thing, @morningmusic. send your request and praise and everything. keeping your attention is what i'll do. morning joe starts right now. i resent when they talk about families like mine that i grew up in. i resent the fact that they think we're talking about where it's envy, it's job envy and wealth envy. that we don't dream. my mother believed and my father believed that if i wanted to be president of the united states, i could be. i could be vice president. my mother and father and believed that if my brother and sister wanted to be a millionaire, they could be a millionaire. my mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. >> absolutely. >> any don't get it!

they don't get who we are. >> good morning. it's thursday, may 17th. >> who was that? >> that was the vice president of the united states. >> i don't get it. >> what do you mean you don't get it? >> i don't get who they are. i'm joking. of course, i get who joe is. >> i get who joe is. >> i am joe. joe is me. >> yes, you are. >> all right. >> you're confused. >> i'm back we have. we have jim cramer on the set running into 30 rock this morning scurrying around in circles going where is the "wall street journal." he looked like he needed a fix. >> mike, you hung out with baseball on us last night. >> baseball owners and bob bowman and who we were talking about who created and developed mlb-tv, which is just spectacular. >> spectacular. the great will yes geist. >> hi, willie. >> cramer has good stuff on jpmorgan. >> do you really?

>> it's very difficult, because there's a credibility problem and public relations problem and linkage prok. europe is real bad. i thought jpmorgan if anything was going to prevail, come out ahead. they were knee-deep in all of the stuff, and maybe they didn't know it. that's the big issue. >> you see these starbucks white bags. i'm so glad we have these unique bags, right? they're in all the stores now. >> yeah, thanks. >> when willie holds it up, here you go. >> the moment passed. forget it. >> is there a name on this? >> here, i'm -- my mom's in town, and i drive her to greenich because i want to see it. i see the white bag that looks like every other white bag. this guy comes up to me and he goes -- he has a friend, and he's wearing sunglasses and he goes, god, you look so much younger in person.

i always hear that, right? you don't look a day over 25. i'm feeling really good, and i look a little closer at him. i'm look why are you wearing sun glasses in the store? well, i'm legally blind. i felt like saying, the outline of me looks like i'm 25? >> the silhouette is very youthful. >> the silhouette looks youthful. >> it is. you look quite good. are you 49 now? >> i have to tell you, i went to a summit high football game and i was coach of the week. the line is gigantic. the guy says, listen, you're coach in the week. you can get in. i wait like everybody else. i get up to the counter and woman says you could is gotten in for free, boy, they watch my show. they watch "mad money." senior citizens get to walk right in there. >> goi got a couple of those.

>> nobody accused you of being senior citizen. >> what did you have? >> i had coffee with a lovely girl yesterday, 24. everyone in town was like, is this your daughter? >> that's whether it starts hurting. that started to happen to me about 15, 20 years ago. mike, joe biden, what do you think about this? >> i would say the populist stuff doesn't work, but it works with biden because biden, he feels it. working class guy. he feels it. by the way, you look at all of these millionaires that run our country and then you look at his taxes every year, he's -- you know, he hasn't cashed in. >> he feels it. he understands it. he lives it. he's vice president of the united states. he has secret service protection, and he's still joe biden from scranton, pennsylvania. we hear ripples there's animosity or anger towards the

vice president on -- >> i don't believe so that. >> i can't believe it. >> on the gay stuff. >> not for a second. >> for forcing the president's hand. but he's a valuable asset. >> he's the best thing they have when it comes to politics. i'm sorry. he knows what he's doing. >> he went after them. >> let's show more of that fiery speech at a youngstown manufacturing plant. he took aim at mitt romney for his tenure at the investment firm bain capital. >> this is a choice between two fundamentally philosophies, and that's about whether or not we rebuild the middle class and continue to hope those at the very top and hope things work owl well. romney made sure the guys at top played by separate rules. he ran up massive debts and middle class laws, and folks, he thinks that experience is going to help our economy?

let's take a look. with these guys past is p prologue. he's a patriot, a generous man and gives to his church and has a beautiful family, but he doesn't get it. he doesn't get what's at the core of all this. it's about people's dignity. >> i say populism doesn't work, that actually works. there are two things. one, he doesn't get it, which republicans always trail democrats in that. does such and such understand your problems, your family's problems. there's another thing, jim. this is really a message, and it's the first time i've really heard anybody deliver it that well. if every democrat could deliver it that well, then the last four or five years could be used for their strang, even next year. that is, he thinks his rich friends should play by a

different set of rules. the american dream -- i was talking about my dad. my dad worked hard. he was unemployed for a year and a half. there was never any resentment, but he expected everybody, whether it was the kennedys or the people next door, to play by the same damn set of rules that he had to play by. this is a pretty powerful message. >> i thought it was. i remember riding down on the stra train when he was a senator. he said to me i'm the poorest guy in the senate. 100 senators and i have the least amount of money but equal power. it reminds me what he's saying. the 1% in this country -- i've said this on "mad money" -- doesn't play by the same rules. they pay far less tax. the 15% tax romney pays it should be an issue, again. i was a hedge fund manager. i didn't pay this. i thought it was wrong to convert your ordinary income into capital gains is strictly

something you can do if you're real rich. no one else can do it because they can't get away with it. it's just wrong. >> we have a friend that kept talking to us about, you should do this, you should do that. buy a small plane a couple of years ago. then took out a balance sheet, and he explained with all the tax breaks and everything else that if you paid a certain amount at the end flewthrough 1 depreciation and tax deductions in your business, he showed in a complicated way how after four or five years it was free. you know what? he was right. my dad needing to buy a buick in 1973 or somebody in youngstown, ohio, the rules aren't skewed for them. there's one rule after another rule that seems to skew for the

rich. >> totally. the rich have power to influence the laws. the rich are without a doubt the most clever about the tax code. remember, the loss is very clear. as long as you don't evade taxes, it's your perfect right to avoid taxes. that's always been the case. who has enough money to hire a lawyer to look through the code to avoid taxes? only rich peaople. >> people talk about taxing the rich. don't tax the business person that makes 250 to $400,000 more. don't raise the taxes because they can't afford the accountants and tax lawyers to make sure their small business continues to grow and hire other people. >> the romney campaign, by the way, responded to what the vice president was saying. the attacks on the former governor's career at bayne capital saying in part, quote, president obama can't come close to matching the many years of experience that mitt romney has as a private businessman so he

has chosen to attack the free market. millions across this country are struggling and deserving a leader who understands how the economy works. >> again, for some reason that message works with barack obama. >> yeah. >> a guy who is a law professor and everything. so if he says that about barack obama, you're right, you're right. when joe biden says -- it shouldn't be the case, because you look at barack obama and his grandparents raised him in hawaii. very middle class upbringing. for some reason biden -- when biden says, my parents believed i could be president of the united states or i could be a millionaire, you know he's telling the truth. so that brush-back about being anti-capitalism doesn't work against biden as well. >> no. the vice president of the united states, joe biden, has a picture in his head. he can see the house on up top of the hill where the rich

people live in the town that he grew up in, and he knows instinctively that the people who live at the bottom of the hill, the bidens, the scarboroughs when we were younger know that they didn't resent the rich people at the top of the hill, but there's a resentment called trust. the people at the bottom of the hill believe that they can get up there to the top of the hill, bullet on but once that line of trust is broken like with the banks, the rigged tax codes, the breaks that the rich get, once that line of trust is broken then you have a problem. that's where joe biden can -- >> which is why biden's message works is because there's not that resentment. i tell the story after my dad dies when we were in meridian, mississippi, we'd drive past country club drive and look at the big houses and golf course.

i still wouldn't be allowed to meridian's country club. my parents would say look at those big houses. you keep working hard and do well in jurschool, you can live one of those houses. i promise you being a doctor or a lawyer in 1971, '72 when any dad was unemployed and we were driving by that, that was about as far removed from my existence as being premier of china. you know? my parents were like, work hard and do it. you can live there. >> when joe biden gets it going in a setting like that, you talk about political athletes. purely political, he's throwing his arms around gis auys and whispering. >> it's genuine, though. >> he really pulls it off. >> it's a connector. >> if we agree that a small group of swing voters maybe in ohio or florida will decide who the next president of the united

states is, that's protect effective right there. >> two more stories to get to. the senate is coming off a busy day of arguing budget. >> what's the facebook news? did someone click on an ad? >> i'd like to talk to cramer about it. we'll get to that in a moment. >> breaking news, 800 million people on facebook, and somebody finally clicked on an ad late last night. >> the competing budget proposals, and i know you're be fascinated about in, joe. five different budget plans on both ends of the ideological spectrum failed yesterday. >> i never saw that coming. >> among them a 99-0 vote defeating president obama's $3.8 trillion budget request which was actually offered by republicans. he warns congressional leaders he won't tolerate another political standoff over the debt limit. over lunch at the white house yesterday he tried to make his

case. here's white mouse press secretary jay carney. >> the president made clear he refuses to allow a replay of last summer's self-inflicted political crisis that eroded confidence and hurt the american economy. we're not going to re-create the debt ceiling debacle of last august. it is simply not acceptable to hold the american and global economy hostage to one party's political ideological. >> what i'm doing is trying to encourage people on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the capitol and both ends of pennsylvania avenue to be honest with the american people and ourselves to begin to tackle this problem in an adult-like fashion. >> you know, so they have a meeting. the president invites everybody down to the white house. they have a meeting. they immediately use everybody that they bring down as props. the president leaks out. remember when presidents would

call members of the house and senate down, and both sides trusted each other enough that the talks were private? by the time these guys get back to capitol hill, they were issuing, you know, point-by-point blows on how they scolded him for being reckless. >> i disagree. i don't think it's by the time they get to capitol hill. it's by the time they leave the gates of west wing the cell phones are alive and they leak the stuff. we hear it from various senators and congressmen, there's little communication between the president of the united states and the members of his own party in the democratic senate. >> i want to stop you there, because a lot of times we hear that this president doesn't communicate with republicans. what you're talking about and what i have heard for years is ints just republicans and the president. members of the president's own party complained bitterly off

record, of course, that the president never talks to them. >> yeah. within the last 24 hours i've heard from one united states senator who is rather critical in the budget process that there's very little communication between the budget staff, the senators, and the president as well as many members of the president's staff. they just don't hear it. >>s w >> why is that? >> i don't know. >> there's no communication. >> i do not know. >> it's mystifying. >> joe, can you help cut through what this number means? the president budget goes down 99-0. what does that mean for someone watching? they say the president didn't get a single vote for the budget. >> that's the third year in a row. he's lost 99-0 fl hi99-0 three row. you can't get a single democrat. the democrats are afraid of their own shadow in the senate.

any haven't put a budget on the floor for over 1,000 days. the president's own budget comes up three years in a proceed and they vote it down 99-0. if i were president of the united states, i'd take it a little personal i can't get a single member of my party voting for my budget. it shows how dysfunctional it is. i have to say in this case it shows how you can kick the republicans around for being too tough in their cuts, but as far as being responsible on budgeting and tax cuts, and there's a big change from what i've said for the last decade, the republicans are the only game in town. they're the only people putting out budgets that are passing. the president puts out a budget that's voted99-0 every year. the democrats who have a constitutional responsibility think why are we paying senators? >> right now, i'm not sure. >> why are we paying senators? by the way, it's the

least-productive senate in over 20, 25 years just by the numbers. they haven't passed a budget in three years. why are we taxpayers paying united states senators? they're not doing their job. they straent done their job, mike, for flee years. listen, italy is going down. greece is going down. spain is going down. france will go down once they start going down. we have a $16 trillion debt. we're actually spending more money per person than portugal, italy, greece, spain, the so-called pigs. look at this chart. we're spending more money per person in the united states of america than the so-called pigs of europe that are going down, and yet, mike, united states senators are not passing budgets. >> if harry reid had spent as

much time and energy on trying to get a budget bill passed as he spent on trying to get bill daly, the former white house chief of staff, fired, we'd have a budget. >> yeah. >> by the way, harry reid crushed the democratic budget chairman, a good man, a fiscal hawk. there are good, fiscal hawks. kent conrad, there are democrats acting so responsibly. ron widen, and i tell you what, tip of the hat to dick durbin who dared to stroet for simpson boles. there are democrats on the honor roll, but i tell you what. the senate leadership zooish collectively not getting anything down. >> shameful. >> the chart joe showed, what does that body for us? >> technically in three or four years the imf would be here if that continues. one of the things that we should have been doing is have a treasury secretary, as much as i

like what tim geithner has done, he should provide analysis for the democrats. the three democrats you mentioned are financially litera literate. a vast number of senate democrats are not literate. kent conrad knows about the budget more. every time i spoke to him, a clear path, simpson-boles great. dave put together a lot of notes of what happened with simpson-boles. he is adamant our country will fall part 20, 30 years from now if we don't do something now. i think it's faster than that. >> if the dominoes start falling in greece as richard haas said, after they finish destroying the euro, international markets, they're going to come here next. the numbers don't add up. here's the danger. when we get to that cliff, we fall off. now, i'm not talking about austerity right now. not over the next two, three, fourz years because we need to

keep the economy going, but we certainly can make long-term debt reductions by making tough choices right now. >> we could very easily could a gigantic $100 billion 30-year offering. i tell geithner you have to do that. we don't want to do -- all the situations in europe are short-term funding. spain, greece, constantly refinancing their deficit. if we do a 30-year bond offering we could take away all the liquidity concerns. geithner wants to finance the debt with short th-term funding. he wouldn't do it. he claims it's too expensive. where is he? where is tim geithner? >> we have to ask that question, and we'll get to facebook coming up. up next, an exclusive look at top stories in the political playbook. meloni barnes talks to us on set. we'll talk energy policy with boone pickens.

we go inside the secret underworld of the agency. political analyst richard wo wolffe. bill karyns with a check on the forecast. >> after three human daid days row, you wake up to a beautiful, beautiful dry cool air blowing through the window. the cold front is off the coast, and all that stormy weather is heading out. it's into the 40s in upstate new york, western new york, pittsburgh to buffalo. it's actually chilly this it morning. the beautiful air mass is on the way, though. temperatures today with a lot of sunshine, upper 60s and low 70s. perfect spring conditions. the problem weather in the deep south. south florida has thunderstorms they're dealing with. overnight we had rain in charleston and upstate north carolina. the southeast coastline is where we deal with showers and storms. the middle of the country looks very nice and very low humidity. showers and storms possible in

areas like montana and maybe a slight chance of a storm in minneapolis. this weather map is as quiet as it gets for this time of year. what a great day to be outside. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.

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so they can focus on building amazing bikes. with xerox, you're ready for real business. out new campaign slogans, but he's getting mixed results. take a look. >> i'm offering a real choice. a new beginning. we believe in ourselves, our greatest days are ahead. the other guys are talking about everything but the economy, and i'm going to talk about nothing. i hope i have it down. imt o i'm out of ideas. if you have a shirt on, at least the guys do and the gals have tops i guess you've got them.

i'm allowed to say what i'm not allowed to say. that's important to me. i'm over 13 now. there has been a lot of booing. just the other day the met a veterinarian. >> oh, my. 27 past the hour. time now to take a look at the morning papers. we'll starts with "the new york times" business section, and perhaps an attempt to calm an increasingly tense situation. german chancellor angela merkel told cnbc she was ready to discuss stimulus programs to get the greek economy growing again. this is on top of the international bailout greece is already receiving. merkel also said she was committed to keeping greece in the euro zone. >> "the new york times," after flirting with the idea for months, aaron sorkin will write a screenplay on the autobiography of steve jobs. >> from the "wall street journal" and the potentially ominous sign for the obama

campaign, a new poll indicates that wisconsin could be a toss-up state. the marquette law school poll has obama and romney tied at 46% among likely voter. that erases a four-point lead the president held in that state a month ago. obama won wisconsin easily back in 2008. >> the a >> royal dutch shell expects natural gas prices to double by 2015. rebounds strongly from the current ten-year low they expect natural gas used for transportation will drive up demand. we'll talk about that with boone pickens, and that's good news for the united states of america. boy, we may have just sort of stumbled into a situation with energy. >> if you were to make natural gas the surface fuel choice, 25% of our oil imported is turned into diesel used for long-haul trucking. trucks can be converted to natural gas. can you made what we would do to

opec? we'd destroy it. >> it will be great news. >> the boston globe, a new stud questions a long-held belief that good cholesterol automatically improving cardiovascular health. they examined the health of more than 100,000 people and those born with higher hdl levels had no less risk of heart disease. >> we showed the wisconsin poll that shows wisconsin tight in the toss-up. that's ominous news for the president right now in may, but there's also a fox news poll out that showed the president five, six points ahead nationally that came out. do we have those numbers? yeah. get those numbers up. obama 46%, romney 39%. that's a fox news poll, willie. we thought a couple days ago "the new york times" poll might be an outlier on a lot of different things. having romney up three points in the gender gap with women. i think this is sort of -- you

talked to the romney people. you talked to the obama people. they all say it's neck and neck and it will stay neck and neck in every swing state. this thing is going down tonight. >> i think most of the national polls you look at, which is what you don't want to look at, show a two, three-point margin of area. ohio and florida is where the game is. that's why mitt romney is in florida today and joe biden is still in ohiopolitico. patrick gavin with a look at the playbook. how are you doing, man? >> good morning, guys. >> let's talk about your report about republican leaders hatching a plan of attack as they wait for the supreme court ruling on the health care law that comes sometime late next month. what's the strategy for republicans? >> we're getting news out of a tuesday meeting led by john boehner, a closed door meeting with fellow republicans. when the court does give its ruling, we'll be ready. there's a two-pronged approach.

if the court upholds the health care law, the republicans will take to the floor and hack away at the law piece by piece. the most unpopular provisions like the individual mandate. if the law is partially upmeld, they take to the house to bring up a lot of health care provisions that were popular, such as parents being able to keep their children on their plans until age 26. they don't necessarily want to be seen as completely insensitive to a very serious issue. some republicans say you have to be a little bit careful in how they handle this. number one, they don't want to be seen as incensensitive to th issues of health care. number two, there's bait of health care fatigue about this debate. we have the third year on this. sure, it is an economic issues, butt most voters think about jobs, jobs, jobs and not health care. john boehner is saying this is an aggressive debate all throughout the summer, so it's not going away. how republicans finesse this

dance between the conservationiconservatiove base and people. >> they want to keep the parts president obama fought for, kids under the age of 26 and pre-existing condition. >> that's a smart move, smart play. >> nose athose are the popular . patrick gavin from politico, thanks. >> take care. >> skcoming up, strange, scary moment at a rays game. a player hit by a pitch makes his way to first base and then passes out. we'll show you what happens next. ♪ ♪ lord, you got no reason ♪ you got no right

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let's do some sports. we start with the nba playoffs, the lakers trying to even up the series with the thunder aafter they got flat-out embarrassed in game one. fourth quarter, kobe and the lakers looking good. lakers up six. under two minutes to play. lakers had a 7-point lead and then fell apart. kevin durant steals kobe's past. 20 seconds to play. durant drives, and gets a little

floater there. oklahoma city has a one-point lead with under 20 seconds to go. lakers had been up by 7. that lead evaporates. last play of the day, down a point. the ball goes to steve blake. he gets a wide-open look and he misses it. thunder hang on to win 77-75. kobe not happy. you can see it on his face. he wants the ball there. on oklahoma city is now up two games to none. kobe had 20 points and 9-25 from the field. haevent broken 20 points in the lakers last three games. game three tomorrow in los angeles. >> how is it that kobe bryant doesn't get the last shot? >> we asked the same thing about lebron james two nights ago. did you see kobe's face? he wanted the ball. the celtics routed cramers, sixers, 107-91 in philly. ugly game. celtics up 2-1. garnett has come alive. >> huge game. scored at will. >> they're up 2-0.

rangers/devils at the garden. rangers shutout the devils in game one. last night tied and zajac is called for interference and a couple of minutes in the penalty box. they can't open the door to the penalty box. had to get a locksmith in there. go to their -- finally they got it jimmied and got it opened. zajac found his way back to the action in the second. salvador gets off the shot and carter tips it it in. that tied the game at 2-2. the devils saved the best tip-in for later. tied in the third. adam, hand/eye coordination. david clarkson curls it around the goalie. catches it with his stick. >> incredible. >> brings it back behind him and in. that proved to be the game-winning goal. devils win 3-2 on that goal. evens the series at 1-1.

by the way, we're following the continuing saga of rangers coach john tortorella postgame press conferences more than him. an uncomfortable time for tortorella. >> they are who they say they are. >> concord, massachusetts. johnny is a good guy. >> is he? that makes sense. >> to baseball. scary moment last night. he takes one over the forearm from the red sox franklin morales. it's a 95-mile-per-hour fastball in the forearm. you figure he could shake it off. he jogs to first base and gets woozy and goes over to the first base coach and collapses into his arms. look at this. just flat goes down. he completely lost consciousness. thank god he opened his eyes after a few moments. they carted him off the field. x-rays came back negative. he actually talked to reporters after the game.

he's okay. he said he got nauseous from getting hit in the arm with a baseball traveling 95 miles per hour. the ray won the game 2-1. >> in his elbow. >> to hard he got sick to his stomach. >> it hit his elbow. let me say what everybody else is thinking. it hit him in the arm! >> in the flab of the arm, not the elbow. >> not the elbow. >> listen to the red sox guys. >> and he passes out? come on. >> are you kidding me? you're being mean. >> i'm not being mean. >> you're being a bully. >> no, no. he wasn't faking. >> stop it. really? oh, no, soccer players don't do that. they flop. they don't act like wimps. >> it's going to be kind of tough tonight when he goes in the dressing room. >> he'll be fine. >> those guys keep making fun. >> absolutely. >> they're killing him. >> go to a soccer match for these big babies. someone kicked me. >> the baltimore orioles,

cramer -- >> what's going on? >> smoke shot on jones tied it for the best record in the american league, how about it? >> pensacola is on buck showalter. >> baltimore has a manager. >> coming up next, we talk to richard wolffe. keep it on "morning joe." it's very important to understand

how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards.

that's where the interest in engineering came from. so now, as an engineer, i have a career that speaks to that passion. thank you, mr. davies. well, now, thank you for showing cajun. that's nice. thank you, tj. he's perfect, isn't he? joins us for the must read opinion pages nbc political analyst richard wolffe. richard, good to have you. >> good morning. >> we'll talk with the atlantic. they're attacking the bayne capital argument policy.

this is what the attacks on boehner are really about, what kind of person romney is. it's about character, whether he feels the pain of average folks and seen as callous and greedy. it's another in the seemingly endless litany of depictions of romney as an out of touch rich guy. romney has tried to engage the bayne critique on this level issuing a video for out of work americans and telling more stories about regular people on the campaign trail. he hasn't done an effective job fepding off the bayne critique, and maybe this is why. the idea he lacks empathy becomes so deeply embedded it's impossible to shake. >> yesterday joe biden was certainly striking that familiar chord. you look at biden talking, and then you look at mitt romney, and it's obvious will that one guy is connected with working class americans and the other one -- i'm not knocking romney. he is what he is. the other guy has a tin ear on a lot of issues.

>> yeah. look, there's more than just the character question here. i think part of that character thing that the obama campaign wants to get at is what is mitt romney trying to sell with the bayne record. i think part of the problem is that he overstretches it. it's like hearing hillary clinton talk back in 2007-2008 how she was a central player in the foreign policy of the president's administration. it's a stretching of the truth that causes the character to fall awaparapart. when he portrays bayne's record as one of job creation, it falls down. the primary goal was increasing capital value for shareholders. that's what they should be doing. that's what private equity does. every time he stretches it out into a story about jobs, it falls apart. then you have the bigger character question, not just why were you doing what you do, but why do the next job you want, which is as president if you say that you're into jobs, that's all you care about, why are you

talking about this other stuff? do you elm pathize with people that cannot get jobs. that character question opening up the bigger story line. >> do you empathize and can you relate? democrats panlted ronald reagan as this right wing, out of touch guy protecting millionaires. you give reagan beer in south boston, he raises it and looks like he's been there before. he looks like he belongs, like bill clinton can do it and joe biden can do it in a way ironically that the guy at the top of the democratic ticket, barack obama or mitt romney may not be able to do it as well. biden seems to have found his voice yesterday on the campaign trail. >> capturing the mood of the country is something that leaders have to do, and actually as a fellowairly unique part of

presidency. he can run it better than the other guys, but presidents have to do more than that. it's not just making the numbers work or getting legislation through, where this president has stumbled in terms of his public image. too much of the legislator in chief. presidents have to capture the mood, speak for the people, embody where the country is and what they're feeling. this president did as a candidate in 2008, but he's struggled in office to do that. that's what you saw from joe biden. taking the mood of the people and giving it voice. that's what clinton did so well. >> the challenge for romney, jim cramer, joe talked about empathy and being able to relate but also showing you can fix it. when you look at long-term unemployment numbers, the problem is going to be around for a while and there are going to be people who need that connection and who need to feel a sense of hope who do not have it now. isn't there an opportunity for mitt romney? >> i think the problem is one of the things that obama has really understood is don't ever say

anything good about the u.s. economy as long as so many people without a job. romney is kind of boxed by that. if he says things are good in the economy, anyone marginally employed will hate him. if he bad-mouths the economy, you have a guy that's the hope for business who is saying there isn't any hope. he's a little -- there is a great move by obama to make it so romney really can't talk about the economy as much as you thought he could. >> richard, it's willie. we heard the caricature in the atlantic of mitt romney as the out of touch rich guy with a monicle and top hat. how does that line up with the policies he puts in place as president. that's what really matters. would he be that guy protecting the wealthy? we know he wants to cut the corporate tax rate among other things, but would he really be bad for the middle class as a president of the united states? >> well, if you look at where he's making his choices on spending, you know, he was standing in front of that big

banner saying cut the spending. for starters, it's not really about jobs, and you can talk about deficits and they're very important. first and foremost, people want to know about jobs. middle class want to know about opportunity for their kids. he's not really talking about that stuff. look at the choices he has made on spending questions. across the board tax cuts of 20% over and above the bush tax cuts does not actually direct the minimal resources that a president has to play with towards the middle class. we know that skews most of the dollars to the super wealthy. his danger is being super wealthy himself, people will say there's a connection between the two, and that's clearly where chicago is going with this. can he narrow in on the narrative of the middle class? he said in some states joking around that he, too, is middle class. that's not really going to get him there. >> richard wolffe, thank you very much. good to see you. >> great to see you again, richard. thank you. >> we'll be right back with willie's news you can't use. [ male announcer ] when this hotel added aflac

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please tell mel it's time. >> it's time for the news you can't use. we heard joe biden speaking in ohio yet. very busy day. what do you to cool off a little bit? you go to the dairy queen.

steubenville, ohio. here's the vice president. >> here's a chair. >> sure you got enough money? >> hey, man, you know me. >> you're not charging it. >> i know you do. that's why you're wondering. do you see the comment? i assume they're talking about financial assets. >> joe biden, steubenville, ohio. couldn't get the blizzard. >> the blizzard was too high. >> the oreo blizzard. nothing like that. >> you have the vanilla dipped in chocolate, hard shell thing around it. don't go for it. it breaks off and falls off the side. >> you get it in a cup. >> you seem to know a lot about this. >> i do. >> we show you this video. this is going immediately into the game show hall of fame. this is a student from reed college in the state of oregon. couldn't solve the final puzzle. this is the final puzzle for all

the marbles. it's sitting there. everyone in america watching knows the answer. this is painful. >> boy, called the right letters, didn't he? he has ten seconds. can he do it? >> magic band, magic hand, i can't understand, sand vand, fan. wand. oh! >> oh. wow. >> that and looks so andy. you had that stound in your mind. you fooled me with that one. wow, it's a weird game, and you never know. i'm really sorry. >> sajak. >> he said wand like he had it. he was right there.

>> oh, no. they should give it to him anyway. >> even vanna was like, really, dude? tough break there for the youngster. >> what do you mean by that? >> she was stunned. she's seen a lot in her years. >> look, melody is up next. look at her. >> melody barnes and jeff gre greenfield and more with jim cramer next on "rning joe." [ horn honks ]

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i ezent when resent when they talk about families like mine that i grew up in. i resent the fact that they think we're talking about envy. it's job envy and wealth envy. that we don't dream. my mother believed and my father believed that if i wanted to be president of the united states, i could be. i could be vice president. my mother and father believed that if my brother or sister wanted to be a millionaire they could be a millionaire. my mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. >> absolutely. >> they don't get us! they don't get who we are. >> top of the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." jim cramer is still with us, and joining the set political

analyst, jeff greenfield and former director of the white house counsel and melody barnes. melody, good to have you this morning. >> great to be here. >> jeff greenfield, i am fascinated by that they don't get us. you have a sitting vice president talking to working class people in youngstown, ohio, and yet when he says it, i think of what tom wicker wrote about richard nixon, one of us. you know? biden is from america's working class, america's middle class. some politicians can actually deliver that message, and biden seems to ring true with that. >> i teach a course in political media out at the university of california santa barbara. one of the things i stress is the continuity of this message, of i'm one of you.

it goes back to andrew jackson, william henry harrison with the log cabin campaign, abe lincoln, the railsplitter. if you don't come from the middle class, how do you connect with the working class? some folks do it. fdr did it, jack kennedy did it in west virginia. one of the enduring problems of mitt romney is can he connect? it's something that's so basic in american politics that when franklin roosevelt invited the king and queen to england on a visit, he served them hot dogs and it was a way of saying, he's the king, she's the queen, i'm a rich guy. you know what? i'm one of you. i can't tell you how often this comes up no matter who is running? >> i was talking about ronald reagan who democrats had basically said a hostage of the 1% back in the '80s. reagan going to south boston, holding up that beer in the pub,

and immediately -- it's something you can't fake. he looked like he belonged there, and working class guys all over america at that moment go, the guy is one of us. you either have it or you don't. >> it was no accident that the republicans went to detroit for their 1980 convention, the heartland of unionized labor where democrats used to launch every campaign to say, you know, we understand you. now accident when reagan campaigned even in the primaries, he went to places like milwaukee, the essence of white working class midwesterners. it's a battleground that doesn't really change except for republicans in recent decades have done better than they used to for all kinds of reasons. >> i always tell this story about in 1996 the aflcio was spending $100 million trying to kill those of us that get elected in '94. i kept going out and talking

about the union bosses are this and the union bosses are that and the union bosses because i was upset that one attack after another. a guy comes over to fix one of my phones from the communication workers union, and he fixed my phone. i said, thanks a lot and appreciated to talk to him. he goes, stop talking about unions. we're all voting for you. shut up! >> there is that. >> i learned a lesson. >> did you get the message? >> i get the message. it's like -- i think that's one of the problems that mitt romney has this year. mitt is, through no fault of his own, the son of a governor, the son of a guy that ran a car company and a guy that is never going to be able to relate to working class americans. >> i thought at some point there is a transition where his gaffes

would end up becoming endearing. >> they still may. it sounds like a stretch at this point. when you look at the contrast, melody, with joe biden on the stump, the bottom line is continuity of message that jeff greenfield was talking about. he does get it. he does get it. that's why it works. >> i think two things. one with president isn't contriv contrived. he didn't have to think about it. it's authentic and what you are saying. people can smell that and feel that. from conversations when i worked with him, he would commonly relay when i was in the grocery store, this was the conversation i had with the person. i was down at the union hall or at the community center, and this is what people said to me, he is of the people. that's how he relates. that's the way he thinks p about policy. i know it from when i was on the senate judiciary committee and he was the chairman and on the committee.

i think the other thing when you talk about mitt romney, the problem is not only the gaffes but people see it also reflected in the policy. it hardens the narrative and concern when you look at the budget and they talk about cutting education or with higher education. students should just shop around, and meanwhile we support cuts pell grants. all of those things roll together and create this common sense of who the vice president is and mitt romney. >> with one small problem, and this is mitt romney's opportunity, which is the conditions being what they are. p if his argument gets more like obviously i don't come -- i come from a privileged background and acknowledge it has he has, as george h.w. bush did. i know enough to know what these folks promised hasn't happened. >> what was the famous peggy noonan line, when i'm not a good talker and a quiet man. >> i hear the quiet voices. it's that kind of approach that

'88 acceptance speech of the first president bush is like a model for how you take the fact -- i was lucky. i'm a person of means. just lay that out and say, but i understand what you're going through. that's one of the two core problems, i think, that the obama re-election has. the other one being that he's lost his stature as the transitional candidate to play the normal game. that poll number, that almost 3 out of 4 americans think he switched on gay marriage for political reasons, that tells you more than any horse race number what his problem is. he's no longer seen as a guy that changes things, and that may not be his fault. it's a powerful vulnerability that romney has the potential to exploit, the potential. >> jim cramer, there also is a question when americans go into a voting booth, do they think barack obama is going to understand how to turn the

economy around? we're talking about joe biden connecting, hillary clinton obviously did great in youngstown, ohio, did great across altoona, pennsylvania, did great down in 2008. this is still a challenge for the president, too, to convince working class voters. not that he's one of them, because he's a law school professor from chicago. in their mind, but that he understands how to get them back to work. >> what happens if he does? what happens if we get a january, february surge again in employment? last two months have been weak, but you look at youngstown, that's a boomtown because they make too big for oil and gas. the president has not embraced oil and gas, but the single biggest creator of jobs in the country for the last few years. what happens if we actually do turn industrial production good numbers yesterday. housing formation, we're doubling the number of housing starts. foreclosures at a four-year low.

>> you're asking over the next couple of months what happens? >> what happens if he takes it by storm? >> if the economy picks up and unemployment is below 8%, game over. >> i think it could be. >> by the way, i do, too. you start to hear -- you look at some of these polls, two out of three americans think things are getting better. we keep hearing, melody, great news about natural gas. i mean, we might be stumbling into success over the next two, three, four years after doing everything wrong on energy that we could do over the past 40 years. >> can't help it. >> i'm reminded where -- by bismarck who said, a special providence protects fools, drunkards and the united states of america. >> he was drunk and stumbled into it? that's what it was, right? >> this isn't a stumble? >> what's not a stumble, natural gas? >> no, the overall energy policy

wasn't a stumble. the comment about not embracing, the president has been aggressive on an all of the above policy when it comes to energy. so that isn't a stumble, and the rest of the economy not a stumble. you don't -- >> melody, i want to be very clear here, and i must not have been clear before. i'm talking about energy policy since the days of jimmy carter, that we haven't had an energy policy. i'm talking again about the grand sweep of history and how natural gas, as an axis of industry seems to be a possible future of the country. we hear by 2015 these prices will go up. as you said, we're going to be exporting a lot more than we're importing. some great things with that. i wanted to clear that up. i'm not directing this towards anybody but our own short-sidedness over the past half-century. go ahead. >> i think the president on energy has said this is an all of the above policy. he continues with leases and lease sales to look for

exploration when it comes to oil. also, broadening our natural gas policy, but also looking at nuclear and looking at clean energy as a source you're talking p about exporting. we want to be sellers, not buyers. as a result, we've started to see the production numbers go up where they need to, but also we started to see the fact that we are making inroads when it comes to clean energy. >> you think the president has been a friend of natural gas? >> yeah. i mean, he's a racist as a holistic part of his energy policy. >> understand when it comes to pipelines that a number of pipelines have been approved. keystone has been focused on as a political matter, and we also know that we have a republican governor who has expressed concerns about the keystone pipeline as well. the requirement was to go back and look at this so we make sure when it comes to ground water and protecting the environment, we're doing that.

the president isn't automatically against pipelines. we're making sure we're doing it in the right way. >> we'll be the largest exporter of natural gas in the next eight years. we won't use it as a fuel in this country if president obama gets re-elected. the issue is we can harness it as a surface fuel. the president is anti-carbon. that's totally understandable. the country is anti-carbon. if we want to bust opec, create jobs, being energy independent, we have to embrace natural gas ahead of nuclear power, which by the way the president said there will never be another nuclear power plant built in this country after fukushima. clean coal turned out to be an abstraction, they can't do it. it's time to say listen to it. >> what the president has said is we have to put these various building blocks in place so we

create a bridge to get to the clean energyhat he's been fighting for. if we aren't careful and if congress doesn't move forward, the suspepports and subsidies w get to a clean energy future will go away, and we aren't going to get to the where we're competitive globally and protectsi protecting our environment and creating jobs in an area where we can create jobs. >> this is the germany and spain solution. >> this happens a week from friday, the show i host goes back to greenville, michigan that produced along with the state enormous tax benefits to bring a solar panel company into greenville. it's a job creator. the parent company is bankrupt. clin china is undercutting the cost and natural gas is looked at as a solution. you can't go on the basis of a five-point program. the deed is in the doing, and the notion that solar energy is

a green solution around the corner, much as i would like to drive a sun-driven car, not so much. >> 2040. >> it is a complete set of policies. >> the question is how much those policies a john maynard cain said in the long run we'll all be dead. i'm a little skeptical. >> let's talk overall about it really quickly. now that we hear that our economy is going to be going down, jeff, off the next three, four, five, six months, that we're in for a long, hard slug, you get the sense if the economists are saying it, they must be wrong. i think back to '79 and '80, how terrible things were. i think back to '90 and '91 and i remember bill clinton going around new hampshire in 1992 talking about how to retain the americans because the u.s. economy is going straight down. suddenly intel and microsoft and everything explodes and the '90s are extraordinary. i want to get the sense like jim

cramer. economists talk about how terrible things are. like a lot of americans, i think this economy could turn around. zo >> you know, fight that seems to be going on now is between people that say this is a structural problem and long-term in the making and 30 years. we picked the low-hanging fruit. we're no longer the only kids on the block. other people say it's not structural but it's bad policy. if we stimulate the hell out of the economy, we'll get better. being a liberal arts major i take a step back and let folks like you so right often about the economy tell us where we're going. what i do think is as a political matter you need -- i think you need not to look at numbers. it's not like they're magic. 8% unemployment, he might win. this is not a scientific low of the universe. this isn't like when ice melts. it's where in the fall of this year people think we're going, if the optimism is up, the president is in great shape if the numbers are this way or that

way. >> exactly. >> jim cramer, before we go to break. facebook expected to finalize its ipo tonight. bottom line this story for us. >> if you can get in on the deal, do. if you're doing a market order after once it's traded, please do not. every single deal has failed if you bought it in the aftermarket. don't use market orders either. >> that was the bottom line. >> don't buy the deal unless you can get into it. >> i would no more buy face bike at this inflated price than pets.com. seriously? 800 million on facebook. i think three click on the ads. there's still no ads. >> we don't think of it as an ad place. >> we had a billion dollars in sales two quarters in a row. it's very hard to do. >> i'm still trying to sell my stock in beefsteak. >> melody barnes and jim cramer,

thank you very much. jeff greenfield stays with us. still ahead energy tycoon boone pickens is here on the set. also tom perielo joins the conversation. henry crumbton reveals details about his life as a spy. bill karins is not so interesting. >> compared to that, come on. best thing i do every day is hang out with you guys. good morning. we're watching a few areas of heavy rain this morning. we look better in miami and better in charleston. now for the good news. what a beautiful thursday it is. one of the top ten spring days that you see in the northeast. blue skies and low humidity and nice breeze. an enjoyable day. it continues from the gax to the mississippi valley through the middle of the nation and west coast. this is as simple as it gets for a beautiful may thursday.

st. louis, low humidity. enjoy your great stretch of weather. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks.

22 past the hour with a beautiful shot of washington, d.c. as the sun is up this morning. here with us now former operations officer of the cia's clandestine service for 24 hours, henry crumten. he's the author of the new book "art of intelligence." she good to have you on the show this morning. >> thank you. >> i saw the piece on "60 minutes" on you and i thought it was incredible. i want to start with a moment you discussed a little bit in that piece, but it was the moment that you had osama bin laden in your sights literally

and couldn't do anything about it. describe why and what led up to that and what we learned from then. >> well, it goes back years. in 1996 the cia first set up an office dedicated to finding bin laden. that office focused exclusively on al qaeda, and there had been several opportunities leading up to what would be the last before 9/11. we had a human source network that directed us to this compound near kandahar, and based on that human source reporting, we flue a predator uav above the compound and sure enough, the security detail showed up with all the signatures of a bin laden caravan and indeed bin laden was there and got out. >> and you did what at that point? >> we alerted the white house, of course, and the pentagon and the hope that there would be a military strike. as explained to us, it would

take several hours for cruise missiles it to arrive at compound, and the request from the white house was intelligence on where bin laden would be five, six hours from then. of course, we couldn't offer any guarantee. to no action was taken. >> so at that point the art of the intelligence was slow and clunky and ineffective? >> well, the intelligence was, in fact, very precise. it's the lack of follow-through and execution on the policy side. >> jeff. >> bill clinton said to incoming president george w. bush supposedly you'll spend more time worrying about osama bin laden and al qaeda and i tried to kill him for him and didn't get you. was that right and there was an attention or policy to get him but the bury rock see and who would pay for it is the problem? do you credit president clinton with wanting to get him? >> there was a presidential finding signed by president clinton that afforded the cia a

degree of authority, but we also had lots of lawyers looking at this, parsing every word saying maybe this, maybe that. moreover the resources, the great constraints on resources available. as an example, we started sending teams into afghanistan to work with our afghan allies in september of 1999. we din we didn't have our air frame. we had to hitch a ride on the aircraft of the northern alliance, the old clunky f-17s. that's how we ferried our team to afghanistan to the two years prior to 9/11. >> there's been talks for years about the rivalry, resentment, whatever you want to call it between the fbi and cia in terms of intelligence gathering and more importantly intelligence sharing. do you think that's any better today, any more effective or efficient today than it was, say, ten years ago? >> yes, i think it is better. even ten years ago there's some good examples of shares.

as an example, i was detailed to the fbi from 1998 to 1999. i was a deputy in their international terrorism operations section. in turn, the fbi had a senior special ago who wasent who was in the counterterrorism center. this had gone on for a couple of years. this sbeintegration of personne was very helpful. there's still imperfections in the "homelanhomeland. overall it's not as bad as the public sees and some policymakers claim. >> hank, i want to strip it down. what year was it again? we heard the story after 9/11 that during the clinton administration they had him in his sights, and there was actually discussion around the table on whether to kill him or not. and the argument from the right was that bill clinton and the people running the white house

refused for political reasons to kill a muslim leader. jeff asked the question. bill clinton said it to bush i tried to get him, but i didn't. a lot of people in the right would suggest that clinton had that chance, but he refused to do it for reasons that had nothing to do with the clunkiness of the ability to go out, find him, and kill him? >> i can't speak to the motivations, certainly the political motivations of the clinton white house at the time. they certainly knew there was a threat, but from my operational perspective, the authorities were insufficient and the resources were insufficient and we missed multiple opportunities prior to 9/11. >> what was the best opportunity to kill him? >> well, i think there are a couple. one is when we had some tribal allies that had identified a convoy.

this was before i got to the counterterrorism center. there was some limited engagement, but it was insufficient and ineffective. the second time was the example that mika referred to, when we put a predator above the compound and capture the images of bin laden. >> yeah. wow. >> i should note and i point this out in my book that for all the limitations of the clinton administration, in my view they did more against al qaeda than the bush administration. the bush administration came in -- >> explain that. >> their orientation was really geared more towards the traditional nation state threat. they looked at russia. they looked at china. republicans hadn't been in the white house in eight years, and the threats of warfare had evolved very rapidly in eight years. >> part of that national security adviser, condi rice was

a russian specialist, and they were laser-focused on russia. >> they literally could not believe because of the mindset that a non-nation supported entity could do this. they were loosking at iraq for the responsibility of the first world trade center bombing. one thought iraq was responsible for oklahoma city because they couldn't get out of this notion of a cold war. it has to be somebody that runs a government. how can people living in caves do this? >> jeff, that's correct. in fact, when i was in the white house -- this was late september 2001, wolfowitz talked about iraq related to 9/11, however fsh, and i didn't understand what he talked about. >> this is in richard clarke's book, too. >> it's unbelievable. you look at the level of drone aattacks, the drone strikes that are going on day in and day out. there are a lot of skeptics deep

inside the cia who weren't big barack obama fans who are now saying that al qaeda, whatever is left of them in afghanistan and pakistan, just live in fear every second of their life. >> yes. the life expectancy of their al qaeda chief of operations in the pakistan/afghanistan theater if you will, the number three guy there is probably less than six months, and that's been the case for about ten years. >> yeah. you don't want to be al qaeda. >> sounds like a jpmorgan chase trade er trader. >> here we go. the book is "the art of intelligence." coming up political analyst harvey cook will be here. belinda carlisle joins us in the studio. keep it right here on "morning joe." [ male announcer ] the inspiring story

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time the babies born to multiraces than to white parents. white births accounted for 49.6%. the changes dynamic will impact everything from the economy to politics. in 2008 barack obama's victory fueled in part by a 20% surge in minority voting, winning hispanic and asian voters by a roughly 2-1 ratio and nearly all of black voters. in 2004 george w. bush won re-election despiting losing all three minority groups to john kerry. those margins were closer four years early when bush lost the hispanic, black and asian to al gore. >> the hispanic vote will continue to get more important. >> the bushes, jeb, george w.

figured out how to keep it kind of close there. i suspect mitt romney could use a little bit of that charm this year, and it doesn't look like he has. a massive grasp with hispanic votes. >> everyone has seen it coming down the track for the last 20 years. i don't know how many republicans, probably many people you knew back in the congress, have been saying to their fellow republicans, if you lose connection with the hispanic vote, you're going to be a minority party. maybe exaggerated, but look at the obama strategy in the west. why they think arizona is in play this year. they took three western states last year, including new mexico, which is a huge hispanic population. >> jeb bush has been saying it for 20 years and carl rove for 230 years and george w. bush believed it. that said, you look at the primaries this year, the republican primaries, i don't

know. >> the governor of new mexico has been -- >> rick perry was absolutely torched in the republican primaries for trying to pass some legislation that helped the children of illegal immigrants. >> everybody feels it's a jump-on election, i think, and it probably is right now on paper. hispanics, women and independents, that's a long road for the republicans it to climb. >> jeff greenfield, thank you so much. good to see you. up next, i wonder what it's going to be? >> what? what's the mark? >> maybe let me think about this. after last we, i can't imagine what they'd talk about? >> i missed last week. the 11-year-old kid breast feeding with the supermom? >> exactly. the new issue of "time" magazine when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪

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i go rick -- >> do you think i was a little hard on him? >> it was terrible. it was a hatchet job last week. i don't know why you hate nature. you look at last week's cover. >> seriously? >> it's beautiful. >> it was pandering. >> it's nature. why do you hate god's gift to the world? it's like the bond between a mother and a child. >> joe, forget the picture. the article told me to breast feed for two years, sleep with my baby, and wear it. okay? >> wear the baby. >> come on now. i'm not asking for a lot here. how mom are you? are you kidding me? we go from boobs to babies to bebe apparently. here with us now "time" international editor jim frederick it to reveal the latest issue of "time." oh, wow. bebe. okay. talk about it. >> this is a mood kill. >> we went from boobie to bebe.

much discussed in the office, and this week is a profile of israel prime minister benjamin netanyahu by the managing editor of "time." >> where is he? >> he's traveling. >> he actually used to work with mitt romney back in '76? >> yes, he did, as a consultant. he said that romney was the whiz kid, and i was just the guy in the back room. >> does he have a good relationship with him still? >> he says he doesn't actually talk to him very often. only a couple times since they worked together, and the last time he was in the states they talked for ten minutes. he said it's a good relationship but not a deep one. >> are we closer to middle east peace with netanyahu or further away from it? it's not a dumb question, because few would have guessed that in 1979 bagin would be the guy to strike a deal with egypt. >> yeah. i mean, that's the million

dollar question, and i'm not really sure that we know, because we don't know what netanyahu is going to do. i think rick's intention with this story was to provide a very intimate portrait of the man, his family, his background, his beliefs, and why he does some of the things that he does. it's behind the decisions he's ultimately going to make. we're at a privatal moment, relations between israel, palestine and iran. things come up that netanyahu has it to make decisions in the next six to 12 months. they have profound implications. the point of the story was not to predict whether or not there's peace in our time so much as to give an intimidate portrait of what bibi is thinking and how he came to the decision. >> bring our son home is a piece on the parents of america's only missing soldier in afghanistan.

they almost got him back, and what went wrong is what you're looking to. >> that's right. this is a story going on for three years. it's not exactly been a secret, but we and other news organizations including "the new york times" were in negotiation with the state and the pentagon and the white house about not really pulling the trigger, so to speak, on this story because they didn't give us a whole lot of information. it's clear there were talks and negotiations going on. a local newspaper in idaho did break that kind of agreed-upon embargo a couple of weeks ago. "the new york times" and we have done these story. the reporting that "time" has brought to bear is our pakistan and afghanistan bureau chief ann baker has good relations sourcewise with several major players in the taliban. she got a lot of information from them about how close they were to a deal in march, and that deal broke down because of rifts inside the taliban. i think most interestingly is the rift is almost generational.

the younger generation of the taliban, after a decade of fighting, is even moorad cal th moore radical. >> we hear about how washington is disconnected from the rest of america. this is serious. starting in the 1990s, willie, i saw huge high-tech companies grow up around dulles airport, and washington has become disconnected this article says in many other ways just by the wealth. >> i heard a couple of nights ago a very prominent political reporter was asked by somebody who doesn't live in washington anymore, what's washington like now? he said there are no democrats or republicans. there are just rich people. >> i think one of the most interesting things is with the downsizing of the federal government, which is one of the big secrets of some of the election campaigns, that actually much of the work of federal and military contracting especially has been outsourced. there's a great line in this

piece that there are contractors who now can -- consultants that help you get consulting jobs on how to consult and how to get contractors for government contracts. some of it is high-tech, but a lot is the vast amount of money pouring into washington is going to contractors and outsourcing firms, not necessarily to the federal government itself. it's creates a lot of little baby entrepreneurs and a number of people in the private sector. obviously, it's washington. >> you have the number of the 20 richest counties in the united states, half of them surround washington, d.c. including numbers one, three, and four. >> that inlags has an impact. one final quote here. my quote of the week is on elizabeth warren. i want to explain this, because this has sort of flown under the radar. she says every job she's gotten is because she's a good teacher. talk about how this -- >> it seems like a small thing

to us, but actually people up in boston say her getting a job because of her native-american heritage. >> elizabeth warren, threw some set of circumstances, has been listed as being part cherokee in terms of her job applications of the varieous law schools she's taught. no one has challenged her credentials, but the aspect she's listed as a mirnlt at harvard law school is a campaign issue because the scott brown campaign is raising the issue. was she an affirm active action hired and have anything to do with her obtaining the positions? it appears it didn't, but her handling of the issue has been less than spectacular. >> the new cover of "time" magazine is king bibi. you did well. you didn't even have to take a bullet for rick. we appreciate you being here. >> maybe he'll come back.

you can back anytime. up next the vocalist of the go-gos singer belinda carlisle next on "morning joe." ah, welcome to hotels.com. i get it...guys weekend. yeah! if you're looking for a place to get together, you came to the right place. because here at hotels.com, we're only about hotels. yeah! yeah! noooo. yeah! finding you the perfect place is all we do. welcome to hotels.com

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with us now the lead vocalist of the go-go's, belinda carlisle. we were saying you going back out on the road and you say you're always on the road. >> it seems so. >> yeah. >> yeah. i just got off two weeks with the go-go's, before that i was in australia for a month on my own. i'm out there working. >> where can we see you this summer working with the go-go's. >> it probably won't be until september. go to hollywood bowl. that's pretty nice. i think we're playing somewhere in new york, but i'm not sure a where. but we're everywhere this fall. >> that's great. it's been a long ride. we were just talking about when it started. >> right. >> i remember my first year in college, 1981 you guys really exploded with "we've got the beat" and "our lips are sealed." >> right. >> but the hits kept coming. >> well, for a while until '84 when we broke up. then we've been pretty much back together since 1990.

you know, we work a couple times a year, we're just one big happy dysfunctional family. >> since '78. >> that's a good way of putting it. >> yeah, we formed the band in '78. we didn't have simon cowell behind us, we did it ourselves. >> and you did a lot for women musicians. don't you think you opened the doors in some ways? >> considering we started and didn't know how to plug our guitars into amplifiers. i think we did a lot for kids, male and female, coming out of the garages basically. >> there's another interesting element to your rise, too. 1981 was right almost to the day, maybe a month or so, to the time mtv sort of came onto the scene and so that was kind of an interesting thing you had. you guys, i think i speak for children of the '80s when many people were deeply in love with you, i'm just going to put that out there.

i think let's just -- it's the elephant in the room. to have the music but this new video element was helpful to you guys. >> you thought it was ridiculous that we had to go do a video. in fact i couldn't be bothered to get out of the car during "our lips are sealed" and you can see my back bobbing around while jane was singing her solo. who would have known. we thought it was just, oh, filming a video again. >> but in hindsight do you view it as a big part of your popularity? >> absolutely. >> well, making videos was crucial. i'm not sure if it still is, but it was back then. it was all about, you know, people wanted to see the face behind the songs they heard on the radio. >> so given all that, 1981, you mentioned simon cowell, today, all of everything that's out there, everything that's available to consumers, how hard is it to stay riding the crest of that wave as a musician, as a group?

>> well, you can't expect to. what goes up must come down. i remember the number one hits that i had, it was like, oh, it's always downhill from here, because it is. i mean it is, you know. >> wait, why? >> very rarely can you expect, in my experience, and i've had the experience of being able to have success twice in my life, in my career. very rarely are you able to maintain that sort of popularity nor actually in retrospect would i want to. so i think i've had the perfect career where i'm not a prisoner of my success. >> right. >> i can be anonymous -- semi anonymous and have a life and it doesn't define me. >> it helps you appreciate it more, the music more, right, when you're up on the stage? you've been up, you've been down, you've been back up again. >> lots of times. >> and you realize at the end of the day you've got people that have been your family, your

dysfunctional family since '78, and in 2012 people still want to come out and are very excited to hear your songs. >> yeah. i mean it's bigger than ever, which is really weird. but i mean the thing about the go-go's is that it's more than just music to a lot of people out there, especially, you know, in my age group with their kids and grandkids. >> stop that! stop that! >> but it's -- you know, the music transcends music and becomes moments for a lot of people. so the go-go's are iconic if i must say so myself and toot my own horn. >> i like that. >> who came up with the idea -- when did you talk to your friends and say, hey, let's start a band? we don't really know how to play, we don't know how to write songs, but let's start a band. >> well, it was during the punk rock movement early on, and everybody was in a band and they were horrible.

so it was like, well, we can be in a band and be horrible too. i was in a punk band called the germs and played the drums. i had the choice of singing -- i had never had experience and no one knew how to do anything, but the punk rock movement lets you learn as you went along. without that the go-go's would never have happened. >> and you have a home collection, right? >> she works round the clock. look at this. >> belindia. >> i've been living in india about six months a year for the past few years and i felt i had to justify a lot of the time i spent there. >> that's at bergdorf's? where is that? >> yes. i do have a home collection at bergdorf-goodman. there's a charitable aspect to it because there's some kids in part of a nonprofit that sold my blankets and pillows and it

justifies the time i spend over there. >> i love it. >> belinda carlisle, thank you so much. it's great to meet you. >> nice meeting you. jim cramer rejoins the table at the top of the hour next on "morning joe." this one's for all us lawnsmiths. grass gurus. doers. here's to more saturdays in the sun, and budgets better spent. here's to turning rookies into experts, and shoppers into savers. here's to picking up. trading up. mixing it up. to well-earned muddy boots and a lot more - spring per dollar. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. this toro mower is just $334. right now, during toro days. wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac

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envy, it's job envy, it's wealth envy. that we don't dream. my mother believed and my father believed that if i wanted to be president of the united states, i could be. i could be vice president. my mother and father believed that if my brother or sister wanted to be a millionaire, they could be a millionaire. my mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. they don't get us. they don't get who we are. >> good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. welcome back to "morning joe." it's 5:00 on the west coast, by the way, as we take a live look at new york city. back with us on set we have jim cramer and mike barnacle. >> you know, i would say the populist stuff doesn't work because it always seems so phony. but biden, biden is telling the truth. it works for biden, because he feels it. working class guy.

he feels it and, by the way, you look at all of these millionaires that run our country and then you look at his -- you know, his taxes every year, he's -- you know, he hasn't cashed in. >> he feels it, he understands it, he lives it, he's vice president of the united states, he has secret service protection but he's still joe biden. part of him is still joe biden from scranton, pennsylvania. we keep hearing ripples that there is a little animosity or anger towards the vice president on the gay stuff. >> oh, no, i can't believe it. not for a second. >> for forcing the president's hand. but he is a valuable asset to this president. >> he's the best thing they got when it comes to politics. i'm sorry, he knows exactly what he's doing. >> he gets it. and mika, boy, he went after them. >> let's show more of that fiery speech at a youngstown manufacturing plant yesterday. the vice president addressed the challenges facing the middle class while taking aim at mitt romney for his tenure at the

investment firm bain capital. >> this election is going to be a choice between two fundamentally different philosophies, and that choice is about whether or not we're going to rebuild the middle class or continue to help those at the very top and hope everything works out well. romney made sure the guys on top got to play by a separate set of rules. he ran up massive debts in the middle class laws. and, folks, he thinks that experience is going to help our economy? let's take a look. look, with these guys past is prologue, man. so i want you to think about what he'll do as president. >> he's a patriot. he's a generous man. he gives to his church. he has a beautiful family. but he doesn't get it. he doesn't get what's at the core of all this. it's about people's dignity. >> you know, i say populism doesn't work. it works.

there are two things, he doesn't get it, which republicans always trail democrats in that. does such and such understand your problems, your family's problems. but there's another thing, jim. and this is really a message and it's the first time i've really heard anybody deliver it that well. if every democrat could deliver it that well, then the last four or five years could be used for their advantage, even next year. and that is, he thinks his rich friends should play by a different set of rules. because the american dream -- i was talking about my dad. my dad worked hard, he was unemployed for a year and a half. there was never any resentment, but he expected everybody, whether it was the kennedys or the people next door to play by the same damn set of rules that he had to play by. that's a pretty powerful message. >> i thought it was. i remember riding down on the train when he was still a senator. he always took the train. he said to me i'm the poorest guy in the senate.

100 senators and i have the least amount of money. but has equal power. it reminds me exactly of what he's saying. now, the 1% in this country, i've said this on "mad money" doesn't play by the same rules. the reason why, they pay far less tax. now, the 15% tax that romney pays, it should be an issue again because i was a hedge fund manager. i didn't pay this. i just thought it was wrong to be able to convert your ordinary income into capital gains is strictly something you can do if you're real rich. no one else can do it because they can't get away with it. just wrong. >> and we have a friend that kept talking to us about, oh, you should do this, you should do that. talking about buy a small plane a couple years ago. and then took out a balance sheet and he explained with all the tax breaks and everything else that if you paid a certain amount, at the end through 100% depreciation and tax deductions

and your business, he showed in a very like complicated way how after four or five years it was free. and you know what, he was right! but my dad needed to buy a buick in 1973 or somebody in youngstown, ohio, today trying to get by, the rules aren't skewed that way for them. there's one rule after another rule after another rule that seems to skew for the rich. >> the rich have power to be able to influence the laws. the rich are without a doubt the most clever about the tax code. remember the law says very clear. as long as you don't evade taxes, it's your perfect right to avoid taxes. that's always been the case. but who has enough money to be able to hire a lawyer to look through the code and avoid taxes. only rich people. >> people talk about taxing the rich. don't tax the businessperson that makes $250,000 to $400,000, don't raise their taxes because they can't afford the

accountants and the tax lawyers to make sure that their small business continues to grow and continues to hire people. >> the romney campaign, by the way, responded to what the vice president was saying and the attacks on the former governor's career at bain capital saying, quote, president obama can't come close to matching the many years of experience that mitt romney has as a private businessman, so he has chosen to attack the free market. millions across this country are struggling and deserve a leader who understands how the economy works. and that would be the political countermessage, which is mitt romney understands the economy? >> again, though, he does it for some reason that message works with barack obama. like a guy who is a law professor and everything. so if he says that about barack obama, okay, you're right, you're right. but when joe biden says -- and it shouldn't be the case because you look at barack obama and his grandparents raised him in hawaii, very middle class

upbringing. but for some reason biden, like when biden says my parents believed i could be president of the united states or i could be a millionaire, you know he's telling the truth. so that brushback about being anti-capitalism doesn't work against biden as well. >> no. the vice president of the united states, joe biden, has a picture in his head. he can see the house on top of the hill where the rich people live in the town that he grew up in, and he knows instinctively that the people who live at the bottom of the hill, the bidens, the scarboroughs when we were younger know they don't represent the people on the bottom of the hill. but there's a connection and it's called trust between the rich people at the top of the hill and the people at the bottom of the hill. the people at the bottom of the hill believe they can get up there to the top of the hill but once that line of trust is

broken like with the banks, with the breaks that the rich get, once that line of trust is broken, then you've got a problem and that's where joe biden can really say it. >> and there's not that resentment. i told the story after my dad died when we were in mississippi, we'd drive past country club drive and look at all the big houses and look at the golf course. if i stepped foot on it, they'd probably shoot me in the back of the head. they probably still would. but my parents said look at those houses, look at those big houses. you keep working hard, you do well in school, you'll be able to live in one of those houses. and i promise you, being a doctor or a lawyer in 1971-72 when my dad was unemployed and we were driving by that, that was about as far removed from my existence as being, you know, premier of china. but my parents were like work

hard, do it, you can live there. >> and when joe biden gets it going in a setting like that, and you talk about political athletes, purely political, he's throwing his arms around guys, he's giving them the business, he's whispering. >> it's genuine, though. >> no, i'm saying he really pulls it off. >> he's a connecter. >> if we agree that a small group of swing voters maybe in ohio, maybe in florida will decide who the next president of the united states is, that's pretty effective right there. five different budget plans on both ends of the ideological spectrum failed yesterday. >> that's a surprise. >> absolutely failed. >> i never saw that coming. >> among them a 99-0 vote defeating president obama's budget request, which was actually offered by republicans. meanwhile president obama is warning congressional leaders that he won't tolerate another political stand-off over the nation's debt limit. over lunch at the white house yesterday, the president tried to make his case for what he called a balanced approach to dealing with the deaf fit.

here's white house press secretary jay carney. >> the president also made clear that he refuses to allow a replay of last summer's self-inflicted political crisis that eroded confidence and hurt the american economy. we're not going to recreate the debt ceiling debacle of last august. it is simply not acceptable to hold the american and global economy hostage to one party's political ideology. >> what i'm trying to do is encourage people on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the capitol and on both ends of pennsylvania avenue to be honest with the american people and to be honest with ourselves, to begin to tackle this problem in an adult-like fashion. >> you know, so they have a meeting. the president invites everybody down to the white house. they have a meeting. and they immediately use everybody that they bring down as props. the president -- remember when presidents would call members of the house and senate down and

both sides actually trusted each other enough that the talks were private? by the time these guys got back to capitol hill, they were issuing, you know, point-by-point blows on how they scolded them for being reckless. >> i disagree with you. i don't think it's by the time they get to capitol hill. i think by the time they leave the west wing, their cell phones are alive. there seems to be and we hear it over and over and over again from various senators and various congressmen, there's very little communication between the president of the united states and the members of his own party in the democratic senate. >> i want to stop you there, because a lot of times we talk -- we hear that this president doesn't communicate with republicans. but what you're talking about and what i have heard for years is it's not just republicans and the president, members of the president's own party complain bitterly off record, of course, that the president never talks

to them. >> yeah. within the last 24 hours i've heard from one united states senator who is rather critical in the budget process that there's very little communication between the budget staff, the senators, and the president as well as many members of the president's staff. they just don't hear -- >> why is that? >> i don't know. >> it's been that way. there's no communication. >> i do not know. it is mystifying. >> joe, can you help cut through what this number means? so the president's budget goes down 99-0, all these other budgets. what does that mean for someone watching. they say oh, my gosh, the president didn't get a single vote for his budget. >> that's the third year in a row. >> why, though? how? >> you can't get a single democrat. you know, the democrats are afraid of their own shadow in the senate. they haven't put a budget on the floor for a thousand -- for over a thousand days.

the president's own budget comes up three years in a row. they vote it down 99-0. i mean i think if i were president of the united states, i'd take it a little personal that i can't get a single member of my party voting for my budget. it just shows how dysfunctional it is. and i've got to say in this case it shows how you can kick the republicans around for being too tough in their cuts, but as far as being responsible on budgeting and tax cuts, and this is a big change from what i've been saying for the past decade, the republicans are the only game in town because they're the only people putting out budgets that are passing. the president puts out a budget that gets voted down 99-0 every year and the senate democrats, who have the constitutional responsibility -- like why are we paying senators? >> right now i'm not sure. >> why are we paying senators? by the way, it's the least productive senate in over 20, 25

years, just by the numbers. they haven't passed a budget. the united states senate hasn't passed a budget in three years. why are we taxpayers paying united states senators, because they're not doing their job. and they haven't done their job, mike, for three years. listen, italy is going down, greece is going down, spain is going down, france will go down once they start going down. we've got a $16 trillion debt. we're actually spending more money per person than portugal, italy, greece, spain, the so-called pigs. look at this chart. we're spending more money per person in the united states of america than the so-called pigs of europe that are going down. and yet, mike, united states senators are not passing budgets. >> if harry reid had spent as much time and energy on trying

to get a budget bill passed as he spent on trying to get bill daly, the former white house chief of staff fired, we'd have a budget. >> and by the way, harry reid crushed the democratic budget chairman, a good man, a fiscal hawk, and there are good -- >> kent conrad. >> kent conrad. there are democrats who as paul ryan said yesterday are acting so responsibly. ron widen. i tell you what, a tip of the hat to dick durbin, who dared to vote for simpson-bowles. there are democrats that are on the honor roll, but i tell you what, the senate -- >> collectively not getting anything done. the chart that joe just showed, what does that bode for us? >> technically in three or four years, the imf would be here if that continues. and one of the things that i think that we should have been doing is have a treasury secretary, as much as i like a lot of what tim geithner has done, he should be providing some analysis to the democrats.

the three democrats you mentioned are financially literate. a vast number of the senate democrats are not financially literate. kent conrad knows more about the budget than republicans or democrats. he's been very straight. every time i've spoken to him he said it's a clear path. dave cody, who is the ceo of honeywell put together a lot of the notes of what happens with simpson-bowles. he is adamant that our country will fall apart in 20, 30 years from now if we don't do something now. i think it's faster than that. >> it's not 20 or 30 years. you know what, if the dominos start falling in greece, as richard haas said, after they finish destroying the euro, the international markets, they're going to come here. they're coming here next because the numbers don't add up. and here's the danger. when we get to that cliff, we fall off. now, i'm not talking about austerity right now. not over the next two, three, four years because we need to keep this economy going. but we certainly can make

long-term debt reductions by making tough choices right now. >> we could very easily do a gigantic $100 billion, 30-year offering. what we don't want to do is what happened -- all of the situations in europe are short-term funding. spain, greece, they're constantly refinancing their deficit. if we were to do a 30-year bond offering, we could take away all the liquidity concerns. but geithner is so determined to finance this debt with short-term funding that he is going to create the problem himself. he just won't do it. he claims it's too expensive. he has to step up. where is he? where is tim geithner? coming up next, the road to energy independence. we're going to bring in boone pickens who's on a mission to free the u.s. from foreign oil. also former democratic congressman tom perriello is here. >> what's he been doing, willie? >> hanging out. they play cards. we'll go through some of the big headlines on the west coast as well, but first let's go to

bill karins. why not. get a check on the forecast. bill? >> i actually don't have that much to say today, but there's always something in the weather world. if it's not raining, snowing, icing or tornados, then we're dealing usually with drought conditions and wildfires. that's the case in colorado right now and in aurizona. outside of ft. collins, there's a fire. it almost looks like clouds and fog, it's just locked into the high elevations in the rockies. roosevelt national park near ft. collins. so the wildfires are going to continue to expand. here's a look at the may rainfall totals in the west. we haven't had much, if any, in areas of the west and are not looking at any heading your way soon. it's very hot, mid-summer-like. 105 in phoenix. colorado and utah unusually warm this spring. so expect to hear a lot more about the bad fires as we go throughout this late spring, early summer season. as far as the forecast in the southeast, we're watching a chance of showers and thunderstorms in miami to orlando, the northeast a beautiful day. in the middle of the country, no

problems. and i look ahead at tomorrow. it's hard to even notice that i actually moved the map. barnacle throws me his muffin every day. it's part of his diet and i take half of it. and temperatures in the southeast looking pretty good. see if you can catch it on the way back. oh, he fumbled it. horrible. you're watching "morning joe." we're brewed by starbucks. pathetic. ♪

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mitt romney's also trying out new campaign slogans, but he's getting mixed results. take a look. >> i'm offering a real choice, a new beginning. we believe in ourselves. our greatest days are ahead. the other guys are talking about everything but the economy, and i'm going to talk about nothing. >> i'm out of ideas. if you've got a shirt on, as the guys in the room at least do and the gals have tops, i guess you call them. and allowed to stay what i'm not allowed to say. i'm over 13 now. there's been a lot of booing. just the other day i met a veterinarian. >> 26 past the hour. here is the founder and ceo of bp capital management, boone pickens. and in washington we have former democratic representative from virginia tom periello who's now

with the center for american progress. good to have you both on the show this morning. >> we've got a lot to talk about. boone, earlier today we had jim cramer and melody barnes talking about natural gas. it looks like we've got some good news coming down the pike that over the next couple of years natural gas, the price expected to go up. that could be a boon for america. >> if the price goes up? >> and we're exporting natural gas. >> why would you export natural gas and import dirty oil from opec? i don't like that. you're sitting here with -- that is exactly what we're confronted with right now. we're frantically going to get our cheap natural gas out of here. it's cleaner by 30% than oil. and we're going to keep bringing the oil in. i saw the other day where the president said he's solved the mideast problem, we're importing less oil from the mideast than

we have in the past. true. when he came into office, 42% of our imports came from mideast. now it's 39%. what he didn't tell you was, is that the cost when he came in was $86 billion from opec that year. this year it will be $170 billion. so the price has gone -- has doubled. >> we're paying opec twice as much for that oil that comes in? >> exactly. but we've gone down from 42 to 39, but that's because our economy has come off. >> you still believe, though, that natural gas can replace what you call dirty oil? >> sure, there's no question it can. all the technology is in place. heavy duty trucks are going over to it because they're saving $1.50, $2 a gallon. one trucker goes over, the others have to come with him because -- it's cheaper because your biggest cost for a trucker is their fuel. >> you know, the things you find out when you talk to boone pickens are amazing. please go through again about

the heat wave in saudi arabia, the impact on oil that they take out of their own land, what they're using it for now, and the ripple effect on us. >> start first, the saudis claim they can produce 12.5 million barrels a day. that's out, forget it. they're 10.3 right now and they're coming up on -- they're producing 10.3 is what they did last month. they're coming up on summer. summer is severe. it's 100 today over there, 105 next week is predicted and 120 in three weeks. when they get up to 120, they now have to draw out of their own oil supply, they use oil to generate power for air conditioning. we don't do that in the united states. we don't use any oil for power generation. ours is 70% of all the oil we use goes to transportation fuel. but they're going to pull down 700,000 barrels a day out of

what they would export and that will go for power. so that oil market now, you're looking at 91 million barrels a day is global demand. that's getting very, very tight. >> right. >> and so i still believe -- my neck is stuck out because i said brent north sea could go back to 150 this summer and i'm a long way from 150 today but you can get there in pretty big bites. >> let's bring in tom down in washington. tom, what's your take on all this? if we've got all this natural gas available and we're bringing in dirty oil, what's standing in the way? why aren't we tapping in and using all this resource that we have right in our own ground? >> well, we've been handed an unbelievable gift. this is a potential huge boon to the economy, and jobs and the environment if we do it right and the question is are we going to mess it up by not doing it right. industries tend to be defined by their worst actors, not their

best actors. right now we aren't even doing basic disclosure on some of the chemicals being put into the kmub communities. one of the things about gas, as mr. pickens noted, this is one of the few energy sources where you're talking about both utility sector and the transportation sector. you do have a number of barriers. it's a relatively cheap to extract but expensive to transport. there's the issue about the infrastructure investments for bringing a fleet around. and i think one of the things that the long-term investors are looking at is, is there potential for a blow-back in this industry. i think where we get some certainty out there of making sure the public health and environmental considerations are taken care of, that's going to help investment flow into this area, not hurt it. so it's a win-win. it's a question of whether we're going to let some of the real instant sprint to it things get in the way of what could be a great long-term boon for the

economy and the environment. >> boone, what do you say about that. the critics say fracking is a big problem, shooting chemicals and water into the ground. >> earthquake. they could have an earthquake too. >> but it is a concern for environmentalists. what do you say to that? >> look, there have been over 800,000 wells that have been fracked. the largest aquifer in north america extends from midland, texas, to the south dakota border across eight states. those wells have been through that aquifer. you just cement it back to the surface and you're fine. they have been fractured. the president said the other day the department of energy was one that developed fracking 30 years ago. that's not correct. i saw the first frac job in 1952 at border, texas. since then i fracked over 3,000 wells and i've never had a failure. the chemicals that are going down, the companies, apache, a

anadarco, they all put their frac recipe on their website. there's nothing they're putting underground that's going to hurt anybody. >> why don't you explain for people who are not familiar with fracking, what fracking is. >> well, the real -- what's happened, and the industry has done an unbelievable job. nobody ever says hats off to the oil and gas industry in america, they have done a great job. >> you don't hear that a whole lot, do you? >> what? >> you don't hear that a whole lot, do you? >> no! >> hats off. >> these guys are making too much money and polluting the deal, causing earthquakes and all these things are happening. stop them, stop them. get some more dirty oil from opec and help pay for both sides of the war. that's what we need to do. we need to look like idiots. here you are with a cleaner fuel, cheaper fuel. it's safe and available. what are we waiting on?

>> all right. before we go to break, i'm just curious, boone, can i just ask you about mitt romney and if you think he has the capacity to turn the economy around? >> well, the economy can be turned around by anybody. the way you turn it around is get on your own resources. i'm serious. >> i understand that, and everything that you talk about has more to do with the environment than the jobs issue. >> are you excited about mitt romney? >> i'm not excited about any of the politicians. i get nothing out of washington and i don't know whether you saw what i said the other day at that salt convention in las vegas. no, i'm not going to say it here. >> say it here. >> go ahead. >> my wife will kick me out if i say that again. >> oh. >> okay. don't say it, don't say it. i tried that once before, that didn't work. >> tom, you wanted to get in on what boone had said in the previous answer. go ahead. >> well, i think, first of all,

we are moving forward in this area. we are seeing a tremendous number of wells being dug, and so i think this is an issue where the industry is going forward. in some ways the biggest barrier right now is that the price point is so low, so i think this is just a chance where if we do it right, we're going to see this for a long time and not see fits and starts. i think that's a better economic model in this area. >> well, you give vague generalities about if we do it right. hell, we've been doing it for 50 years. there hasn't been anything wrong with what we've done. >> "the new york times" reported hundreds and hundreds of clean water problems. this is an industry that i think is an important part of the future, but i think people have a lot of common sense. when they don't know what chemicals are being put in their water, they start to ask questions and i think that's fair of them to do so. >> wait a minute, wait a minute, you said putting chemicals in their water. i don't know about -- listen, i've drilled through the biggest aquifer in north america. i never put any chemicals in anybody's water. and if new york doesn't want to drill, don't drill. have a moratorium and don't

drill. the gas has been there for 300 million years. it's not going to go any place. just don't drill. drill someplace that wants to drill. you look at what's happened to the ecomy in pennsylvania, and it's fabulous. tom corbett said i'm getting industries back into my state that i never thought would come back. i look at north dakota. it's totally employed. i was up there last summer. they're looking for people to work. truck drivers get $110,000 a year. i mean this thing is huge what it could do to the country. but if you don't want to do it, just keep getting opec oil because that's what's going to happen to you. but if we get out of -- if we get out of the dependence on opec oil, we can get our people out of the mideast and now we aren't going to kill people, our people. we're stupid to be over there. >> so when's your birthday, boone? >> birthday coming up may 22. i'll be -- i'll be 34 years old. >> 34 years old.

>> plus 50! >> 84! >> 84 coming up, man. >> may 22nd. all right. he's looking younger today than ever. >> hats off. >> hats off. >> he can run circles around you guys. boone pickens, thank you very much. >> thank you, boone. >> tom, thank you very much. >> stay with us, tom. >> we've got our political round table coming up. the editor of the koch political report joins us after the break. keep it right here on "morning joe." [ female announcer ] lactaid milk is easy to digest. it's real milk full of calcium and vitamin d. and tastes simply delicious. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk.

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41 past the hour. here with us now editor and publisher of the koch political report, charlie koch, tom periello still with us from washington, gentlemen. >> charlie, fascinating race going on at the top of the ticket, but underneath the house, the senate, i mean the fight for control of congress will be extraordinarily tight, isn't it? >> well, the house -- the odds are pretty overwhelming that it's going to stay in republican hands. but republicans have 56% of all the house seats. it's likely to get down to like 51, 52, 53, a lot closer. >> but the senate. >> yeah, the senate. if it's not 50-50, one side or the other will have 51, maybe 52. it's going to be real close. i try not to use the word

control because nobody will control the senate. >> let's talk about a couple of races. indiana, obviously dick lugar kicked out. can democrats win that seat? >> i think it's a little more competitive than it was, but it's still indiana. the fact that the obama campaign -- they won indiana last time. they're not going to be contesting it very heavily this time. this is not a year where indiana is likely to go democratic. so republicans cut themselves up a good bit but i think at the end of the day they'll hold on to that seat. >> the race in the news this week, nebraska, where you had a female rancher shock the political world. >> you know, it's not unusual to have two flawed front runners and a third candidate just shoot the gap at the end. that's what you had. you had a republican attorney general who had accumulated an unusually large amount of wealth while being attorney general. and you had a long-time don

dozsten berg who has a personality disorder and then you had this dark horse candidate who was able to take advantage. >> is it bob kerrey's to lose? >> no. i think this is the outcome democrats would like least to see happen. she's the least controversial of all the candidates. >> where are we in massachusetts right now. we talked about the problem warren has run into with her alleged cherokee heritage. where do we stand here. >> this plays int the vulnerability i always thought she had. this is a big-time, major league race and she's never run for anything before. first time candidates often time make mistakes. they don't handle things quite so well. this is just sort of another example of that. i think it's a landslide for scott brown would be 52%. you know, there's no margin of error for scott brown. but i think everything is going his way and things are not going

her way. >> how is it that she's not handling it well? what is it she's not doing? >> first i would have had tattooed on my hand when the red sox won the world series for one thing. i mean that's kind of something that they take seriously. >> kinda. >> but when you're hit with this, they should have had an answer. basically this has just been dribble, dribble, dribble, textbook case of how not to handle a crisis. >> hey, tom, in virginia there's another great senate race going on down there. and i'm actually hearing republicans, washington republicans saying that your former democratic governor is going into allen's backyard. he's trying to win some republican areas. >> i think tim kaine is in a very strong position, though it will obviously be a very tight race. there are two directions. you can see him making gains. one is with women in northern virginia with some of the issues that have opened up in terms of a gender gap. but also kaine is a person of keep faith and deep conviction.

i think he's taking his economic fairness message straight into some of the redder counties and i know from my own experience, that's something that resonates real well. george allen doesn't have quite the resonance there that he used to but it's going to be a tight battle. >> that virginia race along with massachusetts, those are going to be two barn burners, aren't they? >> it will. i think the presidential race means a lot there because there may be some -- there may be some romney/kaine voters but there aren't any allen/obama voters. allen needs romney to get 51, 52% in virginia. >> that's a pretty steep climb, isn't it, with virginia breaking the way it has? >> it is. but virginia is not where it is in '06 and '08 when democrats were having a great year. it's not where it was in 2010 when republicans were having a great year. it's somewhere in between. it's regressed back a little bit that way. i think it's going to be very, very close but allen needs romney to win by a point and a

half. >> i don't know whether this gay marriage statement by the president is going to impact the national race, but you and i both know you get down in some of these more divisive races that, could have an impact. >> i think the place it has the biggest impact is black churches. when you saw gay marriage lose in california, it was in the african-american community is where it lost. and that's sort of -- this has sort of rolled a grenade down the aisle at a place where the president -- everything was going good until then. >> charlie cook, good to see you. >> but that doesn't translate in leaving the democratic party in terms of votes. >> yeah, it's turnout. >> tom, thank you as well. >> thank you, tom. thank you, charlie. we appreciate it. >> the west coast morning papers are next on "morning joe." [ banker ] mike and brenda found a house that they really wanted.

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guts. glory. ram. some headlines from the west coast this morning. the "los angeles times" says the u.s. is escalating its secret war in yemen. a small number of special operations troops are currently operating within a yemen military base coordinating strikes against al qaeda targets. the u.s. has launched at least 18 drone strikes within yemen since early march. the las vegas sun in nevada has reclaimed its dubious position as the state with the highest rate of foreclosures in the nation. nevada led the nation in foreclosures for 62 straight months before arizona took that title in march. the san diego tribune, two large navy ships collided in the middle of the pacific ocean. nobody was injured and no fuel was spilled. there was damage. the steering malfunctioned on

one of the ships. >> you're in the middle of the pacific ocean? >> how does that happen? >> you get a lot of space. >> and you collide with an aircraft carrier? >> here's some good news from the "seattle times." coffee drinkers appear to live longer. >> oh, thank god. >> that's the finding of a new study involving 400,000 participants. men who drank two to three cups a day had a 10% chance of outliving those who drank no coffee. women who drank coffee had a 13% advantage. the study was conducted by the national institutes of health and aarp and will be published today in the "new england journal of medicine." that was brewed by starbucks. all right, we'll be back in just a moment. ♪

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it's a thing, you have ten seconds, can he do it? >> magic hand, magic band, magic yand, sand, band -- wand! >> wow! that hurts.

>> could have won the prius, willie. all right, what did you learn today? >> i learned that reed college just fell out of the u.s. news and world report top 25. >> what did you learn? >> i learned it's time for america to take your hats off to the oil and gas industry. >> oh, my gosh. >> what did you learn? >> i think rick stengel should come back on the show sometime. >> he's scared of him. >> i don't know why. >> you brutalized him. >> don't put boobs on your cover for ratings, okay? >> willie, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> "morning joe." stick around right now for chuck. reverend wright, a republican super pac weighs going where john mccain famously avoided in 2008. does mitt romney really want this kind of fight breaking out while he tries to pivot to the middle to win over swing independents on the economy? another day in