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tv   MSNBC News Live  MSNBC  September 27, 2009 9:00am-9:59am EDT

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more than 30 years after fleeing the united states. we'll bring you a live report. iran flexing its might of the missile. it is the next move in the international nuclear tensions. how will the west respond? plus, the terror plot. just how close did the alleged plotters get to fulfilling a deadly wish? also ahead, the bank jobs. a woman goes on a week long bank robbing binge and pulls them off police say without a gun. and it's the skyway into the record books in the fight against cancer. good morning, everyone. good to have you along with us at msnbc. i'm contessa brewer. it is 9:00 here on the east coast. 6:00 a.m. out west an enhere's what's happening right now. new this morning from iran, a top general say it is revolutionary guards test fired two short-range missiles t. head of the air force says the show of force shows arrogant countries it is able to give a strong answer to hostility and
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do so quickly t. war games come two days after details of the secret iranian nuclear facility revealed and set to continue tomorrow as iran prepares to test fire another missile, one with a range of more than 1,200 miles. let's go to washington and nbc's mike viqueira at the white house now. what does this do? how did this set the stage for the talks? seeing the united states and other countries going into with iran on thursday. >> reporter: well, i think the question, contessa, are they doing it for domestic consumption or provoke international reaction? there are a lot of -- probably going to be a lot of speculation i dare say that because mahmoud ahmadinejad, the president of iran, is on such a weak political footing there and because this revelation by president obama, gordon bron and nicholas sar cozy and caught them off guard that they had to do something to rally domestic
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support. the problem is it may backfire on them because the international community including cli that and russia who in the past are reluctant to get tough with iran are all on board and trying to sit iran down and get them to walk back the nuclear ambitions. that meeting is going to take place on thursday, of course. iran will be on one side of the table. this was a previously-scheduled meeting. the united states, great britain, france, china and russia and germany on the other side of the table wanting to see concrete results, they're going the see the words, these promises are iran and iran has promised to allow international inspectors on site. they're going to want to see the promises met with actions, contessa. >> okay. so we go in to these talks on thursday. how high level are they going to be? and really, mike, is there much optimism now after we find out about a secret nuclear facility which iran says was not secret? these test firing of missiles. i mean, really, is anybody going
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in optimism to come out and iran's going to cooperate? >> well, ironically enough, there is optimism on the part of the west. simply because they believe that iran is now on the defensive. they have been caught red handed and russia and china seemingly on board with getting tough with iran. iran has no excuse. of course ahmadinejad did come forth in the moments after, at least the hours after the revelation saying, look, we're following the iaea conventions, following them. followed the rules. nothing to see here. no big deal. just about every other expert says, well, that's not really correct because clearly they were doing it in secret and clearly supposed to disclose any construction of a site like this, a site incidentally, that the president and many other experts say clearly intended for nuclear weapons grade material aens not used for domestic purposes like nuclear power, contessa. >> mike viqueira, thank you. >> reporter: all right.
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the top u.s. commander in afghanistan said he was blind sided by the show of strength from the tall pan in summer. he submitted a request to the pentagon for more troops. it's a move that 50% of americans would oppose according to the latest gallup poll. 41% would support sending more troops to afghanistan. and breaking news from the entertainment world, film director roman polanski has been arrested in switzerland on a 31-year-old warrant. let's go to london. here's nbc's tom asfol. what are you learning? >> reporter: he was arrested on thursday at the request of the united states. he was traveling to zurich to receive a lifetime award. a swiss policeman said it was on instructions from the federal justice department in bern. polanski fled the u.s. to live in france in 1978, a year after pleading guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl. the girl's mother complained to
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police that polanski given her daughter drugs and alcohol before having sex with her at jack nicholson's house in los angeles. he directed "chinatown" and once married to sharon tate, a hollywood actress murdered by cult followers of charlesmanson in 1969. his career flourished in france. he received an oscar for the 2002 movie "the pianist." he had sought dismissal of the american case on grounds of misconduct by the now deceased judge who polanski said arranged a plea agreement and then ren e reneged on it. >> tom, thanks. how did najibullah zazi drans form into an alleged terror suspect? "the new york times" article, it looks at how zazi changed after two trips to pakistan. in 2006 and 2007. each time, coming back looking
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more and more like a devout musl muslim. does it coincide to a full-blown terrorist? joining me now is david mark. when we look at the "the new york times" story about zazi, about him being what seems to be the american dream. comes here. he finds a job. starts to make a living at it. i don't know. does it make you think at this point that everybody starts looking now at people wearing tunics and, you know, if you start transforming into a more devout muslim, does that automatically come with suspicion that the point? >> this is a big concern for domestic intelligence agencies for a while now. essentially, sleeper cells, those people who look like they belong, who do not immediately raise suspicions. after all, this individual was selling doughnuts and other items down on wall street for many years in new york city and then all of a sudden they have issues going on behind the scenes. they might travel overseas. these are perhaps the most
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difficult terrorism suspects to try to apprehended talking to law enforcement sources. >> and when you look at the challenge that zazi presents here, i mean, here he is. he has a job. he says he loves america. he has a passport and can freely travel. does it also present a challenge to say, okay, if you have gone to pakistan, should we look at you with more suspicion? >> right. there are all kinds of civil liberties issues attached to these kind of cases. where do you draw the line? it's not like he was necessarily training in al qaeda camps in afghanistan or somalia or places like that. he was somebody who just traveled to countries that are a bit suspect. maybe they do raise suspicions but it's very difficult and logistically tough to crack down on everybody who goes to pakistan and such countries. >> we have seen not only the zazi arrest, but also the arrest of the guy who allegedly was plotting against a dallas
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skyscraper. we saw the arrest of a couple of guys in north carolina allegedly going to target members of the military. given the fact that even recently we have seen some criticism of how strong especially from conservatives about how strong president obama would be in terms of american security, does it now put this in a different light? >> well, it's a different sort of approach at the obama administration has than, say, the bush administration. the bush administration's justice department under john ashcroft and successors would trumpet the arrests. saying they're plots that were foiled and the obama administration has a bit of a different approach for reasons that we can argue about. but they don't seem to get the same attention. they're a little bit lower profile. i think that is part of the difference here and why maybe they're seen in somewhat different lights than previous arrests. >> as we wait for prosecutors to describe in more detail the others they have mentioned in their filing papers, we'll stay on top of it.
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david, i appreciate your help in that regard. >> thank you. in california yesterday, a gathering of friends and family of yale graduate student annie le laid to rest in a memorial, her mom read a poem honoring hr daughter and told the man who was supposed to become her son-in-law that she did love him like a son. a little more than two weeks ago, annie le was supposed to marry. instead, police found the body stuffed in a wall in the yale lab where she worked. her co-worker raymond clark is charged with her murder. stunning revelations surrounding a new scandal involving frozen embryos. at least two lawsuits filed against a new orleans hospital that since suspended operations of the fertilization center. the staff mislabeled or misplaced frozen embryos belonging to about 100 patients. >> we are deeply sorry for the concerns, anxiety and fear we know this causes our patients.
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>> the facility's ceo says no embryo ever implanted in the wrong woman. still ahead, a rising tide of tragedy. raging good waters an enthis one caught on camera. and the illegal withdrawals keep on coming. a woman on a bank robbing spree with a note and a threat. new crest pro-health enamel shield protects against enamel loss by forming a micro-thin shield against acid attack.
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as many as three inches of rain fell in atlanta yesterday. so the cleanup continues and some good news today. well, today, it is not raining. jennifer leslie is a reporter of wxia in atlanta. and joins me from marietta. what's the scene where you are
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there? >> reporter: good morning, contessa. no rain, you are right. it is overcast. no rain in the forecast, a big relief for the folks here. this is marietta adventist church normally closed on sundays because they do services here on saturdays but the doors are open for another congregation. town center community church it was heavily damaged. the floodwaters ruined the carpets, the walls, everything torn up. to the south of here in austell, it takes a long time. the city sits in cobb county which is one of 17 north georgia counties now declared federal disaster areas meaning homeow r homeowners with no flood insurance will be eligible for federal aid to help and so heart breaking to see how much the homeowners have lost. the state insurance commissioner estimate it is cost of the damage, half a billion dollars. the road back will be a very
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long one for the flood victims. many of whom worshipping here this morning. this church will be able to -- this congregation will be able to return home to their church in a couple of weeks. assuming the repair work stays on schedule. contes contessa? >> probably praying for no more rain. jennifer, thanks. now to the nuclear tensions with iran. a show of military might this morning as the country test fires short-range missiles and multiple missile launchers aof the security council talks this week. surrounded by revolutionary guards, iran now says it will let u.n. inspectors inspect the site. martin zuckerman, you're a very busy guy. when we look at the standoff with iran, here it is the security council getting ready to make this declaration on nuclear nonprolive nation and voila, iran says, yeah, we have
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a secret nuclear plant they say isn't so secret and missile tests. how does it set the stage going into these international talks on thursday? >> well, look. first place, iran didn't exactly reveal it. it was revealed because our intelligence found out about it. now, what anybody with a room temperature iq or better knows is iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. the size and nature of the facility is consistent only with developing the kind of material for nuclear materials t. real question is, what can we we do about it? that's where the rubber hits the road and very difficult thing to come up with an answer to because we are not prepared apparently as a county to take military operation. all economic sanctions, everything else they have simply been willing to absorb because they think it's important enough. >> almost like ahmadinejad actually welcomes this standoff with the west. the interesting part of this is
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russia and china. so for instance, medved asked about this after the revelation of the nuclear facility and said, well, you know, i stand with the international community. iran has to meet the obligations, however, iran has a right to peaceful nuclear facilities. to a program that was produced power or whatever. nuclear means. do you buy that? i mean, is there a way for russia and china to escape at this point cracking down on their partner iran? >> without question they can escape if they want to. look. there is no doubt but that iran is entitled to peaceful nuclear development. but there is no doubt also that this is not what is consistent with the plant they have been building and held in secretly. russia and china have great economic interests with iran. russia is the largest producer of natural gas. the second largest producer is iran. trying to establish a cartel to fix prices in the world of
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natural gas just as the oil people do it in -- >> trumps nukes? >> for china and russia it does. china is one of the biggest importers of fuel from iran so they have major economic interests and for them, they do not worry that iran is going to be pointing the nuclear weapons at their country. >> so these country gos into the talks on thursday with money as the big motivator for probably most parties involved. here's what former president bill clinton told david gregory on "meet the press" of what might be accomplished this week. >> they can more explicitly lay out things they may not be prepared to say in public yet about what the options are if iran continues down this path. i always think it's a good idea if possible the look somebody in the eye and have a chance to have a conversation before there's total breach. >> but who is that somebody? i mean, who will iran be sending
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as its emissary to the talks? >> they'll argue that it's for peaceful talks. >> if the whole point is to be face to face with somebody saying, look, we are prepared to take action, there's severe economic consequences, if you don't cooperate with your international obligationsf the person on the other side of the table isn't a high level, does it matter? >> well, i don't think that's -- the person whoever it is going to be sitting on the other side is able to convey the message. the fact is, a, we don't have those kind of economic sanctions that bite in iran. b, we are clearly at this point not prepared to do anything in a military sense. what is our pressure on iran? it is very limited. it is not been adequate over all these years to stop what they're doing and everybody knows that that's the case. what you have now is an attempt on the part of the political people to find some way to look as if they're doing something when at this point there's no confidence they'll be doing anything. >> what's the concern right now
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among germany, france, great britain and particularly the united states about whether israel will take action? >> well, i mean, there is a concern because that will destabilize a lot of things and noble has any afd k fd that israel has the military cape tonight do enough lasting damage to iran's nuclear program much of which is dispersed and much of it is well below grade and heavily fortified. they have plenty of time to do that. in fact, the united states has not given israel the busters, the -- >> bunker busters. >> i couldn't think of the first one. or the ability to refuel the planes midair so you have a problem and you have somebody like making a silly comment to shoot down israeli planes if they fly over iraq and american air space so-called. i think that if there's any credible option on the military sense, it is going to come out of israel and everybody knows they're serious and if they have the capability, they will do
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something. so that is the only sort of military threat to exercise vis-a-vis iran but they're powerful country. they're absolutely committed to this and the thing that worries me is they are the muslim country on the marks through the whole muslim world and this is going to give them additional momentum and credibility. >> morton zuckerman, thank you for coming in. sort of a -- boy, a serious outlook on that. >> very serious. today on "meet the press" the exclusive interview with the former president bill clinton on the latest developments in iran and some of the other top foreign policy challenges facing the united states. check your local listings for the times. yes, it is true. what a ripoff. a guy comes home to find his roof stripped bare and as you might imagine he hit it is roof. chicago wab byes want payback for giving drunks a ride home.
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msnbc, the place for politics and at last night's congressional black caucus dinner, president obama laid out the time line for health care reform. >> we have been waiting for health reform since the days of teddy roosevelt. we have been waiting since the days of harry truman. we have been waiting since johnson and nixon and clinton. we cannot wait any longer. not in ten years. not in five years. not in one year. this year. >> the senate finance committee's working on the health care bill prepared by chairman baucus and tuesday senators schumer and rockefeller are expected to propose the public option be added to the bill. on to the installment of
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"yes, it's true." imagine returning from vacation, finding the roof shingles ripped off. very thing that happened to a florida guy a. roofing company removed it by mistake. seet roofers should have done the neighbor's house. there was a mix-up and refused to replace it. >> my feeling is they just playing a game to try to take advantage because i'm an old person. >> are you kidding me? by the way, it's been two months since the ripoff. literally. the man's now considering a lawsuit. and yes, it's true. in chicago, taxi drivers are tired of drunks throwing up in the cabs so they're asking the city permission to charge the offenders a $50 fine. the cabbies say they lose time and run every time someone vomits, not to mention just the gross-out factor. gross. she was last seen more than
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a week ago leaving a police station and of course richard's family is gravely concerned and now an all-out search for her. we'll talk about the disappearance next on msnbc. [ female announcer ] nature fusion from pantene helps make hair strong against damage in 14 days. good housekeeping gave it their seal. damage protection results leading salon brands can't beat. [ female announcer ] nature fusion from pantene. now your card comes with a way to plan for what matters to you. introducing blueprint. blueprint is free and only for chase customers. it lets you choose what purchases you want to pay in full to avoid interest...with full pay. and those you split... you decide how to pay over time. my tris. ma trees. chase what matters. create your own blueprint at chase.com/blueprint. you can serve a nutritious breakfast
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which is good, 'cause there's a lotta paws to shake. with new zyrtec® itchy eye drops i can love the air™. (announcer) find it in the allergy aisle next to other zyrtec® products. good sunday, everyone. i'm contessa brewer a. desperate search for a california woman who disappeared. 24-year-old mitrice richardson last seen more than a week ago when she was released from an l.a. sheriff's station in a remote industrial area just after 1:00 in the morning. more than 135 officers and volunteers are searching a 60 square mile area near malibu. with me on the phone is the family attorney leo tarell. what's the concern for the family here? what do they think happened? >> contessa, thank you very much for having me. they feel seriously and strongly that the l.a. county sheriff's
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department failed to take action. first, she should have never been let to leave the jail at 12:30 at night without form of communication and keys. they're responsible and the only reason to do the massive search right now, contessa, because of the family have asked the media and the public to get involved and the public and the media and the family are outraged. >> leo, i want to play a response here from the l.a. county sheriff's department. but first, mitrice was 24 years old. she was an adult. presumably adults can handle themselves even at 12:30 in the morning so why would that be the responsibility of the police to take care of her? >> she was fundamental reasons, contessa. one, they let her leave in an area that she was completely unaware of. 65 miles from her home, contessa without a car oi or way to get home at 12:30 at night. more importantly, con ses that, she was in a crisis state.
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she had exhibited bizarre behavior. and sheriff's officers are supposedly trained to have these individuals evaluated. to see if they need some type of mental or medical assistance. contessa, they failed to take any action to address her mental state of mind. >> let me play part of the interview that alex did yesterday with steve whitmore from the l.a. county's sheriff's department. >> we obviously did everything we believe not only procedurally correct but what we believe to be right. our civilian jailer, custody assistants, said to miss richardson, if you want to stay the night, you can stay the night. i encourage you to do so and she didn't want to do that. we have no legal right to keep somebody passed their time. >> what's your response to that? they're saying they didn't have a legal right to hold her.
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>> he is absolutely wrong. when an inmate, an individual has issues, mental issues, contessa, they have an obligation through the 5150 standard to do a mental evaluation and the sergeant or the watch commander has a right to do a watch commander hold. contessa, i can tell you right now, if this person's name is lindsay lohan or britney spears, they have not have let her walk out at 12:30 without any form of transportation or means of communicating with the outside world. that area is high terrain, she got lost and the they ever cease department could have let her stay there. the mother called con ses that and told the sheriff's department prior to the departure she would pick her up. they said, okay. they could have said, hey, we are going to release your daughter and didn't do that, either, contessa. >> yeah. the other part of this that i have questions about is that they had detanned her apparently
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because she was they said drunk. but also, when they went and searched the car they found a small amount of marijuana they said. it seems to me like if you have the right to detain someone, to take them to your station, you'd also have the right the hold them. i heard of people kept in a cell until they sober up. >> you should be a lawyer. i've been saying the same thing. the basis for the detaining her or arresting her was the same exact reasons to keep her there, contessa. >> yeah. >> now they're saying, oh no. we had to let her go. i guarantee you every inmate listening to us right now makes the request to go home now. i can hear the response is from l.a. county sheriff's department. >> one more question for you here. leo, what about this sighting apparently in a west hollywood restaurant? is there any indication that maybe mitrice is -- you said it yourself. she was showing bizarre behavior.
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in a crisis state. do you think that she is just out there and needs someone to recognize her and help bring her home? >> that's what the family's hoping for this. this spot, sighting in the west hollywood apparently the l.a. county sheriff's department doesn't believe it because they and the family were out in the malibu area looking for her there so i don't put too much credence in this sighting of mitrice richardson in this west hollywood area. none wlafhatsoever. we are going back to the family and getting a family member online, i'll have them online with you, contessa. >> keeping our fingers crossed mitrice is found safe and sound l. you keep us in the loop? >> i will, con tes is. >> all right. thank you. leo terrell for the richardson family. police asking anyone with information to call the missing person's unit.
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213-485-5381. or 146877-lapd-24-7. when you see the video, you can see several villagers here on top of a mound of debris as rushing floodwaters sweep them down river. tropical storm dumped more than rain set off mud slides. more than 330,000 people affect bid the storm. this is being described as the worst flooding more than four decades. todaya new show of force by iran's state tv reporting the country's successfully test fired two types of short-range missiles and rors of plans to test fire long-range missiles tomorrow. the news comes as the u.s. and five allies continue to draw a line in the sand ahead of the talks with the islamic republic t. other countries plan to demand access to iran's
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newly-exposed nuclear facility. joining me now live is jack rice. this nuclear facility is apparently the tip of the iceberg if you have iran also test firing short range and long range missiles, jack. put it in perspective. >> a huge deal. maybe the most important aspect of the facility in gom is controlled by the revolutionary guard. it's military based making it different than what we knew before. so when you make this public, you tie this together and then what you do is not talking about the short or long-range missiles but the fact of the americans and europeans are going to meet with the iranians next thursday. the first time in 30 years actually to actually talk about this. tying this together. the possibility is for an international coalition to really push the iranians and what is unique about this time period. >> benjamin netanyahu of israel said this week at the united nations that the real concern, the real threat, to global security is when you marry
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fanatic religion with military might. if this were a western country that previously had not had a nuclear facility, and we found out about it, do you think it would be the same sort of reaction as we're seeing from iran? >> no. i don't think that it would. i disagree strongly with netanyahu on this. i think you need to distinguish between what the iranians are doing and fanatical religion and confuses people with the point. the real issue is what it is that the iranians are doing and the threats that may be there. you mentioned at the beginning of the interview of a long-range missile. theati the expectation to hit tel aviv and why netanyahu is saying what he is saying but the question is the ability to push the iranians to the table. we have been trying for more than seven years to do this. what's different now, though, is it appears that not just the americans and by the way this is president obama with the brits
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and french saying this will happen. the russians seem to be on board, too. there's one last issue. if they can pull the chinese into the mix who do not want to be by themselves standing with the iranians then you have a truly international coalition to provide sanctions, incredibly strong. the iranians don't want that. so this is unique in a time period. we'll see how it plays, though. >> jack, we'll be looking for that. thank you for the intelligence perspective on all of this. >> of course. still ahead, a.c.o.r.n. strikes back. can it win in court against the people in the undercover film? we get get into that ahead. best? according to a study presented by better homes and gardens, definity color recapture. it corrects the look of wrinkles and discoloration. 50,000 voters. one brilliant winner.
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security team on the situation in afghanistan. and pakistan. the first meeting tuesday. mort zuckerman is publisher of "u.s. news & and world report." good to see you. >> good to be here. >> looking at general mcchrystal, the question on everyone's mind seems to be, well, for what? what exactly would they do that would make the situation calmer, more stable? >> well, what he is basically saying and he said it very specifically if we don't put in the additional troops we are looking what the he called mission failure. in other words, that country will be increasingly taken over by the tall been and will then become perhaps a haven for al qaeda forces. the al qaeda forces which are presently now in pakistan will shift over into afghanistan and once again they will become a platform potentially for attacks on the united states or at least on the western world. >> given how strong his stand was in that leaked memo to the
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white house, what do you think is the -- when's holding back the white house on just saying, yes, general, whatever you need? >> the real issue for them is where are we going to be a year or two or three now? there's a diminishing amount of support on any scale on afghanistan. there's a concern we are in partnership with a government, the karzai government, which is corrupt and may very well have stolen the election and don't have a partner to work with but more than anything else, the fear is we'll be bogged down in this war for another five or fen years without much to show for it and the domestic political consequences will be very serio serious. the problem, though, is how do you pull out? you have osama bin ben and mull la omar down the middle of kabul, that is huge defeat for the united states. >> and do you think that given the new mission of protecting civilian lives, is that enough to start convincing the people who could be instrumental in taking a stand against the
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taliban which is the people of afghanistan, do you think it's enough? are we making enough of an effort on that part of the strategy? >> here we have to rely on somebody like the general. the general is expected to be the best we have for this kind of warfare. we put him in charge of this thing over a number of other people who would have normally been selected. now he comes in with a report. what does the president do? not back him? if he doesn't back him and he resignsed in middle of it and pab general petraeus and then where's the president politically? it is laden with political and international significance in terms of the credibility of the united states as the lead fighter against the taliban and al qaeda. now, the problem is, al qaeda and taliban are two different organizations. and we can't really distinguish what is the difference between the two of them. >> right. that can be a problem. mort, thanks. new developments this morning with the community
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action group a.c.o.r.n. the agency's facing problems. congress cut the funding. the irs and census bureau are ceasing their working relationship with the agency and add to that calls of a federal investigation and they've file add lawsuit in maryland in the state court there against the undercover film makers, the now infamous pimp and prostitute video that shows a.c.o.r.n. employees giving advice of establishing a brothel in one case even with underage hookers. joining me now, lisa green, legal analyst and nbc news producer. lisa, you have a.c.o.r.n. on the sort of campaign saying please don't cut the funding. we do good work and on cable news trying to answer questions and the third part of this, the lawsuit. how effective will that be? >> is it legally effective and effective as a public relations move? legally, they have a claim in maryland. why? it's legal in maryland to shoot
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hidden camera video with audio unless everyone who's a part of the conversation knows you're shooting. that means these two low-level employees in maryland obviously i think had no idea they were being shot and technically a violation of the law. but as a public relations matter, we showing the video again and keeps the matter an i live. you wonder about the strategy here. i suspect what they're hoping to do is block the dissemination of this video and other videos. >> however, the lawsuit also takes aim at a website called brightbart. is there any impact consequences for the website owner? >> well, here's an interesting thing. the supreme court is actually the best friend of brightbart and other website owners and places like here that want to show the video again and again. why? in 2001, the supreme court ruled that even if something is obtained illegally, audio is shot illegally, recorded illegally, journalists still have the right to broadcast it
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y.? it is our first amendment right to let the public hear it. so that a.c.o.r.n. video is gracing the laptops for the foreseeable future. >> if they're trying to change the perspective, how important is it to get access to the whole videotape, the undercover film made that probably shows -- i don't know this, i'm just looking that the going, well, if you caught the handful of employees saying, yes, we'll work with you, how many said are you crazy? take a leap. >> that's interesting. if we were to embark on a hidden project for nbc news, we would have meetings with the top-notch legal team and show everything in context but these days, two people with a flip camera, they don't necessarily care what the laws are or the context is. so could a.c.o.r.n. get access to the video? not through this lawsuit. should the american public have
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access to context? traditional journalists say, yes. we don't live in traditional times. >> what happens if the lawsuit for a.c.o.r.n. and charm offensive with congress and public fails? what's the sta does? >> hard to imagine how things get tougher for them. just an uphill bat until an environment now where people feel free or seem to feel free to violate state law in order to obtain material that they can then disseminate. we live in such radically different times in the journalism world and the advocacy world, wouldn't you say? >> absolutely. lisa, didn't i say once you open the can of worms, you can't put the worms back in? thank you. >> sure. the white house apparently wants him to bow out for the good of the party. why won't paterson give in and pull out of the race for new york governor? we'll hear from the new york governor himself about why he wants to be governor for another term.
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we have more on the embattled new york governor david paterson. there were reported calls from the white house urging paterson not to run for the governor's position next year. david paterson remains steadfast in his decision to ignore critics and says he's going to run. and reportedly he says he'll keep doing it until the public tells him it's time to stop. moments ago he appeared on "meet the press" and told david gregory he wasn't asked by the president not to run for governor. joining me now is keith richberg of "the washington post." good to see you. >> good morning. >> the president, the white house has said we're not playing politics in new york. but the report was that yes, there was pressure on david paterson not to run. what's the white house's interest in this? >> the white house is interested in not losing congressional seats. i think what happened was members were worried with
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paterson at the top of the ticket at about 17% in the polls and a weak senate candidate in kristin gillibrand you could see huge losses in the congressional delegation. so i think they were worried about that. >> they think people go in, they don't like david paterson who is a democrat so they vote against all democrats? >> absolutely. in these off-year elections, that's what it will be next year, most people can't even name their congress person but if they vote top of the ticket democrat most in new york state vote straight party. the problem is you have rudy giuliani waiting in the wings which would be a strong at the top of the republicans. >> and if paterson says look, i'm not going to step away unless the public tells me to step away, how much clearer can a poll where you're only getting 17% approval rating be? >> exactly. i was watching in the green room that feed of the interview there, and it was kind of
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bizarre, you know because he was asked a couple of time desire the white house team ask you to go, at one point he said i don't know. >> what do you mean you don't know? >> exactly. it was very strange. even though he was saying yes, i'm running for governor if you look at his body language, he seemed to me like somebody who was leaving room to step out. >> you mentioned some of the other new york politicians. kirsten gillibrand got her seat, she was awarded that by david paters paterson. how much danger is she in of losing it? >> it depends on who the republicans pick to run against her. i think it's a democratic state, heavily democratic state but again, that's why if there is a weak candidate at the top of the ticket which is governor, that could end up being a drag on the entire ticket. so it's -- she would probably also like to see somebody else but also you know they have this problem, the top two people, the governor and senator gillibrand are both appointed. that's never a good thing going into an election where the republicans could make that an
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issue. >> good to see you. thank you for the perspective. can watch governor paterson on "meet the press" 2:00 eastern on msnbc. as we approach the top of the hour we bring enthusiasm number one and it's a sky high record-breaker. 181 female skydivers in los angeles combine for the largest women's formation. the jump for the cause raised more than $190,000 for breast cancer research. look at that. more number ones coming up on "msnbc sunday." access to favorite courses chef's meal with pommes frites perhaps a night at the theater with extra special seats additional hotel night, our treat your world in perfect harmony: priceless look for world on your mastercard
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right now on msnbc war games, iran test fires short-range missiles. the united states prepares for face-to-face talks later this week with iranian officials. who is najibullah zazi? the alleged terrorist w

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