>> something we never did about vietnam. >> here we are, barnacle. you're going to start that way. that's fine. that's a fair argument. we're going to come up and see if they have some clarity in terms of how they want to move forward. >> did you hear what he just called me? >> what did willie just call you? >> an oat crank. >> my day, vietnam. there are lessons to be learned. >> i'm just saying it's better they're having a dialogue about the change in policy. >> and an old crank is better than the names i heard him called yesterday. >> speaking of crank, did you see mika on "the view" yesterday? >> i insulted mike barnicle on "the view." he's a little upset. >> what is this, "the new york times" book review now? she's just hateful. >> no. >> speaking of, we have

tannenhaus coming in. i'll ask him about his interview. and i got a talk about bill moyer. >> first a look at today's top stories. this morning president obama will speak to more than 100 world leaders gathered at the united nations general assembly in new york city. it follows his u.n. debut yesterday where the president took a solid stance on the stalled middle east process. >> simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations. it is time to move forward. it is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that's necessary to achieve our goals. permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency. >> as nbc's ann thompson reports, the president is also using the u.n. summit to tackle global climate change. >> the world wanted to hear president obama make a commitment to specific cuts in

carbon dioxide emissions. instead of action, it got talk. >> we understand the gravity of the climate threat. we are determined to act. >> and even one line that sounded a lot like his predecessor george w. bush, who refused to agree to emission cuts without similar actions from india and china. >> but those rapidly growing, developing nations that will produce nearly all the growth in global carbon emissions in the decades ahead must do their part as well. >> this was not the leadership the world's diplomats wanted. >> many of the key players that i talked to today were a little disappointed with what the u.s. brought to the table. they were hoping there would be more. >> carbon dioxide emissions from burning wood and coal are changing the earth's climate. 80% of those emissions come from the world's biggest countries. two the biggest, the u.s. and china, each responsible for 20%. while the u.s. held its cards close, surprisingly china put

some on the table. >> china stands ready to work with all countries to build a better future for generations to come. >> president hu jintao said it would increase its renewable energy to 15% by 2020. and cutting emissions but not by a specific target. the most dramatic pledge came from japan, responsible for 4% of the world's emissions. >> for its midterm goal, japan will aim to reduce its emissions by 25% by 2020. >> reporter: at stake, the fate of island nations like the maltese that could be swamped by rising sea levels. with meetings in copenhagen this december to reach an agreement on global climate impact. >> if we miss it again in copenhagen, we're out of time and very little chance to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees centigrade, which scientists have told us we need to do.

according to this morning's "new york times," the white house is considering alternatives to adding more troops in afghanistan. vice president joe biden is calling for a more surgical approach, concentrating u.s. strikes on al qaeda areas, mostly in afghanistan. 28% of americans are more confident the war will come to a successful end. 59% are pessimistic about its outcome. that survey is also offering a new look at president's overall approval rating and where the public stands on his top domestic priority. 51% say president obama is doing a good job in office. that number is unchanged from last month. still, the public likes the president more than his policies. 39% believe the health care plan is a good idea. 41% -- >> hold that poll for a second. i've got to say last night i was going in and looking around the internet for -- and i typed in

google, nbc/"wall street journal" poll. i typed that in and got news results up. the cnbc headline was "president's rating on health care stabilizes." i thought, oh, okay. is it up in the low 50s? that's pretty good. 39%. >> oh, well. stabilized. the patient has been stabilized. >> the patient has been stabilized. yeah, he's six feet underground, but he's stabilized. he's not getting worse. mike barnicle, we've had this debate back and forth, and every time we try to say the president has been overexposed, people on the left get angry. mika's going to have -- i think you've got a poll on this. >> barnicle, look at this. when it comes to the president's exposure, 34% say it's too much. 9% say it's too little. 54% say we hear from the president just the right amount,

just like the three bears. >> the proof is in the pudding. the fact is his numbers remain the same. he's burned up capital. he's been on six shows. he's been on letterman. it's >> it's a lot, but maybe it's the future. >> it hasn't helped. you say the president is the best spokesman for the white house, for his party, for his country, but the numbers are still going down, 39%. >> i think it's fair to say that all the appearances this past sunday on all the news show did him no good. it didn't move his numbers at all. i don't think it cleared up the questions that a lot of people have about health care in the pin minds of the voters. i think he did more for himself on letterman than he did all day sunday on tv. the question still remains. people are wondering what's in this bill that's going to help me? what's in this bill has going to hurt me? how much is it going to cost? >> he's trying to put his face on this.

>> he's at 551% in the approval ratings, and he'll stay there until health care is gone. he's burned 60% of his tv appearances. if the president goes on a sunday show, it's supposed to be something big. that's what buchanan said last week. i know a lot of progressives get very angry when you talk this way about the president. but it's actually just looking and saying is this wise for president obama? >> the only thing i counter with is we're in such a different age in terms of the communications medium out there. it seems like he needs to stay in front of it. >> it's something that didn't move the dial at all. >> that is the issue. >> i don't know whether a poll can get to this. i don't know whether it really exists coast to coast. but the president, when he's on tv most of the time in the last four or five months, he's on tv in a campaign mode.

we see him up in troy speaking to audience. we see him in minneapolis at the health care forum, speaking to audiences as if he's in a campaign mode, as if he's campaigning for president. most people get up each and every day and go to an office and go to a workplace and go to work. they have to stay at their place of employment for eight to ten hours and work, and that's how they get paid. i think there are people out there wondering, when's the guy going to work? i understand he works very hard. you can understand that. a lot of it on the phone. >> you're talking about the optics of it. >> yes. that's another thing we've been saying here for a couple of weeks. instead of going out and giving the speeches, instead of going on the sunday shows, just hunker down. get in your white house and call one senator after another senator after another senator. like we said, do it the lbj way. >> bingo. >> get them in there. how many times have we said this?

senator mcaskill, i need your vote. what do you need in missouri? senator lincoln, what do you need in arkansas? >> i get it. i think people are expecting to hear from him. if they didn't -- >> they'd hear from him anyway. from the white house they'd hear from him. "the washington post" is reporting a major policy change within the administration that makes it more difficult for the government to hide sensitive national security strategies. rather than simply claiming the information as a state secret, officials will now have to convince the justice department that its release to the public could potentially cause significant harm to national defense. ahead of his u.n. address today, iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad says he will seek "maximum leniency" for three american hikers who apparently strayed across the iranian border in july. meanwhile, libyan leader moammar gadhafi is creating controversy on his visit to the u.s., setting up a tent on a suburban new york property owned by donald trump.

the town has ordered construction stopped, and the trump organization says it's looking into the matter. and newly released security video shows an incredibly close call for a child in washington state. the 4-year-old was walking toward a convenience store when a speeding car barrels toward her. thankfully, a parking pole helped lift the car into the air and went right over the young girl. >> she's okay? >> she's okay. let's go right to weather with wtvj miami meteorologist ryan phillips. ryan? >> how are you guys doing? fabulous morning, right? >> yes, it is now that you're here, ryan. few clouds overhead in the big apple. more clouds than anything going out through the northeast and mid-atlantic states. we're dry right now across much of the region here. mostly cloudy, 69 in new york, 64 in hartford, 66 in boston. 71 in the nation's capital.

not much in the way of rain in central and southern new jersey. seeing showers and thunderstorms moving off to the northeast there. by and large, i think we may see just a few sprinkles in the metropolitan areas of the northeast. the real wet weather across the mid-atlantic. north carolina and south carolina, one to two inches of rain in the forecast forred today. plenty of rain first thing this morning. memphis some storms. flooding rains in atlanta coming to an end. cold front holding at bay. it's going to cool down, but at least it will dry out in atlanta. as we get into the afternoon hours here in the northeast, at least we'll still be warm. >> ryan, thank you very much. still ahead, we're going to talk to white house senior adviser david axelrod about just what the president plans to say this morning at the united nations general assembly here in new york city. plus poll position. nbc news political director chuck todd breaks down the newest numbers in the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. also, inside the rowdy town

halls. we'll talk to congressman paul ryan, who held 17 of them during a ten-day period in the dog days of august. plus we'll talk to the daily beast's tina brown. plus an exclusive look at politico's top stories of the morning. >> i really want to know what people who are watching the show think about the president's numbers. 51% approval rating. 39% on health care. chris, we'll be looking at those throughout the morning. obviously, we don't have all the answers here. i'm fascinated by those numbers and exactly what they mean. i'd love to hear what everybody thinks. >> absolutely. you are watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ bicycle, what are we waiting for? the flowers are blooming. the air is sweet. and zyrtec® starts... relieving my allergies... 2 hours faster than claritin®.

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earlier today president obama spoke at the u.s. climate change summit, and he promised to get greenhouse gas emissions back to the level they were at in 1990. did you hear that? yeah. just to show you he's serious about getting back to 1990,

obama gave the whole speech dressed as kid from kid and play. can we show you what that looks like, allen? that was really impressive. >> the executive editor of politico jim vandehyde. he's got a look at events this morning. we've got a strange feel about governor david paterson of new york and just his mentality and the way he approaches thing. we know the white house working back channels suggested politely that maybe he should get out of the race. now i want to read you the response from gofr nor paterson and get your take on it, jim. "i understand the president's concern and i understand the concern of staff members at the white house. if you look at it from their perspective, they exactly been able to govern in the first year of their administration in the way that other administrations have, where you would have a period in which the new administration is allowed to

pass the needed pieces of legislation." so governor paterson firing back at the white house. is this an effective strategy? >> i don't think it's an effective strategy, but i don't know if there is one because they don't want him running up in new york. this one is a little messy because you're getting pushback from democrats on capitol hill. charlie rangel, one of the most influential african-american, chairman up on capitol hill, also from new york, has told the new york daily news he's not happy with the pressure on paterson and the white house should basically butt out. it's clear the white house is not going to. they didn't like the words. paterson's staff said, we didn't mean anything by that. we were simply stating the obvious. the white house said no. they immediately called our reporters to push back and say, hey, we have a great record of passing legislation. >> just really quickly, why does the white house want him out so bad? just because he's tarring the democratic party there? >> and they don't think he has the best chance of winning. at the end of the day, the

president and his staff want a powerful democratic coalition at the national and state level. if they think he's a loser, they don't want him in there, they want him out. the bush administration has done this. most administrations do this because they want to police department up the party from the bottom up. >> speaking of a former governor, sarah palin from alaska. i understand she's touching down in asia today. what's she doing there? >> she's giving a paid speech to make a lot of money, pay off the legal bills, and raise her profile a little bit. so her profile is not being paid in public forum. she gets paid a lot, six or seven figures for these speeches, and she's going to spend the next several months doing this. she's got a book coming out. she remains really popular with the republican base. she's going to cash in on that. she's going to continue to use facebook and twitter and other mektisms to engage in public debat debates. she's being careful about how she's doing that, but i do think

she's going to continue to have resonance with republicans. an environmental group showed me a poll they were doing to back up cap and trade. in it they pulled sarah palin and barack obama, these are democratic districts, albeit conservative ones, in it sarah palin was as popular as barack obama. >> i know she can see russia from her backyard in alaska. can she see asia too? >> every time someone uses jokes about sarah palin, i think the elite ins washington say, you know what, it's terrible to have her out there as the face of the republican party, but there's a disconnect between washington and a lot of republicans in the country who like the way she talks, who like the fact she's constantly whacking washington. >> by using an old joke, barnicle made her more popular with the republican base. >> she's still got star power.

drawing a crowd in hong kong. >> donald trump can see libya from his backyard. he can. just has to look outside the window. as we mentioned, libyan leader moammar gadhafi is creating a little controversy on his visit to the u.s. by setting up a tent on a suburban new york property owned by donald trump. here's the story. >> reporter: the tent was well in progress when bedford town officials stopped workers from continuing. the order was issued because no permits had been sought and not entirely because of its suspected tenant, libyan leader moammar gadhafi. >> what the hell is he doing here? it just doesn't make any sense. >> reporter: well, maybe it's because he's already gotten the cold shoulder from so many other places, notably englewood, new jersey. gadhafi first wanted to set up a tent on a libyan owned place in that city.

this week the tent was being set up on donald trump's estate at 52 oregon road. trump's spokesman released this statement, the property was leased on a short term basis to middle eastern partners who may or may not have a relationship to mr. gadhafi. we are looking into the matter now." residents were not happy about the news. >> we don't want any terrorists anywhere near us. >> reporter: residents were freshly angered by libya's warm reception of the recently released prisoner convicted of the bombing of pan am flight which killed 250 people. >> i think we should organize a protest. that's a good idea. >> so you didn't think he should stay here? >> no, i wouldn't like that. >> i don't know, protest. maybe donald could just evict. what do you think? i should call him. maybe he's busy. >> did moammar gadhafi really think he could set up his

command center in the middle of the central park? strikes me he needs a closer relationship with reality. >> that tent up in bedford would be the perfect place for him because there's no plumbing. >> very nice. coming up, we'll get a look at the cheat sheet. and then presidential adviser david axelrod on what the president plans to say during his address to the u.n. general assembly as president. all that when "morning joe" continues. pure cane sugar and the stevia plant. two of nature's sweetest wonders growing together under the same sun. and now for the first time, in new sun crystals ® . the only 100% natural sweetener made with pure cane sugar and stevia. finally, all the sweetness of nature

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it's been five years since your heart surgery? >> yeah, 2004. >> that's remarkable, isn't it? >> how are you feeling? >> as far as i know, i'm fine. you know, when you reach our age, every day is a genetic roulette, but i feel pretty good about it. >> welcome back to "morning joe," just before 6:30 on the east coast. time for a look the day's top stories. today president obama will deliver his first address to the united nations general assembly. the president is expected to call for a new level of cooperation in tackling global problems. he's also pressing for renewed middle east peace talks, saying permanent status negotiations must again soon. two of the nation's largest banks are planning a major shift in the way they charge customers with overdraft fees. remember those? there are many of those still. bank of america says it will

limit the number of times customers can overdraw their accounts when using a debit card. meanwhile, jp morgan chase is planning to allow customers to opt out of overdraft coverage. the bank will begin processing transactions chronologically instead of the day's highest amounts first, which often causes customers to overdraw more quickly. and new polling from nbc news and "the wall street journal" is bringing a new look at the president's overall approval rating. 51% say president obama is doing a good job in office, that number unchanged from last month. still only 39% believe the health care policy is a good idea. 41% do not. we'll look at those polls more in depth with chuck todd coming up. >> we don't usually do this, bu from the president's supporters. only 39%? after all that, a very well

delivered speech last wednesday, and all of the sunday shows, he's down at 39%. that's extremely low. >> it may be what you're saying about over exposure. here's obama's shift in afghanistan strategy potential there. front page of "the new york times." >> "the washington post," less peril for civilians and more for troops. obama to set higher bar for keeping state secrets. >> congress presses on war plan. >> and chinese climate plan upstages obama at the u.n. >> let's go to the houston chronicle. housing here shows new spark. >> and that's "the washington times." send in your e-mails on the houston chronicle. "housing here shows new spark." starting to hear pretty good news on the economic front. things might be slowly turning around. let's hope so. >> state of recession is over. >> we'll see. what do you think of that, mike barnicle?

>> i think we're in a long recession bp >> we're about to double dip. coming up next, the daily beast's tina brown helps us take a look at this morning's must read opinion pages. you're watching "morning joe" brewedly starbucks. >> i read your statements. you support reform. i'm not tying you into our plan or any specific plan. but you know this is no time to tinker. you can't rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic. we got to change ships here. 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. [ engine powers down ] gentlemen, you booked your hotels on orbitz. well, the price went down, so you're all getting a check thanks. for the difference. except for you -- you didn't book with orbitz, so you're not getting a check.

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the last time we left afghanistan after we had helped the afghans overthrow soviet power at the end of the 1980s, when we left afghanistan and when we abandoned pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which al qaeda trained and attacked us on september 11th.

so our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists. it's that simple. if you want another terrorist attack on the united states, abandon afghanistan. >> that is tough talk. >> yes, it is. >> and there are a lot of people in this debate, when i talk about the need for us to draw down eventually, that's what they say. if we leave afghanistan, we're going to get another terror attack. it will be just like september the 10th. >> obviously speaking from experience too. here with us now, editor in chief and founder of thedailybeast.com, tina brown. good to have you back. >> first of all, congratulating tina. won a big award, the online marketing award for excellence in news and politics. the daily beast. >> it was really great for the beast. we were really pleased about that. >> excellent. congratulations. let's start with "the wall street journal." liberals and stability. this is by thomas frank. interesting. "i have concerns about the rhetoric being used as well and

about the louts and the bullies who use it. but it seems clear that mrs. pelosi's is saying to avoid debate when she should be wading into the thick of it. her team has the arguments and the facts, it has gale-force historical winds at its back. why not give back as good as you get. why not simply beat the other side instead of complaining tearfully that they play too rough." what do you think? >> thomas frank was missing the press conference where she called her opponents evil and villains and must not have read her op-ed where she accused people who went to the town hall meetings of engaging in "un-american activities." and harry reid, the leader of the senate, calling americans evil that went to town hall meetings. i don't know what thomas frank is looking at. he obviously is not looking at both sides here. seems there have been louts on both sides, and i would say

wretched excess coming from none other than nancy pelosi. at the very least, you should not call your house equals villains or accuse them of un-american tactics. >> on the reverse side, there is opportunity for the republicans to raise the bar. ined stead of saying it, they're doing it, we can. they ought to look at this as an opportunity to actually stand out. >> there are too many books to sell, too many ratings. act horribly on the right as well. >> what's interesting is how in a sense failure of the lesser rhetoric has not been able to exploit more for their own advantage in a sense the tremendous unhappiness that is actually in america at the moment. michael moore's new movie is going to be a very interesting kind of counter balance in this debate. michael moore, antic and vaudevillian though he is in his techniques, he has incredibly

powerful footage in this movie, which i saw on monday night, which shows the foreclosure in action, shows the wretched excess in the interviews of people like the vip loan officer at countrywide, who gave loans to so many people in power, the friends of angelo mizzillo, et cetera. at the end of it, moore's conclusion is we should have this liberal revolution. but it's coming from the other side. somehow the anger with business and corporate malfeasance has become anger with big government. that actually you have to hand it to people like glenn beck that they manage to achieve it in a way. >> there's been a connection between washington and wall street going back to '99. i guess, where making it a lot easier to make lots of money, making the dollar cheaper, making credit easier, and allowing leveraging to go up. >> i'm always surprised there's

so much anger in america in a way right now. i don't think we should be that surprised. >> populism has always been driven in this country by a wave of fear. that's the first wave that comes up. that leads to the anger. if you consider that a year ago, a year ago last week most people who were working for a living felt comfortable with their retirement np in the space of two months, they saw their 401(k)s practically disappear. and then they became worried, what's going to happen to me? how did this happen? who can i get mad at? >> it's really taken a year for the other shoe to drop. it's almost like americans didn't get angry enough at the time. it's showing a year later. >> let's read our next op-ed. >> "the wall street journal," obama and the politics of concession. "stalin tested truman with the berlin blockade, and truman held

fast. khrushchev tested kennedy, and in the cuban missile crisis, kennedy refused to blink. an drop off tested the measure of reagan, and defying millions in the street, who are now the obama base, reagan did not blink. last week the iranian president and the russian prime minister put mr. obama to the test, and he blinked not once but twice. the price of such infirmity has always proven immensely high, even if, as is the custom these days, the bill has yet to come." >> i want to get your father on the phone to talk about several things, israel, but also poland. >> he's on tomorrow, i think. >> the poles feel so betrayed, and we've betrayed them several times over the past year or two despite the fact over the past decade they've been our closest allies. we give up on missile defense after poland agrees to it in the hopes of getting some sort of deal with the russians so they'll pull iran back. so far we see absolutely

nothing. as ahmadinejad comes to new york again, tina, it looks like he has center stage. >> the thing that's amusing and awful about ahmadinejad is that right before he comes to the united states -- and actually there was a very, very funny comment on the beast. he always makes a holocaust, sort of a hideous comment, which is brilliant of him because what he does is he deflects all the media about that. then he doesn't have to talk about what he's doing to his own people, about the disastrous state of iran. he makes a holocaust comment, and everybody goes crazy, and it works like a treat. >> we hear from the foreign policy experts, the real issue, we're talking about health care and we're talking about afghanistan. if you really want to get these foreign policy analysts wringing their hands, talk about iran, talk about israel, talk about the possibility of israel bombing iran, using our air

space in iraq without getting our permission. >> we're going to have les gelb on in a bit. it gets to the question you raised yesterday. what if israel decides on its own to just shoot right over american air space in iraq and drop one in tehran. what happens? what do we do? what do we do if they say, we don't care what you think. it's our survival we're talking about. >> i will tell you there are a lot of neo-conservatives out there that would be happy about that. and my question is, for those that want to stay engaged in iraq, want to stay engaged indefinitely in afghanistan, and want to take on iran, where are we getting the troops? i mean, at what point do we say enough? tina, i just think at some point, after eight years in afghanistan, americans aren't ready to hear, you know what, give us three, four, five more years, and we're going to start training the afghan troops.

what the hell have we been doing for the past eight years? >> there's actually a really interesting piece in today's "washington post," a very unsettling piece, how tragic the predicament has been for the soldiers. in some ways, they're having to be far more exposed in order to pursue this technique of not wounding and unnecessarily creati creating collateral damage on the afghans. it leaves them unprotected, and they're dying in greater number. you do feel an incredible discomfort that they're being made to pay this sacrifice, which seems like an open-ended nightmare. there doesn't seem to be a concrete moment where we can declare success, which is a scary thing. the rhetoric is very similar to the build-up to vietnam. holbrook says in the paper it isn't the same thing because it is a real threat, which vietnam wasn't. >> sure, the world's smaller and there is a much tighter link between afghanistan and

terrorism in the united states than there was with vietnam. but if you believe the future of america's security is in afghanistan, then i disagree with you. condi rice and a lot of people in the bush administration say yes to more, stay in afghanistan, stay in iraq, go into iran. i don't see it. the numbers don't add up. >> in the pieces that have been written, just in the last ten days, about afghanistan, having to do with just the point that you raise, that we're going to train the afghan army to prepare themselves to better secure their own country and their own government. if you substitute the two words "south vietnam" for afghanistan, you have almost a complete reflection of what we were trying to do in that country in 1965 and 1966. you can't secure a country on behalf of a government that is unpopular with the people who you're securing. it can't be done.

and we're trying to do it. >> you're right. it may be a terrible reverse for the obama administration that karzai turns out to be another sort of charlatan. it's like how many charlatans do we have to get in bed with? >> the poll numbers are worse on afghanistan than we were -- mied go, you can go to 1971/1972 and still not find -- tle years after tet and still not find numbers as low on vietnam as you do in afghanistan. 28% of americans believe afghanistan will be successful in the end. and 59% are less confident. that is not positive. >> it's interesting that this is really revert to go joe biden's position six months ago. joe biden was actually against it, and he fought a battle against holbrook and clinton on this. it's interesting to see what's going on politically. >> just about 46 years ago, he

decided to put them in the back of a truck in saigon and take them for a ride. they were assassinated in the back of those vans. that was the last stable government, the diem regime, october 1963. things kind of went downhill from there. >> tina brown, thank you so much for coming in. >> congratulations again on the success of the daily beast. >> barnicle said you won because the site is real pretty. it's crisp and clean. >> it's not just clean, it's got good stuff. >> you know that. >> you know which section of the daily beast barnicle likes. it's the sexy beast. he goes there every time. >> one of the great movies of all time. >> plaxico does his time while the yankees and angels have a late night of their own without weapons. freddy roggin has sports. does your mouthwash work in sixifferent ways?

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a well-known animal expert says that humans should pull the plug on panda bears because he says they're not strong enough to survive on their own. yeah, yeah. animal experts then said the same thing goes for the detroit lions.

>> the poor lions, they're doing their best. let's do some sports, mike. what do you say? want to start with the yankees? >> no. >> go ahead. it's very excited. they could clinch a playoff spot last night, but really what they need to do, a little separation from the red sox. creeping up on them. let's go to anaheim. top of the third inning. a-rod is going to hit a two-run bomb here. they struggle out in l.a. a-rod's 27th of the year. tightened up, though. one-run lead in the bottom of the ninth. erick aybar grounds out to second to win the game. yankees win 6-5. they are the first team to make the postseason this year. they want more from the wild card. meanwhile, red sox playing in kansas city. royals making a little trouble for the red sox. >> we knew greinke was going to win that game. he should win the cy young as

well. >> kc jumps to an early 5-0 lead. you heard mike mention his name. zach greinke is lights out. gets ortiz swinging. two hits in six scoreless innings. 3-0, .26 e.r.a. >> 16 wins for kansas city, a team that's won 16 games all year. >> that's saying something. yankees and red sox playing three games this weekend. in denver, rockies hosting the padres. bottom of the seventh, this is not a good play in right field. oh, boy. you're going to want to keep that ball in front of you. that was the padres' right fielder edgar gonzalez diving. cliff barnes hustling around the bases as the ball rolls into the corner. didn't need to hustle. he could have walked around. a stand up inside-the-park home run. that kid hurt his arm. they go on to win 11-10.

five-game lead in the wild card. >> jim tracy is manager of the year. plaxico burress, the guy who shot himself with a pistol in the waistband of his pants. sentenced to two years in prison for carrying that gun into the nightclub. >> if he's not plaxico burress, he gets six months in jail. >> he pleaded guilty in august to attempted criminal possession of a weapon. he'll begin serving time immediately and says he hopes to return to football after he's done. maybe he'll get out early. two years is a long time. lebron james was on david letterman last night. we showed you bill clinton there. lebron was on as well. talking to dave about his new partner there in cleveland, shaquille o'neal. >> now, sometimes they would say that, like michael jordan needed a couple of players to complete the puzzle or that kobe bryant needed a couple of players to complete -- is this guy a puzzle completer? >> i could tell you one thing. if michael jordan needed a couple of pieces to fit the puzzle and kobe bryant needed a

couple pieces, i think shaq is big enough that he are those couple of pieces. >> lebron james, got a new book out on him. you ran into him? >> i did. i saw lebron this morning as i was leaving a midtown manhattan hotel room, he was coming in quite early in the morning with a few members of his team. true story. >> probably getting a little late night workout at the gym. coming up next, "news you can't use." this is very exciting. mika brzezinski co-hosting "the view." it's our favorite morning show, to be perfectly honest. we love "the view." mika had the rare opportunity to sit down and join the ladies for the full hour. we'll show you when we come back. i'm walgreens ceo and i'm also a pharmacist. getting an early flu shot is the best thing you can do... to protect you and your loved ones from the flu.

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oh, yes, is it time? >> it's time for "news you can't use." i don't consider this news you can't use. i consider this a great day for "morning joe" because mika brzezinski yesterday was a co-host on "the view." >> it's huge. >> we worship the ladies at "the view" and you're the only one who gets an invitation. >> unbelievable. >> did a great job on the show, mix it up. if i may say, looked fantastic. >> look at her. she belongs in the middle of "the view." >> jumping off the screen. mika was asked by sheri shepard about -- we're going to call them her guns. >> before you came out, you asked me if i'm still work out, and i do.

mika put up her arms and said feel this. she feels like a brick wall. her stomach -- >> she needs that if she's going to tackle joe scarborough every day. >> no problem. >> with the washboard, can't even tell you have two children. >> thank you. my guns. >> just a body shot for joe while we're working that. >> that's what happens when you run 33 miles a day. >> she does. >> people do not realize how crazy mika is as far as health goes. she runs at times nine miles a day, and she's on the cell phone for nine miles while running. >> booking the show. >> i know. i'm deadly serious. >> i know. >> and not out of breath. we were down in florida during the florida primary, and chris and i were driving down the street. i forget br where it was. chris looks up in boca. chris says, look at that crazy woman talking on the cell phone while he was running like full speed, and it was mika. >> you have to get things done. we had a good time on "the view"

yesterday. it was a lovely, lovely day. >> it wasn't just joe who took a shot during the show yesterday. mike barnicle absorbed one also. >> being the only woman, sometimes they say things that are so sexist, and it's just -- >> like mike barnicle? he's my misogynist. >> wow, that is horrible. >> you are my misogynist, my very own misogynist. how much did you want in that? >> about half. >> sugar? >> sweet and low. >> baby, yes, coming up. >> thank you so much, willie. while mika is going to get ice, time to look atted too's top stories. this morning president obama is going to speak to more than 100 world leaders gathered at the united nations general assembly in new york city. it follows his u.n. debut yesterday when the president took a strong stance on the

stalled middle east peace process. >> simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations. it is time to move forward. it is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that's necessary to achieve our goals. permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon. success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency. >> okay, great. there you go, honey. moving on with news -- >> did you need anything else? >> did you want something else? >> at the next break, a blueberry muffin. >> no problem. according to this morning's "new york times," the white house is considering alternatives to add adding more troops to the war in afghanistan. vice president joe biden is calling for a more surgical approach, concentrating on u.s. strikes on al qaeda targets mostly in afghanistan. meanwhile, new polling from nbc news and "the wall street journal" shows just 28% of americans are more confident the war will come to a successful end.

59% are pessimistic about its outcome. >> really quickly here, this is important for americans to understand. when you hear talks about more surgical strikes, because you're going to be hearing that. let's get the troops out. let's have drones, more predator attacks, more surgery strikes, let me say this is ironic. i'm passing no judgment. it's ironic coming from a government that right now is frantic over a proposed assassination project where you go. and put the rifle, you know, the scope on a bad guy and shoot him in the head and kill him. that's immoral. we do understand as a nation, don't we, that these predator attacks, these drone attacks, you don't even know who's inside the building. you know there's a van parked outside the building. usually when there's a van parked outside of the building, that means people, bad people are inside the building. so you blindly launch these predator attacks in there knowing you're going to kill innocent people, knowing that children are going to be blown to pieces, knowing that

grandmothers are going to be killed. knowing that innocents will die. but for some reason it makes people in washington -- dare i say progressives -- feel cleaner. if the bombs come from above instead of one guy taking a rifle and killing an al qaeda suspect, some reason -- and i don't get it. why is it that we call it surgical if you know you're going to kill little children and you know you're going to kill grandparents and that there's going to be a lot more innocents dying? >> i think a couple of reasons, joe. the biggest reason is we as a country, and certainly more people in our politics, have very little concept about what the military is all about. very little serve in the military. it's an all volunteer army. the second and largest reason of what you just described is antiseptic. it fits our culture, our video

game culture. >> if it looks antiseptic, it is just the opposite. it is grisly. again, innocents -- a lot more innocent people will die this way than in like this proposed assassination project that so greatly offended democrats on capitol hill. >> you know, what you describe, the art of war fare -- and there is an art to it -- you know, tracking people on the ground and assassinating people, killing them, that's described in our newspapers and in our tv news programs, if you want to be accurate, as hunter/killer teams, which upsets people. hunter/killer teams. wow, that's offensive. people aren't as upset when they see the replay of the video that the pentagon provides of some gray graphic image with a target on it and boom. >> and you kill the terrorists inside, but, oh, yeah, 14 other people killed. it's so interesting that americans are fine with that. they really are. we've got the bad guns? i had people that i knew from

congress in the agency who told me a couple of years ago, you know what, if we go risk our lives, kick down the door, go in, grab the bad guy, bring him back, take him down to gitmo, get information out of him that we believe will save americans' lives in the future, we're terrorists. or we're torturers. if, on the other hand, we go in, we kick down the door, and shoot these people in the head and kill them, we come back as heroes. >> we can ask david axelrod about this. >> guess what? that's when the predator attacks started up. people said, you don't want the information. we're not going to do your bidding, get your information, make your country safe, and have you call us torturers. >> we are a casualty averse nation, which is a good thing, our own casualties. >> moving on, the polling is offering a new look at the president's overall approval rating. where the public stands on his top domestic priority.

51% say president obama is doing a good job in office. that number is unchanged from last month. >> by the way, you go to read this really quickly. >> 39% believe the president's health care plan is a good idea. 41% do not. and when it comes to the president's exposure, 34% say it's too much while 9% say it's too little. 54% say we see and hear from the president just about the right amount. >> again, i don't want to go back to this for more than a few seconds. i have to explain to my friends on the left what i'm saying. >> okay. >> which is this. there's just no such thing as a clean antiseptic war. you hear precision. there's no such thing. so don't kid yourself and think, if you take the troops out, that we're going to be -- drone attacks are not going to kill a lot of people. >> ravage communities and life. >> that it's not going to be sloppy. there's no precise way to do

this. >> for sure. "the washington post" is reporting a major policy change within the administration that makes it more difficult for the government to hide sensitive national security strategies. rather than simply claiming the information as a state secret, officials will now have to convince the justice department that releasing it to the public could potentially cause significant harm to the national defense. ahead of his u.n. address today, iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad said he will seek "maximum leniency" for three american hikers who reportedly strayed across the iranian border in july. meanwhile, libyan leader moammar gadhafi creating controversy on his visit to the u.s., setting up a tent on a su bauer ban new york property owned by donald trump. the town has ordered construction stopped, and the trump organization says it is looking into the matter. two of the nation's largest banks are planning a major shift in the way they charge customers with overdraft fees.

bank of america said it will limit the amount of times customers can overdraw their account while using a debit card. meanwhile, jp morgan chase is planning to allow customers to opt out of overdraft coverage. they will automatically run through the smaller amounts instead of the highest amount first, which automatically causes them to overdraw more quickly. >> we're getting a look at the president's address in the u.n. general assembly. i like the tack he's taking in this part where he's talking about our war against terrorists across the globe. make no mistake, this cannot solely be america's endeavor. those who used to chastise america for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for america to solve the world's problems alone. we have sought in word and in deed a new era of engagement with the world. now is the time for all of us to share our responsibility for a global response to global challenges. actually, i like that challenge

to the international community because they talk about american unilateralism under bush, but now obama is there, and they're just as opposed to our policies, and it doesn't seem like our allies across the world are being as engaged as they should be. we can't fight afghanistan predominantly by ourself or worry about iran by ourselves. >> which is potentially a growing problem there that we have to deal with as well. >> so we asked people to e-mail in. we were asking, let's show that poll again on the president's health care approval rating. the president is sitting at 39%. that number, i must admit, surpriseded me. i think it's a lot lower. a lot lower than i expected. things have not gone so well over the last month and a half. i asked people to e-mail in. >> this sums up the response

we've been getting. "it's easy to explain. we the liberals are furious president obama took the single payer off the table and now wavering on the public option. the democratic base is extremely disappointed." >> if you go inside the tabs, you would have to guess that maybe there's some democrats in the base that are also upset about it. >> yeah, on the health care. i also think it's just the build-up to where we are now. i think there's a little bit of a loss of faith and a little fear about exactly the direction we're going on it. something you would think the president would be able to right a little bit with all these tv appearances, and i wonder if you've turned out to be right and -- again. and that he's almost gone to too many mediums and sort of sbraed himself too thin publicly, and the message is just sort of going over people's heads. >> if you go back to the beginning of his administration, we were also saying this is a guy who -- he's the superstar in

this administration. >> acrobat. >> he's the president, he's the guy that needs to get out there. >> that's what i think. >> i think at some point, like pat buchanan said -- buchanan, someone who's known about communications in the white house because he's been at the center for two administrations, especially he ran it for the reagan administration -- you -- i guess was it buchanan, or was it you that said -- i think it was buchanan who said, you don't want your 20-game winner also pitching aaa ball, mike barnicle, on the weekends. >> it was pat who said that. >> sounds like pat. >> willie and i were speaking during the last break. i don't know how many people saw bill clinton on larry king this past week, and he was asked to explain by larry the importance of health care, why it's so important. and in about 20 seconds, 20 seconds, the former president summed it up in a way that even someone as slow as i am immediately understood what he was talking about. and that's something that oddly

enough president obama, a skilled communicator, has not been able to do. >> you know, i wonder if it's the fact that bill clinton was governor for as long as he was and had to campaign -- i think they campaign every two years down there. and just one campaign after another. but he is -- he's great at boiling it down, and maybe this president -- >> so is this president. >> is he? because i've got to tell you i think we can walk outside, go up fifth avenue, anywhere in midtown, manhattan, some of the most educated people in america, and ask them what's the president's health care plan? i would think a lot of very educated people -- >> i'm not saying he's done it on this, but i think he can. >> and say, willie, give me the three points of the president's health care plan. what would they say? >> 99 out of 100 wouldn't be able to give them to you. that's why i'm surprised at the numbers, that percentage of people saying they have an opinion either way. we talk about the great detail of it because we're immersed in

it. does anyone really get what we're doing here? >> chris just said a lot of the e-mails are saying that. in my ear, a lot of people just don't know what it is. >> they still like it. >> i've got to admit, that's something from robert gibbs in a press conference a month ago, three weeks ago, and he kept talking about this public option as competition. it drove me crazy. wait, you get 1,300 insurance companies, and you need a public option. then i heard robert talk about like in alabama, one insurance company has 90% of the bids. north carolina, one has 85%. and then you start saying, wait a second. we do need competition. i would say we need competition across state lines. but there's not enough of those gee wiz facts, those oh, gosh stuff where americans would say, wait a second. we can do better. >> what kind of muffin was that? >> blueberry. >> i'll get on it. up next, nbc's andrea mitchell

live from the u.n. where the president gives his first address to the general assembly as president in just a few hours. will he meet the hype on the world stage? we'll talk to white house senior adviser david axelrod and get a look inside the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll with nbc news' chuck todd. first here's a check on your weather with wtvj meteorologist ryan phillips. >> a quiet start to the morning across the west coast, hot and dry out there. east coast seeing some shower activity. but no delays at our major hubs here across the eastern portion of the u.s. going to be looking at mostly cloudy skies. lower 80s from boston down to d.c. northern gulf coast states seeing a little bit of storm activity. mostly sunny. hot and dry out west. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. national car rental knows i'm picky.

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maybe you've noticed this. security is very tight in new york city and a lot of dictators all over the city. you know what i've noticed about dictators tend to be tiny. have you noticed this? kim jong-il, tiny little guy, right like that. mahmoud ahmadinejad, another guy like this. mayor bloomberg. i mean, just up and down. >> the world. how does he not like mayor bloomberg? >> love mayor bloomberg. >> boy, just walk around the city. what a testament to his effectiveness. >> no doubt about it. it's a horrible economic crisis, and let's just say i'm glad that he's our mayor. it's one of these weird situations. we've got so many leaders that let us down in so many ways, in both parties. you and i both talk to people

like, god, can you believe these people in washington? this is one of the rare cases where i walk around new york, and i go, we got the right guy for the job. seriously, who else would you have running new york by bloomberg? give me a name. think of any name. >> i can't. >> isn't that amazing? >> andrea mitchell. >> there's a reason why the fight against his third term wasn't that strong. >> actually, that did raise some eyebrows. that causes controversy. >> from other politicians who want to be mayor. >> who can't just buy it. >> i'm not saying the guy's not tough and everything else. >> i love mayor bloomberg, but i do have an issue with that. >> who else would you rather have as mayor of new york city right now in this financial crisis? >> i can't think of anyone. >> of course not. >> that doesn't make it okay to say, you know what, i'm going to change the rules and have a third term. >> we're not familiar with all five boroughs, obviously. you walk around manhattan. it's clean. it's efficient. new york city has the greatest

police department in the world. >> it's unbelievable. >> it's great. >> again, let me say, though, before you once again moral scald. it's okay when you do it in good times and you've got all the cash revenue in. i haven't noticed the city skipping a beat. as you walk around with the services since we had that horrible economic collapse a year ago in manhattan that hit this city -- >> while i don't disagree -- >> -- more than any other city. >> -- i think there has been a little buzz, especially among new york reporters, that he's unapproachable and is a little bit, well, difficult to deal with. he's going to have his third term, and he'll have it the way he wants it. he doesn't want to answer any questions or come to any interviews, he won't. >> let's to the united nations and nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent, oh, god, andrea mitchell, save us.

andrea, what's going on at the united nations? >> reporter: well, how would you like to be mayor of new york city and have all of this going on? >> exactly. >> reporter: you've got 130 leaders, ahmadinejad, gadhafi. ahmadinejad, by the way, who told ann curry only a few days ago that he would not release those three american hikers in prison unless some iranian prisoners that we don't even know what he's talking about, were released first. now he arrives in new york last night, and he told the associated press that he would look for leniency for the american hikers. that's one good thing. the u.s. officials, they don't know which ahmadinejad is going to show up at 7:00 tonight when he gives his speech to the general assembly. but it's 7:00 tonight when ahmadinejad is here, barack obama is going to be downtown hosting all of the u.n. delegates. so they're making sure that in the circus that is the united nations today, barack obama and ahmadinejad will not be in the same place at the same time, they hope.

no hand shakes. >> looking a little bit at the president's remarks we'll be hearing later today, what strikes you so far, andrea, as a diversion from bush policies or maybe a reversion? >> reporter: well, he's talking about cooperation on big issues, nonproliferation and climate change and the middle east. obviously, his policy of engagement has not yet paid off, but it certainly has improved the reception that he's receiving here. barack obama is a rock star of political figures here. he didn't deliver on climate change what they would have liked to have seen at that all day summit yesterday. neither did china really, truth be told. so the two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide did not come up with specific targets. he also softened the u.s. position on israel. he caved in a little bit. the israelis said they will not negotiate with the palestinians by first giving -- first agreeing to a complete freeze on

settlements. they have a hard line. what the president said yesterday is let's stop negotiating about negotiating. let's sit down and talk. time is wasting. so the palestinians are feeling more than a little bit mifed that there was a softening of the hard line the president took on israel. big question for the u.s. is what is going to happen with iran? will china and russia now come along and agree to tough sanctioned on iran? you're going to have ahmadinejad, as i say, and what kind of reception will he get? and you've got moammar gadhafi with protests expected because of the decision to release the pan am bomber. >> andrea mitchell, we're going to be talking to you a little bit later in our political round table. thank you very much. >> reporter: i'll be back in. thank you. >> up next, according to the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, 59% are pessimistic about the outcome in afghanistan. we're going to talk to "the wall street journal's" less gelb about what he calls obama befuddling afghan policy.

and what the rest of those poll numbers mean for the president with nbc's chuck todd when "morning joe" continues. 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.

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more like a 900 v-twin. excuse me. well, you're excused. the right insurance for your ride. w, that's progressive. call or click today. the last time we left afghanistan after we had hoped the afghans to overthrow soviet power at the end of the 1980s, when we left afghanistan and

when we abandoned pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which al qaeda trained and attacked us on september 11th. and so our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists. it's that simple. if you want another terrorist attack on the united states, abandon afghanistan. >> condoleezza rice setting out the different choices there. that was last week at the fortune most powerful 50 women summit in carlsbad, california, that we were at. so she lays it out there. here to talk with us about this, professor emeritus on the council on foreign relations less gelb, who's the author of "power rules. how common sense can rescue american foreign policy." in yesterday's "the wall street journal" he wrote this, the president's failure in afllings would be america's failure, and we cannot allow this to happen.

defeat for america in afghanistan and pakistan can be avoideded 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. >> let's start with condoleezza rice's quote. if you want more terror attacks in america, then abandon afghanistan. what's your response? >> my response is that condi rice and the bush administration should have been backing up their own words when they had the power to do so. talk about underresour resourcis war, they did. it was their drift. their lack of focus on that war. their concentration on a war where we didn't have vital national security interests at stake in iraq that allowed the deterioration that president obama is now facing. >> so now we find ourselves

eight years into this war, and we're hearing from policy makers in washington, d.c., we need a new strategy. we need more troops. we need more time to train the afghan forces. the american people aren't buying this. look, this is the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll, do you think afghanistan is going to end well or not? the numbers are upside down for the effort. more confident, 28%. 59% are not confident it's going to have a successful end. and also here's the poll about increasing troop levels. 44% support. 51% oppose. americans have had enough, haven't they? >> if we were a democracy, we'd get out of there. this is not a democracy. this is a major power in the world that's been involved there for eight years. and much as i think we don't have vital national security interests at stake in that country, the fact is once you fight for eight years, you just can't walk away. >> let's explain that really

quickly because you just said we don't have vital national security interests in that country. explain that to condoleezza rice. explain that to the editors of the weekly standard. explain that to people who say, if you follow les gelb's pat, we're going to be back where we were on september 10th, 2001. >> they have the argument of 9/11. and 9/11 is an argument winner. the fact of the matter is this. if we're worried about a terrorist attack, we can worry about one right now from pakistan, from somalia, from yemen, from jersey city, from london, from madrid. it happens in all those places. there's nothing special about the taliban or al qaeda coming back to power in afghanistan to threaten us save for the fact that they did so in 9/11. but we're threatened from all these other places, and we have to tend to all those other places. >> but explain also what you think the president needs to do

in terms of mapping this out because there are few options that have great answers to them on the other epd. what's the least worst scenario in your mind in terms of how the united states should move forward, and how should the president define success? >> right. that's a very fair way to put it because you can be a wise guy and say, oh, if we only did this, that, or the other thing, it will all turn out fine. this is not going to turn out fine. it's a question of figuring out how we can reduce the risks we are going to face. one way or another. what i'm suggesting is two things. let's give them a running -- let's give the afghans and ourselves a two to three-year running start to put a policy in place, put capabilities in place to give ourselves a fighting chance to defend our interests in that part of the world. because we can't win it. we can't win it. we have never won anybody else's war as civil war, civil strife, internal war fare.

they've got to win it themselves. we can help them, and we can protect our own interests in the process. you know, if worst comes to worst, and i hate to see it for the afghans and ourselves. we have practiced containment for years, keeping people in the box. we have done it awfully well. we've done it with much more serious threats than these characters. we did it with china and russia, and we practiced deterrence. if people take us seriously that we're going to come there and hurt them if they try to hurt us, if they know we're going to come after them, we deter them. so we can put that into place. and the british dealt with this part of the world for 200 years by divide and conquer. we can try that too. it's not as if the only way to protect the interests is to stay there forever. >> so you send the message you get back into power, we find out

that you're actively aiding osama bin laden or al qaeda, we're going to be back in. >> we really come after you. >> in two weeks. you're going to see our jets all overhead in two weeks, and the tanks won't be far behind. and we're not going to try to occupy your country, we're just going to get you out of power. we'll kill your people, and then we'll go back home again. >> we'll say to them, you'll be sorry. >> there you go. les gelb, thank you very much. coming up next, chuck todd on obama's first address to the u.n. general assembly as president. most for headaches.

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that's a nice look at chicago for you there. >> michigan avenue. >> mike, here's your muffin, honey. is there anything else you need? that's for you. >> oh, my gosh. >> is there anything else you need? >> was that on your nightstand this morning? >> he needs coffee.

needed a muffin. >> let's bring in nbc news chief white house correspondent, political director chuck todd. he's here to break down the numbers of the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. let's go through the headlines first. we'll whip through these. a lot of information to go through. president, 51%. >> second month in a row he's at 51. this seems right now to be his hard floor. of course, you can always bust through -- you can always find out there was a basement below the floor. it does seem there's a hardened 51. there's a fewed in these numbers to be concerned about if you're david axelrod. number one, more independents disapprove of the president than approve of him. that's the first time we've had that. it's the beginning signs of swing voters problems. but this base of the president is very, very strong for him. it's democrats. it's liberal democrats. it's rank and file. it's younger voters, african-americans.

that's a helpful thing. i don't have the younger voter information with me. >> so 39% approval of the president's health care plan. >> by the way, that's an improvement. >> the white house has to be wondering what is going on there. >> there's two ways of looking at that. the good idea/bad idea number. we asked it straight up. still more people say it's a bad idea than a good idea, but it's closer. it's an improvement. and more importantly, we asked this question, well, based on everything you've heard, should you just pass these reforms, or is it -- or better off just not doing anything? more people say pass the reforms. there is sort of a grudgingly, well, something is better than nothing. i think the white house would take that as a minor victory. >> on the other side, very fascinating. you asked the question about the public option. did i see right that 75% of americans want a public option?

did i read that number right? >> it depends on how you ask the question. if you ask the public whether they want to have the option of th this, then that word is proven to be a trigger word in public opinion because they say it's very important to have that choice, have that option. but then when you just straight up ask about the public plan, about the idea of a government-run insurance plan, you don't include the words option, which has been what some people have criticized -- say, oh, no, you're supposed to ask that word. trying to find out about the policies. you see it the other way, it's narrow right there. you see the number. only 46% favor it. 48% oppose. we asked you the importance of messaging and wording. now you understand why you've heard those who support a government plan call it a public option. i still think the average joe, no offense, joe, the average joe dupt hear public option, why this wasn't called medicare plus. why you don't pick a brand name

that people already know rather than trying to create a new brand name. >> so how did washington take a beating in this? >> here's why i think washington takes a beating. congressional republican numbers are down. overall image of the democratic party are down. nancy pelosi's numbers are at an all-time low. glenn beck has a better favorable rating than nancy pelosi. that's not helpful if you're a congressional democrat. >> let me write that one down. that's a radio sound bite right there. >> there it is. >> dick cheney, obviously -- >> the point is i think washington has watched what's going on in the health care debate. here's what the public tells us. the economy and jobs are the number one issue. they have seen washington have a fight over health care the last two months, and they have said, you guys -- it's a combination of you're not talking about what i care about. you guys are fighting with each other. >> they're fighting and calling

everybody evil. enough. >> everyone thinks, look, this does not help the image of the republican party. the generic balance is closer. this is the closest ever. democrats only have a three-point lead. republicans are going to say, see, it's working. it's working. this is step one. step one is create questions about the majority. but they now have a more difficult thing to get to step two, which is to prove they should also be involved in government. to prove they should be a governing party. >> are they the party of glenn beck? are they the party of sarah palin? are they the party of newt gingrich? is that their party? >> like i said, the good news for the republicans, independents are listening. they are waiting. >> they're looking. >> this is both a positive moment but a precarious moment. >> let's put the number back up. 22% approval ratings in the united states. congress is low. >> people always dismiss it. >> but dig in deeper. when you ask the question, do you want your own? i found that as a lawyer,

everybody hates lawyers except their own. >> when they want one. >> whom they love. >> it's always rhetorical for them until they want something. >> i hate congress, but i love my congressman. oh, i hate lawyers, but i love my lawyer. you're saying that people are starting to take a second look at their representative ins washington. >> we asked whether your own member of congress deserves re-election or if someone new should get a chance. 49% said reelect their own congressman. >> that doesn't happen much. >> this has been consistent in our polling for the last two years. there is tumult out there. you and i discussed this yesterday in your radio show. there is a middle of this country that i believe has this fed up view of washington. these are the same folks that fired the republicans in '06 by voting for the democrats and showed up to the polls and fired republicans in '08 again and vote for the democrats. the question is do they show up to the polls in 2010 to fire democrats and hire some

republicans, or do they not show up and it becomes this crazy base election, this fight between the two bases. and then it's all a motivational game. >> showing up in 2004. >> which was more like a 2004. and that ends up being a fairly even split? >> chuck, you showed us the importance of messaging in the first poll you showed. showed us the difference in those two numbers. we've been wringing our hands a bit about the overexposure question. the five shows on sunday, letterman on monday. how does the president of the united states cut through and talk to people who aren't like us, who aren't studying the details of this and say, here's my plan. here's exactly what i want to do. if you go out on the street, nobody knows. >> there's still some confusion on the plan, but more people said they do understand the health care plan better now. a majority said they're more likely to upds it than what was the case a couple of months ago. on the overexposure question, the white house believes in the

creation of the amtrak corridor, the new york-washington media leak. our polls indicate they might be right. 54% say they're seeing him the right amount. we see him ten times, maybe joe and jane in kansas city, because they've taken their kids to soccer practice, they're doing these other things, they've caught him once. one other fun fact. guess what? if you voted for mccain, you're tired of seeing the president. if you voted for obama, you can't get enough. as peter hart says, it's kind of like frankie valli. can't keep my eyes off of you. he wanted me to come out here and sing. that was a suggestion of peter hart. >> it would have been good. >> it would have been. >> he said the more interesting -- you want to come back on the radio today? can you? >> do i have to? >> yes. >> what we can't say on tv. >> i think i can. >> chuck todd, wnbc radio between 10:00 and noon. >> do you have to see the words

abc? >> abc radio network. >> thanks, chuck. up next, as the president hones his image on the world stage, a look back at how the modern u.s. foreign policy was shaped with author nicholas thompson. on monday, october 5th, i'm going to be a part of something really special happening in new york. the "more" magazine reinvention convention. >> willie, we can reinvent ourselves. >> "morning joe" will have an exclusive sitdown with laura bush. we'll have much more details to come. tune in right here to "morning joe" for that. that's on monday. that will be fun. ♪ bicycle, what are we waiting for? the flowers are blooming. the air is sweet. and zyrtec® starts... relieving my allergies... 2 hours faster than claritin®. my worst symptoms feel better, indoors and outdoors.

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while the violent extremist only destroy, we have to make it clear the kind of future we want to build. that's why we are investing in peoples' education and health and welfare, as we are doing in pakistan and afghanistan. >> all right. here with us now, the author of "the hawk and the dove." so first of all, explain the relationship between nissa and

kenna and the rivalry between them. >> they are there in the the end. they are prominent until the berlin wall comes down. the hawk is the insider, and he is high in the state department and defense department, and then the other man is the outsider. what is interesting is they disagree on all the fundamental debates of the cold war but they remain friends. that friendship keeps together throughout the entire arc of the conflict. >> defined the soviet union.

>> yeah, and you got access to the diaries. >> yeah, and all of his personal papers. >> that must have been something given the fan family linkage. >> you contrast what goes on today in our politics, where it's so polarized. is there any explanation for this. >> my grandpa said i don't disagree with george on anything, except for substance. they were similar, they grew up in the same time and had similar values. >> could it be those two

gentlemen that you write about in the book, unlike a lot of people in public life today, they knew and saw in war the relics of war and knew what it was all about? >> yeah, they both had come of age in world war ii. they believed everything hung occupy their decisions. you don't antagonize things but you get involved with things that matter most. >> let's take the two different viewpoints for afghanistan, which we have been talking about all morning. how would they shake out? >> well, you can apply it quite well. and the idea is that you don't need to blow up the enemy. if the enemy offers under a failed system, keep it in a box and it will destroy itself. my grandfather said yes, that's all right and sometimes you need

to engage it and sometimes you need to fight it. my grandfather would have wanted to go into afghanistan, and cannon would have wanted nothing to do with it. when we return, david axelrod on the plans obama is laying out. pure cane sugar and the stevia plant.

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welcome back to "morning joe" we are coming up on 8:00 this morning. the president of the united states is going to speak in new york. and look at that picture. and now st. louis, missouri. we have david axelrod right here. pull it together, willie. >> washington, d.c., the white house, where our guest works. and back right here, to new york city, a beautiful shot of nal park. >> the reservoir where mike barnicle will have sunglasses on and constables following him.

i was just talking to david axelrod, and i asked him how he liked this place, and he said i never want to go back. anybody that talked to you or your wife, susan, for more than two seconds knows that's a lie. the president has to actually -- there is a radiator in the lincoln bedroom, and the president has to handcuff axelrod to keep him from leaving. >> you leave your life handcuffed back in chicago. >> yeah, one of my favorite quotes, he had a bad run in '92 and '94 and was relieved of the

responsibilities, and he said he was going to chicago where at least they stab you in the front. we will get to more with david axelrod in a moment, but first we get to the top stories. this morning obama will talk to more than 100 world leaders in new york city, and it follows his debut yesterday where the president took a strong stance the stalled middle east peace contacts. >> it's time to move forward. it's time to show the flexibility and common sense and the compromise necessary to achieve our goals. success depends on all sides acting with a sense of urgency. >> according to this morning's "new york times," the white house is considering all turnives to adding more troops

in afghanistan. this comes as new polling from nbc news and the "wall street journal" shows 28% of the americans are confident the war will come to a successful end and 59% are pessimistic about its out come. 51% say president obama is doing a good job in office. that number is unchanged from last month. 39% believe the president's health care plan is a good idea. 41% do not. >> now, the white house senior advisor, david axelrod. let's start on the high ground. we are uniters and not dividers. the president will be talking to

the u.n. general assembly today. i want to ask what is behind the message. make no mistake that cannot be -- those that chastised america cannot stand by and wait for america to solve the problems alone. we can't do everything alone. we have problems in afghanistan and iraq. we are going to have problems in iran. united states, we can't fight all the wars by ourselves for the next decade. are we going to get other countries to engage one way or the other? >> joe, it's not just wars but climate change and nuclear proliferation, and financial issues, which we are going to continue to discuss. >> let's talk about afghanistan. that's obviously going to be a

real challenge for the president and for the generals and the military, so don't we need more help from other countries if we have to stay in afghanistan? >> we have gotten more help from other countries, but we need to settle on a strategy moving forward. that's the process we are going through right now. when the president took office he was handed the war in afghanistan, and no strategy. that's the problem we had, seven years of drift. >> do you like the petraeus strategy? do you think that's the right way forward? >> well, there are a series of strategies that are under consideration, and there are a lot of factors that go into it. one of the resources that are involved is a realistic, which is the pace at which we can train up the afghan army and police. it's a complex situation. >> america is tired. >> i think we are giving it the

serious consideration it deserves. >> america wants our troops home? >> yeah, and first and foremost people want to feel as though they are safe. ex the president is going to make the decisions that he thinks offer us the best opportunity in this regard. i guarantee that he is not sitting there, as much as i know you guys love your polls, he is not reading the nbc poll this morning and thinking i need to adjust my strategy. >> you just broke chuck todd's heart. let's go to chuck todd -- >> he is probably not looking at the polls, but he is possibly on television, given how much time he spends on television. what is the strategy there? there is a lot of criticism that he is wearing down the special nets from the message of a president.

when he does need to lay it out and define the success, will anybody listen then. >> well, the weather channel guy asked him that the other day -- >> see, there you go. >> i heard you talking about pat buchanan, who was superb in what he did in the nixon administration. he did not have the directv or cable tv or internet, and he did not have the infusion of attention we face today. it's harder to penetrate. when ronald reagan made a speech he captured their attention, and now there are so many different ways. >> is there a discussion about

is there a risk to all the exposure? >> well, a poll that says 2/3 of the people doend feel the president is exposed -- >> oh, wait, you do look at polls. >> i glanced at that. i did notice that. i don't think anybody begrudges him -- >> since you opened the door to the polls, and you may not look at the polls -- well, actually you do. >> i think i outed myself here. >> let's talk about a couple numbers. i am not sure what is going on here, what you see from inside the white house. approval of the president's health care plan. is that because americans don't like the health care plan or because they are not sure what it is?

>> it's a combination of things. i will point out that those numbers are up from the last few polls that you have taken. this is a difficult issue in health care. president clinton is a communicator. the numbers are back in a comparable time where they were not as good as these. it's an issue that is ripe with concern for people because of how personal it is to them. it's complicated. the bottom line is the president wants to bring security to people that have health insurance and have seen their premiums skyrocket and their benefits shrink, and he wants to give an opportunity to people that don't have health insurance to a price they can afford. in doing that they want to bring down the overall scheme of health care growth, the cost of

health care. and that's what health care reform is about. there are a lot of details and there has to be. but that's the essence much it. i think they believe in our goals, if you ask any poll you look at, when you ask them about what we want to do, strong support for it. but there is questions about whether it can be accomplished. we need to take the step forward and implement the plan and show people what it means. >> were you surprised, and no political crime in being surprised, by what happened this summer? by the talk of the death panels? by the anger you saw out at the town hall meetings in did that make you stop and go, wow, i never saw that coming? >> i make two points about this, joe. first of all, we have a volatile politics in our country. if you think back to the weeks before the election in 2008, there were some pretty volatile

rallies that you were reporting on, and harsh things were said. senator mccain took back at some of his rallies, some of the things people were saying, and to his credit responding to that in a responsible way. there has always been a strain in the politics. it's not new. i think the second point to make is the theory that somehow these were the dominant -- these folks that stood up and screamed at town hall meetings were the driving force, but there were many town hall meetings that had people standing up in a very respectful way. i don't think the protest represent a majority of the town hall meetings, but it did represent what the media covered. we are doing better on the health care issue, for example, than we were before these protests. i think that they were, in many

ways, overblown. i don't discount them, but i don't think they deserve the attention that they got. >> you are at 39%, though. you sound like a member of congress saying, yeah, 22% like us, but that's up from 19%. >> i know you mean that as a compliment. >> yeah, i do. but you are 39% on health care on the issue that you guys have got to pass. >> i think that we will -- >> i am heartened that the numbers moved up some. i don't think that we willfully resolve the concerns people have until we implement the plan and they say what we say we will deliver and what they say they want is real. ex in all the polls i have seen, three quarters of the people want things addressed, 1 in 5

people, or 1 in 4 people say they want things done the way the president is doing. they all want something done. that's because they understand what is going on in their lives in terms of the premiums and shrinking benefits and a feeling of insecurity. we just need to act and address this and i think the rest will take care of itself. >> i don't think that there is any disagreement that things need to be fixed, but there is a wide-spread lack of understanding as to what the president's plan is. after all the television that he has done, i am wondering, is there a discussion inside the white house that potentially regrets taking this on right now? >> when ever that question is raised, the president pulls out

the letters he receives every single day of people who have insurance and were dropped because they are ill, and working people and can't get insurance because they can't get it through the job and cannot afford to pay as much as what people who have a job and have insurance pay, which is the case today. his attitude is we have to solve the problem. i was telling joe during the break. in washington, they believe every day is election day. we don't approach it that way. our approach is to try and solve problems and we feel the rest will take care of itself. this is a serious problem facing families and businesses across the country. ultimately if we don't address it it will bring down the government because of the rising costs, so we have to deal with. >> health care is like sitting out in your backyard on a beautiful summer day, and you hear the rumble of thunder in a

distance, and you know a storm is coming. the rumble of thunder is afghanistan. i imagine you were not happy over the conflicts when you saw mcchrystal's report leaked. >> i also was not happy about my cornflakes, but that's a different story. >> it seems somewhat contrary to what mcchrystal reports. >> well, mike, i am not going to talk about what the internal advice is from various players, other than to say that the president is getting -- is listening and getting points of view from a range of people that he trusts that counsel him. everybody agrees it's a complex problem, and it didn't have an easy solution. so there are going to be a

series of meetings in the next few weeks in which the issues will be sorted through. i will not give you a precise date. obviously, an urgent matter and one that he is giving a great deal of attention to. >> david, one of the other alarms that went up this week from different foreign policies is the comment on the earlier part of the week, the ambassador that said we cannot tolerate some things. what do you do when israel says we feel threatened and we are going after iran, what does the white house do? >> first of all, everybody understands why the israelis feel threatened. and the rhetoric of mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad just this past week was not reassuring in that regard. so everybody understands that. i think it's also true that

everybody shares the sense of deeper j urgentcy about this. and we are going to continue to talk to him about what steps we will take. october 1st is a decision point, or at least a privilege actual point in the sense that there is a meeting with the iranians and the nation's who have been talking with them, permanent members of the security council and germany. they can come and they have to decide what paths they are going to take. they can engage in serious discussions about this issue or they can take a different path, and then the world will have to react and really clamp down. and those steps are under discussion. >> it will be discussed. but the potential willie laid

out will be taken quite seriously? >> i think it's important that iran understand that the world is not going to sit by and allow them to defy their obligations on the issue. >> is it important for israel to understand that they need our permission before flying over the airspace we control? >> i think the israelis understand. there has been close consultation with them on this and other issues. i think they have been constructive. >> a final question on health care. as you know -- you look at me and you are thinking, he is like a space age whiz kid, and joe was wired and hooked in. >> bionic. >> yeah, and i twitter a lot. and a lot of people wanted me to ask you why can't they buy insurance across state lines? and i heard robert gibbs talk

about how in north carolina -- >> yeah, there are some states where 90% of the market is dominated by one company. >> if we get 1,300 insurance companies and i can only shop from one, and why can't we knock down those lines, and say americans these 1,300 are wan d wanting your business. >> when i talked to your soul mate, o'reilly -- >> oh, my! >> some people would take that as a compliment.

>> well, interstate commerce clauses would apply to health benefits? >> well, experts say because of the way insurance is regulated state by state, it would make it difficult to implement a system like that, joe. but you do point out, i think, a problem that we both agree is significant, which is if one company dominates 90% of the market. by the way, no reason why other companies cannot go in now and compete. other than obstacles set up in the states. so our interests is not to spurring competition and choice, and he thinks the public option might be the way to go.

and we will see what we come up with. >> you agree with me that competition, if we had the 1,300 companies, or however many there are, that could be competing for our business, that competition would drive down the cost of health care insurance? >> we think competition and choice is a valuable thing. one of the benefits of the president's plan is he will set up an exchange one-stop shopping place where people can go that don't have insurance and companies can compete for their business, and that's -- we think that's going to be a healthy thing. >> i have been trying to bring people together for sometime, and stop the hate speech. did i compare him to carvel? >> no, you didn't. i will check that off. david axelrod, thank you very much. >> thank you.

nice to see where the magic happens. >> yeah, it's here. coming up, the new age of walmart. we show how the retail giant is trying to reinvent itself. and also inside the rowdy town halls, we will talk to representative paul ryan who held 17 of them in the dog days of august. you are watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. 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.

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savings. if we raise prices, we would lose customers. the formula is necessary that it's a very delicate balance. >> but now that balance could tip. the new occupant in the white house has been a fierce proponent of the union movement. >> i don't mind standing up for workers and letting walmart know they need to pay a decent wage and let folks organize. >> yeah, and getting his reasons how the company stays on top. it's part of the new cnbc documentary "the new age of walmart." david, thank you for being with us. tell us about the secret to walmart? what are they doing? >> they have improved a great deal. five years ago we got inside walmart for the first time and

did a documentary called the age of walmart, and five years later we wanted to take a look at the company then. 1.4 million employees in the united states, by far the largest employer. $400 billion in revenue. it hit a rough patch in '05 and '06, '07. we focus on them in tonight's documentary, and we focus on the fact that it has improved a great deal in terms of the relationship with the customers and did a great job getting them back. given the weak economy, walmart is stronger than ever. >> what do they do that so many other companies failed to do noo they have ruthlessly efficient. when you go inside walmart you see signs of that which are so interesting. they have managed to do a lot of

their stores, redo a lot of their stores, and appeal to their customer base, which is women. >> where is walmart in the national health care debate? >> walmart supports the obama administration's efforts. people would look at that cynically because they would say they are covering more of their employees than the average in the retail industry, even though it's still above 50% who take their plan, and that is better than the industry average. if you have an employer mandate where you have to pay in if you are not covering your retailers, walmart is on the side of the obama administration is surprising that. >> does that surprise you? the perception of walmart, does

that surprise you their step forward in this? >> it is surprising when you think about their firmly opposed to unionization. and nonetheless, they are supported by the obama administration. walmart has bean fierce opponent of the union throughout its history. but on this one, they are together. it's somewhat surprising. it makes sense because at the end of the day walmart may benefit if there is not nationalized -- but health care. >> watch out! >> health care reform. >> well, it airs tonight on cnbc, 9:00 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. eastern time. >> coming up, mark haines.

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look at that beautiful picture of new york city and the statue of liberty. what a beautiful day here in new york city. and speaking of beautiful days and a little sunshine, let's turn to mark haines. we understand he has not been

well as of late. let's hope that he -- >> i did not know that. i will have to send myself a card. >> erin said there could be problems. >> you keep falling for her bs. the woman is a prankster and a jokestir. let's see, ford had favorable comments. ford, as you know, was the only one that decided to remain a capitalists company. they did not take government money and did well. well, they did not do as badly through the slow down.

cadbury says he plans to make a higher bid for kraft, and that's one way to give away your bargaining position. and then there is a lot going on. you will get it right here right here on "squauk on the street" with me. futures are opening good, guys. coming up next, the president set to address the u.n. in a matter of hours. our political round table on what he needs to say and how he needs to say it. andrea mitchell and savannah guthrie when we return. concentratio tylenol pm quiets the pain and helps you sleep.

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is this too much? is there a risk to the exposure? >> the one number we look at is the poll where 2/3 people don't feel the president is over exposed? >> oh, so you do look at the polls? >> i glanced through the data. i think people want to hear from the president and i don't think anybody begrudges him going out and making the case of what he is doing. >> he out himself. we don't read polls, and you look at polls, and you people on cable news -- wait, wait, look at this number. look at that number. the white house doesn't look at polls -- whatever. and mike barnicle doesn't look at women walking across central

park in his sunglasses. come on! come on! >> do you need anything else? >> a napkin. >> it's time for the political round table. and andrea mitchell is back with us. >> look at the new york city traffic. oh, my god. you have mahmoud ahmadinejad, and gadhafi and his crazy tent. >> and donald trump. and prejean. >> the president of the united states could be the smartest one in town because he will be on the other side of town at 7:00 when mahmoud ahmadinejad is doing his speech at the general assembly, the president is hosting his reception for all of the delegates. they will not at that moment meet, but we will look for signs of crossing over over a handshake or getting into the same camera frame. >> what we were asking david

axelrod about afghanistan, and they brushed it off. >> yeah, there was a big shift yesterday, because yesterday the president shifted back in the other direction on israel, saying -- >> towards the israelis positions, and said to the palestinians, you have get back with them. they softened up which israel. they want to see which mahmoud ahmadinejad will show up. >> yeah, and talking about crazy at the u.n. savannah guthrie is there now. tell us about the president and what he is doing. >> reporter: the president is going to give a wide range in foreign policy speech. i think it's going to be a stern message to the world saying, look, we talked a lot, but we have not met our challenges. the challenges we face have not

been met by the measure of our actions. he will talk about nuclear proliferation, and climate change. middle east peace. all of the issues are on the agenda. we expect the libya leader probably in attendance, and he is scheduled to speak after president obama. and no word on whether mahmoud ahmadinejad will be there listening. >> andrea, can you go back and give us more on the president's positioning with regard to israel and the palestinians? >> the president came in with a very tough line on netanyahu saying you have to keep expanding, by whatever you call it, natural growth, and that was a tough stance. all of the months, that's the stance they have been taking.

hillary clinton went along with it, and even though it was something she was against during the campaign. and they hoped to have had a big summit this week, and instead they are talking about five at the table. >> what are the headlines? we got a little bit of what the president was going to say. anymore headlines to add to that. >> reporter: well, we wonder whether the headlines will be from the speech, but really with his meetings with the russian president. and i can tell you that the administration wants russia's

cooperation and china's cooperation on iran. back to the middle east just a moment, to echo what andrea said, a real frustration on the part of the president. senior aides tell me he is getting impatient. he wants the guys to stop talking about whether they should talk, and sit down and talk. the president has vested a lot of political capital here. he put a lot on the line by engaging early and often. he wants to start seeing results. it's interesting because he had to soften the position on settlement saying the partial freeze that israel has agreed to should be enough to get the palestinians to the negotiating table. >> andrea? >> the other big issue that is on everybody's mind is afghanistan. with the leaks that have come, most likely from the military about the troop's strength and all this. what would people expect?

what they say embedded in the report they would need 5,000 troops. are we going to put even half that of u.s. troops there in nato forces? no way. would you like a president that doesn't shift strategy when you get that kind of report? i think those are reasonable questions before everybody says barack obama is shifting positions. >> and it sounds like the president is challenging the rest of the world with his speech today saying all right, you want -- you don't want unilateralism, fine, work with us. we can't do this alone. >> andrea, you are booked, right? >> yeah, we have john kerry coming. >> yeah, of course you do. you are all set.

>> and savannah is also booked with three martinis -- >> reporter: yeah, at least three. we'll be right back with more on "morning joe." >> maybe you have noticed security is tight here in new york city, and a lot of the dictators are all over the city. you know what i have noticed about it, dictators tend to be tiny, have you noticed this. kim jong-il, a tiny guy like this. and mahmoud ahmadinejad, a guy like this. and mayor bloomberg, just -- well, it's just up and down. tools are uncomplicated? nothing complicated about a pair of 10 inch hose clamp pliers.

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you may wonder if you've been doing the right thing. is the advice you've been getting helping or hurting? are the fees you're paying really worth it? td ameritrade's fees are fair and straight-forward. their research is independent and unbiased. their investment consultants are knowledgeable and there when you need them. so why not talk to one? announcer: call today to schedule a free investment check-up, or visit a td ameritrade branch. i have read your statements, and you support reform. i am not tying you into our plan, but you know this is no time to tinker. you cannot rearrange the deck chairs on the titanic. we have to change ships here. >> joe biden talking about how america needs dramatic reform in the area of health care.

while some lawmakers were relaxing on their august break, ryan was holding town halls on health care. thank you for being with us. we were talking about the nbc wall street journal poll. and while the approval rating is bad news, the republican standings are lower on capitol hill. why is that? >> i think the message is we republicans don't have anything to offer. many of us have offered bold alternatives to the health care legislation and all the big issues of the day, whether it was energy or budget or the stimulus plan. we have been putting out alternativ alternatives, and they think we are criticizing for the sake of criticizing. we have offered alternative

bills. >> when you have the president being attacked the way he is at the town hall meetings, you have see this wall street journal poll that came out last night. most americans if health care goes down they will blame republicans in congress. if you have an alternative, how would you get the message out. >> maybe tom coburn will put our bill on the floor in the senate, but democrats run the place. they have huge majorities in the house and senate. if this goes down, it's because the majority did not pass their bill, and they have chosen not to colab rate. the majority has to be willing to collaborate with the minority. >> well, let me ask you about your town hall meetings, if i

may. you had many of them. we covered them over the summer. we saw a lot of crazy things going on. is that how you would describe them across the board? >> not in wisconsin. i had 17. i shattered the attendance records at my town halls. about 95% had never been to a town hall, and they were very civil. my district is the most swing district in congress. it's a district barack obama won. what i did not see is some fringe right coming out. i saw real people coming out to talk to their member of congress with grave concerns about the direction of all of the bills coming through congress, and in particular the health care bill. it is not just about health care, mika, it's about debt and deficit and the stimulus and the cap and trade bill, and then health care came along and made it personal. that's what is getting people to come out of the woodwork. i saw a spontaneous, civilized

debate, with great concerns. people were not saying bad things about the president but they were concerned about the direction of the country and the health care bill in particular. >> i had robert gibbs talking about the ability of insurance companies to have monopolies in states, or near monopolies. so it got me thinking, maybe what we should be doing is allowing americans to buy insurance across state lines. >> absolutely. >> we get to compete -- before building another bureaucracy, and getting the federal government more involved in health care, why don't we just try to break up the monopolies in the states and have insurance companies having to compete with other insurance companies for your money, for my money, and for americans' money. >> that reform is at the heart of virtually every republican bill offered this year. he mentioned alabama, which has something like blue cross and blue shield they have 95% of the

population. let the people in alabama buy insurance from the other 49 states if they want to and have real competition. i completely agree with that notion. >> charlie rangel should he be chairman of the weighs and means committee? why is he still there? what is going on? >> that's a good question. there is a lot of hypocrisy occurring. and when they were coming in they said they should step down if they have these problems. i like charlie. i have a hard time seeing how you continue to lead the committee with all the collapses around you. i think for the sake of committee and congress, they should ask him to step down for the time being. >> congressman, thank you so much. >> you bet. >> always great talking to you. coming up next, what, if anything, did we learn today.

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come up here. >> get him up here. come on chuck! come on, man! >> man, i didn't learn anything today. >> well, we want people that run nbc to know that. >> what? >> after your own poll comes out, you learned nothing.

>> i learned the white house reads polls. >> good boy! >> only the positive part of the poll. >> well, the governor might be meeting with the lieutenant governor, murphy, and mike ducacus is in the mix. >> if it's ducacus, the only senate delegation in the country with two former nominees for president. >> wow, that is impressive. i have a feeling it's not going to be the cook. >> everybody get the little duke in there. >> i learned mika called mike barnicle her middle ma saunlg nus on "the view" yesterday. >> and i learned gadhafi will

not be moving in with trump. >> i learned there is a solution. the big apple circus, throw him in the circus. >> he already has the uniform. mike is more sensitive than i thought. i got your coffee and muffin. anything else? >> it's almost lunchtime. >> that makes me somewhat uncomfortable. >> the white house does not have a good answer. they still don't have a good answer to why we should not allow americans to buy insurance across state lines. >> very interesting. they brought it up originally in support of the public option. and it was like why don't they just take that down. >> i learned miami is going to get their butt whipped on saturday -- is that better?

>> i don't know. >> you are going to be on the radio in a few minutes? >> yeah, again. again. >> yeah, willie if it's way too early what time is it? >> time for "morning joe." right now it's time for the "morning meeting." nice to see you. this is the morning meeting. how are you? topping our agenda today. high drama at the u.n. one hour away from back to back speeches from barack obama and libya's president, gadhafi. the whole world watching and listening. how will the message be received? what can he do with the middle east? iran? russia? you know the stories. what is he up against. boiling outrage after gadhafi tries to pitch a tent on

the property of none other than trump. what is with the tents, anyway? >> and then sarah palin with her speech in hong kong on u.s. china relations. we are looking over the comments. she happens to agree with some of us around here on the fed and transparency, anyway. the author of the new book on obama's marriage joins the morning meeting. from the sounds of it, like every other marriage in this country, or relationship for that matter, some good and some bad. for them it looks like more good than bad. >> it's 9:00 a.m., pull up a change and join the "morning meeting." all eyes, for obvious reasons, on the u.n. this morning. the president about to speak. and the president of libya