shutdown. ted cruz has something to say about that. we have very good news for you iphone owners apple developing technology to save those of us with slippery hands. this is "way too early"! good morning. it's great to have you with us. i'm thomas roberts. it's thursday december 4th. welcome to "way too early" the day known as post-team christmas party which was a good time. oh, yeah. it was a good time. we had a nice time. we'll show you some of those highlights coming up later. we have some very serious news to get to this morning. and we begin here in new york city where widespread protests erupted after a grand jury's decision to not charge a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man. this is the powerful front page of new york's "daily news" which reads "we can't breathe."

eric garner repeatedly said i can't breathe before he collapsed. all this was caught on videotape, thousands of protests they took to the streets of new york city wreaking havoc on traffic for hours. the brooklyn bridge, lincoln tunnel and west side highway all shut down. here at rockefeller center they were heated and confrontations lasted for a while between protesters and police. they chanted no justice, no tree during the annual tree lighting ceremony. police say at least 30 protesters were arrested across the city. new york city mayor bill de blasio referenced his own african-american son as he pleaded with protesters to remain peaceful. >> couldn't help but immediately think what it would mean to lose dante. life could never be the same thereafter and i could feel how it will never be whole again, things will never be whole again for mr. garner. i ask everyone to listen to what garner said and what his son

said as well. if you want to dignify the life of eric garner you will do so through peaceful protest. you'll work relentlessly for change. you will not sully his name with violence or vandalism. that doesn't bring us closer to a better community. the only thing that's ever worked is peaceful protest, nonviolent social activism. >> a father of six trying resist arrest for illegally selling loose cigarettes in staten island. which garner did not deny. we have the cell phone video showing the officer daniel pantaleo choking and tackling him and the medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. garner's with do and mother said they are shocked that the grand jury did not seek charges against this officer. >> he should be here celebrating christmas and thanksgiving and

everything else with his children and his grandchildren. and he can't. why? because a cop did wrong. somebody that get paid to do right did wrong and he's not held accountable for it. >> how could we put our trust in the justice system when they fail us like this. they didn't only fail me, they failed many of us, and if we don't take care of this they may fail you in the future. >> officer pantaleo told the grand jury he was trying to use a wrestling move he learn in the police academy not a chokehold. he said garner's ability to speak suggested he was, in fact, able to breathe. now, in a statement the officer said in part quote it was never my intention to harm anyone and i feel very bad about the death of mr. garner. my family and i include him and his family in our prayers and i hope they will accept my personal condolences for their loss. despite the grand jury's

decision to not seek charges in eric garner's death the justice department will be launching a civil rights investigation. attorney general eric holder said officials had been monitoring this case since july and promised a fair and independent probe. he called garner's death a tragedy and said all lives must be valued. president obama also reacted while attending the tribal nation's conference. he once again promised to improve the relationship between police departments and minorities. >> it is income pent on all of us as americans regardless of race, region, faith that we recognize this is an american problem and not just a black problem or a brown problem or a native american problem this is an american problem. when anybody in this country is not being treated equally under the law that's a problem. and it's my job as president to help solve it. >> so as thousands protested across new york, the state

lawmakers on capitol hill also weighed in. >> you have a 350 pound person who is resisting arrest, the police are trying to bring him down as quickly as possible. if he had not had asthma and a heart condition and was so obese, definitely he would not have died from this. the police had no reason to know he was in serious condition. people were saying that he said 11 times or seven times i can't breathe. the fact is if you can't breathe you can't talk. >> the decision by a grand jury not to indict in the death of eric garner is a miscarriage of justice, it's an outrage, it's a disgrace, it's a blow to our democracy and it should shock the conscience of every single american who cares about justice and fair play. >> i generally don't question grand juries. but i have to tell you, this doesn't pass the smell test with

me. something is not quite right. it really just breaks my heart because we've worked so hard in this country to bring people together and we don't want to see it literally all go up in smoke the way we saw it in missouri. >> texas and 16 other states are suing the president over his executive action on immigration. we now have the attorney generals arguing the president ignored his constitutional requirement to enforce the laws. meanwhile republican leaders appear to be closer to ever averting a shutdown on the back of speaker john boehner's two part plan. we have the obama administration now reportedly not ruling out at least parts of this plan and the plan would in effect fund all the government through september minus the department of homeland security which is charged with enforcing the president's executive action but yesterday senator ted cruz of texas joined house conservatives like michelle bachmann, steve king in opposition to the speaker's

approach. >> just about every republican candidate in the country campaigned saying if you elect us we will stop president obama's amnesty. what i'm here urging my fellow republicans to do is very, very simple. do what you said you would do. >> yeah. >> honor your commitments, answer the question today, the exact same way you would have answered it a month ago when you were campaigning before the voters. >> yeah. >> so politico reports many senators are panning senator cruz's efforts noting the outcome of the last shutdown standoff last fall. senator rand paul has introduced a formal declaration of war against the islamic state. paul has argued the president's action circumvents the congress and on "hardball" last night he found common ground with chris

matthews when it comes to toppling foreign dictators. >> saddam hussein, there's less stability with hussein gone. hussein was a check and balance against iran and there was some stability by pitting one against the other or letting them check and balance each other. gadhafi being gone more dangerous. ambassador was assassinated. the embassy has fled. in egypt we're worst off for a while and still in many ways not at that lot better. syria, i tell people this over and over again i can't find anybody to dispute this on a factual ground. had we bombed assad a year ago isis would be in damascus and isis would be ten times stronger than they are now. doesn't make assad a great guy but assad is a counter balance against isis. >> i agree with you. it's scary. >> three more women who claim bill cosby sexually assaulted them are coming forward going public with their allegations

and they are enlisting the help of high-profile attorney gloria allred. all red says one of the women would have testified. she says cosby should waive the statue of limit accelerations for his alleged victims so they can sue him. na for any woman who claims she's a victim bill cosby could agree to waive the statute of limitations and invite the accusers to you see. then bill cosby and his accusers would have an opportunity to go before a judge and jury and everybody wins. in short, cosby could and should agree in advance that he would waive and give up the statute of limitations defense. >> so cosby does not waive the statute of limitation. all red said the legendary comedian should put up $100 million into a fund so a panel of retired judges could hear the

accusations and determine possible compensation. cosby denied past allegations through his attorney and has never been criminally charged. there's been no comment on the latest claims. meanwhile cosby has postponed two performances this weekend in terrytown, new york. we switch our attention to business news for you now this morning where there are new and conflict reports about the origin of that hack attack against sony pictures. the company is struggling to recover. more than a week after this cyber attack. the studio was still waiting for some of its systems to come back online. cnbc's steve sedjwick joins us on this. hats the latest on where this attack originated. this is not just about the content of what sony puts out this was also very personal about their private data, the social securitys is numbers of employees as well as figure heads and their bonus compensations.

>> reporter: yeah. 27 gigabytes of info was put online on sites they had five movies four which haven't been released were put on pirate sites. as you mentioned the e-mail shutdown is caution all kinds of problem. a sony spokesperson said actually this report is inaccurate that they were going to name north korea. others like the hollywood reporter said it could well be sony insider a disgruntled employee. north korean angle has got a little bit of legs behind it because of course sony is putting out this new movie with james fran could and seth rogan where it's about a cia plot to assassinate the north korean leader. at the moment sony are not naming north korea as the suspected culprit. now, i've got another great story about cracked screens on your mobile phones or hand sets. two apple employees have got a patent which could well solve this issue. two ways of describing it. the hard way is these phones would have a sensor in them that

goes to a processor to determine the orientation of the device, estimate the orientation of the device, ejecting a mass such as a battery. that's the complicated way. easy way it would follow like a cat basically. >> yeah. a cat has nine lives. does that mean we can drop it nine times and then we're in trouble? >> reporter: every device i ever had whether tablet or phone, tell tale crack. what happened to gorilla glass or diamond glass. i thought we were going to get this anyway. it's more like a lunar landing. >> why can't we get little grippy strips on the side, you know, to help. i think that would be nice. quickly investors watching the day ahead. what? >> reporter: well there's a couple of things. twin dollar is actually higher versus the euro.

this is a european problem. terrible data on this side of the atlantic. now the dollar is at a two year high. this could be a problem for exporters going higher. holiday season, barnes and noble, sears and american eagle outfitters a good gauge on how trade cigarette going. it's all about promotions or setting higher ticket prices and getting a decent margin. >> thank you, sir. still ahead right here on "way too early" a big pick for the cleveland brown. we'll let you know if johnnie football became starting quarterback after a strong showing last week. plus, the u.s. and iran find a common enemy in isis. does that make us friends? i don't know about that. more on the delicate dance officials are doing around the ancient proverb and a check on weather when "way too early" comes right back. stick around. [prof. burke] it's easy to buy insurance and forget about it.

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he's made his share of mistakes, but he's gotten the lions share of reps in practice and the games and has us in the thick of a playoff and that to me was probably the biggest determining factor. >> interesting. let's get to nba highlights. to minneapolis the 76ers finally get their first win of the season against the timberwolves last night. williams scoring 20 points in this game and after starting 0-17 philadelphia still leads. they win it 85-77. streak is broken. switch gears let's get a check on your weather. we have nbc meteorologist domenica davis who is in for bill. i want to put it out there and we did that have "way too early" christmas party and bill is off today. >> well thanks for the invite guys. >> you're always invited. >> now you tell me that the party is over. >> we'll have another one today just for you. but weather wise i know you're

keeping a close eye on what's going on out west. they are suffering from rain. >> this parade of storms still going on and this is the case really into the weekend before we start to see a lull in these storms. the rain is coming down from seattle all the way to san francisco, southern california does get a big break for today for the rain but arizona, you're going to be caught in that rain for much of today. and then it will ease up tomorrow. there's a look at the five day forecast. the rain comes down. for the rest of us no real cold happening especially along the east coast, seeing seasonal or near seasonal temperatures. back to you. thank you very much. much appreciated. coming up at the top of the hour on "morning joe," nbc host and president of the national action network the reverend al sharpton. he's going to be here to react to the eric garner case. and he's going to have a lot to say about this as we come off the heels of ferguson. he has spontaneity lot of time in missouri and we look forward to having the reverend here.

but then first for you on a much lighter note, bill karins not here because we did have the "way too early" party yesterday. we'll take to you a behind-the-scenes look, the team's christmas festivities. this was not your average christmas party. yeah. that's some tap dancing on the bar. by a real professional. not one of us on the team. so i promise you -- anyway. people are quiet today because they are a little -- yeah, joey, you know why. quiet. i make a lot of purchases for my business. and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards, even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire.

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welcome back, everybody. we want to bring you up to speed on our top story. it involves new york city on edge after a grand jury decided not to indict the officer in the eric garner chokehold death. protests broke out blocks away from rockefeller center last night where thousands gathered for the annual tree lighting christmas ceremony. pl there were police blockades around "30 rock" and new york city mayor bill de blasio who was set to appear at the tree lighting ceremony scratched those plans to address and help heal the crisis. >> we're grieving again over the loss of eric garner who was a father, a husband, a son, good man, a man who should be with us

and isn't. >> later today civil rights leaders are expected to announce plans for a national march in washington, d.c. and we're told that that is going to take place coming up on saturday. the stepfather of michael brown who was part of an investigation by st. louis county into riots and arson is apologizing for his behavior the night the grand jury declined to indict darren wilson for brown's death. louis head said in a statement tuesday my emotion admittedly got the best of me. he went on the say i was so angry and full of raw emotions as so many others were and granted i screamed out words i shouldn't have screamed in the heat of the moment. it was wrong and i humbly apologize to all of those who read my pain and anger as a true desire for what i want for our community opinion louis head said he'll honor his stepson's memory by helping to rebuild the ferguson community. overseas both iranian sources and pentagon officials

are acknowledging that iran struck isis targets in iraq recently and now the u.s. is carefully trying to define the extent to which countries are fighting a common enemy. iran reportedly increased its military presence in neighboring iraq last week with fighter jets bombing targets in a buffer zone. a pentagon spokesman said wednesday he no reason to believe the iranian air strikes weren't taking place. secretary of state john kerry decline to confirm whether or not they may have occurred but wouldn't say they necessarily wouldn't be a bad thing. we switch gears now to give you a little bit of a mini cooler moment. we have to give a special thanks to people who helped us with our "way too early" christmas party. did you have a good time? yes. look that. a talented group. we had noah rick kerickets.

57 students have gone on to perform on broadway and other to yours and read more about their work by going to broadway dreams.com and i'll add a whole bunch of behind-the-scenes fun. we the eat morris food truck there. they provided grilled cheese and tomato soup which is great on a snowy rainy day. "morning joe" moments away. ♪ you don't need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible. because we do. we're exxonmobil and powering the world responsibly is our job. because boiling an egg... isn't as simple as just boiling an egg. life takes energy. energy lives here.

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welcome back. before we go let's get a check on the day hide. a new generation of manned spacecraft will take its first test flight into space. orion spacecraft set the launch this morning to test its performance. orion is designed to carry a crew to an asteroid and mars. we'll carry that live on "morning joe" in the 7:00 a.m. hour. the first family will take part in the 90 second national annual christmas tree lighting hosted by tom thanks and his wife. musical performances by patti

labelle and shelly wright. we did our own tree lighting. i lit the staff yesterday. at our party. here are some of the little -- yeah, look at these smiling happy faces. anyway we had such a good time. thank you, gang. merry christmas to all of you. that's going to do it for "way too early." "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ couldn't help but immediately think what it would mean to me to lose dante. life couldn't mean the same thereafter and i could feel how it will never be whole again, thing will never be whole again for mr. garner. i want everybody to listen to what ben garner and what eric garner's son said well. if you want to dig any guy the life of eric garner you will do so through peaceful protest. you'll work relentlessl f