[ monica ] i may not be home for a while. [ male announcer ] the new citi simplicity card. no late fees. no penalty rate. no worries. all right. time for a couple quick e-mails, john tower, what do you got? >> we've got two from twitter. i'm up salsa dancing in honor of victor cruz. >> how great was victor? here he is now starring on his way to the super bowl. he's great and he's from patterson, new jersey. what else you got? >> a debbie on twitter. put your money where your mouth

is, let's go pats. >> let's do one of those mayer -- you send us a crock of baked beans and we'll send you rats from the subway and garbage out on the street twice a week. "morning joe" starts right now. . do the new jersey giants win today? >> yes. >> you don't even flinch. you totally think they should be the new jersey giants. >> they are. the only thing new york is the ny on the helmet. most of their players live in new jersey and so, the new jersey giants are going to have a great game today, sorry to my friends in san francisco. it'll be a big win and on to the super bowl in indianapolis. >> the kick, is good! and the giants are going back to

the super bowl. >> and that was the reason my family was ignoring me at dinner last night. good morning, everybody, it is monday, january 23rd. welcome to "morning joe." i guess everybody's talking about this game. but we should talk about politics because a little something happened over the weekend. just a little something. >> just -- >> yeah. >> oh, my goodness. you know, mika, i know you've probably spent your summers playing -- well, newt's no hero, that's understood, the only redemption he's got to offer is attacking the media, and it's working really well. >> this is going to be a new story line. >> unbelievable. >> it's incredible. >> it was a shocking victory. and it -- you know? >> i'm still working through it. >> we have to miss something. we love java joes and we love iowa, and this is -- this is

like christmas week for us. >> what we do. >> it's what we do. >> what we live for. >> about the second day in iowa, we said this is the most boring presidential race we've ever seen in our lives. >> yeah. >> this is depressing. just four years ago, it was amazing, right? >> right. >> willie and i -- even the kids at the orphanage out in des moines. >> you fell in love with obama? >> no, i didn't. we were sitting there and we were talking and willie, what were the little orphans telling us? this is a boring election. >> yes. >> yes. >> that's right. he's a little tired this morning. it's not boring anymore. >> you stayed up too late. holy cow, it is a neutron bomb just dropped. >> we're going to talk about that with our panel. >> by the way, he won everything. he won -- >> stop. >> he won among evangelicals -- >> let me ease into the day. >> he won among conservatives. you know, the low country, that's supposed to be moderate republican country.

newt swept it. the north -- >> independents. >> evangelicals, greenville, spartan degree. >> joe, it's monday. the meds have not worn off and reality has not set in. i need to ease into this story. i have three hours. >> mark just said it, he won women. newt gingrich won women. all that talk about the wives -- >> married women. >> what? >> he won women, number one, and number two, he won by a pretty wide margin on the electability question. which was mitt romney's whole thing. i'm the guy who will beat the president. ♪ how sweet the sound >> that's what evangelicals believe in. they believe in forgiveness. it's you yankee media elitists that don't believe in that stuff. >> it's good for the president. with us onset, we have msnbc analyst mark haleprin and political analyst and visiting professor at nyu, former

democratic congressman harold ford junior. >> harold ford believes and he understands in the redemptive grace of jesus christ. you know how i know that? >> how? >> i saw his campaign commercials. you were raised in a pew, my man. yes. >> i think the longer this presidential race goes on the republican side, i have an unconventional thing. i think it's better for republicans. i hear your point, mika, about president obama would probably like to run against gingrich more. but if you remember four years ago, the real focus was on democrats. obama and clinton fought for a long time, they fought right up until the convention. clinton's delegates, or clinton's senior people went to complain or protest the fact that florida and michigan were not counted. there were disputes whether or not those should be counted on her behalf. and i think it helped democrats in the longer run. i think this helps republicans, as well. if it's gingrich, it'll give him a chance to rehabilitate himself and redeem himself in the eyes

of independent, moderate voters and alike. >> i think you're right. and everybody's of course this morning saying that mitt romney is the worst candidate of all time. i said yesterday -- >> even rick santorum, how do you -- >> be nice. >> they're saying mitt romney is the worst candidate of all time. he's not a conservative and newt's not a conservative. let's put that out on the table. now you have two people who have flip-flopped their whole lives, along with santorum fighting for this nomination. we'll see which flip-flopper the republicans pick. but you could say the same thing -- same thing was said about george w. bush when he had a 20-point lead in iowa in 2000 -- in new hampshire in 2000. he ended up losing by 20 points. the same was said about george h.w. bush in 1988 when he came in third place in iowa. a sitting vice president behind pat robertson. the same thing. and we forget this.

we said about ronald wilson reagan in 1980 in iowa. he was that flop, he was going to lose again. these things happen. it's reset time and maybe mitt corrects himself and becomes president like those -- or maybe it's newt. it's hard to say. >> it is hard to say. i mean, i think there are basically four options now. gingrich wins this quickly, romney wins this quickly, the two of them go all the way to the convention and battle it out and one of them emerges, and then i think there's a fourth option. i think it's possible if gingrich wins florida and continues to win in february that the party says romney's too weak, we can't have gingrich, we need another option. >> i think florida's going to be close. >> okay. >> we then go to michigan. which romney wins, nevada, which romney wins. >> i'm not so sure about that. >> but then on super tuesday it comes south and gingrich is going to pick up -- i don't see, willie, any way past a long,

hard slog to tampa. >> and there's no incentive for him to get out. at what point in the race would he get out? if he's close in florida. gingrich, yeah. he might fight and win nevada, then comes into the south. why is he going to get out? >> i wouldn't presume the results of michigan or nevada. >> okay. >> let's set the scene. congresswoman gabrielle giffords stepping down and also joe paterno passed away over the weekend. a sad story on other levels. but back to politics. after a huge turn around in south carolina, newt gingrich is trying to capitalize on saturday's 12-point primary victory over mitt romney. the republican presidential candidates have now moved to florida. with another showdown just hours away on tonight's nbc news debate in tampa. early voting in the sunshine state is already underway with over 197,000 republican voters expected to vote before the state's january 31st primary.

the romney campaign is hoping many of those ballots were cast when he was still soaring in the polls there. his lead is expected to close dramatically after what happened over the weekend in south carolina. the former speaker topped the gop contenders in the palmetto state on saturday with 40% support. mitt romney came in second with 28%, rick santorum and ron paul followed at 17% and 13% respectively. exit polling is poking some big holes in romney's electability argument. nearly half of the voters said winning the general election was the main factor in their choice. and among those voters, 51% said that newt gingrich was the most electable with 37% choosing romney. the conservative vote was critical to gingrich's win. 48% of those who called themselves very conservative put their support behind newt gingrich. while mitt romney received just 19% of this group. so with the race now dramatically reshaped, the former massachusetts governor is

wasting in time in going after his rival, reminding floridians of gingrich's past. >> speaker gingrich has also been leader. he was the leader for four years. as speaker of the house, and at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and had to resign in disgrace. 88% of his republicans voted to reprimand speaker gingrich. he has not had a record of successful leadership. >> all right. comment on that. on him trying to go after newt gingrich's record. but by the way, we will be seeing the tax returns today. mitt romney's. >> yeah. >> tomorrow. within the next 24 hours. he's finally relented on that. >> during state of the union. >> interesting. that'll be good. >> isn't that a good time. why didn't he do it on christmas eve? >> what do you think? >> newt was a mixed bag. he's always a mixed bag. you look at what he did getting up to actually becoming speaker

and he was a great revolutionary out in the field. newt gingrich was able to organize and put together a winning team. and the republicans took control of the house for the first time in a generation. i mean i didn't even believe -- i remember the results were coming in and we were talking about this before, and somebody shouted when i won. i wasn't supposed to win. of course, just for the record, newt was working against me the whole time. he thought i was too conservative for my district. nice call, newt. but anyway, i got up on stage and somebody said we won the house. i said you're kidding me. so i give newt credit for dragging a lot of people over the line that normally wouldn't win. i got 62% of the vote and actually him working against me helped me. but it's never about me, so i'm just going to keep going on. >> no, it's not. >> the second he became speaker, it was one mistake after

another, one miscalculation after another, even one of his best friends bill thomas stood up in the middle of a caucus meeting and he said you can always tell us what's going to happen 30 years from now. you just don't know what's going to happen on your house floor tomorrow. a lot of frustration. and then at the end, you know, he -- he tried -- and this is a matter of record, he tried caving in on taxes and a small group of conservatives, myself and others stopped him. he tried caving in on spending, a lot of things. by the end he was calling us the perfectionist caucus, and he got removed. and when he left, not a single republican came up and said, boy, joe, i'm upset that you guys drove him out. in fact, they were happy because by that time he'd become a distraction. but we probably never would have been in the majority but for newt gingrich. so that's what you call a mixed bag. and there was a balanced budget

for the first time in a generation, four years in a row for the first time since the 1920s. welfare reform, tax cuts, real economic growth. so how exactly do you sort through that legacy? i think that's what voters are going to have to say -- >> as a candidate. >> is he a great outsider fighting to get on the inside? yes, he is. is he a good manager and a good leader? you can't find a single person i think that's worked with him in the past closely that would say he is. >> and to add to the point you made yesterday on "meet the press." newt may be the story, but this is a little bit at this point about mitt given iowa and new hampshire now the only one he's won. >> an indictment -- >> an indictment. perhaps it might be too strong of a word. having said that, another thing that happened on "meet the press" yesterday, david gregory asked him about his involvement with the mortgage lender freddie mac. gingrich was asked how he could portray himself as an outsider after receiving over $1 million from the consulting firm.

take a listen. >> david, you know better than that. i was not a lobbyist, i was never a lobbyist, i never did any lobbying. don't try to mix these things up. i was an adviser strategically. and the only thing published by freddie mac. i said you need more regulations. the only article about my talking to the congress. it was in the "new york times" of july of 2008 and i said do not give them any money. now, i opposed giving money to fannie mae and freddie mac, i think they should both be broken up into four or five small companies. >> so moments after those comments were made, governor chris christie, a surrogate for the romney campaign responded to the former speaker. >> the speaker -- and i heard his comments just now. a strategic adviser? that is the oldest washington dodge in the book. because he didn't want to register as a lobbyist. >> you're talking about when he worked for freddie mac? >> of course. first he said he was an

historian, now he's a strategic adviser? let's be serious. that's the oldest dodge in the book. he was using his influence that he obtained in public office to try to help them. that's why they paid him $1.6 million. he can call it whatever he wants to call it. that's what it is. every candidate will have liabilities. >> christie's right, he can call it what he wants, but he was pedaling influence. how does newt gingrich pull off this outsider argument. after 30 years in washington, in washington, using the influence he developed as a congressman. how does he and how did he pull off in south carolina the outsider argument? >> the romney campaign is going to continue to go after this about his work for freddie mac. my hunch is based on the way it's played out so far is romney cannot win this making it about gingrich's past. gingrich has an anti-washington rhetoric that the base likes.

and he's able to pull it off. romney comes across as more of an insider than gingrich does. i think romney needs to focus maybe a little bit on the past, but more about the future. why is gingrich dangerous as the republican nominee? why would he be dangerous from romney's point of view. i don't think they're all that interested in gingrich's past. >> you know, mark haleprin, and i'm trying to look for the mark stein article as we speak. i'll get to it later. mark stein with the "national review" quoted parts of mitt romney's speech that were so bland and so basic and so embarrassing it was like him, you know, quoting the words to "america the beautiful" as a closing argument in iowa, america is a really great place and it is a great place because americans think it is a great place. and mark stein asks legitimately the question, is he really

paying people? he's got more money than anybody else, supposedly the best staff going, and he gets up and says a whole bunch of nothing. that's just not going to resinate with voters. >> i think he needs to spice it up and switch from citing the words from "america the beautiful" -- >> that would do it. >> romney's got to drive a positive message and a negative message. and i think the stuff about gingrich's past is going to be part of this. we saw them destroy gingrich in iowa by going after that stuff. but he needs to fill in the space about who he is as part of fighting for this. if he doesn't do that, gingrich fills that space pretty well. gives conservative republicans, which is what the florida electorate is hope that he's got a direction for the country's future. >> in addition just to at amplify the point, gingrich demonstrated a republican that cannot be underestimated or understated. republicans believe that rightly

or wrongly, i think wrongly, that obama enjoys great favor amongst the media. for gingrich to have that willingness to do it is strong. gingrich took -- romney took on perry effectively, but perry kind of imploded. i'm not sure he took on gingrich -- can't only take him on the past. two other new stories to get to. joe paterno passing away over the weekend. front page of "usa today." >> joe paterno died yesterday morning his family reported. just a little over two months after the sex abuse scandal erupted. he was untouchable for 62 years at penn state, won more games than any coach. couple of national championships. gave his life, gave a lot of money back to the school, not to the athletic department, to the school. but what happened over the last two months for a lot of people will overshadow that. >> horrific story on so many levels.

>> i came back from penn state just this year, saw alabama play there. and i kept going on and on about how i love this university, i loved the people there. i loved joe paterno, this was before the scandal broke. and from the time i was a kid, i looked up to this guy. and it's just so many mixed feelings this past weekend. it's just a tragedy. to be honest with you, i don't know how to sort through it emotion emotionally. >> he was a saint in the game, but if you believe the grand jury testimony and we'll wait for the entire case to be argued, but if you believe the grand jury testimony that he didn't say anything to the police when little children were being raped in a shower, to me that overshadows what he did on a football field. >> there's no doubt about it. and if after all that comes out and they issue their report, that is the case, nothing that he did -- >> right. >> -- will counterbalance that. and i've got to say too, mika.

you know we do -- we love penn state. >> we sure do. >> we've got a lot of friends involved in that community. but the fact that they allowed this alleged rapist of little boys to be in the president's box a week before he was arrested, sandusky, shows just how out of control not only the football program and the athletic department, but the entire university was. and i don't know how they aren't given the death penalty for a year. i don't know how. you have, you know, colleges that have been given severe sanctions. i don't know -- actually, let me restate that. i don't know how the great people of pennsylvania and penn state don't demand of their university that their players

stay off the field for a year and they focus on what's happened over the past decade. i will guarantee you this, if it happened at the university of alabama, i would be down there saying that every day. this is -- i can't believe what happened. >> one other piece of news finally to get to. congresswoman gabrielle giffords plans to step down from the house this week to concentrate on her recovery from last year's assassination attempt. the three-term democrat nearly died last january when a gunman went on a rampage outside a tucson grocery store killing six people and wounding 13. six then, giffords has made remarkable progress, relearning to speak and walk at rehab centers in arizona and houston. and in an online video posted yesterday, the congresswoman explained her decision to resign while hinting at a potential comeback in her future. >> thank you for your prayers.

and for giving me time to recover. i have more work to do on my recovery. so to do what is best for arizona, i will step down this week. i'm getting better. every day my spirit is high. i will return, and we will work together for arizona and this great country. >> wow. >> you know there'll be a special election called to fill out the remainder of her term. coming upe incoming, we're g in sherrod brown. also jon meacham, joe klein, and chuck todd. up next, mike allen. >> look, they've got joe klein's

gigolo picture again. he was the fill-in for richard gere in -- mike allen is next with politico's top stories of the morning. but first, bill karins. a tornado touching down in alabama, bill? >> yeah, they p can't catch a break. another devastating tornado has struck just the last two hours in alabama. this time north of birmingham. the town for paradise valley, clay, and jefferson county. those are the areas that are getting reports of major structural damage. some locations, homes don't exist on the ground. the city of birmingham located right in here is sending all of their heavy rescue crews up to the north. the area where the tornado affected was up here from springville to gardendale, and that moved through about two hours ago. as soon as we get any of those pictures in, of course we'll let you know. but at this point it'd be a surprise if there was no significant injuries and maybe even some lives taken by that tornado. as far as the tornado threat, it will end as we go throughout the morning. all that heavy rain will move into the northeast. could be some major airport delays with low visibility.

it's going to be warm out there. we'll have the melting snow too. atlanta, you have a threat of strong storms over the next two hours as those line of storms continue to push through alabama into georgia. and for all of our friends on the west coast, if you watched that football game yesterday in san francisco, all that heavy rain continues to push through the state of california eventually moving into arizona. again, the big weather story, a devastating tornado has struck once again in alabama. we'll give you the details as they break on "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. in america, we believe in a future that is better than today. since 1894, ameriprise financial has been working hard for their clients' futures. never taking a bailout. helping generations achieve dreams. buy homes. put their kids through college. retire how they want to. ameriprise. the strength of america's

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time now to take a look at the morning papers at 27 past the hour. we start with our parade of papers. "the boston globe" says mitt romney's rivals have a lot of ground to make up in florida. romney and the pro-romney super pac have already purchased more than $7 million of tv air time.

gingrich who just opened a florida office two weeks ago has yet to begin televised advertising there. >> mark, you're shaking your head. >> florida's about organization and tv spending, i don't think it's about momentum and it's about message and it's about reaching conservative voters. i don't think romney starts ahead because he spent money. i think that money's mostly wasted because it was spent before it was defined. >> florida's a huge state, though. >> how many people voted early? >> they have 400,000 people with absentee ballots or early voting. so probably a couple hundred thousand by now. >> you think romney was probably ahead? >> no question -- >> oh, no, romney benefits from the early voters, the snow birds and from the fact you cannot go door-to-door in florida. he can't -- it's not like iowa. he can't give a great speech in des moines and the whole state's wired in. if he gives a great speech in tallahassee, miami's not going

to hear about it. they'll hear about it when they turn on 30-seconds ad. it's a tv ad state. you're right, momentum pushes gingrich. i think the pounding brings them back together. "the miami herald" says jeb bush won't endorse a republican candidate in the upcoming primary. but he warns the candidates leave "the circular firing squad of their debates behind and start to appeal to a broader audience." i'll tell you what, we had in south carolina jim demint who was a big force. >> right. >> there aren't a lot of big forces left in american politics. jim demint -- big jim demint, i said like big jim -- but jeb bush in florida is huge. so, you know what? if i were newt, i'd be careful. he made a veiled shot at george

h.w. bush yesterday on "meet the press." he needs to be careful. i'll tell you what, jeb bush, when the doors are closed and nobody's watching and no cameras are on and he's talking to you one-on-one. you know what he'd rather talk to you about more than anything else in the world? his dad. and he will tell you when nobody's watching. he said the greatest man i've ever met in my life. newt needs to be careful. >> he won't be. willie. you got politico? >> yeah, let's go to politico. the chief white house correspondent is mike allen. mike, good morning. >> hey, good morning guys. >> let's talk about that romney/gingrich showdown in the state of florida. you have new reporting on what the romney campaign is going to zero in on. it sounds like character is going to be a central theme here. >> no, willie, that's right. the romney campaign says character is not going to be a subtext in the race, it is going to be their frame for the race. they're going to throw it all at newt this week. the whole parade of hits, the

freddie mac work, the sitting on the couch with nancy pelosi, the reprimand from his colleagues. it's all going to be out there. the romney folks are going to frame the race, and this is risky for mitt romney. they're going to frame it as mitt romney outsider versus newt gingrich insider, businessman versus politician lobbyist. the gingrich folks tell us that they are going to frame it as bold reagan conservative versus timid massachusetts moderate. and they say -- >> hold on, mike allen. >> simmer down. >> no. how do you call mitt romney timid? i want to read you -- and this comes from mark stein -- >> this is a very strong quote. >> of the "national review." i want you to listen to what mitt romney said in south carolina. and i dare newt gingrich to call this timid. here we go. quoting from "the national review" online.

i believe in an america where millions of americans believe in a america that's the america that millions of americans believe in. that's the america i love. >> was that written? >> that was written script. and as mark stein said, mitt paid some guy to write this insipid pap. not only is it bland and generic, it is lethal in a way if newt didn't say it. >> hit the word america in a sense -- >> you know what sounds like a colbert parody. and i laughed, i couldn't believe he was doing it in iowa. his closing argument, you know i really like patriotic songs, oh, beautiful, fore spacious skies. >> we're $16 trillion in debt, the iranians are about to get a nuclear we, obama care is destroying the economy if you

believe republicans, regulations are destroying the economy, and he's quoting words to "america the beautiful," and they're wondering why they're losing? >> well, they're changing that. and tomorrow at a business in tampa, he's giving a speech to prebut -- they tell us they know they didn't respond hard enough when his last surge fizzled saying they're going to hit back hard this time. the formula in the debate starting tonight on nbc. hit back pivot to obama. that's the gingrich formula. >> morning, sunshine. >> bye. >> mitch daniels will rebut, a lot of guys wish would get into the race. >> be quiet. >> what? >> no, just be quiet. giants and 9ers in the bay area and then the patriots getting it done with a little help from the ravens' kicker. plus, what a way for china to mark the year of the dragon,

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incredible. >> unless you're a harbaugh. sad day for those guys. >> last-second football, two games set up of a rematch of one of the best super bowls ever played. giants and 9ers, in the first quarter, 9ers out early, vernon davis was a physical freak. 73 yards, of course he stepped out of bounds. san francisco takes a 7-0 lead, second quarter, giants respond, ely to victor cruz who was huge yesterday. catches 142 yards, that sets up this, pasco, wide open takes it from 6 yards out, giants had a three-point lead going into halftime. alex smith goes back to vernon davis, this time makes it 14-10, 9ers heading into the fourth quarter, in the fourth, costly mistakes from the 9ers' special

team. kyle williams the returner let it bounce past him. they initially say it's 9ers' ball, but the replay showed it did nick williams' knee, meaning the giants get the ball back. just touched his right knee. they looked it for a while. >> get away from the ball. >> they make the most of it. >> eli for the touchdown, giants take a three-point lead, san francisco with the field goal, the end of the fourth tied up at 17 and we go to overtime. another mistake on the punt return. kyle williams fields the punt and promptly coughs it up. a great play by number 57 williams there on the giants, tomlin the guy who scoops up the other punt sets up an easy field goal. giants win 20-17. going back to the super bowl where they met the patriots four years ago.

to the early game, patriots hosting the ravens in foxboro. before the game, steven tyler with the national anthem. you judge. ♪ and the rocket's red glare ♪ as bombs bursting in air ♪ gave proof through the night that our flag was still there ♪ >> that's how he sings, you know, it's fun. >> steven tyler, that's how he sings. what do you want? >> no, it wasn't bad. that's aerosmith. it's great stuff. >> on the other end of the spectrum, we have kristen chenoweth. >> that was incredible. let's go to the game.

patriots runningback jarvis, new england out 13-10 at the half. ravens respond, hits smith, watch him slip this tackle and go 29 yards for the touchdown as he leaps across, stretches the ball over the goal line, great play there. >> wow. >> fourth quarter, patriots drive, fourth and goal, they go for it, brady jumps it over himself for the touchdown. pats with the ball again. brady goes deep, but the pats tipped into the hands and jimmy smith makes a great interception here. >> holy cow. >> reach in to get it. big turnover there. keeps the patriots from putting more points on the board. with two to play, the ravens drive 65 yards to set up an easy 32-yard attempt. all they need are these three points to send the game to overtime. knock this through, we'll head to overtime. >> 32 yards to tie it. and the kick, look out!

look out it's no good! it's no good! >> so, willie, a couple things not shown in those highlights. one, was the remarkable defensive play made by the patriots on the play before. that it was a touchdown. >> i mean -- they -- there's no doubt. baltimore ravens had a touchdown and incredible strip by the patriots. hold on, this is important. secondly, you can't attack him because as you were watching him in realtime, you saw him rushed on to the field. >> they should have called a time-out. >> and as somebody wrote last night, it just looked wrong. like i remember i was on the phone with my son that wasn't watching it and i said it's looking bad. they're rushing. so you've got to -- if you rush a kicker, i don't want to -- he's going to turn his hips, it's going to go too far. that's what happened, they should have called the time-out. >> you're right. he had a touchdown that probably

would've won the game but the great play stripped the ball in the end zone. >> unbelievable. the two best championship games i think i've seen. >> incredible games. should be a great super bowl. patriots by the way 3 1/2-point early favorites. >> we're going to talk about paula deen in the must-read opinion pages. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. premier of the packed bag. you know organization is key... and so is having a trusted assistant. and you...rent from national.

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a look this morning before the sun comes up in washington at a foggy capitol hill. time now for the must-read opinion pages. we'll veer widely in a different direction if you don't mind. newt gingrich. >> well, you know, you are loaded for bear here. i saw you yesterday tweeting about this. >> i don't wish ill of anybody. i think this is a story worth talking about. >> what are you talking about? >> it's about paula deen and frank bruni wrote a great piece in the sunday "new york times"

opinion section. of mouse like bites and marathons and frank writes this first. in the pages of their gorgeously illustrated cookbooks or their delectably edited tv shows. they assemble into lavish feasts cooing as they carve and swooning over the side dishes. we respond as intended. we hanker and yearn. here's what we don't see. the yogurt and berries they had for breakfast, the salads and grilled vegetables that he eat on nights off. the portion of each lovingly shot dish they didn't touch. having satisfied their curiosity or the camera's with a few bites. if they're fit they often neglect to mention the exercise involved. if they're not, they infrequently cop to their health worries or woes. so he goes on to write this. last week, paula deen copped. the woman whose best-known burger recipe uses glazed donuts

in place of a bun announced that she has diabetes. it would have been refreshing if the circumstances hadn't been so self-serving. she was plugging her son bobbie's new cooking channel show, not my mama's meals. and -- for a diabetes drug. what's more, she had waited three, long greasy years since her diagnosis to come out. the revelation jolted in me part because people in the business of peddling gastronomic bliss rarely draw such a bold connection between. she's a lovely woman. i've met her, i've eaten her food. it's delicious, absolutely delicio delicious. bigger picture, the food industry, the restaurant industry, the tv cooking show industries, they need to own up to the food they're making, it's based on trying to create a taste that americans become addicted to and they can't live

without. and we need to start pushing overall completely a healthier lifestyle. and she should do more. i hope she does in light of her diagnosis. and you know a little bit about diabetes. so you know what -- >> i -- i -- i do. and, you know i always joke about -- >> you do. >> i'm not going to joke about this. >> no. >> because i -- somehow one of her cookbooks came home for children, and i -- >> i gave it to you after i did "the view" with her. >> and i looked at it. and i've got to say, i always play this act on tv that, you know, eat bad and all this other stuff because i love a big mac as much as the next guy. i was horrified by what i saw. because i did -- i've got a son with type i diabetes. >> right. >> and, of course, that apparently is not caused by bad eating. i disagree with that. i'm alone in that because andrew ate horribly at times growing

up. but i think it's very revealing. willie, you look at all of these food shows -- >> it's like food porn. >> and you see all of these skinny people cooking all of these -- i know at my age, seriously. i can't eat much of anything. i look at my dad who had a heart attack in his 60s and who suffered for 10, 15 years -- >> did not eat well. >> he ate badly. >> did not eat well. i drink some goop in the morning because we wake up at 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning. i look at these people on tv and i go you can't eat that every day and not have a heart attack. >> it's not healthy. it's bad for you. >> and it's just like unfortunately -- and this goes back to the budget, and this goes back to the debt. >> exactly. health care. >> this is trillions of dollars over the next decade will be spent on obesity-related

expenses by taxpayers. this iss is a debt issue as wel a health issue. >> it's no question. paula deen who is one of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. she says eat this in moderation. she's never claimed it's healthy food. she tells you exactly what the stuff is. it's southern cooking, you shouldn't seat this every night. she says that. it is a problem, and the other thing to be said is free will you could not eat what paula deen tells you not to eat. you don't have to buy her cookbook and eat everything you want. i don't think she's to blame for the problems of the country. >> i would say there are more choices like that kind of food than healthy food that are easy to get to. and that's an overall problem that we need to talk about. >> you know also, frank bruni and we need to talk about -- >> he would know. >> this is a guy that has been suffering since his earliest age with obesity. he's got great credibility on this issue. i was laughing because i remembering him saying having three hamburgers when he was a

baby -- i would define that as a guy -- >> food addiction. >> yeah, food addiction. we'll be right back with willie's news you can't use. nev. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides... ...with mail. it's good for your business. ♪ and even better for your customers. ♪ for safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit usps.com/mail

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is it time? >> yes, it is. >> thank god. what are you saying, willie? >> it's a funny old fashioned way of talking. >> good, i think. >> hey, it's the chinese new year, everybody. >> it's the year of the dragon. >> what are you doing?

>> it's the year of the dragon. so i don't know why they had warren buffett on their version of dick clark's new year's rockin' eve type of thing in china. they brought in warren buffett. he brought in his ukulele and his train set. ♪ >> hello. i'm warren buffett, and i'd like to wish all the people in china a happy new year in this year of the dragon. your country's accomplished amazing things and the best is yet to come. ♪ i've been working on the railroad all the live long day ♪ ♪ i've been working on the railroad just to pass the time away ♪ ♪ dinah won't you blow your

horn ♪ >> happy new year. year of the dragon. warren buffett bringing out the ukulele. >> wow. >> that was good stuff. up next, jon meacham, joe klein, we're back in a moment. is it fast? it's got 10 speeds, my friend. ♪ is it fast? it's got a lightning bolt on it, doesn't it? ♪ is it fast? i don't even know if it's street-legal. ♪ is it safe? oh, yeah. it's a volkswagen. [ male announcer ] the security of a jetta. one of nine volkswagen models named a 2012 iihs top safety pick. ♪ got you in a stranglehold, baby ♪

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well, the establishment is

right to be worried about a gingrich nomination, because a gingrich nominations means we're going to change things, we're going to make the establishment very uncomfortable, demand real change in washington, real audit of the federal reserve, knowledge about where hundreds of billions of dollars have gone. and if you look at a lot of these guys, they have good reason to worry about an honest, open candidate who has no commitment to them and who has no investment in them. and i think they should be worried because we intend to change the establishment not get along with it. so i'm happy to be in the tradition of ronald reagan as the outsider who scares the republican establishment. and frankly, after the mess they've made of things, maybe they should be shaken up pretty badly. and one thing the florida voters get to decide is, do you want the establishment's candidate? or do you want somebody who stands for a conservative approach that will profoundly change washington? and that's newt gingrich. >> all right. top of the hour. a live look at time square in new york city. with back to "morning joe."

harold ford still with us. and joining us, joe klein. and executive editor at random house, jon meacham. gentlemen, welcome to the conversation. >> that's right. >> good to be here. >> good to have you. look at the difference a couple of days make. we last saw you in south carolina on friday. and here we are. >> boy, i tell you. i'm listening to this and -- >> yeah. >> i don't know exactly. and i'm dead serious here. i don't know exactly what the media is supposed to do, whether you just let a candidate go, or whether you have a responsibility to stop him at every turn. when he says something that is so obviously false that a quick check on google would prove it. i mean, newt gingrich called himself the outsider several times there. he talked about not being the establishment candidate, and how

republicans had messed things up and strayed away from conservative values. this is a guy, mika. >> yeah. >> regardless of his protests whose business made over $30 million inside the beltway cashing in on his access to policymakers. over $30 million. and it wasn't $30 million to fight tax increases. it wasn't $30 million to balance the budget, it was $30 million singing the praises of things like romney care. it was $30 million helping health care people get a better deal out of the obama plan. the consummate washington insider. so, but he says so many things that just don't square with reality. and again, not my opinion. the reality that you can do by just going on the internet in 30

seconds and getting articles. and his own words, it's not the "new york times" editorial page that undercuts everything it says. it's his own words. it's pretty surprising. >> listening to him yesterday and over the weekend reminded me a little bit of the palin ploy, which is capitalizing on an anger that's out there. whether you have any basis for what you're saying or not. >> well, it is, he does -- he does engage in the politics of grievance, and that allows him to not answer questions. like, you know, what did you say about paul ryan being a right-wing radical. what did you say in 2007 about loving romney care, how this was a great model for the future moving forward. being for the individual mandate since 1993 that conservatives hope and i hope the supreme court will rule is unconstitutional this summer. there are so many things he's said and done that are just not

what republicans like. but he attacks the press. and so somehow that proves that he's a true conservative. it's -- >> it played well in south carolina. >> played very well in south carolina. but joe klein, i want you -- you've known newt for a very long time, and you have found him to be a very fascinating guy. he's very complex. >> he's a very complicated guy. but i remember -- i mean, an image comes to mind as you're talking. right after he gets to be elected speaker, he's pulling all nighters in the speaker's office. he calls me in for interviews at 12:30 in the morning. it was like going into a dorm room, right? this guy is the eternal college freshman. he has all of these ideas. this week's ideas may not be the same as last week's ideas, and he may not actually walk his walk. he's kind of a tiffany populist.

>> literally. >> this week, he's going to give four major policy speeches including one about space. >> space exploration. >> which raises the question, what's he going to do next week? >> i want to underline that fact for a second. here's a guy that went into south carolina and he was going after mitt romney for his wealth and being a "vulture capitalist," and yet this is the same guy we find out six months ago spent probably millions of dollars at tiffany's, and yet he's portraying himself as i'm the outsider, i'm one of you guys. and yet the media, it's almost like there's so much going. this reminds me of the clinton era to tell you the truth. there is so much to go after that pretty soon you go after nothing because it's too hard to keep up. >> one thing he has in common with clinton is that he is larger than life. >> right. >> and as i once said to hillary clinton, people like that have

larger than life strengths and larger than life weaknesses. and she said to me, that's for sure. >> jon meacham, and on the other side, we have mitt romney. and i had read a mitt romney quote earlier this morning. i don't know if you heard it. but mitt romney of course quoting "america the beautiful," as his closing argument in iowa. and in a stump speech in south carolina, he says things like this, "i believe in an america where millions of americans believe in an america that's the america that millions of americans believe in. that's the america i love." >> my goodness. >> it's insipid dribble. it is. it really is. and mark stein said yesterday, it reinforces all the negatives against this guy. >> this is an appropriate remark

given our friend here. that's like primary colors meets bleak house, right? it's an insane sentence. here's another line from 1968. jim rhodes of ohio talking about george romney. he says watching george romney run for president is like watching a duck trying to make love to a football, it doesn't quite work. and so -- there's just sort of no -- there's no making this up. >> he doesn't have the feel for it. >> no. >> he doesn't. and gingrich, i think, this is all nixon, it's all nixon, it's all nixon. it's cultural populism, taking on the press, a politics of resentment with as you say this odd double standard, a man of the establishment attacking the establishment. he created this in many ways, richard nixon did in 1968. he was a lawyer on wall street running against wall street and lawyers. and i think there's an enormous amount of that vocabulary, that

going on right now. >> nixon, i think got more votes than any politician in history. >> here's the question. can -- what is a good starter for gingrich, because this has worked now, be a good finisher? and that's -- but then you have bleak house america believes in america. >> we also have mitt romney just constantly running into trouble on basic things. the two headlines with these guys. his tax returns and then lobbying for newt gingrich. >> and then -- >> can i ask you one question? if you spend this much -- you guys have done this. you spent that much money running for president and you don't work out the tax return question? >> i wanted to ask harold about that quickly. this is elementary. the guy's been running for president for five or six years.

you or i just running in little congressional races would have been ready to vet this stuff out early. and if somebody had asked us a question in the first debate and we fumbled on our tax returns, we'd be ready by the second debate and yet on the biggest stage with the most at stake, mitt romney fumbled it time and time again. it was a pathetic performance that's either an indictment on him or the people who run his battleship of a campaign. >> consistent with how he's run the campaign and his responses thus far. it is remarkable that at a time in which gingrich attacks and attacks on the basic things, tax returns are so elementary and so simple. it's puzzling to say the least why they hadn't figured it out. here's a guy that ran the olympics. here's a guy that started companies. christie gave a far more compelling and convincing answer yesterday about romney's involvement in private equity. involvement in his own

businesses. >> we're seeing -- >> it's remarkable this guy can't -- romney can't construct the narrative that would convey to people, hey, i'm a competent manager, a leader, ask if you give me a chance, i'll lead the country. >> and mika, what was so shocking about south carolina is, a lot of people love to stereotype south carolinians. they're radical, right-wingers. they are the establishment primary voters that saved george h.w. bush in 1988, that saved bob dole in 1996, that saved george w. bush in 2000, that saved john mccain in 2008. they are the most establishment voters in any primary. and saturday night they went somewhere else. >> yeah, and to you point, chris christie is more comfortable in the battle than mitt romney. and that's beginning to -- that's beginning to glare a little bit. >> the one sentence that political consultants hate to hear from their candidates is,

don't worry about it, i've got this covered, nothing to worry about. and i'm sure that that's what romney did with his tax return. don't worry, guys, no problem here. and of course there was a problem. and it's -- and i think the basic problem with romney is that he's the exact opposite of chris christie. chris christie weighs 500 pounds, he's paula deen's fantasy, but he's entirely comfortable in his skin. mitt romney you always feel as if he's hiding something from you. >> yeah. that's true. after a week of dodging the release of his tax returns, he finally addressed the issue head-on. here's what he finally had to say about it. >> i will release my tax returns for 2010, which is the last returns that were completed. i'll do that on tuesday of this week. i'll also release at the same time an estimate for 2011 tax returns. so you'll have two years, people can take a good look at it. we'll put them on the website, and you can go through the

pages. this, i think, we made a mistake in holding off as long as we did. it was a distraction. we want to get back to the real issues in the campaign. leadership, character, a vision for america. how to get jobs again in america. and how to rein in the excessive scale of the government. >> that's good. he'll be releasing them on the same day of the president's state of the union and says we can look through them, and we will. >> jon, you look puzzled. >> it's totally mysterious to me. he's been running for president as you say for seven years. this is one -- why this didn't come up in -- i guess we didn't get that far with him in '08. he didn't realize this was going to be an issue? all he's done is have power point presentations and try to figure out how to run for president and he gets blind sided by this? it's smoke and fire question. >> every major presidential candidate in modern american history has released his or her tax returns.

the fact, joe klein, this caught mitt romney by surprise -- >> mitt romney's father -- >> jon raised an important point. he got away with it in 2008. he probably thought he'd get away with it this time. >> what's he getting away with? >> that's the question, right. we're talking about it. >> i think that the sheer size of the income is something he's kind of embarrassed about probably. and there are massive charitable donations to the mormon church in there too as, you know, he ties 10% of his income, at least. >> that's a good thing, right? >> that is a good thing except amongst evangelical christians who many of whom think it's a satanic cult. >> as somebody that was raised in an evangelical church, i've got to tell you something. when we close the doors and we were picking people to stick pins in inside, it was like people like joe klein that we

would stick pins -- media elites -- >> rightly so. >> it was never a mormon. i can't state this enough. the overwhelming number of southern evangelicals. and again, i know because my parents had me in church four days a week. >> oh. >> for 18 years. i know, we saw mormons as allies in the fight against crazy hippie freaks like you, joe klein, from the 1960s. seriously, as you know, my parents and people across the south were motivated by creating a counterrevolution against what happened to the 1960s. it defined everything in the south. and you know this, jon meacham, it defined politics in the south for 25 years. and never once, never once growing up did i hear somebody in my church, first baptist church of meridian, mississippi, i never heard them once call

mormonism a cult. never once heard them say, you know what we've got to do? we've got to take care of those dirty mormons -- never once did they say that, jon meacham. i think people in manhattan -- i'm not talking about you here, but i keep hearing this over and over again. no, we see them as our allies. >> comfortable with that. >> totally. i think that's right. there is a strain of this, obviously. >> obviously. >> in the same way there's an anticatholic strain. there's a good bit of that. but i don't think the it's about god in this case. i think your first point is exactly right. there's a huge number. >> one final thing since we brought up catholics, mika. guess what. this is important. >> everything you say is. >> when people accuse southern evangelicals of hating mormons, it's important for people to understand that you do hear more

anti-catholic tirades in those circles than you hear anti-mormon tirades. and guess what, a guy who bragged about being a catholic in south carolina won south carolina. a catholic came in third place in south carolina. for people that want to put southerners in some sort of box, they've got it all wrong. >> i think you're absolutely right. it's worth saying that. we do have to talk about what's happening in alabama right now. bill karins is monitoring the tornadoes that are touching down right now. bill, what's the latest? >> bad news this morning out of alabama. now we're getting unconfirmed reports of fatalities from the oak grove area. we're trying to get the confirmation. the actual numbers, but it's not good. a batch of tornadoes hit northeast of the birmingham, alabama, area. and also rescue crews are struggling to get into the towns because the roads are all blocked from debris and the trees. as i show you the radar.

if there's one city right now under the tornado emergency alexander city just to the southeast sides of the birmingham area. this storm went through the talladega area of alabama just a little bit ago. damage there. also near clayton, significant reports of damage. i guess you get the picture here. we've had numerous overnight tornadoes at dark where people had very little notice. there are multiple homes destroyed from multiple homes. the sun is coming up shortly. we'll start to get you those images as we get them here, mika. this is alabama, the area hit so hard last spring. almost like a joplin-like situation there in tuscaloosa. and joe was down there and just sad it's happening all over again. >> you drive through parts of tuscaloosa -- >> it's amazing. >> and it's just so jarring. it's completely -- it's changed the entire landscape of that town. and now -- >> here we go again. >> let's hope it's -- >> bill will be watching that.

coming up, life to the site of tonight's presidential debate where chuck todd is standing by, also david gregory will join the conversation. and here on the set senior adviser to the gingrich campaign kellyanne conway. more morning joe when we come back.

live shot of the white house. welcome back to "morning joe." and joining us now, senior adviser to the gingrich campaign, kellyanne conway. and nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director and host of "the daily rundown," chuck todd. and in washington, the moderator of "meet the press," david gregory. welcome to you all. >> kellyanne, congratulations. >> thank you. we're excited in newt world. >> it is a brave new world. a brave new world. what happens in florida? >> same game plan. take the case right to the voters. and we just made a calculation. two things. first, we needed to break the

back of electability. the he can win, he can win mantra that often makes or breaks republican politics in primaries. inevitability, electability. we figured electability is often a process issue, this year it turned out to be a substantive issue. so many people believe that romney could win the primary, romney could beat obama, and we needed to break the back there and we did. the second thing is show people they want a tough guy. not a people pleaser. >> let's talk about electability. you have been -- i've known you for a very long time in washington. you know the poll numbers, newt gingrich has been upside down in the favorability unfavorability ratin ratings gallup said since december of 1994. you can go back to '95, '96, his disapproval around 60%, that's the same it was this past week. how do you look at that candidate and say, boy, he gives us the best chance of winning

the i-4 corridor? of winning the suburbs of philadelphia? how do we get swing voters to vote republican if newt gingrich has a 1-2 favorability rating? >> people will vote to their future aspirations. favorability ratings are important, but not dispositive. if you ask people more direct questions, like who do you think has the best foreign policy experience? including in a poll last night in florida, newt was way ahead on something like that. who do you think has the best economic plan? they're pretty much tied. even in south carolina, you saw a big change in the number of people who thought that, you know, who can beat barack obama? newt carried them from 49% to 41%. even a week before, we were under water. >> it's amazing how volatile. newt was way behind in florida, he was way ahead in florida, he was way behind in florida. i suspect two or three days from now we'll see polls that show

he's ahead again. >> here's the important thing, people do believe in the republican primary electorate that to beat obama in the fall, you must be able to beat him in a debate or three. and newt has that measure running away. >> kellyanne, david gregory's with us. yesterday on "meet the press," he asked your candidate how he can portray himself as an outsider after receiving millions from freddie mac. here's what newt gingrich had to say. >> david, you know better than that. i was not a lobbyist, i was never a lobbyist. i never did any lobbying. the fact is i was an adviser strategically, and if you look at the only thing ever published by freddie mac, i said you need more regulations. if you look at the only article ever written about my talking to the congress, it was in the "new york times" in july of 2008 and i said do not give them any money. now, i opposed giving money to fannie mae and freddie mac. i think they should be broken up into four or five much smaller companies, and i've long felt

that. and i think that to jump from one to the other is simply wrong. >> i have a question about that. and david, i'll let you follow up. is the strategy there -- i just don't really get it. is the strategy just to pretend that something isn't there and then it won't be? >> no, not at all. actually the strategy there is exactly what newt said, mika, which is this is what he did for freddie mac. he says he wasn't a lobbyist. and i have to say, this whole washington insider/outsider thing is very -- there's argument that you should have some kind of washington experience. you can't just parachute that in there. you have that currently in the white house. >> isn't he calling himself an outsider? >> i think he's an outsider because if you look at all the king's horses and men, they're basically lobbyists -- >> but you said you want an insider. >> he's got inside knowledge. he's an outsider of the system. they're all trying to stop him. the establishment is way against

newt. they don't know what to do with him. but mitt romney has all the insiders. and i'll be frank with you. i'm yet to hear the nexus in mitt romney's i create 100,000 jobs with how he would do that in washington. >> i'm still stuck on the lobbying issue there and the answer didn't fit the question. it didn't seem to me. david gregory, would you like to follow up? >> well, i think it's a problem for gingrich. i think romney wants to pick this up and use this against gingrich. there's a lot about gingrich's past in leadership that has been an issue and has not yet reared its head. those kind of accusations. and i think that the work he did advising, lobbying for freddie mac. it's a lot to try to untangle, to understand that distinction. i think the reality is that this is important. this idea that newt gingrich is an outsider to the system who is running a populist campaign.

there's a lot in order to believe that, there's a lot you have to set aside about insider credentials. to kelly's point, though, insider credentials are important in how washington works. but when he won in south carolina was a pretty harsh outsider populist message reflective of that tea party anger and anxiety in the republican party right now does not exactly square with a guy who spent so much of his time and leadership in washington or capitalizing on that institutional knowledge. he's got to try to square that. >> but david, of course, if you look at the people who are endorsing mitt versus newt, it's obvious that washington considers him an outsider. i understand -- i agree with you completely. he's been in washington forever, he's made millions and millions of dollars off of his insider status, but you look at the republican establishment -- >> we don't disagree with that. >> you look at the republican establishment, they are all trying to kill newt gingrich.

let me ask you, though, if you agree with what we've been talking about this morning and, mark haleprin brought it up, mitt romney cannot win by attacking newt gingrich. mitt romney has so many problems on his own that he's going to have to make this sale about mitt romney. people still aren't buying him in the republican party. >> i agree with that. and i think fundamentally that if you go back to 2008, this new book that's out about mitt romney talks about the fact that his campaign in 2008 didn't have definition. the danger zone that he's in right now and has been in for the past couple of weeks is he's going to be defined by gingrich and others in the race and not defining himself in the sort of way that gives him a real vision for the party that can somehow marry the two wings of the party during a year of a lot of unease during the republican party for himself in this campaign. so i agree with that. that this is going to be about romney and how the base

ultimately sees him. >> chuck, we're largely talking about this as a two-person race, but we have the other two candidates. how much of a factor is santorum and paul in terms of voters in florida, the outcome, what the winner needs to get to get the plurality and winner take all in the delegates? >> well, first of all, ron paul has all but said he's not really contesting florida. he'll dip his toe in for the debates and moving forward to the caucuses. but he's served as sort of a wing man for mitt romney of sorts. you're seeing it more and more at these debates and it's pretty obvious that the one person he would be most inclined to help is mitt romney. that's a helpful thing to have there, an ally on stage. the wild card is santorum, right? because on one hand he wants to be there -- he wants to be the conservative -- his calculus is what? newt's going to implode again because he's never lasted more than ten days as a front-runner

in most of his political life. that's the stereotype jab at newt is when he's up, he shoots himself down. the question is, santorum's thinking, great, they're not going to go to mitt, i'll hang here. this is how i won iowa the first time. but does he spend his time making the case he's the real conservative, which is then a slight hit at romney? or is he going to spend time going after newt? he's a wild card. but he too seems to be only got one foot in florida that he wants to look for some other places. >> chuck, set up florida for us. you're from the state as am i. what worked in iowa and new hampshire, south carolina as far as retail politics go just doesn't work in florida, does it? >> no. i mean, look, it's going to be a mass media state. and one other reminder, it's not a great free media state. i remember talking with the folks who ran rick scott's campaign, he's now governor, who couldn't believe all the negative press that he -- that

scott was getting was having no impact on the poll numbers. so it is a really weird state in that respect, as well. why? because when you go to florida, you don't watch the news, you go to the beach. >> exactly. i was talking about it earlier. if you're new hampshire and you give a blistering speech in concord, the whole state hears it. if you're in jacksonville, and you do the same thing, they don't even hear it outside of duvall county. because you're right, they're outside. there's a reason why nobody goes to see florida baseball games. they're outside doing other things. >> exactly. and that's the problem i think that it's a potential problem for gingrich, right? he's thrived on this ability to use the free media. the media he so attacks but sort of get media coverage in order to leapfrog, not just with the debates, but the debates will have a high impact in the same way we saw in south carolina. but a couple places to watch, i think, are going to be -- you have sort of your country club republicans in the southwest,

your businessman republicans in jacksonville. newt should do well in your old territory, you would think, on panhandle more like a south carolina primary electorate more than anywhere else. and the cuban vote will be a little bit more competitive. the establishment with romney, but gingrich is frankly a little more fluent, if you will, in hispanic issues in a way that romney has been a little -- shown some trepidation. >> david? >> kellyanne, question for you about the gingrich strategy. i go back to his remarks in south carolina which were, you know, in keeping with the kinds of remarks we've heard from gingrich over his career, frankly, as he does try to position himself as an outsider even as speaker of the house. my question, though, is with such populist anger in his remarks, how do you make a pivot if he becomes the nominee and battle for independent voters in florida as joe suggested or the

rocky mountain west, the industrial midwest. how do you do that when that's going to be the battleground against president obama? >> i think, david, it really depends why those people are independent. if they're lapse republicans, they're probablily angry about the spending that went on. if they're lapsed democrats, they're upset with obama and his folks in the congress. but many call themselves dependents because of obama care, and we're not defending the inspirational blueprint for obama care which was romney care. it depends why they call themselves independents. many call themselves independents because of issues like guns or even abortion. but we know that we can pivot to them because of 2010. we're all focused on 2008. but if you look at 2010, i think that's the superseding. they then elected people way down in the polls who were

underfunded and had that message. in addition to anger, it's frustration. i sit this close to people in focus groups, they shake, they're nervous, they don't know when the recovery will come and how it affects their kitchen table. i think we can pivot to those independents, but not everybody -- an independent leans republican. a moderate leans democrats. independents and moderates are not republicans. >> hold them up. they're pretty still. okay. so those hands. >> working hands. >> those hands. >> i have four kids. >> they went through -- >> good for you. >> they went through tiffany's, they went through the -- >> it's amazing. >> they went through the -- >> you can't hit us, believe me. >> it's newt. it's the wildest ride you've ever been on. >> it's all newt. and let me tell you, romney for some reason will be attacking newt, we're going to continue to attack the president's last four years u. i think with romney and obama on the defensive, we feel good where we are. >> kellyanne, thank you. >> my pleasure.

>> thank you to david and chuck, as well. >> do you have a target on your back? newt's coming at you. he came after david yesterday. >> we're the nice campaign. >> you've got the terminator. >> exactly. >> the obama memos. coming up, "the new yorker's" ryan lizza on what the documents show us about the president's transformation in office. "morning joe" is back in a moment. losing weight clicked for me when i found a plan

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coming up next, we've got senator sherrod brown. he's going to be talking about the browns going to the super bowl. one of these years. and also, he's going to be talking about the new consumer financial protection bureau. keep it right here on "morning joe." a lot ahead. [ monica ] i'm away on a movie shoot

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happy, you've got new york and boston. no small-market teams, wouldn't want any of those. >> not at all. >> not that this was fixed or anything. >> it's the elites. >> the elites wanted this. >> you and newt used to hang out on the floor -- >> the three of us. we'd give you your marching orders and you'd follow them beautifully as i recall. >> i was just going to say, since i saw newt hanging out with you, there was a reason why we ran him out of town because he hung out with you. let me ask you about the state of the union address. we're obviously focused on what the republicans are doing. it is a slow train wreck. and yet on the other side, we've got the president of the united states finished last year very strongly. if you look at the deal that was struck on the tax cuts, payroll tax cuts. what do you expect the president to say tomorrow night? and what do you want him to say? >> what i want him to say i think he'll in part say. his focus on obviously jobs and

especially manufacturing. we're a country that 25 years ago more than -- something like 26%, 27% of our gdp was manufacturing. today it's down to 10%. yet we've seen pretty consistent manufacturing job growth. >> yeah. >> first time since almost 15 years ago that we've seen job growth and we've had -- >> what's driving that? >> well, i think that -- i think what's driving it in part is more of a focus on manufacturing. we're the only country in the world that doesn't of the rich countries that doesn't have some special provisions to incentivize manufacturing. i think -- everybody in ohio knows if we hadn't done the auto rescue, our state would be in depression as the whole swath of western pa. into michigan. he's enforced trade rules that no other president has enforced that aggressively since reagan who did it, which is directly translated into jobs all over my state in the midwest and beyond.

and i think the manufacturing creates well. if you manufacture it, mine it, or grow it, it's starting to come back. >> the president's got an agenda. should he do anything to offer any policies tomorrow that may be less popular with you and more popular with republicans? or should he go with a democratic agenda? >> i guess i don't know the answer to that. i don't think it's divided that clearly. i think as long as his focus is jobs. whether that's, inside stuff like 48-c manufacturing tax credit, community college focus on education and my state has some of the best community college in the country and i know what that means. there's nothing quite like speaking at a community college graduation and going to one and seeing cross section america who has opportunity and realizes it and the president's focus on everything from education to trade and manufacturing will not -- it's not just good for him politically but will, i think will start to move the country in the right direction. >> jon meacham? >> you mentioned the auto

rescue. in your sense just talking to people, is that top of mind? do people give the president credit in ohio for doing this? or is it something that as we say they discount for? >> well, i think they don't think about it. i think this campaign -- mitt romney who i still assume is going to be the nominee, but probably an assumption a bridge too far right now. but that he opposed the auto rescue, the president fought for it. there was a lot of opposition in congress. and clearly when you -- it's not just the thousands of auto jobs. the chrysler ford, gm, and honda all announced in the last six months multihundred million dollar investments in the rest of the region. and it's not just those jobs, it's also the tier one, tier two, tier three suppliers. and so many ohioans work in manufacture that makes component parts. whether it's for -- meant for aerospace or autos or something in between.

and you're seeing -- we did a major air bus announcement in dayton where they're doing increasing -- a huge aerospace state people don't really know about particularly. and we're seeing that kind of synergism in manufacturing. i don't want to overpromise and overstate it. but the growth is starting to happen. and when we come out of national recession, we're going to see a lot more growth in ohio and manufacturing. and higher tech manufacturing. >> senator, one other thing you're working on. you're fighting against the terms of a settlement that would allow the big banks to use middle class assets to pay off penalties for the illegal foreclosure practices. how are they doing that? and it sounds like a job for the consumer financial protection? >> yeah, i assume that the consumer bureau's chief richard cordray from my state is weighing in on this as he did when he was attorney general. it's basically the attorneys general, some of the regulators negotiating with particularly the largest half dozen or up to a dozen banks on what they do to

write down some of these mortgages in some kind of principle reduction. it's got to be done in a way not to let the banks off particularly easy here, which has been too much what's happened and got to be a way to help homeowners. what drives the economy out of recession, brings us out of recession historically has been manufacturing and housing. we're doing better in manufacturing, not doing well in housing. >> not talking about housing enough. >> and we're not doing enough. this is a major step for the administration. they are moving in the right direction on this. >> wish you the best of luck with that. senator, thank you very much. >> thank you as always. great to see you. up next, here we go. it's the morning joe football frenzy. >> this is what they're talking about in cleveland this morning. also, consultant gary hopkins is here to help him out. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ ♪

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welcome back. if you hear the sex pistols that can only mean one thing, it is sirius xm's blazer and man officially known in 1976, the fifth sex pistol and gary hopkins, the author of a great book, "star spangled soccer, the selling, marketing and management of soccer in the

usa." a "morning joe" mens in this book. >> my gosh. >> first of all, congratulations. thank you. >> congratulations for roger not being a liverpool fan, a dreadful, dreadful couple of weeks for liverpool. let's talk about the game. >> massive weekend for american soccer. >> gets no bigger than this. >> it was big because it was on network television, the first ever english premiere league to be broadcast. don't worry, america, soccer not too bad, had piers morgan do the hosting duties. the game was a bit of an eyesore. the only thing worth watching was the abnormal growth of wayne rooney's hairpiece. manchester, arsenal, they could name van percy, couldn't stop him. happy 91st birthday to his uncle. wouldn't be denied. 80th minute. >> look at that. >> young danny wellbeck. united took the points.

fox will see how it rated against the info mercians for sham wow and butt sculptor. wait with bated breath. manchester united, weren't the only manchester team, were they, gary? >> give us the run down on man city/to then ham. >> scintillating game, four goals nine minutes, six seconds. >> for folks that don't watch soccer, these are for the top teams? >> ahead 2-nil, game over, no, garrette bail equalized, look like young eddie moneyster, most coveted man. then a cameo appearance, stamping on a to then ham, look at this, should have been red carded for that, he wasn't, he stayed on the field to do this, 93rd minute. gary and manchester city fans happy man, stole their points in the dying seconds. manchester city three points ahead, continue to create

existential angst for those who believe in karma. >> man city still on top of the day? >> that was great theater for anyone watching soccer, a great game. >> punked over there stepping on heads. >> i think he tripped. a bit of a flower play. a bit of a revelation. he is trouble. >> he is a problem. >> crazy. you don't know what he is going to do next that is sports. fans enjoy it kids love t >> the kids love him? >> characters, kids of characters. >> what do you got there in great britain? ballatelli dolls, press a button it stomps on the head. >> he is news? >> he is news. >> great story about ballatelli, came out of a training session, a kid 8, wanted his autograph, why are you here, why respect you in school? he says i'm being bullied.

he puts him in the class, walks in with ballatelli, walks in the kid's class, who is the bully, walks up to the kid and says don't do it again that is how you make it. >> that is bizarre behavior. showing up at an elementary school. >> how you please the kids. >> gary, let me ask you about your book, the interest in soccer, which joke about soccer, i'm an american football guy, i don't understand soccer. i have heard over the course of my 30-some years, every couple of years, soccer -- >> this is the year, willie, this is the year. >> soccer is going to take off and i know kids play it in the united states but never caught on. >> have you heard of this pele guy? >> he is good. >> he is gonna do t. >> what is different now than anything than years past in the united states? >> a good time. i figured out, always the promise of all it is going to be, but i think the last five or ten years, it has changed in this country. in one, you got stadiums, the first time ever soccer stadiums,

actually house soccer, teams like seattle, sending out 64,000, 36,000 outreach. you have got the internet. the internet allows a kid in ohio to talk to liverpool, man city, man united on the internet, ea sports, the kids, the level of understanding of the sport soccer globally now for kids in america is immense. you take it to the field, and off the field, great stadiums, great owners and we have got huge crowds, got crowds in places like philadelphia, portland, montreal, just time. it has taken time to build. >> we also, you and i, grew up playing football, american football, our kids, grew up playing soccer, all of joey's friends in college play fifa soccer it is a new generation. >> and espn is pushing it a lot, too. getting behind it. >> gentlemen, thank you. >> we have one big game benz, man city versus joe's team, liverpool. >> oh. >> oh. is it fast?

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the kick is good. and the giants are going back to the super bowl. >> good morning. it is 8:00 on the east. >> is a good morning. >> well, really depends on how you look at t >> if you are a giants fan. >> a live look at new york city. >> yes, if you are a giants fan. back with us on set, we have mark halperin and harold ford

jr. >> harold ford believes and understands in the redemptive grace of jesus christ. you know how i know that? >> what? >> i saw his campaign commercials. he -- you were raised in a pew, my man. yes. >> i think the longer this presidential race goes on the republican side, i have an unconventional thing, i think it is better for republicans. i hear your point, mika about president obama probably like to run against gingrich more but if you can remember four years ago, as you all were talking about the real focus was on democrats. obama and clinton fought for a long time, fought right up until the convention, clinton's delegates or clinton's senior people went to complain or protest the fact that florida and michigan were not counted. remember, there were disputes about whether these votes should be count, delegates should be counted on her behalf and i think it helped democrats in the long run. this, i think, helps republicans in a long run. if it is romney this will strengthen him if it is gingrich, a chance to rehabilitate himself and himself in the eyes of independents.

>> i think you are right. you know, mark halperin, everybody, of course this morning saying that mitt romney is the worst candidate of all time. i say yesterday -- >> rick santorum, didn't believe him. >> but they are all saying that mitt romney is the worst candidate of all time. they are. listen, he is not a conservative and newt is not a conservative, let's just put that out on the table. now you have two people that flip-flopped their whole lives, along with santorum, who were fighting for this nomination. so we will see which flip-flopper the republicans pick. but you could say the same thing -- same thing said about george w. bush when he had a 20-point lead in iowa in 2000 -- in new hampshire in 2000, he ended up losing by 20 points. the same was said about george h. w. bush in 1988 when he came in third place in iowa, a sitting vice president behind pat robertson. the same thing. and we forget this, was said about ronald wilson reagan in

1980 in iowa. he was a flop. he was gonna lose again. these things happen. it's reset time and maybe mitt corrects himself and becomes president like those three gentlemen or maybe it's newt. it is hard to say. >> is hard to say. i think there are basically four options now, gingrich whips this quickly, romney wins this quickly, the two of them go all the way to the convention and battle it out and one of them emerge and then i think there is a fourth option, i still think it is possible if gingrich wins florida and continues to win in february that the party says, romney's too weak, we can't have gingrich, we need another option. >> i think florida is going to be close. >> okay. >> we then go to michigan, which romney wins, nevada, which romney wins. >> not so sure about that. >> burr then on super tuesday, it comes south and gingrich is going to go -- i -- i don't see, willie, any way past a long,

hard slog to tampa. >> there's no incentive for him to get out. at what point in the race would he get out? if he is close in florida. >> gingrich? >> gingrich, yeah. expecting to lose michigan, might fight and win nevada, then he comes into the south, why would he get out? this is going to be a long fight, seems to me. >> i wouldn't presume the results of michigan or nevada. >> let's set the scene for everybody, other news we will get to congresswoman gabrielle giffords stepping down and joe paterno passed away over the weekend, sad story at another level but back to politics, after a huge turn around in south carolina, newt gingrich is trying to capitalize on saturday's 12-point primary victory over mitt romney. the republican presidential candidates have now moved to florida with another showdown just hours away at tonight's nbc news debate in tampa. early voting in the sunshine is already under way with over 197,000 republican voters expected to vote before the state's january 31st primary. the romney campaign is hoping many of those ballots were cast

when he was still soaring in the polls there his lead is expected to close dramatically after what happened over the weekend in south carolina. the former speaker topped the gop contenders in the palmetto state saturday, as joe said with 40% support. mitt romney came in second with 28%. rick santorum and ron paul followed at 17 and 13 respectively. exit polling is poking some big holes in romney's electability argument. nearly half of the voters said winning the jeep election was the main factor in their choice and among those voters, 51% said that newt gingrich was the most electable, with 37% choosing romney. the conservative vote was critical to gingrich's win, 48% of those who call themselves very conservative put their support behind newt gingrich, while mitt romney received just 19% of this group. so with the race now dramatically reshaped, the former massachusetts governor is wasting no time in going after his rival, reminding floridians

of gingrich's past. >> speaker beginning rich has also been a leader, he was leader for four years as speaker of the house. and at the end of four years, it was proven that he was a failed leader and had he to resign in disgrace and his fellow republicans, 88% of his republicans, voted to reprimand speaker beginningry. he has not had a record of successful leadership. >> all right h comment on that, on him trying to go after newt gingrich's record. but by the way, we will be seeing the tax returns today, mitt romney. >> yeah. >> tomorrow? >> tomorrow. >> within the next 24 hours. so he has finally relented on that. >> state of the union. >> good timing. >> why not just do it on christmas eve? >> what do you think? >> listen, newt was a mixed bag, he is always a mixed bag. you look at what he did -- you look at what he did getting up to actually becoming speaker and

he was a great revolutionary out in the field. newt gingrich was able to organize and put together a winning -- a winning team and republicans took control of the house for the first time in a generation. i mean, i didn't even believe -- i remember the results were coming in, we were talking about this before and somebody shout when i won, i wasn't supposed to win. of course, just for the record, newt was working against met whole time, he thought i was too conservative for my district. nice call, newt. but anyway, i got up on stage and somebody said, we won the house. i said you're kidding me. so i give newt credit for dragging a lot of people over the line that normally wouldn't win. i got 62% of the vote and actually him working against me helped me. but it is not about me, so i'm going to keep going on. but the second he became speaker, it was one mistake after another, one miscalculation after another,

even one of his best friends, bill thomas, stood up in the middle of a caucus meeting and said, newt, you can always tell us what is going to happen 30 years from now, you just don't know what's going to happen on your house floor to a lot of frustration and then at the end, you know, he tried -- this is a matter of record, he tried caving in on taxes and a small group of conservatives, my steph, steve lar jent and about ten others stopped him. he tried caving in on spending, he tried caving in on a lot of things, by the end, he was calling us the perfectionist caucus, he was calling us jihadists and he got removed, went he left, not a single republican came up and said, boy, joe, i'm upset you guys drove him out. in fact, they were happy. because by that time, he had become a distraction. but he probably never would have been in the majority but for newt gingrich that is what you call a mixed bag. a balanced budget the first name a generation, a balanced budget

the first time since the 1920s, welfare reform, tax cut, real economic growth. so, how exactly do you sort through that legacy? what voters have to say. >> as candidate. >> is he a great outsider fighting to get on the inside? yes, he is. is he a good manager and a good leader? you can't find a single person i think that's worked with him in the past closely that would say he is. >> and to add to the point that you made yesterday on "meet the press" is this really -- newt may be the story but you this is a little bit, at this point about mitt, given iowa, now new hampshire being the only one he has won. >> i think it is an indictment. >> an indictment. perhaps might be too strong a word. having said that, another thing that happened on "meet the press" yesterday, i found fascinating, david gregory asked him about his involvement with the mortgage lender, freddie mac. gingrich was asked how he could portray himself as an outsider after receiving over $1 million from the consulting firm. take a listen. >> david, you know better than

that. i was not a lobbyist. i was never a lobbyist. i never did any lobbying. don't try to mix these things up. the fact is i was an adviser strategically, if you look at the only thing ever published by freddie mac, i said you need more regulations. if you look at the only article ever written about my talking to the congress, it was in "the new york times" in july of 2008 and i said do not give them any money. now, i opposed giving money to fannie mae and freddie mac, i think they should both be broken up into four or five hurricane charley smaller companies and i have long felt that and so i think to jump from one to the other is simply wrong. >> so, moments after those comments were made, governor chris christie, a surrogate for the romney campaign, responded to the former speaker. >> the speaker, and i heard his comments just now you strategic adviser? that is the oldest washington dodge in the book that is 'cause he didn't want to register as a lobbyist. >> talking about when he worked for freddie mac? >> paid $1.6 million. first or he said he was a

historian, knew strategic adviser. let's be serious, the oldest dodge in the book. he was using his influence that he obtained in public office to try to help him that is why they paid him $1.6 million. he can call it whatever he wants to call it, but that's what it s every candidate will have liabilities. >> christy is right. he can call it what he wants, he was peddling influence. he maybe wasn't a lobbyist -- >> still having -- >> wasn't a registered lobbyist, it was a done, as chris christie said. how does newt gingrich pull off this outsider argument, after 30 years in washington, not just serving in the congress but then in washington, using the influence that he developed as a congressman, how does he and how did he pull off in south carolina the outsider argument? >> the romney campaign is going to continue to go after this, do a conference call for the press today about his work for freddie mac. my hunch is based on the way it has played out so far is romney cannot win this making about gingrich's past. gingrich has an anti-washington rhetoric that the base likes and he is able to pull out. romney comes across more of an

insider than gingrich does. i think romney needs to focus maybe a little bit more on the past, more about the future y is gingrich dangerous as the republican nominee? why would he be dangerous as president, from romney's point of view? voters need to know what is happening next. i don't think based on the south carolina experience, they are interested in gingrich's past. >> two other news stories to get to, first, willy, joe paterno passed away over the weekend, front page of "usa today." >> front page of "usa today," joe paterno died yesterday morning, his family reported. just a little over two months after the sex abuse scandal erupted. he was untouchable for 62 years at penn state. won more games than any coach, a couple of national championships, gave his life, gave a lot of money back to the school, not to the athletic department, but to the school. but what happened over the last two months for a lot of people will overshadow all that. >> horrific story on so many level he is. >> how do you sort through it? i came back from penn state just

this year, alabama played there kept going on and on about how i loved this university, i loved the people there i loved joe paterno, this was before the scandal broke. and from the time i was a kid, i looked up to this guy and it's just so many mixed feelings this past weekend. it is a tragedy and i don't know how to sort through it emotionly. >> avenues saint in the game but if you believe the grand jury testimony, and we will wait for the entire case to be argued, but if you believe the entire grand jury testimony that he didn't say anything to the police when little children were being raped in a shower to me that overshadows whatever he did on a football field. >> one other piece of news finally to get to congresswoman gabrielle giffords plans to step down from the house this week to concentrate on her recovery from last year's assassination attempt. the three-term democrat nearly died last january when a gunman went on a rampage outside a

tucson grocery store, killing six people and wounding 13, since then, giffords has made remarkable progress, relearning to speak and walk at rehab centers in arizona and houston. the congresswoman explained her decision to resign while hint agent a potential come back in her future in an online video yesterday. >> thank you for your prayers and for giving me time to recover. i have more work to do on my recovery so to do what is best for arizona, i will step down this week. i'm getting better. every day. my spirit is high. i will return and we will work together for arizona and this

great country. >> wow. >> we know there will be a special election called to fill out the remainder of her term. coming up next, "the new yorker's" ryan liz za who writes that in some transforming washington as president obama had hoped it is washington that has changed him. >> what? also ahead, mad dog -- >> crazy. the dog is in the house. >> mad dog. >> he is a dog. >> yesterday's conference championship games, talk about that and preview the giants/patriots super bowl. >> who let the dog out? >> mad dog is on his way. first to bill karins. >> speaking of dogs. his wife tells me he is a dog. >> quiet. bill, take t. >> as much as i would like to play with you today, joe, we have a serious weather situation going on in alabama. unfortunately overnight, tornados have come through and they did blow down a bunch of homes. we have two fatalities reported overnight the firemen are doing home-to-home searches in many cases to the northeast of birmingham, alabama, also in oak grove.

overall, 148 severe weather reports, tornado sirens going off the middle of the night in nashville, the worst appears to be in alabama, still one tornado warning that is active but looks like the storms are beginning to weak an little bit, as they start to push from alabama into georgia, the people in georgia, don't have the same concerns that we did in alabama, as far as the forecast goes, looks like the worst of the tornado damage has been done the northeast, rain moving in during the day, pick up in intensity this evening. the southeast, a chance for storms in atlanta but looks like the really dangerous weather will miss you. for all our friends on the west coast that weather that you saw yesterday in san francisco continues to push into the state. snow in the high elevations, l.a., a chance for some rain. of course, as we get more of the pictures in from the destructive tornadoes in alabama last night you we will bring you the pictures here on msnbc. you are watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. the employee of the month isss...

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we believe in a country where every race and faith and point of view can be found, we are still bound together as one people, that we share common hopes and a common creed, that the dreams of a little girl in tucson are not so different than those of our own children, that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled. now, by itself, this simple recognition won't usher in a new era of cooperation.

what comes of this moment is up to us. what comes of this moment will not be determined by whether we can sit together tonight or whether we are work together tomorrow. >> 22 past the hour, washington, d.c., that was president obama in his state of the union address last year calling for more common ground and cooperation in washington. has anything changed since then? or has washington changed the president more than anything? ryan liz za for the new yorker writes about the transformation president obama has undergone since being sworn in. ryan writes in part, this, "predictions that obama would usher in a new era of postpartisan consensus politics now seemed not justify eve but delusional. the obama era shows that there is only one real model to govern washington effectively, partisan dominance where a president with large majorities in congress can

push through an ambitious agenda. despite his hesitance and appeals to republicans, this is the model obama ended up relying upon for his first two years. the alternative is the divided government of 2011, which results in gridlock. obama hoped to use a third model, consensus politics, where the middle forms an alliance against the two extremes but he found few players in the middle of the field. most republicans and democrats were on their own 10-yard line." >> ryan, thanks for being with us. >> thanks, guys. >> what has changed since the 1990s where bill clinton famo famously "trying an lated" the extremes on the right or the left? >> polarization, which is sort of the most important dynamic of the last 40 years in politic has just gotten worse, right? so the two tides have become more polarized.

hazy postpartisan consensus that obama promised to usher in just isn't feasible. i don't think that is the most shocking revelation in the piece, i think a lot of people recognized that pretty quickly when obama became president. considering what an important promise in his campaign, it is worth reminding leaders how difficult it was to make happen. >> what do you atrib burt in -- what does the white house, i should say attribute the polarization to at this point and if they identified the problems can they do something to solve them? >> i think two things that aren't that complicated, polarization, two parties moving to the left and right, not just polarization and i think where a lot of report verse trouble

describing this phenomenon accurately. frankly, you have one party that has gone much farther to the extreme than the other. the republican party has been pushed much farther to the right than the democratic party. we don't have polarization, we have asymmetric polarization. >> i just want to state for the record -- let the record reflect, i disagree. go ahead. this is your time. >> it a hard time making the case that the democrats in congress have gone as far to the left as the republicans have gone to the right. >> ryan, i think -- >> have that debate. >> we can have that debate and i think it is important debate to have. we have these cycles, republicans overreached and very harsh with bill clinton for bill

clinton for eight years and eight years. the only reason they went along with any parts of the agenda is because they were scared not to. you stack up '06, '07, '80, it was every built as harsh as what people like glenn beck were saying about obama and '09, '10 and '11. >> fair enough, joe. the debate about polarization and postpartisanship, an important part of the piece, a frame for the piece, i hope what people get out of the piece and are the sort of the heart of the reporting of the piece is a look based on hundreds of pages of memos to the president and the memos marked up with the president's handwriting going back to his aides with the decisions. the piece takes you through december 2008, the transition from the campaign to the white house, right up through the last three years and you really get a -- i hope, get a close look at

how this president makes decisions, what his thought process is, what he's -- what he is sort of concerned and worried about, how his aides tee up decisions for him. so that is sort of the heart of the reporting of the piece people will be interested about. >> ripe it is bill willey guise. if you listen to the supporters, he has had the party of no to work with complete intransigence from republicans. if you listen to republicans on capitol hill, they say that president obama has not made efforts to reach out to them,s have haasant come to the hill, hasn't had them to the white house enough to form relationships to move things forward were between those two arguments is the truth? >> i have tried to grapple with both of those things in this piece, i interviewed a lot of republicanse e republicans how did this go wrong? did you give obama a chance? one thing is we never saw obama the way you guys in the media

saw him, never saw him as this postpartisan consensus guy, and go through the litany of hard-nosed political tack aches that obama can be accused of dealing over the years. there is a long part of the piece i go through the view of obama in his opponent's eyes. as republicans point out, the obama campaign in 2008 ran more negative campaigns than any president in history, he had more money than any president in history that is why, but that is something that sort of lingered after the, you know, the inauguration. but i also think obama's own rhetoric about postpartisanship was seen by republicans and especially mitch mcconnell, as a weakness. mitch mcconnell realized, look if this president is being going to define victory and success az postpartisanship or bipartisanship that makes very easy for me to set him up as a failure because all i have to do

is deny him republican votes. >> l. >> ryan what do you think the best case is the rest of this year, not in terms of politic bus governance, address employment, energy, immigration, education, other big issues facing you the country? >> i mean, zero, right? it will look a lot like last year, a series of these kind of confrontatio confrontations, overextension of some of the stimulative program and eventually the bush tax cuts with a lot of brinksmanship. >> jon meachum? >> when you were reading these memos, dean atchison once said no staffer ever comes out second best in his own memo, how revealing were they? >> we are going to post today what is historically very significant memo, a 57-page memo from larry summers and obama's economic team in december 2008 that sets up for the president the entire scale of the economic crisis he would face from the unemployment crisis to the deficit crisis to the housing crisis to the banking crisis to the auto crisis, those five biggies that obama was hit with

in december 2008. and i think you will see some of that kind of cya language in there and i think a lot of people who -- a lot of people who focus on economics will be very intrigued by what summers -- how he tees up these issues for obama and give you insight into how obama made these early decisions about bank nationalization, the sometime lurks the auto companies and the rest. we will be posting that today and hopefully, you know, folks on twitter and the internet and bloggers can have at t. >> ryan, following the government shutdown and the ba s -- bats and 1990 and impeachment, george w. bush believed he was going to come to washington, d.c. and run washington, d.c. the way he ran texas in a partnership with democrats. he quickly found out that just -- that wasn't possible. eight years later, barack obama thought the same thing, that, he had friends on the republican side of the aisle in illinois.

he was a guy that liked to think of himself as a consensus builder but washington slapped him in the face rudely like they slapped bush in the face. how do we break the cycle? >> i have thought of that a lot writing this piece and i think i went into this piece being very sympathetic with the view you want washington to work. you want consensus politics, you want the middle to come together and solve some of these big problems but we don't have the structure in america, politics is not set up for that to happen right now. if you want change, things to get done, the last couple of decades have shown us that you need a president and a congress of the same party with big majorities. >> telling us we have to go to break, really quickly what are your conclusions on what has caused the structural decay? >> a lot of explanations but i think the big one is physical demographic sorting, liberals and conservatives have ideologically sorted themselves

into more homogeneous communities and over time, elect more ideological representatives a lot of people talk about gerrymandering as the bogyman behind this? turns out it is not jerry maerngd. you fix jerry maerngd, you wouldn't fix this problem. there really is, frank lakers red america and a blue america. >> yeah. ryan lizza, thank you. your article is in the new issue of ""the new yorker."" >> thank you, ryan. >> thanks for having me guys, appreciate it. can a change of leadership save the make over the blackberry? interesting. business before the bell is next. [ male announcer ] imagine facing the day with less chronic osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain.

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welcome back to "morning joe." >> a.i allowed to say my iphone's faulty? >> well, let's talk about it, 'cause we complained about the blackberry enough. >> first amendment protection. >> you guys talk about apple like i have never seen anybody. honestly. and it doesn't work. >> so you jump from a blackberry -- you jump from a blackberry to an iphone. >> yeah. and i live in constraint frustration. >> you are moving back to the blackberry? >> i miss my black berry. >> going back to the black berry. >> works. >> you are glad. you have got a blackberry? >> i have a black berry. >> one two --

>> the i phone is frustrating, it gives me a headache. >> only rationale. >> i don't like talking to a phone on the rain you all land up to it because it was new, like a bunch of baby boys. new toy. i got a new toy. talk to t. >> it is a little hostile. >> i never owned one. >> who do you talk about surrey? >> i turn hide man into a british accent. >> brian sullivan, a british accent acres mazing how these british actors learn to, like, sanitize it to sound like they are from middle america. here is another example of t mika doesn't like her iphone she wants blackberry to survive what is the chance? >> i knew that mika was an individual as she should feel proud, because she is the one, only one in america, gone back to the blackberry, guys. >> why don't you work? >> what is this? here we go.

>> blackberry's market share is -- has collapsed like rick perry's chances of wing the presidency over the last few months, right? this thing has just been absolutely destroyed and now a new guy. had two ceos, co-cos, >> bad idea. >> now one guy, his name is authorsten hein also, not thurston howl, not the millionaire from "gill gap's island," avenues guy there oddly enough, there four years in charge of product execution, which as we talk about r.i.m. nearly daily on our show, product execution has been their problem. so, it is the guy now elevated to the top is the guy in charge of the bad product execution. are you following me? stock's up premarket, a long road ahead, guys, long road. >> they really do if i could get one of those old blue ones. >> that's what i want. >> that did nothing but -- >> scroll. >> little scroll. did nothing but made phone calls. >> it worked it worked. >> it worked. the battery lasted for days, if

the cell phone coverage went down, it still worked them lost their edge, guys, they have got a long road ahead. the physical keyboard, i have to say, agree with mika on this i know it is a big meaty paws, hard to type on the iphone. >> i can't do t doesn't work. >> and willie -- >> it keeps turning my words into porn when i type. >> porn into words. >> auto correct. might even be a little perverted. >> brian, sorry you had to listen to this. up next, preview the giants and the patriot, super dog is here. >> look who is here. >> the dog! the dog is in the house! the dog is in the house! >> back on "morning joe." hey, aren't you supposed to be following that fidelity green line? well, yeah, but it keeps leading me back to my old office. i think it might be broken.

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and the giants are going back to the super bowl. >> that was last night you the nfc championship game in san francisco. joining us now to discuss the game, break down, this good super bowl matchup, the dog, the host of sirius xm's mad dog unleashed, chris rousseau, dog, good to see you. >> great to be here. >> we have a game. good ball game? >> a a lot of juice in this game, whole yards, could be the niners and ravens after yesterday. >> tough day for the har because. starts with the giants game, you are a new york guy. elike who was great, the defense was incredible. >> i thought the defense played very well, the niner defense played great. this game was won because kyle williams fumbled two punts. if that first ball did not hit his knee, 14-10 fourth quarter, giants would not have scored in this game, a touchdown to win it niners defense was playing too

well, this ball off his knee is the key play of the whole game. i don't think the giants would have scored the touchdown to win a game, in overtime, anybody's kind of game, a good job by the special teams and a field goal to win the game. not saying the giants didn't deserve to win. this game could have gone either way. >> what is going on with the giants? every year, i'm a giants fan. >> karma. >> karma. >> they start a good year, lose four in a row, end of the season, turn it on. >> karma beat the jets, gave them momentum. cooled the cowboys. went into green bay, nobody thought they could begin wynn that game, gave them a patient's chance. break the saints lose, the niners offense doesn't pose many threat go to san francisco, eli's hospital. didn't play great in the game yesterday, took a beating in this game, wasn't really his fault. again, the niners offense is no not good enough. two turnovers in this game, whip turnover battle in championship

playoff games, plus-two in turnovers, very important. eefrnlt lie threw photograph over 200 yards. >> 58 atempt. >> finally put to rest all this talk of whether he is a top-tier quarterback? >> i was one of those guys who was down. >> where is he on the list now? >> i would still put him five. i would put brady, let's put peyton in the mix here, too. brees, rodgers and roethlisberger. they are all in there. and eli is right there, probably, my eyes, a touch below. other than that -- >> what is it about eli? you know what i love the guy, he is from ole miss, i grew up an archie manning fan. what is it about eli manning that you never -- i never give this guy credit. and yesterday, halfway through the game, i said i always understatement. >> i think everybody has for a long time. >> why? a swashbuckler. he is a soft sell, his brother overshadowed him, put that in the mix, thinking manning, think paint, not eli. places in new york, always a

defensive-oriented team. hey, listen, done a tremendous job. he is the biggest reason why they are here today. got good receivers now. this victor cruz came out of nowhere, nicks is good, manningham a touchdown, they are going to give the patriots a lot of trouble in that secondary, three good wide receivers. >> i tell you what the patriots, willie, so lucky the other day. the ravens should have won that game. >> heartbreaking. >> terrible. >> flacco drives them all the way down the field, set it up, you figure the game's going to overtime, no question, then cundiff misses the field goal. >> should have scored a touchdown before the field goal. >> joe's 100% right. lee evans, catch the football. oh. >> put that play up, the lee evans play? >> put it up and then catch it, of course, the missed field goal by cundiff, a brutal loss. i thought john harbaugh coached a horrific game down the stretch, timeout before fourth and sixth, wasted a timeout, should have won on third and one. >> here is the pass. >> oh, my. that is the game. it's over. >> evans has to catch this.

>> a nice play. >> watch this, sterling moore. >> is that not a -- does that -- >> that is debatable, 20 years ago that's a touchdown but the idea on the next play, the timeout left. >> watch this, watch this, watch this. >> he is over, he has got possession, he turns. >> in the nfl, got to have two feet down and a second and a half, two seconds. but i thought harbaugh, plus, call the timeout before the field goal. >> that's it. >> it was pushing on the field, call the timeout. >> we just showed, and my son was flying in, missed the game, and he just saw the miss. said how did he miss that? if you watched it in realtime, you saw him run on the field, my god, he is rushed. they place it down. you know the guy -- i thought the guy was gonna possibly miss t. >> absolutely right. >> why didn't you call a timeout? the super bowl is on the line. >> and they -- and they call a time. two overtime games, the championship. how good would that have been? call the timeout, harbaugh did a

terrible job in this football game. flack could i was great. >> you know, willie -- >> put him on the spot. >> you blame the kicker for this one. >> yeah. joe, got to make a 32-yard field goal. >> not the kicker. >> make the kick, 32-yarder, not 50-yarder, 32-yarder. >> by the way, great field goal kicker. >> but he has had a history. >> up, down. >> he wouldn't be on a team next year. field goal kickers, like you blow a world series, you can't come back with the team. blow a kick, they will get a new kicker next year. >> real quick. >> i will take the patriots, not with a lot of confidence, but take the patriots a lot of pressure, imagine if brady and belichick lose two super bowls to manning and coughlin in five years? that will be tough to -- a lot of pressure on them. tough to swallow. not the baggage last time, but last year, last time, 17-0 going for the imperfect perfect

season. don't worry about that baggage. >> ts he don't have don shula, like sticking pins in voodoo dolls this time. >> that's right. i like the patriots, too like i couldn't see saving losing twice to les miles, i do not see those guys losing again to the giants. and nbc will have a great game that will be a big-rated game. a big-rated game. >> patriots defense is terrible. one of the worst. >> better defense, take the giants. going with the giants. >> john miami chum not count? mika not count? >> tj is running me off the rig. who do you like? >> the giants. >> do ya? >> good. >> i have a 9-year-old who would throw me out of the house. mika what do you got? >> mika like the giants. giants? >> no go with new york, pander to the home team. >> i tried push it jim is a huge giants fan, isn't he? >> i would think so. >> you don't know what team your husband roots for? >> well, i -- i don't really watch football. sorry, mad dog.

>> okay. my wife doesn't either. >> sounds like a fascinating time. >> good to see you. >> sirius xm. more morning joe in a moment. ♪ i've discovered gold. [ female announcer ] roc® retinol... the gold standard in anti-aging. clinically proven to give 10 years back to the look of skin. nothing's better than gold. [ female announcer ] roc® retinol correxion deep wrinkle night cream.

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welcome back to morning joe. i'm meteorologist bill karins. if you are been following us this morning, we have been talking you about the breaking news out of alabama, tornadoes overnight. now, the first pictures from northeast birmingham, alabama, this is the center point, two

confirmed fatalities overnight, dozens of homes destroyed. the fire departments are doing home-to-home visits and trying to do searches to search for anyone that is still missing or trapped in the rubble in this area. the tornado threat is diminishing but will continue through the morning hours, now shift nothing southern alabama and air yaws of georgia. stay tuned to msnbc during the day today for tornadoes that affected alabama overnight. more on morning sh"morning joe". . i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

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welcome back to morning joe. mika what did you learn today? >> i got a jersey. >> a man u fan. >> i like it. >> didn't know you were a fan. >> i also learn there had is a small dusting of snow on the ground, so, miami chum has his heavy -- >> yes, miami chum, how did you get here? >> why don't you go chop some wood? >> i'm going to central park to chop a few. >> what did you learn today? >> i learned that willie geist, as ever, has his finger on the med pulse of the meadowlands fashion. wear your jersey. >> what did you learn? >> brian williams is to "rock center" as the president to air force one. wherever brian williams is, "rock center" tonight, tampa, 9 p.m. eastern. >> what did you learn, willie? >> soccer may be actually here to stay in america from our good friends, roger bennett and friends at man city. >> well, really excited about