was it a u.s. attack in response to the sony pictures hacking? a lot of questions today. and then on a different note we remember the legend that is joe cocker. the rocker passing away leaving us memories of a five decade career. this is "way too early." ♪ hi everybody. hi. good morning i'm thomas roberts. it's tuesday december 23rd. welcome to way too early. the show that will always attach that voice to the wonder years. remember that great show? everybody was tweeted about joe cocker yesterday. a big loss and a voice that we'll all remember. we all have an attachment too. we'll talk about his life in music. we begin in new york city as there appears to be a truce in the raging battle between the city's mayor and police unions

after two nypd officers were murdered this weekend. they urged them to let the grieving families prepare to bury their loved ones. >> all i can say is this is a time for every new yorker to think about these families. focus on these families. put them first. we can do that by respecting their pain and respecting their time of mourning. i'm asking everyone and this is across the spectrum to put aside protest, put aside demonstrations. until these funerals are passed let's focus just on these families and what they have lost. >> so the mayor got into a testy exchange with one reporter that asked about protestors and protests where demonstrators used racist language or called for dead cops. >> we talked to this so many times i'm going to talk about it

again and the question is what are you guys going to do? keep dividing us? let's get real. just in that question, 25,000 people marched down one of our streets a few days back, absolutely peaceful. what you manage to do is pull up the few who do not represent the majority who are saying unacceptable things who shouldn't be saying those things. i don't see reports on the many descent good people or reports on the every day cops that do the right thing and hold the line and show discipline no matter what is hurled at them. do you know what, i am telling you over again that's how you want to portray the world but we know a different reality. >> so hours before the news conference the mayor visited with the families of both officers to pay his respect. meanwhile the police commissioner is defending the mayor against criticism from the police unions. he said it was wrong for

officers to turn their back on the mayor and this is not the first time they have clashed. >> can you point out to me one mayor that's not been battling with the police unions in the last 50 years? name one. name one. so the experience of this man in terms of some cops not liking him, there's nothing new. it's part of life. it's part of politics and it is what it is. this is new york city. we waste our corn certains and voice our opinions. >> and new york goff nor wants the city to move forward instead of debating who is to blame. >> the mayor has my full support. the union leaders have my full support. the community activists have my full support. >> how can the mayor and the union leaders have your full support given what they've both said. >> see you want to say who is

right and who is wrong and one person is good and one person is bad. i think that's the negative cycle that we are in. i don't want to point fingers. i don't want to cast blame. >> so the family of fallen officer lu is also breaking it's silence this morning. his wife of two months read a brief statement to reporters thanking the nypd and entire city for its support and she had to fieg back tears as she remembered her husband's fallen colleague. >> we would also like to express our condolence to the officer and his family. this is a difficult time for both of our families. but we will stand together and get through this together. thank you. >> it's heartbreaking there. officer lu's widow added he had been looking forward to having children of his own. he came to the u.s. from china

christmas eve 1994. nearly 20 years ago. he was standing in for a colleague running late and the officer is now full of guilt. there's new details emerging about the gunman that shot the two officers in their police car. authorities are asking for the public's help to try to peace together his final hours. police released this surveillance video of him at a brooklyn mall two hours before the shootings. as you see in the video he's carrying the bag which officials believe contained his gun inside. authorities also say he had video on his cell phone of an antipolice protest in union square park earlier this month. his sister said he had a history of emotional problems and blamed the legal system for not giving him the help he needed. >> he was an emotionally troubled young man and he was suicideal. if you have emotional issues and

you're going in and out of jail and prison and clearly something is wrong he should have been offered help in the system. >> but he wasn't. >> right? but he wasn't. >> still a lot more questions and answers to come forward in this but a lot of grieving taking place in new york city as the city tries to repair and we wait to find out the details of funeral arrangements for these two fallen officers. we turn our attention to overseas the big question this morning north korea and was the country a victim of a cyberattack. they're back online after an outage that lasted for hours. north corey went off line after instabl over the weekend. days earlier president obama warned of a proportional response after the u.s. concluded north korea was behind the massive sony attack. the state department would not confirm or deny that the u.s. was behind the outage. >> as the president said we are

considering a range of options in response. we aren't going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options or comments on those reports in anyway except that to say as we implemented our responses some will be seen and some may not be seen. i can't confirm the reports but in general that's what the president has spoken to. >> north korea denied being responsible to the sony hack in a statement but praised whoever is responsible. the country criticized president obama and hinted at an unspecified attack. meanwhile brad herman of california is asking sony to screen the interview at the capitol. he said it's important to let lawmakers see the film and stand up for free speech. in a group that represens 250 art house theaters across the u.s. is asking sony to let them play the movie. >> pope francis is back in the

headlines after turning the traditional christmas greeting into a public and scathing critique. he listed 15 ailments he says plague the vatican including spiritual alzheimer's and argued the affliction makes leaders lust for power forgetting they're supposed to be joyous men of god. some vatican officials view themselves as lords of the manor superior to everyone and everything and he denounced the pathology of power and warned against the terrorism of gossip calling it a form of satanic assassination that can kill reputations in cold blood. vatican watchers have never heard such a powerful violent speech from a pope and suggest it was informed by the results of a secret investigation launched under pope benedict. >> in a few hours michael fwrim is expected to plead guilty to a

felony charge of tax evasion. his lawyer would not comment. a 20 count indictment in april alleged that grim hid more than 1 murder in the second degree in sales and wages at a restaurant that he coowned. the congressman pleaded not guilty and promised to fight the charges truth and nail. despite the indictment the former marine was reelected by a wide margin in november. he could face up to three years behind bars. we turn our attention to the business news for you and another very impressive finish for wall street. gain across the board and the dow closing at 17,959. will we get to 18,000. jeff joins us live from london. are we watching a santa rally here jeff? >> yeah i think it's already starting here we have a fighting chance of making that 18,000 number and you know why the market is willing to set aside bad news. we had some new home sales for november yesterday that didn't exactly hit the ball out of the

park but we made gains on the back of that and the s&p hit it's 50th record high for the year. the dow, it's 35th record high for the year and you know what over the past four trading sessions the s&p has put on about 5.4%. those are pretty good gains over a six month period let alone four days. so there does seem to be some momentum here and the futures are pointing higher at the moment. i tell you what was interesting twitter up 3.6%. but perhaps for the wrong reasons as far as the ceo is concerned. there was an analyst that came on cnbc from suntrust and said he thought that twitter ceo could bow out in 2015. he just hasn't gotten subscriber numbers up. if you look at facebook we're talking about what, 1.35 billion subscribers on a monthly basis or users.

if you look at twitter 284 million on a monthly basis. big difference there and this analyst suggested that he has to take some of the blame for that and maybe he won't be around in 2015. that was enough to get the price up over 3.5%. back to you. >> i know you're back from the big trip to russia. tell us about what you were hearing from insiders about the economic warnings for 2015. i know you had direct contact with a former government official. >> absolutely. the message was not a good one. you have a combination of falling oil prices, falling currency. the sanctions overlay from the united states and europe here and it just means that the russian economy is in a world of pain right now and the former finance minister that bowed out in 2011 over how the economy was being managed but he says, you know, russia is very, very close

to serious problems in the banking sector and he suggested there needs to be a change in the direction that the government is taking this economy. not least as far as the sanctions regime is concerned otherwise russia is heading for a significant fall. so the message is here on this economy still not good as we go into year end and it's going to be hard going for them in early 2015. back to you. >> jeff, thank you, sir. much appreciated. we told you at the top of the show about joe cocker and his loss. he was a man born in britain but star born in new york. nbc's kate snow has more on the music legend and his 50 years in the industry. ♪ >> the song we'll all remember

was a beatles cover atwoodstock infused with that iconic voice and the way he moved would become a trademark. easy to spoof on saturday night live. cocker was a good sport on set in period '6. a new generation would know him for the grammy winning anthem in an officer and a gentleman and a song behind a steamy scene in the movie nine and a half weeks. ♪ >> his career was so much more than any one song. >> thank god god gave me a voice. it's one of the simplest instruments around really. >> inspired by the great ray charles. >> he has taken some of the things that he's heard from me and put himself into it. >> unchain my heart. >> just last year his final tour in europe before going home to rural colorado. ♪

paul mccartney said today he would be forever grateful to joe cocker for turning a beatles hit into a soul anthem. an unforgettable performer whose music lives on. >> pretty amazing. that was kate snow reporting for us. joe cocker just 70 years old. i think of kevin and winnie from the wonder years. that's all i think about. still ahead an ugly night for peyton manning. can his broncos overcome the qb's poor performance? and speaking of ugly, take out the benches cleared in this brawl. we have those stories ahead and much more. toughness being thrown around there and plus a check on your holiday travel forecast when way too early comes right back. can somebody get me a ginger ale?

>> he got 90 days. his wife 20. both got four years probation as well all for the airbourn hoax in october when their 6-year-old son was feared to be inside a run away aircraft. [ male announcer ] take zzzquil and sleep like...

the kids went to nana's house... for the whole weekend! [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil, the non habit forming sleep aid that helps you sleep easily and wake refreshed. because sleep is a beautiful thing. well it's time for sports. the bengals hosting the broncos and peyton manning never lost to the bengals in his career. last night is proof there's a first time for everything. manning finished with four interceptions. three of them thrown in the fourth quarter including one return by drake patrick for a touchdown that sealed the victory for the bengals. cincinnati is locked in for a sport in the playoffs after the

37-28 win. lion's center is suspended for one game without pay. look at that. after the stomping on the ankle of a bears rookie defensive lineman during the game on sunday. he apologized during the game and called the action unintentional and will appeal the nfl -- i don't know if that's unintentional. that seemed pretty lined up to me. i'm no expert. we all know that. anyway now to college football's miami beach bowl between byu and memphis tigers. paxton lynch racked up seven touchdowns in the game. four three the air and three he ran in himself. but it took memphis two overtime periods to beat them 55-48 but it was after the final whistle that these teams had had enough. emotions running really high and all out brawl breaks out. punches thrown, blood drawn before coaches and referees could get things under control.

look at that. humanity taking to the field there. i don't know where the haymakers are flying from. college hoops unranked temple with an victory hosting kansas. they take it 77-5 a2 ending the 8 game winning streak. look at that. all right time to switch gears and get a check on your weather. our meteorologist joins us now. we're still following the storm track and everybody is preparing accordingly. >> let's hope absolutely today we're going to see delays come into effect because look at the massive storm system setting up from the great lakes and all the way down to the gulf. we're going to have active weather pretty much for the central and eastern part of the country. it's going to be a wet one. here's a look at tuesday's forecast. heavy to moderate snow showers from minneapolis down to kansas city and even into chicago but it's down to the south we could see some severe weather. for the gulf states we could

have severe weather this afternoon and early this evening and even a slight risk of some tornadoes popping up from new orleans all the way off to the western florida panhandle. up and down the east coast it's wednesday where you'll see that i-95 corridor will become treacherous with wind driven rain. it's going to cause a lot of delays but look at these temperatures for the east coast. we are looking at very -- not that one. we're looking at very mild temperatures. they'll be in the low 60s for philly and d.c. thomas tomorrow. ignore that arctic air because we won't see any of that. but 60s tomorrow. can you believe that? >> 60s, no. that's amazing for this time of the year but we have to all prepare for the rain and take that into account. thank you so much. coming up at the top of the hour on morning joe we'll speak with a former official about north korea going off line. was it retaliation from the u.s.

for sony pictures hacking. and the math isn't adding up. the wife of one cuban spy released from custody last week is expected to give birth to their child in just two weeks. okay? yeah it's like something from dynasty. the secret arrangement from the cuba deal you haven't heard about just yet and we have coined a new phrase about humanitarian insemination. yeah, anyway, you heard me right. you heard me right. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ]

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that was jimmy fallon, one direction and the roots with santa claus is coming to town played with christmas instruments and rocking tacky christmas gear. i want to get a check on the morning's headlines now. it's the strangest yet most touching story of the united states historic agreement with cuba. a cuban spy freed last week in the prisoner swap for american allen gross raised eyebrows when he was seen touching his

pregnant wife's stomach. the wife of the freed spy is due to give work in three weeks thanks to humanitarian insemination. last year, seen in these photos with alan gross travelled to havana and met with mrs. perez about her request. her imprisoned husband's sperm sample was flown to panama for a procedure and on a second attempt she was pregnant. it was a closely held secret and he was not aware of the success until he arrived home and described his mood now as joyous. humanitarian insemination and there you have it. cuba signalled it has no intention of returning one of america's most wanted women despite the warming of ties.

she was convicted of killing a new jersey state trooper in 1973 before fleaing to cuba but yesterday a cuban official stopped short of an outright refusal saying cuba has a right to grant asylum to u.s. fugitives. they don't have an extradition treaty in place. that's going to do it for way too early. the morning joe table is assembling and i see it right now. morning joe is just moments away. [ male announcer ] are you so stuffed up, you feel like you're underwater?

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> . ♪ what would you do if i sang out of tune ♪ ♪ would you stand up and walk out on me ♪ ♪ lend