of us are but that is okay. there is t.j. looking good, t.j., nice and rested. i wish we could all take vacations. i'm going to go on from there. how was your weekend, mika? did you have an uneventful or exciting weekend? >> no. >> what happened? >> i had a weekend that had to do with the trials and tribulations of raising teens. that's all i'm going to say. >> it happens to all of us. >> i'm not sure. >> you should take a vacation some time. >> i'm not sure i'll make it through this period of time. is all i'm going to say. >> it's not that much different

from coming to work? >> love my girls. they are so much different. we want to get to some of the political stories going on. over the weekend, israeli agreed to a brief cease-fire proposed by hamas but, sunday, more rocket attacks and more israeli raids this morning. secretary of state john kerry has reportedly turned his hope to rolling cease-fires now with a permanent diplomatic solution proving to be elusive. the white house is increasingly concerned with the death toll and president obama called prime minister netanyahu knowing him it is time for an unconditional cease-fire. one of the shells landed near a u.n. school last week, but says it fell outside the school denying it was responsible for the deaths of 16 people, including children. let's get the latest now and joining us from gaza, nbc news foreign correspondent, ayman

mohyeldin. >> today is the period marking the end of ramadan. families get together and have meals and children receives toys and gives and very much like christmas in the united states but here today a somber feeling among many families and some not even leaving their home and assessing the damage. over the weekend a lot of damage was visible for us and others as we traveled across various parts of gaza to see the results of the fighting has crippled gaza the past several weeks. the death toll stands 1,039. a lot of people still digging through the rubble and believed hundred dollars more are buried where in the gaza strip. on the political front, there is this kind of de facto cease-fire that has emerged. neither side officially calling

it a cease-fire but both sides clearly restraining themselves a little bit. we have heard the sounds of rockets being launched and sounds of israeli fire into gaza but, for the most part, both sides want to get through the three-day period with a lot more less fighting but there is concern by thursday, hamas has told us if there is no comprehensive agreement in place the fighting could continue in full force. >> i've been following you closely what you've been doing during these terrible three weeks. the pictures are absolutely tragic. could you just in human terms describe to our viewers what you've seen day in and day out over the past 21 days? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, it has been a very difficult few weeks on the ground. i think one of the ways i would tell you that every single palestinian that i have met, every single one that i have met has been affected by this war. and what i mean by that is they have either had families displaced now living with them,

they have either lost relatives or have been affected themselves even injured. even our own crews, shrapnel hit one of their cars. when we talk about the scope of this operation there is no inch of gaza that has been spared. when you speak to palestinians who did what the israeli told them to do, leave the front lines and come into the city, stay away from areas that are told to be dangerous, they have also been affected. one person losing all of his entire family. i think a humanitarian toll to this that is difficult at times to capture and the most difficult part of this assignment trying to capture all of the stories we hear from the grief. we have seen palestinian militants fire rockets consistently every day and raises questions about the scope of this operation and whether or not it's achieving its objectives that israeli says it is achieving. even today, palestinians were

seen firing rockets. it is a complex situation on the ground but a humanitarian challenge for us trying to cover it nonetheless. >> ayman, thank you. israeli prime minister benefiting anyone netanyahu discussed two of the biggest issues surrounding the middle east crisis. hopes for a cease-fire and the heavy toll being paid by civilians. >> we have accepted five cease-fires acted upon them. hamas has rejected every single one of them, violated them, including two humanitarian cease-fires which we accepted and implemented in the past 24 hours. now hamas is suggesting the cease-fire and, believe it or not, david, they have even violated their own cease-fire so they continue to fire at us and we will take the necessary action to protect ourselves. >> first of all, hamas is responsible for the deaths of civilians. we are not targeting a single civilian. we are responding to hamas action and we are telling the civilians to leave. hamas is telling them to stay. why are they telling them to stay in they want to pile up

their own dead bodies. they not only want to kill our people, they want to sacrifice their own people. charlie rose sat down with the leader of hamas and asked whether the militant group would recognize israeli as a jewish state. [ speaking in foreign language ] >> translator: we are not fanatics and do not fight the jews because they are jews. we defy the occupier. contrary we actually respect the religious people. >> it's one thing to say you want -- another thing you want to coexist with the state of israel. do you want to coexist with the state of israeli? do you want to represent -- do you want to recognize israeli as a jewish state? >> no. >> translator: no. >> okay. joe, obviously, you're a long time supporter of israeli. >> right. >> do you think israeli at this

particular time has the right to continue the attacks in defense of their own country, despite all of the calls for a cease-fire? >> mika, israeli has the right to defend their country and protect their people. the prime minister is correct in saying, as he did again yesterday on "meet the press," that the united states or any other country would protect themselves from these similar types of attacks that they are enduring from hamas. i mean, just imagine. i've said this before. imagine if missiles were fired from the mexican border to the united states. by nightfall our troops would be in mexico city. yes, they have that right. the "wall street journal" editorial this morning also correctly points out the international assistance that countries give to gaza that they think is helping to help the plight of the palestinian people and build schools is actually being funneled by hamas into creating this terror economy and that is because hamas is a terrorist organization as

netanyahu said yesterday uses its people to protect its missiles instead of using its missiles to protect its people. israeli has pointed out hamas uses women and children as human shields. they are correct there too. there are literally thousands of justifications with israeli is trying to do going after hamas. that said, make no mistake of it, mika, with up to thousands of civilians being killed over the past several weeks, israeli is, obviously, losing this war in the eyes of the world and i think more tragic for all of those seeking peace in the middle east before these attacks began. before these attacks began, hamas was isolated. they were bankrupt. and they were on the edge of political oblivion. so, yes, israeli has a right to move aggressively in gaza but it doesn't mean it's the right strategic move for israeli to

make. david, i think those seeking peace so much in a long time in this region the great tragedy is hamas was on the ropes before this fighting began. now they are only empowered in the eyes of the palestinian people or at least a large segment of the palestinian people as protectors against israeli. >> joe, i think that's right. hamas has certainly played the media element of this quite well. but i think something else has also played into it, which is that both sides were dug in, i think, in this case. the israelis and hamas in ways that i think surprised each other. so israeli discovered that this tunnel network was much more extensive than they had believed and, as a result, when you had the president saying a week ago, president obama saying a week ago that israeli had inflicted significant damage, the israeli assessment was quite different. hamas, i think, realized along

the way that the longer they could keep up these barrages the more they could demonstrate that they actually had emerged as a much more powerful force than i think many palestinians had believed. by virtue of the fact that the rocket attacks continue even now even after this pretty comprehensive pounding and i think that's why both sides are basically rejected this fascinating plan that my colleague michael gordon got a hold of that john kerry was passing around that would have put in a seven-day halt and then immediately gotten discussions going in egypt. instead they are left with these rolling day-by-day humanitarian pauses which i think no one has any confidence it will continue. >> all right. we are going to come back to this. there are new implications in eastern ukraine in the investigation into the downing of malaysia airlines flight 17. a team of international

investigators was forced to turn back from the crash site because of deadly clashes between pro russian rebels and ukraine troops. more than a dozen officials killed and officials said they did not feel safe in the area. it comes as the united states is preparing to make a push for new sanctions against moscow. >> now we have this. ukraine's president pending an op-ed over the weekend calling for tougher international response and he writes, in part as always the united states should take the lead. working together with the european union, washington can shape a worldwide coalition of nations in support of ukraine to ensure that these terrorists are not able to strike again. russia needs to know the international community is serious and long past time for it to act. >> the state department released new photos that it says proves russia is not only helping the rebels but shots are being fired from russia into ukraine. this photo shows artillery strikes last week in ukraine

involving rounds that officials say are only used by russian military units. u.s. officials also say russia is preparing to give more missiles to the rebels which moscow denies. meanwhile, former secretary of state hillary clinton says despite the obama administration's must published she always had doubts with vladimir putin. >> i was the most skeptical of putin during the time i was there in part because i thought he had never given up on his vision of bringing mother russia back to the forefront, not by looking at what russia could do to be a modern nation but by looking to the past. i think that what may have happened is that both the united states and europe were really hoping for the best from putin as a returned president and i

think we have been quickly, unfortunately, abused of those hopes. >> hillary clinton still on her book tour. your thoughts on her sort of looking back at that reset, jon meacham? >> she is right about mother russia. >> true. >> and we have had now ten years, i guess, or more of american leaders who have been trying to play chess with putin and have not been doing particularly well. beginning with president bush and now president obama. a hundred years ago today the first world war began and we are back to the great game where empires fell apart and nation states created and the countries we have been talking about this morning grew out of that cat cl

>> it's faeting fascinating hillary clinton talk about that. what i really find fascinating are the numbers. you look at the numbers. hillary clinton's numbers approval ratings as secretary of state, she has gone from the most popular leader in the obama administration to, now in retirement, having people looking back at her time at the state department as a failure. are hillary clinton's ups and downs as a political candidate going to be tied to what is happening across the world? because it seems like americans are judging her for a lot of these international crises that are now exploding. >> i think in the end she has been saying on her tour that the economy and vision for the future on job creation is going to be a bigger deal if she runs. i think she is suffering in these episodic comments from the same thing i think the president obama is suffering from. it's all tactics and episodic.

there doesn't seem to be a big strategic vision how to deal with the world jon meacham is talking about. we are still dealing with the fallout of the cold war and still dealing with the fallout of a post-9/11 world and a lot of people are able to question her role and the president's record on the question of where is the grand strategy and where is the vision taking america into a situation we are not dealing episodically with lots of crises how to bring things together. >> david sanger you're reporting that pentagon is drawing up plans to give ukraine the exact locations of surface-to-missile locations. how quickly could something like that be fast tracked? >> it could be fast tracked very quickly, thomas, but it's a fascinating and very vexing choice for the president. think about his options here. the united states is already giving some intelligence to the

ukrainians. they are giving them satellite photographs similar so what you showed before showing the russian heavy equipment moving across the board but it's not real-time so not something the ukrainians could use to target. if president obama decides to give them real-time information, he will be entering the united states much more directly into the conflict with russia and seem this is less than ukraine than it is about putin. there is some risks. it's not clear that the ukrainians know what to do with the data. it's not clear that they wouldn't make a mistake and strike inside the russian border and you can imagine what a problem that would be. the other thing that people were sort of whispering to me and eric schmidt, my colleague when we were working on this story last week and over the weekend, is that the ukrainian military is so compromised at this point, so full of russian intelligence agents that you might take this targeting data and just mail it to moscow. so it's a very hard choice and,

of course, the president decides not to do it his critics will say he walked up to provide aid and backed away. >> david sanger, thanks very much. an extremely western pattern is moving across the country including severely thunderstorms and tornadoes and hail storms. nbc's meteorologist bill karins joins us with more on that. >> what a sunday it was. you expect sundays like this in may and early june. the activity severe weather tornado months but not late july. this is supposed to be the quiet season and talk about heat waives and droughts but not this year. the extreme weather pattern continues around the country. tornadoes in tennessee and claiborne, ten homes destroyed yesterday and strong storms in kentucky. there is a picture of that tennessee tornado. just a rope tornado but you can

see how violent it was. it wasn't big. it was pretty narrow twister but it moved through with fierce winds up to about 120-mile-per-hour they estimated. that hits a home and that just takes it and tears it apart. let's talk about what we are dealing with today. what concerns do we have? the jet stream is the culprit for this crazy summer weather. i mean, we still have lake superior water temperatures in the 40s still! it's ridiculousically cold still in the northern great lakes and that continues. hot out west. where we get the human air meeting the cool air is where the thunderstorms occur today like yesterday. further to the south 6 million people at risk in the southeast including up through the carolinas and coastal sections. the people are on vacation on the beaches. as far as the bad weather goes, new england super humid and a lot of thunderstorms to deal with and couple of strong ones going on through the mass pike through the berkshires. hit and miss storms in the northeast and as far as the southeast goes your storms will be primarily in the late

afternoon. the last thing, we are heading toward the peak of hurricane season. one area of interest well out there in the atlantic and should threaten puerto rico and possibly the virgin islands toward the east coast. if it forms, the next named storm will be bertha. how the crisis in gaza has much larger implications in the region including nuclear talks with iran. house intelligence committee chair mike rogers joins us in our 7:00 to explain. plus are taxis a thing of the past? how it's never easier to catch a ride in some of america's largest cities. coming up a big investigation into one of the tri-state governors. why governor andrew cuomo is under fire and why he can't do anything especially since he formed the committee to

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and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. get the lg g3 for $199.99. ♪ time now to take a look at the morning papers. "the new york times" or actually the "new york post" reports that the world trade center health program says over 2,5 hundred ground zero workers have cancer. that figure includes cops, firefighters, instruction and sanitation workers as well as other city employees. the cities show 9/11 workers have developed certain cancers at higher rates than the normal population including prostate, thyroid and leukemia. >> that is something you were so worried about, mika, as it was

happening. >> yep. >> right after 9/11. you walked around with your mouth covered from the very beginning. >> no. i had a gut feeling about it but then it proved to be true soon after there were several very, very high profile cases that were covered and now we are talking about 2,500. i'm sure those numbers are going to go up. >> it's just tragic. from the "usa today," more than 15,000 households in detroit have had their water turned off because of overdue bills. yet, 40 businesses who owe money have remained untouched. according to documents from the city's water department, the major commercial and industrial accounts with past due balances owe a total of $9.5 million. that would amount to 625 dollars for each customer who have had their waut shut off. "the new york times." a new study shows a great toll

on the american class than previously believed. according to the russell sage foundation the average american family is about a third poorer than it was a decade ago. adjusted for inflation the typically american household was worth over $87,000 in 2003 and in 2013 the number dropped to $56. a 36% decline. >> wow. >> the authors of the city cite the housing market as a main factor in this decline, while other factors, other sectors are doing quite well. >> no doubt about it. unbelievable. the tsa says it's ready to pay for your ideas to speed up airport security lines. the agency says it's going to award one prize of at least$5,000 for the best idea. the deadline for your submissions when which are being accepted online is august 15th.

the tsa says the challenge is about leveraging innovation and out of the box thinking. here is from "the washington post." sarah palin. >> this is out of the box, right? >> she will continue her crusade against traditional news media outlets by developing her own online channel. the former republican vice presidential nominee announced the sarah palin channel which is a subscription based site. it will offer update on the events she attends. it will be $100 for the year. >> let's move on without mika commenting. lucy edged our hercules to take the number one spot at the box office this weekend. not a lot of great reviews for "lucy." it pulled in $44 million during the first weekend in theaters. well above estimates of $30

million. "hercules" featured dwayne "the rock" johnson. "planet of the apes" rounded out the top three. i'm sure jon meacham has been to all three of those movies this weekend. >> that is where he was this weekend. binge watching. andrew cuomo is taking flak. cuomo set up the commission a year ago which he touted having the best minds in law enforcement to try to rout out corruption and to restore public trust. >> it's not about a witch hunt. it's clear there are cases that need to be policed. i mean, that's inarguable at this point. why we are doing this and the need to do this is totally clear

to anyone who has been living in this state. >> he even campaigned on this saying the commission would be independent. >> so i am appointing a new commission to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing. >> but "the new york times" reports it was stifled nearly from the outset by the governor's own aids. in one case the commission investigated a media buying firm whose client was none other than the governor. when cuomo's office found out the firm was being subpoenaed, "the times" reports a top staffer called one of the cochairs of the commission and ordered him to take it back and the commission about. now a federal prosecutor says he won't rule out investigating the governor but in an interview, cuomo said his office's handling of the commission wouldn't be the subject of a probe because it's not a legal question. the moreland commission was my

commission, it's my commission, my subpoena power. i can appoint it and disband it. i can appoint you or unappoint you tomorrow. >> it is an interesting quote considering it's the taxpayers of new york state that funded that commission and unless andrew cuomo funded that commission and took care of all the expenses for it, i think he is very confused. it is not his commission any more than it's his governor's mansion, any more than it's his state. >> there is that. >> i think someone may be diluting themselves at this point, and this is really, as "the new york times" store shows, deeply trouble. >> let's ask blake zef. he senked as former top aide to an attorney general. did he disband it because as

it's being reported or surmised because it got too close to him? >> that is the understanding. he said initially this thing would go into until the end of 2014. it stopped before that and he was very upset because as you mentioned subpoenas were issued to many top allies. large groups had given him lots of money to his campaign. it's clear he was very upset with this thing from the beginning behind closed doors while he was saying it was independent, it's clear that is not what he wanted it to be. >> i'm not feeling the transparency. what is the governor saying in his explanation? secondly what is he being investigated for now out of this? >> great question. in terms of his explanation, what is funny, three shifting explanations from him. first, he said as you saw in that commercial this is totally independent. >> right. >> they can go after me, after anybody. >> yeah. >> then when questions started to emerge about possible interference you noted i can't be interfering.

it's my commission. i appoint you and now a third characterization from him. not only could this commission not look at him or the executive branch, it would be a conflict of interest, he said, it wouldn't pass the laugh test, which speaking of the laugh test so much to tell his father because in 1987 his father had a similar panel called the moreland commission that looked at governor mario cuomo's delgs and said you can look at the executive branch when you have a moreland commission so the story has some holes in it. as for your skeked questiecond s always serious when a federal prosecutor is looking into this. he has not been totally forthcoming as to what they are investigating but if you talk to prosecutors and people with expertise in the federal laws around this, there is a statute they think maybe viable here. not intuitive that a federal

prosecutor look into a state entity being interfered with. it looks a little weird but is there a tampering law that is 1512b is the statute. if he is stopping witnesses from testifying or getting into way of documents into an official proceeding, there may be an opening there for a federal prosecutor. >> joe? >> mark halpern, i'm stunned how you campaign on the commission and then when they ask questions about some of your people, you actually shut the commission down and then you say it's my commission. this is straight out of louisiana. this is huey long material. are you stunned that andrew cuomo's judgment is this bad in 2014? has he really been that bubble wrapped over the past three years that he thinks he is above questions from "the new york times" and other news organizations about this? >> i'm not stunned because this is largely the way his office has operated, known to insiders

and albany is a black hole of political coverage and i thought he could get away with this as his office has gotten away with other attempts. he has miscalculated here. i think the worst news for him besides the u.s. attorney general investigating him. because if this level of facts existed about a chris christie this would be an evening network newscast every night. maybe he'll talk about it today but i don't know how he explains the things they are admitting to. he is spinning them. the facts already known is horrible. not because he ran on it because of the underlying things they did to protect himself and his political allies. >> mika, i can't help but follow up on what mark said regarding chris christie. >> right. >> the difference between shutting down a couple of lanes which, of course, was a terrible thing today whoever did it and

setting up an ethics commission that you campaign on and that you fund and then you shut down when it begins investigating you and then again most stunningly your response is it's my commission, i set it up, i can shut it down, again, i find it hard to believe that andrew cuomo has been this bubble wrapped in albany that he would be that ham-fisted. >> that quote seems like a blink to me because it's inarticulate and almost babbling. i don't know what it sounded like but does that make sense? it's like i can un-appoint you. >> put it up on the screen again. >> it's unbelievable. >> here, i have it. >> he says -- >> he is dancing as fast as he can. >> exactly. sounds like he is dancing as fast as he can. it's my commission, my moreland commission. i can appoint you you and i can

un-appoint you tomorrow. that is someone whose feels are turning fast in his head. >> he is finally breaking his public silence on this and he is going to be in buffalo today which funny enough for those who are watching from home aren't that familiar with upstate geography. >> are you going to buffalo? >> they announced it so late to prevent us from going so it would be hard to go but there will be good reporters there. very good local reporters there who will ask about this but not the usual pack of wolves who are there. two wr two ways to do this like the chris christie press conference. i don't examine andrew cuomo to do that today in buffalo. he'll have a short session afterwards with reporters and try to get a couple of comments

on the record there to say he broke his silence but without getting into a real interrogation on this. >> come back and update us. thank you. we will show you frank thomas emotionally acceptance speech getting accepted into the major league baseball hall of fame. "morning joe" sports is next. ♪ we'll be back in the high life again ♪ all the eyes that watched this once will smile and take this in ♪ se: jobs all over america. se: engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america.

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welcome back, everybody. time for sports. six new baseball hall of fame inductees were enshrined. enshrined. >> imprisoned. >> a pair of 300 game winners and three of the most winningest managers of all time joe torre and four world series titles joined bobby cox and frank thomas and tom glavine and greg maddux. frank thomas gave a really emotional speak. >> we didn't have much but my parents worked hard for four of my siblings. frank senior i know you're watching from heaven today. without you 100% i wouldn't be

in cooperstown today. thanks for pushing me and always preaching to me you can be someone special if you really work at it. i took that to heart, pops. look at us today. >> congratulations to him and all of the guys there. the five-time all-star frank thomas playing 189 seasons in the majors. lebron james has finally decided on his jersey number. mika, while your were instagraming pictures of your cat over the weekend, this is what lebron was doing. he announced via instagram he is going back to wearing number 23 writing 23 is only right i go back. he lived that with cleveland cavaliers and switched with his number when he went to the heat and you might remember him saying the switch was respect for michael jordan. >> i think i'm going to change

my number next year. i don't think no guy in the nba should ever wear 23. >> wait a minute. he's back to it. >> he's back to it. jersey sales through the roof. currently four other vet players in the nba who wear number 23. >> who are they, thomas? >> that is for me to know and you to find out because i've got this next story which is very big. >> in 3-2-1. go. >> in soccer now. we don't condone fans rushing on to the field but it happens a lot and when it does and it's good. >> sometimes naked. >> this isn't naked. during milan's loss to manchester city in pittsburgh two fans rush in the game's final minutes and head straight for ac milan's walotelli and they wanted a selfie and balotelli obliges. posed for this fan before the

fans were escorted off the field. >> i don't think that switch should happen but, okay. >> we condone that. >> full condemnation. >> what is up next, thomas? what happened 100 years ago today is cause of many of the conflicts happening around the world. don't go away. we will be back with much more "morning joe." being the new kid on the block can be intimidating. take your kids on a walk through the online neighborhood. show them sites you feel are acceptable. teach them how to deal with cyber bullies and encourage them to navigate safely. the more you know.

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zerbia declared war. i will read a portion of this. it gives perspective to a lot what is happening today. from the downing of the civilian malaysia airliner in ukraine to the combat in gaza to iraq, syria, afghanistan and iran the troubles of our time directly ascend from the world of the era that claimed impulses and let to the ultimate creation of new nation states, especially in the middle east. to understand the madness of the moment then, one needs to take a long view, one that begins in 1914 and not as many democrats would have it with the election of george w. bush or many republicans think with the election of barack obama. to borrow a phrase from abraham

lincoln. it goes back to issues and we have to look as far as back as world one one. world war ii air power would make any civilian a combatant but that began in 1914. it was a case of imperial ambitions. a lot of miscalculation. but the perennial force in all of our lives and in politics, which was pride, ambition, greed, ethnic and imperial are all right back again. who knew we would be nostalgic. >> world war i? >> the cold war, interestingly, was a stabilizing force and who

knew we would be nostalgic but it did give us a frame as mark was saying a moment ago that managed to make the messy a little more manageable. >> what is going on with europe now as a cohesive unit? nato is barely discussed when you think about the crises around the world and they are an economic force to be sure. what is going on with europe within the last where we are now as compared to a hundred years ago as a force for good on the planet? >> right. well, you know, success or lack thereof of the eu as a cohesive unit, you know, that was supposed to, in the great balance of power, was supposed to create sort of what britain was for a long time as a unit that would, in fact, balance east and west. it hasn't for, i think, reasons that are geo graphic and economic. europeans have much more economic interests in parts of the world where we see trouble,

they see customers. and whether it's iran or elsewhere. so my own view is that europe is not stepped up in the way that, at least from the american point of view, you'd want them to. all right. coming up we will take a little break for some news you can't use. thomas, you're going to do that. apparently, it is cat versus elephant. oh, no. >> it's a battle as old as time itself. >> speaking of 1914. >> you may be surprised who wins this showdown. we will be right back. ♪ vo: this is the summer. the summer of this. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to. where memories will be forged into the sand. and then hung on a wall for years to come.

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so welcome back, everybody. we have a couple of things to talk about in "news you can't use." this is important. >> first, are we doing the picture -- this picture first. was released from the director of batman versus super woman. wonderwoman and her costume. historically speaking, jon meacham, what do you think? >> i think historically you have to go back to elizabeth i and katherine the great. this is women in power. >> i don't see any red or white or blue. >> i have texted -- >> it's global. >> i have reached out to linyn

carter to get her reaction. >> now to the jungle. this youtube video of a cat taking on an elephant and you might be surprised at who scares whom. that's what she wrote back right there, the top part. >> oh, yeah. >> that baby elephant may try to shake off its furry friend but at the end day he is winning the stare-down. >> look at that! that is cute! >> what do you think? you saw lynda carter's opinion? >> you can text her. >> we have that in common. coming up at the top of the ho hour, are rolling cease-fires the only hope for slowing the

violence in gaza? we will break down secretary kerry's latest attempt at diplomacy in the region with mike rogers. plus, hillary clinton tries to explain why "star wars" darth vader has higher polling numbers than any 2016 candidate, including herself? later the deadly ebola virus has infected two people in the united states. all that and more when "morning joe" returns. ♪ [ brian ] in a race, it's about getting to the finish line. in life, it's how you get there that matters most. it's important to know the difference. like when i found out i had a blood clot in my leg. my doctor said that it could travel to my lungs and become an even bigger problem. and that i had to take action. so he talked to me about xarelto®. [ male announcer ] xarelto® is the first oral prescription blood thinner proven to treat and help prevent dvt and pe that doesn't require regular blood monitoring

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despite talk of a new temporary cease-fire in gaza today, both sides launched new attacks. ten minutes after, rockets launched to life. >> israeli fired back. >> we have accepted fire cease-fires. hamas has rejected every single one of them. they have even violated their own cease-fire. >> you want to recognize israeli as a jewish state? >> no. >> more fighting in ukraine is preventing outsiders from reaching malaysia airlines flight 17. >> the fighting, some of the worse of the fighting seems to center around the crash site itself. >> so much of what people do is psychologically analyzed. so you tell us what is he like. you met him many times. >> he is very tough. if he wants to stare intently at you with his very bright blue

eyes, he can turn on the charm. >> the fighting in libya rages on tonight. >> so the u.s. embassy in tr tripoli is guarded. >> will you consider impeaching the president? >> you know, this might be the first white house in history that is trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president. good morning. with us is chief white house correspondent and host of "the daily rundown, chuck todd. good to have you all on board this morning along with joe and me. over the weekend the israeli agreed to a proposed cease-fire proposed by hamas but more early raids this morning. secretary of state john kerry has reportedly turned his hope

to rolling cease-fires now. with a permanent diplomatic solution proving to be elusive. the white house is increasingly concerned with the death toll and president obama called prime minister netanyahu knowing him it is time for an unconditional cease-fire. israeli acknowledged that one of the shells landed near a u.n. school last week, but says it fell outside the school, denying it was responsible for the deaths of 16 people, including children. still the two sides don't seem any closer to resolving the issue at the center of the conflict. >> we have accepted five cease-fires acted upon them. hamas has rejected every single one of them, violated them, including two humanitarian cease-fires which we accepted and implemented in the last 24 hours. now hamas is suggesting the cease-fire and, believe it or not, david, they have even violated their own cease-fire so they continue to fire at us and we will take the necessary action to protect ourselves.

[ speaking in foreign language ] >> translator: we are not fanatics and do not fight the jews because they are jews. per se. we don't defy any other states. we defy the occupier. contrary we actually respect the religious people. >> it's one thing to say you want -- another thing you want to coexist with the state of israel. do you want to coexist with the state of israeli? do you want to represent -- do you want to recognize israeli as a jewish state? >> no. >> translator: no. >> let's bring in mike rogers who is the chairman of the house intelligence committee. mike rogers, this dispute, this war continues to grind on in israeli and there are -- boy, no winners here. what is the next step? >> well, i think if you look israeli's perspective, i think

they have shut over 35 different very sophisticated tunnels from gaza into israeli. they are re-creating rockets so they built some of their own in gaza they fire into israeli. they also, we think, import some and i think they are responsible for traveling into hamas and gaza. i think they want to make sure that this tunneling is both found and destroyed and prevent the opportunity doing it moving forward so that is why israeli comes at from this. >> i understand that and i understand your support of israeli. i've been a supporter of israeli as well. the continued images coming out of this, palestinian children and palestinian women killed in this fighting and over thousands of civilians, according to some reports. obviously, that has an impact on israeli in the long run as well. this seems to be a no-win

situation for the state of israeli, does it not? >> certainly complex. one of the troubling things about this is how hamas has put their rocket systems in schools and mosques and hospitals and the only way to disrupt those rocket systems -- remember, they are firing these rockets into civilian population centers. if it weren't for the iron dome and anti-missile system would be thousands and thousands and thousands of more civilian deaths really on both sides. and that is what we have got to understand here. i think there's a path forward on this. if you take where gaza -- excuse me, hamas wants to go, they need those open borders but if we are going to agree to that, if the united states is going to be a part of that and israeli is going to agree to that, then it needs to be to make sure that only humanitarian aid gets through. it can't be about resupply of weapon systems and other things. it's an interesting dynamic but

now you're seeing talk of rolling cease-fires mainly because both sides are at a bit of an impasse with what their stated objectives are. >> chuck todd? >> chairman rogers, are you concerned that john kerry, secretary of state kerry and prime minister netanyahu are just not on the same page? i'm finding it fascinating watching basically the -- it looks as if his cabinet is taking kerry proposals, spinning them in a different way than the way kerry claimed the way he was doing it. there seems to be a communication problem between john kerry and benjamin netanyahu. how is this happening? >> i think there has always been a little bit of friction between netanyahu and this administration. i think early on, some of the early cease-fire requirement, at least in israeli's perspective, they didn't recognize their security concerns about them continuing anti-tunneling operations during a cease-fire. remember, these are tunnels that come into israeli.

so i think with that lack of consideration, i think they believe that they were kind of going this alone which made them take a little harder position on those things. >> you're saying -- >> i think a miscommunication there. >> i understand you're saying as sort of an observer. you're a policymaker, a lawmaker. are you comfortable how john kerry is handling this or not? >> i was not comfortable with the initial leaks throwing out an agreement and saying that one side or the other rejected it. those meetings ought to be in quiet until they can come up with an agreement that can be sustained by both sides and if it takes two or three days without any news coming out of that room, so be it. but now you're having this pr war between hamas and israeli and the united states. that's just not a healthy place for us to be. they ought to lock them in a room and sit down and try to work out the issues of which both sides need to have. israeli clearly needs to continue anti-tunneling and this

ability to dismantle rockets in way doesn't take out civilians and gaza is in desperate need of humanitarian aid. i think you can find an agreement there, but you can't do it in public and you can't do it by leaking one side, knowing that both sides of that equation are going to use that for their own purpose. >> congressman mike rogers, thank you for being on this morning. chuck, a couple of political stories for you. new york governor andrew cuomo is taking flak for creating a committee and disbanding after it hit too close to home. "the new york times" was stifled by the governor's interests were in the cross-hairs. in a recent interview, cuomo said, quote, it's not a legal question. the moreland commission was my commission. it's my commission and my subpoena power and my moreland commission. i can appoint it and disband it.

i can appoint you or unappoint you tomorrow. i can't interfere with it because it's mine. it's controlled by me. joe, you want to jump in. >> who does it belong to? whose commission? >> oh, my god. mine, mine, mine, i mean mine. a george harrison song. you know, i was saying last hour -- >> wow. >> -- that for a governor of new york state, of all states where "the new york times" based in your state to be talking this way in 2014, it sounds like huey long in the back room of a new orleans eatery. >> liky. >> in like 1935 or something. i'm absolutely flabbergasted that andrew cuomo would say that, that he would think that way. has he -- if he has been this bubble wrapped in albany, forget ever running for public office on a national level. i'm stunned.

>> look. that is the andrew cuomo that democrats used to talk about in the late '90s. a little bit quick tempered and a little bit sometimes you catch him in the public eye and he would get a little snappy. snap at the reporter and that is what you would see and there supposedly a new more reserved andrew cuomo who had learned his lessons from that 2002 race that went so badly for him -- or in 20 2006. excuse me. albany is a town, in many ways, it's sort of totally out of the 20th -- mid 20th century the way it conducts its politics. it's one machine versus another. i think what this looks like is the cuomo machine decided they had a chance to derail these various machines inside the general assembly and go after it and realized, oh, no, our guys are going to get caught too and

it is politics as usual. i agree, joe, i think this takes him off the national stage. >> go ahead, mika. >> i was going to say if you hear from him today, you'll have to go to buffalo, joe. he has moved his public appearance so far away which to me is very telling. >> i was always surprised during the campaign, this is a man who didn't offer, mark halpern, much access to the campaign. he stayed behind the scenes. he somehow managed to survive that. i'm shocked that you could be be governor of new york state, the empire state and be as protected as andrew cuomo has been for quite sometime. i remember we heard him speaking at, i think, a charter school rally about two or three months ago and it was like garbo talks. he was so rarely exposes himself to the public and no now he does and he looks absolutely terrible and maybe we know why he has kept himself under wrap so much.

>> as a citizen of new york state i would be proud if we had the epics of louisiana in albany. as chuck suggested he is too cute. a lot of close observers have been waiting for this moment where the old andrew cuomo who has operated like this in the past, would be exposed. "the new york times" did great time on this. i will be fascinated to see how he handles it today. we said before based on what we already know without a federal subpoena power, based on what we already know his conduct, the conduct of his consider staff is unbelievable on an issue that, as we said earlier, he ran on. he said he made it a high priority and said this commission could investigate whatever and none of it was true. >> chuck, talk of impeaching president obama. apparently, it isn't going away. that may suit democrats just

fine. apparently, according to some reporting, while house speaker john boehner isn't interested in the idea, his number three congressman isn't ready to say the same thing. >> will you cut off funding for the administration? will you consider impeaching the president? >> this might be the first white house in history that is trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president. ultimately what we want to do is see the president follow the laws but the president took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this land and he doesn't. the white house is trying to fund-raise off of that too. >> i'm asking you. >> the white house will do anything they can to change the topic away from the president's failed agenda. >> who really wants to talk about it, zjoe? >> it's a complicated question. if i'm the number three republican on a national sunday show if i want the republicans

to ever win an election again, like, in the presidential race nationwide, ask me that question. if you're a republican legislator at home take out a pen and notepad and you have to respond. you know where i'm going with this. a very long, three, four, five, six paragraphs. ask me the question. >> i don't want to ask you the question. i don't want to hear that answer! >> no, no. >> halpern? >> ask the question. >> mr. scarborough, are you interested in pursuing impeachment against this president? >> for the love of god. >> no. chuck todd, what is wrong with them? he is the number three guy! he is the number three guy! he is not a back bencher! not a crazy nut like i was. he is a number three ranking republican in the house of representatives! and you can't say no to that answer? devastating. >> the most exciting player was

dan pfeiffer. the fact is steve skalese is right. the white house is praying for impeachment and see nothing but political upside to this and think think a lawsuit frankly is good politics. >> if he said it three times why did he play into their hands if he knew they wanted! the answer is no! >> joe, this is the issue. this is why john boehner tried to come up with this lawsuit gambit which i think is too cute and i think he whetted the appear tied in a way he is not able to put this toothpaste back in the toothpaste tube. a small contingent of house republicans that do want to pursue impeachment. it's not a large group. it's a small group but it's part of that tea party caucus that gives john boehner heartburn a lot and part of the tea party caucus that scott steve skalese into leadership. boehner was trying the lawsuit

as a way to ease it and i think he has brought it more to the forefront. i think this was ultimately a bad political decision by boehner. i understand why he did it for his internal boxes b. he gave the democrats an issue. >> something is good for internal politics but destructive to the overall picture. meacham, maybe you don't do it. >> there is good scholarship on talk of impeachment has exploded in the last 5 years, far more than the first 150 years in the republic. one more sign how corrosive the atmosphere is. people just didn't talk about it in this way as divisive and terrible as politics has always been. this is a different level. >> it sure is. thomas? more evidence of what could be seen as voters remorse when it comes to the 2012 election. >> what? >> according to a new cnn opinion research poll if the 2012 election were held today,

president obama's four-point margin of victory would be wiped away. the poll shows mitt romney would beat the president 53 lrs to % 44%. but in this matchup, hillary clinton would defeat mitt romney. 7 in 10 are women. 56% are independents. >> chuck, what do you make of that? >> it's all about the president. i think the country has -- the president's numbers. do you know his average job rating in the competitive senate races is 38%? this is a country that is fatigued from this president, that is, in some ways, the more foreign policy problems that pop up, the lack of -- you see in the poll numbers. you see a lack of confidence in him. so to me the polls are more reflective of obama, the person, and the president. it says nothing about the state of, for instance, either party.

>> joe? >> yeah, chuck, though, you're exactly right. the president's approval rating in the competitive states, 38% but last week, we pulled out some of those same states to see what the average republican approval rating was, 21%. 21%. so republicans see a low approval rating and historically we have to keep that in mind as we go towards november. i know you already have. but everybody does. those approval ratings usually can tell you something if they are at 49% how things are going to break but not when the other party numbers are so low. it's zero sum game. this year the republicans having real trouble with traction. why? >> voters don't have amnesia. they voted for change three of the last four elections. they haven't gotten it. i think the middle of the electorate right now is turned off by both parties. the middle of the electorate

might not show up. i think we are seeing some signs of that. very low turnouts low turnouts the last couple of years in off-year elections. i think they don't believe either party can deliver whatever change they are promising. look at the campaigns that are being run. take off the red states and blue states and all this stuff. i haven't seen a single campaign do anything unique and different, say, on the economy. say anything unique and different on health care. it's the same blabber that we have heard the last three or four cycles. sometimes the ads are exactly the same. kentucky, grimes and mcconnell are having the same medicare fight that paul ryan and the obama campaign had in florida, that the republicans used in 2010. again, voters don't have amnesia. >> chuck todd, thank you very much. we are going to be watching "the daily rundown" at 9:00 eastern time today. still ahead on "morning joe," new outrage by the british government at moscow following the downing of flight 17.

we will discuss the new round of forthcoming sanctions against the russian government. the british ambassador to the u.s. joins us next. catching a taxi has never been cheaper especially when you're not hailing a cab. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. this is the first power plant in the country to combine solar and natural gas at the same location. during the day, we generate as much electricity as we can using solar. at night and when it's cloudy, we use more natural gas. this ensures we can produce clean electricity whenever our customers need it. ♪

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♪ for the second day in a row, fierce fighting has forced international experts away from the site of the downed malaysia airlines jet in eastern ukraine. meanwhile, u.s. officials say russia is stepping up military support of rebels in that contested region. with us is the british ambassador of the united states, sir peter westacoff.

good to have you on the show. >> thank you. >> where do we go from here? what should be done in closing in on putin and bring the crisis in eastern ukraine to a rest, but bring justice to what has happened? >> well, this is a defining moment for what is going on in ukraine. we have had some very bad behavior from the russia side for a along time now, and now this terrible atrocity of the shooting down of the aircraft. we have to change the cost benefit analysis for putin for the russian people, for the government they have elected there. we saw last week, europeans putting in tough sanctions, lots of more names going on the list of people and entities which have been sanctioned. and i like to think in the course of this week, we are going to see yet more. we are going to be moving into secreta sanctions. meanwhile, we have to keep out the pressure and the points the president was making in norman

di so stop the supply of heaven weaponry and ground missiles coming across the border to russia. >> jon meacham, i'll let you jump in. but curious a reticent on some world leaders to call putin out for what he is. like president obama has called him responsible. hillary clinton called him to h tough. i'm thinking words like evil could be used to describe what has happened. >> i think the question and love to ask the ambassador on this. if you use rhetoric like that. >> right, right. >> action has to be commensurate with it. >> are we ready to do that? >> that is the question. mr. ambassador, in the range of options, one wonders how far we could go and i am curious how you evaluate your posting, that is, how is washington's leadership on these issues, how effective has that been?

>> i think the response to what is being going on in ukraine, there has been a strong united states response since the beginning what is going on in ukraine. since the shooting down of the airliner, of course, other countries have come rather more for the f to the fore. they are trying to get access to the debris and try to get hold of the remains of the victims and we, too, have an interest in that. we lost ten people in this air crash. so i think some of the humanitarian emphasis, if you like, is moved elsewhere. but this remains a major foreign policy where we have got to work together. i think that the way in which the phones have been buzzing across the atlantic, the president has been in touch with all of the main european but also australian and other leaders and president putin as necessary, has shown that the transatlantic lines are working pretty well and i think some of the responses we have seen from

lavrov and putin to the introduction of sanctions by both the united states and the europeans show we are beginning to have some impact. some of the bluster we are getting shows, i think, they are feeling a little bit of pain and they will feel more because we need to ratchet up the response because he has not met any of the conditions we set in normandy and we have seen more, not less, but more russian inference across the border as the state department explained to us just last night. the kgp playbook of a pack of lies doesn't convince anybody. >> totally agree. >> mr. ambassador, give me three adjectives you'd use to describe vladimir putin. >> i'm not a poet but i think thuggish, dishonest, and afraid comes to mind because we have had all of these lies. i think i'd say reckless too. just think back a little bit. he thought he had done pretty well after he stole crimea from the sovereign state of ukraine

and doesn't look good now. i think it's beginning to look like this has been the wrong call. >> based on that, sir, as you give the adjectives of thuggish and dishonest and reckless putin seems to want to push to this the very extreme and bring the united states out to the edge. right now, we seem to have all bark, no bite. without the eu and international allies, there really is not a lot that the u.s. can do, other than use diplomatic channels and bad rhetoric to try to pull putin back into some type of discipline. >> i think you're a little harsh in saying all bark and no bite. i understand why you say that, but we have put in place quite a lot of measures against the russians and against the cronies and against the entities. what we are going to see pretty soon, i think, is firm decisions and transatlantic to tape measures in the industries and denying access to capital and making a difference in terms of dense sales, all of these are

sec toral areas i think the united states and europeans together are starting to make a real impact and as i said before, i think the part of the response that we have been hearing from the russians suggest this is making a difference. also reputational thing. the russians don't like being put in the dog house and i don't think putin much liked being disinvited from the g- 8. maybe some will be asking if the 2014 world cup should be held in russia. much more things on the agenda and they don't like this. >> thank you so much for being on the show this morning, peter. >> thanks for having me. how one honduran boy is reunited with mihis mother. the story is next on "morning joe." ♪ hey pal? you ready?

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now, go to xfinity on demand and select the people's hotlist to see this summer's top 100 shows and movies. i voted! ♪ less than a tenth of the president's proposed 3.7 billion funding requests is for aid to this region. lacking funding, u.s. aid has closed its program. we show deep concern for girls who are kidnapped in nigeria but not for girls kidnapped by narcos in honduras.

why? how can we demand syria take in nearly 3 million refugees but turn our backs on tens of thousands of beginner from our own neighbors? if we short change due process, i believe that congress and this administration will be sending many children back to their deaths. >> that was pulitzer surprise winning journalist justifying in front of congress on the immigration crisis earlier this month. the president president met with other president to address the issue. more than 7,000 undocumented children are entered the u.s. fleeing extreme violence or poverty or looking to be reunited with their families. joining us is the author whose best selling book strikes close to this issue. great to have you on the show this morning. this is an impressive woman and spent a couple of weeks on top

of a freight train researching this. she comes on to this set and won two pulitzer's not just one like you, meacham. >> we struggle. we struggle. >> and then says to me, williams 82 and i too have received a bicentennial medal. you got me but you weren't rejected twice and then wait listed so i got you on there. >> there you go. >> good to have you on board. i love what you've done here. we talk about this crisis on a broader level but when you put a face on it and you put a child's ideas on it, you really get a sense of how bad it is. tell us about the reporting that you did and some of the experiences you went through. >> well, i've been reporting about this for over a decade and initially i was writing this story of these millions of single mothers who have come to the united states from mexico, central america and leave children behind and they come because they can't feed them, they can't see them study past the third grade. so i was writing about children

like enrique, the mother leaves the boy when he is 5 and a 11 years later not seeing her he is desperate to see his morning and he sets off to find her and he goes any way he can is gripping off the top of freight trains over the length of mexico and it's a horrific journey and i made that journey to write the story of this boy. a decading ago, most of these children were coming because of poverty and to reuive wi ivreun parent. i went back and what i found just astounded me. i saw a level of violence in enrique's neighborhood i could not have imagineded where the cartels have taken complete control ever this neighborhood now. they go to 10, 11-year-old boys like christian and 11-year-old boy i interviewed who said in my elementary school they are pressuring me and threatening to

beat me up if i don't use drugs and use marijuana and use crack and then sell drugs for the cartel in my neighborhood. and on knew of an 11-year-old girl clubbed over the head and dragged off and tortured her and left her broken dead body in a ravine across the street. this boy knows three people this year who have died. four operating people on the street corner have been murdered. the level of violence these children face, these narcos have taken control of the schools in this neighborhoods. >> you say to congress how this is really happening and these kids can't be sent back when you look at it that way, they can't be sent back, then what do you do? >> well, i think we need to see these children for what they are in many cases. and at least half the cases, they are refugee. that is a person fleeing for their life. they are not economic migrants.

i understand we can have a full-throat debate about the positives and negatives of economic migrants to this country but these children are refugee so we need to put them in refugee centers in the united states and bring in judges and bring in asylum officers and over two or three months hold these children and then give them a full fair hearing with an attorney, because without an attorney, it's sham process, and really allow the children to present their cases. >> that has challenges too but that is out there, jon meacham. >> it is. you're talking about addressing the affects of the crises. what about the causes? >> i think we have to deal with the immediate humanitarian issue here and president obama and congress can't talk about being humanitarian and label their bills humane acts and try as quickly as possible to deport these children to their deaths. you can't really try to enhance the mexican and guatemalian

goverts. they are thinking about training the guatemalan police. you have to deal and i've been talking about this for years with the root causes of this violence. you have to enhance security and we know how to do this in colombia. you need to really clean up the police. you know, the last person you call in honduras is a cop because more than half of them are corrupt. 4 in 5 homicide are never even investigated, much less prosecuted. so you have to kraut a police force that is clean. you've got a polygraph these cops. and you've got to really improve the educational systems and opportunity for youth in these countries. you've got to increase economic

opportunities and we have really neglected this region since the kennedy administration. >> thomas? >> i think a lot we could do. >> there are two different fronts taking place here. the conversations that need to be have. what can be done for the children that are here and what they are fleeing from and the conversation what is going on in central america. on thursday and friday of last week, central american leaders were in washington, d.c. to meet with congress to meet with president obama. is there anything that you have heard about those meetings or read about you take away as, okay, we might be on the right track with the dialogue that needs to start to help the central american leaders and what their crisis is? >> well, i think the concern i have is we're basically telling those presidents we're going to ship these kids back to you as quickly as possible. we don't care whether, you know, they end up back in the hands of people who have threatened them multiple times, which is the stories that a lot of these children told me. and we really are saying, if you

do that, then maybe we will provide you some economic and development aid. and i have severe concerns about the first part of that equation. i think we're a really -- we are a compassionate christian people who are willing help vulnerable children. the children i saw in this neighborhood who one boy, carlos, 14 years old. his hair stood up. he said i don't eat 1 out of 3 days. i work in the dump picking out tin to come up with money since i was 7 years old. all of these obstacles were nothing. they wonted have caused me to think about leaving. but two narcos tried to rape me when i was 9 with a pistol to my head. he has seen three people in front of him killed. eight people he knows have been killed.

i think people cannot imagine the level of terror that these children live with, and we cannot, as a country, we have let in other refugees. cambodians and cubans, 15,000 and let in twice as many refugees pre-9/11 as now. all i'm saying is let's give these children a real chance to present their cases before the courts. don't short-change that process which is what president obama and congress are trying to do. >> very well put. the book is "enrique's journey." sonia, thank you for coming on this morning. now catching a ride is as simple as a push of a button. we will explain why taxis are becoming a thing of the past next on "morning joe." ♪

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taxi! taxi! >> taxi! oh! yes! >> funny. it was a scene from the 1990 comedy "quick change" about the frustration of trying to find a cab in new york city. ever try to do that at 5:00 in the evening? it's impossible! >> it's a shift change. >> is that what it is? >> the. >> joining us now is new york magazine kevin ruth's latest article entitled "hail storm" looks at how the taxi landscape

is totally changing in new york city. how so, kevin? welcome back. >> thank you. we used to have one way to get around. it was the yellow cab or you took the subway or you walked. now we have uber. starting last week a company called lift is operating a ride sharing service based on a smart phone app. about a half dozen others have popped up in the city. when you are trying to get around you think how do i want to get there? a ton of options. >> what is the quickest option? >> it depends. nothing faster than a yellow cab zooming by you on the street. you stick your hand up, you get in but the problem it's not always available. if you're in one of the outer boroughs or a shift change or raining a hard time to get a cab and sometimes it's faster and now each cheven cheaper to take these services. >> when it comes down to the analysis how to get around utit

the speed and cost effectiveness. how is the cost effectiveness taking a shot at what the yellow cab is? >> uber has cut its fares to the price of a yellow cab and valid at 18 million and raised a ton lift is around the same price as a yellow cab for now. subject to change but right now i usually pay a black car service or yellow cab maybe $60 to $70 to get to the airport. what is the percentage increase of the cars on the street with all of these new services? >> i'm not sure. >> taxi drivers are switching over so just driving a different kind

there's this medallion system that dates back to the '30s where now these medallions you have to have to drive a cab cost a million dollars or more to just start up. the advantage of these upstart smartphone apps is you don't need a medallion to drive it. it's actually driving the cost of medallions down. >> what's the consumer think about who's being regulated, who's safe to use, if there is this difference in regulation? >> all these companies say they have background checks for drivers. there have been some incidents, of course, but not every cab ride goes the smoothest either. i've had arguments with cab drivers. the good thing about these services is that there's a bilateral rating system so after every ride you get to rate your uber driver but the driver also gets to rank you on a 1 to 5 rating so if you have -- >> oh. >> uh-oh.

>> are you kidding me? >> so if you have a lower rating, you're less likely to get picked up than someone with a higher rating. >> how do we rate them? >> the same way we rate them. >> on your credit card? >> there's a system now where you can check your own rating. i have a 4.8 which is pretty good. but if you get sort of below 4 -- >> what did you get a bad score for? >> i don't know. that's the mystery. >> being a jerk? talking on your phone really loud. >> mumbling when you're giving the destination. >> incoherently? >> kevin roose, thank you so much. that's very interesting. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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up next, escalating violence at the crash site of flight 17 bringing a whole new level of complications into the investigation in eastern ukraine. plus, cease-fires in the middle east continue to be disrupted by more rocket fire as the conflict enters its 21st day. we'll go to gaza with an update on the latest between hamas and israel. and later, the deadly e

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launched new attacks. >> ten minutes after the humanitarian truce expired this morning, hamas rocket launchers roared to life. and israel fired back. >> we've accepted five cease-fires, acted upon them. hamas has rejected every single one of them. they have even violated their own cease-fire. >> you want to recognize israel as a jewish state? >> no. >> more fighting in eastern ukraine is once again preventing outsiders from reaching the crash site of malaysia airlines flight 17. >> the fierce fighting between pro-russian separatists and ukrainian military, some of the worst in the fighting seems to center around the crash site itself. >> so much of what people do is psychologically analyze putin. >> right. >> so you tell us what is he like as a man. you've met him many times. >> well, he's very tough if he wants to stare intently at you with his bright blue eyes, he can turn on the charm. >> the fight in libya ranlz on tonight. >> it is the deadliest violence

since the 2011 war. >> so the u.s. embassy in tripoli stands empty and unguarded. >> will you consider impeaching the president? >> you know, this might be the first white house in history that's trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president. >> good morning. it's monday, july 28th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, you're not going to believe this, joe, we have pulitzer prize-winning historian jon meacham. where have you been? >> that's huge! >> and "morning joe" contributor mark halperin, thank god you're back. we actually have some politics to talk to you about this morning. host of "way too early" thomas roberts. >> good morning. >> and in washington, national security correspondent for "the new york times" david sanger with new reporting this morning out of eastern ukraine. also t.j. is back, joe -- >> oh, my god.

back from disneyland. >> yeah. >> that's okay. there's t.j. you're looking good, t.j., nice and rested. i wish we could all take vacations. anyway, i'm just going to go on from there. how was your weekend, mika? was it uneventful? did you have an uneventful weekend or exciting weekend? >> no. i had a weekend to do with the trials and tribulations of raising teens. that's all i'm going to say. >> well, it happens to all of us. you should take a vacation sometime. >> i don't think i'm going to make it through this period of time. >> it's not that different from coming to work, is it? >> it's bad. love my girls. they are so different. let's get to the news. we want to get to some of the political stories going on but we'll start in the middle east. over the weekend, israelis agreed to a brief cease-fire proposed by hamas, but sunday more rocket attacks and more israeli raids this morning as the holiday begins. secretary of state john kerry has reportedly turned his hope to rolling cease-fires now with

a permanent diplomatic solution proving to be illusive. the white house is increasingly concerned with the civilian death toll and president obama called president netanyahu to hit him know it is time for a cease-fire. israel acknowledged that one of its shells did land near a u.n. school last week but says it fell outside the school, denying it was responsible for the deaths of 16 people, including children. let's get the latest now. joining us now from gaza, nbc news foreign correspondent ayman mohyeldin. ayman. >> reporter: good morning, mika. today is the first day of that three-day holiday period here marking the end of ramadan. it is a period that is often marked with celebrations. families get together, have meals. children receive toys and gifts, very much like christmas in the u.s. but here today a very different atmosphere, a very somber feeling among many families. some not even leaving their homes, just assessing the

damage. over the weekend a lot of damage was visible for us and others as we traveled across various parts of gaza. to see the results of the fighting that thaz crippled the gaza the past several weeks. the death toll now stands at about 1,039. a lot of people believe there are hundreds more buried, particularly in the southern part of the gaza strip where there has been some of the most intense shelling over the course of the last few days. on the political front, this is this kind of de facto cease-fire that has emerged. both sides clearly right now restraining themselves a little bit. yes, we have heard the sounds of rockets being launched and we've heard the sounds of israeli fire into gaza, but for the most part both sides want to try to get through this three-day period with a lot less fighting, but there is concern that by thursday hamas has told us if there's no comprehensive agreement in place, the fighting could resume in full force again, mika. >> ayman, joe scarborough here.

i've been following you very closely and what you've been doing during these terrible three weeks. the pictures are absolutely tragic. could you just in human terms describe to our viewers what you've seen day in and day out over the past 21 days? >> reporter: yeah. it has been a very difficult few weeks on the ground. one of the ways that i would tell you is that every single palestinian that i have met, every single one that i have met has been affected by this war. what i mean by that is they have either had families displaced, lost relatives or in some capacity been affected themselves, even injured. even our own crews had shrapnel hit one of our cars. they got off very safely, but it gives you a sense of when we talk about the scope of this operation, there is no inch of gaza that has been spared. and when you speak to palestinians who did what the israelis told them to do, leave the front lines, come into the

city, stay away from areas that are told to be dangerous, they have also been affected. one person losing his entire family. i think there's a humanitarian toll to this that is very difficult sometimes to capture and that has been the most difficult part of this assignment, trying to capture all of the stories that we're hearing from the grief. we've also seen palestinian militants fire rockets consistently every day. that raises questions about the scope of this operation and whether or not it's achieving its stated military objectives that israel says it is achieving. even today we saw palestinians firing rockets. and so it raises that question, and i think it is a very complex situation on the ground, but nonetheless a humanitarian challenge for us trying to cover it. >> nbc's ayman mohyeldin, thank you so much. speaking on "meet the press" on sunday, benjamin netanyahu discussed hopes for a cease-fire and the heavy toll being paid by civilians. >> we have accepted five cease-fires, acted upon them. hamas has rejected every single

one of them, violated them, including two humanitarian cease-fires, which we accepted and implemented in the last 24 hours. now hamas is suggesting a sear fies a -- cease-fire and believe it or not have even violated their own cease-fire. they have continued to fire at us and we'll take the necessary action to protect ourselves. first of all, hamas is responsible for the deaths of civilians. we're not targeting a single civilian. we're responding to hamas action and we're telling the civilians to leave. hamas is telling them to stay. why is it telling them to stay? because it wants to pile up their own dead bodies. they not only want to kill our people, they want to sacrifice their own people. >> charlie rose sat down with the leader of hamas and asked whether the group would recognize israel as a jewish state. >> translator: we are not fanatics, we are not fundamentalists, we do not actually fight the jews because

they are jews per se. we do not fight any other races. we fight the occupiers of the country. we actually respect the religious people. >> it's one thing to say that you want to co-exist with the jews, it's another thing you want to co-exist with the state of israel. do you want to co-exist with the state of israel? do you want to represent -- do you want to recognize israel as a jewish state? >> translator: no. >> okay. so, joe, obviously you're a long-time supporter of israel. >> right. >> do you think israel at this point has the right to continue these attacks in defense of their country, despite all the calls for a cease-fire? >> well, you know, mika, israel obviously does have the right to defend their country and protect their people. the prime minister is correct in saying as he did again yesterday on "meet the press" that the united states or any other country would protect themselves from these similar types of attacks that they're enduring from hamas. just imagine, i've said this

before, imagine if missiles were fired from the mexican border to the united states. by night fall our troops would be in mexico city. so, yes, they have that right. "the wall street journal's" editorial this morning also correctly points out that the international assistance that foreign countries give to gaza that they think is helping to help the plight of the palestinian people and build schools is actually being funneled by hamas into creating this terror economy and that's because hamas is a terrorist organization who again, as netanyahu said yesterday, uses its people to protect its missiles instead of using its missiles to protect its people. you know, israel has also pointed out that hamas uses women and children as human shields. there are literally thousands of justifications for what israel is trying to do in going after hamas. that said, that said, make no mistake of it, mika, with up to a thousand civilians being killed over the past several

weeks, israel is obviously losing this war in the eyes of the world. and i think more tragic for all of those seeking peace in the middle east, before these attacks began, and i want to go to david sanger with this question, but before these attacks began, hamas was isolated, they were bankrupt and they were on the edge of political oblivion. so, yes, israel has a right to move aggressively in gaza, but just because they have that right doesn't mean it is the right strategic move for israel to make. david sanger, i think for those like dr. brzezinski and others who have been seeking peace for such a long time in this region, the great tragedy is that hamas was on the ropes before this fighting began. now they are only empowered in the eyes of the palestinian people or at least a large segment of the palestinian people as protectors against israel. >> joe, i think that's right. hamas has certainly played the

media element of this quite well. but i think something else has also played into it, which is that both sides were dug in, i think, in this case, the israelis and hamas, in ways that i think surprised each other. so israel discovered that this tunnel network was much more extensive than they had believed, and as a result when you had the president saying a week ago, president obama saying a week ago that israel had inflicted significant damage, the israeli assessment was quite different. and hamas, i think, realized along the way that the longer they could keep up these barrages, the more they could demonstrate that they actually had emerged as a much more powerful force than i think many palestinians had believed. by virtue of the fact that the rocket attacks continue even now, even after this pretty comprehensive pounding. and i think that's why both sides have basically rejected

this fascinating plan that my colleague, michael gordon, got ahold of that john kerry was passing around that would have put in a seven-day halt and then immediately gotten discussions going in egypt. and instead they're left with these rolling day-by-day humanitarian pauses, which i think no one has any confidence will continue. >> all right, david sanger, thank you. we turn now to new complications this morning in eastern ukraine and the investigation into the downing of malaysia airlines flight 17. a team of international investigators was forced to turn back from the crash site because of deadly clashes between pro-russian rebels and ukrainian troops. more than a dozen people were killed. an official said they did not feel safe in the area. the resistance from the rebels comes as the u.s. is preparing to make a push for new sanctions against moscow. ukraine's president penned an op-ed over the weekend calling for a tougher international response and he writes in part this. as always, the united states

should take the lead. working together with the european union, washington can shape a worldwide coalition of nations in support of ukraine to ensure that these terrorists are not able to strike again. russia needs to know that the international community is serious. it is long past time for it to act. the state department released new photos that it says proves russia is not only helping the rebels but that shots are being fired from russia into ukraine. this photo shows artillery strikes last week in ukraine involving rounds that officials say are only used by russian military units. u.s. officials also say russia is preparing to give more missiles to the rebels, which moscow denies. meanwhile former secretary of state hillary clinton says despite the obama administration's much publicized reset with russia, she always had doubts about russian president vladimir putin. >> i was among the most skeptical of putin during the time that i was there, in part because i thought he had never

given up on his vision of bringing mother russia back to the forefront, not by looking at what russia could do to be a modern nation but by looking to the past. i think that what may have happened is that both the united states and europe were really hoping for the best from putin as a returned president, and i think we've been quickly, unfortunately, disabused of those hopes. >> "the new york times" is reporting that u.s. intelligence officials say the pentagon is drawing up plans to give the ukraine the exact location of surface-to-air missiles used by the rebels so they can be destroyed. however, the white house has not decided yet if it will approve the plan. joining us now, pulitzer prize-winning author and colonist for "the washington post" anne appelbaum. also with us chief pentagon

correspondent jim miklaszewski. jim, bring us up to date on this latest plan. the white house has yet to make a decision on that. what other options are there on the table? >> i know this won't surprise any of you that the pentagon is planning for all possible options involving u.s. military there in ukraine. but so far, as you said, mika, there have been no decisions made. currently they're looking hard at the possibility of providing the kind of intelligence that would pinpoint those rocket launch systems to aid the ukrainian military in going after them before they're able to fire. but they're also on the table are all sorts of other military options, including providing the ukrainians with some heavy military assistance, some weapons, but so far that's not even close to any serious consideration. the problem here, of course, is that, you know, a couple of days before that malaysia airliner was shot down, we talked to one u.s. intel official who said

putin is playing a dangerous game by giving these missile launchers to the inexperienced separatists because any time you do that, those weapons are out of your control and there's this law of unintended consequences. anything could happen. a couple days later, that malaysia airliner was shot down. and one major consideration is the concern that if the u.s. starts pouring weapons into the ukrainian military that essentially would mark the beginning of a proxy war between the u.s. and the russians, mika. >> mark halperin. >> so, anne, the cold war ends, you're up and russia starts to form closer economic ties but now it ties the hands or at least at some level ties the hands that joe's favorite, the french, have huge economic interest in keeping close ties to russia. what could be done by the united states to try to if not break the economic ties to get the europeans to act despite the existence of all these ties?

>> the first thing is we need to recognize what's happened, namely that the russians have particularly over the past decade begun to invest very carefully and very strategically in politically connected european companies. they have big investments in gas companies all over europe and not only. and they have been using this leverage through companies and through their investments to try and influence the politics of europe. and to some extent they have been very successful. they have big supporters in germany, including a former german chancellor. they have influence in britain, they have influence in france. also surprisingly quite a lot of influence in italy where there are russian -- the head of a major russian gas company is now on the board of an italian tire company, and so the beginning -- the conversation has actually begun of identifying where the influence is coming from and what it means. and in a way, the conversation about sanctions has sped that up. i mean really for the first time

european newspapers and european journalists are talking about this russian influence, which everybody assumed was quite benign and nobody found interesting or important a year or two ago. the united states could help by identifying, by pointing out, by underlining, but ultimately the ihas to come from within europe and from fears within europe that russian money is influencing their own politics. >> jon meacham. >> anne, there are three regions that we tend to talk about at this point, russia and europe, the middle east and china. i think a lot of us three, four years ago would have expected the pacific and asia to have been more of a developing threat perhaps than russia has turned out to be. where do you think the -- we'll be -- will we still be talking about putin and this push over the next couple of years or is it possible that there is an end to this story? >> putin himself has made very

clear what his goal is, and his goal is to unravel europe as we know it. in other words, the european union, nato. he wants to undermine the sense of security that nato guarantees, supposedly gives to eastern europe and to the baltic states. he wants to undermine that sense of security and safety. it's in his interests to break up the european union. the european union is a problem for him. when it acts as a whole, for example, if there were european energy policy to buy russian gas as a whole rather than countries one by one, that's a problem for him. that is his goal and he made it clear explicitly in the statements that he made around his time of the invasion of crimea. so the -- you know, the question is how long will he be there? in ukraine at the moment he has almost -- it's almost double or quits. he's got to -- either he has to pick up -- he'll have to

increase his military aid and increase his aggression in ukraine or he's going to have to pull out. we're going to know within probably the next few weeks what his attitude towards ukraine is. but i think his long-term strategy of undermining europe is not going to go away. >> tom. >> and explain the pentagon calculation that goes into the decision of supplying ukrainian soldiers with u.s. weapons and what type of signal that that then sends to russia. >> well, there's one really critical and i think a legitimate concern on the part of u.s. military officials who say, look, the u.s. cannot provide enough weapons fast enough to enable ukraine to defeat the russian military, that the russians would simply double down and double down again. and in fact escalate the fighting. you know, the president has pointed the finger at putin for escalation of the violence there on the border. it's sort of a catch-22 for the

u.s. too because anything they do militarily would obviously casey late that war. >> thanks to you both. turning now to an extreme weather pattern that is moving across much of the country, including severe thunderstorms, tornados and hail storms. nbc meteorologist bill karins joins us now with the latest on that. bill. >> mika, there's tragedy over the weekend. venice beach, california, not a place you associate lightning strikes with in california but they had one yesterday and it came down and it didn't just hit one person, it kind of spread on the ground. there are reports it could have been right near the water's edge and the lightning spread to the water. about 12 people were affected by that lightning strike and there was one fatality, a 20-year-old who was surfing. so tragedy there. the dangers of lightning. it's our 15th or 16th fatality nationwide as we've gone throughout this year. the other story out there was the severe weather in the east, the tornado in tennessee that went through and destroyed about ten homes. it wasn't a huge tornado but it was pretty intense. there's pictures of it as it was

rolling. you don't associate tornados with the hillsides and mountains either, but this one was not big, but it did a lot of damage there in tennessee. we wish the best to the cleanup of those homes and those families. now let's talk about what's going to happen today. we still have a risk of severe weather. not as bad as yesterday but six million people at risk from coastal carolinas right through southern georgia, all the way down through areas just to the north of mobile. they get a lot of people on vacation from the outer banks all the way down to charleston and hilton head so a lot of people at risk of those strong storms late today. a lot of rain in new england this morning, it's going to pour in boston as we go throughout the morning. yesterday it was brutally hot in the west. fires continue to burn out there. there are 37 uncontained wildfires in washington state and west. we'll be tracking a new tropical storm in the atlantic. this one could threaten puerto rico, but it looks like it should avoid the east coast. we'll watch that for you.

>> all right, bill, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe" an incredible story of one man's journey from absolutely nothing to riches beyond his wildest dreams. plus we'll preview one of wall street's busiest and most important weeks of the summer. also a new outbreak of the deadly ebola virus raising health concerns around the world. we'll bring you up to date on that, next.

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welcome back to "morning joe." two americans have tested positive for the deadly ebola

virus after working with infected patients in liberia. the aid workers are both undergoing treatment but remain in stable condition. more than 1,000 people have been affected and nearly 700 killed in the most recent outbreak in west africa. joining us now on set, dr. christina gagliardo, an infectious disease physician in brooklyn. how are you? thank you for coming in today. first of all, the word "outbreak" i don't want to use it too casually but would this be considered an outbreak and how bad is the situation given the latest cases that i just reported there? >> so this situation going on in west africa now is considered an outbreak and it's actually the largest outbreak of ebola that they have had to date. >> and what is behind that resurgence really? >> so the fact -- this is the

largest outbreak because it's actually affecting multiple countries in west africa, currently sierra leone, liberia and one reported case in nigeria. where it typically affects people in remote areas, this is affecting people in urban areas and cities, which is a little different. >> does it lead to the potential that it could travel outside of the continent? >> there's always the potential for someone to get -- you know, to get on a plane and go to really any country even before they had symptoms so there is that potential, yes. >> so here we have these two americans making news for contracting the disease. they work in the health care field, obviously for missionaries purse. but is that the easiest way for people who are out there in service positions like they are to contract the disease, that they're actually dealing with the sick? >> correct. so people working in the health care field who are actually

caring for patients with ebola are actually one of the groups that are at the highest risk of contracting it as well as family members of infected people. actually the people who handle the dead bodies of people who died from ebola, they're the highest risk. >> and going to cities, is that a new concern? because if that is the case, then that could lead to other ways it could spread. >> the fact that it's in cities just means that there's a larger number of people that could potentially be exposed because people in cities are obviously in more crowded living conditions and could potentially come into contact with someone who's infected. >> we'll follow this. dr. christina gagliardo, thank you very much. up next from the orphanage to entrepreneur of the year, an incredible story of resilience, next on "morning joe." when folks think about what they get from alaska,

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34 past the hour. i want to introduce you to a man who's had a very tough lot in life. his mother was disabled, on welfare and struggled to raise several children on his own. he grew up thinking his father was dead but in reality had left when he was just 4 years old. the man can remember lying under

a blanket one christmas day because there was no heat in the house. when he was 10 years old, his mother sent him to live in an orphanage. if you ask him, he said he didn't even think he'd be alive today. next i want to introduce you to an amazing entrepreneur. he is the founder and chief executive of a massively successful online country, someone savvy enough to make it through the burst of the dot-com bubble. now his company has reached revenues of $110 million last year, up 72% in just three years time. now, i want to introduce you to our next guest, jason wolfe. he is the chief executive of guestcards.com and he is both the man who i just described. jason, welcome to the show. >> thank you, mika, for having me. >> what a story. what an incredible journey. to what do your credit your success? i'll start big picture with you. >> well, i feel like i've been

blessed. i thank god for milton hershey who started an orphanage in 1909 and i was able to go there in 1980 and graduate in 1987 and i attribute my success to school. >> i know the hershey school, i've been there a few times. it's not just any orphanage, is it? >> no, it's not. it's not like you would think. it's not like orphan annie. it's a very nice campus. the hershey chocolate company, the board of trustees still owns a large percentage of stock so any time you buy a chocolate bar, you're contributing to the milton hershey school. so you can imagine the education that kids receive there, it's top notch. >> you talk about that being a big part of your success and i know the story of the school and i know what they do for the kids blessed enough having been sent there. having said that, your arc in life is literally rags to riches. where do you -- where do you think it really -- what was the

turning point in your life or the change that you made? and i guess i'm also wondering if there's hope for other kids in bleak situations. >> sure. i mean i graduated from that school and they give you a suitcase of clothes and $100 back then. i had to make my life. unfortunately, was in an accident and had major spinal surgery. during that time i was able to start writing code. i created the first coupon site in the mid-'90s. grew that and was successful online and online businesses. really it was fortitude. i was taught at the milton hershey school to work hard, highly ethical, and that's what i did. i just kept at it and over time, probably fortunate too because it was the mid-'90s. the internet wave was starting to come and it was just very good timing for me. >> joe. >> how extraordinary. you go back to some of the stories that we've read about you. christmas day shivering under a

bla blanket. abandoned, it seemed like you had no hope. could you ever have imagined that you could have gotten from that point to where you are now or is that something that you said as a young child, regardless, i'm going to be a success. >> at that age i didn't know really what was going on. i just thought it was part of life, part of being normal. it wasn't until later in life when i reflect back to realize how poor we were and the situation that we were in. so i think it's kind of what you don't know doesn't hurt you. that was one of the things i didn't know. looking at where i was to where i was able to be blessed to come to today with my team of people who have been supporting me, i've been very fortunate through the years with milton hershey school, with a great group of employees to help grow the company and i've just been very blessed. >> jason, this is thomas. we love the story, love the hershey school story as well. just out of curiosity, i know that you give back a lot now. so two things on that.

explain how you are giving back to those coming up behind you and just on a personal level, so many people inspired by your story, your family story, your relationship that you have today if you have one with your parents. have they been able to see your success. >> i've been on several mission trips to haiti through my church so i like to give back. we created a program called you gift, we gift. if folks wanted to go to our website, you could submit a story for a child who may not get a gift for christmas. we load up my rv, drive around and look for these children and give them gifts for the holiday because reflecting back on that time when i didn't have heat in the house and somebody knocked on the door and left a gift for me, it's one of the things we do as a company. and my relationship with my parents, i still have a relationship with my mother. unfortunately, sometimes people go through tough times. my mother had, you know, some tough issues and physical issues and surgery. she couldn't take care of three children. so i don't blame her for that.

i have a great relationship with her. my father, he turned out to be alive. i grew up thinking that he was not alive. he was. he lives in new zealand now and he's a teacher. i still have a relationship with him. i feel like you have to forgive people and forgive issues and move on with life. if you constantly look back and feel sorry for yourself, i think you're going to limit yourself and your success in life. >> jason wolfe, thank you so much for your story and for being on. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. coming up, we'll check in on wall street for what will be a very busy week ahead. stay with us, we'll be right back.

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time now for business before the bell. cn cnbc's sara eisen is joining us. sara, what's in store for wall street this week? i know we're coming off of a low for friday. >> it's a very busy week and already kicking off with a few blockbuster deals being

announced. they call it merger monday on wall street and today is a good example why. we just learned that zillow is going to buy trulia. they're both these online real estate firms. you might know zillow where it gives estimates for properties. it already bought street easy. now it's scooping up trulia for $3.5 billion so that is really going to create the biggest online real estate listing firm. the ceo has been on a shopping spree. we also got word this morning that dollar tree is going to be buying family dollar for $8.5 billion. hopefully they're going to combine forces and they want to be able to compete with the likes of walmart and some of the bigger guys -- >> i imagine dollar stays in the title, sara? >> that's kind of essential to their business model. it's all about the strategy here on lower prices but how they're able to milk the profits based

on the low prices that they offer, which has been helpful during the economic recession, but as the economy has gotten better, has improved and people have been spending again, some of these companies especially, especially family dollar, has been under pressure. it's going to be a busy week i mentioned. just want to run through some of the other highlights of the week. wednesday is going to be a big deal because we get second quarter gdp. remember, we're coming off of a first quarter where our economy actually shrank almost 3%. economists are looking for a big rebound because the winter weather is behind us of about 3% plus. we'll see if we get that. we'll also get word from the federal reserve. friday is the monthly jobs report and a ton of earnings friday. we'll hear from p & g, berkshire hathaway. already kicking off with a lot of activity here on wall street. >> thank you so much, sara eisen reporting for us. coming up next, the guest whose life was changed

drastically one day in just a matter of seconds. what happened in the moment and how it was influenced -- how it has influenced him each day and every single day since. a story of survival and forgiveness. that's next on "morning joe." vo: this is the summer. the summer of this. the summer that summers from here on will be compared to.

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here with us now, professor at college of st. benedict and

st. john's university, bob bell, who's the author of "unmoving fourward, tales and tips for keep moving forward." bob, pleasure to have you on the set. you're from pensacola, florida. joe, you were bob's football coach, right? >> yes, exactly. yeah. >> and bob, i guess you were joe's favorite of all the kids that he coached so that's something about your fighting spirit, which we'll talk about. having said that, i've seen the two of you at events and bob has been there and i have never heard a more inappropriate things come out of someone's mouth. >> out of joe's mouth? >> no, you to joe. i don't know who's worse to each other. the jokes i can't even say on the set here because they're so inappropriate. >> you have tender ears. let me just say this about joe. joe has written a couple of

books about winning. before he tells my story, here's a guy, i talk about the courage, the audacity. i was running back for joe on his high school -- he was my high school football coach. how many people would put somebody in a wheelchair as running back. i rolled for over 2,000 yards. >> you were not in a wheelchair. >> joe didn't care. >> the jokes between the two of you, it's got to stop. >> i tell you what, though, mika, it is incredible, though. of course bob kind of has the sequencing wrong. but bob was a small guy. i saw him run over guys twice his size. he had incredible fighting spirit. mika, when you get to the story of what this book is about, it's that fighting spirit and that positive outlook that made all the difference in bob's life. >> you guys may jab at each other but joe is truly remarkably impressed with you. let's talk about the story. you had one day that changed everything in november of 1989.

>> right. >> you were in a college dorm room. i believe you had a college student throw something at you. what happened? >> no, he put me in a full nelson wrestling hold. that's when they come underneath your arms and push down on the back of your neck. he broke my neck, just horseplaying in the dorm room. it was -- it was an accident and that's why i'm a quadriplegic. >> and in that moment in time that happened. how quickly after -- did you know you were gravely injured at the time? >> i did. i wrote about it in the book. i knew i had a spinal cord injury when it happened. i knew my neck had been broken. of course i didn't understand that i'd spend the next 25 years in a wheelchair and what that would mean. but i knew at that instance, but i talk about in the book that i hit the ground and i said three things. i said no one touch me, this is serious. i said someone call 911. but i did say to the person at that point, i said i forgive

you, i know this was an accident. >> right then and there? >> right then and there. and whether i really and no it at that time, i knew he didn't mean to hurt me to the extent he did. but the next day he was one of the first people to come to the hospital to see me and that's when i really forgave him. you know, i was 19 years old and i didn't really understand everything, but i do know that i told him i asked you to do one thing and that's to never apologize to me again. you need to move on with your life and i need to move on with my life. where that came from, i have no idea but i think that was metaphorically one of my first steps toward healing from that point forward. >> bob, you guys haven't stayed in touch, but you have heard about what he's done with his life and it's a pretty remarkable thing, isn't it? >> yeah. just a few years ago i heard one of the things he is doing is he's a caregiver for a male quadriplegic, someone with an

injury just like mine. so he has had to deal with this in his own way. yeah, i've moved on with my life as well and done the best i could. >> bob, i've heard through the years what an incredible attitude you've had about this. our dear friend dave simmons, his father worked with you and i heard through the grapevine him talking about you had an extraordinary attitude. but you went back to school, you graduated just one year later. you've been a wall street attorney. you've worked in a lot of great jobs. you went back to the university. but talk about your low points and when you face those low points you talk about in this book, how did you get through the fact that you were confined to that wheelchair out of a freak accident and yet you've achieved so much. >> well, you know, the book does -- it's not really a memoir, it's more i have included, i don't even know, maybe like 15 stories but i

broke it down into nine tips about basically how you deal with life's challenges. and in some ways i started off writing it about, you know, i needed this book when i was first injured, when i was 19 years old. i needed that. but then i spread it out more to someone facing any challenge in life, depression, you know, eating disorder, a divorce, anything. and then even further it is in some ways as a college professor, it's for any young person -- you know, my mom often says i became the man at 19 or 20 that she thought i would be at 40 or 50 years old. >> i think you did in that moment that you forgave the boy. humor. you're funny. you especially, has that helped or is it -- has it always just been a part of who you are? >> i think in some ways it's always been a part. no doubt it helps, you know. and the book is about -- you've

got to enjoy life and take what comes to you anyway. having a sense of humor, laughing at yourself, laugh agt joe is easy if you have somebody like joe in your life. >> joe, you have served a purpose. you can now -- you can now close up. the book is "unmoving forward." if you want to teach someone about life, get them this book. >> what a great book for kids going off to college. >> for more information on bob bell's story visit bobbellbooks.com. bob bell, thank you so much. that's it for "morning joe." "the daily rundown" coming up next. >> thank you so much, joe. >> thank you. ♪ ♪

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99 days to the midterm. hundreds of races, thousands of candidates but only a few key fights will shape who's in charge and where the final two years of the obama presidency are headed. meantime overseas, the shelling subsides some in the middle east as the u.n. security council calls for an unconditional cease-fire. we'll have the latest on the conflict that has cost over 1,000 lives in three weeks, mostly of palestinians. plus, the tdr 50 train rolls into the badger state. our spotlight is on wisconsin this week. it's been a hotbed lately for partisan punch throwing. but today we're going to look at its rich history of outside the box candidates. good morning from washington. it's monday, july 28th,