>> president obama in argentina where he called on the world to unite against terrorism. and then later in the day ends up doing a little tango at the state dinner. it is 5:30 on the east coast, 2:30 out west. this is "way too early." good morning, everyone. it's thursday, march 24. i'm alex witt. we start with the latest on the terror attacks in brussels where a massive manhunt is under way. much of what we thought we knew about the men in picture has changed yesterday. the man in the center is identified as ibrahim el

bakraoui. yesterday, the belgian police found a will of sorts left behind on a computer in the brussels trash can. el bakraoui had written that he needed to rush and no longer felt safe. meanwhile, officials say the man standing next to him in the picture is najim laachraoui believed to be a bomb maker. belgian and u.s. officials say he's certain he died at the airport based on dna there. khalid el bakraoui was the suicide bomber who attacked the brussels subway and that information comes as a senior u.s. counterterrorism officials says that the brothers helped facilitate the attacks in paris last november. as we mentioned a massive manhunt is still under way for the third man in the surveillance video. he has yet to be identified by police. joining us from brussels, nbc senior white house correspondent chris jansing. good day to you. new evidence suggests there may have been more attacks to come. >> reporter: that's right, alex. they went to this house where

essentially it was a bomb making factory. huge amounts of explosives. they say they could have made so many more suicide belts and that that's an indication to them of one of two things. it's possible that the attacks that were pulled off here were meant to be much bigger, but they were hastened by the 235k9 that -- by the fact that salah abdeslam who was of course the paris attacker who had been on the run for the last four months was arrested and so they were getting nervous and felt they had november it up. -- had to move it up. or a series of more attacks were planned. so that's to what's happened here. let's go back to ibrahim el bakraoui. they had him essentially. here's what belgian officials said. we didn't know that he was a terrorist. now he did have a criminal record, he at one point had pointed a kalashnikov rifle at police in the middle of a robbery. having said that, they said no links to terror at all. so yesterday, president erdogan

of turkey said they're not telling the truth. which caught him on the turkish/syrian border last summer and we alerted the officials in netherlands and they didn't do anything about it. it's getting big headlines here. i'm not far from where the parliament is and the officials are saying we need to get our intelligence sharing gathering together. there are more than a dozen here in belgium. so it's not just a question of sharing with other countries, it's also information sharing within individual countries. it's a big question they're looking at now. we expect more raids here in belgium. alex? >> somewhat reminiscent of the year before 9/11. this morning we are waiting to learn more details about the americans injured in tuesday's terror attacks. right now, a number of u.s.

citizens remain missing and not every u.s. government employee or family member on the ground has been accounted for. three mormon missionaries from utah were injured in the attacks. 66-year-old richard norby is in a medically induced coma. two others are recovering from second degree burns. new york brother and sister sasha and alexander pinczowski were on the phone when the attack happened and they have not been heard from since. and the shults are believed to be missing. a family member said that the state department said they were located but later said that information was incorrect. new this morning, iraq has reportedly launched the long awaited offensive to recapture mosul from isis. a spokesperson says that they have retaken the town east of mosul. the coalition is providing airport. mosul is iraq's second largest

city and it fell into isis' control in june of 2014. last night, president obama was in buenos aires, argentina, and attending a state dinner. at one point he was guided from his table right there to the dance floor to try out the tango. he occasionally struggled with the difficult steps and the first lady eventually joined in as well. and if the song they danced to sounds familiar, there's probably a good reason. it's the same song as in the iconic tango scene from "scent of a woman" where al pacino whisks a strange around the dance floor. earlier in the day the president spoke alongside president mauricio macri and he was asked if he is taking the scourge of terrorism seriously. >> groups like isil can't destroy us, they don't produce anything. they're not an existential threat to us. their primary power in addition to killing innocent lives is to

strike fear in our societies. and that is how -- that is how we are going to defeat these terrorist groups. in part because we're going after them and taking strikes against them. and arresting them and getting intelligence on them. and cooperating with other countries, but a lot of it is also going to be to say you do not have power over us. >> president obama also joined the growing chorus condemning senator ted cruz's proposal to patrol muslim neighborhoods in the wake of the belgium terror attacks. >> as far as the notion of having surveillance of neighborhoods where muslims are present, i just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance. which by the way the father of senator cruz escaped for america, the land of the free.

>> meanwhile, senator cruz and hillary clinton found themselves on the same side taking aim at donald trump's recent comments about possibly pulling back american support of nato. >> there are people who say that america needs to be the leader of nato. that that's an important role. do you agree, america -- >> we're paying a disproportionate share and it's helping them more than us. we're putting up a lot of money. >> should america be the leader of nato or not? >> i think nato is obsolete. it was set up a long time ago. many, many years, we were a rich country, we had nothing but money, far more than today in a true sense. i think nato you have to really examine nato. it doesn't really help us it's helping other countries. i don't think the other countries appreciate what we're doing. >> donald trump's foreign policy

is bizarre. and it is -- he's gotten very little understanding of foreign policy and what he does know is wrong. what he has been advocating is weakness, withdrawal from the world, isolationism. if donald trump had his way, if america did withdraw from nato it would hand a massive victory to putin. a massive victory to isis. and the idea that donald trump would want the presidency to begin with a preemptive surrender, turning tail and running that's a sign of weakness and it's striking that donald's foreign policy is to the left of barack obama and hillary clinton. >> turning our back on our alliances or turning our alliance into the protection racket would reverse decades of bipartisan american leadership. and send a dangerous signal to friend and foe alike. putin already hopes to divide europe. if mr. trump gets his way, it

will be like christmas in the kremlin. it will make america less safe and the world more dangerous. >> this while cruz and trump butted heads over each other's wives. trump has been incensed since a super pac blasted out a ad of his wife from 16 years ago. the caption says meet melania trump, your next first lady, or support cruz. donald trump tweeted be careful, lyin' ted or i'll spill the beans on your wife. yesterday, heidi cruz reacted. >> you probably know by now that most of the things that donald trump says have no basis in reality so we are not worried in our campaign. >> we are going to assert a standard because of the bringing in of wives of candidates is so

unseemly. >> i agree with you. oh, i agree with you. i mean, i did -- i said, be careful otherwise i have to start talking about your situation. do i like doing that, no? should that have been done by him and he knew about it. >> late last night, trump retreated a picture of heidi cruz and melania, no need to spill the beans, the image is worth a thousand words. and it an neers the republican establishment is making prepation for the trump nomination with "the washington post" reporting that big donors will abandon the presidential race and focus on stemming losses in congress if trump is the nominee. three new polls show trump leading among primary voters. ahead 12 points in the monmouth poll and just three points in the fox news poll. trump has consistently led

nationally since shortly after entering the race. the mayor of phoenix is asking for a federal investigation after some residents were forced to wait in line for more than four hours to vote. in the letter to the u.s. attorney general, greg stanton says that they had far fewer polling locations in the minority communities. by one count, the county had 70% fewer polling locations than four years ago. they seemed to blame it on voters for turning old in large numbers. now, she's trying to clarify. >> voters turned out and that's a wonderful thing. i probably should have said it last night but i have said it this morning several times. we screwed up. there were a number of factors that caused the problems yesterday. one of the biggest ones is we didn't have enough polling places. >> that was your decision. >> it was my decision, yes. >> you had -- >> my fault. >> we do not know how many thousands of people who wanted

to vote yesterday in arizona did not vote. we don't know if they wanted to vote for bernie sanders, hillary clinton, donald trump or whoever. in the united states of america, democracy is the foundation of our way of life. people should not have to wait five hours to vote. and what happened yesterday in arizona is a disgrace. >> arizona's governor called the long lines quote unacceptable. the state house of representatives is set to hold the special meeting next week to discuss what went wrong. up next, remembering a sports legend who was the voice of baseball for decades. plus, a legendary career filled with award, records and controversy, a-rod puts an end date on his baseball run. when he says he'll hang up his cleats. springtime in america. bill karins is tracking the late season blizzard that's still on the move. that and more when "way too early" comes back.

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i grew up in st. louis -- >> joe garagiola and baseball were as connected a pair as baseball and apple pie. >> what number press conference is this for you? >> reporter: after a nine-year run in the '40s and '50s, he made a turn to broadcasting and found lasting success. his folksy ways was a hit. >> you have to watch that infield and outfield. >> reporter: he called games for nbc for a quarter century. filled in for johnny carson, served two stintsdz -- stints on the "today" show. he worked as a broadcaster for the arizona diamondbacks. he was 90 years old. >> that was ron mott reporting on joe garagiola who passed away yesterday. elsewhere in the world of

baseball, controversial yankee slugger alex rodriguez told espn yesterday he plans to retire at the end of the 2017 season, the final year of the ten-year contract with the club. rodriguez who turns 41 in july enters the 2016 season with 687 career home runs. needing just 28 more to pass babe ruth for third on baseball's all-time list. turning now to the action in the nba court, where in oakland, the defending champion warriors extend the regular record home win streak to 51 games after the 114-98 win over the clippers. curry led the way with 33 points. the warriors are 64-7 on the season. nine victories away from setting the new all-time wins mark. to denver where the nuggets trailed the 76ers by two points with just over three seconds remaining in regulation. >> arthur looking for the baseball pass. got moodier.

moodier -- he lets it go! he got it! he got it. >> look at that denver's emanuel moodier drains that game-winning shot at the buzzer. the nuggets win it. what a shot. and finally in houston the rockets take foul shot distractions to a new level with this stunt. the team's mascot summons a man painted green from a trash can, positioned under the net. the living portray of "sesame street's" oscar the grouch is not distracting enough for hood. sinking the free throw. the jazz went on to beat the rockets. kind of a dirty trick out of the trash can. >> yeah. that was good. >> all right, now a check of the weather. >> around denver to colorado, all the way up to wyoming, this blizzard was just impressive. cars and 18 wheelers were jackknifed, cars were stranded out on the roads. schools obviously were cancelled

throughout the region. how about this, the gusty winds in oklahoma. imagine this was your plane that was landing. looklike he's going the wrong way. he's just trying to hold it. at the last second, he manages to turn the nose up the runway. wow. yeah. there are some people doing some -- yeah, some thank yous after this one. clapping for the pilot. let's talk about the storm this morning. the storm that was in colorado is moving across the country. a little bit of light snow in northern new england. messy from buffalo to rochester. a mix of everything. cold rain, some sleet in here. the freezing rain and the little bit of snow around rochester. northern michigan is going to get dosed with heavy snow throughout the day and green bay. the highway in lacrosse is difficult right now. windy and additional snowfall, green bay can pick up another four inches. sheboygan and northern michigan. detroit looks fine too. maybe a thunderstorm for you.

as far as severe weather, we didn't have a tornado last night. houston's watching some storms approaching your area. 10 million people at risk of severe storms today up through southern portions of kentucky. this storm is moving. thankfully we didn't have any tornadoes, no deaths or fatalities. typical march storm. >> thank you so much, bill karins. they say it's not the crime but the cover-up. the governor of alabama says he denied having an affair with an adviser. we'll tell you why he's apologizing ghai. on the screen directly with the image, it takes me back to my time as a painter. and i just can't do that on my mac.

thiand being able to use've worked oa pen like thisk. on the screen directly with the image, it takes me back to my time as a painter. and i just can't do that on my mac.

this morning the governor of alabama robert bently is refusing to resign but is apologizing after allegations of impropriety with an adviser. earlier the former head of the alabama law enforcement agency accused him of firing him after refusing to cover up the affair. he had been a father figure to him for years until -- >> i saw the first sign of change in governor robert bentley in august of 2014. i became aware of a text message that was sent from ms. rebekah mason to governor bentley. the text message was accidentally intercepted by governor bentley's body man -- his personal security. that man was sergeant stan

stabler. stabler accidentally picked up his cell phone as he left it in the suburban. and on the cell phone, there was a text that was sexual in nature. on august 5th, chief lewis came into my office and played me parts of an audio recording in which governor bentley and rebekah mason were having an inappropriate sexual conversation. chief lewis received it from a family member. i made governor bentley aware of the recording that i heard. at that point, i explained to governor bentley it would be a crime if he used state sources to facilitate a relationship or used campaign funds to facilitate the relationship. governor bentley assured me he had done neither from august of 2014 until the present, it's become apparent to me that mason has wielded a level of influence over both the governor and state government that i have never

seen in all my years of public service. rebekah mason was not elected by anyone and the level of influence makes her a de facto governor. >> i have apologized to my family and to mrs. mason and her family and i apologize to them for any conversations and behavior that was inappropriate. today, i want to apologize to the people of the state of alabama. and once again, i want to apologize to my family. i am truly sorry. i have not had a physical relationship with mrs. mason. and at times in the past have i said things that i should not have said, absolutely, that's what i'm saying today. what i'm saying is there was no sexual activity. >> do you love mrs. mason? >> i love many member of my staff. in fact, all the members of my

staff. do i love others more than others, some more than other, absolutely. >> mr. collier said today you had quote admitted to him you were madly in love. >> well, i don't think i have ever said that to mr. collier. >> sir -- you have trusted collier for years in your administration. why shouldn't people believe what he is saying now? why is there magically a different standard for him? >> well, what mr. collier is saying is not accurate or true. >> bentley added he's never done anything illegal and has never asked any member of his staff or cabinet to lie. spencer collier said he found out via social media he had been fired by the governor for allegedly misusing state funds, a charge he denied. mrs. mason could not be reached for comment. mrs. bentley filed for divorce. that does it for me and coming

up on "morning joe" new information on the bombing in brussels and the suspects and the terror plot in paris last year. senator graham will talk about that, his endorsement of ted cruz and the effort to stop trump. and president obama took heat for attending a baseball game so what will critics say about him doing the tango in argentina? that and much more coming up next on "morning joe." atand that in a new house,tee a fyou probably don't sharece, the same tastes as the previous owner. ♪ [ dolphin chatters ] so when you need a little house painting or a complete remodel, we'll help you get the job done right, guaranteed. get started today at angie's list, because your home is where our heart is.

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good morning, it's thursday, march 24. joe is off this morning, but with us here on "morning joe" we have former communications director for president george w. bush, nicolle wallace. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. managing editor of bloomberg politics, mark halperin. and in washington, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele, along with willie and me. good to have you on board. we have a lot to get to today. another busy news morning. we'll go live to brussels in just a momwh