this isn't about some bogus video. >> the president of planned parenthood gets grilled on capitol hill. this morning she's accusing conservatives of grantstanding. and on the attack, chris christie and marco rubio go after donald trump while the billionaire builder focuses his attacks on rand paul. so how does tom brady fit into all of this? and bill clinton takes a stroll down memory lane recalling all the nice things trump has said about his wife and presidential candidate hillary clinton in the past. it's 5:30 on the east coast, 2:30 out west, this is "way too early." good morning, it's wednesday, september 30th. i'm jonathan capehart. we begin this morning with that marathon showdown on capitol

hill, with the president of planned parenthood cecile richards on the hot seat for five hours. questioned by the house oversight and government reform committee. it comes as republicans try to defund the women's health organization after the release of hidden camera videos by an anti-abortion group. it's put planned parenthood on the defensive, with richards apologizing for tone. but yesterday she gave her strongest rebuke yet of those behind the videos. >> the latest smear campaign is based on efforts by our opponents to entrap our doctors and clinicians in to breaking the law and once again our opponents failed. the outrageous accusations leveled against planned parenthood, based on heavily doctored videos, are offensive and categorically untrue. >> so is what you said in your video untrue? you weren't really apologizing for statements made? >> i was apologizing for the -- the -- what was said in a nonclinical setting in a non --

in a nonappropriate way and i don't believe -- and i don't believe -- >> you can't have it both ways. >> we may just have to agree to disagree. on this matter. >> i don't think we're agreeing to disagree, i think you're not answering my question. >> did you function on nonfederal dollars? why -- why do you need federal dollars? you're making a ton of dough. >> we don't make any profit off of federal money. and if i could just have a moment to explain -- >> but you're using federal dollars and displacing money that could go to the 13,000 health care clinics. my time is up, i yield back. >> planned parenthood has long said that abortions are just a small part of its services. here's what happened when the committee chairman questioned the witness over one type of service in particular. >> you created this slide. i have no idea what it is. >> well, it's the reduction over the course of years in pink. that's the reduction in the breast exams, and the red is the

increase in the abortions. that's what's going on in your organization. >> this, this -- this is say slide that has never been shown to me before. i'm happy to look at it, and -- it absolutely does not reflect what's happening at planned parenthood. >> you're going to deny that if we take those numbers -- >> -- slide that you just showed me that no one has ever provided us before. we've provided you all the information about everything -- all the services that planned parenthood provides, and it doesn't feel like we're trying to get to the truth here. you just showed me this. i'm happy to look at it. >> i pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate reports. >> my lawyers are informing me that the source for this is smerns united for life which is san anti-abortion group. so i would check your source. >> then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that. >> congressman chaffetz also accused the organization of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish travel and parties, and then questioned richards about her salary. >> your compensation in 2009 was

$353,000. is that correct? >> i don't have the figures with me. but i'm -- >> it was. congratulations. in 2013 your compensation went up some $240,000. your compensation we're showing based on tax returns is $590,000. correct? >> that's not my annual compensation. i actually my annual compensation is $520,000 a year. >> i first would like to register my -- my -- my opposition, and -- and my objection to the chairman beating up on a woman on our witness today for making a good salary. in the entire time i've been in congress, i've never seen a witness beaten up and questioned about their salary. >> this is about a conservative philosophy that says we are constitutionallists, they hold it up. we believe in rugged

individualism and personal liberty. with one big carve out, though. there's an asterisk in that assertion. and that is except when it comes to women controlling their own bodies. >> surely you don't expect us to be easier on you because you're a woman? >> absolutely not. that's not how my momma raised me. >> and her momma was governor ann richards of texas. all this comes as a new usa s "today" poll finds two thirds of those surveyed believe the group's federal funding should continue. let's turn to presidential politics. donald trump is defending his approach to the middle east, and foreign policy. >> -- now taking over what we started and he's going in to syria and he frankly wants to fight isis and i think that's a wonderful thing. i said that a year ago and everybody said oh, that's terrible. if he wants to fight isis, let him fight isis. why do we always have to do everything? personally i've been looking at the different players, and i've been watching assad and i've been pretty good at this stuff over the years because deals are

people and i'm looking at assad and saying, maybe he's better than the kind of people that we're supposed to be backing. >> once putin gets in and fights isis on behalf of assad, putin runs syria. he owns it, he'll never get out. never. >> all right. okay. fine. we can be in syria. do you want to run syria? >> trump had answered in a similar way when asked about russia taking the lead against isis in syria over the weekend. prompting this response from new jersey governor chris christie at a town hall in iowa. >> mr. trump last night said, let's leave isis alone. let assad and the russians take care of that and we'll clean up afterwards. sounds mysteriously, to me, like what the clintons said about al qaeda. and then al qaeda made their way here. >> we're going to hear more from governor christie later on on "morning joe." trump stayed on the attack yesterday about other members of the republican field, tweeting about senator rand paul's

campaign. quote, prediction, rand paul has been driven out of the race by my statements about him. he will announce soon, 1%, and quote i hope when rand paul gets out of the race, he is at 1%, his supporters come over to me. i will do a much better job for them. paul is actually at 3% in the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. but there are signs of trouble for hit campaign, a super pac supporting his candidacy has decided to stop raising money until it sees improvements. but the person in charge saying he doesn't want to raise more for a quote, futile crusade. two other super pacs on the other hand backing paul are still in operation. meanwhile, senator marco rubio reacted to trump's attacks on him last week. >> you know the presidency is a tough job. you're going to be criticized and you can't flip out every time somebody says something about you. he does. and that's his problem. i don't have time to kind of analyze why that is. but that's the reality of it. he had a bad week. he got booed on a stage.

he had very few people show up to an event he gave. just today tom brady said he's not endorsing donald trump despite these reports that he had tom brady on his side. so he's a very sensitive guy. that's fine. that's his problem. >> rubio was referring to a radio interview new england patriots quarterback tom brady gave in which he said people get carried away with offhand comments. the three-time super bowl mvp reacted this way when asked if he endorsed trump. >> one way or another, i mean, it's so far away from what the election would be. whatever i vote is going to be my own personal choice based on how i feel. so i don't even know what the issues are. i haven't paid attention to politics in a long time. so, i've been -- it's actually not something that i've really even enjoy, so, it's way off my radar. >> in a move that's expected to garner support from corporations and labor unions alike, hillary clinton is calling on congress to repeal a tax associated with the affordable care act. the so-called cadillac tax is one of the key cost-saving measures in president obama's

signature health care law. but it's opposed by businesses and unions, whose employees have expensive plans. it puts secretary clinton on the same side of the issue as vermont senator bernie sanders, who last week introduced a bill to repeal the tax. meanwhile, former president bill clinton is back in the spotlight this morning after giving his third interview in as many days. once again, president clinton aggressively defended candidate clinton's record as secretary of state, and this time he was asked to respond directly to attacks from donald trump. >> when we look at the job that hillary did as secretary of state, she goes down as perhaps the worst secretary of state in history. and when i run against her evenly in the polls i'm doing very well against hillary, and beating her. if you look throughout the world, during her reign, and the reign of obama, the whole world is blowing up. we've lost our friendships. we've lost everything. >> well, the thing about

branding is you don't have to be -- you can be fact free. if he becomes the nominee, he'll have to sort of hone his criticisms a little more finely because the facts will be easy to marshall. but you know, that -- he's good at this. that's what he does. and the people that he is telling it to now, basically have only heard that story, so they believe it, and it's probably good politics for him. he asked her to come to his wedding when he found out we were going to be in florida. and i don't know how many times he told me what a wonderful job she did for new york as a senator, after 9/11. >> let's turn to the united nations, where president obama led a summit yesterday focused on countering isis and violent extremism around the world. during his remarks he discussed the need to combat isis' ideology and online recruitment efforts saying military pressure alone isn't enough. >> it is not going to be enough

to defeat isil in the battlefield. we have to prevent it from radicalizing, recruiting and inspiring others to violence in the first place. and this means defeating their ideology. ideologies are not defeated with guns, they're defeated by better ideas. the more attractive and compelling visions. we're stepping up our efforts to discredit isil's propaganda, especially online. the uae's new messaging hub is exposing isil for what it is, which is a band of terrorists that kills innocent muslim men, women and children. >> but shortly after the president finished speaking a bipartisan congressional task force released this scathing report on the united states' efforts to combat isis saying, in part, quote we are losing the struggle to stop americans from traveling overseas to join jihadists despite concerted efforts to stem the flow. nearly 30,000 people from more than 100 countries have traveled to conflict zones since 2011, and more than 4500 westerners have joined or attempted to join

jihadist groups, including more than 250 americans. several dozen, the report says, have been -- have managed to even make it back to the united states. heavy fighting continues to rage in northern afghanistan today. government forces backed by usair strikes are battling to regain control of the city of kunduz for a third day after it was seized by taliban fighters. the sudden fall of the city is a major blow for the already shaky national unity government of president afghani who took office just a year ago. though the pentagon acknowledged the assault was clearly a setback it continued to express confidence in the country's security forces. still ahead on "way too early," an execution in georgia despite intervention from the pope. plus famed fashion designer ralph lauren stepping down from the billion dollar empire he created almost half a century ago. more on lauren's successor and the credentials he brings to the table. those stories and a check on weather when "way too early"

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new this morning, georgia has executed its only woman on death row. despite last-minute appeals to the supreme court, kelly gissendaner was given a lethal injection after midnight last night. the appeals process stretched on for months. and even pope francis wrote via the vatican ambassador for clemency. gissendaner was convicted of setting up the murder of her husband, her then-boyfriend acting as his killer. he was sentenced to life in prison after accepting a plea deal. according to state witnesses before her execution she prayed and sobbed and then started singing. >> she said she was sorry that amazing man lost his life because of her, and once the execution started she began singing "amazing grace" and sang it all the way through.

>> gissendaner is the first woman to be executed in the state in 70 years. edward snowden has joined twitter. within the first hour the former government contractor turned fugitive gained more than 160,000 followers. snowden's first tweet borrowed a line from the popular verizon commercial, can you hear me now? in 2013, when snowden leaked classified documents about nsa surveillance, one of his first disclosures was a court order asking verizon to give the government telephone records in their system. snowden is only following one account, and that's the account of the nsa. let's now turn to business where nearly half a century after founding the iconic fashion empire that bears his name, ralph lauren is stepping down as its ceo. stefan larsson, the president of gap's old navy brand will take over the ceo as in november. though lauren plans to remain its executive chairman and chief creative officer. cnbc's steve sedgwick joins us live from london for more. steve, how are investors

reacting to this stunning announcement? >> yeah, at the moment, jonathan, they're taking it pretty well. the shares, germany trading up 3%. after hours last night in the states trading up 5.3%. it's to be expected. the figures have been pretty tough as of late for ralph lauren. the most recent year-on-year revenue slipped 5.3%. but mr. larsson, old navy, he really turned around the aging brand which had gone to $1 billion worth of sales by 2008. he got them up last year to $6 billion. the market is very excited about if he can dot same thing for ralph lauren that he did at old navy. >> and, steve, i can't let you go without asking about volkswagen. seems like we're talking about it every day. says they're going to retro fit millions of diesel cars in the next few days but not in the united states. why is that? >> yeah, there's the problem. 11 million vehicles, they're going to start retro fitting these. unfortunately the states which are normally so far ahead of these things is going to be way behind. this is apparently the wa-189

diesel engine, your guess is as good as mine, there were three different versions in the states. it's not just going to be a software refit but could involve some hardware being refitted to the vehicles as well. plus they have the added complication of having to work with the epa and they're going to be a pretty hard task on this one with volkswagen. they want to get it right in the united states. another company that's got to do a lot of work is fiat chrysler. they have been underreporting a significant amount of deaths, injuries and legal climbs. they're obliged to do this under something called the tread act and it's used by regulators to be an early warning system for accidents to work out if there are fate pal flaws in vehicles, as well. so fiat chrysler has a lot of work to do, as well. not the same magnitude as volkswagen. >> that's an argument for public transportation. steve sedgwick live from london. time now for sports. the ncaa has hit the smu member's basketball team with a slew of sanctions after an investigation revealed multiple infractions related to academic fraud including a former

administrative assistant completing a players' course work for him. you ever do that, bill? >> shocking. >> penalties will keep the team out of the 2016 postseason, include and include scholarship reductions, vacations of wins and a nine game suspension for head coach larry brown. larry brown was not found to be directly involved with the violations but is being punished for what reporting what he knew to the ncaa. >> i am overwhelmingly disappointed for our players, and the smu community that the ncaa has decided to punish them as a result of the unfortunate actions of one staff member who provided inappropriate help to one of our players. the ncaa's new rules dictate as head coach i am responsible for every member of our basketball staff. i accept that responsibility, but do not accept the appropriateness of the punishment.

>> and smu said in a statement it was, quote, simply wrong to punish student athletes by prohibiting postseason competition. now to the nfl and good news for the new england patriots. >> isn't it always good news, though? >> i suppose for the patriots, come on. quarterback tom brady will be available for the super bowl, bill, should the patriots make it that far after federal court said yesterday the earliest it would hear arguments in the nfl's appeal of the deflate-gate decision is the week of february 1st. and you know what? the super bowl is scheduled for february 7th. so it's highly unlikely the case will be finalized before then. earlier this month a federal judge nullified a four-game suspension handed down by commissioner roger goodell against brady for his alleged involvement in the deflating of footballs before last year's afc championship. >> here's the deal. let them go undefeated and then let brady and belichick walk away. forever. moving right along to the nba and a familiar story line for the chicago bulls and their

star guard. derek rose suffered a left orbital fracture after being elbowed in the face during yesterday's practice. the team announced rose will undergo surgery today after which a timetable will be established for his return. >> he gets to wear one of those cool masks, the see thru plastic -- >> like the hannibal lecter mask you mean? >> yes. >> i mean -- okay. >> i wasn't going to quite relate it to that. but yeah. >> i go the movie route, bill. so what's going on behind you? all that red spinning around there in the atlantic. >> do you have any weekend plans? >> yes, i do. i will be in the west coast. >> if you want to cancel them and help me in the weather center -- >> can i do the whole -- >> no, no, no. you can answer the phone -- >> that's not going to work for me. >> good morning, everyone. this storm is going to cause some problems. not for a couple days. it is going to linger here. we have some issues in the central bahamas. they have issued hurricane warnings because it looks like joaquin is going to get close enough to maybe give them about two or three days of significant waves and rain and kind of lashing winds. so as far as the forecast path

in the hurricane center they have it going up to a category 2, border line category 3 storm by saturday morning. we're only wednesday morning. we have to go all the way to saturday morning with this little hook here, and then it will take its trick to the north. now, how far west it gets will impact how far it will hook inland. a lot of our computer models the trend unfortunately is in towards eastern north carolina or virginia. hurricane center has shifted a little bit to the left because of that. 90-mile-per-hour winds so wouldn't be a category 2 or three towards landfall. maybe one, possibly low end two but look at all of our computer models now hooking it towards the east coast. there's one exception and that's our european model. this is what our gvs model looks like. this is our american model. this takes it towards the norfolk, virginia beach area. but the european model which is our most reliable one is way in to the bahamas, and then it takes it towards bermuda which is a head scratcher. we'll see if that changes still about three or four days out.

of course we'll have more information on that throughout the next couple of days. more on "way too early," jonathan when we come back. >> what happened to the cone of uncertainty? i was waiting for that. >> it was there but you missed it. we'll go over that -- >> i mean i saw that -- >> okay. great. still ahead on "way too early," wishful thinking or a slip of the tongue? we'll show you the flub that got big laughs at the u.n. general assembly when we come back. so what's your news? i got a job! i'll be programming at ge. oh i got a job too, at zazzies. (friends gasp) the app where you put fruit hats on animals? i love that! guys, i'll be writing code that helps machines communicate. (interrupting) i just zazzied you. (phone vibrates) look at it! (friends giggle) i can do dogs, hamsters, guinea pigs... you name it. i'm going to transform the way the world works. (proudly) i programmed that hat. and i can do casaba melons. i'll be helping turbines power cities. i put a turbine on a cat. (friends ooh and ahh) i can make hospitals run more efficiently... this isn't a competition! trust number one doctor recommended dulcolax constipated? use dulcolax tablets for gentle overnight relief suppositories for relief in minutes

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now to one of the lighter

moments at the u.n. general assembly. it seems world leaders are also eagerly awaiting an announcement from vice president joe biden on a possible presidential run. >> mr. president -- vice president, sorry. i'm -- well, could have been, can be, who knows. if you have something new to tell us, please let us know. >> last but not least i give the floor to her excellency the high representative of foreign affairs and security policy of the european union. >> vice president, let me thank you for the invitation. >> according to reporters in the room, biden smiled during the initial slip-up. still no word on when he'll make a final decision. that does it for me and "way too early." "morning joe" is just moments away. this kid makes stains like crazy

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