that if i win, if i win, they're going back. they're going back. i'm telling you. they're going back. and new revelations from hillary clinton's e-mail server. but there's also insight into the benghazi investigation. revealing comments from a top republican that has democrats saying it proves what they were saying were right all along. it's 5:30 on the east coast, 2:30 out west, this is definitely "way too early." good morning. it's thursday, october 1st. i'm jonathan capehart reporting from washington. we begin this morning in syria, where yesterday russia began carrying out strategic airstrikes it claims are aimed at repelling isis. the question now is whether the strikes are actually targeting terrorists as their defense ministry has said, or rather

syrian rebels supported by the united states. following the day of bombing russian foreign minister sergey lavrov and u.s. secretary of state john kerry met at the u.n. and had this to say afterwards. >> we agreed that the military should get in to contact with each other very soon. we all want syria democratic, united, secular, syria which is a home for all ethnic and confessional groups whose rights are guaranteed, but we have some differences as for the details on how to get there. >> it is one thing, obviously, to be targeting isil. we're concerned, obviously, that that is not what schaaping. we also agreed that it is imperative to find a solution to this conflict and to avoid escalating it in any way. >> meanwhile, the russian defense ministry released video of its own, claiming terrorist

targets were destroyed in the bombing. but yesterday defense secretary ash carter joined secretary kerry and lawmakers on capitol hill in calling their motivation into question. >> it does appear that they were in areas where there probably were not isil forces, and that is precisely one of the problems with this whole approach. >> the airstrikes came after russia asked the u.s. to clear syrian air space overnight. the state department said that request would be ignored. and u.s.-led airstrikes against isis targets in syria would continue. let's bring in nbc news correspondent john yang who is live in london. john, what's the latest? >> good morning, jonathan. well, we are getting fresh reports just now, unconfirmed by nbc news, of fresh new airstrikes on a syrian town held by u.s.-backed rebels fighting syrian president bashar al assad. russian officials are insisting that its warplanes are hitting

isis targets and say that any suggestions to the contrary are just disinformation. as you just heard there both the united states and russia agree that they want to fight isis. they disagree about how to do it. president obama says assad has to go, but he's russia's best ally in the region, and vladimir putin wants to boost him against the rebels whom he calls terrorists. on "morning joe," a syrian opposition leader said russian involvement would just make matters worse. >> we were about starting political process with the russians. >> right. >> and with the syrian regime. but, the russian invasion will not help this process. it will demolish this process. so -- and it will -- >> demolish it how? how will it demolish it? >> well, we have now the russians are helping the regime in order to kill more civilians, and more syrians. so we cannot continue political

process while we are facing death inside syria. so we don't think that the russians would -- they brought their weapons in in order to prolong the life of bashar al assad, not to fight daesh. and with further extremes inside syria, because the extreme fighters react against the russians. u.s. officials say they have grave concerns about what russia's doing, but seem to be acknowledging at the same time, there's not much they can do about it. jonathan? >> thanks. afghan officials say they have regained control of the strategic northern city of kunduz which was captured by the taliban earlier this week. an operation to clear the city is ongoing this morning. authorities say after afghan security forces pushed in to the city late last night, forcing the insurgents to retreat in heavy straight fighting, that is reportedly still under way in various parts of the city. but the taliban denies their victory has been undone.

local officials claim kunduz is still in the hands of insurgents and that, quote, the taliban flag is still flying over the city. we're also watching hurricane joaquin. now a category 3 storm. dangerously close to the bahamas. and could hit the united states this weekend. bill karins is tracking it all. bill, what are the latest models -- >> hey, jonathan. just take a picture of the storm full screen, just show you first off how huge this storm has gotten. how strong and powerful it is. major hurricane category 3. and you notice all the bright red colors on the map here. this is what we were watching. it now is closer than what was expected yesterday this time in the central bahamas. that's where the most devastating effects are taking place. that's where we're going to see the hurricane force winds, the storm surge and also all the very heavy rain. that's this category 3 storm. you can see where we're located near florida. as far as the currents go, 120 miles per hour winds. one of the strongest storms we've seen in the atlantic basin this season. it's 80 miles from san salvador

island. that's that little island, there's a club med there, about 400 people. not a lot of people there. as far as the latest forecast from the hurricane center, takes it to the north and then bends it back still towards threatening north carolina and the mid-atlantic. possibly even jersey up towards long island. jonathan, there's still a lot of questions, a lot of disagreement on where it ends up. i'll explain all that coming up and show you a lot of the different scenarios coming up in about ten minutes. >> all right, bill, thanks a lot. to presidential politics. donald trump campaigned in western new hampshire last night where he was met by a huge crowd. trump delivered two speeches. one for his main audience and another for an overflow room. after talking about the developments in syria, trump shared his message to any migrants who might be headed to the united states. >> now i hear we want to take in 200,000 syrians. right? they could be isis. i don't know. did you ever see a migration like that? they're all men. and they're all strong-looking guys.

did you see it? they're walking and there's so many men, there aren't that many women. and i'm saying to myself, why aren't they fighting to save syria? why are they migrating all over europe? seriously. i'm putting the people on notice that are coming here from syria as part of this mass migration, that if i win, if i win, they're going back. they're going back. i'm telling you. they're going back. >> that's not all of the ground trump covered. he compared his promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants to president eisenhower's, and his language turned colorful when talking about his opponents. >> so they asked rubio, what do you think of bush? oh, he's my dear friend. wonderful, just wonderful. they hate each other. they hate. trust me. i know. they hate so much. they hate more than anybody in this room hates their neighbor. any. but it's political bull [ bleep ] do you understand? it's true.

it's true. >> a new national poll of the republican presidential race shows a new top tier solidifying. donald trump is still on top with 23%. and tied for second are ben carson and carly fiorina, both with 13 points. senator marco rubio comes up next. he's from florida, of course, and he's placing fourth. it's the third consecutive major national poll in which rubio has eclipsed jeb bush, who was -- has dropped six points in the polls since july. among the general electorate carson is rated the most favorable, while donald trump is the least, with a net negative rating of 34 points. the latest fund-raising numbers show carson surging, as well. his campaign raised more than $20 million in the past three months. more than twice the amount he brought in over the previous quarter, and more than the entire gop field raised in the same quarter last election cycle. carson's senior team celebrated last night with a red, white and

blue chocolate cake topped with a frosted $31 million. the total amount the campaign has raised thus far. carson also surpassed trump as the candidate with the most facebook likes. and among the democrats, hillary clinton pulled in $28 million in the last quarter. just beating out vermont senator bernie sanders, who brought in $26 million. "the washington post" reports that by last night sanders had received $1.3 million donations from about 650,000 different donors. which means he's outpacing president obama in both his 2008 and 2012 campaigns. out this morning the latest batch of e-mails from hillary clinton's server. portions of 215 of them have been retro actively marked classified. and the ap was first to report that the server was the target of at least five fiphishing attempts that came in the form of speeding tickets sent by hackers with russian ties. the clinton campaign says they have no evidence to suggest she replied to the e-mails, or

opened an attachment. and also say the system was never breached. but the new trove of e-mails reveal awareness of hacking attempts. in one exchange clinton jokes about a discrepancy over staffers' personal and department e-mail address. quote, i just checked, and i do have your state, but not your gmail. so how did that happen? must be the chinese. and in june 2011, anne marie slaughter wrote to the secretary, quote, i'm sure you've thought of this, but it would be a great time for someone inside or outside to make a statement or write an op-ed that points out that state's technology is so antiquated that no one uses a state-issued laptop, and even high officials routinely end up using their home e-mail accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively. clinton agreed and asked how best to follow up. her chief of staff cheryl mills suggested it's better to hear from someone on the outside adding, quote, i'm not sure we want to telegraph how much folks

do or don't do after state e-mail because it may encourage others who are out there to try hacking them. and comments from house majority leader kevin mccarthy about the benghazi committee have drawn condemnation from both democrats and republicans alike. they could endanger his status as front-runner to replace speaker john boehner. >> everybody thought hillary clinton was unbeatable, right? but we put together a benghazi special committee. a select committee. what are her numbers today? her numbers are dropping. why? because she's untrustable. but no one would have known any of that had happened had we not -- >> i agree -- >> i think everybody here at the white house takes mr. mccarthy at his word. i think the thing that's happening here is that leader mccarthy has committed the classic washington gaffe of saying something that everybody already knows is true. >> you see all the hammering he's getting today for that statement he made on fox last night. >> well, i think rightfully so.

that's an absolute inappropriate statement. it is not how this started. we wanted to get to the truth of it. the more we dive into this the more we've learned about it, but that was not the reason we started. we started because there were four dead americans. i think it's an absolute terrible statement. i don't think it's a fair characterization -- >> he should apologize? >> yeah, i think he should apologize. i think he should withdraw it. i think it's an absolute inaccurate statement as to what we're doing and have done on the work on benghazi. >> and here's how clinton reacted in an interview with reverend al sharpton. >> what's your response to mccarthy's comments? >> i have to tell you, i find them deeply distressing. i knew the ambassador that we lost in benghazi. along with him, we lost three other brave americans who were representing us in a very dangerous part of the world. when i hear a statement like that, which demonstrates unequivocally that this was always meant to be a partisan,

political exercise, i feel like it does a grave disservice, and dishonors not just the memory of the four that we lost, but of everybody who has served our country. still ahead on "way too early," another scandal involving the secret service. the agency accused of breaking privacy laws while trying to dig up dirt on a critic in congress. and we're still tracking hurricane joaquin but there's a more immediate problem for parts of the east coast. rain and major flooding. another check with bill karins when "way too early" comes back.

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make a comeback. the homeland security department's inspector general said scores of u.s. secret service employees improperly accessed agency records of congressman jason chaffetz's 2003 application to join the secret service. 'plied then to become an agent and was turned down. chaffetz is the chairman of the house oversight committee, and was leading the investigation into a series of recent scandals at the agency. an investigation that continues today. the report said the actions of the secret service employees could be criminal, chaffetz reacted. >> digesting it. shocked and surprised. >> reporter: according to the report the assist agent director of the secret service wrote in a march e-mail to a colleague, some information that chaffetz might find embarrassing needs to get out just to be fair. the report also found employees accessed chaffetz's old job application only 18 minutes after the start of a march congressional hearing he was leading about the latest secret service scandal. his unsuccessful application was then reported a few days later in the daily beast.

>> it's a bit scary. if they would do this to me, i just shudder to think what they might be doing to other people. >> reporter: this latest embarrassment comes as the agency was rebuilding after a series of black eyes. in 2012, several agents were dismissed after soliciting prostitutes during an official presidential trip in colombia. last september a man jumped over the white house fence and made it all the way inside the executive mansion. this past march, two senior agents ran into a security barrier after drinking at a retirement party. a major step back after earning high praise from the president for protecting the pope. >> i wanted to make a special commendation of our secret service. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson issued an apology to congressman chaffetz stating activities like those described in the report must not and will not be tolerated. it came down to the wire, but congress managed to avert a government shut down. the house passed a temporary

bill which includes funding for planned parenthood that will keep the government running through december 11? . democrats are now looking to lift spending caps from the sequester but most republicans are only open to an increase in military spending. let's turn to wall street, where despite a rally on wednesday, trading u.s. stocks still posted their steepest quarterly loss in four years. cnbc's jeff cutmore joins us live from london. well, jeff, at least they closed on a solid note? >> yeah. but it was an ugly quarter, it really was. if you look at the breakdown of the keep markets, the s&p was off nearly 7%, both the dow, and the nasdaq off more than 7% for the quarter, as a whole here. so there are a lot of people who along this market who are feeling very bruised as we come in to the last quarter of the year. so, we're scratching around for good news. and we may not have to wait too long. so just bear this in mind. we have an adp private sector

jobs number that was better than expectations. now that has raised hopes that the government jobs figure we get on friday will be strong, as well, and that will encourage the markets to believe that the worst of the stock market declines are now behind us. but never say never, of course. but boy, it was a tough quarter for anybody who was trying to be bullish about equities. and china is still out there as an issue, and the question of when janet yellen is going to pull the trigger on interest rates at the federal reserve. back to you. >> there's another name we need to talk about, jack dorsey, the interim twitter ceo but apparently he's going to be made the permanent ceo? >> yeah, absolutely. jack is back in real terms this time. he was appointed as interim, as you've made clear here, dick costello, of course, didn't manage to do the job as far as the shareholders are concerned in this business. twitter continues to have troubles as far as generating a

decent return for the business's concerns. a lot of people are saying it's a great story for journalists who use it as a news feed, but what is twitter really for? and will people watch the ads on twitter? so it is mr. dorsey's job to try and get twitter's earnings back on track. back to you. >> all right. jeff cutmore live from london. thank you. it's that time. time for sports. tony stewart officially announced his retirement from nascar's sprint cup yesterday. stewart said the decision was not influenced by a broken leg suffered in 2013, or his involvement in the death of kevin ward jr. last year. the driver will remain involved in nascar as an owner, and plans to continue to race in other series. >> i'm not leaving the sport i love. i'm not walking away from something that i'm passionate about. i'm just changing roles. which it's like just moving to a different position in a company. so i'm not really retiring. i'm just changing positions. >> stewart's retirement will

wrap up an 18-year sprint cup career with three sprint cup titles. he ranks 13th all-time. clint bowyer is set to replace him. a federal appeals court upheld a ruling against the ncaa saying its use of college athletes' likenesses violates antitrust laws. however the court struck down a plan allowing schools to pay athletes up to $5,000 for the commercial use of their names and images. but said the ncaa could not stop schools from providing full scholarships. now let's move on to major league baseball. in pittsburgh the cardinals wrap up their 100th win of the season with an 11-1 victory over the pirates last night. with that st. louis clinches its third straight n.l. central title, punching a ticket straight to the nlds. and in baltimore, the blue jays clinched the a.l. east crown after a 15-2 victory over the orioles. it's the club's first division title since 1993.

quite the celebration there in the locker room. bill is here now. >> that's how we celebrate, jonathan. >> yeah, i know. i'm sorry i'm not there with you but i'm very much looking forward to seeing where the cone of uncertainty is today. >> yeah, it goes all the way from here to where you are, by the way. the cone of uncertainty still huge. one thing we do know, let's talk about what we do know. we still have to wait for the computer models to give us a little bit better guidance on where the storm is going to end up. we're going to deal with possibly historic flooding rain in the carolinas. this front is going to stall, it's going to pull some moisture in from joaquin and then we're going to get two to three day's worth of tremendous amount of rain, even before the storm even comes anywhere close to the u.s. our gfs computer model saying up to eight inches in columbia. charleston a foot of rain. lesser amounts from norfolk northwards. then as we go to the european computer model. we could get, possibly of 17 to 20 inches of rain from western

north carolina into upstate south carolina. so that's where the biggest risk of the flooding is. as far as our computer models go, our european model still takes the storm toward bermuda. it hasn't budged. our american gfs model instead of going towards the carolinas, it shifted a little toward the east toward new england or possibly new jersey. again, these are just -- these have been all over the place. we have to wait and see probably about one more day and then i think we'll have a better estimate of where it's headed. >> all right, bill, thanks. we'll be right back. .. the new consultants are here. it's not just big data, its bigger data. we're beta testing the new wearable interface... ♪ xerox believes finding the right solution shouldn't be so much work. by engineering a better way for people, process and technology to work together. work can work better. with xerox.

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that does it for me and "way too early". joe and mika are up next with the latest from syria. russia claims it's bombing isis but all signs point to an assault to prop up the assad regime. plus presidential candidate jeb bush joins the table. that and much more coming up next on "morning joe." how do you stay on top of your health? ahh... ahh... cigna customers have plan choices and tools to take control. so they're more engaged, with fewer high health risks and lower medical costs. take control of your health at cigna dot com slash take control. it takes a lot of work... but i really love it.s. i'm on the move all day long... and sometimes, i just don't eat the way i should. so i drink boost® to get the nutrition that i'm missing. boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d to support strong bones and 10 grams of protein to help maintain muscle. all with a great taste. i don't plan on slowing down any time soon.

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. you know it's bad when it's completely dark out. good morning. it's thursday, october 1st. here we go. september is over. it's over. it's done with. >> i get a vacation. >> welcome to morning joe everyone. with us this morning we have the managing editor of bloomberg politics. msnbc correspondent and al hunt along with joe, willie and me. okay, a lot to get to. >> how are you willie? >> i'm great. a busy morning. another busy morning. >> in every way it