time for one quick one. what have you got? >> sandra writes, there's a family of squirrels that live in my attic. i think the parents are going through a nasty divorce. they are fighting all night long. >> call the people in research, john. we have locked in people who are woken by squirrels fighting in their attic. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ i tell you once more ♪ before i get off the floor ♪ don't bring me down >> hey, this is a true story about mitt romney. you guys know there's a robot running for president, right? [ applause ] >> how cool is that? while touring google's offices yesterday, this is a true story, romney saw a lava lamp on someone's desk and said, that's a big lava lamp. congratulations. [ laughter ] >> ironically, the lava lamp was better at natural conversation than mitt romney. no, i did not bring that in.

good morning, everyone. it is thursday, march 22. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. we have pulitzer prize winner writer for "the washington post" jonathan capehart. and president of the council on foreign relations, richard haas, along with willie joe and me. and we have a lot going on this morning. good morning, joe. >> good morning, mika. >> we'll be talking about mitt romney. that's where we're starting. but there is a situation in france unfolding. richard is here to talk about that. there is some nfl news. >> some? >> some. >> just a little. >> "new york times" front page. >> ok. we'll get to that. we'll get to that. but first, rank and file republicans appear to be rallying around mitt romney as their likely presidential nominee coming off a decisive victory in illinois. romney picked up the coveted endorsement of former governor jeb bush. in a statement, the former florida governor congratulated romney on his win tuesday night, and encouraged fellow

republicans to put an end to the long nomination fight, saying in part, quote, primary elections have been held in 34 states, and now is the time for republicans to unite behind governor romney and take our message of fiscal conservatism and job creation to all voters this fall. meanwhile, the tea party group freedom works led by former texas congressman dick armey announced plans to stop opposing romney since the numbers favor his chances of becoming the nominee. joe, is it time? it's time. is it time for everyone to just pack it up maybe? >> well, i mean, certainly if you look at dick armey's endorsement and freedom works' endorsement -- >> semiendorsement. >> which is as good as it gets, which is damn, he has the baseball and the bat. i guess we have to let him come inside and play the pickup game. >> seems like that's how they said it. >> the jeb bush endorsement is a

very big endorsement. when jeb falls for mitt romney, a lot of other people will fall in line as well. and this freedomworks endorsement or nonendorsement endorsement is significant as well. mitt romney is starting to look inevitable for other reasons that we've been saying he was going to be inevitable against the current crop of candidates for the past several months. what did we always talk about? we talked about when this republican nomination went from iowa skpm new hampshire and south carolina and florida and made that turn north up into the midwest states, candidates like herman cain, michele bachmann, newt gingrich and ron paul, they just don't fair well. so why does mitt romney have this nomination locked up? apparently, according to a lot of experts, he won big in illinois. squeaked out a win in ohio. and he squeaked out a win in michigan. and right now, the math is on

his side. but that doesn't mean that conservatives aren't very concerned. that doesn't mean that i'm not very concerned at the prospects of a mitt romney nomination and what it means for conservatism in the republican party. >> the questions i think still linger and will dog him and either make him a better candidate or not. the illinois victory lap was cut short yesterday after senior campaign adviser eric fernstrom made a remark that caused a firestorm with the conservative base. take a listen. >> is there a concern that the pressure from santorum and gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election? >> well, i think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. everything changes. it's almost like an etch a sketch. you can kind of shake it up and start all over again. >> all right. >> who's paying that guy? >> yeah. >> i mean, really, there is

nothing that one of mitt romney's top advisers could have said that would have reinforcemented every conservative, moderate, and liberal's suspicion about him than that statement that your deeply held beliefs and values that you claim you're going to take into the general election can just be washed away. and it underlines -- i mean, first of all, who are we kidding? this happens in a lot of political campaigns. richard nixon always said it, and mike barnicle, i'm sure you remember nixon always telling republicans, you run to the right in the primary and go back to the center in the general election campaign. the problem with mitt romney is, well, he's been jig jagging left and right his entire career. and now it looks like he's about to do that again. >> well, that's a problem, joe. i mean, he's desperately in need of getting to the middle. but what this does, the etch a sketch thing, i think it prolongs the campaign.

it keeps santorum and gingrich in the campaign at least rhetorically. i don't know how they'll do for money. but they will stay in the campaign against romney rhetorically, and romney will have to extend the number of days and weeks that he caters to the conservative wing of his party preventing him from coming back to the middle early enough. and i think all of us might be underestimating the damage that's been done to the republican party among independents and moderate republicans who have looked at the rhetoric and the focus of these past six or seven weeks and have wondered, you know, who am i going to vote for? >> willie geist, let me ask you, six days from now, are we really going to be talking about an etch a sketch comment like everybody was talking about yesterday from one of mitt romney's advisers? or are we going to be talking about a huge illinois win and a jeb bush endorsement? >> he's been playing with an etch a sketch all morning, joe. you might be asking the wrong person. >> did you bring this in for me? >> i did not.

>> we do have one on set. jeb bush, you have been saying this forever, if there's one endorsement that matters in this race above all others it's jeb bush. he gets it yesterday. mitt romney finally gets the coveted endorsements, and within minutes this story comes up. i don't think we'll be talking specifically about the etch a sketch. but with all of the other mitt romney gaffs, they play into something that people already believe about him, which is that he blows with the wind, he is silly putty, choose your metaphor, whatever he is. and this reinforces it. you saw the candidates on both sides. you saw santorum and gingrich but also the obama campaign going after him. they had props. we may not talk about the actual etch a sketch in a week, but we'll be talking about the fact that even someone inside mitt romney's own campaign perhaps believes it's ok to set the reset button and decide what he needs to say in a general election different from what he said in a primary. >> or perhaps it's been such a freak show that finally, get these clowns off the bus and let mitt romney take on president

obama and have a real conversation. >> mika -- >> what? >> we're not in italy, ok? so don't go ahead and bring the red brigade into the studio. i am here, ok? >> sorry. i'm just saying. there's another way of looking at this comment. and that is it's been a ridiculous conversation. we've been talking about contraception and grits and etcha sketches. maybe we need to shake it up. his rivals seized on the comment because they have nothing else to do, saying it validates their criticism that the former massachusetts governor changes his positions to fit his political needs, both newt gingrich and rick santorum used the 1950s era toy as props in their attacks. >> given everybody's fears about governor romney's flip flops, to have his communications director say publicly to all of us, if we're dumb enough to nominate him, we should expect that by the acceptance speech he'll move back to the left, triggers everything people are worried about. they don't even have the decency

to wait until they get the nomination to explain to us how they'll sell us out. and i think having an etch a sketch as your campaign model raises every doubt about where we're going. now, this is a spare etch a sketch so i'm going to give it to you guys to play with, all right? do you want it? >> sure. >> she's ready. [ applause ] she could now be a presidential candidate. >> imagine had mitt romney been around at the time that we were drafting our constitution, he would have just shaken it, just shook it up after it was approved to rewrite it. we're talking about big things here, folks. this isn't a joke or a game. reset this race. give us a chance. to have a candidate who stands firmly on the rock of freedom, not on the sands of an etch a sketch toy.

[ applause ] >> all right. capehart has something to say. >> it's nothing earth shattering. but the interesting thing here about mitt romney, every time he wins a major victory and he should be taking that victory lap, something always happens that veers him off course and he ends up talking about something that he really doesn't want to be talking about. remember when he did the interview, and he said i don't really care about poor people. that was right after i think he won florida. >> ok. >> and there's one other that i can't remember. but if he's going to be the republican nominee, the republican voters should be a little worried that what else is he going to do during the general election. >> jonathan, that's a great point. imagine what the guy is going to say because you're right, he wins florida. that's huge. and he starts talking about not caring about poor people. they win illinois. that's huge. they say we can just erase -- after he wins the republican nomination, what are they going to talk about? harvesting poor people's organs?

this is not good. these people cannot stand success, mika. >> they really can't. >> it's just not a good thing for my republican party. >> it's not healthy. >> sshhh. just stop. >> exactly. >> that's the problem. joe has put his finger on the problem. i mean, what the etch a sketch thing does as we were speaking a couple of minutes ago is extends the bizarre nature of some aspect of this primary. who's to say that tomorrow the big debate between santorum and romney, santorum still in it now despite illinois, who's to say the big debate won't be over hotel porn? >> good god, richard. >> barnicle, we know you would not want to debate on hotel porn. >> you know which side i'm coming down on that one. >> mika, let's get mitt romney's response to this etch a sketch gate as they are calling it in some of the more desperate corners of the blogossphere this morning.

>> organizationally, a general election campaign takes on a different profile. the issues i'm running on will be exactly the same. i am running as a conservative republican. i was a conservative republican governor. i'll be running as the conservative republican nominee -- hopefully at that point the nominee for president. the policies and the positions are the same. >> richard haas. >> i actually think the larger story is that despite it all, mitt romney is going to be the republican nominee and come this fall he'll be out on a stage debating barack obama. the polls are going to be extraordinarily close. and depending upon where the economy is or whether we are at war with iran, mitt romney is either going to be the next president or not. so we can look at all of these gaffs. and i understand there's that narrative. the larger narrative is he's going to be the republican nominee, and it's going to be an extraordinarily close election. >> and there really is going to be a reset, as we talked around this table. we're in the primary now. once there really is a nominee

and we go into the fall campaign, all this stuff we've been talking about, most of the country has been paying attention to. so i'm going to bring my etch a sketch to the general campaign. >> this is spring training. we're going to have the season and the world series. and most people do not remember spring training come the world series. >> i bet the obama campaign will remind most people, though, of some of the things that were raised in the campaign. >> listen, we're following that standoff in france. we'll get to it this hour as it continues. but before we go to break, we want to get one more big story in, and that is the national rally planned tonight in sanford, florida, to demand the arrest of george zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain, self appointed, who shot and killed 17-year-old trayvon martin last month in what he claims was self defense. the teenaged victim was unarmed and walking home from a convenience store at the time of the shooting. city commissioners in sanford approved a motion of no confidence in the police chief over his department's handling of the shooting. in a written statement, though,

police chief bill lee jr. says zimmerman's claim of self defense were supported by evidence at the scene. the police report, however, makes no mention of it. a florida state senator is now drafting new legislation to dramatically reshape the stand your ground law. democrat chris smith says shooting deaths in the state are up 250% since that 2005 law went into effect. martin's parents joined the demonstration in new york city yesterday where hundreds of protesters called for justice. they also appeared on al sharpton's "politics nation" where trayvon's mother spoke about the toll her son's death was having on her. >> my heart is hardened right now. i'm finding it difficult to do just daily things right now. in addition to grieving, i'm just consumed with the fact that this guy has not been arrested who murdered my son.

so that is very difficult for me as a mother. i cry every day. there is a hole in my heart because that was my baby. >> in reading about this, it almost seems to get worse, joe, every paragraph and every news story. >> yeah. no doubt about it. and unfortunately, this isn't the first time that sanford, florida, has been the center of attention for the killing of african-american young men. of course, there was a new police chief that was inserted 10 months ago because the last police chief had video evidence of a brutal beating of a homeless man that once he got that video he let it go. it ended up that the kid that had beaten the homeless man was the son of a police officer in the department. and five years ago, two white men shot and killed an

african-american young man, claiming self-defense, claiming that he was trying to run them over. as "the new york times" reported today, that african-american male died of a gunshot wound in his back. this is a terrible situation that continues to get worse. and tallahassee better get on their toes. they better lean forward. they better move down to sanford, florida, and demand that justice is had in this case. it is, jonathan capehart, just an absolutely -- and i say this as a father of two older boys. i cannot imagine the pain of losing the son. and i can't imagine the outrage of losing a son in this despicable way. >> you know, joe, this is one of those stories, probably with the exception of the shooting death

of dealo, this has affected me personally because as i wrote in a piece that was in the paper on monday, you know, growing up as an african-american male, i wrote one of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy weight of other people's suspicions. and so the reason why you're seeing all of these demonstrations, yesterday in union square, tonight in sanford, and people on facebook and twitter demanding justice for trayvon martin, it's because african-americans and particularly african-american men have to comport themselves and live their lives in a way that doesn't bring upon them undue, unwarranted attention by law enforcement or those who want to be law enforcement or pretend to be law enforcement. and, you know, as i wrote in the piece, as a kid, i'm told at 16 -- because i'm older now. i'm a young man. that here are the things that you can't do.

as an american citizen, i can't, you know, don't run in public. don't run in public with anything in your hands. don't talk back to the police, which i know is a universal -- it's a universal rule. but when you're african-american and certainly an african-american male, to do that is to put your life in your own hands. and even though i have never had any, any experience or interaction with the police, i know, i feel, i have grown up with and have been taught to be prepared for it. trayvon martin was 17 years old. an iced tea and a bag of skittles. a kid talking on the phone with his girlfriend, just trying to get home to see the second half of the nba all-star game. and a guy who's 100 pounds heavier than he is, 11 years older than he is, and carrying a .9 millimeter handgun was able to be his judge, his jury, and his executioner. i know that's strong language.

but we're talking about a man who took the life of a young boy. and if there's any silver lining in all of this, it's that it will focus people not just on the stand your ground law. excuse me, this is insane, and we're seeing it in this aspect, but to focus people on the fact that even though this is 2012, even though we have an african-american president, an african-american attorney general, that there are still conversations that need to be had in this country so that there isn't another trayvon martin. and one last thing. it also affected me because when i was told those lessons, i was one year younger than trayvon martin. but i still live with the fact that i still could be trayvon martin simply because someone might find me suspicious, might find me -- >> you'd think we'd be further down the road by now. >> you would, but we're not. >> and let's bring focus on this conversation, and jonathan's wonderful comments.

we are not discussing trayvon martin this morning. we did not discuss it yesterday morning because a crazed, self-appointed neighborhood watchman chased a young african-american male down and shot him. we are talking about it this morning, and we're talking about it yesterday morning, and we'll be talking about it tomorrow morning, because while that injustice happened, and it could happen anywhere in america with a deranged man with a .9 millimeter gun who believes that vigileante justice, going after somebody with skittles -- i think willie said he called the police 40, 45 times. that could happen anywhere. why we're focusing on it this morning is because the shooter that shot this young man, that i believe murdered this young man, is still out of jail. with his gun.

>> with his gun. >> in fact, he's out of jail, and he wasn't drug tested but trayvon martin, the 17-year-old young man with skittles. and you know what? i'm going to just say this this morning. you've got to be very careful because of -- you've got to be politically correct. but i'm just going to use a word. he's not even -- i say he is a young man because he is an african-american, and white people have to be very careful about calling african-americans boys. but i see this young man, and i don't see a young man. i see a boy. i see a boy like my boys when they were 17 years old. now that they're a little bit older. and that's what really breaks my heart. and it breaks my heart that this young boy shot dead, gunned down, in the middle of the street, with nothing but iced tea and skittles, was the one

that the police officers decided to drug test. they drug tested his corpse. they kept hemlocki him locked u days away from his parents. they didn't try to notify the family. and now they are still allowing a man who most of america thinks is a murderer to walk free. this is an injustice unlike any that i think we've seen in quite some time. and mika, it is time. it is time for the state of florida to step in if officials in sanford will not step in. and a nonbinding 3-2 resolution, that is not enough. if the city manager will not fire this police officer and hire one who will arrest this man that gunned down a 17-year-old boy, then the attorney general, the state of

florida, and the governor of the state of florida need to step in. this is an embarrassment to my home state. >> i'd go further. i'd go further. because if this unfolds the way it appears it's unfolding, you know, in a country where it's later can talk about a radio host calling someone a name, we ought to be looking at ourselves and this situation really closely from the top down. and quite frankly, it is -- they are looking at the audiotapes right now of the cell phone. and there might have been a racial epthreat. >> if you play those tapes to any legitimate big city police department or any urban police department, probable cause is already on that tape, and it comes from the dispatcher, the 911 dispatcher, says to the guy, you're not following him, are you? and he says, yes. and they say don't do that. and then a couple of seconds later, the guy says, now he's starting to run. that's probable cause right there to arrest this guy. >> there's a critical point to be made that hasn't been made yet this morning because the

case is centered around the stand your ground law. that's why the police say they haven't arrested him. this is why the guy said he did what he did. the author of that law, senator joe peden -- >> i know him, yeah. >> he came out and said explicitly yesterday, quote, george zimmerman has no protection under my law. the law i drafted and co-sponsored, he has no protection under my law. he went to say, when we heard on the 911 tapes zimmerman saying, quote, i'm following him, peden says, quote, the guy lost his defense right then and there. game over. that's the guy who drafted this law. >> game over. >> republican who drafted this law says this guy is not protected. that's probable cause. >> all right. >> no doubt about it. >> we will follow this and much more ahead. we've got a big morning. when we come back, a look at politico's top stories. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. the incredible heat wave is over in chicago. out with a bang yesterday, 87 degrees in the middle of march in chicago.

detroit, you had your warmest march temperature ever at 84. so what are we going to do today to top this? well, we are watching more record heat up in new england. mid-atlantic, we get rid of those foggy conditions, we could even see some record highs from d.c. up through areas of southern new england. rainy conditions down on the gulf. we do have a chance of severe weather, flash flooding, especially in mississippi. eventually the storms will move out of new orleans. if you're flying today early, d.c., philadelphia, the new york airports, it's a very foggy morning. i do expect some airport delays. eventually that fog will burn off and we'll see sunshine this afternoon. and look how warm it's going to get. temperatures upper 70s to low 80s in many areas. the southeast will deal with storms. and also our friends in the pacific northwest, one of the biggest snowstorms in the history of oregon is now ending today. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. [ tom ] we invented the turbine business right here in schenectady.

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deaf cape h 29 past the hour. time now to take a look at the morning papers. one big headline from the pages of "the financial times," tense standoff continues right now in france where it has now been several hours since police negotiators last heard from a self-described member of al qaeda who has claimed responsibility for the shooting deaths of seven people in recent days. the 24-year-old suspected gunman is cornered in an apartment building in the southern city of toulouse. and richard haass, they want him alive. they are trying to get at him and at this point they don't even know where -- they haven't heard from him for hours. so who knows. but give us the big picture on this story.

>> as gripped as we are in the conversation we just had about trayvon martin in this story, france is gripped by mohammed merah, a french citizen of algerian defense. this is scary for the social fabric of france and potentially scary for the social fabric here. france is a country now of a growing number of muslim citizens of algerian and other descent. and this injects into everyone's mind the idea, oh, that person is arab one way or another, algerian, what have you, might he do something like this? this is the kind of thing that is corrosive to put it bluntly for any society. it's what's happening in france. this is a guy who was radicalized apparently by the internet. he made some trips over to the middle east, to pakistan, what have you. he comes back. and apparently, he does this mayhem killing jewish kids and killing soldiers. or policemen. this is the sort of thing that could happen here in the sense that people now can get self radicalized on the internet.

they can do their own excursions. they come back, and there's no way that law enforcement or the intelligence community can pick it up before it happens because these are lone actors. and it's very frightening for any modern society. it has gripped france for good reason. it raises the whole question of who is french, what is our citizenship, who can we trust. that's why it's so loaded. that's why the entire country is on edge. it's part of their future demographic reality. and all i'm saying is a version of it happened at ft. hood, and it's a frightening thing for any modern society. >> we'll be watching that unfold as it develops throughout the show. and now, richard, thank you for that, it's time for "politico." let's go down to washington with mike allen as he has a look at the political. good morning. >> good morning, guys. >> let's talk about your lead story, how paul ryan sold that budget plan. of course, he is getting hammered from democrats about this, saying he is getting medicare, hurting the poor, hurting our seniors. how did he plan to sell this

thing? >> you know, republicans have been working for months on laying the groundwork for it. they did polls in 50 battle ground house districts. they spent a lot of time reaching out to conservative groups hoping they would get their back when they came out. and paul ryan personally reached out to each of the presidential candidates to presell them on this plan, including to mitt romney who endorsed it right away. that worked. as part of the polling, they told members to talk about how this plan is bipartisan, to talk about saving medicare. but in their own case, in their own spin, there's a sign of the trouble that -- the political trouble this is when they used all the right phrases, when they cast it just the right way. their polls showed 46% support for this. and clearly, it's not going to be portrayed 100% the way they want. so that shows the real vulnerability for republicans

based on this. they said they told their members when they do this to use props, to talk about personal experiences. so they are trying to sell it almost like a political campaign. >> before we let you go, they wanted to frame it as a contrast to president obama's affordable health care act. do they feel like in these first couple of days, paul ryan and company, they have succeeded in selling this? >> well, republicans are talking a lot more about the anniversary on friday of the signing of health care reform than any democrat is. in fact it rick santorum is making it his campaign. we have an exclusive first look af wh of what he is calling a campaign within a campaign, saying that romney care equals obama care. romney is firing back in wisconsin, going up with an ad talking about cutting spending, fiscal conservatism. this is a clever way for him to talk about pocketbook issues but not acknowledge how great the economy is right now. >> mike allen with a look at the

political playbook. thanks so much. >> have a great day. coming up, tim tebow, yes, is coming to new york city. can you believe it? >> what? >> joining a team that by the way just resigned its quarterback to a pricey extension. we'll talk about how tebowmania will play in the big apple next on "morning joe." ♪ ♪ what started as a whisper every day, millions of people choose to do the right thing. there's an insurance company that does that, too. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy?

welcome back to "morning joe." mika is excited this morning. tebow mania is coming to new york. >> i don't understand. it doesn't seem like a good fit. >> mika is sneaky smart about sports. she knows what's going on. >> it doesn't seem right. >> she knows what's up. she just pretends she doesn't. joining us now from washington, the co-host of sports talk live on comcast sportsnet, ivan carter. good to see you. >> how are you guys doing up there in new york? do you have your tebow jerseys? >> richard and i are giants fans, so actually we are kind of happy that tebow went to the jets. let's figure this out and talk about how it came together and how mark sanchez, the man who 10 days ago was signed to a three-year, $50 million extension, that was supposed to solidify him as the man for the new york jets. how did this come together and what's the deal with sanchez? >> it's very interesting.

sanchez struggled last year. it appears he took a step back. remember they were in the afc championship game just a couple of years ago. he appeared to be going towards that franchise quarterback status. last year, all kinds of things popped up, whether it was drama with his wide receivers, him not performing very well. and now tim tebow comes into the mix. maybe not, you know, as a backup type. they made that clear. sanchez is still the quarterback. tebow could be used in a quote, unquote, wildcat type system, you know, where he could come in maybe as h-back, throw one, run it, they could get really creative with him. but that pressure that's going to be on sanchez having tebow behind him with some fans screaming for tebow, that's going to be fascinating to see how sanchez handles that. and of course, in new york with the forgiving media, and the tabloids, and the fan base. boy, it's going to be a big, big fun story to cover. >> the jets can spin it any way they want. this is not a vote of confidence for mark sanchez. the back page of "the new york

post," ivan says, no ring circus. jets are clowns for bringing tebow into the mix. also, the greatest jet of them all, joe namath, was on the radio here in new york city yesterday talking about this tim tebow trade. listen to what he said. >> i just am sorry. i do not agree with this situation. i can't agree with it. i just think it's a publicity stunt. i really think it's wrong. i can't go for it. >> listen, if you lose joe namath in jets nation, that's not a good thing, ivan carter. >> it's interesting, but the jets haven't won a super bowl since joe namath. it's been a long time. so the question is, were they that good last year? no. was sanchez that good last year? no. if tebow can help you, and he did show an ability to move the football last year with the denver broncos. i'm still not convinced he is an nfl quarterback 100%, but ooii'

like to see more. why not make yourself a better football team? they are a circus anyway with rex ryan. how much worse can it be? it's about on the field and moving the football producing points. you kind of give them credit for taking this risk. yeah, it could blow up, but it's the nfl. it can always blow up. go for it. >> richard, as giants points, ivan says the jets haven't won a super bowl since joe namath. the giants have not won a super bowl for a full month and a half now. >> slow offseason. no drama for the giants. they are just downright boring. one other thing about the saints deal. they suspend head coach sean payton. does the nfl for a full season for the bounty program. are you surprised they came down that hard on the saints? >> no. as soon as i heard there was a three-year investigation on this, and the saints have been warned to knock this stuff off, and kept doing it. guys here in washington, we all know where there's politics and football, it's never the crime it's the cover-up. it's the fact they lied about it and kept doing it. commissioner roger goodell has never had more power than he

had. came out of the lockout with it, and he stuck it to them hard. i knew he would. remember after spygate, they took a first-round pick from the new england patriots for supposedly taping team's practices. i knew they would hit them hard. the nfl has a weird relationship with violence. they know it's a part of the game, but they want the perception it's not. they have former players suing the league for concussions. you can't have it be known that guys are trying to intentionally hurt each other for money and not nail them, and they did. i expected this penalty. >> jonathan, what do you want? wildcat offense here with tebow. how do you think that works? >> i thought we were going to a break. [ laughter ] >> you've been so great on sports lately. you've run the show really. >> my sports knowledge is very defined. defined through the teleprompter. >> exactly. >> within a window. >> within that box. ivan, great to have you on. we'll talk to you soon. >> thank you. coming up, mika's must-read opinion pages. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future.

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we just got some really sad news. yesterday on the set here, gosh, we were talking with reverend al about his mother, ada, and he just tweeted this. my mother, ada sharpton, passed in the early hours of this morning. she was my all. i hope god will give her now peace. i love you, mom. so reverend al, of course, in the midst of working on this trayvon martin case, now dealing with the loss of his mother. and we love you, reverend al, and we wish you the best. very sorry. >> and just two weeks ago, he was in alabama for the anniversary of the march, and he visited his mother and spent time with her. he also tweeted later and said, i will continue on to florida.

he is on a plane right now to florida. my mother would have wanted me to do this work. >> absolutely. >> she just died hours ago, and he is moving on to florida where tonight at 7:00 he will lead a rally with trayvon martin's family at the first shiloh baptist church at 7:00 tonight in sanford, florida, with tray van martin's family. our thoughts are with reverend al and we are thinking about you and your family this morning. we have one must-read page from "the washington post" that is just for you, richard, on afghanistan. it's entitled, a route to success in afghanistan by john mccain, joseph lieberman, and lindsey graham. and i bet you are not going to be surprised by this. one line that we don't have full screen, they say to sustain this fragile progress, it's critical that president obama resist the short-sighted calls for additional troop reductions which would guarantee failure. they go on to write, a key part

of this post 2014 u.s. military commitment should be a counterterrorism force that can continue working with our afghan partners against al qaeda and the taliban. ensuring that these groups can no longer pose a military threat to afghanistan, our allies, and us. this agreement could change the narrative in afghanistan and the region from one of imminent international abandonment to enduring international commitment. these decisions rest with president obama. we have disagreed with some of his choices regarding the war in afghanistan, but after all our nation has sacrificed in afghanistan, we stand ready to do everything in our power to secure the same bipartisan support for this war in its twilight hours as when it began more than a decade ago. i just have a suspicion that they are somewhat alone in their opinion. i have talked to some republicans on the hill who say it's very frustrating.

>> i would respectfully disagree with them. whether they are alone or not, i actually just think it's not correct. somehow if we quote, unquote, stay the course and keep 68,000 troops there a lot longer, their argument is we're going to have a lot to show for it. we're quote, unquote, going to succeed in afghanistan. but we're not. we're not because of the nature of our afghan partner, quote, unquote. we're not because pakistan is going to continue to provide a sanctuary for the taliban. so no level of u.s. commitment could overcome these local realities. we're kidding ourselves. now the answer is not to withdraw completely. and they are right to the extent that we ought to keep a residual force, we ought to do some advising and training and counterterrorism, but we can do this with a modest force of maybe 20,000 forces. there's no reason we need to keep this level of troops for as long as they want to. >> but the definition of a success they are talking about, which is one of the arguments about what is success, but the definition would require a permanent presence at a very high level, would it not? >> even that i'm not sure would do it. what we are seeing in

afghanistan is we are wearing out the welcome mat. i think success ought to be to give the afghans the chance to look after their own defense mainly so that groups like al qaeda cannot set up shop in afghanistan. we can't define success in terms of what is the nature of afghanistan. we can simply define success that afghanistan is not again used by al qaeda as a platform to kill americans. we need a modest definition of what we can accomplish. if we define success ambitiously, we will fail. >> when the history of this war is written, how important will that that early-morning hours when the staff sergeant left the base and allegedly killed those civilians? >> not a lot. it will be a footnote. the larger story will be the united states got ambitious in a part of the world where it should not have. where local cultural and local politics and local geography trumped the good efforts of the united states. >> news you can't use is next. more "morning joe" is just a moment. [ female announcer ] you have plans,

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yesterday you may have heard the sixth anniversary of twitter. >> oh, congratulations. >> six years. can you believe? jimmy kimmel last night assembled a group of friends to read alert actual tweets, the worst they have received. >> yeah, david cross is not my kind of comedian.

>> jason bateman is gay, question mark? who knew? >> if you change the "i" in anna farris's last nate to t you get farts. >> lolyo, will farrell is [ bleep ] dumb. well, maybe you're dumb. >> kristin bell is so [ bleep ] ugly. way too ugly to play snow white in snow white and the huntsman. >> this is confusing. looks like dracula. wow. looks like a cartoon version of dracula or dracula dracula. because of my teeth? you know what it is? my hairline.

got it. thank you. >> this one is actually sweet. can it be my turn to punch andy dick until there are bones in his stool? >> will farrell is a [ bleep ] fool. that one i can tell is a compliment. thank you. thank you. >> that's just not right. >> it's funny because it's so true. >> can will ferrell keep his clothes on in anything? >> no. that's the core of his humor, and thank god. >> can we move along? former white house adviser for health will be with us. also, jeff greenfield is joining the conversation. keep it on "morning joe." today i'm talking to people about walmart's low price guarantee. every week they lower thousands of prices and check over 30,000 competitor prices. check out that low price. you want to grab one? grab two. [ male announcer ] that's the walmart low price guarantee!

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congratulations to cspan for bringing us 33 years of landmark moments from the united states congress, like this. >> the transactional account. so, yes, we are aware of the importance of community banks. and i would just repeat what i said. >> thanks, cspan. keep up the good work. it's so foggy today in washington. welcome back to "morning joe." mike barnicle and jonathan capehart are still with us. and joining the table, political analyst and host of pbs's "need to know" jeff greenfield is back with us. nice to have you. >> good to be here. >> good day to have you as well. joe and i have been talking about the jeb bush endorsement.

we want to get your take on that. joe, rank and file republicans are rallying around mitt romney as their likely presidential nominee coming off that decisive victory in illinois. and he did get finally yesterday the endorsement by former governor jeb bush. what do you make of it? >> well, i think rallying around, the term you use, may be a bit strong. this is -- as we said the last hour, it just may be that the 18 kids on the baseball field realize that they all got there without a baseball or bats or gloves. and the nerd in the stands wants to get on the field to play, and he's the only one that allows the game to go forward. so i don't know that anybody is, quote, rallying around mitt romney. but he's got the money. he's got the organization. and he looks today like he probably has the nomination. i thought dick armey and freedom

works' nonendorsement endorsement of romney said it all. now, again, we've said it before here. mitt romney is a very good man. we like him personally. he is just very stiff and awkward politically. as jimmy fallon said last night, it is remarkable, but a robot is actually running for president of the united states. and if you look at him onstage, off stage he is a good guy but onstage he is stiff and awkward. and we'll see how that plays out into the fall. >> let me ask jeff about your analysis because you may be right. in a statement, jeb bush congratulated romney on his win on tuesday and encouraged fellow republicans to put an end to the long nomination fight, saying in part this, quote, primary elections have been held in 34 states and now is the time for republicans to unite behind governor romney and take our message of fiscal conservatism and job creation to all voters this fall. and as joe mentioned, jeff, the tea party group freedomworks led

by former texas congressman dick armey announced plans to stop opposing romney since the numbers favor his chances of becoming the nominee. that is sort of a backhanded endorsement. fair enough? >> yeah. rallying is kind of scuffling towards romney, you know, edging. to me, it still demonstrates how imminently beatable mitt romney was, even with his enormous money advantages and even with the six years. santorum, who is more strategically focused, who could have won ohio and michigan right now and sent this race into absolute turmoil. and i wrote this in a yahoo column a couple of days ago. the way the rules of the republican convention go, if there was enough doubt about romney, you could have seen real turmoil in rules changes that would have stripped some of the delegates if the mood of the convention had been, we can't nominate this guy. right now, i think because of santorum's failure, because of romney's money bomb, money is

speech the supreme court said, and mitt romney has the microphone and the megaphone. >> so all of the conversation about the potential of a brokered convention, do you think that's now shut down as a result of jeb bush's endorsement? >> close. i thought we'd never have a brokered convention because there are no brokers. but i thought that the chances for a contentious convention were very high. because a lot of the delegates from places like mississippi and alabama were even bound for romney to vote for him on the nominee. they are not bound to vote for him on rules or credentials challenges. >> what would that look like, mildly exciting, at a contentious convention? we haven't seen one. well, i haven't seen one. >> well, talk to yoda. you go back to 1968, '72, '76, and even the democrats in 1980. it was enough opposition to the nominee that there were rules

fights, there were contentious battles over who gets to speak. in 1976, the nomination of reagan and ford came down to a rules challenge about whether the nominee had to name a vice president. and it was actually interesting. >> right, right. although what we're seeing from jeb bush, joe, wouldn't you agree, is an attempt to not have a situation like that? >> well, sure. jeb is stepping in. i don't think there are a lot of other options for mainstream republicans. but one of the things that he said in his statement about we need to push forward with mitt romney and fiscal conservatism, well, that just doesn't ring true with conservatives, especially with small government conservatives. it's an old story, but it has to be told again to explain why conservatives have such a hard time embracing mitt romney. george w. bush became president in 2001. the debt was $5.5 trillion. he left, it was $11.5 trillion.

now it's jumped up in four years as much as it jumped in eight years under bush. we are up to $16 trillion, and we are on the verge of a real economic meltdown. 40 years from now, if barack obama is -- four years from now if barack obama is still the president, that debt goes up to $24 trillion. and here is the catch for conservatives. if mitt romney is elected president, if you score his proposals, then that national debt goes up to $23 trillion. so add to that the fact that you've got barack obama supporting an individual mandate and mitt romney supporting an individual mandate. barack obama supporting health care nationwide in that mandate. mitt romney in a 2009 "usa today" column endorsing that mandate. you can get -- whether you talk about even social issues, on abortion, on gay marriage and gay rights, on gun control. you can line up for every position that we get from barack

obama, i can find you a statement in mitt romney's past where he has said almost the same thing. down to whether they voted for ronald reagan or not. >> right. >> again, this bears repeating today because a lot of people can't understand why conservatives can't embrace mitt romney as he marches toward the nomination. it's for this reason that a lot of people don't think there's going to be a great difference between what happened with romney and what happened with george w. bush and barack obama. >> and as they embrace him, i have to say, it very much like chris christie, who i suspect had a hard time endorsing mitt romney, i feel the same way about jeb bush. and as everything that you just said, exactly why i have suspicions about these endorsements. i think they were very, very difficult to come by. i don't think jeb bush had a good time doing this. would you disagree, joe? >> no. i can't speak for jeb bush. i can't speak for chris

christie. >> well, chris christie denies it. >> but as we all know, mike barnicle, as you march toward the nomination, everybody falls in lines. former enemies become best of friends. people that have said horrific things about primary challengers suddenly put their arms around him and pretend like they are best friends. this is the way politics works, and this is why a lot of americans hate politics. >> true. the romney thing, the persona of mitt romney, i found really kind of interesting over the last three or four months, though, joe. one, it appears that he has been horribly overmanaged with people at him. his staff at him every six seconds about do this, do that, don't say this, don't say that, and let's add to his robotic nature that we see on tv. the other aspect of it that i find really, really interesting is that i think mitt romney

badly underestimated exactly how far right the conservative wing of his party had gone. i think he was prepared -- clearly he was prepared to mask himself as a real conservative and take conservative positions, use conservative rhetoric, and he started doing it in november and december. i am a conservative. i was a conservative governor of massachusetts. but when he saw that they were even more conservative than he was acting, he became so ill equipped, i think, intellectually to adjust to it that he appears like to be completely out of sorts as a human being. >> that's why the etch a sketch thing, jeff greenfield, has just taken off when it should be a silly kerenough el. >> it should, but i think it's because it needs this perception. i have always thought of mitt romney going back to actually 2008 when he had to make this move to the right that he's like the guy who learned to dance at arthur murray's dance studios. and unlike somebody who is naturally flowing into what he believes, he is counting the steps.

ok. this is where i have to be on gun control. this is where i got to be on gays. this is where i got to be on whatever. and there is no sense of an organic coherent theme. and i think what joe said touches on this. no matter what he does almost, the only way the conservatives can accept him is we can't beat him, and he's not obama. in fact, you may have a -- assuming it's romney, you're going to have a general election campaign in which obama's greatest thing will be, well, you know, it could have been worse. and romney's is going to be, well, i'm not him. i'm not sure what the voter turnout is going to be in that situation. >> joe, to your point, don't you think that one of romney's strong suits might be that once he does secure the nomination, that he can go to talking about items like the deficit, that he can go -- that he can stay on the economy and talk about what is his expertise, and maybe deflect some of this criticism? >> well, maybe so.

but my question is, i know people move ideologically throughout their life. i expect them. i don't want their feet to be stuck in stone. the greatest example of this is ronald reagan who was a new dealer with fdr and a union leader out in hollywood. he moved in the '50s and '60s to the right. so that's fine. the move to the right is fine. but nobody down tubted in 1964 ronald reagan gave that speech for barry gold water whether he was dancing by numbers or whether he felt it in his core, in his heart, in his soul. there is not a speech that i have heard mitt romney give on free enterprise, on lower taxes, on lower regulation, on economic growth, on hope, on prosperity, on the things that make conservative dorks like me get excited and stand up at conventions and cheer and say, this guy has to win! if we want america to be

greater. i have never heard one of those speeches from mitt romney, and neither have any other conservatives in america. here, though, is the great irony about i think -- well, perhaps not an irony, but, you know, nixon always said go to the right and then go to the middle in the general election. look over the past 25, 30 years, even 40 years. i have said it before. the mainstream media is always horrified by conservative candidates for the republican party. and say, oh, they need to move to the middle if they want to win. republican candidates don't win national campaigns in the middle. bob dole loses national campaigns. mitt romney loses national campaigns. you know, john mccain loses national campaigns. gerald ford loses national campaigns. after he raises taxes, george h.w. bush loses national campaigns but the republican base is not energized and they don't go out and vote. they go out and vote for people that are true blue conservatives like ronald reagan twice and

george w. bush twice. people like mitt romney, they usually don't pull out the votes required to win these national elections. >> it sounds like you're saying game over for obama. >> well, it's never game over. i mean, gas prices are over $5 in a lot of america. that's a real problem for him. the president's had to back down on the keystone pipeline because things are going so badly as far as energy prices go. what if energy prices -- what if gas prices go to $6? what if un. ment employment goes up because the economy is slowing down? what if iran goes nuclear and that bombshell is revealed like the pakistani bombshell was revealed back in the 1990s? anything can happen. i'm just saying, mitt romney does not look like the type of republican candidate that wins general election campaigns. >> i want to get to the keystone story. >> well, the interesting thing about what joe just said talking

about ronald reagan and how he changed over a span of decades, his view from a new dealer to a great conservative leader. and what you have with mitt romney, he also has changed, but he did it over a period of four years. and you can change your core beliefs maybe one or two. but all of them? it renders you suspect in the eyes of voters. >> and his record as governor as well. jeff greenfield? >> mitt romney as a governor was basically a center right moderate pragmatist. starting in 2006, i think, he realized i cannot win the republican nomination that way. and that has been the bane of his political existence since. >> all right. joe mentioned keystone. with fuel prices on the rise today, president obama is expected to direct federal agencies to speed approval for one portion of the controversial keystone pipeline. that has been a very controversial issue in the past couple of weeks.

he has blocked it in the past. now he is letting one portion go forward. the president is focusing on a roughly 500-mile section from oklahoma to refineries on the texas gulf coast that would remove a bottle neck in the country's oil transportation system. republicans who have made the pipeline a key issue in the presidential election called the announcement a stunt. aaa puts the average price of gas at $3.88 a gallon. that's up more than 30 cents since last month. joe, is it a stunt? >> i don't know if it's a stunt or not. it's good politics, mike barnicle, when gas prices are over $5 in some parts of the country. creeping up to $4. we always talk about bill clinton who was about as good at this job politically as anybody. he and reagan certainly over the past 50 years. looked at one number above all other numbers politically, and it was the price of gas per gallon.

and, mike -- >> exactly. >> barack obama has to look like he is fighting. so if it's a question of upsetting environmentalists or upsetting consumers, that's an easy political decision for president obama. >> yeah. joe, you know, i mean, everybody, including all of us, we talk about how the public is going to look at these candidates in the fall. that's the second most important look that these candidates ought to be worried about. the first most important look is when you are leaning against the car with the gas thing in your gas tank and you are pumping the gas in, and the look -- you look at it and you say, wow, i'm paying that much? that's the look that president obama and governor romney ought to be afraid of. the look, when you look at those prices that you're paying, and it will be up to about $4.75 by the migddle of the summer, probably drop by labor day as it usually does, but that's a cruncher. >> and, jeff, so many of these oil and gas prices depend a lot

more on oil speculation across the globe. a lot of things that presidents can't control. but that said, a president has to make sure that he looks like he's doing absolutely everything he can do to lower that price of gasoline per gallon, even if it's five, 10, 15 cents, right? >> yeah. and it is on a rational basis ludicrous given how the price of energy is set. for all i know, the president is going to half complete that pipeline and then arrange for millions of unemployed to go up to the completed portion of the pipeline and each bring back one barrel of natural gas. thus cutting the un. employment rate in half, which would help. but between the gas prices and the prices at the supermarket, this is information that you do not need to be an intense political junkie analyst to know. this stuff is information that every person knows. it's why in 1980 the inflation rate, which is double digits,

was as big if not more a killer of jimmy carter's re-election than the iran hostages any anything else combined. it is the most basic information. it's the information that frightens people, that causes them to worry about their future, to worry about their savings to worry about whether they can make it. and it kind of overrides just about -- probably overrides even $1 billion worth of commercials. all right. before we go to break, i want to give you an update on some breaking news out of france where police officials say the suspect who admitted to going on a killing spree is now dead. the man who is a self-described member of al qaeda had been cornered in an apartment building for over 30 hours. police this morning say they sent in cameras to see where he was hiding. that's when the suspect leaped out of a window while firing his gun. he was found dead on the ground. while negotiating with police, the 24-year-old man had claimed responsibility for the shooting deaths of three children and a rabbi at a jewish school on

monday. he also admitted to killing three french paratroopers last week. so that story still unfolding. the suspect, though, now officially is dead. jeff greenfield, stay with us. up next, a test of presidential power. we're going to talk to former white house adviser dr. zeke emanuel ahead of the supreme court arguments over the nation's health care law. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

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we have now just enshrined as soon as i sign this bill a core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their health. [ applause ] >> and it is an extraordinary achievement that has happened because of all of you and all the advocates all across the country, so thank you. >> all right. that was the president almost

exactly two years ago as he signed the health care bill into law. here with us now, former white house adviser for health policy and university of pennsylvania's vice provost of global initiatives and chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at u-penn's pearlman school of medicine, dr. zeke emanuel. you officially have the longest title of anyone who has been on the show. >> they give you titles because they don't give you anything else, no power, no money. >> what else do i need to say? is there a list i need to read? >> my brother. you'll mention him in a moment. >> i'll lay off your brother. he makes me tired. >> where's joe? >> he makes me tired too. >> he knows i'm here, and he doesn't show up. >> let me ask you this. we have two years now to this being signed into law, and we are hadd headed to the supreme court. so the fate of the individual mandate, can you give us a

prognosis? >> i have two very large bets with ronald pearlman and another billionaire that this will be upheld. it's definitely constitutional. i think there's no credible legal scholar that doubts it. the commerce clause allows congress to do anything necessary and proper to maintain the market. and they will uphold it. >> for the economically illiterate, which would include me, could you please explain what is the problem with the mandate? why is it -- >> what's the argument at stake? >> what's the argument at the supreme court about? >> so the argument is that congress shouldn't force people to buy something that they otherwise wouldn't want to buy. and health insurance being something which many americans or some americans can't buy. and the claim is congress cannot force you to do that. but the fact is, we know in the insurance market, if everyone doesn't buy, the insurance markets collapse. we have had a lot of ex-changes around the country that have

tried on a voluntary basis to have people purchase, and they always collapse because the people who end up buying are people who are sick. the people who are healthy find it too expensive so they stay out. the price goes up. then the people who are just at the edge healthy, they come out. and so you end up collapsing because the only sick people are in the market. to have a stable insurance market, you need everyone in, and that's what the mandate helps assure. >> but the argument seems to make sense. you shouldn't have to buy something you don't want to buy. but is there a precedent for this argument? >> there are plenty of precedents. george washington required people to have guns. in the 1960s, the supreme court with the commerce clause required people who owned hotels and restaurants who didn't want to serve blacks to serve african-americans because they wanted -- they said it was part of interstate commerce and you couldn't discriminate. so i think there are many, many precedents. this is not actually unusual.

plus, we require people to get vaccinated. we were just talking about vaccines. we require people to get vaccinated partially for their own protection but also partially because it protects other people. if you are vaccinated, it reduces the chance that the virus will spread around the country. >> the argument on the other side is that -- and i don't want to get too wonky here, but to use the commerce clause rather than the taxing power. the taxing power lets congress pretty much do anything. and the argument which some of the lower courts have embraced is this is inactivity. if not to participate in the health insurance market. the counterargument is, look, we just don't know when you might participate. if you don't have insurance and you get sick, you go to an er, they have to treat you, which raises the cost of health care for everybody. and that's going to be -- most people think that's the most powerful argument in favor of using the commerce clause to say, ok, congress can mandate this.

the problem is that this more recent supreme court for the first time since the new deal -- and when i say this court, i mean over the last 10 years -- has on a couple of occasions said, you have exceeded the reach of the commerce clause. >> but even justice scalia, my friend, has written that the last part of the commerce clause says congress can do anything necessary and proper. necessary and proper he says is visit powers of congress. >> this is what will it come down to. it's been a long time since i was in law school, and i never had a practice. but i do think it's not that clear that this supreme court and how it reads the constitution and the scope of federal power is that prepared to embrace this argument. >> well, this just isn't conservatives because you have charles freed, who was a solicitor general under ronald reagan. you have the justice who was silverburg -- >> silverman. >> i'm sorry, silverman, at the

d.c. circuit, all saying that this is clearly within the scope of congress' power. >> so let me ask you guys with the big brains here, what happens -- in perhaps the surprising circumstance that the court rules -- >> it's unconstitutional. >> rules it's unconstitutional. what happens to the rest of the bill? does the bill collapse? >> first of all, there are two things to know. many more people, 16 million more people, will still actually enter the market and no longer be uninsured. the congressional budget office has estimated that with the mandate you get 32 million people newly enrolled. without the mandate, you get 16 million. second of all, i think it does put some pressure on congress, businesses, and others to actually go out there and try to get more people enrolled and to make them do it voluntarily. and it's interesting here. in this context, insurance companies want more and more people to be enrolled.

partially because it adds to their business but it adds to the risk pool. >> in is the great irony to me. all of this, this very complicated bill, which we ought to point out 2/3 of the country still is not in favor of, unlike any other piece of social legislation. is also because they didn't feel that you could get a classic single payer national health insurance system. now, that is clearly constitutional. if i may, if you just took out the medicare bill and struck out over 65, that's constitutional. maybe a bad idea. maybe we can't afford it. but because they had to go through hoops to avoid a singer payer system, they now have this mandate which was in fact created by conservative thinkers 20 years ago, that is under some question. it's bizarre. >> but going back to your other question, there are lots of things that the health systems are doing now for cost control or to improve quality, reduce hospital infections, reduce admissions, and all of that part

of the bill will continue to go forward. hospitals are actively working hard to improve what they can do. doctors are transforming how they deliver care to improve the coordination, reduce problems, make people more compliant with their medications, diets. so all of that still goes roaring forward. and all of us are going to benefit from that. all of us already have benefit said. >> it's a monumental effort, though. >> let's saw the law is struck down, or say a president romney or president santorum comes in and they have all vowed to repeal obama care. so then what happens? they repeal obama care. then what happens? >> you need 60 votes to repeal obama care. ain't happening. >> ok. >> it ain't happening. >> ok. it ain't happening. but let's say by some craziness it does happen. what happens to all those people who, you know, are in insurance plans and things like that? what happens? >> i was teaching my course in health policy at the university of pennsylvania yesterday. and we had a guest lecturer who

advises insurance companies, and she points out that the number of small businesses dropping insurance is increasing. the number of big businesses who are raising rates on people is increasing. you have a very unstable situation. and i think what you're pointing to is, there is no plan b. it's not like the republicans -- and i know that joe goes crazy when i say this. it's not like the republicans ever offered a coherent alternative to control cost, improve quality, and increase access in this country. this is the only game in town. >> zeke, jeff accurately points out that 2/3 of the country either oppose the bill or are confused about the bill. you're in the white house when this bill was being, you know, processed. the communications aspects surrounding this bill, why has it been so poor? just take one aspect of it. that a kid graduated from college, can't get a job, living with you at home, under 26. you can put him on your health care bill. >> yeah. >> on your health plan. >> and 2.5 million kids under 26 have taken advantage of that.

>> but there are other aspects of the bill. why doesn't the country understand? >> i have to say that the communications around this bill i think have been poor. and it has been the administration's achilles heel. this is the one area they have really fallen down. we should make clear, though, that bad communication does not mean bad bill. it means a bad communication strategy. and i do agree with you. i think they have done a very poor job at communicating. my own recommendation had been that there are a lot of doctors and nurses who support the bill, and we should empower them to speak out for the bill. and go around the country and explain the bill to people. >> why didn't you? >> i'm not the communications guy. i'm the policy guy. >> too bad you didn't know anybody at the white house. you might have had some influence or something. family or something. >> that is the problem, they haven't convinced the american public this is good and in their interest. yet the bill is good and in the american public's interest.

>> why don't you just dope slap the former chief of staff, your brother? >> good point. >> if i may quickly, one of the problems which overarches every attempt to reform health care is that there say fundamental i believe american sense of what they want from health care. they want all the health care they want, whether or not they need it, and they don't want to pay for it. i think that's the root of all of it. >> i think it's a very complicated system. and when you talk to people, they are reasonable. it is very complicated, and therefore they don't fully understand all the parts of it. what they would like is the care that is really important to them, and they understand that there's a lot of waste in the system and they would actually like someone to take a hold of it and solve the problem. >> zeke, since you're a doctor and we need some care, i have to ask you about something else since you're here. this study in "the lancet," regular low dose aspirin

consumption reduced the risk of cancer. >> we have known for a while that people with a chance of colon cancer with such drugs it reduces the chance of polyps. and i have been talking about this for years, that in fact you should be taking aspirin. i take an aspirin every day. >> did you say advil, though? it's different, right? it's regular aspirin. >> they work in similar ways to reduce inflammation. and affect the glands. and so we have had this suspicion a long time. it's important to take aspirin for your -- if you're in the right category for your heart to reduce heart disease. lots of people have the suspicion about cancer, and this

is an important confirmatory study. >> who is the category? male, females? o should take aspirin every day? >> first of all, you have to make sure you don't have other health problems that can be exacerbated by aspirin. because it does slow bleeding down, so that's an important issue. you should not be someone at risk for bleeding in any way. but the obvious, most important answer to that question, mika, you have to talk to your doctor to be sure it's good for you because i don't want to be giving advice over here that -- >> and it's not baby aspirin? >> to do something bad. >> rahm seems to be very, very comfortable giving medical advice out. very interesting. i'm sorry, not rahm. ari. i get them mixed up. >> high alwae always calls me a tell him about fish oil or whatever. >> he blurts out medical advice, seriously. >> we're going to get him an md one day. >> he thinks he has one. it's amazing. dr. zeke emanuel, we'll see you

next week. >> thank you. >> after the arguments in front of the supreme court begin. so that will be fantastic. thank you very much. still ahead, all in. poker pro chris moneymaker tells us how a card game went from the back of smoke-filled casinos to a nationally televised phenomenon. "morning joe" is back in a moment. [ male announcer ] for making cupcakes

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40 past the hour. a national rally is planned tonight in sanford, florida, to demand the arrest of george zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who shot and killed a 17-year-old trayvon martin last month in what he claims was self defense. the teenaged victim was unarmed and walking home from a convenience store at the time of the shooting. city commissioners in sanford moved a motion of no confidence in the police chief over his department's handling of the shooting. in a written statement, though, police chief bill lee jr. says that zimmerman's claims of self defense were supported by evidence at the scene. the police report, however, makes no mention of it. i wonder what that evidence was. >> yeah. >> what in the world could it have been? because i can't find it in anything we've read. a florida state senator is now drafting new legislation to dramatically reshape the stand

your ground law. democrat chris smith says shooting deaths in the state are up 250% since the 2005 law went into effect. martin's parents joined the demonstration in new york city yesterday where hundreds of protesters called for justice. they also appeared on al sharpton's "politics nation" where trayvon's mother talk about the toll her son's death was having on her. >> my heart is hardened right now. i'm finding it difficult to do just daily things right now. in addition to grieving, i'm just consumed with the fact that this guy has not been arrested, who murdered my son, so that is very difficult for me as a mother. i cry every day. there is a hole in my heart because that was my baby.

>> we're following the story. obviously, we'll be following what happens and reverend al will be there. he's been on top of this story almost from the get go. and just going to go there tonight even though his mother passed away this morning, saying his mother would be proud of what he's doing. jonathan capehart, alex just telling me that some of the evidence that police may be referring to are cuts on zimmerman's forehead and his shirt being messed up. >> a bloody nose and grass stains on his shirt. you know, as the trayvon martin's -- >> somebody may have been struggling with him. >> and we know there was some sort of altercation. you have a 28-year-old man stalking a 17-year-old boy who is coming back with a can of iced tea and skittles, who doesn't know who this person is. we know from -- he was on the phone with his girlfriend, telling her, there's this strange guy following me. she is telling him to run away.

he then comes up -- zimmerman goes up to tray vvon martin, he says to zimmerman, why are you following me? and zimmerman says to him, what are you doing here? so the fact that zimmerman has a bloody nose and a cut on his forehead and grass stains, we know where that comes from. what we don't know is what is this evidence that chief of police bill lee says basically exonerates zimmerman in the realm of self defense. they drug tested trayvon martin. they alcohol tested trayvon martin. did they do that with george zimmerman? zimmerman had a .9 millimeter handgun. where is that gun? did they do any tests on that gun? did they do any tests on zimmerman's clothing? we don't know that. and the fact that this shooting took place on february 26 and we are just having this action take place now, march 22, and a grand jury will not start hearing this case until april 10.

my real concern is that, you know, the wheels of justice turn slowly. i'm very afraid that justice and zimmerman will not meet. >> and this has so much to do, everything to do, with race. and questions about why actions weren't taken. why perhaps this young boy was just written off. just written off. >> in a police department as "the new york times" reports today has, you know, a rather troubling history when it comes to dealing with african-american men and police officers. >> i hear this story, and i think to myself, what decade are we in? it doesn't -- it doesn't match where we should be. >> this is in the broader sense, this is just a part of american life that goes back since before there was america. you read the story in the 1940s. you can read it in the 1960s. you can read it in a different way a century and a half ago.

i have no idea what the facts of this case were. i just do know, i think pretty much every african-american family with a young man in its family has the same conversation at one point about what you may be facing out there if you come face-to-face under some circumstances with law enforcement. and this is a scar that runs through our life from the get go. >> all right. up next, a first look at the new issue of "time" magazine. we'll be back in a moment. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future.

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i have twins, 21 years old. each kid has their own path. they grow up, and they're out having their life. i really started to talk to them about the things that are important that they have to take ownership over. my name's colleen stiles, and my kids and i did our wills on legalzoom. [ shapiro ] we created legalzoom to help you take care of the ones you love. go to legalzoom.com today and complete your will in minutes. at legalzoom.com, we put the law on your side. all right. we're still talking about trayvon martin, and we'll try and move on to some other news here. but that story, we're going to try and keep it alive as long as possible until we see what happens. here with us now, "time" magazine's assistant editor in charge of economics and

business, here to reveal the latest issue of "time" magazine. welcome to the show. and what's the cover? >> we've got the wimpy recovery going on. >> excuse me? >> well, we -- >> what's going on? >> we all know that we're in an economic recovery. we see the numbers, we see growth ticking up, we hear about it -- >> hear about it. >> but we don't feel it. and that's the point. a lot of people are still out of work. we haven't gotten a raise really since the 1970s if you look at the statistics. >> and the jobs they are getting are not paying as much. >> that's right. the top 10 fastest-growing jobs in this country are fairly low-paying jobs. >> and yet we call it a recovery. >> well, it technically it's a recovery. and we've been in it over two years now. but in order to get back to where we were before the crisis, we need to createrecovery. >> what has housing done --

>> seems like a refrigerator on our backs still. $4 trillion in housing debt we still need to move and that's a big factor. until we get out from under that, we have most of our wealth in housing still. >> are there areas in the country where it's going better? >> a bunch of boom towns. mining out west. detroit is back, thanks to bailouts and manufacturing america is back. a lot of the midwest is doing very well. washington's doing pretty well. government town. a lot of public sector jobs out there, but places like california, nevada, florida, still having a lot of problems. >> unemployment. >> north dakota is the ground zero for this big economic recovery, but given the population of north dakota, the fact that the unemployment rate is 3% doesn't tell you much in raw numbers. you move about 80 people, you move the numbers. california is slightly different. one economist, making this argument a couple of years.

we may never get back. the low hanging fruit may have been picked between the '40s and '70s and may be in a permanent state of not great employment. >> it's true. interesting is, every recovery since the '90s that been weaker and taken longer than the one before and this is the longest and weakest in history. >> rana, technically in recovery over two years. what does that mean, technically? >> over two years. it means we're growing. actually, after three quarters growth, we're in an expansion, if you can believe it. we should feel expansive. instead we feel constricted because we haven't got an raise. incomes are flat for a lot of people out there. >> not just -- again, back to you're not going to get the job you had. you're just not going to. there's a sense of expectation that isn't being met in our society, and that's for the people who are lucky enough to get a job. >> totally true. you can see the bifurcation in this recovery. now, stocks are up.

a lot of people that are fairly wealthy and in upper income levels are doing very well. we valuate of jobs at the top and bottom. just not enough in the middle. >> doesn't seem like a recovery. seems like a massive reset, because we're not going to come back. or readjustment. >> absolutely. readjustment. we have to face the fact we've used all the sort of false tools to goose our economy. i talked about housing earlier. even when we get out of this housing problem, the problem that housing is trying to mask, which is that we really haven't created enough jobs in this country in 20 years, is still there and we have to fix it. >> rana, thank you. "time" magazine's new cover story. the wimpy recovery. very good to have you on the show. >> thank you. we'll be right back.

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on tomorrow's show we'll talk to former presidential candidate michele bachmann. also chairman of the democratic association, marilyn martin o'malley joins the conversation. la the wind been taken out of mitt romney's sails thanks to a toy? we'll explain, next on "morning joe."

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast as we take a live look at new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." back with us on set we have jonathan capehart, mike barnicle and richard haass. rallying around mitt romney as their likely presidential nominee coming off a decisive victory in illinois picking up the coveted endorsement of former governor jeb bush.

in a statement, he congratulated romney on his win tuesday night and encouraged fellow republicans to put an end to the long fight. saying "primary elections have been held in 34 states, and now is the time for republicans to unite behind governor romney and take our message of fiscal conservatism and job creation to all voters this fall." meanwhile, the tea party group freedom works led by former texas congressman dick armey announced plans to stop opposes romney, since the numbers favor his chances of becoming the nominee. joe, is it time? it's time. is it time for everyone to just pack it up, maybe? >> well i mean, certainly, if you look at dick armey's endorsement and freedom works' endorsements, that's as ringing as it gets. which is basically, oh, damn, he's got the baseball and the bat. i guess we got to let him come inside and play the pickup game. >> seems that's how they said t.

listen, the jeb bush endorsement is a very big endorsement. when jeb falls for mitt romney a lot of other people are going to fall in line as well, and added, this freedom works endorsement is, a non-endorsement endorsement that's significant as well. mitt romney is starting to look inevitable. what did we always talk about? we talked about when this republican nomination went from iowa and new hampshire and south carolina and florida, and made that turn north up into the midwest states, candidates like herman cain, michele bachmann even newt gingrich, ron paul, rick santorum, they doan fare well. why is this nomination locked up? apparently he squeaked out a win in ohio and michigan, and right

now the matheson his sid-- math on his side. it doesn't mean i'm very concerned at the prospects of a mitt romney nomination and what it means for conservatism in the republican party. >> the questions i think still linger and will dog him and either make him a better candidate or not. the illinois victory lap was cut short yesterday after senior campaign adviser eric fernstrum made a remark that caused a firestorm with the conservative base. take a listen. >> is there a concern that the pressure from santorum and gingrich might force the govern to attack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate electors election? >> everything changes. it's almost like an etch-a-sketch, shake it up and we start all over again. >> all right. so -- >> who's paying that guy? >> yeah. >> oh. i mean, really, there's nothing

that one of mitt romney's top advisers could have said that would have reinforced every conservative moderate and liberal's worst suspicion about him than that statement, that you're deeply held beliefs and values that you claim, you're going to take into the general election, can just be washed away, and it underlines -- i mean, first of all, who were we kidding? this happens in a lot of political campaigns. richard nixon always said it and mike barnicle, i'm sure you remember nixon always telling republicans, you run to the right in the primary and you go back to the center into the general election campaign. the problem with mitt romney is, well, he's been jig jagging the left and right his entire career, and now it looks like he's about to do that again. >> well, that's a problem, joe. i mean, he's desperately in need of getting to the middle, but what this does, the etch-a-sketch thing, prolongs

the campaign, keeps santorum and gingrich in the campaign, rhetorically. i don't know how they'll do for money, but they'll stay in rhetorically and romney will have to extend the number of days and weeks that he caters to the conservative wing of this party, that's preventing him in coming back to the middle early enough, and i think -- i think all of us might be underestimating the damage that's been done to the republican party among independents and moderate republican whose have looked at the rhetoric and the focus of these past six or seven weeks and have wondered, you know, who am i going to vote for? >> so willie geist, let me ask you, six days from now, are we really going to be talking about an etch-a-sketch comment, like everybody was talking about yesterday from one of mitt romney's advisers, or are ygoin to be talking about a huge illinois win and a jeb bush endorsement. >> he's been playing with an

etch-a-sketch all morning. >> we do have one on set. did you bring this in? >> i did not. >> if there's one endorsement that matters in this race above all others it's jeb bush. he gets it yesterday. are in mitt romney finally gets that endorsement and within minutes this story comes up. i don't think specifically talking about the etch-a-sketch, other gaffes that play into what others believe in him. a shape shifter that blows with the wind, silly putty, choose your metaphor whatever he is, you saw the candidates on both sides. santorum and gingrich, also the obama campaign going after him. they had props. we may not talk about the actual etch-a-sketch in a week but we'll be talking about the fact even someone inside mitt romney's own campaign, perhaps, believes it's okay to set the reset button and decide what he needs to say in a general election different from what he said in a primary. >> or, perhaps it's been such a freak show -- such a freak show -- that finally, get these clowns off the bus and let mitt

romney take on president obama and have a real conversation. >> what? >> mika? >> what? >> i'm not in italy. okay? don't go ahead and bring the red brigade into the studio. i am here, okay? >> just saying. there's another way of looking at this comment. that is it's been a ridiculous conversation. we've been talking about contraception and etch-a-sketches. maybe we need to shake it up and move past these guys. romney's republican rival seized on the comment, because they have nothing else to do saying it validates their criticism that the former massachusetts governor changes his positions to fit his political needs. both "andrea mitchell reports" and rick santorum used the 1950s era toy as props in their attacks. >> given everybody's fears about governor romney's flip-flops, to have his communications director say publicly to all of us if we're dumb enough to nominate him we should expect by the acceptance speech he'll move back to the left triggers everything people are worried

about. they don't even have the decency to wait until they get the nomination to explain to us how they'll sell out us. having an etch-a-sketch as your campaign model raises every doubt about where we're going. now, this is a spare etch-a-sketch. so i'm going to give it to you guys to play with. all right? do you want it? yeah. she's ready. she could now be a presidential candidate. >> imagine had mitt romney been around at the time we drafting our constitution. he'd have just shaken it and shook it off after it was approved to rewrite it. we're talking about big things here, folks. this isn't a joke or game. reset this race. give us a chance. to have the candidate who stands firmly on the rock of freedom. not on the sands of an

etch-a-sketch. >> all right. jonathan capehart has something to say. >> you're going to take notes? >> the interesting thing here about mitt romney, every time he win as major victory and he should be taking that victory lap, something always happens that veers him off course and he ends up talking about something that he really doesn't want to be talking about. remember when he did the interview and said i don't really care about poor people? that was right after i think he won florida. one other i can't remember, but if he's going to be the republican nominee, the republican voters should be a little worried that what else is he going to do during the general election that's going to get -- >> jonathan? >> yeah. >> that's a great point. imagine what the guy's going to say -- you're right. he wins florida. that's huge, and he starts talking about not caring about poor people. they win illinois. that's huge nthey say -- after e wins the republican nomination what are they going to talk

about? harvesting poor people's organs? this is not good. these people cannot stand success, mika! it's just not a good thing for my republican party. >> it's not healthy. >> just shhh x hchlh h. >> joe's put his finger on the problem. what the etch-a-sketch thing does is extends the bizarre nature of some aspect of this primary. >> yeah. >> who's to say that tomorrow the big debate between santorum and romney, santorum still in it now, despite illinois, who's to say the big debate won't be over the hotel porn you? know? >> good god. what? >> you certainly would not want to debate over -- >> you know what's said and done on that one. >> be quiet. i just lost the very element. >> let's get mitt romney's response to this etch-a-sketch as they're calling it in the

blogosphere this morning. >> a general election campaign takes on a different profile. the issues i'm running on will be exactly the same. i'm running as a conservative republican. i was a conservative republican governor. i will be running hopefully running for president, the policies and positions are the same. >> richard haass. >> i actually think the larger story, though, is that despite it all, mitt romney is going to be the republican nominee and come this fall he's going to be out on a stage debating barack obama. the polls are going to be extraordinarily close and depending upon where the economy is or whether we're at war with iran, mitt romney's either going to be the next president or not. we can wlook at all these gaffes and i understand there's that narrative. the larger narrative is he's going to be the republican nominee and it's going to be an extraordinarily close election. >> and there really is going to be a reset, as we've talked around this table, where in the primary now, once there really

is a nominee and we go into the fall campaign, all this stuff we've been talking about most of the country has been paying attention to. so -- i'm going to bring my etch-a-sketch. >> this is spring training. we'll have the season, the world series. those people do not remember spring training come the world series. >> before we go to break, one more big story in, and that is the national rally that is planned tonight in sanford, florida, to demand the arrest of george zimmerman, the neighborhood watch man who shot and killed trayvon martin last month in what had claims was self-defense. the teenage victim was unarmed and walking home from a convenience store at the time of the shooting. approved in motion of no confidence in the police chief over his department's handling of the shooting. in a written statement, though, police chief bill lee jr. says zimmerman's claim of self-defense were supported by evidence at the scene. the police report, however, makes no mention of it.

a florida state senator is now drafting new legislation to dramatically reshape the stand your ground law. democrat chris smith says shooting deaths in the state are up 250% since that 2005 law went into effect. martin's parents joined the demonstration in new york city yesterday where hundreds of protesters called for justice. they also appeared on al sharpton's "politics nation" where trayvon's mother spoke about the toll her son's death is having on her. >> and my heart is hardened right now. i'm finding it difficult to do just daily things right now. in addition to grieving, i'm just consumed with the fact that this guy has not been arrested who murdered my son. so that is very difficult for me as a mother. i cry every day.

there is a hole in my heart, because that was my baby. >> in reading about this, it almost seems to get worse, joe, every -- every paragraph and every news story. >> yeah. no doubt about it. and unfortunately, this isn't the first time that sanford, florida, has been the center of attention for the killing of african-american young men. of course, there was a new police chief was inserted ten months ago, because the last police chief had video evidence of a brutal beating of a homeless man that once he got that video, he let it go. it ended up that the kid that had beaten the homeless man was the son of a police officer in the department, and five years ago, two white men shot and killed an african-american young man claiming self-defense, claiming that he was trying to run them over, as the "new york times" reported today, that

african-american male died of a gunshot wound in his back. this is a terrible situation that continues to get worse, and tallahassee better get on their toes. they better lean forward. they better move down to sanford, florida, and demand that justice is had in this case. it is, jonathan cape harkacapeh say this as father of two -- two older boys, i cannot imagine the pain of losing a son, and i can't imagine the outrage of losing a son in this despicable way. >> you know, joe, this is one of those stories, with the exception of the shooting death of diallo, the killing of trayvon martin affected me personally in a way, because as i wrote in a piece that was in the paper on monday, you know, growing up as an

african-american male i wrote one of the burdens of being a black male is carrying the heavy wasting other people's suspicions. and so the reason why you're seeing al of these demonstrations, yesterday in union square, tonight in sanford, and people on facebook and twitter demanding justice for trayvon martin, it's because african-americans, particularly african-american men have to comport themselves and live their lives in a way that doesn't bring upon them undue, unwarranted attention by law enforcement or those who want to be law enforcement or pretend to be law enforcement, and, you know, as i wrote in the piece, as a kid, i'm told at 16, because now i'm older now. now i'm a young man, that here are the things that you can't do as an american citizen. i can't -- you know, don't run in public. don't run in public with anything in your hands. don't talk back to the police

which i know is a universal -- it's a universal rule, but when you're african-american and certainly an african-american male to do that is to put your life in your own hands, and even though i've never had any -- any -- experience or interaction with the police, i know, i feel, i've grown up with and have been talked to, be prepared for it. trayvon martin was 17 years old, and an iced tea and a bag of skittles. a kid talking on the phone with his girlfriend just trying to get home to see the second half of the nba all-star game, and a guy who's 100 pounds heavier than he is, 11 years older than he is, and carrying a .9 millimeter handgun was able to be his judge, his jury -- and, you know, his executioner. i know that's strong language, but we're talking about a man who took the life of a young boy, and if there's any silver lining in all of this, it's that it will focus people not just on

the stand your ground law -- excuse me -- which is insane and we're seeing it in this aspect, but to focus people on the fact that even though this is 2012, even though we have an african-american president, an african-american attorney general, that there are still conversations that need to be had in this country so that there isn't another trayvon martin. >> obviously, a tough story that we're going to be following closely. coming up, lucky or good? our next guest says president obama's re-election hinges on whether the president can show the country he's the reason the country is improving. also, a game that pays to be lucky and good. a new documentary tells the story how this evolved into a nationally televised sport. first, bill karins. a cruel, cruel spring in the northwest. so much of the country, talking about the record heat. these pictures out of eugene, oregon, on the register website, the newspaper in town, they've

picked up seven inches of snow. their largest march snowstorm of yesterday. friends in the pacific northwest even portland got snow last nig night. turning our attention to those wearing shorts and t-shirts. everybody in the east enjoyed 80 degree temperatures. cooler from new york to philly and d.c. a lot of fog yesterday. still a fog advisory this morning that's going to slowly burn off and lift, and once it does, the sun will be out, very warm. hartford, 80, philadelphia 76. seeing near record if not record highs across new england and the mid-atlantic today. thunderstorms down in mississippi that are going to cause problems, also near new orleans. chicago, finally you're cooler today. by the way, you only hit 87 yesterday, one of your warmest march temperatures of. finally, going to the west coast. we're going to get rid of that snow today. slowly warm it up. looking absolutely beautiful down there in d.c. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. [ leanne ] appliance park has been here since the early 50s.

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this president promised to cut the deficit in half. he's doubled it. he told us he'd get us back to work and hold unemployment below 8%. hasn't been at 8% in 30 straight months. he said he'd cut taxes for middle taxpayers. that hasn't happened either. i keep hearing the president saying he's responsible for keeping america from going into

a great depression. no, no, no. that was george w. bush and hank paulson that kept that from happening. >> welcome back to "morning joe." josh green, co-author of the magazine's new issue about the economy's role in president obama's quest for re-election. 's in it josh writes between now and election day obama must persuade people he steered the economy well enough to warrant another turn. he can make a strong case he's get toen some big things right. the worse downturn since the great depression but obama and advisers failed to realize the shape and growth of the crisis. unemployment falling remains high at 8.3%. no modern president has been re-elected with a rate above 7.2%. josh, good morning. good to see you. >> good to be with you guys. >> let's have you play truth squad on the bite we just heard from mitt romney who says it was george w. bush and hank paulson who pulls us back from the brink. the obama administration would contest that. where do you come down ton?

>> i'm not sure they would. i think they like the idea talking about the bailout and attributing it to republicans. >> the president said many time wes brought this economy back from the brink. >> i think that's right. the bailout was hugely unpopular with most of the american people. i took that as a sign, a little nervousness among republicans seems now seem to be coming back. the economy may not be the killer issue for guys like mitt romney they thought it was and maybe he's trying to kind of steer a little of that credit back towards his own party. >> you could hear cheering in the white house. bring george w. bush back into the conversation. bring him back. let's look at some of the numbers. you pointed to 8.3% unemployment. that is much higher. probably closer to 20%. what is the truth about the recovery? where are we rye out in? >> the truth about the recovery it has been long, slow abdomen painful, that's typical after a financial crisis. most economists would credit

obama and the stimulus for having kept us out of a great depression. the gdp number, some models on what might have happened had we done nothing as all, he can make a pretty compelling case that he stopped the bleeding. the real point of criticism, for liberals like paul crudman is that he should have done more. had a bigger stimulus. should have fought for more jobs measures, more support for the economy, rather than turning to things like deficit reduction, which he were last year and came away, really, with nothing. >> what's your sense of, there are two aspects of the economy and to the recovery. there is clearly a very slow v recovery going on. what about the recovery of optimism that's linked to the economy? this seems to be like no recovery in terms of optimism among americans. >> there's been a little uptick. in a way the optimism is actually more important in a political context, i think, than some of the numbers. voters go to the polling booth. they're not looking at gdp figures. they're saying, how am i doing?

how do i feel where the country is going? my own personal fortunes. we had seen that tick up a little bit. i think obama's approval/disapproval numbers in gallup positive for the first time in something like four years recently. theren green sheets to borrow a phrase when you look at obama own positivity numbers in the general way things seem to be going. do we have a turnaround like in each of the last two years that began with strong growth and bam, hit in the summer and things slowed down again. >> i want to put this on the table. this number that you recited. everybody recites. no president re-elected with unemployment more than 7.2% since fdr. forget it. it's meaningless. it's one of those striking sounding facts that is absolutely irrelevant. it's like saying no democrat can win without carrying texas,

which was true until 20 years ago. the question is not the number. it's the direction the number is heading and where the country is when it goes to the polls, because people treat these numbers as though they were scientific laws. you know? ice melts at 32 degrees. that's right. but presidents may get re-elected with an unemployment rate of 7.8% if six months earlier it was 8.3. and it seems to me that when we cover. if the economy weakens, if it's skimpy, people feel they're paid less, can't send their kids to college, unemployment rate could go down and obama could still be in trouble. >> weren't of the things that is a little disconcerting, unemployment came down faster than growth suggests it should and nobody is quite sure why that is subpoena it's entirely possible things could turn around. that obama has been very lucky over the last couple months in that his emerging reelebz campaign has coincided with an

uptick in the recovery and downturn in employment. there's no guarantee that's going to last. >> to your point about green shoes and optimism, there's still something out that, we talked about this earlier. if you're between the age of 45 and 55 and you lost your job in the last three or fouryears, you know instinctively the same job you lost you're probably not going to get again. you get another job. the employment number is dropping a bit, but in terms of optimism about the future and where we're going as a country and where am i going as an individual and where's my family going, that's really jumpball. >> well, that's potential lay problem for obama, because if you measure the recovery against what an ideal recovery would look like, you're 45, you get your job job back on the factory line. you get your house back that got foreclosed on. that's not the kind of recovery we're going to and have really isn't -- nobody should be

expecting that. but, this is a point that tim geithner made too us in the story. measure us against other countries. look at europe, then the united states looks pretty good by comparison. >> then you're once again back to obama's most substantively correct and politically weak themes. it could have been worse. take a look at spain, it's not going to win ohio. i'm pretty sure of that. >> jeff, you would like this. this guy cut from my piece. i'll say it on the air. herbert hoover ran for re-election under the theme, it could have been worse." didn't work out so well for him. so. >> didn't turn out that well. >> a really good piece in the new issue of bloomberg's "businessweek." the cover. lucky or good? president obama. up next, the story of the evolution, calling it a revolution in america. the man who revolutionized the game is with us. chris moneymaker. keep it on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] you are a business pro.

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and the world series, fourth place, $8,000 in cash. the seat, $10,000, but if you

win a seat you can't sell the seat. you have to take the seat and you have to play. so i get no cash for that. so what i try to do is talk to deal with people and say i just want the $8,000 or i'll go away. so i started to give my chips away slowly, trying to make sure it lasted long enough to get down to four people. but at the same time, not have a whole lot of chips. my buddy saw that i was trying to make the deal. watching on his computer in another place. he call immediate and said i'll give you $5,000. take half your action in the tournament and they give you travel. $6,000. man, you've got to go do this. get into the world series. you're right there. this is your chance. >> that was a clip from the documentary "all in: the poker movie "how poker part of the main stream and then some. with the director of the film and one of the men featured in the film, the 2003 world series

poker champ, chris moneymaker. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having us. >> poker was a wednesday night thing and now can you not turn on espn without seeing poker. not by accident. millions are watching others play poker. how did we get here? >> the great thing about poker, it's a social game played with your friends a fun game to do. natural that people enjoy something like that and, also, when you watch sports on tv, i mean, you always want to go play off with tiger woods or shoot basketball with kobe bryant. you can't really do that effectively but can you actually go and play poker. watch professionals on tv and go sit down and play with them the next week and actually have a chance to beat them. >> how quick did this happen, doug? seems to me, the last eight, ten years. was it before that this started to blow up? >> exactly right. it's the last decade, but you have these events that happened in 2001, 2003 and 2003, and 2003 is when chris won. >> right. >> and that's when it exploded. it goes from where you have 500

people entering the world series of people to 8,500 in the course of about three years. >> and what about, you can talk about the guy sitting next to you. what he has meant to this game. you think of chris moneymaker, not because it's a great last name, because of who he s. think of march madness, xlix the number 16 seed not just beating the number one seed but then going on to win the final four. he was an accountant, living in tennessee, who had been wrapped up in everything that poker was become. had watched the movie "rounders "that he got him into poker in the late '80s. onligne poker. playing online poker as traveling as an accountant. while he should be working, maybe a little out of line poker there. then enters into a tournament which gets him into the bigger tournament which is the world series of poker and wins it. >> and everybody sees you know -- >> i wall him the horatio of

poker. everybody sees he can do it, they think, i can do it to. the american dream of poker. >> that's the story line of the documentary. but there are rumors people are involved in the documentary on-screen. lincoln played -- you know -- >> the thing is i just watched the show and did all my casting from here. they say, cast your movie, cast your fate. so i'm like, i have to get her in it. i think she's great. i mean, we had doris, went up to concorde, interviewed her because we talk in the movie about presidents and politicians that play poker, and she goes through about how nixon financed his first campaign by playing poker in the navy, to be congressman. talks about truman who wrote a letter to his wife saying when they were dating, you know, i hope it's okay, i play poker. some people look down upon it but i think it's okay. eisenhower. so she talks about how poker has always been part of american

history but ends up in her house and she has an antique poker table. i mean, i feel sometimes that movies you just -- you get people who are intelligent, and you let them do their thing. so she ends up, even though we talked to her about history, she ends up talking about a number of things about poker. >> so, chris, tell me, explain poker to me? i mean the concept of it. does it play into certain aspects of human nature, and which ones? and are all of them good? >> they're not all good. but majority of them are, yeah. i mean, poker as i like to think of it is something that you do with your friends. it's something that on thursday, friday night, you go and you have a good time with. >> yeah. >> but the game itself, it's a psychological game. it's a game of warfare and you're trying to outplay your opponent. it's a mental game of chess, if you will, but we play with cards, and, you know, over time the better player's always going to win. that's the skill game. that's what's so great about poker. there's a lot of luck involved

and a lot of com raadly that goes along with that. at the end of the day, it's an beating the person mentally. >> is that where you could define your success? >> if i could define my success, you know, it's just about, you know, longevity of being able to play this game and being able to do something i love. you know. that to me is enjoying your life and providing for your family and i get to do that. so i'm happy. >> what's your life been like, chris, since 2003? you were an accountant on the road playing online video poker. how has your life changed now over the last nine years? >> well, monday after i won the tournament, i won the tournament saturday. we fish nished. back to work monday morning. people were like what are you doi doing? the owner of the rep i work to said you have better places to be. it you don't quit i'm going to fire you. finally i said, i'll get someone else to come in, train them and i'll quit. about february of '04 i quit and

started playing poker full time, been doing it every since and my life is filled with traveling around the world playing poker in exotic locations. from here i go to italy then monty car llo. doing this interview they told me i was going to "david letterman." i down do this interview seven years ago probably. because i would be in the back sweating. >> on april 15, when you fill out your incomes form what do you put down for occupation? >> poker player. >> how much money you have maud playing poker? mind if i ask? >> it's in the millions. it's good. i don't really know to be honest. my wife might know the answer to that better than i do. >> i bet she does. i bet she's got it down down to the penny.

>> she does all the money. it works out better. >> is this a fad? something that will get bigger and continue on from there? >> in the movie, there's a promise, this is just a fad. i don't think it is. i think poker was a game, if you look at movies in the '80s, "can't find me love," "risky business" the characters playing poker of the kids that can't get a date friday night. you look at movies now -- >> excuse me? >> you look at movies now, like george cline and playing poker in the first scene of the movie telling you he's intelligent a risktaker. because of the way people look at poker now it's not going anywhere. when we started making the movie i had to bay gift for somebody. went to restoration hardware. in the back of restoration hardware they had poker sets. made it to the point where they're selling poker, it's not going anywhere. looking at it differently. >> turn on the tv. it's there every day, mike. every day.

>> every night on espn and like one of their highest rated programs. >> that's right. two great nashville restaurants have not been the same since you left, my friend. >> i'm going to go back. >> great place. >> guys, great to have you both with us. "all in" opens in new york theaters tomorrow and available on video on-demand on april 24th. doug and contribution thanks guys. when we come back, tim tebow shoved out of denver but john elway and peyton manning find a new home and how's he going play in the big apapple? talk about it next. [ male announcer ] this is genco services --

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joe." >> i'm sorry. >> big story in new york cit tim teep tebow is coming to th apple. the jets swooped in and brought tebow mania to new york city. how it happened. jets emerged from the handful of suitors traded picks for the right to bring tebow to new york. trade talks stalled yesterday after a clause in his contract. won't bore you. about money. they worked it all out. despite the move, it's jets are committed to mark sanchez as their starting quarterback. uh-huh. sanchez received an extension from the team just this month with at leasts 20ds million guaranteed. got to be wondering what he's thinking this morning. tebow is upbeat about his relationship with sanchez talking to reporters wednesday, he said, my goal, push him to get better and push myself to get better every day. i think we'll have a great working relationship, a great relationship off the field. we've had that the last few years. he's a classy guy. handles himself so well. will be honored to call him my

teammate. tebow talking about sanchez. they may be publicly okay with the arrangement, one former jets quarterback who is not. we're not talking about chad pennington. >> who? >> i just am sorry. i do not agree with this situation. i can't agree with it. i just think it's a publicity stunt. i really think it's wrong. i can't go for it. >> joe willy namath, greatest jet of them all says he doesn't like the tebow deal. we'll see how these two quarterbacks exist in new york. >> what happens the first time mark sanchez throws two or three interceptions. >> tebow chants. no question. put a lot of pressure on sanchez when he didn't need it. reminder, cancel dinner plans. the tournament is back on. sweet 16, 7:15. four seed, wisconsin, who sol the hearts of vanderbilt fans

last weekend takes on number one seed syracuse. the orangemen still about fab melo. 7:45 louisville, and 9:45shgs ohio battle. cincinnati and ohio state, and then the late game has florida and marquette. in honor of chris moneymaker, do the lines in this games here. never bet on anything, by the way. a terrible, terrible thing. syracuse, 3.5 point favorite. marquette 1.5 and michigan give them five points. just so you know. >> that's the paper. update it scores, odds.com if you're so inclined. coming up, the best of late night. ♪

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time now to talk about what we learned today. we'll start with joe. joe, what did you learn? >> well, you know, unfortunately we learned that joe namath, the king of new york, baby, when it comes to football, doesn't like the tebow idea. mike barnicle on his knees tebow-ing live on television. he should pray about what's in his closet and work on that first i. thought were you going to ask me a question. willie what did you learn? >> industrial crane to get mike out of that position. >> that's all very disturbing. >> chris moneymaker is a great american story. accountant one minute, sitting in mo mon iac monaco. god bless america. >> and play poker and make millions.