democrats. it all has to do with costs. how did you think he did? >> i thought it was a workman like press conference. that was the best part of it. but i don't think he has the answers yet on health care that's going to move democrats in the middle. all republicans are going to be against him. it's those moderate to conservative democrats in the house and senate he's playing for. last night, i don't think, they saw anything from what i've heard. >> what are they concerned about? >> what's that? >> what are they -- >> actually it's the deficit which is a nice number to attach to a wigger bigger, more generalized issue, the federal government is getting -- they're taking over too much of our industry. that's what you hear. that's what we heard when we went out and so it's sort of a culmination of that. it's a deficit issue and

washington getting too big too fast and, willie, i know you're going to be doing a lot of math on your new show. >> almost exclusively arithmetic. >> 40% of the gdp this year is going to be spent on the government, the most since world war ii. one other follow-up. i went and checked that $23 trillion number because i felt badly. steven said i was being cynical by putting that out there so i was wondering what hyper charged right-wing site came up with that number. >> right. >> do you know who did it? the united states congress. that's their number. >> they're whack jobs. >> they're cynical. a question people keep asking me, the president said again last night we're going to get it done by this august vacation, why politically does it have to get done in the next two weeks? why? >> the numbers are falling. independents are bleeding very

quickly. >> you didn't buy his answer? he kept saying he gets letters from people who need health care. >> he should have read the letters, by the way. >> maybe so but that doesn't wash anymore. remember we asked democrats, we won't mention names because they're friends of ours, on a friday they had to pass the stimulus package. we have to pass before we get out of town. i'd say, well, can't you just pass it on monday and read the biggest spending bill ever? he said, people will lose their jobs if we don't pass -- i swear to god that was their argument. hurry up. haste, i think i came up with this myself -- >> okay. >> haste makes waste. >> write that down, barnicle. >> haste -- >> why don't i do this. >> that's a good one, joe. >> i have another one. ready? a stitch in time -- >> time now for a look at some of today's top stories. president obama will start right there keeping the pressure on

health care reform with a visit today to the cleveland clinic in ohio following his prime time news conference last night where he acknowledged concerns over the trillion dollar proposal. >> i understand the people are feeling uncertain about this. they feel anxious partly because we've just become so cynical about what government can accomplish. that people's attitudes are, you know, even though i don't like this devil, at least i know it and i like that more than the devil i don't know. my hope is, and i'm confident that when people look at the cost of doing nothing, they're going to say, we can make this happen. >> in a rare show of defiance toward ayatollah khamenei, mahmoud ahmadinejad is preserving his choice for a top vice president. it comes in spite of strong opposition from hard line elements who criticize that candidates stance. secretary of state hillary

clinton is strengthen iing suggesting a missile defense umbrella for allies in the gulf. speaking in thailand she also took on reporters' questions about her future ambitions. >> will we ever get to see you as president of the united states? >> well, that's not anything i'm at all thinking about. i think the job i have now is incredibly demanding. i'm not somebody who looks ahead. i don't know but i doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life. >> so it's wait and see? >> no, no, no. >> never say never. >> well, i am saying no because i have a very committed attitude toward the job i'm doing now so that's not anything that is at all on my radar screen. >> secretary clinton will be david gregory's exclusive guest for the full hour on sunday's "meet the press." there are reports today that

said one of osama bin laden's sons was killed in a missile strike in pakistan earlier this year. it's believed the 27-year-old was not the target of the u.s. attack but was among those killed when a predator drone fired a missile at an al qaeda target. investigators looking into the death of michael jackson continue to focus on 0 the pop star's personal physician. on wednesday officials raided the houston clinic of dr. conrad murray who was with jackson at the time of his death. it's the latest sign jackson's death is being investigated as a manslaughter. >> they always go after the doctors. remember elvis' doctors? >> anna nicole smith. >> certain situations that need to enablement. and the cambridge police officer -- the president talked about this last night -- that was so interesting. arrested harvard professor tells "the boston herald" he has nothing to apologize for. sergeant james crowley arrested

gates for disorder letter conduct while police were investigated a reported break-in at his home. he denied the incident had anything to do with race. >> we'll talk more about that definitely. there's an op-ed about it as well. let's get a check on the weather now. >> must we? >> yes, we must. he will be polite. i filed something through human resources yesterday. >> so he can't make -- >> he won't talk about your wife. >> good because he made my wife very uncomfortable. >> i'm sure. i'm sure. >> it's awkward. >> it's really awkward. all right, to bill -- >> those 60-day restraining orders. >> well, he's on notice. >> and then on the 61st day they start harassing again. >> i think suspended. we'll see. >> serial harassment. >> let's go to bill karins. >> this coming from barnicle. how bad is that? >> a check on the forecast, bill? >> barnicle taught me everything i know. >> you didn't have to tell us

that. we know. >> and just for the record, i did tell hr i would keep it professional and no longer bring up how beautiful, friendly, and good looking joe's wife is. >> he just goes right up the line. he goes right up to the line. >> whoa. >> wow. >> no, that's -- >> no, that's fine. you just do the weather. he didn't talk about the shades of her lipstick. that is when it really gets -- he's lost it then. this morning, you need your umbrella in certain areas, detroit, cleveland, up through buffalo, possibly even heavy rain this morning around erie. as far as joe's wife and everyone else is concerned from d.c. up to philadelphia and new york, hartford and boston, bring your umbrella. you don't really need it this morning but you will need it later on this afternoon as the heavy rain will move back in. the forecast today will be dry to start your morning. later on this afternoon you'll have some wet weather to deal with. the rest of the country looks good. all of those airports on the

west coast look fine. dallas looks good and chicago. a nice cool 77. and i think i'm in enough trouble. we'll leave it at that. >> that a boy. okay. good job there, bill. all right. time for our top drn. >> william, take us through top talkers, please. >> let's do that. let's get back to the gates case out of cambridge, massachusetts. turned up a lot of interest right now. gates' daughter interviewed him for "the daily beast." i want to show you a little bit of that exchange. this is what mr. gates said to his daughter. quote, if i had been white this incident never would have happened. he would have asked at the door, excuse me, are you okay? because there are two black men around here trying to rob you. i think he violated the rule by not giving his name and badge number and i think he would have given that to one of my white colleagues or white neighbors so race definitely played a role whether he's an individual racist, i don't know.

i don't know him. but i think he stereo typed me. charges have been dropped against professor gates. he's seeking an apology from the police department there, the individual officer says he has nothing to apologize for but this is flaming up even today. there's a lot of interest in the story. >> mike, that's your backyard. what's going on? >> well, i think there's a couple of things going on. obviously as we spoke yesterday this would not have happened to a white guy on the front porch of his own home in that area of cambridge, massachusetts. at the same time, you know, i don't think we should get into the business of demonizing the cops. >> i know. >> we don't know what the whole story is. we know portions of the story. i feel badly for professor gates this happened to him but i'm beginning to feel badly now for the cop. it's a tough job. it's a tough call. maybe he made a mistake. i don't know. let's not demonize him. >> spoke to the boston herald --

>> the cop did, yes. >> apparently saying trying to defend himself, i'm not a racist. and was even citing moments in his record he performed mou mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on reggie lewis. i mean, these are the stories that are coming out about him. i just feel like there is something we don't know or there's part of the story that we'll never really understand. >> something happened in the house, in the verbal exchange in the house -- >> things got heated. >> between professor gates and the police. >> it doesn't make the ultimate situation okay. >> i think that -- i'm not going to say both can be right. >> no. >> we could have a situation where both actions were understandable where you have dr. gates who as a black man at his age has been treated as a second class citizen for a large part of his life. as i said yesterday if i were a man of color inside my own house and a police officer came in

asking me for my id i'd say, look at the pictures. and i think -- i mean, there's no way i can even walk a mile in his shoes. i would have been belligerent. this police officer, maybe he's just, you know, you don't scream and yell and berate police officers. >> the president was asked about his thoughts what happened. he said as a disclaimer he's biased. he's a friend of professor gates but here's how he reflected on the gates story. >> i don't know -- not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. i think it's fair to say any of

us would have been angry. number two, that the cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof they were in their own home. and, number three, what i think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there is a long history in this country of african-americans and latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. that's just a fact. >> we talked about this in congress and judiciary committee. it became a pattern that if you were a man of color -- a man -- and you were under 30 years old and you were driving up i-95 and you were in a nice car, that's all it took. you got stopped because the assumption was you were running drugs and so the judiciary committee investigated that.

i understand you cannot berate them and disturb the peace. maybe this is just because i'm a guy, let me ask the guys. as a man who had to endure that repeatedly, and i'm not saying somehow it's easier for women. i'm just saying guys have a reaction to respond differently. >> i have to bite my tongue during a traffic stop. if someone came in my home, i don't know how i would have controlled myself. >> that's magnified if you're black. go into a high-end department store, a high-end jewelry store -- >> right. >> they're going to look at the black guy. you could be the thief. they're going to look at the black guy. >> that's something, mika, that hasn't changed since president obama got elected president.

you heard all of these people shedding tears. blah, blah, blah. >> no. >> be an african-american male, dress as well as you want to dress, be 23 years old and be like the walker in l.a., walk through bel air. some of the nicer places and see how long before you get stopped by a cop. >> the president addressed it, stepped in it, because it touches such a cord that still exists in this country. we'll talk more about this with david axelrod. also tom brokaw will be here. "mad money's" jim cramer will join us. evan bayh is pushing for tougher actions. and "morning joe" has an exclusive look at the new cover of "time" magazine. plus, the top stories politico is following this morning.

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president obama is being criticized by those who say his pick for surgeon general is overweight. the president is ignoring the controversy, however, and instead focusing his energies on getting congressional approval for his new drug czar. >> terrible. is that winehouse? >> it's her. mike, you have papers out. hey, is "boston globe" still alive? it's going down pretty fast. >> it is. good publishing. on the newsstand -- >> do you know there was a business -- i forget what the business magazine was that, i mean, sells for a dollar.

that's how serious, one of the big media companies just wanteded to get rid of it and sold for $1. >> "businessweek," i think. >> what about "the globe"? will it be cheaper to buy the "boston globe" or buy a newspaper on the stand? >> probably still newsstand. newsstand price. >> okay. let's go through the papers, willie. >> let's look at the "wall street journal." obama backed taxes because he's pushing through this. i don't know if it's going to make it but he wants to tax people making over $1 million. lots of luck. >> that ain't happening. "washington post" obama seeks to calm fears on health reforms. we'll have david ignatius on later on the show not to talk about that but he'll be here. "l.a. times," united states man fought for al qaeda abroad. this is in a lot of the papers this morning. the long island man captured in pakistan pled guilty to terror charges and is now getting

investigators inside information. i wonder how they're getting it. "houston chronicle" -- >> asking nicely, feds raid local office of michael jackson's doctor. okay, what else? manslaughter. mike barnicle has something good. >> terrific picture on the front of the financial times. there's some hindu holy men watching the solar eclipse and they were clearly on their way to the latest 3d movie. >> it's in "the wall street journal." >> very similar photograph. "the wall street journal." >> indian women. >> and the front page of "usa today," president obama. this has to get done. the question is, will it? we'll be talking about his news conference and if the numbers add up in any way. coming up next, a first look at business live from london. also, i love this, perfect, the former head of the government accountability office, david walker. why he's concerned health care reform could create unrealistic expectations. >> what?

>> we have the truth coming out. the truth, they call him a truth for a reason, children. >> all right.

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for june, also our weekly unemployment numbers. let's get an early check on business right now with cnbc's louisi bojesen. >> good morning, a whole bunch of earnings. to mention bristol-myers squibb, at&t, safeway, microsoft -- the list goes on. one of our biggest stories, porsche versus vw. vw still lower by 7%. porsche has given the okay for negotiations about a potential sale of a stake in vw through porsche. it would be through a derivatives contract type deal. also they're looking at a capital increase of 5 billion euros, a unanimous decision by the controlling families. this morning we had the news of porsche, the man at the helm of this sports car group for the past 16 years, germany's highest

paid ceo incidentally as well, he's stepping down along with the cfo and he was incidentally the person who was arguing for the fact that he wanted the people to come in and talk to porsche about taking a potential stake versus selling off the sports car unit of porsche. so quite a bit happening from within those companies and we're still trying to figure what sort after tie-up we are looking at in the longer run. let me show you another big story. in the middle of the earnings season over here. this is a pharmaceutical based in switzerland. one of the biggest cancer drug makers higher by 2.25% on the back of a bullish statement and an outlook for the next couple of years. it looks pretty nice in the current environment. have a lovely weekend. i'm off to spain in a couple of hours. see you next week. >> the globetrotter. we can't wait to hear about your trip to spain. appreciate it.

let's go to mika with the news. >> i followed her before. >> very creepy. i'm sure you have. all right. a quick look at the top stories are expected to vote on a proposed budget to close the state's $26.3 billion deficit, republicans are again backing the deal sending prisoners home. in a break with conservative leadership senator lindsay gey graham, one of sotomayor's most outspoken critics says he will vote to confirm the judge to the supreme court. and a funeral will be held for walter cronkite, the legendary news anchor died last week at the age of 92. he will be buried in his home state of missouri alongside his wife, betsy. and still ahead "mad money's" jim kraler will be here. but first david walker.

somebody out there who has this idea the obama administration wants to spend and spend and spend. the fact of the matter is that we inherited an enormous deficit, enormous long-term debt projections. we have not reduced it as much as we need to and i'd like to, but health care reform is not going to add to that deficit. it's designed to lower it. >> all right. >> here's the problem with that statement, politically here's the problem with that statement. it is not a truthful statement if you believe the congressional budget office report which says president -- and i'm surprised he said that twice now this week when the congressional budget

office clearly says this will increase america's deficit. and he said that he inherited long-term deficits. he did. but the congressional budget office also said the budget plan he passed will make deficits much worse and -- what was the word? unsustainable. so if the president is having political problems it may be because what he's saying is not squaring up with reality. >> well, there's different views on, i guess, what ultimately will happen and what needs to be done. interesting views on this in the he h editorials we've chosen today but let's bring in our guests first. here with us now the president and ceo of the peter davidson foundation, david walker. he was also head of the government accountability office as comptroller general of the united states. >> and let's ask david because

david, unfortunately, is a total numbers nerd. this is all he does every day while the rest of us are hanging out with our families david is crunching numbers on a calculator and, david, give us the long and short of it. the president says that his health care reform plan won't increase the deficit. or actually is. it's more like henry waxman and nancy pelosi right now. is that correct? >> he doesn't really have one yet. >> no, it's not based on the plan that's on the table. let's talk about the positives and the negatives. the president is correct to say that the status quo was unacceptab unacceptable. health care costs are out of control and we need to move 10 some level of basic and essential coverage. however, you cannot reduce costs by expanding coverage. that's an oxymoron. we're underfunded $38 trillion in medicare and we're not doing anything meaningful about it and we're avoiding tough choices with regard to what level of coverage, what about payment systems, what about tax incentives, what about premium

subsidies and, most importantly, the american people are not being engaged in any meaningful way and, therefore, huge expectation gaps are being created. >> all right. i want to repeat something that you said that may make people angry because you're telling the truth and what we found around this table is a lot of people don't want the truth told to them. you said this -- and this is basic. this is elemental and yet in this strange season, bizarre season of politics where math doesn't matter for some reason this makes you an enemy of the disadvantaged, you just said you can't cut costs by expanding coverage. now that seems basic enough to all of us. and yet what we've been complaining about here we've got

a president and congress that will talk about expanding coverage but not driving down long-term costs or at least they won't do anything meaningful to drive down long-term costs. and we ask anybody about making tough choices, republicans and democrats alike say -- and from michael steel, oh, that's rationing. we're not going to do that. which what they're saying is we're not going to make any tough choices. we're just going to write a check to expand coverage. >> joe, let me give you an analogy. let's say we have a house. let's call it the white house. it's built on a sinkhole of sand. the foundation is structurally flawed. the plumbing is leaking. the roof needs to be repaired. it's mortgaged for more than it's worth. that's our current health care system and what we're talking about doing is rather than reconstructing that house, making sure we can make the mortgage mamts, we're going to add a new wing. we're going to pay for the wing but it will be attached to this structurally flawed system.

we need to do something about the system. >> this is "the wall street journal," obama needs to move to the middle. the administration in congress are exploiting a crisis atmosphere to promote a breathtakingly expensive big government spending agenda mostly to be paid for later. the trillions of dollars of deficits will eventually force much higher income or payroll taxes or national value add tax similar to those in europe or severe inflation which is something, i mean, we've been talking about here in terms of deficits and it was interesting our guest yesterday was really debunking some of your concerns. >> my concerns, you know, it was -- again, i found out last night looking back at the numbers, the $23 trillion, that was congress' estimate. >> david walker, there is and there has been this effort over the past six months to pass stimulus packages and huge

budget busting budgets and now health care by, what do they say, exploiting a crisis atmosphere. >> mm-hmm. >> what are the dangers of that as we approach the health care debate? >> i think there's a real danger and, in fact, i think there are some lessons to be learned from the stimulus. the fact is that they rushed that. it was not properly designed. they set unrealistic expectations about what was going to be accomplished within a certain period of time and now as a result the public is upset. the same thing is happening quite frankly with regard to health care but the numbers are much bigger and the stakes are much greater. >> mike barnicle? >> mr. walker, i want to get back to the house metaphor that you just raised, the white house metaphor. you described pretty much a knock down, you know, the house is built on a lousy foundation, blah, blah, blah, blah. it's a knockdown and you have to build a new house.

and because the old house, the knockdown is mortgaged for more than it's worth, how do we pay for the new house? >> well, the fact is that we are going to have to have more revenues. the fact is we're going to have to make tough choices on what level of universal coverage is affordable and sustainable over time. that's probably going to be more like preventive, wellness and catastrophic. we're going to have to change our payment systems where we don't pay for procedures. we pay more for results. we're going to have to reduce taxpayer subsidies for employer provided and paid health care. we're going to have to reduce premium subsidies for middle and upper income medicare beneficiaries. we're going to have to move to more integrated practiced approaches and leveraged technology to control costs and quality. all these things and these are the things that we need to do and the american people need to be told the truth. >> they need to understand -- >> but neither party is going to

tell them the truth. you tell me what politician have you seen in washington, d.c., that has said, you know what, we can expand health care coverage but we're going to have to take it out of the middle class' benefits. we're going to have to take it out of the upper middle class' benefits or we're going to have means testing. you don't call it rationing but you're not going to be able to get everything you want to get. who is saying that? >> well, not enough people are. the fact is this, that, you know, the american people need to be told the truth that this country, the financial is deteriorating. we need to make dramatic and fundamental changes. that's why congressman cooper and congressman wolf and the house and senator lieberman and senator voinovich in the senate have propose this had secure america's future economy commission bill to be able to go outside the beltway, state the facts, speak the truth, take the

heat from the american people, set the table for a range of transformational taxes and budget processes. >> frank wolf has been sending me information on this commission where it's almost like a commission where he knows the politicians aren't going to shut down the military bases so you set up a commission to do it. do you support frank wolf's plan to set up this commission? >> we need something like that, joe, because the regular order is broken. they can't even make decisions on the easy things much less the tough ones and, by the way, his bill does allow amendments provided the amendments are neutral to the bottom line. in other words we're trying to make sure we put our own financial house in order before our lenders lose patience in us. >> i can sort of get my hands around the fact that legislatively, you know, they might be able to come up with something that covers how we pay for any future health reform plan but i can't get my hand or

arms around how do we legislate so we get to the point where, you know, there's a big issue now on health care quantity versus quality. we pay for quantity now instead of quality. how do you legislate quality instead of quantity? >> you don't. congress cannot do that. we need something like a health care fed. we need something that we have people who are knowledgeable, who are truly independent, they can be advised by people who are, you know, physicians and providers and patients and beneficiaries, but we need to have a body that can end up starting to make some of the tough choices with regard to national evidence baseded practice standards, with regard to what should be paid for by taxpayers and what shouldn't. and that's not what they're dealing with. >> all right, david, really quickly. you and i both -- i'm a republican who is very critical of george w. bush. we talked for about six years together about how reckless republicans were wasting money.

how much worse has it gotten over the past five or six months if you look at the president -- president obama's budget, if you look at all the spending proposals? try to put it in perspective. >> well, president obama inherited $1.2 trillion deficit. it's now estimated to be $1.8 trillion and there are a number of proposals that would result in the expansion of government in ways that some might be troubled by. look, we need to make tough transformational changes in health care, taxes, social security and a variety of other areas and we need to figure out how to get that done. i think some type of special commission is where we need to go. >> david walker, thank you very much. he is very tactful. >> he was tactful that time. >> oh, come on. >> thank you, david. always appreciate it. >> great to be with you. >> you hear in washington all the time people from both sides of the aisle bipartisanship, why

don't we have more people like him? >> very levelheaded. coming up, the red sox are on a five-game losing -- >> hey! >> the yankees just keep winning. we've got sports straight ahead. >> and a soccer fan going after david beckham. it's time for the president to scrap the plan they've been working on in the house. it's time to bring both parties together, to have real health care reform that will reduce the cost of the system, will reduce the cost of health insurance for americans and provide better access. [ engine revving ]

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iraqi prime minister nuri al maliki says that when president bush was in office they used to have a meeting once a week via videoconference. that's what he said, yeah. al maliki said they always ended the same way with bush throwing his joystick down and yelling this game is boring. >> the body is lying there. just kicking it. >> when we finally have a new

president, they'll stop. >> they'll move on. >> speaking of dead horses, the boston red sox. >> oh, my. >> it's not even a personal thing. i feel bad for them. >> fred roggin has highlights live by a once great franchise. >> reporter: good morning. after falling out of first place in the a.l. east, the red sox added some much needed depth to their lineup. boston acquired first baseman adam laroche from pittsburgh for two minor leaguers. could have used him last night against the rangers. pick it up in the third. kinsler stepped in and he stepped out. tied the game with a solo home run to left. in the fourth the squeeze is on. elvis andrus laid down the perfect bunt. david murphy came in to score. texas won 3-1. pirates seem to be doing just fine without laroche. hosting the brewers. five home runs, a game-winning walk-off in the ninth by brandon moss. pittsburgh rallied to beat milwaukee, 8-7. rockies and diamondbacks. todd helton with a personal milestone in the third. helton with his 500th career double, only the 50th player in major league history to

accomplish such a feat. he wasn't done. tied at 3-3, followed up the milestone with a go-ahead homer in the eighth. rockies beat the diamondbacks, 4-3. dodgers and reds, manny ramirez bobble head night at the stadium but manny was held out of a starting lineup because of a bruised hand. that was until the sixth when he was pinch-hitting. the score tied, bases loaded. wouldn't you know it? first pitch, first hit. grand slam to left. dodgers have now won five in a row. tour de france. lance armstrong fell from second to fourth. now trails overall leader contador by four minutes. finally, two weeks ago nike confiscated tapes of lebron james getting dunked on by a sophomore at one of lebron's camps. after weeks of witness protection, the videos have now surfaced. here's the best of the two. keep your eye on the bottom left corner. lebron late getting to crawford who throws down a two-handed dunk. not really what we thought it would be. don't get me wrong, crawford can dunk, but the way nike reacted we assume he dunked directly over lebron.

one thing's for sure, the hype was definitely larger than the dunk itself. finally, david beckham was a great player. now he's the anna kournikova of soccer. women like to look at him and some men as well. with that said, people simply don't like him. one fan so upset with beckham, he jumped onto the field in los angeles to confront him. the fan was not only kicked out of the game but has been banned for life from the home depot center where the galaxy plays. a harsh pent when you think beckham instigated the whole thing. that's nothing. a bigger punishment would have been if the fan was forced to watch beckham play every game. that's it for me. i'll talk to you guys tomorrow. is beckham even good at soccer, joe? i'm being serious. >> seriously, i will tell you the truth, seriously he is a remarkable soccer player. >> he is? >> but he's never really gotten

the credit he deserves. he's so beautiful. >> am i the only one who didn't see that? >> lewis has the same problem. screen saver? >> louis. coming up next, some news you can't use. >> oh, good. >> if there's a parliamentary brawl in the orient, "morning joe" is there. we'll have details when we come back. something new is happening at ethan allen with special savings on select fabrics on all frames

you choose the fabric we custom make it it's more affordable than you think. ethan allen offer ends july 31st. ...or if you're already sick... ...or if you lose your job. your health insurance shouldn't either. so let's fix health care. if everyone's covered, we can make health care as affordable as possible. and the words "pre-existing condition" become a thing of the past... we're america's health insurance companies. supporting bipartisan reform that congress can build on. has the fastest serve in the history of professional tennis. so i've come to this court to challenge his speed. ...on the internet. i'll be using the 3g at&t laptopconnect card. he won't. so i can book travel plans faster, check my account balances faster.

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oh, is it time, which wiill? >> it is. it's time for the news you can't use. we begin with a warning. >> what? >> governor mark sanford is leaving the country. >> okay. >> what? >> he's going on vacation. >> oh, good. >> he's still governor. >> we lost track. he's still governor. >> he had a news conference. >> what south carolinians found out is the number two guy there apparently a crack pot. >> not good options. >> the lesser of two evils. >> some people were alarmed to hear he was leaving the country. the good news is he's going on a much-needed family vacation, going to try to repair, mend some fences.

>> they're working it out. >> heading overseas. >> why is he going to buenos aires? >> oh, stop. don't do it. don't do it. >> now stop that. >> he did say we're going to lay out the schedule. they'll know every point where i'm going to be. he said this in a statement. he's not going to tell them exactly publicly because he doesn't want people following his family but the staff will know minute to minute. >> there you go. >> i hope while he's gone the south carolinian legislators don't get antsy and start pounding each other. >> let's go to south korea. >> let's get into it right away. here it is. so the ruling party was trying to pass this thing about media ownership. the other party didn't like it. so what else would you do, start flipping tables and punching people. >> what in the world? >> this is defensemen crass at work. this is what c-span should look like.

this is great. hundreds of lawmakers and their aides getting into the act. >> look at that man jumping. >> the ruling party tried to block the opposition from the main hall. they busted down the door and they came in and they -- look at that. he got up. >> that's like a matrix thing. >> ridiculous. >> there's always so much hair pulling, it's concerning. kind of slapping. >> behind the scenes at "morning joe." >> that's south korean democracy. we could use more of that at home. >> we could. finally, some sad news to pass along this morning. >> oh, what have you got? >> what happened? >> remember the old taco bell ads? yo quiero, the chihauhau dog, we lost him. >> they put it down? >> we lost gidget. ♪ i will remember you ♪ will you remember me >> what's about to happen? are we going to see it?

>> what are you doing? >> just breathe it in for a second. sometimes a good broadcaster just stands back. >> and lets the story tell itself. >> let it breathe. let it breathe. don't talk over a beautiful moment. the dog's name is gidget. died at the age of 15. made those adorable taco bell -- and we will, in fact, remember you. >> oh, shut up. well done, sir. >> good night, gidget. >> and good luck. well done. >> now if you want to see that for 30 minutes, there is something mentally wrong with you. >> monday at 5:30. >> i understand that these things -- >> beautiful dog. >> don't say that.

that's somebody's dog. so, willie, help me out here. >> walter cronkite, gidget -- >> stop it. >> maybe we lose alf this week, i don't know. >> i guess it's funny that a dog died. >> we're all tired. barnicle, go out of the room. just go. >> do we have the music again? >> no. you can't do it. we have david axelrod coming up. >> sorry, david. i hope you're not watching this. >> barnicle, you can't just walk in front of the camera. >> here's mika, she's got the news. good luck, mika. go. play the drums. >> or play the other music maybe. okay. it's not fair. all right, go.

all of you go. it's time now for a look at today's top stories. president obama is keeping the pressure on health care reform with a visit today to the cleveland clinic in ohio. it follows his prime time news conference last night where he addressed the trillion dollar price tag. >> i've always pledged health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade and i mean it. for the past eight years we saw the enactment of two tax cuts primarily for the wealthiest americans and a medicare prescription program none of which were paid for. and that's partly why i inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. that will not happen with health insurance reform. it will be paid for. >> in a rare show of defiance toward the supreme leader, iran's president, amahmoud ahmadinejad, is preserving his choice for a top vice president. it comes in spite of strong opposition from hard line elements who criticize that candidate's moderate stance.

>> so fascinating. >> it is. >> this is so fascinating. the poor supreme leader just not getting any respect anymore, not even from the crazy man. >> meanwhile, secretary of state hillary clinton strengthening the u.s. position against iran's nuclear ambition. for the first time she is suggesting a missile defense umbrella for allies in the gulf. speaking in thailand. she took on reporters' questions about her future ambitions. >> will we ever get to see you as president of the united states? >> wow, that's not anything i'm at all thinking about. i think the job i have now is incredibly demanding. i'm not somebody who looks ahead. i don't know but i doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life. >> so it's wait and see? >> no, no, no. >> never say never. >> well, i am saying no. >> for now. >> because i have a very committed attitude toward the

job i'm doing now. >> now. >> so that's not anything that is at all on my radar screen. >> secretary clinton will be david gregory's exclusive guest for the full hour on sunday's "meet the press." there are reports today that one of osama bin laden's sons was killed in a u.s. missile strike in pakistan earlier this year. it's believed the 27-year-old was not the target of the attack but was among those killed when a predator drone fired a missile at an al qaeda target. san francisco transit agency has released video from the light rail crash last weekend which injured 48 people. security cameras show the one train barreling into a second train which is parked in the station. two people remain in the hospital. and the cambridge police officer who arrested gates has nothing to apologize for. he arrested gates for disorderly conduct last thursday while police were investigating a

reported break-in in his home. crowley denies the incident had anything to do with race and cites his attempts to resuscitate reggie lewis 16 years ago as proof that he's not a racist. >> well, to prove that i am a fan of cnbc, i have tried to resuscitate jim cramer many times. >> i don't want to hear -- >> foaming at the mouth. >> no, don't -- >> he's with us now. he's mad. how are you doing? you're a harvard man. what do you think about this going on in your backyard? >> this used to happen all the time when i was there in the '70s. if were you a black student coming from the harvard crimson 3:00 to 4:00, you would expect to be railed. >> now it's happening to gates, a 60-something-year-old guy in a polo shirt inside his own house. >> it's ridiculous but this has been a pattern. i have to tell you, when i first heard this story i said, yep, same old same old. this is what always happened. i would have thought that in 2009 it was done, but i have

never, ever, ever heard of a white guy rousted down there coming -- doing -- never. >> just trying to explore the other side, the police are given a call about a reported break-in, are they not supposed to go? >> i think -- >> where do you draw the line as to what was raceist? >> sure, they go, but when they see the owner of the house inside the house -- >> i understand. >> i think there's a different treatment. >> the question is very simple, mika, if that police officer had opened the door and i had been standing on the other side of the door and said, what's up? and he said, hey, we have a report -- ah, my driver and i were trying to get in. okay. >> you're not going to sit there and have a coors light or maybe bud light but it's not good. >> the guy would have gone on. you know if i were on the other side -- if it was a white guy on the other side of that door, i'm not calling anybody a racist, i'm talking about the reality is

still with us in 2009. >> he wasn't arrested for breaking into the house. >> i know. >> we're talking about an aspect of our culture that has remained consistent for many, many years, and this is the paranoia that surrounds race. consider the fact that this incident occurred at high noon, 12:30 in the day. brilliant, sun lit day. you have a very well-dressed, elderly black gentleman trying to nudge a front door of a home open on a busy street. >> with his driver. i mean seriously. a bad set of facts. >> i would submit to you, i mean, obviously i'm not black. >> right. >> 10:00, 10:30 at night, a young black male coming back from the harvard crimson walking back to a dormitory, two white women coming at him on the sidewalk, they'll cross the street. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> you are indicting the police for -- >> i do not want to demonize the

cops. >> that's my problem here. the person who made the phone call may have had issues with profiling in his or her head. >> absolutely. >> but the police were given a report of a possible break-in, are they not supposed to go? >> we're not talking about this police officer. we're not talking about this police department. we're talking about something that is still a reality in 2009 and i think it depresses us. presumption. >> presumption that a black guy is going to get roused. >> we need to take a turn because we have david axelrod coming up in a minute. we need to take a turn to health care, talk about the president's performance last night. what did you think? >> i think the president is still short the votes. i think when you appeal on the 47 millions who don't have health care and then you mention millionaire, i am always inclined to think about my friend meredith vieira, "who wants to be a millionaire?" everyone in this country. i don't want to be told when i get there i'm going to be taxed heavily. it doesn't work. you can't go out with the millionaire's tax. >> that is so interesting that you say that.

we would drive past this really nice house. my dad would pass all these houses on country club drive going to first baptist church and my mom always said we were about as middle class -- my dad was unemployed for two years and we go to school. if you study hard, if you work hard, if that's what you want, you can do that. because i would be like, who lives in those houses? who has those cars? >> maybe you. maybe you. >> they had a country club -- >> seriously, that i couldn't step foot on but my mom and dad says work hard. you're so right. that's what a lot of people don't realize the class warfare game doesn't work. who wants to be a millionaire? who wants to be successful? who believes they can do it? just about everybody. >> let me be clear. i like the idea of universal health. i'm not addicted to the idea that the government will get involved. i am a millionaire. all right. i pay my tax. boom. why not?

if this is voter profile, this is what i'm telling you the american people who are not millionaires, the people who are going to defeat this because they really believe in what joe just described. >> there are not enough millionaires. there are also people that would pay higher taxes and i would include myself as one of those if you told me how the $47 million health insurance and you told the rest of america the truth. >> right. >> that we just can't tax the guy behind the tree over there that everybody is going to have to pay. we're going to have to make tough choices. if congress and the president would come to me with a plan that says this plan will not only take care of the 47 million, this will help everybody over the next 25 years, tax me. >> absolutely. i am not getting that at all. >> because nobody, and i'm not just blaming the president, we had michael steel on yesterday. nobody wants to talk about tough choices because there's an election next year. >> so what are you getting? you say you're not getting that

message that joe wants. what are you getting out of what you're seeing with this? >> i'm getting there will be a redistribution of wealth. i'm getting, frankly, and i hardly agree with "the wall street journal" editorials but a sense the government is going to get very, very big from this and we're all tired of very, very big government and rich and poor don't want to see bigger government. >> david walker said it best. this is one i've been trying to say for months, you can't cut costs by expanding coverage. >> you have to ask david axelrod about that. >> we'll be right back with david axelrod. >> we're not that stupid. >> asking him these questions on "morning joe." stay with us, jim cramer. >> sure. hey mom i need some minutes. i just gave you some at the restaurant. yea i know. i threw them out. they were old so... old! they are rollover minutes. they are as good as new.

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set deadlines in this town, things don't happen. the default position is inertia. because doing something always creates some people who are

unhappy. the fact that we have made so much progress where we've got doctors, nurses, hospitals it even the pharmaceutical industry, aarp, is saying this makes sense to do i think means that the stars are aligned and we need to take advantage of that. >> okay. that was the president last night at his prime time news conference and here with us now this morning white house senior adviser david axelrod. >> what's with the fwrgrim musi here? that's the best you could get for david? >> david, thanks for joining us. >> that's a fine how do you do. >> yeah, i know. >> and a good morning to you. so, did the president get the job done last night, david? is he going to be able to get this through? >> well, first of all, i think this is a process, mika, there's no one event that's going to make the difference. he did a good job explaining the need to the american people for

reform and i think it will be helpful. understand we are making, as he said last night, great progress. i think 80% of the issues on the table have been agreed to and we've got to get those final steps and i believe we will. >> david, during the campaign obviously you all handled public expectations extraordinarily well. "usa today"/gallup poll, though, out asking do you approve of the way obama is handling health care has the white house upside-down, approved 44%, d disapprove 50%. what's happened over the past two to three weeks that have turned things against you even if temporarily? >> well, look, it's a complicated issue and it's subject to all kinds of political machinations, shall we say, and i think those opponents -- you saw the senator last week say we've got to kill this. we can stop it if we -- this could be obama's waterloo. we can break him and so on. and i think there's been a

fairly sustained effort to d distort what it is this is about. we need to -- and that's why the press conference last night was so important. we need to give the facts to the american people. i'm confident the american people will embrace this as the doctors and the nurses, the aarp have, because it is absolutely necessary. they need to understand what exactly it is that it will do and what it won't do. >> there is, i think, some growing public skepticism about the rush taking place here. why the rush, david? the president addressed that last night but the bottom line is i think people may be feeling like after a couple of other things that were pushed through very quickly, this may be one many. >> well, first of all, i wouldn't say it was being pushed through quickly, mika. we've been talking about it for decades, they've been discussing this in congress for the last six months and understand that this is just a step along the way. even if both houses -- even both the senate and the house pass

something this summer, there would have to be some reck reconciliation through a conference process. this would not be voted on until the fall sometime and the debate would continue and then once it passed, it would be phased in over a period of years so that it would be administered properly. this notion that the whole health care system is being remade this week or next week is completely -- is completely false and that's one of the myths that has been propagated by the opposition. >> mike pabarnicle? >> you're old enough to remember the strategy for vietnam, declare we win and get out, 1968. is there within this bill several component parts or one or two component parts where in the fall the president of the united states would say we've got it. we've won. that's it. we've got the legislation. is there a bottom line that you have that you'd be willing to settle for? >> well, look, first of all

there are certain bottom lines that have to be part of this, deficit neutral. it has to bring substantive steps to bend the curve on health care spending in the long run because we're on an unsustainable path and it has to bring relief to the american people who are crunched not just under rising crisis but under kind of arbitrary insurance company practices and need some security and stability. if we can arrive at that -- that's the package we want to arrive at and that's the path we're on, mike. i don't have any fail safe positions. >> mike, those are two numbers that actually turn, i think, those independent numbers around if you trump it. deficit neutral and then you talk about reducing costs in the long run. you get some of those independents back. willie geist? >> david, speaking of deficits, last night the president said health care reform is not going to add to the deficit.

that's a quote from the president. we've been having trouble squaring that with the numbers we saw out of the congressional budget office last week. how do you do that? >> first of all, the congressional budget office is scoring incomplete work. the house has not voted on the bill. the senate has not voted on the bill. they have not come together on the bill. what the president has said he will not sign a bill that adds to the deficit and that's why frankly if he were willing to do that, we'd probably be out the door right now. that's part of the discussion that's going on. >> yeah. >> why does jim cramer -- >> how can people being so wrong, as "the wall street journal" says this morning in its editorial? the federal government will never grow to a third or more of the u.s. economy with taxes sure to rise to finances. how do common sense people think this is going to make the government that much bigger? >> well, listen, the reality is that within 20 years if we don't act and do really meaningful

reform here, the health care expenses will be one-third of our total expense of our economy, of the gdp. we right now spend $1 in $6 on health care. we'll be spending $1 in $3. that is an unsustainable path, jim, and we can't -- now i understand there are those who profit from the system handsomely right now in the insurance industry and elsewhere who would be satisfied with things the way they are. >> david walker was on and said, would you agree with this, you can't cut cost ts by expanding coverage? >> well, first of all, i disagree to this extent. you expand coverage. you do away with the unreimbursed costs for the average hospital, for example, represents 12% of their services and that adds $1,000 or $1,200 to every family's health care premiums. we also gained leverage when you

expand more people to implement the insurance reforms that will give people stability, that will keep them from it can deprived of coverage because of a pre-existing condition or because they became ill when they had insurance and the whole range of other things that people are experiencing in this health care system. today a cap on out of pocket expenses. some of these things would be less possible to achieve unless we go to full coverage so we want to give people, joe, security and the knowledge they're never going to be without coverage even if they lose their job or change their job or have a pre-existing condition. >> all right, david axelrod, nice to see you. >> great to see you guys. would you get better music for me next time? >> do you have a request? >> that's like the theme for the willie geist show. >> it really is. scary as hell. >> "i will remember you." >> it is very dark. we'll do it, david. coming up -- >> hold on a second.

they are doing exactly -- politically, i'm just talking politically, conservatives relax, politically they're doing exactly what they have to do. david came out today and he didn't talk about universal health care. which of course is what they want. he said we're going to do two things. we're going to make sure it's deficit neutral and if it's not deficit neutral the president will veto the bill and, two, it's going to bring down costs over the next 10, 20 years. if the president has a bill that cbo scores that says it's deficit neutral and it actually brings down the deficit in 20 years, guess what? all those independents that have been running away from him because he's a big government president start coming back. they've got to lead with that message if they want to win. it's that simple. coming up, tom brokaw. also chuck todd live from the white house.

if we don't act, medical bills will wipe out their savings. if we don't act, she'll be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. and he won't get the chemotherapy he needs. if we don't act, health care costs will rise 70%. and he'll have to cut benefits for his employees.

but we can act. the president and congress have a plan to lower your costs and stop denials for pre-existing conditions. it's time to act. s r hip-hop. ♪ that can strain your relationships and hurt yourody 'cause we'pride ♪ng a ride ♪ ♪ it's the credit roller coaster ♪ ♪ and as you can see it kinda bites! ♪ ♪ so sing the lyrics with me: ♪ when your debt goes up your score goes down ♪ ♪ when you pay a little off it goes the other way 'round ♪ ♪ it's just the same for everybody, every boy and girl ♪ ♪ the credit roller coaster makes you wanna hurl ♪ ♪ so throw your hands in the air, and wave 'em around ♪

♪ like a wanna-be frat boy trying to get down ♪ ♪ then bring 'em right back to where your laptop's at... ♪ ♪ log on to free credit report dot com - stat! ♪ vo: free credit score and report with enrollment in triple advantage. 60 democratic seats, a healthy majority in the house. if you don't get this, isn't this a fight inside the democratic party and that republicans really aren't playing -- you can't really blame the republicans for this

one? >> well, first of all, you haven't seen me out there blaming the republicans. i've been a little frustrated by some of the misinformation coming out of the republicans, but that has to do with, as you pointed out, politics. if you've got somebody out there saying not that let's get the best bill possible but instead says let's try to beat this so we can gain political advantage, well, that's not, i think, what the american people expect. >> chief white house correspondent, nbc news political director chuck todd. i'm going to ask you this not as a white house correspondent but as a political director. did the president do what he needed to do to reach out to those shaky conservative and moderate democrats in the house and the senate last night? >> you know, i don't -- i felt like last night was a symposium on health care. i think if you were interested in the issue and you've been following it very closely, you

came away impressed that the guy knows this issue up and down. i think if you're a political strategist rooting for the president on the democratic side, you probably sat there and went, this guy knows too much about this issue. he's getting too in the weeds. at some point he was talking about the medicare reimbursement rates which are serious issues as far as getting the deficit under control but was that the forum to do that when you are trying to politically get people on your side? >> talking about the people they want on the side, let's just r narrow this down. what if you were claire mccaskill in missouri, if you were evan bayh, what if you were the pro-life, pro-gun districts in the southeast, did the president make your job easier going home to the august recess? >> i think he did two things. that front, yes, i did. number one, when he singled out a tax hike that he might be comfortable with, he used the word millionaire and millionaire only. he did not allow that number to

get into the income levels. that was number one. the second thing that i thought he did was by not really explaining the public insurance option, which was to me the -- one of the things he didn't explain very well, and at least to me was code for, well, if you tell me about this co-op and explain it to me a little bit more, i might be open to it. and the fact that, joe, i would like to explain the co-op. it's like the role of electric utilities, it's like a credit union. i guess i kind of get it but, boy, explaining it to average americans isn't going to be easy. they almost have to use it to understand it at the end of the day. and i think -- but signaling an openness that he's not -- he didn't sit there and throw it on the gauntlet on that public insurance plan in a way that i think might scare off the ben nelsons or the evan bayhs.

>> chuck, in 1992-1993 the stock market told you that hillary care was going to be dead. you saw drug companies and the health maintenance organization companies and the medical device companies, all the companies that were being killed during the campaign, we are seeing in the last four weeks the same kind of rally, the market is right. this bill's dead. >> you think this bill is dead? >> with this rally i'm seeing, you're not going to get anything that's meaningful. there's no way the market is this wrong. there are trillions of dollars being put on these stocks just like what happened in 1993. the market was dead right then. it will not be wrong this time. >> chuck, is the market ahead of washington? >> you know what? i'm not going to get into the stock market game on that front. i'll say this, the only stakeholder last night that i thought took a beating from the president was insurance companies. he seemed to praise pharmaceutical companies. he seemed to praise doctors. but the one that he seemed to

single out and i think the ones that are going to take a beating and i've had one adviser tell me privately the only time you can ever get the health insurance industry to play is you have to put a gun to their head. was the insurance industry. i'm not going to play the stock market game. >> medicare advantage health insurer stocks have not rallied. anyone who does not rely on the government to make their profits is screaming here. but if you've been feeding it to george w. bush trough of medical advantage you're finished. >> yes. no, this medicare thing -- joe, i am surprised more republicans aren't with the president on this one idea on medicare which is take it away from congress. take away congress' power to do reimbursement rates. that's a huge deal if republicans are trying to do this and they were in power, democrats would be screaming bloody murder. >> i think you're right and we had david walker on last hour talking about frank wolf's idea taking a lot of this away from congress. and to have a more rational

approach and a political approach to curbing health care costs. >> chuck todd, thank you very much. >> jim cramer, buddy -- >> i know. >> i'll stay out of the stocks. >> stocks know what they're talking about. >> all right. he's declared it dead here, chuck ed todd. there it is. >> i walk away. coming up next, tom brokaw. i think we are moving closer -- we are making progress and that i have no question that we have the votes on the floor of the house to pass this legislation. undefeated professional boxer floyd "money" mayweather has the fastest hands boxing has ever seen. so i've come to this ring to see who's faster... on the internet.

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we're back. stop chatting, boys. here with us now nbc's tom brokaw. he's the author of "boom: talking about the '60s, how it shaped today." he's host of "american character" along highway 50. we're about to see a portion of that set up the piece we're about to see, tom. >> we went out to hawaii, the ohio/indiana border. they have had a huge facility out there. they have 15,000 jobs that disappeared and we profile one young american family and the struggle that they're facing which are not atypical in america. let's catch up to them now. dan and april looper never asked for much. just a chance to be good parents. >> entertainment is taking the kids outside and watching them run. >> markers and watching them color on each other. >> and with four energetic

little ones, 28-year-old dan that you had he had the means to make it happen with relative ease. he and april met on the job at the shipping company airborne. >> airborne was the one place that if anybody ever need add job, they could always go there. >> as close as it gets to a company town. when airborne and dhl merged in 2003, the future seemed secure. it turned out to be anything but. last november as the economy cratered, dhl announced it was cutting back on its u.s. operations and moving out of state, eliminating a staggering 8,000 jobs. >> they're just going to be gone. i never dreamed it would be like that. >> he knows his job and the family's health insurance is on the line. their whole future like that of millions of other americans on the brink. >> who will open the door? >> i will. >> 6-year-old alexis looper, the

oldest, has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. after suffering a stroke while still in the womb. >> helping me figure out the colors of my pattern. >> you're welcome. >> overcoming those challenges is matched by her parents' fears about how to get her the therapy she needs and keep the family afloat. >> without insurance, it would be about $1,700 for today. >> we will probably sell our cars at our house and move in with my dad to help pay for her medical needs. >> social worker julia weiss has spent 20 years helping folks like the loopers and it's never been more difficult. >> a lot of people have never faced this situation. they've never had to come and ask for help before and we're trying to help get past the stigma of asking for help. we have another factory that is actually shutting their doors in greenfield, another 4,100 people. it's more and more and more.

i don't think in our county we've actually felt the impact yet of what's really going to happen. >> do you think you'll ever recover from this? >> i think we're going to recover and i think it's going to take a while and it's going to help us to be able to learn to do things in a different way. >> this painful period for everybody in your circumstances, working class americans, and here along highway 50, but do you think in some ways it will make america stronger? >> i think if people are smart about it, it will, as long as they just grit down and bear it, it will make them stronger in the long haul. >> tom brokaw. america's changing. you're showing that in your work here. how were they -- how were they grappling with the changes that they're seeing in washington regarding health care? >> they're paying a lot more attention to the news these days. they all said that to me and they're very frustrated because it seems to be an intramural debate as it affects their lives

in the way they want to. this particular family has done all the right things, cut up their credit some time ago, get help from their parents, cut coupons. >> you're seeing that with a lot of families. >> and he spent a lot of time trying to get retrained as an emt. now there's a little bit of a happy ending to this. it turns out that dhl offered him a new job at their plant in kentucky. it's a09-minute commute each way. two-thirds of his old salary. he loses a third of his salary. he will take the job because he needs the medical care. these are the choices people are having to make and they're not so much caught up in what the decimal points are or what the democrats have to say about the health care plan. they just need coverage and they're a family who has done all the right things. >> i'll tell you something, we've had david axelrod on this morning. we had david on this morning. we had the president's press conference last night. the only wear health care legislation is going to get passed if the people in

washington look at that family we just saw and ask themselves the question are you going to leave this child behind? are you going to leave this child with multiple sclerosis and epilepsy behind? are you just going to let her fall to waste because they don't have health care? >> there's another side of that, too, again as you go into middle america, you talk about the people cutting up their credit cards, the savings rate going from 0% in november to 5% now. they understand washington just can't write checks. there is a common sense that sometimes we forget about in middle -- yes, take care of this young girl and this family but how are we going to pay for that? are you starting to see that out there? >> we are. you heard both the social worker and dan say at the end of this, if we are smart about this we'll come out a better country, a better people. i think there is a lot of that going on. people are adjusting. i'm interested in young people who started college four years ago with cell phones and cars

are now leaving, by the way, moving back home and their parents are out of work and they don't have a job. that's going to have an enormous impact on this country. but what has been so deeply impressive to me is that people are not whining. they're not saying it's not my fault. everybody is kind of stepping up to the bar and saying we've got to get through this and we've got to get smart. >> family members helping family members, friends helping friends, it's remarkable. >> i think on the health care debate, by the way, and i've been looking at this a lot. part of it is we have to reduce it to fund aamentals. it's too confusing when you look at it from the outside in in washington, should employers be required to provide coverage, "a." that's one. if they don't, what is the role of the government? how large and how intrusive health care? what's the cost going to be eventually? three, what's personal responsibility in all of this?

i was at a very high-end conference and i said as we began a health care discussi discussion -- wait, wait, wait. these are the industry leaders. these are men and women, massive companies, and you asked them the simple question. >> ceos, financial advisers, investment people of the highest order in the country. >> money is their job. >> i said how much of you know how much money was spent last year on your health care by your carrier and how much did you spend out of your own pocket? one of them came to me later and said, i wouldn't even know who to ask. >> no one knew the answer to that? >> great question. was jack there? >> warren buffett did know. >> but that is the disconnect. >> there's no skin in the game. people don't know. they go in and expect to get taken care of. they don't even know what the bill is. when they see the bill they're stunned or they say, i can't handle that. you take care of it in some fashion. >> jim cramer? >> as someone who is the chairman of a company of 300

people i can tell you our health care bill for the last three years is flat, which is amazing. they have not raised rates. at the same time when there are so many advantages that can be taken, use generics. no one tells to you use generics. mail order pharmaceuticals, no one tells you you can use mail order pharmaceuticals. you can save the company money, save you money, but there is no bulletin, there's no common sense bulletin that says, here is a nice way to save really billions of dollars. we have the ability but no one educates. >> and there can be incentives built into the plan, a lot of plans. if you stop smoking you'll get a discount on your co-pay, for example. if you're a diabetic and you pay attention to what you should be doing, you get a reduced premium. all of those things have to come into play. >> incentive. >> the big picture is health care is a complex mess and a meltdown. we're close to 18% of the gdp in

the country being spent on health care and that doesn't get a return to the community in many ways. >> you can't rush a solution either. >> that's what i was saying. i think people might feel it's unrealistic what the president is trying to do. >> well, my concern is, as a citizen as well as a journalist is that by going at it in this fashion is that we'll end up with what i call the department of homeland security and health care and the department of homeland security was once described by an expert who's a friend of mine as an agency designed to fail and succeeded. i don't think anybody is happy with the department of homeland security at the moment. it has a lot of work that needs to be done. and if we put something together here in the next three weeks and a year from now people don't understand what it means and we don't know what the costs are going to be, that's going to set back the effort even more. i'm not sure what the answer is. it's got so many constituencies. lots of doctors want to retain what they have. we get paid for tests.

others in the health care delivery system are saying we must get paid for value, for effect whether you get paid on whether you can deliver this that you promised. it's called value. that's hugely important part of it. ama and the aha are in washington. they don't represent all the hospitals in america or all the doctors in america. they've all got their own narrow interests. so it is complex. >> tom, stay with us. we want to talk about walter cronkite. >> absolutely. >> you can watch tom's latest dispatch from the highway 50 online at usanetwork.com/highway50. jim? jim, thank you so much. >> the show is the best show on in the morning. this is the action. >> oh, wow. >> i said it. i'll never be on the "today" show again. >> a seven-second delay coming. >> press a button. coming up next, "morning joe" has an exclusive look at the new cover of "time" magazine with managing editor rick stengel.

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with us now, the managing editor of "time" magazine, rick stengel, who's here to reveal the latest issue of "time." >> we also have tom brokaw. i don't think it's serendipity. i think they were on the phone last night and stengel said you come on set and hawk my magazine. no, actually, tom, let's talk about his piece. it is a wonderful piece -- i just read through -- about walter cronkite. >> it is a lovely, moving insightful piece but tom about walter. talks about what a role model he was for people in broadcasting, he was a kind of every man who people could relate to, but was also generous to his peers. editing brokaw is easy. he's such a pro, man. he doesn't say, no, man, keep that word. >> thing that jumped out at me -- everyone remembers -- you talk about the big moments, taking the glasses off when kennedy was assassinated.

tet. everybody remembers tet. it was day in, day out. my dad called cronkite a communist. yet we watched him every night. guess what? my dad trusted walter cronkite. i think you explained why in this piece. because he understands that there are millions of people out there that aren't impressed by what some do, that he kept his feet in america, middle america. >> and he earned everything that he got at the end he had the adulation of his peers. unfortunately too many people, to borrow the phrase, were dorn on third base and thought they got a triple. walter cronkite met betsy at a radio station in kansas city and worked his way up. >> by the way, he worked with a puppet. >> he did. >> an the morning news, that's right. >> so there's hope for you yet.

>> he kind of had that romantic vision of what a reporter should be and he lived it. he was an old-style guy. you know? he raced cars and sailed his boats. his buddies were art buchwald, for example, and andy rooney. there was that front-page quality about him that he never, ever lost. now i have to say on behalf of the organization for which i have worked all of these years, i grew up in a brinkley household because they were the first ones on the air. i was so taken with david's unique narrative style. huntly and brinkley and cronkite were competitive in those years. they were the only two choices you had. the country became the beneficiary of that because they went at each other trying to be the best they could be every night, 5:30 in the east, supper

time. the news shows at these big networks became the center piece really of the networks. entertainment programs came and went. news stayed. it's because these guys took what they did seriously and the country took them seriously. >> and what -- you bring up a great point, too, tom. it is easy to forget he was the challenger when he first started. >> remember it was 15 minutes. i don't remember that, but it was 15 minutes originally. then it went to half-an-hour. when was that? >> i can tell you it was the fall of 1963, shortly before john kennedy was assassinated. they both broadcast, had interviews with john kennedy. i was a young reporter in omaha. the chicago bureau chief for nbc came out to omaha and said, we're going to be expanding the huntly-brinkley report to a half-an-hour. we don't know whether we can fill it. omaha was a very strong station. they said if you've got some ideas for stories, we'll be open to the idea. can you imagine? the other thing i remember is that both had interviews with president kennedy before they went to the half-hour.

cbs got there first. david brinkley in his own way said to john kennedy, do you believe in the domino theory sm vietnam was then beginning to rage. he said, i do. to walter cronkite he said, i think that that's their war to win or lose. so it was that kind of conflict about where would kennedy been in that debate and where would he have been two years later. i was an impressionable young reporter, i watched everything that went on both networks at that time. that stuck with me. >> we've got to get a break because we're coming back at the top of the hour. rick, stay with us. let's do a quick peek of the cover. >> it's a really historic cover piece we've been working on for months an months. it is about the last days of bush and cheney, how they quarrelled and bickered about the pardon of "scooter" libby and what that tells us now about what's going on with cheney trying to protect his legacy,

bush trying to protect his legacy and how that affects what's going on with the cia intelligence with president obama. >> wow. >> richard, stay with us. we'll talk more about the new cover of "time" magazine, the final days of bush and cheney. tom, thank you for being with us. >> tom, thank you so much. coming up next, "the washington post's" david ignatius on what's become of the cia. we'll be right back. [ engine revving ]

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welcome back to "morning

joe." great to have you with us. mika brzezinski here, along with willie geist and mike barnicle and rick stengel, editor of "time" magazine. of course, the spirits of a chihuahua that once was explaining super nova to america's pop culture. gateway to america, st. louis. now to washington, d.c., a nice shot of the monument. then of course, new york. if joe's there, it's overcast and it's fog taking over. >> cockroaches. >> go ahead, take a bite of the big apple. >> we're getting some e-mails, people a little upset. i thought it was maybe about our discussion about the race issue. no, it's boston, controversial. what are they saying? >> we're getting killed. we're heartless, how could you make fun of this dog, when you die i hope they laugh at you. you have just -- yeah.

>> what? >> we merely paid tribute to a great american dog. >> oh! the taco bell dog. >> america's not seeing it that way. >> you know what? i'm a little upset. i'm going to say this, willie. if loving dogs, loving animals, is a crime -- >> and you do. >> right there. >> you had the music. >> rest well. >> willie, report the news. >> when i look at these images -- don't do this to me. >> seriously, when i look at these images, when i hear this song, it takes me back to a more innocent time. an earlier, easier time in america. >> what was its name? >> gidget. >> how did gidget die? >> old age. 15 great years on this earth. one of the biggest stars in the history of the canine community. lived a long life in the spotlight. certainly wasn't easy at times. what do you do when the bright lights are turned off and you have to live five more years

after the taco bell -- >> in remembrance. >> let's hold hands. >> i missed the whole segment. i'm not a chihuahua guy myself. >> i don't really like them. >> gidget, we -- >> 15 wonderful years. >> -- hardly knew you. we have david ignatius coming up. >> i bet he's sorry. sorry he got out of bed. guys in the studio are talking about gidget. >> i'm sorry, david. time for a quick look at some of today's top stories. president obama is keeping the pressure on health care reform with a visit today to the cleveland clinic in ohio. it follows his prime time news conference last night where he addressed the trillion dollar price tag. >> i've also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the neck decade and i mean it. in the past eight years we saw the enactment of two tax cuts,

primarily for the welt yes, sir americans, and a medicare prescription program, none of which were paid for. that's partly why i inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit. that will not happen with health insurance reform. it will be paid for. >> if i can just say again, last hour we talked to david axelrod who said that the two deal killers for the president is, one if it's not deficit neutral, this bill. and two, if it doesn't restrict health care inflation over the next decade. again, those are two messages that will bring some independents back -- >> perhaps. we'll see. secretary of state hillary clinton continues her overseas trip today with more tough warnings to north korea. speaking at a news conference in thailand, clinton said the regime has "no friends left" and suggested the country's nuclear ambitions could provoke an arms race in the region. earlier on the trip, clinton took on reporters' questions about her future ambitions.

>> will we ever get to see you as president of the united states? >> wow. that's not anything i'm at all thinking about. i think the job i have now is incredibly demanding. i'm not somebody who looks ahead. i don't know, but i doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life. >> so it's wait and see. >> no, no, no! >> never say never. >> well, i am saying no. because i have a very committed attitude toward the job i'm doing now. >> now. >> so that's not anything that is at all on my radar screen. >> secretary clinton will be david gregory's exclusive guest for the full hour on sunday's "meet the press." that will be good. >> it will be great. okay. there are reports out today that one of osama bin laden's sons was killed in a u.s. missile strike in pakistan earlier this

year. it's believed the 27-year-old was not the target of the u.s. attack but was among those killed when a predator drone fired a missile at an al qaeda target. okay. that's a quick look at the news. >> we're going to bring in david ignatius. bring him in. >> i have to read a portion of -- do you have a point you would like to make? >> i would like you to bring david in. we want to also talk with rick stengel, "time" magazine. we shorted him last time because of the cronkite -- >> i know. here with us now, the author of the new novel, "the increment." in his new article in the "washington post," he describes the trapped cia program that's under fire from congress, "the initial idea was to go after al qaeda operatives around the world and compromise them, disrupt them, snatch them, and if necessary, kill them. the goal was that every al qaeda man on the planet should worry that someone is screwing with them full-time.

the cia wanted to send a message -- if you work for osama bin laden, we will find you and come after you." >> david, we'll let democrats in congress do their investigations. let me ask you this. i think more people in middle america would be interested in the answer to this question -- why wouldn't leon panetta and the leaders of cia want us to have that type of program? >> joe, i think people did want to have the capability from september 11, 2001 onward. the problem -- this is what interested me in this article this morning -- is how difficult it was to make that capability work. there are all kinds of legal and bureaucratic reasons why it's not easy for the cia to operate in friendly countries. the idea here was away from the battle fields, away from afghanistan, iraq, where al qaeda operatives and facilitators may be. how do we stress them, go after them, and i said in the article,

if necessary, kill them. to do that in friendly countries, you are really out on a limb. typically the cia does its operations abroad in conjunction with the local intelligence services. they help us go get this guy. we've done that in some instances on renditions, on grabbing people and bringing them back to prisons somewhere. but in this case the idea was to act completely unilaterally. >> you're suggesting if there's a cell in hamburg, germany, we know that there's an al qaeda member that we want to take down, we don't have obama call merkel or our intelligence agency call their intelligence agency. this program, which is have us kill an al qaeda member unilaterally in another sovereign country? >> well, kill him, or harass him, put him under stress, try to pitch him and turn him to work for us. there's a whole range of

options. but when you think about that, joe, take your example of somebody in munich. you need to know where this guy is living, you need to know where he moves, you need to know everything about him. to assemble that kind of detailed intelligence on your own, you need a lot of resources. so there was a feeling that if you're going to do this appropriately you need to recruit a lot of agents. some of them would have to be from the countries where you were operating. that gets really complicated. i don't mean to excuse it. just the more i looked into this, the more layers of bureaucratic problems i found and i found each director, in turn, kind of going, this may be too tough for us. i think that's an issue, as congress looks at that -- >> it was all the directors from 2001 to panetta that just said, guys, would like to do something like this, it's just too difficult. >> it was panetta who looked at this program and said, wait a minute and let -- this should be briefed to congress. i think he's probably right about that. then i think there is going to be a review to ask, well, why is

this so hard? is this something we ought to do? if we ought to do it, do how do we do it better so it works. >> mike barnicle's here. mike? >> david, why does this seem to be such historic conflict/jealousy between intelligence agencies, between dennis blair and leon panetta, between the cia and intelligence operatives out of the defense department? what is the root of this, especially at a time of war? >> it's a great question, mike. there's an element of -- i almost think of faculty politics here. you have people in these arcane specialties, the stovepipes all have elaborate security protection. they just end up fighting. the fbi's hated the cia for as long as there's been a cia. there's just been a battle. now it's between the director of national intelligence and the cia director. part of the problem with these things being so secretive, the normal process of ventilation where people grow up and figure out a way to get along, doesn't happen. it stays secret, it stays

suppressed. in this case we now do have a war between our director of national intelligence and the cia director. the white house is really sick of it. they think do we need this? no, we don't. i think they're fed up basically with the whole business. they're trying to stop it. but it is not the first time this has happened. i do think there is something that's a combination of secrecy and bureaucracy that produces messes like this. >> it's been that way for such a long time. rick stengel, there was even division in the bush white house. we always thought they were shoulder to shoulder but actually, "scooter" libby and cia issues, now you have dick cheney going out defending himself because, bluntly, he didn't think george w. bush did a good job of explaining it. you go into the final days in the bush white house and explain this division in this week's "time." >> yes. it related to what we're talking about. there was this rift between bush and cheney that really began in the second term where bush had

decided he wanted to have more diplomatic outreach than they had in the first term. and cheney believed that -- a reporting shows -- that the whole ball of wax, most important thing was national security and anything that you could do that extremism in the defense of liberty is no bias, as barry goldwater said and everything the administration did was around that idea. >> and bush moved away from cheney's approach on all of these issues the day after democrats took over congress in '06. he fired rumsfeld. he brought in gates. condi rice was elevated. seemed like everything moved very quickly from then on. >> yes. we talk about how cheney infiltrated with his guys. then in the second term it unraveled with condoleezza rice becoming secretary of state, with gates coming in. and in fact some of the people who surrounded bush said, look, we have to move away from this point of view. >> are bush and cheney talking

right now? >> you know, i don't know the answer to that. we do speculate a little bit about it. but cheney feels -- >> i wonder about that. >> -- that he's really got to protect the legacy of the bush administration and the legacy of the bush administration is, we kept america safe. bush feels that let the thing speak for itself, let history write itself. cheney has a lot to protect though. right? with the "scooter" libby hapard, there's all sorts of speculation about what "scooter" libby was protecting, protecting the vice president. so cheney is partially out there to protect what he sees as america's interest and partially out there to protect his own. >> david, from your reporting, have you been able to verify whether democrats claim that dick cheney told the cia not to inform congress of this assassination program? is that accurate? >> yes. >> explain. >> that is accurate. i've had confirmations that in

2001 and 2002, the instruction to cia director george tenet and his people was, do not brief congress. not just that, there's another detail i learned. it was also "do not brief other executive agencies." "don't tell the state department." that continued. there is an interesting question here about whether, if there had ever been an operation -- one thing i should have said, there never actually was an assassination mission that was launched. >> this was never a program, per se, was it? >> it was a program. money was spent on it. agents were recruited. people were trained. in that sense, that was real. >> was it ever operational? >> never operational. it never became operational. if it had become operational, would they then have briefed? we don't know the answer. >> that's a big question. >> that's new from our previous -- >> there is no doubt about it. also rick stengel, going back to you and this butch-cheney split, how remarkable that a vice president of the united states is telling the central intelligence agency not to tell other executive agencies or tell

congress about a program. >> yes. i mean this is a question -- in itself is unconstitutional. david's reporting confirms a lot of what we reported as well, that the program in some ways was notional and a lot of cia operatives say, look. if something had happened, then we would have briefed congress about it. nobody knows the answer to that but that's what the speculation is. >> mike barnicle -- willie, you have a question? >> we've heard the term "assassination squads" thrown around. if you take a step back, why is it actually so offensive to so many people? it is not like we're talking about taking out the prime minister of great britain. if we're talking about going after and killing the people who perpetrated 9/11, why does that offend so many people? >> mike, there is a mystery here. every week we are now assassinating people from the sky, using unmanned predator drones. you had an item in the news as we were coming into the segment about osama bin laden's son perhaps having been killed in

one of these raids. so we accept assassination at a distance. it somehow seems cleaner to us when it's done with a missile from the sky. but close-up, with a gun, people have an instinctively different reaction. >> david, can you explain how backward that is? because what happens is, when you drop bombs from predators from the sky, that's when you kill sons and daughters and innocents. >> precisely. >> you know, six months ago, i asked some friends in the agency, why are we hearing about all of these people that are getting blown up in pakistan and afghanistan? and they said, it's really simple -- we could have our people go out, we could kick down doors, we could bring them back, we could get information, and if we do that, then suddenly we're evil. if we kick down the door and shoot everybody inside the room and don't ask questions, we're heroes. seems like we've got this backward. same thing with these solo

assassination squads. >> isn't that a legacy of the church commission? i'm asking david this. the church committee basically outlawed -- there was a directive outlawing assassinations. right? i think it was -- >> was that of terrorists or of world leaders? >> no, it was -- there was an executive order that bans assassinations that dates from the church committee days, taking it very seriously any time you conduct a lethal mission you have to get a waiver for that. but it is odd that we feel comfortable with these unmanned aerial drones in a way that we don't with the traditional assaults. >> david, at the end of the day, i mean most people in the intelligence business, i'm sure they've told you and you hear it anecdotally, people like me, that one of the most important ingredients of gathering intelligence is what they call human. human intelligence sources on the ground in specific countries. to have human intelligence sources on the ground in specific countries, you need people from agencies like the

cia to recruit them. so at the end of the day, what has all of this talk done to the morale of cia agents and perhaps the recruitment of further, future, cia agents? what has it done to the agency? >> you just put your finger on what really is the biggest worry of all of this new disclosure. imagine that you're some foreign national, you're being asked by the cia to join a team that's going to surveil al qaeda operatives abroad. let's say in france or germany or pakistan. all you know is that you've been seeing in the papers stories about these programs. you're going to have -- this is the most sensitive, risky thing you've ever done. is your secret going to be protected? does the united states have the ability to protect you? it is something we have to think about. if we ask people to do these things, we do have to offer them real assurance that they'll be safe or protected. >> unfortunately, we offered that assurance five, six years

ago, and then all of these countries in central and eastern europe got exposed for helping us out. journalists -- >> they are not happy about it. >> they're not going to help us again because of it. hey, david -- >> david ignatius. >> -- as always, thank you so much. >> thanks very much. >> great to be with you guys. >> rick stengel -- >> i want to underline that fact, that for god's sake -- i don't want to get back into the valley plame deal. anybody that exposes a cia agent should be fired. fine. so we got that. but the same news agencies that were so offended by exposing one cia agent, regardless of how important or unimportant she was, were the ones that jumped up and down, applauded and gave a pulitzer prize to news organizations that outed our allies, an entire program, and our allies in central and eastern europe that took great political risk to help us out in

the hunt for al qaeda. and they get pulitzer prizes. i don't understand it. i'm sure that our former allies who will never do this for us again have to be scratching their heads, going they're rewarding these people? for making america less safe? i don't understand it. i'm just -- rick, i'm just a simple country lawyer. but it seems to me this ain't how we keep america safe. >> plus you're dealing with the loss of gidget. >> i will tell you -- >> he'll be all right. he needs to take some time off. >> i'm going to have to take some time off. i don't like taking time off but i think i'm going to have to. i need bereavement leave. chris, see you next thursday. >> we all need time off. thank you for being with us. it looks like a great story. we'll try and grab you for radio later. >> the new cover of "time" magazine, the final days of bush

and cheney. must have been a touch decision between that and gidget. coming up next -- >> i got brokaw to write about gidget. coming up next, member of the senate banking committee, senator evan bayh. he was in yesterday's hearing with fed chief ben bernanke. we'll talk about that. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. welcome to the now network. population 49 million. right now, 1.5 million people are on a conference call. 750,000 wish they weren't. - ( phones chirping ) - construction workers are making 244,000 nextel direct connect calls.

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i think that we are moving closer, we are making progress, and that i have no question that we have the votes on the floor of the house to pass this legislation. >> it is time for the president to scrap the plan that they've been working on in the house, it is time to bring both parties together to have real health care reform that will reduce the cost of the system, will reduce the cost of health insurance for americans and provide better access. welcome back to "morning joe." here with us now, democratic senator from indiana, and member of the senate banking committee, senator evan bayh. senator, good to see you again, sir. >> good to see you, mika. how are you? >> we're good. we have been talking about gidget, but also the president's -- carlos watson is here with us as well. we've been talking about -- >> carlos will talk about anything. >> yes, he will. >> if evan bayh's on, i'm happy to talk about just about

anything. >> thank you, carlos. >> the president's press conference on health care. did he do anything to convince the public but also democrats who have some fiscal concerns about the plan, including you, that we should move forward and hurry with health care reform. >> mika, there's universal agreement that the system needs to be improved and changed. so the president continuing to advocate for that, putting this squarely at the front of the agenda helps very much. he continues to lay out the broad goals that we need to achieve, but of course the devil is in the details. we're now starting to get into some of those details, one of which is how do we afford this. because frankly, the country is going broke. it's not something we like to recognize, but it's true. think about this one fact -- 50 cents out of every tax dollar that the federal government will spend this year, half is borrowed. now that goes down in future years but it is still more than we can afford. we've got to do something about this. the president expressing his desire to what they call bend

back cost curve, get costs under control but help the costs for average people as well as to the federal deficit to get that down, that's very helpful. the difficulty is how exactly do you accomplish that. when the omb came out last week and indicated the current plans that have been put forward in fact did not do that, it shows there is still some work to be done. >> of course, there are a lot of people, i'm sure a lot more than 50% in indiana, that have some serious questions, mike barnicle. we just showed the president upside down on health care approval ratings. he's got to turn those numbers around. >> he's got a tough job and last night was part of the process of trying to turn those numbers around. senator, let's play a pretend game here. we're in gary, indiana. you're addressing a town hall meeting, i stand up, i'm from gary, indiana, a town decimated over the many, many years by the economy. and i ask you the following question. i say, "i heard the president of the united states, he's a democrat, senator, you're a

democrat, tell me that this health plan is going to cut costs in the future and expand care in the future. i don't know much about the economy, but how do we do that? how do we cut costs at the same time as we expand care?" >> well, that's an excellent question, mike. i'm not sure if i can answer that. i think it is appropriate to have some skepticism about the federal government saying, look, we're going to spend money today but trust us, it is going to save you money tomorrow. there are about 18 different things, however, that have been recommended to accomplish exactly what you've laid out in that hypothetical question. 16 of them have been included in these proposals. the problem is that many of them are very small pilot projects, they aren't really up to scale so they don't really save you much money over the next ten years. if we don't come to grips with this deficit over the next ten years, it is going to get away from us. changing the fundamental way about how health care's provided to ensure that we get the quality that you need, you can choose your physician, you can

get the innovation new therapies and cures, but doing it more efficiently. that really is the key. the final two things, mike -- so 16 of the 18 things -- i won't go through the whole list -- they're in there but we need to do more of that. the final two things, you discussed this earlier this morning on the program, a commission to take the politics out of how much we pay for these different things. that would be very helpful. because congress always caves at the end of the day in making tough decisions about spending. >> right. >> the president's for that. i think you'll find some bipartisan agreement for that. second thing, joe, it is ironic, one of the things we're trying to do is reduce the increase in health care expenditures at the same time our tax code actually incents more health care expenditures. trying to find a way to grandfather those people who make those we don't harm them. but going forward we level the field to we don't encourage more health care spending would really help to control costs. >> we have a lot to do in a

little time here, senator. let me ask you -- >> can i say one other, joe? >> sure. >> to that hypothetical person in gary, i don't know if they'd relate to that, basically we have to change incentives in the system to guarantee your care but do it more efficiently. >> let me give you something that somebody, whether in gary or indianapolis or wherever you go, will understand, and that is somebody stands up and says, "i'm out of work. unemployment in this town is 22%. i heard rahm emanuel just say that the president's stimulus package, quote, rescued the economy." has the economy been rescued when actually we have 2 million less jobs than this white house was predicting would have just six months ago? >> well, i think we avoided a catastrophe. there was a time late last year, early this year, when we were very much staring into an economic and physical abyss. ben bernanke, the federal

reserve -- >> has the economy been rescued? >> i think we've avoided the worst, joe. but we are, frankly, still in a very difficult economic situation. we can't afford to take our eye off the ball. most of the stimulus, as you know, has not yet gone into effect. it's helped but we still haven't solved the problem. >> the voters in indiana that you're going to see at the town hall meetings over the break feel like they have been, quote, rescued? >> yeah. and that they're not in a catastrophic situation? >> no, not yet. our unemployment rate in indiana is i think about 10.6%. there was just an estimate yesterday that it's expected to go up to 11.5% or 11.6% by the middle of next year because as you know, it is a lagging economic indicator. we're in this phase now where statistics may start looking a little bit better. but to that person in indianapolis or gary or anywhere else in middle america, they aren't going to feel things have gotten any better because, frankly, for the majority of them it hasn't gotten any better yet. we have to keep our eye on the

ball. back to hell caralth care, in tg run we've got to do things to help change the system but so that in the short run it doesn't exacerbate the economic problem. >> carlos watson? >> you're a former governor, senator bye. the unemployment situation in indiana is fairly serious right now, including places like elkhart. are there two or three, even three or four things, you're beginning to see create meaningful numbers of jobs in indiana or frankly some of the neighboring states? >> carlos, it's very tough right now. as you know, we're a manufacturing state. and that part of the economy is still very difficult. some of the life science areas, however, they continue to hire. they continue to do fairly well. that's a part of our future economy. the green energy, there's great potential there. we're having new wind farms go up in indiana. we make components for those wind turbines. in some of the new environmental areas we're seeing some economic growth. but we're still losing more jobs

than we're creating. that's something we got to change. >> are there any tax breaks or any particular elements of the stimulus program that so far have been particularly effective in your mind in creating a couple hundred or maybe in some cases 1,000 or more jobs? >> well, you mentioned elkhart, koor lo carlos. there were tax incentives to purchasers of recreational vehicles, mobile homes, that's what we make in elkhart, indiana. hopefully that will help stabilize that part of our manufacturing industry in indiana. >> senator bahy, thank you very much. >> sorry we had to rush you along. >> i'll try and be briefer with my answers next time. >> no! >> no! >> we don't want that. but we do want you back very soon to talk more about health care. elkhart, indianapolis, gary -- we didn't mention french lick, indiana. larry byrd's hometown. >> thank you for that factoid,

barnicle. >> speaking of indiana, i'm a notre dame, south bend, indiana. >> they going to do well this year? >> is this charlie weis's last year in indiana? >> it could be. coming up, new numbers on weekly jobless claims and existing home sales. we'll bring those to you when we come back on "morning joe." >> i like charlie weis but how do you lose that many games at notre dame? bayh. [ engine revving ]

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president obama is being criticized by those who say his pick for surgeon general is overweight. the president is ignoring the controversy, however, and instead focusing his energies on getting congressional approval for his new drug czar. >> welcome back to "morning joe." for some reason, as we lead into the mark haines segment, we're playing "rehab" by amy winehouse. is there a connection? new unemployment numbers are out this morning. let's get a check on business

before the bell with cnbc's mark haines live at the new york stock exchange. how's it looking? >> new unemployment numbers are out? >> that's never good. okay. >> can you tell me what they are? >> no, that's your job. go ahead. >> no, i just spent 15 minutes walking down ten flights of stairs because the elevators here are broken. so if you have the jobless number, i would appreciate if you'd give it to me. >> anybody have the jobless numbers down here? >> i thought you were going to say you walked down 16 flights of stairs to get a bag of chips. >> no. i walked down ten flights of stairs to be here with you. >> willie has -- >> and i'm beginning to regret that decision. >> here's the numbers. this is important. >> new number, mark haines. 554,000 jobless claims. >> is that good or bad if. >> that's bad. that's not good. over half a million? that's bad. is barnicle there? >> i'm here.

>> i don't want him running out and crashing into the side of a bridge abutment. 3m's earnings were great. once again we saw a drop in revenues by cost cutting. mcdonald's earnings were in line. at&t looked good. ford lost much less than they were expected to lose. u.p.s., unfortunately, did not have good numbers. of course, u.p.s. and fedex are kind after barometer on the economy because they run around delivering the crap from china that everybody orders. >> is that a new product category? >> what am i going to get for christmas this year? a bag of crap from china. well, okay. >> mark haines, we love you. >> anyway, look. here's a note on the jobs thing. okay? ever since the internet

revolution beginning back in the late '90s, we haven't grown jobs as much as we used to when the economy was expanding. so don't get hung up on, oh, they're still not growing jobs. the economy can rebound and can prosper even if job growth is relatively tepid. >> thank you so much, mark. new jobless claims rise to 554,000. total rolls fall. the government says the number of newly laid off workers seeking jobless benefits rose last week though the report was distorted by the timing of auto plant shutdowns. they expected though the department analyst says the government sees the adjustment process seeing a sharp drop in claims this week but that didn't happen. >> the battle over the e-book has technology changing the way you read a book.

hi, may i help you? yes, i hear progressive has lots of discounts on car insurance. can i get in on that? are you a safe driver? yes. discount! do you own a home? yes. discount! are you going to buy online? yes! discount! isn't getting discounts great? yes! there's no discount for agreeing with me. yeah, i got carried away. happens to me all the time.

welcome back. with us now, the president of barnes & noble.com. william limpynch. this week they're launch you the new e-book, changing the whole face of publishing. >> willie, should i keep my kendall? you have a better idea. >> there are a whole bunch of devices coming out. barnes & noble announced the launch of the world's largest e-book store. we also have a deal with plastic logic coming out with a big tablet e-reader format. barnes & noble will parody e-book store for that device using plastic display technology. it is not heavy, can you actually roll up the display.

it's super durable and that comes out in q1 of 2010. >> this is the future. >> i could be convinced. popular book titles or sometimes you see these new devices, they don't have the cool things that you really want. they have kind of the second order, slightly older things. all the new book titles will be on the new version? >> that's right. over 700,000 titles. all the front lists. before coming on the show i downloaded joe's book, "last best hope." i did it in 30 seconds. that's one of the real benefits of e-books when you talk about convenience. whenever you get inspired, it can be picking up your kid at school, and in line whenever you get inspired, you can surf or barnes & noble e-book store and download literally in seconds. >> it actually costs less. >> than bound books? yeah. typically they cost less and consumers i think expect e-books

to cost less just given the format. it is not printed and distribution costs are lower. >> so what's the ace up your sleeve? is there a major marketing campaign? >> i wonder, can you pre-order books? >> i'd love to load it on your blackberry or iphone and have joe and mika endorse it. >> you can load this on your blackberrys? >> yeah, back berrberry s as we. it's on devices millions of consumers already own. you don't need an expensive piece of hardware. >> how do i do that? i've got a blackberry and an iphone. how do i download it? >> go to bn.com has instructions. you can go to the apple ap store, search for bne reader and

search for software. it's free. we've loaded free trial e-books to let consumers give it a shot. >> that's easy. >> in fact, i can show you how easy it is. >> okay. >> got his iphone. good lord, it's making noises. >> the ultimate test. >> there it is. >> he just downloaded your book. >> let's download joe's book. buy now, read if seconds. >> you can read in seconds. it's seven pages long. >> there you go! >> you're good. >> we just bought the book. then if we go to our -- back here to the e-reader application, there it is.

>> boom. hey, we're going to keep looking at that. stay with us. we'll have you tell us what we learned today. i think you'll be part of it. what's next? >> now that walter cronkite has passed away, who is the new most trusted man in news? the answer's going to surprise you. courtney hazlett has it when we come back. my mother made the best toffee in the world. it's delicious. so now we've turned her toffee into a business.

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walter cronkite was a giant in the industry. was that a man you looked up? >> i wanted to be when i was a kid. >> really. >> it was like carrot top to you. >> that was a good segment. >> they're good together. >> which of those two men that you just watched right there is the most trusted man in news? msnbc.com's courtney hazlett has the answer. >> it's not brian williams. >> what? >> yes. "time" magazine -- "time" magazine did a poll asking people that now that walter cronkite has died who's the most trusted man in news? they said jon stewart. brian williams number two. that's a cute little thing going on. >> that's an online poll. jon stewart would love before anyone at the result. >> hopefully he will. "us weekly," the editor in chief stepping down. janice has done more than just

about anybody out there. gone are the days when an editor can come into a new position and make a million dollars-plus. this is a by changing of the guard here. >> she taught us celebrities are like us. >> stars are just like us. >> more on michael jackson, your column, too. >> exactly. >> a little bit of overkill. let's slow down and just really listen to what's going on. >> read more from courtney an her column, the scoop column, msnbc.com. you'll be glad you did. next, what, if anything, did we learn today? welcome to the now network. currently, thousands of people

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kids, it's time, the part of the show, where we talk about what, if anything, did we learn today? >> learned vernon jordan's joining me today at 11:00. >> willie geist? >> i think you know what i learned. we lost a good one yesterday. gidget, the taco bell dog, passed away at the age of 15. she's being remembered this morning by her trainer as the "consummate professional." >> right now the city of los angeles is not confirming or denying they'll pay expenses for this funeral as well. keep it on msnbc throughout the day. a retrospective on gidget later on this afternoon. we'll try to get the mayor of los angeles to confirm that. what did you learn today? >> the whole city of los angeles

funeral thing -- >> you know what? the whole world doesn't revolve around you, courtney. >> oh, come on! >> what did you learn today? >> the whole world doesn't revolve around me. >> anything else? >> no. >> you've broken her. >> what did you learn, william? >> mika's writing a book. >> oh, gosh. well thank you. that is really generous. >> mike? >> i learned my favorite thing reading is going to be made even more affordable and more accessible. >> what did you learn, mika? >> we never cross-promote here on "morning joe." did you guys get my coffee? who has my starbucks? >> william, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> it's "morning joe." >> good morning to you. i am dylan. welcome to the morning meeting. topping our agenda today,

the president's health care pitch. did he win the hearts and minds and what's left to do? did he convince you that we need reform and that we need to do it now? we'll talk to white house deputy press secretary bill burton on that subject. the mystery around michael jackson's death continues to grow. a raid at his doctor's houston clinic and subpoenas to his nutritionist this morning. we're asking who were those around michael in the weeks before he died and are any of them in fact to blame for his death. then the made-up controversy over president obama's citizenship blowing up once again. why aren't republicans quashing the conspiracy theories and why is citizenship a requirement in the first place? you may be surprised what politicians weren't born in the united states. it is a creepy new move. a family adopts an orphan. turns out she's pure evil. annie meets psycho. it has politicians and activist groups up in arms.

it is 9:00 a.m., it is the morning indeed and the "morning meeting" begins right now. good morning to you. fourth prime time news conference for the president of the united states since taking office. health care on the agenda, but so were many other things, including racism and transparency in finance. the headline, his argument that the stars he believes are aligned for health care reform. he insists doing nothing is not an option. take a listen. >> if we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. if we don't act, 14,000 americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. these are the consequences of inaction. these are the stakes of the debate that we're having right now. >> nbc news political director and chief white house correspondent chuck todd in the room for the presser last night. with us th