co-host. i'm glad to have mort zurkman with me today. mort, we were talking before the show started about bill clinton in north korea. have you ever visited north korea? >> no, i haven't. i have some familiarity through -- with north korea through an amazing documentary which i saw a couple of years which demonstrated the total control that kim jong-il had over that country. you saw when he was ill for six months there was not the slightest disturbance or anything like that. so you are seeing somebody dealing with only the leadership of that country and bill clinton is a very good man to do that. >> the last major breakthrough we've had with north korea happened when another former president, jimmy carter, visited north korea in the early '90s. at the time, president clinton wasn't that excited about him going there but it ultimately led to that 1994 accord? >> the problem with the 1994 accord, of course, is the north koreans had no intention of keeping to its terms. we've had several subsequent

agreements with them. they just don't keep to those terms so we have a real problem with that country because they are one of the strangest countries in the world. >> mort, we're going to talk a little business today. it seems in some ways the economy may have hit bottom. you see some economists now say things are rebound ago little bit. what are you seeing you out there? are a you bullish as the s&p goes up and nasdaq north of 2000? >> i think the fact of the stock market is going up is helpful in terms of confidence. the problem is that stock market is going up because earnings are going up and earnings are going up not because revenue is increasing, but because they're slashing costs all over the place. so what is good for the individual companies, unfortunately, is not good for the economy, because in one sense, what they are doing is they're letting a lot of people go and that, ultimately, is very bad for the economy. the question is how far does this go? how long does this go? nobody knows. i can only tell you this. from my own reading from the economy from my dialogue with a lot of people, the business

community is still very pessimistic and very weary. they are just waiting to see nobody is willing to make commitments. a lot of commitments to spend money or to hire people and those are the two indications that would give you the feeling that the economy is getting better. >> we're going to talk about it later on with cnbc's david faber and talk about it with steve pearlstein from "the washington post." we have new pictures of former president bill clinton meeting with north korean leader kim jong-il today. he is in pyongyang to negotiate the release of two american journalists. savannah guthrie now joins us. savannah, interesting to see the kind of white house dance, or just as reverend jesse jackson has done a number of these kind of individual missions said an hour earlier, so is that to be expected? the white house needs a little distance from this? >> i think it's to be expected, especially at this moment when the former president is still in north korea. this is very delicate, trying to

secure the release of these two american journalists. the white house may want to say something but it's not going to say anything until those journalists are safe and that is the reason. interesting, though, that they did reach out to say this is a private mission and that may be in service of the former president's goals over there. i think we will hear more of the back story. it's hard to imagine the former president, so connected to the current administration by hillary clinton, his wife, the secretary of state, wouldn't have the overt approval from the white house to do this but you're not going to hear that from the white house today. >> savannah, you know, one much things speaking domestically for a moment i was intrigued by after having a weekend retreat with his cabinet some six months into his term, president obama met with all 60 senate democrats today. what are you hearing about that meeting? was there significant new policy discussion or is it trying to wrangle the herd, if you will, ahead of the august recess? >> you know, as as i understand it, i think it's lunch. i hope i'm not wrong.

i don't believe we've had the meeting yet. it's the regular democratic caucus meeting. the president invited them all over instead of doing it at the caucus. it includes two independents, too. anyway they are coming over. i think they will talk about the health care situation and i think they're going to get probably some pressures probably not the right word. encouragement from the president to get cash for clunkers done. i think the president to meet with democrats and, hopeful get them in line on his priorities. >> i also think there is going to be something else that is going to be discussed, surprise, surprise. i think he is going to try to ask several of them to give him a feel for the politics is for health care and the rising concern in the country and all of the polls over the national debt which is becoming a major issue in torms terms of what he is trying to do with health care. >> savannah, your thoughts on this. we got new reports that the federal tax receipts, how much money comes into our coffers, is

down 18%, the biggest individual drop since 1932. savannah, is that causing any fresh ripples there in washington? or, again, is that just an understanding that's more of the bad news that's working through the system and it's just yet another this is the worse situation we've had since the great depression? >> it's all part and parcel about this issue of deficit, all of. approximate it won't be a surprise to the administration, right? they know that one of the reasons we're in the situation we're in is because any time you're in a terrible recession, as we are, naturally, unemployment, where it is, tax receipts are going down. so at the very moment that the government needs money the most, it's getting less and less and less and now we know the exact figure, 18%. it's a steep drop. i thought interesting the numbers come out on the same day, yesterday, that the white house found itself having to backtrack a little bit on this tax pledge, whether or not the administration really is open to taxing middle class families. it seemed like geithner and summers opened the door this

weekend and robert gibbs yesterday at the press briefing slammed it shut. >> savannah guthrie, thanks so much. i understand you've got a pretty special guest coming up at 1:00? >> we do. i'm filling in for andrea mitchell on andrea mitchell report at 1:00 and david axelrod will be our guest so we'll ask him some of these questions and try to extract news on north korea but i don't have high hopes for that one, he is staying mum for now. >> he's a former journalist so he knows what he is doing. savannah, good to see you and look forward to tuning in at 1:00 when david axelrod is your guest. >> thanks. democrats will head to the white house with the president for lunch. with the senate about to leave for break they are about to take stock of where the priorities stand. jon tester of montana joins us. good to see you. >> good to be on and congratulations on the show, carlos. i'm a big fan. >> thank you very much. very much appreciated. i understand for all of the focus on health care that you've actually been focused on a very

different issue related to general motors, the large car company. you want to share a little bit what seems to be a pretty strong piece of frustration on your part? >> absolutely, carlos. what has gone on is gm who took $50 billion of bailout money has decided to go to a bankruptcy court and cancel a contract with the stillwater mine that provides them with the material that goes into catalytic converters which makes the cars burn cleaner so the air is cleaner that comes out of the exhaust. >> to be clear, that's a mine in montana? >> that's a mine in montana. the only specific mine in the united states. they said we're getting the palladium from russia or south america. when they came to the banking committee, gm i'm talking about, a year and a half ago, they said we need money, we need it to preserve our manufacturing base in this country, we need to preserve our suppliers. one of the first actions they do is go to the bankruptcy court and say, hey, we're going to leave this supplier high and dry

and it's 1300 miners in a mine i was in last week that do a great job, very, very vinchtly conscious and on the stillwater river which is a very nice fishery and very nice river and they coexist with that, do a great job, and first thing gm does is says we're pulling this contract so we can get it cheaper in other places where the labor is cheaper and environmental standards aren't as high. doesn't make any sense to me and i think gm made the wrong decision. gm said what is good for gm is good for this country and not the case here. what they have done here is a bad thing for this country and bad inning for the 1,300 miners in this country. >> senator tester, let me push you and take the other side for a moment. what if they said, look, the taxpayers put tens of billions of dollars in our and we are a company in deep trouble and fewer people despite the cash for clunkers program is buying cars. the reality we have to do whatever we can and you would call this reckless if we didn't try to figure out how to lower some of the costs. is there an argument on their

part they are doing what they have to do to ultimately be able to pay back the american taxpayers? >> i think if everybody had that attitude, you'd go to the least common denominator on wages and, you know, the environment and things like that. truth is when they came to the committee, carlos, they said we want to keep our suppliers. this is one of their suppliers in this country. the other thing is these people have good paying jobs with benefits and when they have a job and they get their wages, they turn around and they buy cars with that money. so if we start losing jobs and it adds to this unemployment topic that you and mort were talking about earlier, we end up with people who have no jobs and have no money to buy gm cars, the very cars they are trying to sell to get them out of their problem. >> you know, i think that's the natural frustration what is going on here. i think there were very few real limits on the legislation that is going to require them to spend money in this country. and the fact is we are, as a

country, in a much more difficult competitive position on manufacturing than we are on a lot of other things. a lot of cars, for example, are being made in canada and more than will be because that's the only way they can survive and, therefore, you have to ask yourself did it make sense to put $50 billion into a company which is essentially in a bad competitive position vis-a-vis other countries. that is, i think, one of the issues we have to address here because a lot of this was done i think without thinking it through and not financing them so they could spin off more activities to other countries. >> well, you're light, right, mort. i don't know. i guess maybe being from montana where your handshake and your word is your bond but i asked these guise when they were in front of the banking committee if would utilize to keep our manufacturing base in this country specifically and they said yes. i assumed they would do the same thing with their suppliers because they talked about keeping their suppliers whole and they haven't done that. i think -- if anything has changed in my lifetime i really

think it's the general population commit to this country first. i think that's what this is about. it's about making a commitment to this country by gm, one of our biggest companies for the last 30, 40, 50 years. >> senator tester, before we go, i have to ask you about the upcoming lunch with president obama and about the sense that president obama is really at a crossroads, not just as it relates to health care, but maybe to the rest of it, if you will, his first year agenda. what do you expect to hear during this lunch and what advice will you give president obama and your fellow montana senator max baucus who controls a lost of the health care what they should do during the august rece recess? >> i think everybody understand the status quo in health care is not working and i think the president understand that very well. we are in a legislative process here in congress where we're trying to come up with a bill that fits the needs of folks by controlling costs and making sure that we have choice and making sure health care is

affordable and accessible and making sure that wellness and prevention is part of the equation, too. so, you know, as this thing sorts out, i think we're going to end up with a good health care bill in the end. but you know, as the legislative process goes, you know, there's some trials and tribulations and some jerks and hiccups but i feel confident we're going to get something through here that the president can be appreciative of and quite frankly, the american people will fit the needs of the american people. >> senator tester, good to see you and look forward to you joining us again and would although love to have you join us from montana during the recess. >> that sounds like a date to me. look forward to making that happen. >> look forward to it. thank you. >> thank you. curious what you thought about senator tester's point. please send me tweets. find my picture, you see it there and click on it and let me know what you think or go to twitter.com/carlos watson another way to get at me. still to come, will high stakes high-speed trading on

computers feel the death of wall street. is the cash for clunkers program awaits fate in senate one late night talker says don't stop with just that! you're watching msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. a government designed stimulus program that is working. people trade in their own cars and get up to $4,500 towards more more fuel-efficient cars. cash for clunkers. i just figured out how to solve medicare, too. ! sorry, grandma! sorry, grandma, but new grandma can speedwalk! (announcer) that ball is going, going, gone! home run! (announcer) he's sweet. even with one third less sugar than soda. kool-aid. delivering more smiles per gallon.

welcome back to msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. now former president become

is the highest ranking u.s. official for meet with north korea's secretive dictator kim jong-il since his own secretary of state madeleine albright almost a decade ago but can former president clinton deliver? peter baker joins us now. good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> interesting topic, huh? >> it is. >> let's ask the question -- do you think president bill clinton can deliver something? my initial instinct is, yes, not only because of what jimmy carter was able to do 15 years ago but because we know that in 2000, clinton got close to some sort of deal. what is your thought? do you think he can deliver something? >> it's hard to imagine president clinton would have gone there unless this was a done deal. they will not bring in the former president of the united states unless they were ready to make a deal. a lot of wild speculation out there that he could have some sort of broader discussion about the nuclear issue, for instance and it may be that the north

koreans want to bring those issues up in their meetings with him, maybe even send a message back to president obama through president clinton. but president clinton isn't there to negotiate the nuclear situation but there to get the two journalists out. >> it's hard to also imagine he would have gone unless he knew shall we say, close to a done deal. i think it's the perfect place for him, given his intellectual breadth and experience he is able to discuss these other things without it sort of being a formal commitment to doing that. >> mort and peter, does this offer an opportunity, if you will? i hate to use the word "cover." but does this offer a cover to do what you were talking about, piece peter, allow somebody to save face and maybe allow the united states and perhaps china, too, to put some money on the table the kind of money maybe south korea as well? >> i think the opportunity to have conversations and perhaps communicate messages back and forth. he's not just a former president. he also the spouse of the secretary of state. hard to sort of imagine any kind of precedent for this kind of

meeting, obviously, but you know, this could be a back door way of getting messages back and forth and we'll see where it leads. i would it's it goes beyond the two journalists because this is a tumultuous back and forth over the flaf program. wait and see and get something maybe not la long from now. >> i want to run a clip that kind of surprised me. one of my questions here is how are republicans going to respond to this effort. take a listen to what lindsey graham had to say on the "today" show this morning. >> i don't believe in, you know, cowboy diplomacy. if he could sit down with the north koreans and convey a message from the administration and the congress to be more reasonable when it comes to verifying their nuclear program and getting away from the nuclear weapons it would be a good thing. >> peter, your thoughts on that quickly. >> i think senator graham is right he is not there as a cowboy glomt.

the white house said he is not carrying a message from president obama but i spent time with president clinton. he does not do anything without checking first with the white house. he clearly know what the official line is going to be and he is not going to be straying or freelancing in that regard. >> peter, thanks for joining us. >> thanks very much. ahead, the topic is the bad economy blurring the lines between law and order in the criminal justice system? some tough and controversial choices are being made and, later, taking on the ultimate domestic goddess, martha stewart's daughter can tell us why the apple can fall pretty far from the tree. you're watching msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. beginning to shine again. the spark began where it always begins. at a restaurant downtown. in a shop on main street. a factory around the corner.

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. i'm carlos watson. now some criminals across the country may be getting a free ride because states can't afford to lock them up, at least that's one way to put it.

alan jenkins is the ceos of an opportunity agenda and former senior justice department official. alan where the nation's fixated on the economy and health care reform you told me you think there is fairly major changes, almost a quiet revolution in thousand we're approaching criminal justice. say a little bit more. >> absolutely, carlos. we're seeing under the radar huge changes in criminal justice at the state level so a state like texas, well-known for its harsh criminal of justice policies is now focusing on drug courts where somebody who would otherwise be convicted after crime go to prison and can actually undergo drug treatment and close supervision by a judge avoid incarceration. >> texas is doing more rehab and less imprisonment? >> exactly. >> again, these are laws that are almost 40 years old go back to former governor nelson rockefeller who was trying to get tough on drugs in the late '60s and early '70s, some

thought mafg too far and ended up locking people up for extremely long periods of time? >> that's right. where it used to be toxic to roll back any kind of law enforcement efforts, it's now actually happening in states around the country and to some extent at the federal level. >> mort, interesting. i thought that was one of the stunning parts of the 2008 election. do you remember when crime was one of the staples of a presidential election? we heard almost nothing of it last year. >> that's because we've had a dramatic decline in the crime rate in this country. in a city like new york, the crime rate is down by about two-thirds and, frankly, wasn't only that there were long sentences but they are were mandated to be long sentences where you couldn't geed get out on a pardon and it turned out it was ridiculous. it captured the political emotion of that time and that is now all turned around i think that makes it possible and raises that kind of public reaction. >> absolutely. i think it's crime, cost, and the common good. historically low crime rates. it's just become too expensive for states to maintain these

huge -- >> i'm blown away when you hear arnold schwarzenegger facing a $26 billion budget deficit over there and a large portion of is the prisons. 40,000 dollars per prisoner. >> that's right. you see governors who deem themselves tough on crime who are now realizing they have to be smart on crime and invest in the better strategies. >> any pushback or anyone saying we get maybe things we weren't doing right in terms of the criminal justice effort but are we being a little bit too liberal and too lenient because of tough economic times and are we ultimately going to have a problem roo recidivism where we let people out too soon and not harsh up front and ultimately the same people commit more crimes, et cetera? >> particularly if you let a lot of people out in very difficult economic times when it's going to be very difficult for them to get jobs. that's the one thing that you really worry about because a lot of people, for example, a lot of, in this country a lot of illegal immigrants who had jobs, now don't have jobs and don't want to go back to the country

of origin and, frankly, getting engaged in a lot of crime. >> the question is how you do this. the research is very strong that the recidivism rates are much lower for people who successfully complete the drug courts and drug treatment and re-entry procedures than people who spend time in prison but without those services, we are going to see an increase in crime. i think the key here is you can save money by using alternative sentencing and supervision but you got to invest in that supervision. >> we got to leave it here but incredibly pressing topic and glad you brought it to us. tomorrow, senator jim webb is join us and unveil for the first time a major effort to take what is happening on a state level and do it on a federal level and really revolutionize our criminal justice system and interesting he as a conservative democrat is leading the way on this. alan jenkins, thank you for more on this. for more on the topics we're discussing check out carloswatson.msnbc.com. go to twitter.com/quart and let me know whether or not you think some of the changes that alan was talking about makes sense.

coming up next, should president obama be aware of the dog days of summer? andy card, the man who has held that role longer than anybody else chief of house what to expect during the summer recess. bill clinton's trip to north korea to try and free american journalists jailed there. we got more on that ahead. breaking news on bill clinton's trip to north korea. you're watching msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. d buy 300 bottles of water. or just one brita filter. ( drop plinks ) brita-- better for the environment and your wallet. new tide stain release. it's an advanced in-wash booster that works with your detergent to help remove the toughest stains the first time. new tide stain release. available in duo pack, liquid or powder.

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romantically link to all of them. the man's wife is also facing charges. sounds a little bit like a jude law movie and come back to that later. ruth madoff has reached an agreement. under the deal, she will provide a monthly accounting of her income and payments and accounts for any expense over a hundred dollars. and a new 2010 election battle is taking shape today. pennsylvania congressman and former navy admiral says he is taking on senator arlen specter. he threw his hat in the ring this morning and sestak is hitting the ground running and five campaign stops planned for today and tomorrow and already visited each of pennsylvania's 67 counties. not bad. beware of the recession. that's the warning being issued to president obama as we enter the august break. the month is traditionally not been kind to past presidents. some of may remember hurricane

katrina and russian coup of 1991. andy card joins me. good to see you again. >> good to be with us. thanks for having me on. >> now, mort and i were talking a little bit about what you shared with me last night. i was fascinated by it. you were saying that the august recess, while we all may be expecting it will be consumed by the health care battle and people's local districts, you say, you know, don't expect that you know what's coming. say more about that. >> well, i think you have to expect the unexpected. first of all, prime time hurricane season. there are lots of tornadoes and inevidently a hurricane or a tornado that will disrupt the president's, quote, vacation. i'm someone who believes it's important for the president to get away and the white house staff to recharge their batteries but the world goes on and there are challenges that have to be met. but you have to understand that an awful lot of wars have started during august. the bosnian wars started kind of

in august. you had the russian coup attempt in 1991. you had saddam hussein innovate invading kuwait in 1990 and president clinton sending bombs over to afghanistan during his tenure in retaliation for the bombings that took place earlier in august in tanzania and in nairobi, kenya. so august is a challenging time to be president and the world does not go on vacation when the president does. >> are there different things that you think -- mort, you jump? in. >> how does the president staff up for something like that? does he leave the chief of staff behind in order to make sure that everything runs smoothly and well? rather than having the president engaged? >> the most important thing is good communications. he has to be able to communicate with people almost instantaneously and not a doubt in my mind the white house

communication is agency will be up to the task and make sure the president and his senior advisers will have good means of communicateing in a secret way. in other words, classified and secure conversation and also to communicate publicly to the world so that the world understands the president may not be at the white house, but he's on the job and the president is always on the job as is the chief of staff. >> andy, i want to turn your attention to a different topic. over the weekend there was a lot of talk from some of the obama senior economic adviserses. we heard from tim geithner and larry summers and christina romer talking about the fate of the economy and where it was and where it might be headed. how much power does a president have over driving the economy in the short term? are there key levers that the president can pull that actually make a difference for somebody who has been in the white house? >> the president does have some levers but there are more levers controlled by ben bernanke and the federal reserve than there

are by folks who work at the white house. but the president and his senior advisers, the secretary of the treasury and the folks working at the white house in economic policy, clearly have an impact on the psychology of america when it relates to the economy. so the words that they say make a difference and the policies that they espouse make a difference and they have to be careful with the words they use and the policies that they look to put in place. and they've got to work with congress. remember, the president alone cannot make economic policy changes. congress has to ratify them or at least embrace them. >> but you do think, andy, that this white house has more control over the economic levers than any white house you've seen in 50, 60 years? >> well, because of the changes that came through the stimulus packages, the ones that were passed before president obama took office and the ones that passed since he took office, gave the president a disproportionate amount of authority in regime of our economy. yes, that makes a difference.

president obama has more economic clout than many of his predecessors, not because of his personality and not because of his leadership but because of the rules that were changed so that he could have more say over what happens in our economy. i'm not sure he is using all of the rules the way he should be, but he skf does have an awful lot of power compared to his predecessors. >> andy card, good to see you and thanks for joining us. >> thank you. good to see you, mort. >> good to see you, andy. >> does andy card have it right? we want to hear from you. send me your tweets. go to the website on the screen and hit my face there so to speak! and send me a tweet. you see the address on the screen. let me know does andy card have it right? is wall street headed toward another meltdown? despite the recent success is there new success waiting in the wings? breaking news on that. you're watching msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. ♪ money money every day special.

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welcome back to msnbc live. developing now new first-person video into nns of severe weather in the louisville, kentucky area. the national weather service has declared a flood emergency. parts of the received received up to 6 inches of rain the past few hours. in fact, more is predicted. some faint signs of an economic recovery but there are also some troubling signs that wall street may be up to the same antics that fueled the global economic recession. i'm joined by steven pearlstein with the "the washington post." and snoons cnbc david faber is with us as well. and here with me is mort zuckerman. steve you wrote just as we're

getting out of one recession you think wall street using the high-speed computers and so-called high-speed trading may be cooking up another problem. say more about that, please. >> wall street is very clever at coming up with new products that make money and new ways of doing things that make money for them and, allegedly, make the financial markets more efficient. but they also, we've noticed over the last several decade, tend to make them a little less stable and much more volatile. and i think it's a fair question to ask whether we want all this extra efficiency, if it comes at the expense of that instability. >> well, there is that argument, of course, whatever one is selling short, whether it makes the markets more efficient or not. in this particular case, it's really the speed of the transaction, it seems to me, that is at issue here. why do you think that makes it

less stable? >> well, mort, stimeds sometimes if you change the speed at which it's done, then you can create all sorts of new funny, clever strategies which would not have been otherwise possible. and it's those strategies which make -- those trading strategies which make the system less stable. you could argue all we're doing here is paving the cow path and making what we always used to do just faster. the fact of the matter is it's not always what we used to do. if you can buy and sell tens and hundreds of millions of stocks in a matter of -- shares of stocks in a matter of milliseconds and you can get there three milliseconds faster than the next guy and do some front-running that is not adding efficiency at all. what that is, a, it's unfair and, b, it may be creating a lot of volatility. it may be sending false signals. for example, mort, you know this. oftentimes with these systems, they send a signal i want to buy a hundred million shares of something and then they withdraw

the signal but the other computer see the order to buy, they react to it, not knowing that in the next millisecond it had been withdrawn. and so these things cause all sorts of, you know, spy versus spy versus spy when the computers are trading against each other. look. i don't know that it's bad, but i don't actually know that it's good. the idea that it's adding liquidity, we hear this all the time. whenever wall street comes up with anything, it adds liquidity, it must be good. remember, we came out of a period there was too much liquidity and it caused a lot of damage. >> david, i want to bring you in as we see these new highs on wall street, is there concern about some of this high-speed trading, the ability to use this high frequently trading on new exchanges to make a little bit of money on millions and billions of trades? >> i think it is interesting, carlos, just this suddenly introduced into the debate. fact is this former trading has existed for many, many years on wall street. there is a new component of it that was referred to, flash

orders, if you will, the ability to ultimately see in multiseconds what the order book is or what the flow is and then trade ahead of that. you know, i don't know that i would feel as that it is a large concern at this point or that it is ultimately going to add up to huge problems. i think the overall question, though, that it points to is a larger one that has to do with how wall street goes about making its money these days. it wasn't that long ago that most of our wall street firms made their money by giving advice to corporations and providing capital, or finding pools of capital for those corporations to grow. now, they spend so much their time and money simply doing prirpt proprietary trading strategies that to me doesn't add a great deal of value. >> david, when come back next i want to talk about that recent china trip and look forward to having you seen. coming up, you think you have mommy issues? try being martha stewart's daughter. she will join us to talk about

their new tv show and their mom. in the meantime, tweet me if you will about the conversation we just had. you worry about the new trading that wall street is doing? go to twitter.com/carlos watson. you're watching msnbc live. i'm carlos watson. we'll being right back. 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. all on the go. i'm bill kurtis and i'm faster than andy roddick. (announcer) "switch to the nations fastest 3g network" "and get the at&t laptopconnect card for free". have discovered how easy it is to use legalzoom for important legal documents. at legalzoom, we'll help you incorporate your business, file a patent, make a will and more. you can complete our online questions in minutes.

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welcome back to "msnbc live." i'm carlos watson. if you've ever tried to replicate one of martha stewart's complicated recipes or craft projects, odds are you were left saying, whatever, martha. that's exactly the premise and title of her daughter's new show. >> so we slide our spatula under, lift it up, turn it over. >> great. >> it's of. ow, ow, ow, ow. >> let's bring in martha stewart's daughter, alexis

stewart and jennifer koppelman. good to see you guys. we're having a lot of fun together just when we were talking on the phone. >> let me tell you proud i was when i made a fortune cookie. >> how long did it take you? >> not long. >> you had like 14 tries until you got the perfect -- >> three tries. that is so untrue. >> do you guys disagree like this -- >> when you guys are on the show, you talk about some pretty interesting stuff. >> like what? >> like sexless marriage. >> yes, we have talked about that. >> what's the deal with that? >> one of our listeners called into our radio show and said that she was in a sexless marriage and she wasn't happy. >> it was great for her. >> no. the first caller wasn't happy about it, but was saying how she didn't know how to get out of being in the sexless marriage. she wanted the sex with her husband. subsequently, we got in a second call where someone said, i'm in a sexless marriage and i love it. and we said -- >> who said that? >> -- how can that be? >> some female.

and she said she and her husband were terribly cool with that. >> normort, i've got to bring y in on that. have you heard about this? >> you're nice to think this is one of my fields of expertise, carlos. i really appreciate that. i have to say, i haven't heard about it, because of all the couples i know, no one's ever come up to me at a dinner party and talked about how happy they were they were in a sexless marriage. >> unless these people were at a young -- >> they were young too. in their 30s. but we don't think they were actually happy. >> you don't think that's a trend? >> god no. who wants that? >> let's talk about another unusual pop culture moment. "vanity fair" did a major interview with ryan o'neal, who's longtime love, farrah fawcett, just passed away. >> right. he was so no love with her that he hit on her daughter in front

of her casket. >> he also went on to say he hates each of his kids. he's got three boys and this daughter, and typically children can hate their parents. that's rebellion, that's life, and then you grow out of it and love your parents. parents shouldn't hate their kids. i know it can happen, but it's not the typical they think, and don't talk about it. >> aren't you supposed to have a publicist with you when you're talking to "vanity fair"? >> and coming from him, a drug addict, the whole thing, who's he to talk. >> in deep trouble. i'm going to turn to another thing you brought to my attention. which is monroe college -- you want to jump in on that one, mort? >> i don't. >> monroe college graduates, or recent college graduate, you said, sued their college. tell me more about that. >> well, she says they didn't do enough to help her get a job and she doesn't have a job, therefore she wants her tuition back. >> because the whole unemployment issue in this country is due to colleges. >> i would say the recession is at work.

>> we've got to leave it there. but alexis stewart, jennifer koppelman-hut, don't leave out the hut. she's happily married. "whatever, martha," you can watch it on fine living or catch it on sirius radio. want to turn it over right now to dr. nancy, who has good stuff, on a particularly interesting issue, the rise in the use of antidepressants. >> we're also keeping our eye on the mission in north korea. and then that big health story. we are following the number of people taking antidepressants, because it's doubled in the past ten years. 27 million americans now taking the pills and a new study says kids as young as 3 may be suffering from depression. so it's approaching noon on the east coast. the doctor is in. it all starts after a quick break. grocery store when i had a heart attack. my daughter was with me. i took a bayer aspirin out of my purse d chewed it.

my doctor said the bayer aspirin saved my life. please talk to your doctor about aspirin and your heart. i'm going to be grandma for a long time. (announcer) regular kool-aid. goes almost three times further than soda. kool aid. delivering more smiles per gallon.

coming up today on "dr. nancy," medication nation. a new study shows that antidepressant use is skyrocketing, has so in the last decade with 27 million americans now using pills to fight depression. and is it the rays of the sun that gives us all that vitamin "d" or the foods we eat? we'll look at those health questions when we look at the hype surrounding this hot vitamin. judy, have you ever woken up tired? >> yeah, sometimes. >> well, it seems like you're also about to have a stroke. >> oh, my god. >> you're welcome. >> is this your vision of the typical kind of medical advice that you can get on the internet? we're going to take a look at the best places to get sound and safe information on what ails you, before you have to go to the doctor. we'll have more on those stories, but first we want to go to a major news story we're

following here. i'm dr. nancy snyderman. time to bring in monica novotny with the latest developments in president bill clinton's rescue mission to north korea. hi, monica. >> good to be with you, nancy. right now the state department is about to hold a daily briefing. expect plenty of questions about that mission in north korea today. president clinton arrived in pyongyang for closed doors talks. he met with kim jong-il to discuss the release of those american journalists, laura ling and una lee. >> the good news is that those two female journalists who have been jailed for the past 4 1/2 months that they could come home. but there are real questions that are being raised about this trip. i've spoken with a number of asia experts today. we know that the white house sees this as a private mission by former president bill clinton. they don't want to comment on it. they want this to be seen as a

private humanitarian mission and no decoupling with some of the other difficult issues that are out there. some of the concerns i'm hearing are being raised today is, one, this a propaganda tool for the north koreans? of course, the reclusive state, they get the former president of the united states, bill clinton to come there. the last time there was a senior u.s. official in pyongyang was in 2000, the last time a president was there in 1994. so will they use this as a propaganda too? another big question that's being raised, will the north koreans try to use this as an opportunity to start talking about their nuclear weapons program? is that a good thing? many people say no. that this should be viewed as just a solely humanitarian issue to get those two women out of there. i think there's a lot more to this story. i think the good news is these women, apparently, their health condition has worsened, so it became very important that they get them out of there quickly, but there are real questions about how this will affect u.s. foreign policy, and whether