fenway. >> any time. >> okay. i've got breaking news. >> what? >> just across the water here. >> oh, my goodness. >> now i am told we are getting exclusive photos in from upi, crossing the wires now. have your kids please divert your eyes. >> oh, yeah, this will hurt. >> this is your former leader. >> truly, you ought to be turning away. >> you know what? he's not as bad as he could have been. >> look at him. he's not that bad. if you could get past the thing that tom delay -- look at him. >> no, no. >> oh, my god! he's getting into it. good for him. if you're going to do it, do it. >> go all out. >> that's right. do it.

>> do it. >> he didn't -- did he get voted off? >> no, but he scored low. i think tonight they do the kick you off. >> let me just say -- >> no, let's not. >> humiliating to see it. but, you know what? he did it. >> and he did it. >> tucker walked. >> no, the toilet thing is a problem. >> tom delay. what? >> the judge said he looked like he was sitting on the toilet. >> that's what the judge said? that's cruel. >> he couldn't be cruel enough for tucker's performance, quite frankly. >> i didn't need to see that. >> by the way, you know what? she's all uppity. >> why? >> you're an uppity liberal. >> that's not nice. >> she's going on "the view"

today. she's co-hosting it. >> you are? >> she's co-hosting "the view." >> literally my dream come true and you're living my dream. >> do you think you'll ever come back? >> yes, i think i'll be back tomorrow morning. >> it's going to be fun. >> all right. i'm just going to do news and you are -- you need to simmer down. >> uppity white woman, that's all i can say right now. seriously, mika. seriousl seriously. >> look at this. she's so big. just go back to my office, eat bon bons before the show. >> sounds familiar. time for a look at today's top stories. this morning, president obama makes his debut at the united nations, new york city addressing a summit on climate change. and later he will meet with

israeli leaders. >> if you know somebody who's father started the trilateral commission and somebody writes trilateral in the script, you're going to stop and let everybody know that mika's father started the trilateral commission. >> you make it sound dirty. >> there are millions who think it's dirty. president obama will address the u.n. general assembly tomorrow. according to this morning's "wall street journal," the pentagon is having the top u.s. commander, general stanley mccrystal describes the situation as urgent, defense officials say they need more time to review the u.s. strategy. the administration is weighing its options. >> he is strongly suggesting that there aren't months and months to come to a decision here. well, and i respect that,

because clearly he is the commander on the ground. but i can only tell you that there are other assessments from, you know, very expert military analysts who have work ed counter insurgencies who say just the opposite. following criticism that many americans would be forced to buy insurance plans that they couldn't afford. although the changes could add billions of dollars to the plan, balk us suggests it could help attract bipartisan support as president obama continues his media blitz on the issue. appearing monday night on "the late show with david letterman." >> when i talk to other world leaders who are paying attention to this argument, and they hear some of the stuff -- and these are in some cases conservative leaders. they're heads of center right governmen

governments, and they don't understand why it is that americans would not want to set up a system that would save them money over time, would work better, would make people healthier, and there's an awful lot of misinformation out there that gets floated around. that's why i end up having to be on "the dave letterman show". >> so, the french think we're stupid. oka okay. >> back from "the view." >> don't make me the narrative. >> tomorrow morning. >> absolutely. >> this is not a good narrative. meanwhile -- >> garage. >> i've got one for you. all right. meanwhile, new census data shows in 2008 more than 45 million people lost health insurance, most between the ages of 18 to

64. extending benefits to thousands of unemployed worker, allowing another 13 weeks of benefits to those in states where unemployment has hit 8.5% or higher. despite government assistance, president obama warns the problem will continue. >> it took us years to get into the hole that we're in. we took a bad hit. we lost $5 trillion worth of wealth because of this crisis. we're not going to recover overnight. unemployment is still going to be a big problem for at least another year, and if we are steady, we stay the course, do what we need to do, but i'm confident over time we'll come back stronger than before. >> stronger than before? >> stronger than before. u.s. health officials say children 9 years old and younger will likely need two doses of the swine flu vaccine. as nbc's robert basell reports it's actually good news in the fight against the pandemic. >> the new swine flu vaccine

protects children and adolescence 10 and older with just one older. children 6 months through 9 years old will need two doses. >> we're very pleased with the results, that it appears that younger individuals are responding to this vaccine in a manner very similar to how they respond to seasonal flu vaccine. for us, that's very good news. >> to some parents, this might seem confusing. while younger children need a booster after their first vaccination, relatively few younger children get the vaccine at all. the vaccine is highly recommended for everyone 6 months to 24 years. >> this is generally a disease in younger individuals, but a very small portion of them develop serious disease. >> reporter: it will be available as a familiar shot or flumist, the nasal spray. >> how many of you watched your hands before school today?

>> reporter: distributions will vary from state to state, but in many states schools, with parents' permission, will give the vaccine. even though there have been relatively few cases, pregnant women are six times as likely as the rest of the population to suffer complications from the new flu virus. >> how are you doing? >> great. >> reporter: deciding to be one of the volunteers to test the vaccine at duke medical center. >> i feel like we've been given something that very few people are getting at this point, and hopefully, lots of people will get it. >> reporter: a sentiment public health officials share. and the southeast is bracing for another round of severe storms today, with entire neighborhoods already submerged in flood waters. at least six people have been killed across the region, as thousands more search for higher ground. we're going to get a trick -- a quick check on the weather now. you know what? i was upset.

>> well, i was -- >> it was fine. going after your wife. >> i'm not upset. >> it was insulting. >> what was? >> let's say it didn't work out. >> bill karins. >> we wish him the best. >> wtvj meteorologist brian phillips. >> we wish bill the best. >> bill will be fine. >> he has another opportunity. >> he's going to be. >> very excited -- >> spending more time with his family. that's what i did for a year with cbs. >> paths were cross again. >> got them all in there. >> i did that. i hate it when that happens. oh, well. no, i love spending time with my family, but i hate having to use that line, because you know what it really means. all right. >> fired. bill has been fired. >> weight limit up here? >> i don't know. i'll check. you wear it well, but i'm not sure. >> okay.

flooding rains across the southeast yesterday. into the afternoon hours, more storms expected, but right now the bulk of the real wet weather across the southern plains first thing this morning, potent system, bringing snow up into the rocky mountains, moving east, pushing severe storms down into texas for the overnight hours, down into arkansas and now northern louisiana. but it has been downright nice in the northeast. boston, hartford, new york, phil ly, an increase in cloud cover today. we'll stay dry. western new york, western pennsylvania, see iing a little bit of light shower activity. 59 in albany, 58 in hartford, 59 in boston, with a nice 65 in new york. from 65 to 80 in new york today. nation's capital, 78. charleston, south carolina, 85. but 80 in atlanta. we'll see more storms across the southeast in the northern gulf coast states. unfortunately the flooding problems continue. down to mika and joe. >> he is so much better. >> he has a nice voice.

>> refreshing voice. >> wow! >> just waking up this morning. >> bill was a great guy, though. >> no, he wasn't. see, that's the problem. >> really? >> no. no, he wasn't. he wasn't a good person. no, he wasn't. >> you know what? here is the thing. when you go after -- seriously, repeatedly, he went after joe's wife on the air. it's embarrassing. she's very pretty. >> oh, that's a joke, that's funny. but when he was off the air -- >> well, when he started calling her. >> call her at home in the middle of the night. yeah, forget about me. >> high pressure area? >> yeah. let's just say this. when you call, if you've been sexually harassed, press two. >> what's number one? >> barnacle, of course.

so they fired him. >> thank god. >> it had to be done. >> coming up, the finance committee -- >> i hope his mom's not watching. >> we're going to get debbie stabenow's latest take on the bill up for debate today and columnist eugene robinson explains why sending more troops into afghanistan would be a recipe for failure. plus, middle east diplomacy, president obama meets with the leaders of palestine and israel today. and carole king talks about her performance this week in central park. up next, politico's top stories of the morning. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. pure cane sugar and the stevia plant.

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ann curry interviewed ahmadinejad and tried to come off like an intimidated leader and like most bullies -- >> did you steal this election, sir? >> translator: i don't know what you mean by that. >> wow! >> i'm upset by that. we're back. willie? >> oh, me? >> do you want to get to work? >> i'm sorry. i know you want to read the news. >> no, no, it was very funny. >> that thing we do every morning. >> thanks for waking me up. >> you're welcome. chief political

corresponden correspondent for politico, mike allen is here. we were talking about who may have leaked it, big question in washington. where are the signs pointing this morning? >> d.c. whodunit, juicy document, the thing you see only after a president is long gone from office. you can't buy an ad above the fold on the front page of "the washington post," but giving a document to bob is about the same thing, because he gets the whole thing printed right there. this was not orchestrated by the white house. this was a leak. it was not planned. the most likely signs is someone who is trying to push the president to act faster or more decisively in increasing the troops in afghanistan. of course, in washington there are other theories. some people threw out the idea, what if this is designed to discredit the general, to make the general look bad and maybe

give the president more flexibility? one of the greatest ideas that was suggested to us was that this was an office, perhaps in u.s. central command in florida, in charge of iraq and afghanistan, general petraeus is the boss there or someone at the pentagon gave it to us, thinking it was a book and found out it was a newspaper the next day. >> and has it achieved its desired effect? has it put the kind of pressure on the president that they thought it would? >> it has. it makes it much more difficult for the president to say, you know, i think general -- all generals think they need more resources and i think we're fine with what we have. there was such a convincing case here. and that's one way, though, that helps the president. and that is it helps him with his left. it makes it easier for him to say, look, i was hesitant too.

i said in my sunday article that i was skeptical. this makes it more likely that sooner there will be more troops going to afghanistan. >> we pointed this out earlier, front page piece, pentagon asking mccrystal to delay that report requesting troops to give the president more time to assess the situation there. let's talk about -- >> of course, that makes the pentagon look very bad. that's a bad story for the administration, and that also will have the effect of speeding things up, willie. >> and it's on the front page of the journal today. town hall meeting, we talked a lot about them over the summer. i understand now there's a new approach to town hall meetings, little less confrontation perhaps. >> joe will love this. for a while, members have had what they call teletown halls when you get 20,000 or more constituents on a phone line. the idea is that you could do it from here. it's like a giant conference call. and instead of having to go back to the district, they can talk

to constituents at a more convenient time. but politico's erica lovely discovered, into phoning into a bunch of these, all the questions are positive, the deck is being stacked in many cases by members who don't want to have a campaign on "morning joe" from town hall meetings. they ask you very often are you for the president's plan, against the president's plan. we talked to one person who said he was undecided, thinking that would guarantee him a question. in fact, it didn't. >> it's just not the same. you don't get barney frank asking what planet their from. >> talking to their dining room table. >> politico's mike allen, thanks so much. >> let's play a clip. >> oh, for mike? >> will you join us, mike, for this, please? >> you said you have a clip of katie couric? >> i don't think we should -- >> here is a clip.

>> quick responses. hillary clinton? >> i can't believe i'm saying this. i think i would have much preferred her as president and may have voted for her against john mccain. >> why? >> because i think john mccain is this weird progressive, like theodore roosevelt was. i think john mccain would have been -- i think john mccain would have been worse for the country than barack obama. how's that? >> how's that? how about glenn beck calling anybody weird? how's that? mike allen, is anybody paying attention to glenn beck in washington, d.c.? >> of course, they are. and anybody who inspires a following that he does, a passion that he does, you have to pay attention to. now, i can imagine this is good for senator mccain's name, he could probably pass this clip around. but glenn beck clearly has

tapped into something that's very real in america. the question is how long he can sustain doing it in the way that he does. and to what degree is he responsible for the consequences of his approach? you know, he says he's a rodeo clown, just a joker, an entertainer. that's a way to try to separate himself from promoting these kind of conversations. >> you can't do it. you cannot say that the president of the united states, mike barnacle, hates all white people. you cannot call the president of the united states a racist. you cannot wallow in conspiracy theories, as he did for about a month, suggesting that fema might be setting up concentration camps and going on fox and friends and saying i can't disprove it, and then wait a month. you can't stir up that type of hatred. calling the president a racist and then saying oh, i'm just a rodeo clown.

i've got an honor roll. we're going to have a conservatives honor roll on this show. and, trust me, you want to be on this honor roll. i know how these stories end. i always know how they end. and i'm talking to you, mitt romney. and i'm talking to anybody who wants to be president in 2012. you need to call out this type of hatred, because it always blows up in your face. yesterday, pete wehner, karl roefb's political guy inside the white house, brilliant guy writes for commentary. and we disagree a lot, but pete came out yesterday and said glenn beck is bad for the conservative movement. we need more people doing -- you cannot preach hatred. you cannot say the president is a racist. you cannot stir up things that could have very deadly consequences. i was in congress in 1995. i know where this can end.

you can't do it and then say i'm a rodeo clown. >> i think all of us in the business know where it's going to end. he's going to end up lighting himself on fire. he's done a wonderful job getting his name recognition up, glenn beck has. we've done a terrible job in promoting had him. it's time to give him an intentional walk, base on balls and leave it alone. first base, leave it alone. >> i want to repeat this again, because i wonder where republicans are. i wonder where conservatives are. this is a guy -- a guy who, i must say, i liked him an awful lot just from a distance. just a fun guy. >> he's entertaining. >> an entertaining guy. but when you preach this type of hatred, saying that an african-american president hates all white people -- stay with me -- hates all white people, you are playing with fire. and bad things can happen. and if they do happen, not only is glenn beck responsible, but

conservatives who don't call him out are responsible. i don't care. i mean, i don't care if right wing nuts get upset with me. that's just the reality. >> this is so obvious. >> uh-huh. i was told to shut the hell up. >> he did tell you to shut the hell up. >> yes, he did. not a gentleman. we're moving on. growing concerns israel could move force against program. we'll talk with david sanger. why the gop is a shattered party and who he thinks is to blame. we'll be back with more "morning joe."

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well, welcome back to "morning joe." look at this pretty shot. it's just after 6:30 on the east coast. time for today's top stories as the sun comes up over -- what is that -- washington, d.c. according to the "wall street journal," pentagon is telling the top u.s. commander to delay his request for troops. they need more time to review the u.s.-led war there. it comes amid signs the obama administration is re-evaluating its strategy against the

taliban. in what "the new york times" calls a major reversal of fortune, regulators are now considering a plan that would ask banks to bail out the government. healthy banks would lend billions of dollars to the nation's fdic insurance fund. officials say that fund, which is rapidly depleting, would then be able to continue rescuing more troubled banks. goes around and around. manuel zelayo, hon durno president, is holed up, where thousands turned out in defines of a curfew. front page photo shows him shaking hands with david

paterson, days after the white house urged paterson to step aside in 2010. >> calls for more troops in afghanistan. >> "washington times," israel makes secret offer, agreeing to partially freeze settlement construction for at least six months. this comes before president obama meets with prime minister benjamin netanyahu and mahmoud abbas. let's go to hartford, connecticut. hartford current, 1,000 jobs could be lost as they plan to shut down a plant in connecticut. >> bad news there. indianapolis star, indianapolis colts overcome the clock-eating game. smallest time of possession by a winning team in the nfl since 1977.

mike barnacle, who was the quarterback of the baltimore colts in 1977, do you remember? >> the big tall kid. >> that's scary that he's even -- what did you say in my ear, chris? >> he said wrap. >> we'll have the answer to that after the break. >> i know. i know. it's right on the tip of my tongue. also a look at this morning's for arthritis pain... in your hands... knees... and back. for little bodies with fevers.. and big bodies on high blood pressure medicine. tylenol works with your body... in a way other pain relievers don't... so you feel better... knowing doctors recommend tylenol... more than any other brand of pain reliever.

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>> so we have to be really clear-eyed about this. what i'm really grateful for is that we're not coming in with any ideological presuppositions. what we're trying to do in this administration is sort out all the different factors and come to the resolution based on the best information we have. as soon as we do that, we keep going at it. we don't say okay, fine. now we're set for the next five years. that's not the way this president works.

that's not the way any of us works. >> hillary clinton here with us now. "new york times" chief washington correspondent david sanger, the author of the inheritance. the world obama confronts and the challenges to american power. great book. we're talking about afghanistan. we have two opinion pieces out of the paper this morning that counter one another, but both bring up good points. we'll start with bob herbert. the hard and bitter truth. as president obama tries to decide what to do about afghanistan, reality is insisting that he take into the account the worn-down condition of our military fighting in afghanistan and iraq, and the soaring budget deficits and sky-high unemployment numbers here at home in a country that is hurting badly and could use its own dose of nation building. mr. obama, in the face of these daunting realities, is said to be rethinking his plans to ratchet up american involvement in afghanistan. one can only hope. i don't think it's that simple,

though. obviously, we have big problems here, joe. if we just leave what we're doing there, that creates new problems. >> back-to-back. >> one of the great foreign policy minds. >> absolutely. "wall street journal," obama's befudling afghan policy, his failure in afghanistan would be america's failure and we cannot allow this to happen. defeat for america in afghanistan and pakistan can be avoided only if democrats acknowledge that the afghans need major help for two to three more years, and republicans admit that the political clock at home won't give them much more time than that. >> it's usual, david sanger, i believe, les gelb clarifies things as only he can. maybe that's the answer on afghanistan. the president says two or three more years. big investment after that, our troops are coming home. >> joe, the president has, to my

mind, two or three separate problems under way here. one is he said 12 to 18 months is what he's going to give this experiment. he didn't say two to three years. the second thing he said is this is a war of necessity. if it's a war of necessity, you don't measure it in 12 or 18 months or two or three years. if you read the memo that we all were reading yesterday, it says this isn't a war that's going to be won militarily at any point. and the third problem that strikes me is that he has here is that the allies, who he's talking to here in new york all this week, are looking around, saying, i thought you guys had just laid out a strategy for us in march and now you're on tv, this sunday, telling us you're redoing the strategy. how are we supposed to convince anybody in europe, elsewhere, to stay with this if you're rethinking the strategy again? >> how has europe been in

helping in afghanistan? for the most part, we're there alone, aren't we? know there's a con continuing enter of 1,000 troops here, 1,000 troops there. >> the canadians are in, in a big way. italians say they're leaving. germans are training with police. the problem with this is the troop requests that you're going to see come in the next few days isn't going to be the american troops, it's going to be for troops around the world. how are you going to sell this in congress if nobody else will sign up? >> willie? >> president obama was on "letterman" last night talking about afghanistan. here's what he said. >> the most important duty i've got is before i send some young man or woman in uniform over there, and i'm answerable to their parents that if they don't come back, i've got to write a letter to them saying that their child has sacrificed on behalf of america. before i make those decisions, i've got to make sure that the policy in place is worthy of their sacrifice. >> and we saw on the front page

of "the wall street journal" here today, the pentagon telling mccrystal to delay his request for more troops so that the president can figure out his policy, what he wants to do. >> they need a little space. >> yeah. >> because, remember, as we may have all heard, we have health care under way, right? >> yeah. >> the only thing more divisive is afghanistan. i don't think they want both of these running at once. >> let's talk about iran. most foreign policy experts will say -- certainly we had tony blair going yesterday saying israel cannot allow iran to get nuclear weapons. how do we stop that? do we have any power to stop that? >> it's even more complex than that. if you have the israelis, their view is that you can't even allow iran to get a nuclear weapons capability.

>> this is a threat when you have iran saying we want to obliterate israel. >> whether it is or not, the israelis believe it is. that's all we need to know for those purposes. the big issue here facing president obama is if these negotiati negotiations he's about to enter into with iranians drag out, israelis will say this is playing out the way we warned you. if they act alone, will they act effectively? no one is sure they can do this alone. >> do we let them act alone? >> i'm not sure we get a vote. remember what happened in syria, building this nuclear reactor, came to the united states, said we have to take this thing out. president bush, the man who made preemption the part of our central policy, no, you can't do it. they wait a few months and israeli did it anyway. >> they did it in 1981 to saddam

hussein. this time, they would be flying over u.s.-controlled air space. >> is it a legitimate question to ask, what do we do? >> that's right. and this question came up when the israelis asked last year, as i discussed in the book, they asked for the weaponry for the refueling capability and for the overflight rights over iraq to be able to strike this facility if they decided to go ahead. and president bush turned them down on all these. but the debate inside the bush white house at the time was, okay, supposing they call us up and they say we're starting this operation in an hour, what do you tell the usair force to do? shoot down israeli planes over iraqi territory? i don't think that's happening. >> that's not going to happen. >> the only option, at this point, is to convince the israelis that either the diplomacy is working or sanctions are working and you'll

see a small story inside "the times" today where we report that the foreign minister of france, who has been along with us on the sanctions, expressed great hesitation when he came to see us yesterday that you could do a sanction against gasoline imports into iran. well, that's one of the few things that would actually get the iranians attention. if the french aren't going to go along with it, if the russians aren't, i'm not sure what truly effective sanctions president obama has. >> that, in the end, because european countries, i believe, have been too soft toward iran for a very long time, has just put israel in a miserable position. again, can you imagine if a foreign power told us we are going to obliterate you? let's say mexico. then they started building nuclear weapons? how quickly would we be in to mexico? we would be doing "morning joe" from mexico city for a week. >> okay.

>> hold on a second. we always try to project our will on to israel. and we never compare our actions with that of the israelis. they have a guy coming to the united nations this week, who has said repeatedly that he wants israel wiped off the map. at the same time, they're racing towards having nuclear weapons. i don't know of an elected american president that wouldn't say you're not going to get that weapon. really quickly -- i know we have to go -- israelis didn't listen to george w. bush, who was about as pro israeli as any president we've ever had since '48, they're not going to listen to president obama. >> they suspected the next president, whoever it might be, not be as liberal. >> "the inheritance." coming up, monday night

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welcome back to "morning joe." new york city, top of the shot of our building here at 30 rock looking south to the empire state building. interesting monday night game. dolphins controlled the ball for 45 minutes three-quarters of the game, but somehow lost. fred roggin has highlights. >> thank you. and good morning. a day after younger brother eli rallied the giants to a four-quarter victory, it was peyton's turn. manning hit dallas clark who broke one tackle and was gone, 80 yard touchdown just 12 seconds into the game, indy up 7-0. let's go to the fourth. the colts down 3. manning connected to garcon. he waved his way into the end zone for six, 27-23 with that victory. manning passes johnny unitas for most wins. the 49ers has filed charges against crabtree. a tenth overall pick by san francisco, the only unsigned draftee. he has threatened to sit out the

entire season and ruin next year's draft. calling the filing ridiculous, he says he wishes he could play the 49ers this week. baseball angels and yanks, playoff spot not meant to be. if i asked you who the home run leader was, would you say morales? if so, you'd be right. ain angels have won 4 of 5. minnesota making things interesting in the al central, nick blackburn 6 over 7 innings. denard span hit in the head by a pitch, remained down for several minutes. thankfully, he left the game under his own power. twins beat the sox 7-0, they trail detroit by 2 1/2. astros fired cecil cooper hours before their game against the cards. didn't matter. a pair of homers as st. louis handed houston the eighth straight loss 7-3. the world's tallest man taking in the mets/braves game. and here's something that

happens all the time, the mets get blown out. 4 rbi, braves scored 11 runs in the first three to beat the mets 11-3. from a soccer match in russia, pivotal penalty kick. guess what, he nailed the kick himself. oh, the humanity! of course, he and his buddy then had to prance around the field as if they won the world cup or something. no doubt enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame. another look. give the big fellow some credit. that was a heck of a boot. yeah, he was arrested and went kicking and screaming. that's it for me. we'll talk to you guys tomorrow. >> that is great. as mike barnasm cle said, now we know where bill karins is. news you can't use, a full review of tom delay's performance on "dancing with the stars," waiting for weeks to see that. he delivered. we'll show you when we come back. i'm walgreens ceo and i'm also a pharmacist.

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♪ love stinks! time for news you can't use. it is, indeed, time. sound bites for you of president obama on "letterman" last night. talked about serious stuff. that's not my business. we'll talk about the ridiculous. there was a woman in the audience david made fun of earlier in the night that keeps coming back to the show, apparently, with her heart-shaped potato. she thinks it's miraculous and wants the world to know about it. here they are talking to her. >> the main reason i'm here, not any of those top ten lists, but i want to see that heart-shaped potato.

that's remarkable. >> remarkable. >> this is remarkable. thank you. >> yeah, that's right. what's your name? >> mary apple. >> mary? is your real name mary apple? and you carry heart-shaped potatoes around? well, thank you so much for sharing. >> yeah. >> is that your real name? no, that's my stage name. president obama on "letterman" last night. >> frankly, everything we talked about has been prelude to this moment. tom delay on ""dancing with the stars"" last night. we've been talking about it, anticipating it. >> the hammer delivered last

night, did the cha-cha to the song "wild thing" with his partner, cheryl burke. he is wearing a sequinned vest, as you can see there. let's listen in and watch him perform. ♪ ♪ wild thing i think i love you ♪ >> oh, god. i'm going to be sick. >> stop that. >> seriously, let me just say we've been ragging on tom about doing this. seriously, i respect people who throw themselves in to something. >> if you're going to do it, do it. >> if you're going to do it, do it. >> no. >> by the way -- >> do it. >> do it.

>> sometimes you don't do it. >> he wasn't even close to the bottom, got a 16 out of 30, which isn't good, but michael irving got 13. >> he beat michael irvin? >> crushed michael irvin. >> yeah, that's great. you know what happens? all those reality show, i'm told -- because i don't watch them -- you vote people on or off the island, dance floor, whatever, i think we may need to do that on "morning joe." a lot of e-mailers really, really angry. >> why? >> that we fired bill karins. >> really? >> well, he was rude to joe's wife. >> yes. >> people think it was horrible we fired him and talked about it on the air. sacramento. what a bunch of cutthroats. you had the man fired because he doesn't return your jokes and banter? you get meaner every day and it's not attractive. >> anybody else? tons of people e-mailing in, aren't they? >> yeah. though a lot of them about mika. >> ooh, tell me about it. >> am i off the island?

>> what do they say? >> mika looks like kermit the frog's hot sister with that green shirt on today. >> angry. >> kermit the frog's hot sister? >> yeah. >> happy st. patrick's day. so, anyway, let's do this. let's let bill come back. >> should we? >> what do you think? let's have a vote. >> you're going to have to call him. >> 40 seconds, yay or nay? >> like gladiator. >> i give him a three-day trial. if it doesn't work out -- >> what do you say? >> i want to hear from susan. i think she should weigh in, your wife. >> this is our decision. >> i'm sorry, but she was the one who was attacked. >> if you're abstaining and my vote doesn't matter, it's a majority vote of two. bill karins is back. >> no. >> give him a little space, back on monday. give him the rest of the week

o off, he can get his affairs in order. >> i just want to hear -- >> call his attorney. >> i think he's recidivous, though. >> they all are. >> it's time to do -- really. >> so, mika is going to be on "the view" today. >> wearing kermit's outfit. >> and strawberry tights. >> great. >> there she is. >> on "the view". >> you're wearing that green thing on "the view"? >> i was going to wear this. >> green thing. >> you look great. >> you think this is okay? >> i don't know. that guy called you kermit the frog's hot girlfriend. >> don't take fashion criticism from the three of us, by the way. >> keep it simple for you. don't take any advice from the three of us. >> okay. i'm wearing this. >> we're clowns, rodeo clowns. >> well -- >> go ahead. time for a lock at this morning's top stories. this morning, president obama makes his debut at the united nations, addressing a

summit on climate change. later today, the president will hold meetings with israeli and palestinian leaders. he will address the u.n. general assembly tomorrow. according to this morning's "wall street journal," the pentagon is telling the top u.s. commander in afghanistan to delay his requests for additional forces. although general stanley mccrystal describes the situation as urgent, defense officials say they need more time to review the u.s.-led strategy. speaking to pbs yesterday, secretary of state hillary clinton said the administration is weighing its options. >> he is strongly suggesting that there aren't months and months to come to a decision here. >> well, and i respect that, because clearly he is the commander on the ground, but i can only tell you there are other assessments from, you know, very expert military analysts who have work ed encounter insurgencies that are the exact opposite. senator max baucus says he

is open for revising his health care plan among criticism is that many would americans would not be able to afford health care insurance. >> that's great. >> we're just going to do what's called in the news business wallpaper? why not just do a shot of us? seriously. let's just talk to the camera, tell the story. we can't do it without the wallpaper then we've got a problem. >> you know what the worst part of this health care debate is? >> what? >> seeing the cable shows, looking at the pills coming off the assembly line. >> bunch of bellies. >> now on this show -- >> no, we try not to do that. meanwhile, new census data shows in 2008 more than 45 million people lacked health insurance, most between the ages of 18 and 64. texas had the highest rate of uninsured, nearly one in four.

the state with the best coverage was massachusetts. where only 4% lacked coverage. today the houts is set to vote on a bill to extend benefits to thousands of unemployed workers. the legislation would provide another 13 weeks of benefits for those living in states where unemployment has hit 8.5% or higher. president obama tells david letterman the problem will continue. >> it took us years to get in the hole we're in. we took a bad hit. we lost $5 trillion of wealth because of this crisis. we're not going to recover overnight. unemployment is still going to be a big problem for at least another year, and if we are steady, we stay the course. we do what we need to do. but i'm confident that over time we're going to come back stronger than before. >> stronger than before? >> stronger than before. >> that's good enough. moving on now, a new study shows smoking bans in public -- yes, smoking bans in public

places can reduce the number of heart attacks by as much as 36% over a three-year period. this is great. listen to me. >> wait. wait. >> no. >> wait a minute. >> they're making it up. >> absolutely. >> does that mean smoking -- a smoking ban in public reduces heart attacks by 36% from like secondhand smoke? >> yes. yes, mike. >> i don't believe it. >> you guys are a bunch of idiot. >> what a lie. >> get the cars and city buses off the roads. researchers say it is the latest evidence that secondhand smoke causes heart attack. >> they make this stuff up. >> it's a lie. >> including one in new york city to ban smoking in municipal parks. >> liar. you lie! >> i don't want to breathe someone's smoke. >> you don't have to. >> you know, i'm sitting in the hotel when we were -- i don't remember where we were last week. someone was smoking. it was all coming in my face and i thought how rude, first of all. >> it was great. it set me back.

a lot of people smoke, stop smoking and gain weight i think it's healthy for you. i see no evidence whatsoever. show me the evidence. >> since americans have no -- >> i'm joking. i'm a rodeo clown. >> over their intake and are completely compulsive, let's ban sugar or at least tax it. >> i'm sorry. >> obviously people can't do it themselves. >> can you save this for "the view"? at guys around here, we don't want to hear it. that's a hot topic. you do that on "the view." over here, we're going to talk about other stuff. >> you just don't agree, because it rains on your parade. >> seriously? i do not smoke. i've never smoked. >> huge park. >> why would you stand next to someone smoking? you would keep moving. you would go across the street. >> if someone comes up to me, stands next to me and starts smoking, i have to move? >> no, no, no. the idea is you know where the smokers are, parade around office buildings like p.o.w.s in

the winter. >> when i walk in to 30 rock, i get to walk through smoke. >> so what? get over it. >> savannah! >> three packs a day. >> savannah is here. >> look how skinny she is. health benefits override any benefits. >> do you smoke? >> bilateral with me on this side. >> do you smoke? >> no, i do not. but i did once. i smoked before. there's nothing worse than a reformed smoker, actually. we have this sort of -- >> kiljoy. >> exactly. >> like oh, i can't smell it. but secretly, we love it. >> you've been in the city most of your life. >> yeah. >> the u.n. comes to town this time of year. try to get to the east side yesterday, it's a nightmare. police all over the place, bomb-sniffing dog. this year i've noticed a lot of the canine dogs like

drug-sniffing dogs. what's going on here? savannah guthrie is covering for the first time. >> oh, yeah. >> drug-sniffing dogs. >> security has increased. >> since you've come in. >> yeah, there's been a couple of incidence. look, i'm here this morning. >> you made it. >> i was a little late. that's part of the reason. i did. >> all right. let's -- >> hot topic. >> talk about bill clinton. >> for the full hour with "larry king" last night, talked for the first time about jimmy carter's race comments. he talked about it from the perspective, he said, as a fellow white southerner, who can see where jimmy carter was coming from, but given that, he still disagreed with jimmy carter's assessment. here's bill clinton. >> i believe that some of the right wing extremists, which oppose president obama are also racially prejudiced and would prefer not to have an african-american president, but i don't believe that all the people that oppose him on health

care and all the conservatives are racist. and i believe if he were white, every single person who opposes him now would be opposing him then. >> that's the man who knows about being opposed on health care. >> that is exactly what i've been saying. seriously. if you're bill and hillary clinton and you hear obama supporters going, oh, this is the worst. no, this is not close to the hatred and the vile that i heard on the campaign trail toward bill clinton in '93 and '94. i need to tell the rest of that story, because we were talking about glenn beck last hour and how -- hate speech where you calls the president a racist and all these conspiracy theories are floated before they're knocked down later. how that leads to tragedy. remember 1995, april, i was in florida, member of congress. i had been campaigning for a

couple of years, got elected and oklahoma city happened. and frank cesno on cnn was saying, oh -- cnn kept talking about arab terrorists and what muslim group is it? is the same ones that tried to take down the world trade center in '93? i called frank up and said this isn't arab terrorists, this is somebody who hates bill clinton. i've been hearing this garbage on the campaign trail for two years. this is a home-grown terrorist. and cesno was shocked. he was like, do you think so? i said i don't think so. i know so. of course, about an hour or two later, that's when they started tracking mcveigh. the hatred, the level of hatred toward bill clinton, as bad as it is now -- and there is hatred. and there are people like glenn beck who are feeding on that hatred to sell books and get ratings, saying the president is a racist and hates all white

people. still the hatred toward bill clinton was nothing i've ever seen. it was bad toward george w. bush, really bad, but not even as bad as it was toward bill clinton. the white house, savannah, on the defensive, trying to figure out how to get health care through. now we hear balk us is willing to compromise a bit on this bill. >> yeah. >> what's happening at the white house on that? >> i don't think that's a surprise at all. i think they know and republicans smell blood on this issue of affordability. particularly with the notion that we'll have this individual mandate, everybody is required to get health insurance, there's great concern that folks even with subsidies it's still a great burden on the middle class. even though the president kind of went back and forth with george instead george stephanopolis, it's a burden on the middle class that otherwise wouldn't exist. the white house recognizes that is an issue for them. we'll probably see increased

subsi subsidies. there's talk that maybe the penalties they would have for individuals of families who didn't get insurance would be lessened. what does that do? it drives the cost of the bill up. the president want it is under $900 billion. they have a little bit of wiggle room, but not a lot. >> they still have to pay for it some way. they say waste, fraud and abuse, they're not going to find it there. it's either cutting medicare advantage, which a lot of seniors are raising taxes. there aren't a lot of good options for raising about $1 trillion. >> no. they believe that waste, fraud and abuse thing is real. i know this is your favorite subject, but they really believe it. >> but it's not. rerepublicans, how are we going to pay for it? waste, fraud and abuse and we'll sell some of the spectrum or whatever they do. everybody laughs in the room because there's never that waste, fraud and abuse. if there is that much waste, fraud and abuse in a government-run health care plan, why do you want to give the

government more control? >> well, that's the -- one of the primary ways they want to pay for it. medicare advantage is definitely in the crosshairs and the president has been talking about that since the beginning. >> here we go. >> see about two straight weeks of proposed amendments aimed at the two senators from maine, owe olympia snowe? >> snowe -- there's a forecast for snowe, chuck's dorky joke. >> oh, my god. coming up next -- >> take my chief white house correspondent shall please. matt fry with a preview of obama's busy day ahead, including meetings with palestinian and israeli leaders. gentlemen, please. debating the balk us bill. insight from senator debbie stabenow and eugene robinson

columnist, why he says sending more troops into afghanistan could lead to our failure there. first, let's get a quick check on the weather with meteorologist ryan phillips. >> so much better. >> western half of the u.s., quiet and dry. hot, too. eastern half of the u.s. still shower chances for today. as we get into the afternoon hours shall we'll see more storms in the southeast. we start off our tuesday with no airport delays in the northeast. storms stay west. so, new york city, boston, looking good. upper 70s, lower 80s. still stormy in the southeast and over the course of the afternoon, look for more airport delays in southern texas as well. we'll be back with more. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. does your mouthwash work in sixifferent ways?

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♪ i think if we could just start get them talking around

the two state, around normalcy of creating a palestinian state, i think you would be surprised how quickly at least they would come down to all the same issues that they were down to in 2000 when i made my proposal. >> with us now, the anchor of cbc's world news america, matt frei. welcome back to the show. >> thank you very much. >> where shall we begin? >> much going on in new york this week. >> we could start with new york. >> the president talking about the peace process. lot of interesting characters coming to town today. >> indeed. well, he's got a meeting with netanyahu, meeting with president abbas and then a meeting with both of them. he should closet himself into a particular room in the united nations, plenty of rooms with linoleum tiles, dim lighting, sharp words and maybe sharp tools and start breaking some knuckles to the israeli prime minister, why are you still

allowing settlements to be built when you promised me they wouldn't be, for instance? >> israelis coming out, saying they're going to -- if they decide to unilaterally attack iran, if they want, if they decide to, they're going to do it, with or without our permission. >> one interesting detail in all of this was that the prime minister of israel felt it necessary to go on a secret visit to moscow to talk to the russians directly about what they would do to curtail iran. the fact that the israelis are no longer relying on the americans to do that for them, that they have to do that themselves is a sign. >> isn't it also -- well, not exactly a vote of confidence in the obama administration. >> i think -- >> israelis don't trust the obama administration. >> i think they are -- they're very cautious about the obama administration. and they can't completely not trust them because, you know, this is still their best friend. but i think something has happened in the chain of command, the chain of trust between the americans and the israelis. there's a bit of a breakdown going on there. it goes both ways.

you cannot have the israelis signing up to some sort of peace deal or peace initiative with the americans. and one thing that really sticks in the obama administration's throat and also in the palestinian's throat is the continuing building of settlements. again, prime minister netanyahu can't say no to that. total dynamics and politics working against the peace process once again. >> you said essentially the breakdown in the chain of trust between the israeli administration and the american administration. is it incorrect to say a breakdown in the chain of trust between netanyahu and the obama administration? isn't this more a netanyahu than it is the israelis? >> but he is the prime minister of israel. >> i understand. >> that can always fall apart. he is the go-to guy, the guy they have to deal with. this isn't about israeli public opinion or the broader israeli landescape, but the man running israel. >> again, meeka israeli politics

doesn't occur in a vacuum. there's a reason why netanyahu got elected and that's because the israelis felt more threatened now than they ever have. >> you look at the attacks from hamas look what happened in lebanon in '06. the israeli people are getting very concerned and now the iranians promising to obliterate them, wipe them off the map. >> where do we stand with handling israel and the tensions with iran? >> we tend to perceive the lebanon war, what was it, three years ago and what happened in gaza as a disaster for israeli politics. if you're in israel, you can see it another way. number of rocket attacks from gaza into southern israel have declined dramatically. the number of rocket attacks on the northern border from hezbollah into the northern border have declined dramatically. >> we heard at the time that these were the first skirmishes,

wars, whatever you want to call it, the israelis had lost. but you're telling us, actually, things -- >> very close to the gaza strip, you know, you have 28 missile attacks since the gaza offensive, six months, whatever it is. before that, it's ten times as many. this is not a long-term strategy. this is not going to solve your problem long term. i don't think the israeli government is thinking long term. they're thinking short term. what is working for us? what makes our people feel safer? >> again, what makes your people feel safer. again, we want, of course, this broad peace plan. if i'm an iz rsraeli father and i've got to send my daughter to school, my first grader to school and i know that, you know, she's going to face missile attacks, we're going to face missile attacks and i can vote for the peace candidate or i can vote for a guy like

netany netanyahu, i would say 80% of americans would be with me. i'm going to take the guy who's going to be tough. >> it's how you frame the solution. you have to be tough, but also -- >> no, i'm not worried about solutions if i'm a father in israel. i want my daughter safe. >> of course you do. but you also know that down the road if you want -- the price of safety today may be another bus bomb tomorrow. so, you have to take the long view on these things. balance the long view. there has to be, at some stage, some kind of solution. we've been going around this tree so many times. in israel in the late '80s, i was based and same policies that applied then still apply now. it will drive you nuts. the longer we wait the more complicated it becomes. >> netanyahu and israelis talking about building more settlements. we understand they've quietly gone behind the scene, promising to stop them. explain from netanyahu's point of view, why build the settlements when he knows it's going to aggravate america and

russia? what type of advantage is israel trying to get? in the end, israelis want peace, net netanyahu wants peace. >> there's a sizeable body of political opinion represented in the coalition government that believes that the occupied west bank is part of the holy land of israel. therefore, they have the right to build settlements. that's what they believe. now, you might disagree with them. this might be a huge problem for them down the line. find it very difficult to basically say to these people, you can't stay there. actually worse, yank them out of the position they've established. we've seen this. they've done it in the past. it's been incredibly painful. israeli soldiers going in and taking israeli settlers away, but it is a real issue that they have always found politically very difficult to deal with. and it's not just the new settlements in these basically one bathtub in a field and the

man and his family with a few guns. it's the settlements that look like fairfax county, virginia. these are very established suburban settlements where people move. >> it is important to remember, mike, that we're talking about terrorism all the time in israel. israeli prime minister in the '90s, because they thought he was going too far to the middle. >> in the late '80s, the same dialogue today that occurred in the late '60s, late '70s, late '80s. what are theos that israel decides to spank iran without even asking us? >> i think those odds get greater week by week, to be honest. >> really? >> here is the thing. the president backs down on missile defense with russia. now, you would hope that the quid pro quo is russia helps in dealing with iran. that help doesn't come.

it might have come privately, but publicly the russian president has said nothing to reassure people who want some kind of deal here that they're going to help on this front. yesterday, sanctions against russia -- or against iran not a great idea. iran has the right to peaceful nuclear energy, all that kind of stuff. the russians are not saying the kinds of things that you want them to say after this. that makes israelis feel even more vulnerable. >> and certainly makes our allies feel more vulnerable if we betray poland the way that the poles believe we have. and you would hope with russia something was happening behind the scenes, some kind of trade-off. they're not giving that signal. >> if you want to talk about the president today at the united nations, stack of i owe yous from russia, germany, italy. he's going to start cashing them in. >> bbc's matt frei, thank you so much. >> we need to get savannah's input on the white house.

>> absolutely. >> what they're thinking. coming up, we'll also talk to the senate finance committee to senator debbie stabenow, debating the balk us bill today. and dylan ratigan will be here, and president obama on "letterman" last night. keep it here on "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. >> mika on "the view," co-hosting. imodium multi-symptom relief combines two powerful medicines for fast relief of your diarrhea symptoms, so you can get back out there. imodium. get back out there.

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if you had to have dinner with one of the following political conservatives, which would you choose, rush limbaugh, glenn beck, ann coulter? >> couldn't do yom kippur on this, huh? >> no. >> i guess of the three, i would take rush limbaugh because it would be less painful and he would come with the pain killers that he always has. >> welcome back to -- >> can i just say, i don't know if i were barney frank with the personal history that barney frank has that i would be casting stones. rush limbaugh may have had some problems with pain killers. >> yeah. >> but he certainly never -- he certainly never -- >> okay. >> should i finish this sentence? >> no. >> shouldn't i? >> no. robby, i need my purse. >> pretty god on that. >> that was good.

>> okay. >> maybe rush limbaugh will make jokes about barney frank. 7:30 on the east coast. time for a quick look at today's top stories. according to this morning's "wall street journal", the pentagon is telling the top commander in afghanistan to delay -- >> you don't even know what barney frank almost got in trouble with. >> i have been reminded. >> did he get censored? >> okay. here is the deal. >> out of his apartment. >> this is kind of an important story. if you all could turn yoer attention to me, i would appreciate it. >> go ahead. i'm sorry. >> defense officials say they need more time to review the u.s.-led war there, it comes amid signs that the obama administration is re-evaluating its strategy against the taliban. in what "the new york times" calls a major reversal of fortune, regulators are now considering a plan that would ask banks to bail out the government. under the proposal, healthy bank wos lend billions of dollars to the fdic insurance fund. officials say that fund, rapidly

depleting, would then be able to continue, thus helping more troubled banks. ousted hon dor an president is back after three months of being toppled by a coup. he snuck into the country is and is holed up where thousands of supporters turned out in defiance of a curfew. >> willie and i are very wise and never throw stones. >> no. >> we'll be right back with senator debbie stabenow. keep it on "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. to protect you and your loved ones from the flu. it's also one of the easiest things you can do... because walgreens is now offering seasonal flu shots... every day of the week with convenient hours guaranteed. so you can just stop in. our 16,000 dedicated pharmacists... and take care clinic nurse practitioners... are waiting to help you beat the flu... in neighborhoods nationwide. at walgreens we want you to know,

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when i talk to other world leaders who are paying attention to this argument and they hear some of the stuff -- and these are, in some cases, conservative leaders. they're heads of center right governments. and they don't understand why it is that americans would not want

to set up a system that would save them money over time, would work better, would make people healthier, and there's an awful lot of misinformation out there that gets floated around. that's what we have to fight through. that's why i end up having to be on "the david letterman show". >> if he could make the pitch because he has the health care plan that saves money, works better and is sustainable over time, it would have already passed. >> i think so. >> he hasn't made that case. >> i think it's still lost in translation. >> really, he's great in that format. >> obama? >> oh, yeah. >> yeah. >> interactive with the crowd, couple of good memorable moment. >> the potato. >> bill clinton on "larry king" last night. >> he articulated health care in two sentences in a way that president obama should watch and take note. >> the guy has never been better. >> he has never been better. >> we need to get him on this show. >> thought bubble appearing over joe's head right now. >> no, he is. you sit back and say that, you

know -- always talk about political athletes and he's bolt. he's the fastest, the best at what he does. >> all right. >> i just love what he's done. >> oh, no, no. i don't want to hear it. it's too early. finance committee will begin a mark-up of senator baucus' health care bill this morning. democratic senator from michigan and member of the finance committee, senator debbie stabenow. thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> mika, it's great to be back with you and joe and everybody. >> you're a backer of the public option. what do you think of the balk us bill? >> well, i think there are tremendous amount of positive things in the bill. we're still working on improving it. i appreciate the fact that the chairman is working with me and others on affordability. we want to make sure that middle class families can afford to purchase the plan that we know that they need. i still support a public health

care choice. i think it's one of the best ways to keep the for-profit insurance companies honest when we talk about making things affordable for middle class people. they need some real competition. but i think we're moving in the right direction. the basic framework is a positive one. >> so, let's talk about funding. we're trying to figure out how the bill gets paid for. it doesn't look like there's a lot of good options. we heard about waste, fraud and abuse, which i always thought was a republican ploy. but there's talk about cuts in medicare advantage and also tax increases. let's start with medicare advantage. i know bill nelson is very concerned, being from florida. custom medicare advantage one way this bill is going to get paid for? >> one of the important pieces in the bill is to create competitive bidding for these private sector plans. it's really interesting, joe, all of the discussion about having private for-profit

insurance companies participate in medicare because it would save money. they could do things more cheaply. what's happened over time is that they're now getting paid, in some cases, up to 50% more than the rest of medicare. so, it's not saving money. it's costing money. so, we need to have competitive bidding. >> there would be savings in medicare advantage, then, if you went after them? >> yes, absolutely. >> what about the tax revenue? you have the back and forth. i know you saw stephanopolous going back and forth, what to tax. ourr taxes going to go up as the balk us bill says, or is that something that's going to get rooted out? >> i think what's positive is that overwhelmingly -- virtually every piece of this has been the health care system. when you say will taxes go up, well, insurance companies and drug companies will get more customers, going to be asked to contribute to that through a

manufacturers fee or an insurance premium fee or you could call that a tax. what we're talking about, is it really an agreement that if the insurance company and drug companies want to be able to participate with more customers, then they can help contribute to pay for this. >> i'm surprised that we can't come together as a country in some way. i think everybody, conservatives and liberals, have to agree that this is such a mess. >> our health care system, we spend more than any other country per person, and yet we have so many problems. it is so inefficient. i just can't believe we can't find a middle ground somewhere. >> i think everyone agrees it's a mess, but the disagreement is when exactly we do it, how it's planned and how it's paid for. does it have to be done now? >> savannah? >> joe, if i might jump in and say this is really what this debate is all about, though. we all know the numbers. we spend twice as much as any other country on health care,

and every six seconds of this show this morning, somebody is going to lose their health insurance. what is the most positive about the legislation in front of us on finance is that it changes the way we do business in health care. to cut down the costs and raise the quality and save lives. and that's really the goal that i think all of us should have. >> senator stabenow, the gang of six obviously met and coddled together this bill the last six months. now the rest of you get to take a crack at it, going through the mark up. will it be death by a thousand cuts? can you keep this bill together? >> there are a lot of amendments. we're also doing a lot of work, working with the chairman. you know, the senate democrats that haven't been involved in the gang of six, we all care very deeply about health care. health care brought me in to politics 30 years ago. i care deeply and have been involved in this my whole life. >> do you wish you had more of a seat at the table? >> right now, we have that seat

and i'm focused on affordability for the middle class and making sure there's real competition for the insurance companies. i hope we're going to get there. >> all right. >> senator stabenow, thank you very much. good luck with all your efforts. >> thank you. >> member of the senate finance committee. and we will be talking more about this, coming up. >> no doubt about it. enough senators haven't been involved in this process from the beginning. >> i know. they need to engage. some of them really -- >> they want to engage, but they've been shut out. six people have been running it here. so, maybe we get some more good ideas now. up next, called the michael moore of youtube for his brash reporting style. >> oh, is this the -- >> we'll be right back. >> mac, is he the guy from acorn?

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tell congress to rewrite the story. we want good health care we can afford with the choice of a public health insurance option.

i'm afraid he's going to do what hitler could never do, and that's destroy the united states of america. >> who do you think is more dangerous, al qaeda or obama? >> obama. >> obama is more dangerous than osama? >> obama resolution, what's going to happen? >> as hitler did, he took over the auto industry, did he not? he took over the banking, did he not? >> people think it could happen here, but they didn't think it could happen in germany either. we did it to the japanese.

what makeses you think it couldn't happen to anglo-saxons? >> oh, my. is he all right? >> doing okay, buddy? >> you can open your eyes now. breathe. breathe. >> that is the 9/12 project. >> next guest has been called youtube's michael moore for his video documentary on the right wing. writing fellow for the nation institute, max blumenthal. also author of "republican gomorra:inside the movement that shattered the party." >> we're going to go through all this stuff. first, to make sure you're a person of good taste, sitting at this table, would you agree with me that if i went through a lot of anti-war rallies with a video camera and went up to people on the far left and asked them about george bush, i would hear some of the same crazy things,

right? i crazy things, right? i see hitler, and etc., etc. >> i was at the rallies, too. but what i am seeing is the democrats echoing the same thing. >> well, he was saying health care was the waterloo and they had to mobilize the shots in the streets to stop it. >> i agree with you on death panels. let's start with jim. it's one thing to say it could be a political waterloo and it's another thing to say it's going to be nazi germany all over again. >> a little background on jim demint. he was one of the radical republican senators, and when he was in south carolina, i think he introduced legislation that would have banned single

teachers from teaching in school. >> what do you think is radical for the united states senate? >> well, he is in the opposition right now. in the united states senate. he is more in the contention with charles grassley. he is in dhaurncharge of one of committees. he is the one that said you could call the plug on grandma. >> and we were critical of him then. >> i think you may be a bit too radical there. and the truth is that there is nothing in the bill that has

anything to do with quote, death panels. for some reason we are shocked -- i offer them a helping hand to get out of the mud, and they won't take it. >> you lie. yeah, there are people saying this plan will force taxpayers to finance abortions. and also take care of undocumented migrants or illegal immigrants. >> you say this is far right radical or whatever, the groups that i say supported me and i took their support and i still would, but there is a -- also,

though, on the abortion issue. you had democratic senators saying we have to close that up also. i don't know that that was, again, as extreme and wild as, say, the death panel claim, which clearly came out of right field. >> it's not as extreme and wild as polls showing 58% of republican voters don't believe that barack obama was born in the united states or a recent -- >> 58% of republicans don't believe that? >> 58% of republicans don't believe, according to the poll that i have seen. and >> i have never seen that. >> they believe barack obama could be the antichrist. the second poll was a new jersey poll. i will put those numbers up on my blog. >> i can say 33% of americans believed george w. bush took

down the towers. >> i think the republican party has been captured by elements preventing it from exerting power on a national level. it can't do very well in new england. sarah palin, you know, is the arc type of the republican candidate now. she put the death panels out there. >> i don't see her as the candidate, do you? >> i say enjoy your 18% in iowa, and because you are going to melt in the snow -- >> well, they want to paint the party as -- >> i think it's probably going to be a mitt romney. >> a lot of people think she is

a bible character, like ester. >> isn't there a danger that is coming close to being a talk radio party? >> the mainstreamers that i talk to understand the problem and understand the problem. max is talking about the extremisms. but as i am explaining to the republican candidates now that are ringing their hands and freting, you don't understand, you know, this happens. but this is 10% on the far, far right. have you a lot of people making $60,000 a year living in ranch houses, and young people and working at the navy base and coming home and playing catch with their kids that don't think barack obama is the anti-christ,

they just want lower taxes. >> what happen to the moderate republicans? a few days ago olympia snow said this is not my party any more. and chris shays was voted out in connecticut. this is a problem for the republican party. my book is not a republican bashing book. i think if republicans read it they would see a recipe of coming back by keeping these elements out? >> max, look at my book that i wrote this summer. there are a lot of people in new england very conservative, but they don't think the republican party is their party anymore either. i think the republicans will go more mainstream. it starts with leaders calling out those that are telling lies, and calling the president a

racists. >> if they are not echoing those, they are silent. >> max, thank you so much for coming on the show. >> i need to get you back. i want to debate you on the book, and also i want you to ants question next time you come on, why don't conservative christians have a right to be very involved in politics? >> yeah, that's it. >> i think they do, but i don't think you do. >> coming up, dylan ratigan. he's in the house. so maybe we can't control menopause.

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shall we take a trip across the country? >> let's start with lax. and then we have las vegas, where willie is jetting off to right now. and then we have where the president of the united states is not there today, because he was with letterman last night and then today in new york. a beautiful shot of the sun rising. >> good morning to "morning joe." look who is here. we will play a game today. >> the party has begun. >> we will play a little game, dylan. when joe talks, you don't talk. when you talk, you shut up.

how is that? can we do that? >> sounds problematic. >> one day on the view, and suddenly she is barbara walters. >> no, i am no barbara walters. >> she is about -- >> why do you keep doing this? >> look at her. it's an e story, where a young woman goes on "the view," and look at her now. >> you tell me to shut up? >> i am saying it nicely. >> it's not easy be green. >> somebody called her kermit's hot young wife. >> is that a compliment? >> yeah, i think it was. >> i woke up this morning wishing somebody would call me that. i like gonzo.

>> a lot is going on. >> what is going on? >> the daily news, first fr all. look at the headline in the "daily news." i am making no comments about mort's newspaper. i would not want to be lobbying. >> this is not nice. >> and the "new york post." >> is that how big that is now? >> yeah, they cut costs. there is a lot going on with the debate on afghanistan and what to do. the president is in new york meeting with key leaders. and time for today's top stories. according to this morning's "wall street journal," the pentagon is telling top leaders in afghanistan to delay the request for additional forces.

defense officials say they need more time to review the u.s.-led strategy. and speaking to pbs yesterday, hillary clinton said the administration is weighing its options. >> he is strongly suggesting that there are not months and months to come to a decision here? >> i respect that. clearly he is the commander on the ground, but i can only tell you that there are other assessments from very expert military analysts who have worked encounter insurgencies that are the exact opposite. >> senator max baucus says he is open to resizing his plan for health care reform following criticism that many americans could be forced to buy health care plans that they could not afford. >> that's not bad. >> no. >> meanwhile, new census data shows in 2008 more than 45,000

people lack health insurance between 18 and 64. and texas had the highest for the uninsured. 1 in 4. in massachusetts, 4% lacked kav ridge. >> mike barnicle, that was the romney plan, right? >> correct. >> and republican candidates are tearing him a part for that massachusetts plan. does it work? >> well, at one level it works. at another level the cost has been so prohibitive, and the budget is so stressed, they have to look at who is covered. >> 96% of massachusetts residents, but the cost is extraordinarily much higher than they thought it was going to be. >> that always happens. >> yeah, and particularly when it's not real competition for health insurance. you mandate people for insurance, and then you don't make them compete. >> and former president bill

clinton is weighing in on the governor's race. the governor is urging david patterson to drop his bid for a full term. here is he speaking with matt lau lauer. >> he is a good man. i think he will do in the end what he thinks is best for new york. i trust him to do that. i believe that if he thinks he has a reasonable chance to win he will probably one. if he thinks his chances are 1 in 10 or worse, i think he probably won't. >> what is so funny? >> nothing. nothing. >> how great is he? >> he is a good man. >> no, former president clinton.

how good is he? >> i think he is good at what he does. i don't know if that makes him a good man. >> here is the president in new york on david letterman last night talking about unemployment. roll the tape, chris. >> it took us years to get us into the hole we are in. we took a bad hit and lost $5 trillion worth of wealth because of the crisis. unemployment is still going to be a big problem for at least another year, and if we are steady and we stay the course and do what we need to do then i am confident over time we will come back stronger than before. >> stronger than before would suggest that we are going to spend as much money as we did before, and we are not. >> yeah, we definitely are not. i agree with the president that the opportunity that the president has and the media has and all the conversation happening is the opportunity to update so many different out

dated systems. think about all the countries that are so desperate to compete with us. your father would talk about this brilliantly, whether it's brazil or india or china, these are countries that are not installing circuit 1952 infrastructure to compete with us. they may not have it yet, but when they even stall it, it will be contemporary. shame on us for not updating the system. we built a banking system that was unstable. we need to build it so it doesn't collapse like a sports car that hit a pothole. >> it comes down to the fact that we are still not building things. we need to -- a caterpillar builds things. but we can't just wish for an

economic recovery without starting to build things again instead of just spending money. >> yesterday i watched an hbo documentary on the closing of the general motors plant in northern ohio. 10,000 employees. it shut down just before christmas last year. the average age of the employees featured in the documentary, 51 and 52, 53, pen amen and women,k and white, and you wonder, what are those people doing now? what happened to them? during the course of the documentary they talked about maybe i will go back to college and take courses, i never went to college. i don't know what i will do. a lot of them said they would look for any kind of employment. >> and some of them are holding two and three jobs. >> yeah, if they are lucky they are holding two and three jobs. >> savannah, the president has

to be worried about the fact that the economy may turn around but unemployment will keep going up. >> yeah, that's the thing that wakes him up in the middle of the night. it comes down to jobs, jobs, jobs. he says it is not going to be better for a year? i think that's optimistic. it's going to be years, plural. >> i think the biggest place where the president does us all a disservice in having a real conversation in what is going on is to suggest that we took a bump or this was an accident. the american people were robbed, directly. there was a system created where the american people by way of aig and other mechanisms were sold things that had no value. to pretend we were not robbed is a disservice. >> let me stop you for a second. a lot of americans got in on the

robbing of themselves. they got homes they could not afford. and credit cards they could not pay back. this is a simple economic theory, and perhaps it's the most brilliant economic theory. if it sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true and we got fat and happy on easy money and easy credit and we knew better. >> the only difference between everybody that you are talking about and the people that i am talking about are the people that i am talking about still have a few billion dollars, and the people you are not talking about got thrown out of your house. which one is the robby and which one got their ass kicked? >> the ones that got their asses kicked -- dude, let me finish.

this is why the president is having trouble passing health care, is because 10% of the people got thrown out of their houses, and could not pay their mortgages. 90% of the people are saying i played by the rules, and why am i paying for their recklessness? let me tell you, we all know -- all of us know somebody that had a steady job and four or five years ago said i am going to get rich and buy houses, i am going to flip houses, i am going -- this is too good to be true. >> here is the difference, joe. the people that you rightly point out who took advantage of the easy credit and bought more house then they could afford are naturally punished by the system where if you cannot afford the house and car the system will take the car and the house away.

however if you work in the investment community, and you start to sell insurance to all of the credits that are being put out to people that should not be borrowing them, you keep all of the money that you made for the sale of the insurance and then the taxpayer pays the insurance claim and the insurance company keeps the money and the taxpayer pays the claim. >> i don't want people to misunderstand what i am saying here, or what mika is saying here. yeah, wall street has not been punished sufficiently. i agree with you. but the thing that i don't want to hear is that it's oh, those mean old wall street people screwed america when americans are diving in head first. >> no, we pay politicians for making rules for capitalism. >> wall street is a great and easy punching bag.

they deserved to be punched for a lot of things. take a look at public policy over the last 15 years. it used to be like not a dishonorable thing to rent an apartment or home. for the past 10 or 12 years, public policy has driven people toward you can buy a home and make $35,000 a year and look at the $300,000 house. no, i'm sorry. can't be done. >> yeah, you go through the tax code, and homeowners are the most worthy taxpayers in the world. you have to have a house to get a deduction. >> that started in 1999 when bill clinton was there, and it continued through the bush era, and it got worse. >> and now the taxpayer is getting money to banks, and we are paying fees to banks to lend us our own money. >> before you get to the bank,

stick to the homeowner thing. you had a slew that jumped into the market. and that's responsibility for 75% of the collapse. >> i would say every white house and politician needs to understand what is going on out there. that's a lot of the rage that you see in the town hall meetings. they say we played by the rules. we didn't act reckless, and we saved money and paid our bills on time and mortgage on time, and we paid our kids' tuition and kept our noses down to the grind stone, and why am i having to payoff wall street and my neighbor who was reckless -- take that, and then you take health care. 75% of americans say i like my health care. why do i pay for the 25% who don't. i am not passing judgment? i am not saying they are right or wrong, i am just saying there are a lot of people --

>> that's where the dialogue is where it is. >> there are a lot of angry people out there? >> i agree. >> how good did we just do by the way? >> let me just give you a grade. >> a c plus. >> dylan ratigan, thank you. >> it was a pleasure. >> you can try again to the radio. and also catch "morning meeting" with dylan ratigan at 9:00 a.m. eastern today. >> i don't say this about tv shows, but that tv show changed my life. >> we are going to free the hostages. >> before "morning meeting" started going on, as you know i had male pattern baldness, and now look at my hair. >> well, thank you, dylan! >> keep it here on "morning joe." imodium multi-symptom relief

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we have to be clear-eyed about this, and what i am grateful for is we are not coming with any idealogical presuppositions. what we try to do in this administration is to sort out all of the different factors and come to the resolution based on the best information that we have and then as soon as we do that we keep going at it, and we don't say fine now we are set for the next five years. that's not the way the president works and not the way any of us work. >> with that said, correspondent andrea mitchell, and live,

eugene robinson. we explain what president obama needs to do in afghanistan. gene, thank you for being with us. andrea, let's start with you. a battle running with the civilians and the ones running the military. talk about that. >> well, basically the commanders in the field want to make a quicker decision on more

troops and the president now is saying not so fast. he, hillary clinton, you saw that in her interview last night, and they are basically rethinking the strategy that they outlined only last march. and gates said don't rush for more troops. and the fact that they want more troops is enough to box the president in. and the big picture is, as eugene is pointing out, they may end up with at right policy. this is a tough crossroads for this president to be going up against the military. >> gene robinson, in 2005, 2006, petraeus starts to talk to the same people and the same leaders killing americans in anbar province, and the awakening work. are you suggesting the same thing in afghanistan? >> the same thing only different

in that afghanistan is so different from iraq. it would be a different kind of process. it would be utterly thoroughly distasteful. the taliban is awful. their treatment of women and the whole mid evil society they want to create. and nonetheless, this is afghan society, and it's not u.s. society. we are not going to make it into u.s. society. i really fear -- if you read general mcchrystal's report, so much of his plan depends on the afghan government, which is corrupt, incompetent, and has basically is in much of the country. it puts eggs in a flimsy basket. the report really is, i think,

an argument for saying, wait a minute, are we really going to do this? are we going to double down on what seems to be a risky venture. >> andrea, as i read the analysis on afghanistan, i keep coming across the word winning. which is a problem we ran into i think even with iraq. do you think the president needs to define very clearly and very early on what success would mean there? >> well, what they have done now is started to redefine success. now success is just making sure that al qaeda does not have the safe haven and that it does not have the ability to regroup and attack our homeland, rather than trying to rebuild, and build a nation and create something in afghanistan that the brits or nobody else, and the russians certainly, that nobody has been able to do. eugene is correct. they don't want to deal with it while they are dealing with the domestic issues. once they take it on, defining

the mission could mean that we are there for decades. >> can they take the casualties? >> they not only can't take the casualties ae moegally and politically, this president doesn't want to have to deal with that. what he is discover ring going into the meetings into the united nations today, nato does not want to stand up to it. look at the picture of this child in italy as the italian soldiers were mourned. that is being replicated. the women and men in afghanistan, people need to understand what it's for. >> gene, you are talking about what we do moving forward.

do you agree with leslie gelb? >> i agree there ought to be a time horizon, and much closer than kind of what is out there now, which seems to be a potentially fallen commitment. we need to talk about two or three years. now, the question is what are you going to get in two or three years. are you really going to get a democracy in kabul, or even a noncorrupt competent government. are you going to be able to build-up the afghan armed forces to the extend that general mcchrystal says is necessary? it's a tall order. but if we shorten the time line, that's a good beginning. but, you know, leslie gelp did

mention pakistan. this is something the president has to consider. pakistan is potentially a much bigger problem than anything that we have ever seen. >> no doubt about it. >> nuclear armed and potentially islamic, and republic if anything bad happened. >> thank you, gene. i will tell you what we get in two or three years, american troops coming home. at some point we tell the afghans, it's your country. at some point we tell the iraqis, it's your country. at some point we bring our troops and our sons and our daughters back to our country. >> after a job well done. and everybody, say good by to mrs. view.

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welcome back to "morning joe." let's get a check on business before the bell. there is only one person we can turn to -- actually, several. but we will turn to erin burnett. >> we will have a sharply higher open. a good way to start the days. mark haines is back. another great way to start the day. >> where was he? >> he just had a day off. >> could you specify? >> he had a procedure. >> okay, every time you trade they would tax you at some small amount of the trade. this gets people on fire more than anything else. and gordon brown says they will consider it, and so it's going to get a lot of talk down here.

and then the president is talking about climate change. and i did a calculation, and assuming joe is talking, and the carbon dioxide he is emitting on the show, and i did a small assumption. joe alone is responsible for 2.4 degrees of global warming. i gave him vacation. that's enough to flood singapore and new york. >> he has a lot of explaining to do. >> he also has two hours on the radio, and you did not factor that in. >> i did not put that in. but it's staggering. >> do you see the ice melt when he is talking? >> does that mean joe is hot? >> that was not me, that was andrea! >> i would never say that.

>> erin, how are the futures looking? >> a sharply higher open. and then the last -- the first time we crossed that was in may of 1999. >> thank you. >> and the tax on trade, erin? >> oh, no, .1 degrees already. coming up next, carole king in the studio with us. would you like a pony ? yeah. would you like a pony ? yeah ! ( cluck, cluck, cluck ) oh, wowww ! that's fun ! you didn't say i could have a real one. well, you didn't ask. even kids know when it's wrong to hold out on somebody. why don't banks ? we're ally, a new bank that alerts you when your money

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♪ >> yes, yes! majority leader.

>> the hammer, doing the cha-cha. >> at least he is into it. >> that's it. again, we love tucker, but tucker walked across the dance floor and sat on the dance chair. >> i needed therapy after that. >> but tom threw himself into it. he committed to it and said he was going to do it. he got a 16 out of 30. >> he beat michael irving and a couple other people, and so he may be around another week. he is not that bad. people were expecting worse. >> i was embarrassed for him. but he threw himself into it. >> do you any newt gingrich will do it next? >> i don't know. the president talked about a lot of things, including race. let's show the clip now. >> this unease or poor decoream

was because people was routed in racism. is he on to something or is that just something to talk about? >> first of all, i think it's important to realize that i was actually black before the election. >> how long have you been a black man? >> so the american people, i think, gave me this extraordinary honor, and that tells you, i think, a lot about where the country is at. when ever a president tries to bring about significant changes, particularly during times of economic unease, then there is a certain segment of the population that gets very riled up. >> mike, he handled that very well. he also had bill clinton last night saying this is not about race but about people trying to do something big, and trying to change. >> yeah, i think bill clinton expressed it well.

the bulk of the people opposed to barack obama who hate barack obama would have hated him whether he was black or white or purple because of what he stands for >> savannah, he has a light touch when a big issue comes in like this, like by the way i was black before the election. >> yeah, he shows a little personality. he comes on with a couple one liners, and maybe a personal product or maybe his speech writers, who knows this. it was a good opportunity for him. it got serious. they talked about health care and he got to make his pitch. >> andrea, let's look back now over the magical mystery tour of the president. did it help him or hurt him? >> probably the letterman show did more for him in terms of

reaching a different audience. it was probably a wash. you probably could have reached out and he could have done a seventh and not created a fuss with the folks that don't like him so much. but he didn't -- he was forced to answer questions on subjects that he really did not want to talk about, like race. i don't think that he got out a coherent unified message on health as much as he wanted to. and on afghanistan, he is at a place where he doesn't want to talk about it because he is not at a decision point. probably not such a good idea. >> there is so much noise. willie geist, have you jimmy carter, and then joe wilson and afghanistan and mcchrystal, and then "time" magazine putting a man on the cover that called president obama a racist and said he hates white people. >> we like to talk about glenn

beck and how much we hate him. listen to what he said. >> quick responses. hillary clinton? >> i can't believe that i am saying this. i think i would have much preferred her as president and may have voted for her against john mccain. >> why? >> because i think john mccain is a weird progressive like roosevelts does. how about this? i think mccain would have been worse for the country than barack obama. how is that? >> again, this is a guy that has told americans that barack obama hates all white people. why isn't mitt romney and more republican leaders do what pete did yesterday and call this man out and say that he is bad for

the conservative movement. >> they are afraid because glenn beck is enormously popular and has certain appeal to a lot of people, and an entertainer. a very short fuse to the explosion of violence in this country. always has been. i don't want to participate and enlighten in. my view is, we in the media, glenn, good luck to you, i will give you a base on balls and not talk about you. >> that doesn't help hillary clinton any? >> no, it doesn't. but, again, republicans seem silent. republicans like mitt romney seem silent. people like mitt romney, just remaining silent, should he not speech out? should newt gingrich speak out against glenn beck? should these people that want to be president speak out against a man that says the president hates white people? >> they are all waiting and

positioning and gaming because they want to gain leadership and run for president again. nobody has got the guts to say anything like that? >> it's disgraceful. >> we will be right back with music legend carole king, only on "morning joe." how to get rich, by america's health insurance companies. raise health insurance premiums 4 times faster than wages. pay your ceo twenty four million dollars a year. deny payment for 1 out of every 5 treatments doctors prescribe. if the insurance companies win, you lose. tell congress to rewrite the story. we want good health care we can afford with the choice of a public health insurance option. time for orville redenbacher's popcorn. two minutes can seem like an eternity.

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at the heart of the park idea is at notion, by vurture chew of being an american, whether you are from a big city or from a rural setting, whether your daddy owns the factory or your mother is a maid, you -- you are the owner of some of the best sea front property this nation's got. they belong to you. they are yours. all that is asked of you is to put it in your will, for your children. >> that was a clip from a national park. "feel free, a national park celebration."

one of the performers that night, a legend, a and "morning joe" fan, and actually a "way too early" fan, carole king. >> it's great to see you. i meant to say friend instead of fan. >> the concert is being put on to highlight the series of six two-hour presentations on the national park. the first one will air on september 27th. the concert is tonight in central park. i believe it's free. people should verify that, but i think it is. >> where do you wander into the park to see? >> you wonder in the east meadow. right now it's the east meadow. let's go online and check it. >> how exciting. who else will be there? >> union station, and jerry douglas, and counting crows, and

more. >> carol is the headliner. you spend your time out west, and very involved in protecting the rockies out there. tell me how you are doing that? >> we are doing great. i want to give a shout-out to the chairman of the national resources committee. >> he helped you with your effort? >> he believed in it from the day i walked into his office. >> yeah, and she asked me to sign the bill and i said okay if you sign my guitar. >> you are a very green conservative. >> yeah, you are right. >> is this a votes for guitar scandal here? >> yeah. and what i found with younger

people, this issue has nothing to do with parties, and more and more people understand the need to preserve these parks. >> yeah, that's true. i could not have said it better. and i will add where you saw the piece where he talks about how we all own them. this is true. for the communities nearby, it's funny how they oppose and oppose and oppose, and this documentary highlights that, and then try to take it away from them. it generates so much money. we get people from other countries coming to yellowstone to spend money here in america. >> what do you want americans to learn not only from the concert but the pbs special? >> that they are there and beautiful and they are there for them and their children and grandchildren. as i get older, i am still able,

although not today with a broken ankle, but i want them to learn that they are there and they need to be protected for the future. 97% of the american land is developing, and we have to keep the national parks in our minds as we go to protect new wilderness, and that's preserving the status quo. it's a new designation, but the same god-given land. >> yeah, if god gave us to us, and let's pass it on to the children. >> i was driving out on the highway listening to tapestry. my wife wanted to know if you were working on anything now? >> well, i am just working on the parks, but hang on. >> it looks like some good

things are going? >> yeah, hopefully we will get it through the house. >> can you see carole for free at 7:00 eastern time right here in new york city central park. can you see carole for free, you do it. >> and then you get up the next morning, right? >> yeah, 3:00 in the morning, and boom, right into work. coming up, what, if anything, did we learn today? getting an early flu shot is the best thing you can do... to protect you and your loved ones from the flu. it's also one of the easiest things you can do... because walgreens is now offering seasonal flu shots... every day of the week with convenient hours guaranteed. so you can just stop in. our 16,000 dedicated pharmacists... and take care clinic nurse practitioners... are waiting to help you beat the flu... in neighborhoods nationwide. at walgreens we want you to know, there's a way to stay well.

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welcome back. now is the time to talk about what we learned. >> mika brzezinski will be cohosting "the view" this morning. and true story. since we began the show a couple hours ago, bill karins is now number three on the most searched google item. here it is, right here. bill karins, international star. >> maybe we should tell the truth, that bill has not been fired. >> he is on jury duty. >> yeah, it's a long story. >> and we would fire him if we could. >> i learned tom delay can shake and bake. that tom delay. >> i learned barbara walters had a lifetime achievement award last night, and she will welcome

our friend mika today. there is nobody like barbara walters. a shout-out to barbara. >> yeah. >> joe, i learned that you and the average "morning joe" broadcast is -- emits so much carbon dioxide you raised the temperature of the earth by degrees. a lot of explaining to do. >> you are making me very embarrassed. carole what did you learn. >> never take anything serious that you hear from you or willie geist. i am a quick learner. >> carole king in central park. i also learned nbc news, you talk about emmys, won an emmy for election coverage.

>> and richard engel, wonderful reporting from afghanistan. >> thank you. savannah, you are so tall. >> yeah. >> we're little. >> and don't -- i don't feel awkward at all. is there anything else that we can get into, personality defects? >> almost elephantitis. >> come on! >> if it's way too early, joe -- this is my line. it's "morning joe," but it's time right now for the "morning meeting" with our good friend dylan ratigan. topping our agenda today, the senate's most prominent health care bill going under the knife life in washington. they are beginning the down and dirty process of deciding what stays in and what goes out and

which, if any, of course, the amendments will make it into the bill. and then barack obama bringing both sides together for a face-to-face meeting at the u.n. a former white house speechwriter's boss lashes out after a juicy tell-all was released. we have a speechless mat lat amyrrh. and then a note to politicians. before you go on "dancing with the stars," make sure you can dance. we are breaking down tom delay's footwork. and it's 9:00 a.m. pull up a chair and join the

"morning meeting." health care reform going under the knife today. we are showing how they are considering the amendments and just a few days. first the senator will get a chance to tell the public what they think of the bill, which they are doing as we look at the heart building right now in the senate. savannah guthrie joins us as she spent the morning with "morning joe" and is pleasant enough to stick around. >> a lot of senators sat and watched as the gang of six created this bill. basically in secret for several months. now they have an opportunity to weigh in. some of the key issues coming out have to do with affordability. a lot of democrats are concerned about the mandate of having to buy insurance, and this is a very sensitive and political