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maggie writes, couldn't wait to see which suit you're wearing, the gray one or the black one. looks like it's a black one again this week. >> i will not be criticized for my wardrobe. i got this for my confirmation in 198 #. if you have a problem, take it up with my mom. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ i sat down yesterday in new york with a dozen of the top wall street ceos and bank presidents. even though the meeting itself was a disappointment, the restaurant where it was held, unbrooefable. i'm being deadly serious. the best steak i have ever had in my life. now, when the bill came, i was seated near the head of the table, so i got a peek at it. 12 people and i'm not going to tell you how much it was, but it

was mind-blowing. $85,000. >> good. >> jim downey had a great weekend this weekend. great writer for "saturday night live." >> it's late. i have to watch it the day after. it's a good show, though. andy serwer of "fortune" magazine is here. >> good morning. >> here to add the snap, crackle and pop. >> no, their latest issue is the annual fortune 500 -- >> that was cute of you to say. >> thank you. wow, okay, it's going to be one of these days, okay. i can handle that. >> are magazines back? what's he saying? >> that one is. >> they never left. >> thank you. >> that one never left. >> thank you. >> fortune 500, i guess, all the biggies, ge, who owns us, is in there. comcast, would you say going to own us is probably in there. >> they're in there, big time. walmart, exxon, all the biggies.

>> buffett, dimon and welsh, the economy is back. plus the tragic downfall of eliot spitzer. >> he's everywhere. the movie i saw over the weekend. >> how was the eliot spitzer movie? >> very cool. it is -- talk about snap, crackle and pop. it's rivets. >> you have an article, jamie dimon talking about how the economy is back. he and a few other people getting very bullish on america. >> yeah, they are. they've been very active in going down to washington, d.c. and letting other elected officials know how they feel about stuff, but that's another matter. but i think that those guys, you know, i mean, they're just talking to customers and customers are saying, we want more loans, give us some money, open up the flood gates. >> people have wanted loans, just haven't been getting them. >> people trying to get loans don't have business to lend them

to, so the bacnkers say. >> but jamie dimon -- >> he has his finger on the pulse. >> yes, much more so than people at the fed. >> because he's touching customers, so to speak, all the time. >> and he knows when they're hungry for business. >> willie geist is here now. >> i'm hungry of a whole lot of willie geist. >> ask and you shall receive. >> the yankees are going to the white house today. >> that's right. celebration of greatness at the white house. president's lucky to have them. >> whatever. >> nice to see you. >> i love your dress, mika. drewly. >> thanks. >> you don't like my sweatshirt? >> no. >> let's do the fews. >> we have jim cramer coming on the show, as well as david remnick. the senate appears headed for a showdown today over whether to begin debate on financial reform legislation. democrats need support from at least one republican to move forward but it's still not clear if any republican will break rank in time for the 5:00 p.m.

vote. at issue is a proposed $50 billion fund that would help cover the costs of dealing with major financial firms' failure, help cover being the key words because it wouldn't cover the whole thing. the financial industry would pay for the fund. republicans argue is leaves the door open for bailouts. still there is some optimism that a bipartisan compromise will emerge. >> we have more work to do. we're meeting today to talk about it. we're not there yet. i hope we could get the votes tomorrow when we have this motion to proceed to the bill. to start the debate. >> this is something, by the way, that everyone has committed to try to do and that is to have this bipartisan agreement before it goes to the floor. i think it's important we do so. >> so, if there is no bipartisan agreement, republicans will block the motion to proceed to debating this bill? >> i think that's very likely.

>> all right, andy serwer, before we move on, a couple of questions. i was watching "meet the press" yesterday, and i just kept coming back to this one question. they have this fund that they set up -- >> why didn't they give -- >> jab jake tapper -- >> i know. >> i love christian. >> i do, too. >> but jack tapper is born for that show. >> they'll lose him. >> we say that as two people. let's just say it, we love her. >> oh, yeah, that's not her. that's not the issue. >> love her chops. >> jamie ruben. >> talking about their team at abc. >> i put her in charge of any foreign desk i have, but for this job, jake tapper is such a talent. >> if you were in charge. >> but i'm not. >> here's the deal with financial reform. listening to these guys debate

on "meet the press" and they're talking about this $50 billion fund and this is what will happen if a major firm, you know, blows up, we'll wind it down, we'll wrap it up in a box and put it on the shelf and everyone will be -- why not do something before that happens? >> you mean like too big to fail? >> yeah. like why not make it so that doesn't happen? >> on the front end. >> exactly. >> that's a very good point. some parts -- see, this financial bill is such a work in progress right now. part of it is separating pieces of the firms, like the credit default swaps, taking that away from the firms that would be guaranteed to go to the fed window. that would be essentially breaking the firms up, which would address that problem. >> why not do that? >> well, i think that's a good question. we can ask that. let's ask our -- >> bring glass segal back? >> yes. >> paul volleyer is advocating -- >> why doesn't anyone have the

gut to do that? what's the issue? >> some has to do with lobby wall street firms. >> so it's money. they're being -- >> there's money, no question about it. the other thing is thinking these firms are big, they need to compete globally so we can't take them abart. but does anyone in their right mind want another aig? i mean, that, to me, is unconscionable to even allow the possibility of a firm getting that big again. because, i mean, that was the real problem, that one right there. >> but we have the banks right now, they're bigger. >> some of them are bigger. >> too bigger to fail right now. >> goldman sachs is in a bit of hot water. >> let's get to that. >> we with talk about that. >> you are reich, mika, we've gone from too big to fail to too bigger to fail. >> seriously. >> to, seriously. >> and we'll just mush around with them later. >> republicans are complaining about this $50 billion fund. it seems to me it's insufficient

if a bank of america or citi or jpmorgan went down, as we've been saying. they would go through that $50 billion in five minutes. >> right. we saw how much aig took. >> on to goldman now. also on capitol hill, senators are gearing up to grill top executives from goldman sachs this week. on how the firm profited from betting against the u.s. housing market. over the weekend, democratic senator carl levin released internal e-mails from the company that seemed to bolster charges the wall street powerhouse misled investors. one e-mail lloyd blankfeif said we don't dodge, we made money, then we lost, then we made money, then we lost because of shorts. goldman sachs contends the e-mails were cherry-picked and blasts the senate for drawing a conclusion before they had a hearing. >> they truncated the one e-mail

because the next sentence says, it's not over so it's not clear how that's going to work out. i read that and you look at the actual e-mail, they swipe that out. not to defend goldman, but the whole e-mail -- >> it's a shame. here's -- i'm not defending goldman sachs, willie and i both want to get a job there, whenever they're willing -- >> ceo, coo -- >> we'll take whatever. >> top trader. >> just quiet recruitment. we'll smoke cigarettes and golf all day like john boehner, if they have a job like that. but it is so easy to cherry-pick on this goldman story. you know this reality. people on the street know this reality, that this is what banks do. this is what smart investors do. where they've got 1,000 bets going, and they hedge their bets and they go back and forth. it's offensive they set up a fund that they sold, that they knew was going to be toxic, but

at the same time, there was -- while goldman was doing that, they didn't have a crystal ball to know that that wasn't going to blow up in their face. maybe the mortgage market would have kept going for three, four more years. they were guessing, like everybody else, and nobody knew until september 15, 2008, that the world was going up in smoke. >> yeah, i peen, that's right. and the language is a little inflammatory. betting against the u.s. housing market. i mean, peopleemsft wall street short stocks all the time. that's shorting the u.s. economy, that would be how you would put that, too. it's really -- you know, you're right. they're smart traders. they're supposed to make money that way. if you're a shareholder and they didn't do da, you would be ticked off they weren't trying to make money. then there's whole thing like they aren't providing any social value by doing this. i think companies that make chewing gum you could argue aren't necessarily providing a whole lot of social value either. all of these arguments are

nuanced, aren't they? they're not so clear-cut. >> they are nuanced. it's important as you read stories about what happened to goldman, you had people two desks away from each other in the same housing unit at goldman secretly working to cut the other's throats. one was betting on the housing market, somebody else was betting against the housing market. that's going to happen in huge firms where we're going to disagree. we could pick any company on your list. we could disagree if we worked together in a firm, you might be saying sell ge and i might be saying buy, buy, buy. >> you just have to ask yourself, is this something you could explain to your kids and aunt mary? do you feel good about it? do you go to sleep at night about -- >> no, that's not the standard, though, of wall street firms. >> well, it's not. it sort of should be, shouldn't it? >> no. >> you don't think so in. >> no. >> it's just rules.

>> no. >> they get around the rules. >> it's all about the money, just make the money? >> i don't have to -- there are a lot of companies that can't explain to little timmy what they do and why it's good for little timmy. >> it's kind of simple, though. >> all right. >> but our economy is an extraordinarily complex organism with a billion moving parts. >> right. and here's -- >> but you can't explain every moving part by itself. >> the other standard is, did they put people out of work? did they blow up the economy and are people out of work because of what they did? that's a difficult thing to explain. certainly to an extent, yes, yes, they did. >> you look at what happened in '89, '90, a lot of people were put out of work because of the transitions. in '91, '92, the economy started growing and exploding. it's a cycle. >> they don't get credit for creating those jobs. another big story this morning. protests are heating up in arizona after the governor signed a controversial immigration bill into law on friday. more than 3,000 demonstrators

gathered at the state capital on sunday to denounce the law, which also allows police officers to question suspects they believe are in the country illegally. opponents say it opens the door to racial profile and are causing on president obama to address immigration reform. >> when u.s. citizens and legal permanent residents of the united states are getting captured in raids simply because of where they are, detained unlawfully against their constitutional rights, there are a couple hundred cases of this across the country, it is fundamentally wrong to be a second-class citizen because you have a certain accent or look a certain way. that's what arizona is pursuing. that's why we need comprehensive immigration reform to secure our borders. >> okay. >> that's an interesting one, isn't it? >> well, it is. the thing is, there are so many politicians who have looked the other way while illegal immigrants have flooded into this country.

and it has become a great crisis in this country. but the idea that police officers can stop and ask somebody for papers to see who they are seems really frightening to me. >> it smacks of a totalitarian regime. >> it really does. why don't you check illegal immigrants at the place where it matters. why don't you check at work? because right now it's pretty obvious where illegal immigrants are, but to stop people on the streets where they're not committing a crime, again, same -- this seems to be a great overread. >> that whole thing, you can't -- don't leave your house without your wallet, i mean, that doesn't seem right. you should be able to do that. you should be able to walk out of your house without an incht d. >> for every ten illegal immigrants they catch and send back home, what about that one american citizen who's a

hispanic who now every time he goes to the grocery store has to be worried that he's going to be stopped by a police officer because he's driving -- he's driving while being a person of color. i mean, that's -- >> there may be some of that. >> where are we? >> that's not what america -- >> what decade are we in? >> i was against the mccain/kennedy bill, i called it amnesty because it was amnesty. any time you tell 13 million people, come to america and you broke the law and we're going to let you in, but to go the other direction to say, we're going to stop all americans who are hispanic who -- it's just -- that's -- that's offensive. >> interesting. a lot of people saying now this is the time to talk about federal immigration reform. you had the sunday shows, mitch mcconnell saying we have too much on our plate, economy and health care, this is not the time for that. coming up, we're getting mad in the morning as jim cramer joins us on the set of "morning

joe." knee details on the george w. bush's memoir from inside 9/11 and his decision to quit drinking. >> i'll have to make that decision some time soon. especially in the morning, before 6:30. boom, it's just hitting. and later, are aliens really out there? wait until you see who's saying, yes, we and we should leave them alone. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> good morning, everyone. we're still getting more pictures in of that historic and deadly tornado that struck on saturday in mississippi. this is going -- this storm was on the ground for over two hours. it was at one point almost two miles wide. traveling at 50 to 60 miles per hour. this is video and pictures taken by a chase team just seconds after it went through this town. the devastation is incredible. we're still dealing with strong storms this morning. we have a tornado watch in southern florida, cape coral area into naples, a lot of

active lightning out there, too. we'll track that throughout the morning. also, wet weather for everyone in southern new england through the mid-atlantic. today is a damp day from new york city to pittsburgh to boston and everywhere in between. the middle of the country, you're looking just fine on monday. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. national car rental knows i'm picky.

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larry and his wife are getting a divorce. larry is wrapping up marriage number eight. eight is in the books. he's been married quite a few times, larry. when this marriage is finished, he meets liz taylor in the finals. a baseball coach and

aspiring actor said in an interview he had an affair with larry king's wife shawn southwick and they had section in larry's bed, i imagine where you can get pretty crazy because there's railing on both sides. >> oh. >> that's awful. >> i think it was -- it may have been "people," one of those magazines, i was in the grocery store, you know, early this morning picking up the groceries for the kids down at the orphanage on the lower east side, and there was like larry king: sex freak. that was a headline on -- that was one of the headlines. that was the headline on one of those magazines. >> let's take a look at "morning papers ". >> sends a chill up your spine. >> can we take a look at "morning papers"? that would be good. the well owned by bp is spewing about 42,000 gallons of oil a daw. "the wall street journal" -- deal near on derivatives. berkshire hathaway urges lawmakers to pull back cut.

test vote on banks. republican leaders said sunday their ranks are unified and determined to shoot down a key test vote on monday. and "the san francisco chronicle" -- city's $100,000 club swells. more than a third of san francisco city workers earned $100,000 or more last year. that's a look at local papers. >> willie geist, what are you looking at on the top of the new york post? >> can we get in on this? push in on this. andy, you were explaining a -- >> first, read the headline because a lot of people are eating their cornflakes and not eating their screen. >> it says boobquake day. >> what does that mean? >> there was a muslim cleric that said women who show too much cleavage were bad for men, it was añagr bad influence and were causing earthquaking around the globe. >> yes. how is that? >> that sounds right. >> i'm just reiterating what he said. >> okay.

>> and then this woman read this and said we should all -- women should get together and do something -- >> got it. we're good. you know what i think it's time for -- >> shake it. shake it. >> yes. >> shake -- >> shut up. >> i think that's probably the top of the politico playbook today. >> let's talk to the man who the white house wakes up to. >> like a kevin bacon game. patrick gavin, are you here with us? >> mike allen's in monaco. >> after this weekend, he's huge. >> what is washington saying today about boobquake day? official washington. >> there's going to be a house hearing, investigate the 2010 midterm fallout from -- >> that was funny. >> finally, someone's taking up this issue. >> now, what's causing these earthquakes? i think this may be a way to start. >> at long last we get our hearings.

i understand the president sending out a youtube video to 13 million or so talking about the midterms. let's take a look. >> make sure that first-time voters in 2008 make their voices heard again in november. then together we will deliver on the promise of change and hope and prosperity for generations to come. thanks. >> thanks. what are the democrats' plans for 2010? >> what they're going to do this week is president obama, along with dnc head tim kaine is going to basically launch a $50 million effort to basically try to get a lot of these first-time voters who voted in 2008 and who are so crucial to obama back then to also come out in 2010 for these midterms. he's focusing on latino, female, african-american videos. they'll blast this video and message from obama to their 13 million e-mail list. obama and dnc are sort of calling the people that have been good democrats obama

allies. there's been a big debate about whether candidates will attach themselves to the president or distance themselves. obama is calling these folks his allies and hoping they're going to attach their political fortunes with his. >> willie, did you see yesterday the front page of the "new york times," an article talking about how in 2010 democrats are in big trouble, even democrats in safe seats? chairman obey who runs appropriations committee is in the fight of life, as well as head of the democratic budget committee -- >> and the reporter who wrote that, jeff zeleny, he'll be here in five minutes. >> the z. man. that's what obama needs to do, they need to reenergize the base. i always tell candidates who run, people who vote in offyear elections and it's very hard to get them to break that habit,

you can see. like, if you didn't vote in the last three off-year elections, like half of voters, you're not going to vote in this one. >> and nobody's going to be able to drag you out of your house to make you do it. still, the white house needs to try to do it. >> and as jeff says in his piece, democrats conceding ground in a lot of places you wouldn't expect. we'll talk to him about that in a couple minutes. patrick, i want to ask you about president obama's memoir. i understand it's coming out this fall. we're learning some more intimate details of his time in office. >> that's right. it's going to be called "decision points" out in november. he'll focus on 14 key moments in his presidency from the hotly contested 2000 election to flying on air force one when 9/11 happened to the war if iraq to just some behind-the-scenes moments in the oval office. he's also going to address, which he's not spoken too much about, his decision to quit drinking and also about his faith. that's going to come out, retail $35.

limited edition, $350 version which will be in a nice cloth. so, if you have the money and you want the book in the terrycloth, $350. >> terrycloth? >> i've got to say -- >> a bathrobe? >> -- he's done a great job leaving, keeping his head down. it actually makes me a lot more interested in reading this book than i would be -- because when he left, let's face it, 80% of americans wanted him to go and never come back. now, you look at some of these polls that say half of americans would like him running the country, the other half would like obama. but it was a -- i think it's been a good play for him to keep his head down and say nothing. >> yeah. >> yep. not a lot of speechifying. >> patrick gavin, thank you. who's warning us aliens do exist and should we be afraid? ró% afraid? someone you might actually to want listen to. >> really? first, lebron james, did you see this shot? just your garden variety pull-up

50-foot jump shot. >> oh, my goodness. >> take my word for it. it was amazing. >> it didn't look lucky. >> he's pretty good. >> he was actually shooting. >> he's angry. >> next in sports.

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♪ don't stand ♪ don't stand so close to me welcome back to "morning joe." just after 6:30 on the east coast. time for a look at some of today's top stories. rescuers continue to search for people who may be stranded or trapped after severe storms ripped through the south over the weekend. at least 12 deaths are blamed on the violent tornado outbreak which carved a path of destruction from the louisiana line to east central mississippi. later today, federal officials will head to mississippi to survey the area and determine if federal disaster funds can be declared. an ohio man is facing misdemeanor charges after being spotted with a gun at the north carolina airport where president obama's plane was departing yesterday. authorities say the 23-year-old was driving a car outfitted with law enforcement equipment, even though he's not an officer. when asked what he was doing,

the suspect reportedly told police he heard the president was in town and wanted to see him. and in a new documentary, british author and astro physician cyst stephen hawking shares his belief there really is intelligent life out there. the show gives viewers a glimpse into hawking's imagination where alien is rationale. he speaks about seeking out ext extraterrestrial life. it could be too dangerous for humans to interact with them. >> how do we know they're so far advanced? i mean, they -- maybe they still just have black and white tv sets. >> could be. >> he says if they come here, it will be like when columbus came to america. and we are the native americans and-n that scenario. he thinks that won't turn out well for us. >> we would make good pets. >> interesting. willie, sports? xl

>> let's do some sports. lebron james, unbelievable. >> i want to see this again. we'll show you one dunk, first. >> i like his face after. >> down the lane, easy for two. now, at the end of the third quarter. this is not a halfcourt heave. this is totally calculated. takes a rhythm dribble, pulls up from 45 feet. that is a pull-up jump shot from halfcourt. >> that is. all in form. >> a triple-double. he knows, he knows. 37 points, 12 rebounds. a triple-double for lebron james. they kill the bulls. how about a photo finish from nascar. sprint cup from talladega, aaron's 499. kevin harvick pushing jamie mcmurray the whole way and then he makes a move on the inside. watch how close that is. that's a photo finish. you'll see harvick come around here and call that drafting, joe, then he comes up

underneath, wins by the yellow guy. harvick is going to win by -- >> oh, you're kidding. >> by 0.01 of a second. >> my goodness. you know what they call that racetrack in alabama, i'm serious, it's called talladega. >> do they really? >> i didn't know that. >> we call it talladega. >> on broadcasts -- >> you go there and -- >> good inside information. >> that was great. >> one of the funniest films ever made. >> will ferrell. anything he does. baby jesus, that was a great one. >> most of the show we could talk about -- >> i'm on fire! help me, jesus! help me, buddha! help me, tom cruise! >> that was a great movie. remember the 16-year-old girl from california who was going to be the youngest person ever to sail around the world nonstop all by herself? well -- >> that's great. >> she had to abandon that. she wrote on her blog saturday it would be foolish and irresponsible to keep going

after she lost one of the boat's autopilot functions, which she needs. she's expected to land in south africa after two weeks but says she'll continue around the world, but just not a nonstop trip. >> good judgment. >> she decided not to do it when she saw her friend were going to see a movie. so she actually -- >> to see justin bieber. she actually started out on the trip -- >> 16-year-olds don't like justin bieber. coming up, the piece we were talking about a minute ago, jeff zeleny, his article making waves across washington this weekend. which long-serving democrats are in trouble come november, plus "must read opinion pages." >> look at zeleny.

♪ you have endorsed governor crist. are you taking back your endorsement? >> that was over a year ago ago. a lot has happened since then. i would be troubled if the governor decided to run as an independent. that would be a serious problem and he would certainly not have my support and not have the support of any other republicans i know. >> are you taking back your endorsement? >> not today. >> wow. okay. not at this moment in time. >> so that's this week, though. charlie's going to be making his decision -- >> right, by friday. >> by the way, not to -- this is sort of people but for people in florida politics, they all know him, but my good friend, one of my best friends, earl derden passed away. you talked to earl. >> he did? >> yeah, he passed away last night. >> i'm so sorry. >> yeah, but he was -- he and

charlie, he was -- earl is one of these guys, when he supported me -- he was one of the first guys that supported me along with charlie crist, and they were remarkable in that they never wanted anything. they just never asked for one thing other than cut government, be responsible. two self-made men. and it goes without saying that both of these men grew to loathe charlie crist, because charlie was not the small government conservative they thought he was. and there are a lot of people like that across the state of florida right now. >> and across the country, a lot of political races some might say put the democrats in jeopardy. here with us now to talk about that, national political correspondent for "the new york times," jeff zeleny who mapped out the trouble for democrats in the midterm elections. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> 1994 there were a lot of big people, jack brooks lost his seat back in '94, also a lot of other giants lost their seats,

tom foley, then speaker of the house. you say there are three chairman right now, powerful chairman, that are fighting for their political lives in 2010. >> yeah, there's no question. if rebs are going to win back the house, they need to do more than just knock off these obama members of congress we like to call, the people who were elected in 2008 because president obama was on the pal lot. they need to go farther in, farther deeper in. chairman obey from wisconsin, chairman of the appropriations committee, is one of those three. we traveled to his district last week. and there are to signs that he's campaigning. it's still early, but that's one thing that democratic leaders are worried about. do some of these old long-time established members of congress know how to campaign anymore? and i think they'll be ratcheting up their efforts in the coming weeks. >> wisconsin is one thing, but in chairman spratt's district in south carolina, that's quite another. south carolina would seem even in that district would seem

right for a republican pick up. what are you finding down there? >> no question. and these are the -- are the people who are the architects, the authors of the policies that are creating all this angduw ou of the electorate. the chairman of the budget committee, who better than to sort of go against or use as a punching bag, if you will, you know, for some of -- for all the spending that's going on. and chairman spratt is potentially in trouble. you know, he's raising a lot of money. the democrats do have that in their favor. but there are strong republican opponents running against him. it has party leaders, has speaker pelosi worried, if she can't hold onto some of these chairman positions, you know, what does it look like down balance rot for the rest of them? >> the democrats are actually talking about -- democratic leaders are actually talking about forcing these powerful chairman to have weekly meetings with them because they believe politically they're sort of fat, out of shape, because they're

not fighting every two years. >> no question. i mean, i'm told these meetings are fairly -- are fairly awkward. the chairman of the democratic congressional campaign committee, chris van hollen, has to have one-on-one meetings with people who have been in congress a lot longer than him. chairman obey was first elected in 1969 and has never won less than 54% of vote. that was in '94. usually it's 60% of the vote. these congressmen, some of them are not used to raising a lot of money. i'm told congressman ike skelton, he has gotten the message and the picture. he's raising more money. he's doing some aggresstive things, appearing on television more. so i think in the coming weeks, at least democratic leaders say they're going to boost up their efforts. we'll see. republicans are very energized. there are some good candidates out in these districts. >> one more question about the house and then i'll turn it over to mika for the senate. what does it look like right

now? what are most insiders believe in washington, d.c., republicans pick up? they need 40. do they get to the 40 or come up short? >> it's going to be close. it's hard to say right now, but democrats are basically conceding they could lose as many as 30 seats. then you have, you know, some ten more. it's definitely possible. it will be within reach. republicans have not recruited as many strong candidates in a few places as they would like. they have not done quite a good as job as rahm emanuel in 2006. at this point it is -- it's too close to call, but it's certainly within their reach. >> so, in the senate is it a tougher fight for the gop? or not? >> it is tougher for republicans in the senate. they would need to win absolutely every race they have going here. in places like florida that you just mentioned, you know, it's a problem for them if charlie crist decides this week to run as an independent. that could be the best and really the only life line the democrat there, kendrick meek, has had.y#+:

republicans will, no doubt, win a lot of seats and narrow their majority in the senate. but it's pretty hard to see the path where they would win control. >> what about barbara boxer, is even she in control if california? >> she is in trouble in california. that has some democrats worried. if barbara boxer is in trouble, what does that mean fort rest of them? even if they lose that seat, republicans still have four open seats, new hampshire, ohio, missouri and in florida where they have to defend and then get ten more. so, the math is pretty hard for republicans to get to take back control of the senate. >> i want to try to get at least one must read in because obviously financial reform is the big issue this week in washington. this is a letter to the editor i found over the weekend. public rage against wall street. by a guy named eric mullen. excuse the cynicism but the government's filing of a civil suit rather than criminal charges against goldman sachs

seems like a political and public relations stunt meant to embarrass republican leadership and mull fi a justifiably outraged public. after watching the bush and obama teams funnel hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds to the bank prodded on by the goldman sachs apostles within their administerings, on the pretense of stabilizing the economy, how are we supposed to take this lightweight action seriously? andy, you want to try that one? >> should there be criminal charges? >> you can -- they could file criminal charges. i think they'd have a difficult time succeeding. you see people talking already that even the civil suit is by to means a slam dunk. i mean, i think one thing they should have considered, and i know this may not be tenable, but was a temporary tax on these wall street firms that got bailouts because, you know, they're supposed to make a lot of money. they did get help from the federal government. so if they made a lot of money while they got help, they should return more to the government. >> to me, it's simple, actually. >> frank rich. >> very good, fight on goldman

sachs. no one at lehman brothers has yet been held liable for its enronesque book keeping deceit is appalling. that we still haven't seen the e-mails that would illuminate aig's machinations and cover-up. journalism has been way ahead of the authorities, the s.e.c. included, in uncovering wall street's foul play is a scandal. if this culture remain in place, the whole crisis will go to waste, to use rahm's words. >> let's go back to jeff zeleny. when you were out on the campaign frail in these distric these district, were they talking about finance reform, the deficit, what seemed to be moving voters? >> the thing moving voters is jobs. you talk to someone who they know that lost a job. you don't talk to as many people who have found a job. that is still the biggest thing on people's mind.

i didn't hear one person mention wall street. health care, of course, is also a concern. but it's jobs, it's jobs, it's jobs. it's a worrisome sign for democrats because even by november there are still going to be more people who know people who lost jobs than who have them. >> they haven't sufficiently focused, at least politically, on jobs. >> i agree. >> because they're talking about financial reform now, after a huge health care fight. then they're talking about possibly going into global warming, then possibly immigration, and then the supreme court battle this summer, again in the heartland it's all about jobs. >> although they have done -- they have done significant action to save jobs. >> march job numbers were good, remember. watch the birdie because this thing could change fast. remember with obama's presidential election. >> and joe biden promised up to 500,000 jobs per month a couple months ago. >> that's a big promise. >> jeff zeleny of the forecast

"time -- "new york times." thank you very much. willie geist what do you have? >> snl taking on the new arizona immigration law. that should be good. you asked for it and you got it, david hasselhoff singi ining journey. >> thank god. >> on national tv. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. national car rental knows i'm picky.

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comes in a new liquid gel. ♪ [ pop ] ♪ i think i'll walk this way with the trees ♪fect day ♪ i do sing [ man announcing ] the hybrid for everyone is here. the insight-- designed and priced for us all. from honda. oh, yes. >> yes. it's good to have you back in person. >> thank you. it's good to be here. >> changings the whole dynamic. time for "news you can't use." we've been talking about that new immigration enforcement law in arizona. seth myers took it on on "snl". >> this week arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which would allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally pip know there are some people in arizona that worry obama is acting like hitler but there's nothing nor nmore naziing that

saying, show me your papers. every time someone says, show me your papers, hitler's family gets a residual check. so heads up, arizona, that's fashioni fascism. i know it's a dry fascism but it's fascism. >> that's terrible. >> it is a dry fascism. >> show me the papers. speaking of germans, david hasselhoff, huge over in germany. >> they love him. >> why? >> love him. >> wait a minute, isn't he the guy from that show -- >> "baywatch". >> don't pretend you don't know. >> bncht .j. and the bear or -- >> launched a thousand stars. >> excuse me. >> i think hasselhoff used to drive around in an 18-wheeler. and then he had like a chimp with him. >> didn't he have like a video -- didn't he have a drunk ambien eating video. >> hasselhoff was not on-q b.j.

and the bear. great show but he was not on b.j. and the bear. >> is he the one in the video where he's eating and drunk? >> yes. he's had some problems over the years. >> eating on the floor. >> his comeback -- >> well, this is going to erase all of that. >> the tv land awards singing journey. >> what? >> bring it. ♪ just a small town girl ♪ living in a lonely world ♪ she took the midnight train going anywhere ♪ >> what's wrong with that? >> all bavaria swoons. >> the black vest, having a good time at the tv land awards. >> who's that? who's that? is that marlo thomas. >> no, get out of here. >> what is that? i need to see pore. >> cramer next on "morning joe."

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it's much less important to debate and to try to find fault with the past. than to put in place a system that will assure that these crises don't happen again.

that's what this legislation does in the areas i laid out. welcome to "morning joe." joe scarborough along with mika brzezinski. jim cramer now on the set "mad money's," jim cramer, andy serwer, and the great willie geist. boy, we have a lot of correction all coming out of the last segment. >> clarifications. >> first of all, hasselhoff was not on b.j. and the bear. who was that? greg everton. >> here it is. >> oh, okay. >> yeah, baby. >> that's the show. that's b.j. and the bear. my apologies. actually, hasselhoff was on "knight ryder." everybody knows "knight ryder" because nbc did it, number one show for -- >> i have a retraction to make as well. >> yes? . that wasn't marlo thomas next to

david hasselhoff guy rating in a black vest but the woman on the video you see coming up was -- >> mary lou henner. she was on "taxi." >> i got it wrong. >> there she is. she looked like marlo thomas from a dance. >> it's good to clarify that. >> so we decided to bring in some goldman sachs alumni this morning. >> and jim cramer. >> you worked for goldman sachs. >> yes, i did. fortunately, not during this period. >> are you -- your book is getting back to even. of course, a great book, we've talked about it time and again. it's still still a timely book to read right now. we were talking, though, about goldman sachs and i don't certainly want to be seen defending criminal behavior, if, in fact, it was criminal behavior, but what i was saying last hour, is it not the case, when money's flying all over the place and you have a market that keeps going up, it's just

natural, you're going to have people that are going to be betting on that boom, betting against the boom, and with a firm as big as goldman sachs, this is just not that shocking. >> you have to think of these as stocks in the same way you could bet against stocks and the market goes down, you're considered to be brilliant. you could bet against mortgages, if they went down you would be brillia brilliant. george soros made the bet against the pound. we could have investigated him for -- >> wait a minute. george soros in one day wrecked the pound. >> right, he wrecked the pound. >> broke the pound. >> broke the pound. >> the bank of england. >> in one day. because that's what you do in free markets. you bet for things, you bet against things. >> goldman did not wreck the housing market. goldman participated like many other firms. criminal, no. i think that the issue is was there intentional fraud or not? i think that's one of the reasons goldman was unwilling to settle. may i say about my old firm,

everything you could do wrong, they've done. every single thing, the moment you've been investigated, they've done. i don't know how much is goldman sachs. it's an embarrassment, a disaster. you could not handle -- >> you mean from a pr perspective? >> from a legal practice. they said they were surprised about this. surprised? that's why you pay these lawyers $2,000 an hour to not be surprised. they didn't understand the state of the play of s.e.c. the s.e.c. decided to gun for people. they also have no -- they were not ready pr-wise. they come out. the battle was won. i was talking to brian williams at a charity auction, we were dazzled aat how slow goldman was out of the gate. they've been arrogant, ideological, they've been thinking what matters is right or wrong. they think this was a toxic situation and begged for settlement. instead, they took on the commission. you never win against the commission. you get a jury trial and you're finished. >> unless they're distracted by porn. >> that's right. 16,000 times.

>> the biggest problem paulson created -- created a financial instrument based on just how likely each of these mortgages were to fail? is that what makes this worse than most situations? >> what makes this worse than most situations is that it's entirely possible this young guy, who's now holding the whole firm hostage, fabrice tourre, there's a possibility he sold it fraudulently. if he did, goldman has no defense. what i would emphasize is that this guy is way too powerful. the hearings will go badly. goldman new they were going to have a well notice, knew they were going to get prosecuted. the main thing you have to understand is that goldman has basically said, government, you're just dead wrong. instead of saying, government, we're sorry, what do you need to do? in order to end this, if it's a settlement, they will have to pay the largest fine in history and it's questionable whether senior management will be able to stay. a lot of this is goldman's doing. >> but i just -- i've got to ask

you, try to separate the fact that you worked there and just -- >> i don't think i could be more negative about goldman than i just was. >> i think you could. >> really? >> yeah. i think if you just separate and look at the charge, the charge, accused of it. >> it's not a frivolous. >> but why isn't it criminal? i don't understand. i'm not the only one asking this question. >> look, because they haven't referred it. remember, who commissioners said -- >> wouldn't you think that is criminal behavior? >> no, no, it's not criminal. >> why? >> as a lawyer, it's not criminal. it's just not. >> you have one customer -- >> it's intent -- >> a security and sell it to the other, you're not telling customers, another counterparty helped create the security. >> but that's -- >> wait a second. >> is that a material -- >> hold on, hold on. i mean, this is -- if you're trying to sell a car, it's like me building a car that i know is a lemon, a piece of crap. hold on a second. >> it's what phil said. >> and i say to all the other

carmakers in my shop, give me the worst crap that you don't want on your cars, the ones that make your cars inefficient, i'm going to put it in this car and -- >> let's make it trash. >> -- unload it on a consumer and the second they take it out of the driveway, it's not going to work. that's fraud. >> it was not a consumer. it was not the worst moencrtgag selected. i don't want to go down the path -- >> what do you mean? >> was upgraded by aca. look, all these failed. it doesn't matter if you picked the best or worst. >> but it's the intent. if your intent is to pick the mortgages most likely to fail, that seems to be fraudulent intent. we're not suggesting -- >> again, i'm not defending. . i'm saying it's a possibility. >> you're not suggesting paulson didn't deliberately try to find -- >> oh, he did. he want it to fail, of course he did. >> who's smarter than paulson. >> at the time it's not necessarily clear who was smart and who was dumb. i would say the government does not have a frivolous case. it has a real case.

to be given as a real case, goldman has to settle. this is a ridiculous thing goldman is doing. >> that's interesting. it will be a little settlement. >> $2 billion, $3 billion and management may not stay. >> that's what they'll give us when willie -- >> i'm going to be moreñr cynic now. >> you should be more cynical. >> well, i don't agree. >> illegal, unethical or unsavory? >> this is a toxic time. the government has to prove goldman sachs was involved with a bad trade and they'll be convicted. this is the world we're in. it's valueless for me. i can tell you since the charge came out goldman stock has gone down, and when they came out last week pro-pr, they lost again. the stock is telling you what's going to happen. they're going to lose. >> blankfein gone? >> entirely conceivable the government may demand that as part of the settlement. >> okay. that will -- interesting to watch in washington, the congressional hearing there.

let's get to our other top story. the senate appears headed for a showdown today over whether to begin debate on financial reform legislation. democrats need support from at least one republican to move forward but it's still not clear if any republican will break rank in time for the 5:00 vote. at issue, a proposed $50 billion fund that would help cover the costs of dealing with a major financial firm's failure. although the financial industry would pay for the fund, republicans argue it leaves the door open to bailouts. still there is optimism that a bipartisan compromise will emer emerge. >> we're getting there. we're close. we got some more work to do. we'll be meeting later today, faft, to talk about it. we're not there yet. but i hope we could get the votes tomorrow when we have this motion to proceed the bill to start the debate. >> this is something, by the way, that everyone has committed to try to do, and that is, to have this bipartisan agreement before it goes to the floor. i think it's important that we do so. >> so, if there is no bipartisan

agreement, republicans will block the motion to proceed to debating this bill? >> i think that's very likely. >> jim, assuming we get through this stage where we're debating whether or not to debate it, what do we end up with here? republicans have to give in, don't they, or else risk being seen as defending wall street? >> they have to give in. this affects only one krngs goldman sachs. there are no other companies that have more than $100 million exposure. this is just about goldman sachs because they dominate the derivative business. comes back to a firm that's been targeted and regarded as being the outliar. you can like that or not, but this does not mean a great deal for the industry. we'll list derivativetives on exchanges. we should have done that for a long time. i say hallelujah, the legislation is much needed. >> and, of course, most americans want to make sure we don't have another boom and a bust on wall street like we've had with the asian -- well, black monday in '87, the asian crisis, long-term capital, the

dotcom boom, worldcom, enron, fannie, freddie. does this bill stop this from happening or are are we nibbling -- >> you ask people, will it happen again? yes, it will happen again. cycles are unavoidable. but you can do thing to make things less is he rear. larry summers said, listen, we used to have highway fatalities and then we put in guardrails, seat belts, spliments and dropped the number of people killed on highways. can't we make these cycles less severe? >> why less severe? why would we do that? why would we do guardrails or the secretary treasury says -- >> because we're almost back to the stone age. 18 months ago we were almost back to the stone age. >> you want to reduce leverages, put derivatives on exchanges, make sure people on main street aren't hurt by these -- >> we're creating a setup for a failure as opposed to preventing the failure. why not instead of the fund and all these things to wind down,

i'll ask the same question i asked andy, why not break these up so we don't have too bigger to fail, which is what we have right now? >> this is really the battle of 1896, the populist, the democrats, versus mckinley which is the goldman sachs position. i think it's important to recognize brandeis, who came up with sunlight is the best disinfectant did nail this in the 'thirty. you can starve them of capital and they won't be able to get away with this behavior behave. i think summers is very right. the administration is being very sophisticated. barney frank is the genesis of all this. he's sophisticated. we need to know what they're doing. we can put them in jail, starve their capital. >> and stop them from doing it, jim, why not go back to the '30s and reinstate glass/steagall? >> i think glass/steagall makes a lot of sense. >> are you for the volcker rule? . >> it's a little more difficult. what i think what comes with that, i think that you should -- if you do open-minded and if you

put everything on board, if everything's listed, we don't feed to have a volcker rule. i think the separation of investment bank woog not have stopped -- you you asked the question, would it have stopped what happened? no, none of it would have stopped but it would have made it a dick fuld couldn't hide things on his balance sheet. and because they hid, we didn't know how badly they were doing. fuld in his testimony said here one day, gone the next. no thank you. here one day, you spent six months off. now, if we had a new york fed that was able to dictate and show what you could do, we don't need the volcker rule. we just need to know what they have. >> same thing with aig, of course, the a big, bad actor -- coming up, how far is too far? we go inside the arizona immigration debate. and chuck todd joins us with a look at top stories coming out of the white house this morning including a latest on an ohio man facing charges this morning after police say he showed up with a gun, saying he wanted to see the president.

first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> good morning, everyone. we're still tracking this dangerous weather in southern florida. still associated with the same storm system that produced all of those tornadoes over the weekend. we're watching the ft. myers area, cape coral and naples area of the west coast of florida. still under a possibility of damaging winds and isolated tornadoes during the day. otherwise, kind of a gloomy monday out there with a little light rain on and off. we're tracking it. from ohio, pittsburgh, now through philadelphia, light rain for your morning commute. d.c., a chance of a thunderstorm today. new york city, have that umbrella handy, too. here's your gloomy monday forecast, 56 degrees in new york today with cloudy skies. the rest of the country, looking very nice in that area that got hit by severe weather, mississippi, alabama, tennessee, for the clean-up today it will be sunny and pretty nice. that's a look at your monday forecast. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. hi-- number two, please.

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we cannot bring back the 29 men we lost. they are with the lord now. our task here on earth is to save lives from being lost in another such tragedy, to do what we must do individually and collectively to assure safety conditions underground, to treat our miners like they treat each other, like a family, because we are all family and we are all americans. >> that was the president yesterday eulogizing those miners in west virginia. here with us now, chief white house correspondent and nbc news

political director and co-host of "the daily rundown," chuck todd. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you guys. >> let's start with financial reform. this vote at 5:00, seems like some are slightly hopeful it might move forward but there are some republicans who say no. >> reporter: well, i think that you -- look, what was fascinating about yesterday on the sunday shows and even what you read today in the quotes, from all the republicans, we're close, we're close, a deal is imminent and the democrats are sounding a little pessimistic when it comes to at least getting a deal, say, before the vote this afternoon -- late this afternoon at 5:00. so, we'll see. but it does feel like something's going to happen before then and that with that sitting as the deadline, there are too many republicans that seem to want to cut a deal, to want to move this forward, that i guess i would be surprised if this thing somehow got held up on a 59/49 vote. >> we heard dick shelby announced this morning from

capitol hill, just now, that a deal is not going to happen today. help us out here. you say a lot of republicans want this to happen, i guess they want political cover, the democrats all want it to happen. what's the back and forth about? what are they debating? >> reporter: well, it seems at this point they are debating small things having to do with the issue of how you do the winddown, the consumer protection and the too big to fail aspect. and so -- and obviously they had this initial argument on the, quote, bailout fund, but that seemed to be discredited, a lot of what the republicans were saying or what mitch mcconnell was saying and it turned out it wasn't a taxpayer bailout fund and wasn't clear everybody was on board for this thing. that in itself seems to be shoved aside. the roll of the dice the republicans are playing here, though, is can they keep all 41

republicans from moving this bill on the floor? it doesn't seem to me they know for sure they have all 41. olympia snowe, corker. corker sound like he's going to be on the team but snowe, collins, maybe scott brown, they're sit tlougt as well. >> chuck, jim cramer. what are the republicans really fighting for, the right for the banks to continue to rip off the customer or the right for the customers to be able to manipulate treasuries and manipulate interest rates? i'm trying to figure out what the cause celeb is for republicans? is it because they want huge banks ableç=;nr to dominate sma banks? i don't get the gist of their arguments. >> reporter: on one hand they're struggling with this idea of what's trying to be done so the banks is basically more regulation and more government regulation, on one hand. on the other hand, they've been campaigning a lot on saying, you know what, government's getting too big. frankly, i think what's going on here, with a lot of republicans, what some believe might need to be done on wall street also runs counter to their own philosophy

on this. >> right. exactly. >> reporter: so i don't -- i don't want to sit here and demonize their motives, i really think this gets in the way of the philosophical argument. at the same time, you hear all of tease republicans, whether it's mcconnell in leadership or bob corker or suson collins, they all want to do something pretty big but they have to find this whatever -- this elises ive middle ground is. the white house doesn't ever want to look like they're, quote, compromising because their bill will be, quote/unquote, tough. so they're in their own political box. >> it's tap dancing and it's hard to understand how they'll go back to their electorate and say we were against the financial reform system at this point. >> reporter: they're not. like i said, i will be shocked today if this thing gets held up. you're handing the democrats a talking point if they are successfully able to philly bfi.

there are political guys in the democratic party that will-r already rooting for republicans to do that. >> chuck, let's go over a couple of quick issues. immigration, does the president want to move forward quickly on an immigration bill to put republicans in a corner and also to, obviously, make an example of the arizona law that may be passed? >> reporter: no. look, i think you had it -- what was fascinating before last week, both leaders -- leaders of both parties seemed to have this agreement they were going to punt immigration until 2011. don't deal with it this year, in an election, it's too hard, what are you trying to do? that was john cornyn's argument? who was the guy at the end of the day that want to make a deal on immigration, and at the same time, because he's head of the nrsc, he has a bunch of guys running for re-election, worry being their own republican bases, so he didn't want to deal with it this year. there seemed to be an agreement

between everybody. not going to happen this year. then two things happened. you had harry reid two weeks ago realizing that maybe his only path to re-election is energizing hispanics so he said, i'm bringing immigration to the floor before energy. and then arizona happened. and i think this is one of those now that's reluctantly dragging the white house into this. they feel as if they don't get involved, then -- >> so the white house -- >> reporter: -- pay their own political price on hispanics. >> very interesting, harry reid. i talked to a very well known moderate sdemedemocrat in the s that was very angry at harry reid for dragging immigration to the forefront. and i think this democrat spoke for a lot of moderate democrats, that saw it like you said, as a ploy for harry reid politically in his own state, but something that's going to hurt moderate democrats, who are in big trouble already this year. >> reporter: joe, i think this

is going to hurt -- this could hurt a lot of people on both sides. long term, i don't see how this immigration issue is very helpful to the republican party. maybe it helps short term in a midterm fire up the base a little bit, maybe it helps them -- hurts the moderate democrats. you see how this could hurt demographically the republican party, if they look like the party of show me your papers, prove to me your citizenship f they're that party the hispanic party will end up 80-20 democratic vote and riddle me this, how do republicans win the white house? is that said, this election year, i don't know how this -- it's one of those that could hurt everybody. >> you're right. in the short run i'm sure a lot of republicans are looking at the fact that in off-year elections the electorate are older and wider and more likely to support the arizona law. in 2012, in a presidential election, this is a nightmare for republicans that would support this arizona bill. what was seth myers' line from

"saturday night line," willie? >> it's a dry fascism. >> have movie you see on the holl holocaust, show me your papers. you have somebody being stopped because they're hispanic? >> you left your wallet at home and you're in trouble. >> what decade are we in? >> you leave your wallet at home, you're in trouble. >> i've got to get to switzerland. >> chuck, before you go, what's this story, what's the update on this, i guess, armed guy that was impersonating a cop? >> reporter: well, just that. and they found rifle -- formulas for rifle scopes in his car as well, which are used to measure distances if you're trying to do any long-range targeting. clearly this guy -- he gave an invalid driver's license. they couldn't find his driver's

license number. that was enough, it appears, to arrest him. he's only been arrested as -- on a misdemeanor. he appears in court today. look, whackos show up at a lot of presidential events. clearly, law enforcement does a pretty good job of finding these whackos because we every once in a while hear about them, see them arrested. just goes to show you, they can show up anywhere. this guy from ohio showing up in asheville, north carolina. >> chuck, on friday dick durbin acknowledged he had been subpoenaed for rod blagojevich's trial, a trial coming at the worst possible time for democrats in illinois up. also look at the fact, the democratic nominee's family bank went under, so a lot of problems in illinois, including our own chicago affiliate out in illinois has aggressively gone after some of the claims and have redacted some of the claims

from a complaint. is the white house afraid that this president may get pulled in about some -- as this heats up over the summer and fall, may get pulled into this? >> reporter: can i tell you, the way they've handled the illinois political situation, there's been this fear of touching it, right? there's this assumption since blagojevich tried to sell the seat, figure illinois-related is radioactive. for instance, they made one effort to find a candidate in that senate race, it failed. then they backed off. even though you talked about the democratic nominee, alexei, his family bank that just went under. he's also going to get potentially dragged into the resco trial, another part of this blagojevich situation. >> obama is? >> reporter: well, no, this is ginnoulis. so it's not to say, there are been questions, why didn't this white house with david axelrod and barack obama, why didn't they try to wash their hands of it when they were going to get

dragged into this mess? why didn't they try to get somebody else to run, talk ginnoulis to bide his time, don't do this this year. there were a lot of things the white house didn't do. at the time it's understandable, right? it was a mess. you didn't want to tauch anything blagojevich, didn't want to look like you were at all a part of that deal but now the whole thing has blown up. at the end of the day it's going to cost them a senate seat, maybe the governor's mansion. this is a big deal. it's not a small state. >> before you go, does the president of the united states understand what an honor it is to have an audience with derek jeter at the white house today? >> reporter: i don't know. >> come on. >> reporter: the yankees are coming, right? this is when you get all the phoney fans, all the pretend yankees fans. they've been following the yankees ever since derek jeter and you're like, can you name three guys in their line-up from the -- >> exactly. >> reporter: fr-- from the '77 world series in from '81?

nobody. >> who was the straw that stirred the drink? quick. >> reggie. >> fuhrman. >> thank you so much. >> reporter: chris chambliss, where do you want to go? >> corner him in. >> reporter: those cheaters, they cheated in the '77 world series and ripped the dodgers off. >> chuck todd at the white house, thank you so much. you can catch chuck at 9:00 on eastern time right after "morning joe" on "the daily rundown" right here on msnbc. >> they hate each other. >> i know. it's cute. there's so much friction. who's saying aliens are definitely out there? turns out someone you might to want listen to. >> no. and later, the arizona immigration debate, is it racial profiling? we'll talk to telemundo. thing as taking a chance?

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welcome back to "morning joe," just after 7:30 on the east coast. time for a quick look at today's top stories. rescuers continue to search for people who may be stranded or trapped after severe storms ripped through the south over the weekend. at least 12 deaths are now blamed on the violent tornado outbreak which carved a path of destruction from the louisiana line to east central mississippi. later today, federal officials will head to mississippi to survey the area. and determine if a federal disaster can be declared. i don't know how you wouldn't there. a climate bill change that was scheduled to be unveiled at a news conference later today is now up in the air after republican senator lindsey graham pulled out of talks. saturday, graham declared he couldn't support the legislation if democrats decided to prioritize immigration reform. still democrats pledge to continue working on the bill which would have reduced carbon pollution by 17% in ten years and 80% by the year 2050. >> i didn't understand this. lindsey said he supported this

climate change bill, but then said he was not going to support it anymore because they're going to also talk about another bill that has nothing to do with climate change. >> he's got a lot of leverage because he is mr. bipartisan. i mean, he's one of the few guys who's crossed lines like that. so if you rub him the wrong way that much, he jumps. >> i just don't understand that. if you believe the climate change is the crisis that lindsey believes it is -- >> it's nonsequitur. >> it is. >> he's being very political. >> see, i don't understand these things. i'm just a simple -- >> country boy? >> -- caveman lawyer. >> moving on -- >> the warren buffett of politics. the equivalent of nebraska -- >> i just fell off a turnip truck on the way in. in fact, that's why i'm dressed like this. >> that would explain it. >> i was shoveling turnips. astro physicist stephen

hawking shares his belief there really is intelligent life out there. the show gives viewers a glimpse hawking's imagination where alien existence is, quote, perfectly rationale. hawking warns against seeking out extraterrestrial life -- >> don't do that. >> we should ask them for their papers. >> hold on. stay off the roof of the building with your telescope. >> i had that penciled in at 1:35. >> don't try to talk to them because -- >> anyhow, apparently, it can be dangerous. >> what do we have? >> i feel weird reporting on that. i don't believe it. coming up next, it's called the toughest antiimmigration law ever. we'll go inside the arizona immigration controversy with telemonday dough's jose diaz-balart when "morning joe" continues. smart...you're staying at this resort for free? how?

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this week arizona signed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country which would allow police to demand identification papers from anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. i know there's some people in arizona worried obama's acting like hitler. can we agree there's nothing more nazi thag than saying, show me your papers? there's never been a world war ii movie that didn't include the line, show me your papers. every time someone says, show me your papers, hitler's family gets a residual check. i know, it's fascism.

a dry fascism but still fascism. >> dry fascism, our phrase of the day. with us now, telemondaydo, jose diaz-balart joining us. jose. >> thank god, jose. we were concerned you might be in phoenix and we wanted you to be able to complete the newscast. fortunately, you're in our home state of florida. good for you. can you believe this bill? >> good morning to all of you. >> can you believe this bill? talk about the hispanic community. again, i'm not painting myself as mr. moderate on this issue. i was against the kennedy bill. i thought it was amnesty. but this really is about asamum chilling. what's the hispanic community think about the fact that if you're hispanic in arizona, under this new law, you could be stopped for simply being hispanic? >> yeah, but you know what, joe, you don't have to be just

hispanic to be worried about it in arizona because if joe or mika is driving their automobile in arizona and a friend of yours says, hey, why don't you come by the house, pick me up, get a bite to eat, you pick that person up and he has a friend and that person is undocumented, you know, immigrant and the cops stop you, then they can impound your car and you're guilty of transporting an undocumented immigrant. so, it's not just hispanics that should be concerned about this law. i think it's anybody and everybody who worries about their civil rights. >> so, if we're -- if, let's say, we're driving a friend, an american citizen to a restaurant, who happens to be hispanic, you're saying we could be pulled over as well? >> no, you could be pulled over just because they don't like your hair. i mean -- >> well, that's actually -- that's a bad example because that happens to me about every three weeks. my hair's an absolute mess. but it is really -- but this

is -- i've got to believe, again, this is, in the has pisp community, this is chilling. >> yeah, the. here's another point the bill brings up. they say it is unlawful for an illegal to look for work -- to apply for a job. so, let's analyze this. so, there are maybe 12 or 14 million undocumented immigrants in the united states. nobody debates that, right? so in arizona one of the things they're saying when they brought up this law is, we're sick and tired of the costs of undocumented immigrants and the crimes that they, you know, produce in arizona. so, then your solution to that is, they're here anyway, well, you can't apply for a job. you can't be working if you live in arizona and you are undocumented in any way. so, how do you think that's going to cut back on the crime situation?

>> jose, it's willie geist. on the face of it, this sounds utterly outrageous and ridiculous. you were there reporting last week. what's the other side of it? what does the governor say in her defense and what are the supporters of the new law say? >> yes. as a matter of fact, i also anchor telemundo evening news. we've been there since a week ago sunday. the whole show has been, you know, anchored from arizona. eye got to tell you, you know, there is fear and there is frustration on both sides. and so we spoke about the hispanic community side. let's talk about the other people. you know, we -- and we did this on "nbc nightly news," we talked about this, and on the "today" show. the people that have the farmers and ranchers that live on the border, it's a huge border with mexico, you know, let's think of their position for a minute. they have hundreds of people that they don't know coming through their land every week.

and, you know, what you do know about those people is that there is an underworld, a mafia, that is hell-bent on de3ex%ng anything that gets in their way, that's organizing these transfers from mexico into the united states. here they're coming through their area, and they have no control. the border is so porous, they can sit back and watch these people come through. there's fear on that side, too. >> jose, give me the other side of the story. there's got to be one, and i would like to hear it from you. >> that's it. >> what would be the upside beyond that? what's the argument? why would anybody really think that this could be effective and better for our society? >> okay, there are two points on that. i'm glad you bring it up. one is that, you know, what do do you, do you just sit back and let anarchy rule? so, if the federal government is not going to do anything about it, let us, arizonaens, set up a law and try to at least wave the

flag and say, hey, here we are. you know, a lot of people on both sides of the issue are saying that were it not for the inaction of the federal government, that would have -- the inaction of the federal government has created this political oxygen that lets laws like this breathe and take life. so, you know, the hispanic community on one hand remembers that president obama, when he was a candidate as far back as 2008, promised if he won he would within 100 days have immigration reform, then he changed that to the first year in office. neither one of those two things have happened. on the other hand, you know, the people that say, let's do something about this are sitting back and no one does anything and then you've got hundreds of people coming through there their farms and their land every week. >> jose, isn't it also the fact that we have, and it's ironic that you have janet napolitano, the former governor of the state of arizona, this is a swift rebuke to her, but you actually have a civil war breaking out in

mexico right along the u.s. border. and the federal government does not seem engaged. so, i understand why people in arizona are very angry at their former governor, very angry at barack obama, very angry at republicans and democrats alike, for not moving forward with this bill. isn't this, in a sense, arizona -- again, even though we oppose this bill, or at least i do, i'll just speak for myself, isn't this just the people of arizona saying, we've had enough, we're sick and tired of our border being just absolutely -- it's anarchy and the feds are doing nothing about it, so we're going to. >> that's exactly right. and then as you say, then the northern mexican towns, the border towns, are exploding in this al qaeda-style vie len. chopping heads off and throwing them on the sides of the road. a couple weeks ago, a month ago, they killed two americans that were related to the american

consulate. we were there for that as well. >> and shot children in baby seats in the backseat of cars. >> that's right. >> where is -- i think we have to ask the question, i mean, we know -- >> the loss of -- >> where is janet napolitano in all of this? why isn't she saying we need more people on the border? it seems every time we hear from her she's saying, it's fine. >> yeah. and by the way, the other issue is, you know, what about the 12 to 14 million people who have been here and who have worked and who have progressed and who have created jobs by working in the fields and in the yards and in the restaurants, what happens to them? should they not be able to one way or another see some light at the end of the tunnel? >> good point. good to see you, jose. >> good to see you, thanks. >> did you two work together? >> we did, but he wouldn't remember. >> we did, indeed.

of course i remember, mika. very early in the morning, even earlier than this show. >> he's also a politician. >> he's very good. jose diaz-balart, thank you very much. coming up later, cnbc's erin burnett joins us on the set, along with auter and along with editor of the new yorker qurk david remnick. first, willie. >> george w. bush will get a first look at his memoir due out in a few months. new insight what happened in the days before and after 9/11. more on "morning joe." [ speaking native language ] [ speaking native language ] [ moans ] [ speaking native language ] ♪ [ speaking native language ] [ male announcer ] doctors have been saying it forever. let's take a look. [ male announcer ] but they've never actually been able to do it like this.

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just brushing leaves germs behind. adding listerine® antiseptic cleans deeper. [ boom! ] to penetrate and kill more germs. [ exhale ] [ male announcer ] listerine®. clean deeper. get healthier™. >> people asking about that photograph saying you guys make me do the dishes on this show. >> we do. >> every show. >> you've got to clean up after yourself, willie. you don't learn when you're a child, you never learn. >> joe's like i'm done with this. go cleanup. >> there's lipstick on the cup. >> i'm not going to stand for it after this week. let's talk about president bush's new book coming out in a to you months called "decision points." he is said by the accomplish

tosh working on it almost every day for the 15 months since he's been out of office. a lot of people wondering what he's going to say about the leadup to 9/11. he says he'll have information on all that and talking about his decision to give up drinking. people looking forward to hearing it from the man himself. >> it is going to be interesting like we said before. he's been quiet for the most part. >> low profile. >> which i think all presidents should do for about a year or two. he probably is going to make his book more saleable, right? >> remember ronald reagan did that right after he left office, he went to japan and gave big speeches. >> speaking tour to promote the book. i think he'll do a good job. this is going to be the big fall book. >> he's laid low pretty well the last 15 months. we have to report on this because jonathan capehart of the "washington post" is on vacation this week in venice. >> our new venice correspondent. >> a dispatch for us from

venice. >> this is probably. >> wow, this is the view from his table i assume out on his veranda overlooking the canals. canals of venice. >> not quite as heart breaking news as i expected from the continent but he's got the venice beat. i want that beat. >> thati)v looks like a good ti >> he lives well, jonathan capehart. >> that's good, willie. >> we've got some very, very important e-mails about the big news of the day. immigration, financial reform. what do they say, chris? >> mika is sporting the '60s retro look. looks like my mom in my baptism photo. are you making many men out there mad. >> if it was about mika, i never would have done it. >> i love it. >> stick to the issues. >> you're talking about an issue, this is out of hamlet. this kid is lusting after his mom in a -- while being baptized? >> female ed pass -- get thee to

a shrink. >> what else do we have? >> bruce in texas says mika, you look perfect this morning. i think america needs to know how you look in burnt orange. they want that same dress but in burnt orange. >> a texan. >> chris, please. >> i'm uncomfortable. was there anything about sloppy joe? >> how come everyone else is in business clothes andio is wearing the jogging suit had he in college? >> joe doesn't own a jogging suit. joe doesn't jog. >> why would i have a jogging suit? >> please don't ever wear one. oh, my god, the mental image. my eyes are burning. >> the matching suit on joe. >> actually, i have actually asked al sharpton if i can borrow the jogging suits he used to wear in the '80s. no, seriously. those look good. >> they're sharp. >> velour jogging suit. i'm going to wear that tomorrow. >> i want to see that. >> sorry for those, mika. >> tune in, viewers.

>> i'm disturbed about this one guy saying he thought you were hot because you rimtd reminded him of his mother in his baptism outfit. >> it's a little weird. should i say thank you? >> just move on. >> jim, thank you. i'm glad we could end on a high note. >> that was classy. coming up, we've got the new yorker's david remnick and c cnbc's erin burnett net right here when "morning joe" continues. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 i thought investment firms were there

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i sat down yesterday in new york with a dozen of the top wall street ceos and bank presidents. even though the meeting itself was a disappointment, the restaurant where it was held unbelievable. i'm being deadly serious. the best steak i have ever had in my life. now, when the bill came, i was seated near the head of the table so i got a peek at it. 12 people and i'm not going to tell you how much it was but it was mind blowing. $85,000. >> very good. >> welcome to "morning joe." it's the top of the hour. >> oh, my gosh, it is the top of the hour. >> erin burnett here, international superstar, she jets across the world. she goes into countries, comes out. their economies collapse. she just keeps moving and never stops. she's on "meet the press"

yesterday, this morning "morning jo joe"". david remnick said he only wants to talk about the yankees at the white house. >> no, we're not doing that. >> why? >> i like the red sox. they go to the white house, we'll talk. >> you too? >> oh, yes. i love them. they're awesome. >> it's been a 30-year disease. >> willie geist, fortunately stayed with gm all along. >> i rode them through good times and bad. >> the red sox can't play this game anymore, not aftercyñ ñ th won. you can't play this kind of little literary band box of a ballpark nonsense. come on. >> i was talking to barnicle last week. i actually did say a 100-game loss season for the some of would be a good thing to kind of clear out all those people who in 2004 started wearing the cap. it has been a miserable season for the some of thus far. >> big pappy not so big. >> not so big and j.d. drew, you

combined j.d. drew and ortiz's average together, the two biggest salaries on the team, it doesn't get to xt 300. >> combines to big pappy's age. >> how are your books going? >> "the bridge," the life and rise of barack obama." >> the life and rise of barack obama. >> a special report on saudi asian women. we'll get to that in a moment. a lot to get to and erin, it will be good to ask you about our top story. which it appears the senate will not begin debate on financial reform legislation today. democrats need support from at least one republican to move forward. it doesn't look like any republican will break rank in time for the 5:00 vote. at issue, a proposed oo billion fund that would help cover the costs of dealing with the major financial firm's failure. senator richard shelby of alabama broke the news of the vote a short time ago.

>> what are the chances of a deal before the test vote today? >> i don't believe we'll have a deal today, george. i believe we will have the votes this afternoon but senator dodd and i and our staff will be meeting. we want a bill that's going to put this to bed forever, the idea that you're going to bail out somebody and what we're trying to do here is strengthen the bill, not weaken it. >> erin -- >> yep. >> the republicans seem offended by a $50 billion provision in here, a so-called bailout part of the bill. . uh-huh. >> but as we have been saying on this show every morning because we are reporting it in realtime when it happened, if one of the big five or six banks collapse at 8:00 a.m., you're through $50 billion by 8:04 a.m. this is much ado about nothing, isn't it? >> i think that's a fair point. not all assets at banks that fail are going to be bad. only a certain part of them. just to give you context, the top 25 banks in this country, there's not a single one that

hits the $50 billion. union bank out of california would be the smallest and they have assets of $85 million. biggest banks of america, you're looking at $2 trillion plus. so yes, the amount is. >> by the way, those that have a trillion plus are the banks that the federal government whether the republicans like it or not we'll have to step into because we let lehman fall and look what happened to the economy. >> that's true. if you talk to the committees, they'll admit the amounts they lift their finger and held it up in the wind. the concept is we're going to have the banks contribute to a fund of let's just say there is no amount, but they're going to contribute so if they fail they pay for it themselves. this bill doesn't do that. if you need extra money, you can go to treasury and get it. they print it or you can get it from taxpayers. they want to prevent an aig where everything goes bad. we're going to pay everyone out at 100%. they're not really preventing that. >> but this is like a doctor

saying, let's get real here. this is like a doctor saying okay, in every case of cancer that i have to work on in the future, i'm only going to open up my patient and work on my patient for 30 minutes. and then i'm going to close him back up. this $50 billion mark is so aesh temporary, there is no way if a jpmorgan or bank of america fails, they're going to -- whether it's a republican orz.< democrat president. >> what are the republicans trying to accomplish by putting off the vote? >> i think they have a point about the fund, do they not? >> they have fair points. are they also trying to say no to make a point, yes. at some point they're going to have to do it because of the people of america want to do it. everybody expects it. the details are to be determined. >> 20 to 25 republicans who want to vote yes on this as well because republicans feel like they've got a big advantage going into the fall but this is,

if they side with wall street, they could hurt some of those. >> i said it before. we're going into midterm elections and the conventional wisdom is that the democrats are going to have a blad bath in the fall. we saw a piece in the times" over the weekend talking about how there's going to be a republican victory in the house and yet, it's harder to see if there are victories like health care as complicated as that is and if there's a financial reform bill which plays right into the this kind of populist fever, and that there are other victories between now and the fall, why is that conventional wisdom a lock for the fall? i'm not quite sure. >> isn't it interesting that jeff zellny also said, willie geist, we've been talking about jobs, jobs, jobs. said how many people in wisconsin are talking about wall street. he said none. how many are talking about health care. a few he said. it is all about jobs. >> we hear that from every reporter out there. whatever we're talking about is not necessarily what they're

talking about. people want jobs. >> goldman sachs, it was much easier for me in 1994 instead of talking about the deficit, i would give numbers and people's eyes would glaze over. i'd give specifics. do you know we're paying the national helium reserve $85 million a year and then people would look up. goldman sachs a lot more than $85 million a year obviously on this story. goldman sachs may be, case in point for a politician running this fall about how washington's out of control. >> there's some e-mails making headlines this morning. on capitol hill, senators are gearing up to grill top xbs from goldman sachs this week on how the firm profited from betting against the u.s. housing market. over the weekend, carl levin released internal e-mails from the company that seemed to bolster charges the powerhouse misled investors. in one of those lloyd blankfein admitted we didn't dodge the mortgage mess. we lost money, then made more

than we lost because of shorts. still goldman sachs blast the senate for reaping a conclusion before holding a hearing. there are millions of e-mails. >> we heard from jim cramer and also andy serwer that that e-mail itself was truncated. >> it's also important, that e-mail was in the end of 2007. and in 2007, the firm did make money on mortgages. part of this could have been creative accounting but in 2008 they lost. if you take them together, firm did net across all their real estate divisions lose money. >> first of all, some of this argument sounds to me like there's been gambling in a casino. and then there's going to be an argument about what goldman did or did not do that's illegal. how do you separate that? >> it's a difficult situation but on part of it, it makes sense, right? if a client comes to you and wants something and you don't want to necessarily have that huge position yourself, you may hedge it. that may be just good risk management. if it goes bad, your firm

doesn't go under, too. that's what goldman's trying to say they did. we managed our risk so we don't lose money. that's their argument. there is a real quell. >> are we being knee i be here. >> no, there's a serious issue to your point whether an underwriter, someone who creates a security can bet against it. you're going to another client and trying to sell it so you are representing the value of that. i created this thing and now i'm trying to sell it to mika. so in that situation, is that different. can i represent to mika that this is something she should buy when i know that it is full of bad stuff. >> let me ask this. >> go ahead, david. >> how are the customers ris represented? customers actually buying this product, are they being misinformed or in fact, did they miss reading their due diligence? >> i think that's where that's going to come out. were they being misled or did they not do their homework.

these buyers were some of the most sophisticated on wall street. john paulson, this famous guy who bet against the housing market sitting at a table with another guy and the guy says you're crazy, why are you betting against housing. create more of these things. give me more, buddy. give me more. so that was going on. >> if the customer, i think that is the key point you touched on, if the customers is mika and you have goldman sachs coming to mika in 2007 saying buy this, that's one thing because she's going to trust goldman, but it was interesting because i don't know a lot about wall street culture. it was interesting as you talk to traders that deal with goldman, they say, half the time you deal with goldman, you're trying to figure out how they're trying to screw you. they're always playing you. they don't see that as a negative. they've. >> unique to goldman sachs and most every other bank? >> that's a really crucial bank. they may have been better at it than others but that kind of attitude, i know what one

customer's going to do so i want to trade ahead of it or prepare around it. which is not legal in the market. it's almost impossible to police it. that happens everywhere. >> that was my point and let's just underline that in case somebody missed it at home. the customers for these funds, even though there are a lot of people that got hurt in retirement accounts, but the commerce for these firms were some of the most sophisticated customers on wall street. >> the problem is political rather than the problem being anything else. the problem is lloyd blankfein is going to come in front of congress and he'll talk for hours and the snippet that will come out of it will be the political point and how it plays into television news. and you know, there's a big difference. >> does blankfein survive this? >> hell if i know this. let's -- one last question on goldman. not to put you in a bad position but this is kind of a journalism question, too.

is it fair to ask whether or not the charges against goldman, civil, should be criminal? >> it is fair. and ordinarily, you just go to the heart of what's very interestinging about this case. ordinarily the department of justice would simultaneously file a criminal charge along with the s.e.c. they have not. >> is it fair to ask why has that not happened. >> it is fair. that's why some of the people who think this is political get wind behind their sails. they say the vote on the s.e.c. was 3-2 along party lines. it would indicate they don't really have a criminal charge. even if they don't, the issues of compromising clients and integrity are central here not just to goldman but to wall street. >> look at the political sub text. look at a senator like charles schumer who has a liberal image in the state of new york and who's underfunded, funded largely by wall street who's gone silent on this sniper so has andrew cuomo who not return phone calls on this issue. >> he was so aggressively

investigating this stuff when everything fell apart. where's the follow through? >> i feel sorry for chuck schumer right now. >> he rarely goes silent. >> but there was such grand sort of like press releases and i'm going to investigate this and i want the e-mails and i'm going to get to the bottom of this and call you all in. >> can heart krikets over there. >> why? >> tell me why, mika. >> we're waiting for the latest funding numbers for mr. cuomo. >> you did a special report. >> i've got to ask, let me finish this. i've been trying to get this one question out. i usually am silent here for three hours. if you just let me ask one question. >> barely a peep is heard. >> if the s.e.c. prevails in its civil charges against goldman sachs, does lloyd blankfein survive? >> blankfein. >> whatever you want to call him. >> i can't even get blankfein out. does he survive?

>> it would in that case be a real question. i think is he known inside the firm for being a trader and being great at that. however, there's a real question as to whether he is sort of a leader of the stature that would be required to get through this. if he goes though, the firm will want someone internal who stands for those business principles. >> along with all the work you've been doing, you also have a special report on women in saudi arabia, which is stunning on a number of levels when you look at the number of college graduates and their employment situations. >> yes, it's amazing. we were lucky enough, we were talking about business in sadie asia but also in dubai. we have two special reports on women in dubai and saudi arabia. it is amazing. have you women with 65 to 70% of the graduate are female. the unemployment rate 70%. it is a stup pen dus number. 10% of the workforce is female.

women literally are still at home because of things they are not allowed to drive in 2010 in saudi arabia. it is still against the law. we have a profile of some lower class women and also upper class women who talk about some of these issues which is fascinating. it also links into the broader issue in that country. 22 million people. the unemployment rate for young men in their 20s is about 25%. and they have seven million foreign workers. importing workers to do a lot of the jobs because saudi arabiaians don't want to do those jobs which goes to the issue in the middle east which is why those economies are struggling but with the fastest growing youth population in the world. all these are central to our stability especially when you talk about supremism and al qaeda. >> women just treated terribly in saudi arabia, aren't they? >> you know, that is the is and yes, in a certain sense it, does live up to that. it is incredibly disconcerting

as a woman to see there's no women allowed to drive. as a western in riyadh, i had to wear the full coverage abaya. it was not a negotiable thing. you had to do it. it does make you feel very strange. what's interesting is a lot of women i spoke to seem to think and you'll hear them today, it's just a piece of cloth. don't let that get in the way. i am able to work and achieve things. so the nuance of it was more than i expected to be honest with you. >> we'll look forward to that. erin burnett, thank you very much. very good work. keep letting me know what happens with cuomo and those investigations. i'd like to snow. >> we'll keep calling. >> maybe we'll have him on and ask. >> do you think he would come on? >> call dropping. >> cuomo, there was a great piece of times, cuomo takes lots of calls and shapes his press conference. so he does a lot of off the record shaping. >> he will not do that with me.

maybe it's me. maybe i smell. >> don't do that. don't do ta. it's not you, believe me. coming up, an exclusive first look inside the politico playbook including the white house correspondents dinner. why it's becoming the super bowl of nerdy washington events. that would explain it right there. first, here's bill karins with a quick check on the forecast. >> here's a view of that wedge tornado, the one across mississippi on saturday. it was 1 is 7 an miles wide. ef-4, winds of 170 miles per hour. this morning, bad weather down here in florida. we've already had tornado warnings, trees down in many areas in the southern half of florida. that's going to track through west palm beach and fort lauderdale shortly. rain up north. philadelphia airport one-hour delays. washington, d.c. light rain. that will move into new york throughout the morning. also forecast just damp and gloomy all areas of the mid-atlantic up through new england. middle of the country looking just fine on this busy weather

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♪ mika, it's a "morning joe" staff meeting right now. with us now, patrick gavin has another look for us at the playbook. hey, patrick. >> good morning. >> david remnick and i were just

debating the bank tax on the break and hoping you could weigh in on this. max baucus told politico the bank tax is coming. what are the democrats up to? >> that's right. he had an offhand comment to politico's david rogers in which he said he thinks it's going to be very hard to avoid the bank tax given the united states fiscal problems. obviously, it's going to come on on top of a lot of other big things that have happened. health care reform, financial regulation reform which they still haven't quite figured out revenues on that. this summer they're going to talk about how bush's tax cuts expire at the end of this year. have you what amounts to a lot of the fiscal issues on the table. an democratic donors are not going to like this. it will be interesting to see whether or not democrats can pass this because obviously big rich wall street guys aren't very popular right now but they are very powerful. >> andy serwer, what is the bank tax, why is it controversial?

>> it's controversial because the bankers don't want it and have tremendous lobbying power at this point. it makes a lot of sense given that they were given so much aid in terms of bailouts and in terms of low interest rates. that produced tremendous profits over the past year. and a lot of people think, well, shouldn't they give some of that back in terms of a temporary tax. i think it makes a lot of sense actually. not popular on wall street but not a lot is these days. go to cooper union and listen to a speech. >> why concentrate on democratic donors, why not wealthy people across the board? >> that's a really good question, david. at this point, everything is so sigh tied up with the financial regulation rules that are going on at this point. so i think it's hard to sort out. it's a very good question and lawmakers have to answer that. >> patrick, we're going to be down there this weekend for the white house correspondents dinner. give us a little preview. who's going to be there? break it down for us.

>> the sad or good thing depending on if you like this sort of thing it, literally starts tomorrow. there's a party tomorrow. parties wednesday, parties thursday. mr. remnick has a party coming up. msnbc has a party. capital file magazine, "vanity fair." so what was originally just one week or one weekend or even one night has turned into a full week. it's going to be exhausting. it goes as far as into sunday afternoon. there's still things going on. obviously the big question is whether or not jay leno is going to be funny, whether or not he's going to bring up conan. >> i didn't know it was jay l o leno. hollywood for ugly people. >> washington had a big party on sunday, right? >> those are fighting words down here in washington when you call us ugly. so very true. >> you called david remnick mr. remnick in the cheap hopes of getting an invitation to the party. >> sounds like he needs an invite. >> i'm only on the cover of "cat fancy." so you're talking to somebody at

"the new yorker." i have to hold them in high esteem. >> you do love cats. no getting around it. patrick gavin, thanks so much. we'll check you out today. coming up, a rental car giant gets even bigger. business headlines when we return. also, anna quinlan will join the conversation when "morning joe" continues. ♪

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joe and bobbie sue ♪ ♪ two young lovers with nothing better to do ♪ >> goldman theme. >> exactly. welcome back to "morning joe." just after 8:30 on the east coast. time for a quick look at top stories. rescuers continue to search for people tranneded or trapped after severe storms ripped through the south over the weekend. at least 12 deaths are now blame on the violent tornado outbreak including some children which carved a path of destruction from the louisiana line to east central mississippi. later today, federal officials will head to mississippi to survey the area

to determine if a federal disaster can be declared. a climate change bill scheduled to be unveiled at a news conference later today is now up in the air after lindsey graham pulled out of the talks. on saturday graham declared that he couldn't support the legislation if democrats decided to priorize immigration reform. still, democrats pledge to continue work on the legislation which would have reduced carbon pollution by 17% in ten years and 80% by the year 2050. and car rental firm hertz announce this had morning it has agreed to buy smaller rival dollar thrifty for about $1.17 billion in cash and stock. the deal will give hertz the world's largest car rental company an additional 1500 locations boosting its total to 9,800. okay. coming up next, still ahead, we're going to talk to news week columnist anna quind lan about her latest novel. every last one. i have read that.

next, the financial crisis in greece? could it happen here? could that happen here is a good question. we'll talk to economy and finance minister from france about the global implications that have when "morning joe" continues. re colorful shades of doing. more saving. more doing.

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grease which is plagued by

financial debt appealed to european partners in the imf on friday for a $60 billion rescue package. things are so bad that many have started refer together country as greece 2. >> that's pretty good. could it happen here what's happening in greece? here with us now economy and finance minister madame christine lagarde who spent the weekend at a g-20 meeting at world bank headquarters in washington. madame minister, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you so much for being here. how far will france and the rest of the eu go to save greece's economy? >> we'll go together. that's point number one. we'll go as a majority and we will go with the imf. so it's a joint package of euro group members and the imf to support greece. >> how much pressure politically will there be at home whether we're talking about the french leaders or german leaders to

take a tougher line against greece? this couldn't be very popular. i would guess in france. >> it's a give and take process, right? because we're going to help and support greece, by the same token, we're helping and supporting the euro, our common currency. on the other hand, greece has to do certainly more than it ever did before in terms of public deficit, in terms of tax collections in, terms of being really serious about numbers and statistics which clearly were not proper. >> are you concerned after all these years of mismanagement with greece's economy that many of its citizens still don't seem to understand that the midnight hour is upon them. there's riding in the streets, people are pushing back against cuts, against fiscal responsibility. do you think the citizens of greece get it. >> you know, the big difference in the last few months is that there was a government that was

prepared to actually confront the reality of numbers an, that was prepared to talk to parliament, publicly about it, and that was prepared to explain it to its public opinion. it's never pleasant when you have to accept a significant cut in your salary. it's never pleasant when you're told that your pension is potentially a little bit at risk. and when those that clearly avoid tax are going to have to pay tax. so it's obvious that the population doesn't like it, but there is in my view a strong political position on the part of the government to actually go through the process and restore the public finance of greece, which goes through kuth expenses and raising a bit of tax. >> madame minister, there's a lot of talk leading up to the problems in greece that some of these problems were brought on by traders, short sellers in the united states and in europe attacking the currency and the bonds and really the financial stability of greece. how much do you believe that is the case?

>> there is certainly a bit of that. but it begins with fundamentals and clearly the fundamentals of the greek economy at the moment clearly based on figures that were erroneous, stick that were wrong, started the process. now, having said that, i also believe that there are some derivative products particularly credit default swaps on sovereign debt which is a very narrow market on which there are only very few players, need a lot more clarity. that's certainly the line that i stand for which is number one clarity, number two accountability. that goes to cds, it goes to any dribtive products that is currently traded. >> we've been talking about those securities all morning with regard to goldman sachs and other wall street firms. is there a problem that next they'll go after portugal? and isn't that a concern for everyone in europe? >> no, as far as the extension of the difficulties are concerned because greece is not portugal. there is no issue about numbers

or issue about clarity, there's no issue about determination to apply some policy and the level of debts is completely different, as well. but equally, we must all be very an tentative to this issue of you know, clarity and accountability on the markets. and we cannot let those things continue unreined, unregulated, unsupervised as it did for many, many years. >> madame minister, a year or so ago when we were debating our stimulus package here in the united states, we actually had the leaders of france and germany lecture us on fiscal responsibility which horrified many americans. the french, if the french are attacking us on fiscal responsibility it, must be terrible. but i believe your president had a great point. you talk about fundamentals in greece. shouldn't we be talking about fundamentals in the largest economy in the world, the united states of america, which is projected over the next decade deficits that are unsustainable? >>, of course, we should look at

fundamentals and certainly take some hard measures. one set of measures has to do with financial regulations. and bringing a halt to what has taken place, as i said, without much serious watch and very often without regulation and quite often ot otc but under the counter because it simply wasn't visible, wasn't registered and not secured. and the other set of measures that we need to look at collectively is our public finances because in many, many countries around the world, and france is part of them, we have public finances that are not sound and solid if only because we had last year to invest massively into our economy when no one was investing and when we had to sustain growth and sometimes kick start growth. >> obviously we're going through a bit of a reset in our economy here. >> that's exactly right. >> to say the least and we're looking at trying to go through past financial reform. what is the view from france's perspective as to the reset that

we're going through? what is the attitude toward america and what we are trying to do and if we are doing enough to be the stable superpower that we want to continue to be? >> you know, it all rotates around key issues and principles. and to me, anything that favors supports clarity, things being over the counter for real, not under the counter. >> transparent. >> transparency, i'm not sure that transparency is actually the right thing. transparency you can have so much information you're lost in it. i'm much more in favor of clarity as to what really matters. number two accountability. those who make mistakes should pay for it. to give au example what we did last year when we had to inject funds in banks to sustain them through the crisis, well, what we did is we decided to tax bonuses in excess of certain amounts. because we considered that it's

not because the markets turned around and banks could actually you know, trade quite well last year. we didn't think it was right that traders should have the huge benefit out of it when taxpayers' money was actually engaged so we asked for the refund of taxpayers money number one and generate aid bit of interest on the back of it and decided to tax excess i be compensation because although that sounds a bit either tribal or interventionist, clearly when taxpayer money was engaged, there was no reason there would be sort of collateral profits as a result that would not give back a little bit to the state. >> economy and finance minister for france, christine lagarde. wonderful to have you on the set today with us. merci. >> we talk to anna gind len about her latest nobl. don't forget "morning joe" broadcasting live on sirius channel 9, xm 120. hi, anna, how are you? miss dimitra, when will you marry me?

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♪ in the middle of our >> what's that? >> take you back? >> way back. >> it's crowded house? >> no, madness. >> no. no, it's not. >> that is madness. our house? >> it's a one-hit wonder is what it is. >> dude, it's madness. >> no, it's not. came out about the same time as come on eileen. >> you know what? you were smoking pot in the board room by this time. i was still in college. >> here with us now pulitzer prize winning journalist and best selling fiction and nonfiction author anna quindlen. her new novel out now "every last one," i love it. i got to preread it because we got to do the more magazine reinvention convention tooth. >> that's right. bay month ago? >> gosh, was it? it was fun. the book is about an ordinary family that experiences this extraordinary tragedy. tell us a little bit about why you decided to write this.

>> well, you know, there's some stories that start going around in your head, and you just want to share them with other people. i mean, i've been thinking a lot about our idea now that we can keep our kids safe no matter what. you know, we've got the child proof capitals. we've got the kid seats, that you will kind of stuff. only that doesn't allow for happenstance, circumstances. other people coming into our lives. i think that's something i've thought about a lot as a mother. >> yeah. the book is partly inspired by the attacks on 9/11. give us i guess the inception of the book and the concept of it, how you came to it. >> well, i think since september 11th, a lot of us particularly in new york have thought about the ran doneness of peril. you look at some of those people on those planes, if they booked a plane a day earlier, they would have wound up on the west coast instead of where they did. and you just think that thing happen without rhyme or reason. >> i don't want to give it away, but given your track record this

one could become a movie, too. you've had three books that have turned into movies at this point, right? >> i have a feature film and two television movies. >> i'm looking at "every last one" on the big screen. >> they've been really good by the way. not just luck. >> when somebody says, women always say they were lucky and men say they were good. i don't know if that's true or not. >> you're good. okay? >> thanks. >> anna, people are always so interested in the process with someone as successful as you've been writing fiction. how do you sit down and our an entire story out on to a page? you're inspired by real events but for the most part, it's coming out of your head. >> if you did it like that and thought i'm going to write a fovl, i think you would be paralyzed forever. maybe it's because i was in the newspaper business for so long but i think i'm going to write a couple pages today. i'm going to write a scene today. by the time i finally sit down, the people have been rocketing around in my head for sim or eight months. i'm sure at least who my central

characteristic, my protagonist is and i learn about the others as i go along. >> how long does that whole process take. >> you about 2 1/2 years, maybe more or less depending on whether i'm writing a column at the same time. >> did this one present any different challenges for you given the subject matter? >> yeah, i cried a lot during it but i can touch type really well. there's this great quote from robert frost where he says "no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader." and i think if you're feeling something when you're writing, you know, maybe you're going to make the reader have that same feeling. >> so you get that pulled in, when you're creating, you get that pulled into your own story. so when this family is suffering on the pages, you're suffering as a writer. >> absolutely. they seem really real to you. this they don't, you're not doing your job. >> as a mom, was it hard to read what you wrote? >> it was. >> is that what brought to you tears? >> yeah, but you know, as a mom

i've learned over the years to really compartmentalize write when they're at school and then do the school pickup. i had-to-do it with this book. about an hour at the end of every writing day where i let the latham family go and went back to being anna again. >> how many kids do you have. >> three. >> how would are they. >> 26, 24 and 21. >> it never gets any easier, does it? it never gets easier as a parent. you think when they graduate from high school, i was such a fool, my oldest graduated from high school and i said okay, i can check him off the list. that's when it begins, right? >> and also you have other concerns. your kids get into their 20s and you think it used to be toilet training or homework and now it's who are they going to wind up mar rig, are they going to want to have kids? is it going to be somebody who takes good care of my grand kids. there's an infinite number of things to worry about when you have children. >> getting depressed. i'm just dealing with sisters

not getting along. >> mika in her book that she just wrote tells a story about how on her 39th birthday she got fired from the job that she loved the most. and her parents and entire family suffered along with that. it never ends as a parent. >> mika knows as you go forward, broadcasting well is the best revenge. >> aren't you nice. >> that it is. let's talk about in broadcasting and also print where you have poor poor andy serwer here who not only doesn't note names of 1980s bands but -- >> it's madness. >> exactly. doesn't even know that he's a dinosaur. he said that. >> magazines are dead. >> stronger than ever. magazines are stronger than ever. what say you, anna quindlen? >> what i say is that we're real bad in america about understanding the forms can coexist. there were years when we said okay, record albums aren't going to be any more live concerts. tv, no more plays on broadway.

print medium can coexist with online medium. we just haven't figured out how yet. we're in this crunch moment. we still listen to music in a variety of ways and we still have concerts. so we can walk and chew gum at the same time. >> and speaking of i'm glad you brought up the music portion of this because we heard in the late 1990s, nobody would pay for music anymore. steve jobs came along. he figured out how to monetize 45s is what we used to call them. somebody will figure out how to monetize "fortune" magazine even if its editor is pedestrian at best, right? >> the problem is that print journalism wasted about ten years. >> they did. >> thinking, ah, this internet thing is interesting but it's not really going to affect us when we should have been gearing up for it and we weren't. >> speaking of the ipad, we're putting our magazines, newspapers are all going on the ipad. steve jobs maybe will be the key

guy again. >> i rl do think he will. let me ask you really quick, as a writer, you've written for "new york times" for "newsweek," as a writer, does the internet get in your way, all the bloggers, the day in, day out or do you shut that out and say i'm going to write what i'm going to write whether it's a column or a book, i don't give a damn about the chatter happening underneath me? >> doesn't get in my way but i think you'd be stupid not to pay attention to the chatter because sometimes when is you see result that you have with a column or with a book, it tells you something about the zeitgeist, about what the public is thinking or feeling. i think you have to pay attention to that. i remember writing an iraq war column once and thinking i was going to get nothing but negativity when i got so much support for my point of view, i realized that the president had lost the public on iraq in a way that the polls hadn't told me. >> i'm glad you brought that up. we've got to go.

we want you to come back to talk politics. >> be happy to. >> anna, thank you. [ woman ] nine iron, it's almost tee-time... time to face the pollen that used to make me sneeze... my eyes water. but now zyrtec®, the fastest 24-hour allergy relief, comes in a new liquid gel. new zyrtec® liquid gels work fast, so i can love the air®.