polarization in our country, economic disparities in this country, the olympics seems to be a unifying event. i was struck over the weekend at a number of different places i was, gas station, blah, blah, blah, where there was intense interest in viewership of the olympics -- >> it's amazing. >> despite the fact that willie geist is in london for the olympics, joe. >> i know. >> people were still tuning in. willie and doc rivers, the boston celtics basketball coach, were together doing basketball yesterday, and i have to tell you they were fantastic. willie, i'm sorry to mention that. >> willie, what are you wearing? what is that thing? >> he took over -- he's wearing a sweater that i gave him from the 1948 winter olympics. >> maybe it's not reading well on camera. trust me, it's really cool. >> seriously. i never took you for like wearing dick button's wear, but congratulations. >> joe, you would like it.

it's like one of those soccer, track suity kind of things. i will bring you back ones. >> it does look sort of euro trashy. >> not trash, just euro without the trash part. let me give you a couple results. i want to ask catty what she thought of the opening ceremony, unlike me, she had a ticket inside. a little history for the united states, dana vollmer setting a new world record in the 100 meter butterfly. shea swam -- she missed the olympics last year. made the team eight years ago. a little redemption for her. she was at third place at the halfway point of the race and turned on the jets in the second 50 meters winning that gold medal in world record time. dana vollmer, the 24-year-old from texas. also in the pool, the men's 4 x 100 relay. the americans had the lead. michael phelps swam a great second leg.

ryan lochte went into the pool as the lead and was caught by the frenchman. so the french take the gold there and the americans settle for silver. lochte won the gold against phelps a couple days ago but cooped ho couldn't hold on in the anchor leg. team usa beating up on france. france had tony parker, but that obviously wasn't enough. kevin durant 22 points, 9 rebounds. tomorrow they play tunisia. that should be a quick game there. jordyn wieber, the great american gymnast, expected by a lot of people maybe to win a gold medal here, will not even advance. she did not qualify to make the finals. you see her there in tears. she was defeated by aly raisman who, by the way, is her best friend. after advancing onto the finals, raisman also in tears. she felt so bad for wieber saying i know how bad she wanted this.

wieber will get another shot in the women's team gymnastics final. four years ago they lost to china settling for silver. you can see china leads the way total medal was 12, six golds. united states one back with 11. and 3 gold italy and south korea on there as well. today if you're watching on nbc on prime time. ryan lochte swims against a deep field, 17-year-old missy franklin gets her first chance for individual gold in the 100 meter backstroke. but first the u.s. women's water polo team looks to take the first step for their first ever olympic gold. they get hungary live this afternoon. you will want to watch the men's, the men's gymnastics team. the u.s. men's qualified first, surprised everybody. they could win a gold medal tonight. catty, watching just on tv on the bbc, i thought it was a great spectacle. it was different and you can't compare it to china. everybody said it's not as good as china. china was a once in a lifetime experience. this was different and very british i thought.

>> yeah. you know, it was funny what i remember watching the chinese opening ceremony back in 2008 and thinking, oh, my god, what the hell are we going to do in london? there's no way we can watch this. and danny boyle to his credit didn't try to match china. he spent only half the amount of money that the chinese had spent on it, but it was an incredibly british opening ceremony. you had this arc of british history from the time of the industrial revolution, 1908 when london first hosted the olympics, through the second world war, the rise of the welfare state. i thought it was -- i was longing to know what american viewers thought of this celebration of socialized medicine, that ten-minute tribute to the national health service, and then, of course, onto what britain is today which is really, you know, known for its culture, it's music, it's daniel craigs, and it was -- i liked it. i liked it a lot more than i thought i was going to. i went into it quite skeptical,

and i loved the humor. i loved the sense of irony, and i loved james bond parachuting out of the helicopter with the queen. >> queen elizabeth playing along, joe. you got mccartney getting the world to sing "hey jude" together. >> what else do you need? i thought it was a fantastic opening ceremony. i wanted to ask you, willie, and catty, about a "washington post" story this morning talking about a lot of empty seats and that the british are desperately trying to hand out tickets to members of the army and to school children to get them to fill up some of the seats. what's going on after this extraordinary opening ceremony? are the olympics ho-hum for a vast number of brits? >> well, these olympics have been sold out for years and years, and it does look at some of the events, like i talk about yankee stadium where it's full from about, you know, the first

baseline up, but down below in the so-called corporate seats it's a smattering of people and we have seen some of that here. they're working on it. they're going to invite military families to come in, school teachers, students, things like that and give them some tickets to the games. but they believe some people just not showing up whether it's corporate sponsors or people affiliated with the ioc or whoever it is, just not showing up to every event they bought tickets for. >> but you're right, willie, it's been sold out for years, and it's not like london couldn't be more excited. it seems like they're so excited about this, and -- but, yeah, i guess it is a lot like yankee stadium which reminds me we're going to be doing a story because the red sox finally have something to talk about. >> yes. >> it took them about four or five months. let's go to washington right now and go to the news. mike barnicle, the irony so thick you could cut it with a big old, fat steak knife.

bill clinton, a man the obamas shunned for years, a man the obamas wanted to pretend did not exist, a man who they suggested was a racist during the south carolina primary, suddenly he's the big star at the upcoming dnc convention at bank of america convention center in charlotte, north carolina. my, oh, my. this is going to be a fun democratic convention. >> you got that right, joe. former president bill clinton coming out of the bull pen for the obama administration in their re-election effort. we'll give willie some time to return the duck of edinburgh's sweater to him. "the new york times" reports former president bill clinton will have a major role at the democratic convention. according to the report clinton will take the stage for a coveted prime time speech to formally nominate president obama for a second term. the address expected to focus on the administrations efforts to put the economy back on

track. you will recall president clinton was deeply critical about barack obama during the 2008 democratic primaries. "the times" report says an official announcement about clinton's role at the convention will come later today. joe, that clearly is another sign that the obama re-election campaign i think they realize that this is a jump ball campaign and they need the big guy. >> it is so close, and john heilemann, you know, joe klein back in maybe it was '99, back in 2000 wrote a book called "the natural." when it comes to politics, bill clinton is the natural. let's face it, barack obama is many things, but he's not a natural politician. sometimes you get the idea he doesn't even like politics. perhaps he doesn't even like being in his job, and bill clinton it seems to me, and i'm sure you'd agree, will bring a certain joy to that convention that right now even the

incumbent may have a hard time stirring up. >> well, joe, i only take ix seption exception to the one thing. barack obama is a pretty good politician. he can do certain things extraordinarily well, including give -- >> right. >> his mastery of big skill j oratory is unparallels. a big speech on a big stage that will have everyone swooning. bill clinton, even though he has lost a step for sure, a still better than anybody in the democratic party. talking about the economy, the struggle of real lives and real people, talking about how to -- how a democratic vision of the future is compelling to the kind of voters who are still on the fence right now. that 7% or 8% of the electorate that are uncertain about president obama's economic leadership but also uncertain about whether they can trust

mitt romney. there's no one better to give that speech and tell that story. that's something president obama has not been as good at doing and they will need president clinton and joe biden on consecutive nights in charlotte to get up there and talk about that specifically to that group of voters. those are the people they need to bring over and those two guys together are a great tag team setting up president obama's big speech on the last night of the convention. >> and, you know, there's really mike barnicle, no doubt that that's exactly what barack obama needs right now. the economic news keeps getting worse. we've got a slowdown. it looks like there may be a recession, and, again, i was not suggesting that barack obama isn't an extraordinary speaker politically when you get in front of large groups, but he does have trouble and the white house will admit he has trouble sometimes relating to working class americans who are out of work who are struggling. joe biden certainly is fantastic in that realm. also bill clinton, but, my god,

after the latest numbers, they're going to need to be able to talk about the economy in the way it's going to move independent swing voters and struggling americans. >> and no speech is going to reduce the anxiety level that exists amongst so many americans right now. the white house has downgraded their expectations for the economy this year saying gross domestic product will grow at a rate of 4.3%. that's a modest recovery expected to last at least through 2015. the white house also announced spending is happening at a slower rate than predicted but is still on track to hit $1.2 trillion. steve rattner, you're the brainiac here with regard to the economy. i was looking at some of the charts you have. consumer confidence and consumer spending, these are indicators that are kind of troubling. >> the numbers are getting weaker. there's no question about that. i don't personally believe that we're going to have a double dip recession, but the president also is going to be facing

re-election with some numbers that aren't quite pretty. as you mentioned on friday the white house released the latest gdp numbers for the second quarter. you can see the trend on this chart where back in 2009 we obviously were in the middle of a recession, had a sharp negative growth rate and then we moved into recovery in 2010 and 2011. but as you look in the first half of 2012, which are these two bars to the right, you can see that the economy is slowing down. we're now at a 1.5% rate of growth of gdp. this is not fast enough to allow the economy to add enough jobs to bring down the unemployment rate. that's really the core of the issue, and so when you have this kind of a gdp number, it may be an abstract concept to most americans but when it translates itself into jobs, i think they will understand it pretty well. oddly enough, housing did pretty well in the quarter off a low base, and retail sales, however, as you can see here are also

turning down for the first time in this recovery. we had a long, steady rise in retail sales, and then in the last three months actually, unprecedented during this recovery, you had retail sales turn down. people are nervous. >> they're afraid to spend. >> they don't have the incomes. they're holding back at the moment. if you then turn to manufacturing as another example of weakness in the economy, manufacturing had been one of our strengths through this. the way this chart works, anything above 50% is it positive so you can see that we had this long positive period of manufacturing expansion after the recession. but it's just now, this latest month, gone down 49.7% which is a contraction in manufacturing. a lot of it has to do with the slowdown in europe and the slowdown around the world where simply there isn't as much demand for your manufacturing goods as there was before. >> steve rattner, bobby jones always talked about golf being between the ears. a lot of times that has to do with the economy also. we see all these numbers, but at

the end of the day it comes down to how confident people are that they can get the money out of their wallet and spend it if they have it. what does consumer confidence look like right now? are americans getting more or less confident as we move towards the election? >> well, joe, you gave me a great segway to t-- segue to th last chart. consumer confidence dropped here. this huge drop over here, by the way, was the debt default drama where congress single handedly destroyed consumer confidence. but we've had a significant drop in consumer confidence. >> steve, what's causing that? what are analysts saying would cause this precipitous drop? >> a whole mix of things going on in the world that make people nervous, whether it's the middle east, the unemployment number, the fiscal cliff, what's going to happen at the end of the year with taxes and the budget finally starting to bear.

the whole political uncertainty. it's starting to weigh on consumers and they're getting nervous. >> you know, we don't want to be too insular here and think too many people obsess and focus too much on what's going on in politics and the political realm, but i've got to say, if i'm a consumer, if i'm out of work and my dad was out of work for a year, year and a half, and you're watching the news every night for any hope you're going to get work, i have to say this presidential election has to be very depressing to people who think, god, washington is not only not going to help us out, but they're going to keep fighting and actually may get in the way. richard, let's talk about what's going on in the world. mitt romney went overseas, took a trip to great britain, sort of fouled things up. he moved on to israel and it sounds like he's basically giving the israelis a blank check to attack the iranians. what happened in educational and what does it mean for u.s. foreign policy. >> i wouldn't go quite that far.

clearly the body language and nuance is more sympathetic to the israeli concerns about iran. maybe a yellow light towards an jaelly preventative attack. at the end of the day i think the reality -- if force needs to be used against iran in order to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons, it's much better for the united states to do it. we have far more capability. doesn't introduce the krael israeli factor into the middle east equation. i think what mr. romney is trying to do is send some political signals of greater support. did it in a backgrounder earlier in the day. that we would respect an israeli attack if one were to happen. the word respect is not quite the same as support but it shows nuance and body language. they're trying to find a position slightly between where the administration is and all-out unconditional backing for an israeli strike. they're trying to find that middle ground obviously, not

simply how it plays there. it's playing well with the israeli leadership. they've gotten first class treatment, but also looking back here and to the entire political context. >> let's listen -- >> i was going to -- >> i was going to say and we'll continue the conversation, let's listen to mitt romney and what he had to say in israel and then get everybody's response. >> five yearsing it at the conference i stated my view that iran's pursuit of nuclear wea n weapons capability presents an intolerable threat. that threat has only become worse. now as then the regime's claims it seeks to enrich nuclear material for peaceable purposes are belied by years of maligned deception. but today the regime in iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability. preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority. it is iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and

the most destabilizing nation in the world. we have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny iran's leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentio intentions. >> steve rattner, i'm a very shallow man. i have got to say, romney at least looks good there, whether you like what had he said or not. obviously, steve rattner, you know this, barack obama is having a lot of trouble with jewish supporters, but what do you make of that speech? will they see that as nothing more than just a political ploy? >> yeah. barack obama's probably ten points behind with jewish voters than what he got in 2008, and he's working hard to get back there. i think there is clearly some additional support jewish voters are enjoying interest romney that's not going to go back to barack obama. my question, what romney did in israel really responsible in the

sense that israel -- for israel to attack iran would test their military capability to their utmost, perhaps past the breaking point. it's not clear they have the capability. it may totally change the dynamics of the middle east and your point, probably a better thing for the u.s. to be doing. when you put it together is what romney did in israel a responsible thing from a foreign policy perspective? >> if you put it his specific words under a microscope, i don't think he crossed any lines. i think the key here, which the united states and israel agree, is iran may not be allowed to get nuclear weapons. i don't think governor romney crossed the line. he's trying to go as far as he can to signal to the israelis to tell american supporters of israel, and not just jewish, but evangelical christians, that he's extremely supportive and the administration gave him an open.

this administration and their approach to the peace process and the relationship or lack of one between the president and the israeli prime minister has created a space and governor romney is trying to fill that space. >> in the dialogue here and in everything that you read in the newspapers, editorials and such, the focus seems to be circling around governor romney and his trip, that it's aimed at giving greater support to israel. my question to you is how could we as a nation give greater support to israel than we've already given? >> well, it was interesting that just as governor romney went to israel, of course, there was a new aid package announced for the israelis. i mean, i think what's very interesting is you listen to mitt romney speaking in israel and you could imagine barack obama using almost exactly the same language when it comes to iran. barack obama in his words on -- okay, initially he tried to reach out to the iranians. he clearly backtracked on that. this month the toughest european

sanctions ever have come into force on iran for iran's oil exports. they've been joined by the south koreans. there's a broad coalition in terms of sanctions against the iranians. we're actually at a point where international action, nonmilitary interaction action against iran has never been stronger, and washington has been much of the driving force behind that. now, is mitt romney saying, under my presidency we would attack iran's nuclear sites or we would give firm backing before hand for israel to attack iran's nuclear sites? and if he's not saying that, then where exactly is the daylight between his policies and the obama policies? i'm not sure there's a huge difference apart from the rhetoric. >> we have an awful lot to talk about. we obviously want to talk about the political fallout of romney and israel. also, we want to talk about sarah palin being brought up by

dick cheney. i mean, you wrote the book on sarah palin in 2008. are you surprised that dick cheney came out and said it was a mistake to pick sarah palin as vice president? >> well, surprised, a little bit. i don't know if you remember about this, joe. we wrote if "game change," we said dick cheney had said to people privately in 2008 he thought sarah palin was a reckless choice, and when his daughter liz was asked about that when the book came out, she said that wasn't true. it now seems like dick cheney has kind of confirmed our reporting in the book and more or less said something consistent. surprised he came out and said it in this context a little bit, but not surprised by the substance because mark and i both felt on the basis of our reporting that's what cheney thought, that she was a reckless choice. so the interview yesterday was pleasing confirmation of what we had in the book. >> oh, good. you wrote "game change"? i didn't realize that.

>> katty and richard, please stay up. coming up, chris matthews, he will be here on set with us. also former peter orszag and singer/songwriter huey lewis. up next mike allen has the top stories in the political forecast. but first bill karins with the forecast. >> it was raining all weekend wherever i went. i was looking for that dark cloud and barnicle was nowhere to be found. we're going to have a gorgeous monday with low humidity out there and temperatures in the low 80s but that's just the weather patterns and the way it set up this weekend. maybe d.c. and pittsburgh a slight chance of a storm but that's about it. as we go through the last couple days of july, the heat wave is just unrelenting in the middle of the country. the drought continues, if not getting worse. look how hot it's going to be today. we have heat advisories and warnings from oklahoma down to

new orleans, and today we'll be about 105 to 110 degrees from kansas to oklahoma to arkansas. even dallas is now getting into the mix with 105 today. so the forecast east coast cooler, chance of showers along the southeast coast. everyone on the west coast, you're looking just fine today. but this heat wave needs to go away and soon. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. ♪ hello...rings ♪ what the... what the... what the... ♪ are you seein' this? ♪ ♪ uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh... ♪ ♪ it kinda makes me miss the days when we ♪ ♪ used to rock the microphone ♪ back when our credit score couldn't get us a micro-loan ♪ ♪ so light it up! ♪ even better than we did before ♪ ♪ yeah prep yourself america we're back for more ♪ ♪ our look is slacker chic and our sound is hardcore ♪

♪ and we're here to drop a rhyme about free-credit-score ♪ ♪ i'm singing free-credit-score-dot-com ♪ ♪ dot-com narrator: offer applies with enrollment in freecreditscore.com. [romney singing]: oh beautiful, for spacious skies, i'm barack obama and i approve this message. for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plain, america, america, god shed his grace on thee, and crowned thy good, with brotherhood... hey america, even though

they don't need one, wes, clay and demarcus tried on the new depend real fit briefs for charity to prove how great the fit is even while playing pro football. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. get a free sample and try one on for yourself. as the world around it. with the available lexus enform app suite, you can use opentable to make restaurant reservations. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. ♪ monday morning you showed up fine ♪ >> welcome back to "morning joe." we hope your week is starting off very well. let's go right now to the morning papers. let's start with the "usa today." there's a new study out that shows young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are very

anxious and uncertain about their future, but they actually still remain hopeful that things will turn around. that's good news. the optimism of youth. the study finds, quote, emerging adults have these feelings because of delayed careers and their prospects for marriage and parenthood just isn't that good, mike barnicle. >> we needed a study to find that out? are you kidding me? >> i know. >> oh, wow. >> but there's a pie chart also in "usa today" that shows 75% of americans make up 3 out of 4 americans, too. very helpful stuff on the front page of "usa today." >> moving right along, "the new york times," home grown ji hardists are taking a more prominent role in the uprising against bashar al assad. they've been able to become more organized and to increase

financing. >> for more parade of papers, "houston chronicle" story showing us all the big spending isn't just happening in washington, d.c. one of the most expensive end party political battles in texas history will be decided tomorrow night when republican ted cruz and lieutenant governor david duhurst face off. cruz has enjoyed a boost from figures like sarah palin and jim demint. but duhurst has the backing of most of the state's gop establishment including governor rick perry who is quite confused. he actually thought this election was being held next may. let's go to mike allen and find out what's in the politico playbook. what are we looking at today in, seriously, the most important political sheet not just in america but the whole world. what are you talking about 12?

>> thank you, joe. newt gingrich is back stirring the pot. he has a piece up backing michele bachmann's call for an investigation of radical islamic integration into the u.s. government. he's saying this rush to political correctness, the rush to silence this investigation shows, as newt gingrich shows it, the fix is in. he says jfk wrote while england slept about the run up to world war ii. some future jfk could write while washington slept about the islamic run up in the government. >> is his argument that hillary clinton's top adviser is somehow a plant for the muslim brotherhood? he's not serious, is he? >> yeah, he's broadened it beyond that, and speaker john boehner is among the republicans who have said that's crazy,

dangerous thinking and the original call on this by what gingrich is calling the national security five of house republicans did focus on egypt's islamic brotherhood. gingrich is saying, in fact, there should be a broader look at islamic influence in the american government. >> of course, mike, they have expanded it well beyond just hillary clinton's aide. they're now looking at cream abdul jabar and muhammad ali and why they changed their names. >> richard hoss, why, why, why are we spending longer than two seconds talking about -- >> you read the headline in "the new york times" about jihadists now playing a major role in syria. that's a serious issue. the fact that the opposition there is getting radicalized. that's the threat on the streets of damascus and it's something

we ought to be paying attention to. this is a distraction. >> how important is that story in "the new york times" today about -- i don't know, al qaeda starting to move in and trying to fill a void in syria because right now the opposition is scattered. it looks unfortunately like they could be major players moving forward in that extraordinarily important country. >> it's the rule in all these things. the longer these things go on, the longer the oppositions go on, they become magnets for jihadists. we saw it in eric, in lebanon, we're seeing it here. it's one of the great concerns about as bad as assad is, the opposition to him could also be bad. so this is the welcome to the future of syria where you're going to see sectarian battles and islamists will play a large role. this is not going to have a happy ending even if assad

hopefully gets out of power. >> katty, what's your take on the newt gingrich deal? this is just incredible, incredible? >> my take is move on. i mean, it is incredible and it's ridiculous and i think as richard says, it's a distraction from where there are real issues of al qaeda around the world and we can talk about syria, we can talk about pakistan, but talking about washington and the government here seems to me the kind of thing, frankly, that just looks absurd from the outside. one point i would make on syria, i was speaking to one of our correspondents who spent a lot of time in syria over the last six months, and he says there have been stories about al qaeda there, but he has also interviewed some of the rebel fighters, and they say when they have been approached by al qaeda, they've often rejected the help that they've been offered by some of the militant fighters, and he hasn't yet seen evidence that there is a large

presence of al qaeda amongst the syrian opposition, and while sectarian violence is always an issue in the middle east so far the story of syria is that it has been less sectarian, that this is still an anti-assad movement. >> thanks to politico for giving us further proof that newt gingrich has really gone off the trolley tracks. and when we come back, the red sox try to take one from the yankees in extra innings. they took two out of three over the weekend. i'll give you the highlights. rubber game next on "morning joe." with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card!

[ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? or double miles on every purchase, every day! it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter.

[ jennifer ] better. stronger. believe. happier. healthier. i believe weight watchers made me more powerful. it's time to believe again. stand up and take charge. i believe if you want to change your life, you can. ♪ believe in yourself [ female announcer ] weight watchers -- rated number one best plan for weight loss by u.s. news and world report, again. join for $1. hurry offer ends august 4th. weight watchers. believe. because it works. weight watchers. there are projects. and there are game-changers. those ideas that start with us rolling up our sleeves... ...and end with a new favorite room in the house. and when we can save even more on those kinds of projects...

...with advice to make them even better... ...that's a game-changer in itself. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get this all in one vanity, faucet, and hardware for just $249.

all right. don't be surprised out there. you're not looking at the salt lake city elks club. let's go to sports though. luke, man. >> yeah. i can't talk about the olympics so let's talk about baseball. yankees hosting the red sox in the rubber match of their three-game set. bottom of the eighth, russell martin delivers a two-out liner. the run from second comes around

to score and the game is tied at two apiece. they will go to extras. free baseball in the bronx. in the tenth mr. will middlebrooks squares to bunts and david robinson appears to hit him with the pitch. the umpire calls it a foul ball and that earns the ire of bobby vatten ti valentine. gets an early trip to the showers. two batters later pedro dumps a fly ball into shallow right field. ichiro doesn't take a great route and it drops in front of him. the go-ahead run will score. last chance for the yankees in the bottom of the tenth. aceves gets him swinging for the final out. the red sox win 3-2 in dramatic fashion and take the series from the yankees. mike, wildcard for the red sox? no, not going to happen.

the nationals taking on the brewers in milwaukee. michael moore sends one the other way that gets over the right field wall for a two-run homer tying the game at nine. the 11th, morris coming through again. this time with a two-run double that breaks the tie and puts the nationals up by two. they hold on to win 11-10 and stay up four games on the braves in the n.l. east. if you're a free agent hitter go to milwaukee. if you hit the ball in the air it gets out of the ballpark. you can hit 50, 60 home run there is easily. >> barnicle can't. >> the nationals will be there. >> god willing. >> and hopefully stephen strasburg will be there as well. >> here ends the meeting of the salt lake city elks club. >> luncheon is over. up next -- well, i don't know about that. steve rattner, you breaks out some more charts with new evidence why this congress may be among the most dysfunctional in american history. may be? may be?

>> may be. you're watching "morning joe." sometimes, i feel like it's me against my hair. [ female announcer ] weak, damaged hair needs new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. active naturals wheat formulas restore strength for up to 90% less breakage in three washes. for strong, healthy hair with life, new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. are so amazingly good, for strong, healthy hair with life,

you'll get lost in an all-beef hot dog world. what was i supposed to wish for? why am i wearing a bow-tie? where did i leave my bicycle? after all, when you're enjoying the beefiest, juciest bite of pure kosher beef, nothing else matters. goodness gracious, that's kosher. with no fillers, by-products, artificial flavors or colors. hebrew national. the better-than-a-hot dog- hot dog.

you've got to get your charts together. it's chart time. steve rattner is with us, our braini brainiac who knows everything about everything. now, we were talking about the charts earlier and we were talking about consumer confidence, consumer spending, everything like that. so let's go to consumer confidence. >> okay. but we're here to talk about congressional dysfunction. >> no, no. okay. all right. that's what we're doing?

i wanted to talk about consumer confidence. you're going to talk -- >> why don't you do the charts. >> you get the most distinctional caredistinctio dysfunctional congress going? >> listening to joe talk for a week about how dysfunctional congress is so i wanted to provide joe with more ammunition. >> mike barnicle are you drunk this morning? the sox won, so finally won is game, so you're tipsy this morning, but, yeah, coming in we were talking about congressional dysfunction. of course, steve rattner, congressional dysfunction may play a role also in a lack of consumer confidence. if more americans have a positive. of hugo chavez than the united states congress maybe that does impact how they spend money. but let's go to the chart on exactly how badly americans feel about congress. >> well, let's go to the charts and show how badly congress is actually doing.

if we take a look at passage of laws as one measure of how congress is doing, back in 1947 the famous do nothing congress passed 900 laws as a matter of fact, and harry truman still ran for re-election against them. you can see what's happening over here on the right. it's trending down. but what's most amazing is the current congress, which still has a few months to go but not a lot of hope it's going to do anything, it's passed about 150 laws, this little red bar i'm drawing in here. that's what our current congress has accomplished. joe may say, well, the less they do, the better it is. there are those of us who think congress is here to pass laws and do things and so far in the last year and three-quarters they have not done that. >> hey, steve rattner, don't put your left wing jiber jabber in my mouth. i'm not saying that whatsoever. the problem is this is about as dysfunctional a congress as we could have. we say it time and time again. katty kay, oyou have a democratc

senate that does absolutely nothing. harry reid tries to stand in the way of legislation getting to the president that may have to be vetoed. you have republicans filibustering, and then you go to the house side and you have a republican house that's passing legislation that they know will never see the light of day. it's a curse on both the houses and, unfortunately, it's the american people who are paying for it day in and day out. >> yeah. i think steve's chart is just astonishing. that little red line that is half the size of even the other smallest blue lines in terms of how little congress is doing, and at a time when america needs to do so much and needs to do it fast and faces very real threats and challenges from other countries around the world and competition from other countries around the world. this is a congress that doesn't seem capable of taking even small action, let alone the kind of bold action america needs on energy reform, on education reform, on immigration reform,

and let's not even mention entitlement reform. how is america going to keep itself competitive in this century if it's going to have its politicians incapable of taking action like this. i think this is astonishing. >> it is absolutely astonishing, especially when you look at the fiscal cliff we're going to be falling off in the new year, and you look at the questions about tax reform. you look at the questions about debt and the massive debt that continues to explode. the entitlement reform, as you said, katty, but, john heilemann, the bottom line is it's not in the interest of a lot of these congress mmen and senators to go against the party leadership. they get re-elected, especially in the gerrymandered districts for being the people who just say no. that's rewarding politically for them. >> you said the keywards gerrymander districts. when people ask what the cause is, don't think there's a

coincidence between the fact this is the least productive congress we've had in history and it's also the most polarized congress we've had in history. that's not an opinion. that's just -- steve i think may have a chart on this. there's standard political science research that shows this is the most polarized congress, the least overlap and i'll hand it off to steve. those two things go hand in hand, the inability to get anything done with the fact that people have a political interest in catering to their bases. >> let me show you two quick charts that will completely support john's point. it tracks polarization. it goes all the way back to the 1870s. you can see that we did have a dip in a more collegial environment around the time of the new deal and the war. we are at the most polarized we have been since records have been kept. the house more than the senate. here is one more chart i think you will find interesting. this tracks the senate going back to 1982 and if you go back

to 1982 you see that there are a bunch of little red marks to the left. those are republicans who often voted democratic. these guys over here. and a few democrats who sometimes voted republican. but as the years progressed, everybody moved to their corners and so by the time you got to 2011, everybody was in their corner, nobody was crossing over, nobody was doing anything except voting party lines. >> it doesn't matter if you're talking cambridge, massachusetts, or pensacola, florida, or manhattan, kansas, or manhattan, new york, you have got division on the left. you have got division on the right. long gone are the days where it was actually republicans that were in large part responsible for passing civil rights bills working with northern democrats. those days are long gone on both sides. we have such a great divide between the parties, and the

divide is ideological. >> and in addition to being ideological, joe, steve, if you could come up with a chart for next week about the cost of campaigns, the rising cost of campaigns and the slide in bipartisan in congress, i bet you would find a line that cross that is would be kind of educational for everyone. >> we'll put the little elves to work on that for next week. >> here is the bad takeaway. we're not just going back wringing our hands, we're not just saying, gee, look how bad washington, d.c., is. the real problem that americans have to get their arms around is this fact, that unless this campaign starts to be conducted on a much higher level, this same thing is going to happen over the next four years. if anybody in mitt romney's campaign believes he can beat barack obama by 1% or 2% and then be able to carry his agenda forward over the next four years, they're in as big of a

dream land as anybody in barack obama's team who thinks the same thing about them. a re-election for barack obama is not going to legitimize barack obama for a lot of people on the right any more than an election for mitt romney will legitimize him for voters on the left. we're in big trouble unless this changes pretty darn quickly. >> different faces singing the same old tune. coming up, former anchor campbell brown will join the table with a new op-ed in "the wall street journal." how teacher's unions will back for sexual predators. keep it right here on "morning joe." no bias, no bull. brave knights! as you can clearly see from this attractive graph that our sales have increased by... sorry, my liege. honestly. our sales have increased by 20%. what is this mystical device i see before me? it's an ultrabook. he signed the purchase order.

with an ultrabook, everything else seems old fashioned. introducing the ultra sleek, ultra responsive ultrabook. a whole new class of computers powered by intel.

sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card!

why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? here's your invoice.

coming up on "morning joe," this is big. the great chris matthews is going to be here and is going to be talking about barack obama and bill clinton. reunited and it feels s good. we're going to be talking about what clinton's role will be at the democratic national convention. inside the bank of america convention center. big talk ahead and lots more on the olympics as well when we return on "morning joe." . one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future

that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. though all energy development comes with some risk, we're committed to safely and responsibly producing natural gas. it's not a dream. america's natural gas... putting us in control of our energy future, now. with the fidelity stock screener, you can try strategies from independent experts and see what criteria they use. such as a 5% yield on dividend-paying stocks. then you can customize the strategies and narrow down to exactly those stocks you want to follow. i'm mark allen of fidelity investments. the expert strategies feature is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account.

there are projects. and there are game-changers. those ideas that start with us rolling up our sleeves... ...and end with a new favorite room in the house. and when we can save even more on those kinds of projects... ...with advice to make them even better... ...that's a game-changer in itself. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get this all in one vanity, faucet, and hardware for just $249.

welcome back to "morning joe." taking a look at a good morning shot of times square. kind of a rough weekend across the northeast as far as the bad weather goes. it's supposed to be clearing up. that's at least what bill karins tells us but that and a quarter won't even get you a cup of coffee this morning. welcome back to "morning joe." this is a huge show. it's like night of a thousand stars in the morning. we have mike barnicle and, of course, john heilemann is there. steve rattner with charts that

are guaranteed to stupefy and depress at the same time. richard hoss is here talking about foreign policy when we give him the three seconds to do that, and katty kay in washington, d.c., trying to e s explain to us why the hell the brits aren't filling up the seats in a great, great olympic games. and this is like -- this is -- you had that night of a thousand stars back in the 1970s and then you had the huge person like joey heatherton. here is our joey heatherton. >> i love joey heatherton. >> of course you did. why do you think i made the reference. nobody under 50 years old knows who i'm talking about. here is chris matthews, same shade of hair as joey. >> this reminds me of "charlie's angels." this offshore voice, tom bosley, who was that guy. >> i have no idea who it was but he's dead now. chris matthews. let's talk about i love these

relationships between presidents, you and i are cordo. we read about how in 1953 in january you had ike and truman going to the inauguration and not talking to each other. the awkwardness between jfk and ike in '61. they always turn back to each other. barack obama and bill clinton. bill clinton complaining bitterly for a year that obama wasn't even calling. now look what's happening. it looks like he understands he needs bill clinton at this c conventi convention. what do we expect to see? >> i think bill clinton has become like that character in the best man i just saw for the third time yesterday in new york here, that great play about the former president, in this case played by james earl jones. and i think he wants to be that big man, and he is, the big man of the party who will last through each election whether you win or lose, and i think he wants to clear the field for secretary clinton for next time.

part of it is destroying anybody who opposed her in any democratic primary this spring, especially in pennsylvania where he showed his power, and to do it in a pouch way. he's doing carrot and stick. if you missed with hillary last time around you're not even in the game this time. he's saying, look, but i'm the party. so if barack loses i'm the party, if he wins, i'm the party. he's the grand old man of the party in a way we haven't seen hins truman. he's incredibly likable. everybody says go back to the '90s. nobody says go back to the bush era, either bush. so the republicans even are selling his story, which is the '90s were great, clinton was great. >> romney? >> you're exactly right. it is amazing if you go back to 2008, just four years ago, the bitterness of south carolina, suggestions that maybe bill clinton was playing the race card. >> yeah. >> and that bitterness moved

forward for four years. again, now to a point where bill clinton is once again the big man of the party, the alpha male of the party, and the guy who is going to take center stage and ignite that crowd down in charlotte. it's a remarkable turn around. >> in that south carolina primary it wasn't just the president -- former president playing the race card, if did he, i'm not sure it was a fair shot but i guess people thought he did, they were putting out old-style campaign buttons for obama to make sure everybody in the south knew he was black. they wanted to make sure of that. we in the media all knew it but in the early days they wanted to make sure every black in south carolina in the democratic primary knew he was black. there was a lot of emphasis on ethnicity in that campaign. >> well, there was. you think about it, the reason that race -- that campaign was so important, that was the moment when obama claimed the black vote because it had been

thought for a year -- >> with clyburn hopie helping him. >> her base was going to be african-americans and blue collar whites. >> it was charlie rangel that brought her to new york. >> and he won 50% of the white vote. that's when everybody realized he had the coalition. play that game out in terms of what you said about bill clinton. does it help hillary clinton to have obama get re-elected? >> that's a tough one. >> is it better for her in pure political terms for him to lose 2012 and have no joe biden as an incumbent and have a clean field? >> the ideal would be you don't want to go against a president when there's an economic rebound. i think the cycle moves. steve knows this. an upturn business will do everything they can to help him. it will be happy days are here again for the republicans who don't like regulation and corporate taxes. they'll be happy as hell when

they get back in there. i don't think you want to run against an incumbent president. bill clinton i think has to talk hillary clinton into running. he euchres into it by clearing the field. she's not going to have to run against any heavy weight. biden will be discouraged at some point. i don't think cuomo travels that well. you know what i mean? i think his father is a great man -- >> i think i know what you mean but i think we'll get a phone call today from that office. >> i don't think he wants to travel. his father is never comfortable, auto's great new yorker but wasn't into travel. he went back after he gave the speech in san francisco that night. he doesn't really like it out there. he likes it in new york. anyway, where were we? clinton. i think clinton will teach hillary he can clear the field for her because shaee's not a great primary field campaigner. if she can see the field cleared for her with women, with constituencies that like her, most of the party likes her, how can she turn it down? she looks great, you know.

i think she looks great. i think this is going to be hers to lose and especially with bill leading the way. imagine having him as your campaign manager. >> katty, you know what's an interesting nugget in this discussion is the secretary of state herself, we have governor romney on a three-part tour of europe, england and israel and now on the way to poland, foreign affairs, porn policy, the kacaulderon that's the midd east, kind of interesting. >> and the platform it's given her. everybody was surprised when she was chosen to be secretary of state around the world, and i think they've been even more surprised by how much of a platform this has given her, and yet how cleverly she's managed to stay out of this political

campaign process. she hasn't been damaged by the campaign process. she hasn't been damaged by the weak economy in the united states, and i think that's a kind of real tribute to her political savvy. you know, whether it would be better for her to run against -- to run after obama in 2016 or against mitt romney in 2016 as an incumbent president. i think to a large extent it will depend on the economic cycle and steve is the one that's well equipped to talk about this and exactly where we are in four years' time. if the predictions of this being a really lengthy decade-long process of low employment are true, then whoever runs in 2016 is going to face a tough job, and if romney is the president and owns the economy at that time, then probably clinton would be better off going up against him. >> chris matthews, what do you make of dick cheney yesterday saying that sarah palin was a mistake as a vp pick?

i want you to take a listen to this and then respond -- >> i think cheney was a mistake. >> we will also allow you to pronounce his last name however you want to pronounce -- >> joe, you're wrong. >> chris, i just said after we play the sound bite, you can call him what you want. >> no, no, his name is cheney. >> all right. >> i like governor palin. i have met her, i know her. she's an attractive candidate, but based on her background, she had only been governor for two years, i don't think she passed that test. >> of being ready. >> of being ready to take over. and i think that was a mistake. >> chris matthews, what say you? >> no, it's not a joke. his name is cheney, by the way. when we all check it out we'll know what we're talking about instead of me just snowing. do some reporting. i think cheney is a problem. i think he's pretty much hated

in this country. people really don't like him. i can't believe they're going to show him at the convention. he's perked up to show up on sunday tv to make sure that he's still in the news. i think it's sort of a proof of life thing. i think he's good at it. just show you're in the game. i think it's smart politics for cheney as always to stay in the game. i do have a thought about the vice presidency, joe, if you want to hear it. >> i would love to hear it. i like dick cheney but go ahead. >> we're together on this one. i think -- i think if he's confident he can win this thing, if romney feels he's on the up surge, the economy the way it's going to going to help carry him through the election, other things being equal he will probably win, if he's thinking like that, i think he will think who do i want as my vice president. the vice presidency is not what it was in the days of nixon, backeisenhower, they're really partners. they have an office two doors away and they're working to the. three factors very wouldn't talked about. one is comfort being in the room with the guy because you're

going to spend a lot of time with the guy. number two, character. is this guy going to be trimming you behind your back? or trimming you and telling jokes about you or is he going to be your guy. three, judgment. is he not going to be the kind of guy popping you have making stupid comments you have to read about in the papers the next day or fix that afternoon. i think it's a selection of a vice president and not a running mate. i think he will pick a vp, not a running mate. i think it's pawlenty. i think it has to be a protestant. has to be somebody who has been governor and can pass that test of presidential ability starting day one. i think the only other character that fits that description, by the way, is thune from south dakota but he doesn't bring anything. i think the election will be in the midwest. it's going to be by keeping the evangelicals happy and showing some human nature. romney's biggest problem is the android problem. if he can get past that by picking a normal person like the people here on you, joe, regular

people. johnny carson for 30 years used ed mcmahon to prove he was a regular guy. he used to call him bar rag breath, comments like that to endear us to him. today -- just like president obama needs biden to put the apot trophy in obama, he needs a regular guy to give him humanity and i think it's going to be pawlenty. >> we always go back and forth, john heilemann. you always have the veepstakes and one candidate is up one week, one is down the next. we talked about rob portman forever. rob portman makes for me personally makes the most sense because i don't care what the polls say. i think he puts ohio in the column. right now we are looking, i guess it sounds like the former minnesota governor tim pawlenty seems to be the front-runner. the front runner part because tim is a likable guy. he is every bit as human and

relaxed as mitt romney seems to be politically stiff and awkward. is that the thinking? thune also fits that description well. john thune, just a lovely guy. >> i think, joe, there's no question governor pawlenty is in the mix. just as i think senator portman is still in the mix. i think there is a -- one of the things i think people have -- none of us really know and so people say someone is the front-runner, someone is not the front run ir. it's a very close hold in romney world about what the governor is think being this. one thing you can't under estimate is how much the romney campaign is worried about conservative enthusiasm right now. they are -- they are confident they're going to win the election but they know they have a problem on the right. people like paul ryan, people like bobby jindal are still in consideration because they are people who will actually rev up the conservative base, and they are -- you watch the way they maneuvered over the last few months, you can tell they're still worried about the right

flank. you have those names. those names keep popping up. i have been on portman for nine months but you keep hearing bobby jindal and paul ryan in the last few days, more than i've heard in the last six months. >> romney is not going to take a chance. passed his prologue with these candidates. i don't think you will see paul ryan or marco rubio or even a bobby jindal, but chris matthews, i will show you a clip of mitt romney and israel. look to the substance. i'm sure you'll have some issues with what he says there. look to the style as well because you've always talked about the optics of politics and you're talking about it for romney if he could look relaxed. this is the most relaxed i have seen mitt romney this campaign thus far. again, take this -- i'll let you talk about the actual substance of it, but stylewise he actually seemed to be a bit on in this speech. let's take a listen and then, chris, i'd love to get your response as well as richard hoss'. >> five years ago at the

conference i stated my view that iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons capability presents an intolerable threat to israel, to america, and to the world. that threat has only become worse. now as then the regime's claims it seeks to enrich nuclear material for peaceable purses a -- purposes are belied. today the regime in iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability. preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority. it is iran that is the leading state sponsor of terrorism and the most destabilizing nation in the world. we have a solemn duty and a moral imperative to deny iran's leaders the means to follow through on their malevolent intentions. >> chris, what do you think? >> it's what he would say. i think any opponent of an incumbent american president would exploit the opportunity to be tougher on iran than the incumbent, let or right.

if this were ted kennedy running against carter they would always take the more aggressive position. it's a smart move at home. he said in terms of the old fight of moving the embassy to jerusalem, he didn't really make that push for that. he took it very carefully saying it depends on what the israeli government would like. that's a dodge. it's not the israeli government. it's about how much trouble it would cause in the region, but the other question is i think he didn't say we're going to attack. he said we're going to respect their decision if they do take it. i felt he modified a bit once he got over there. >> richard hoss, is it that different from what an obama administration, what the president of the united states would have said yesterday? >> no. if you look at obama's aipac speech, he was tough. he ruled ott containment of iran and said we're going to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon but some of the specifics in the language was a little different. obama has not left them a lot of room because obama has shifted on this issue and it's pretty tough. the sanctions are impressive and

now the rhetoric is impressive. what romney has done is insinuated himself into the space. we're a little closer to israel, a little more sympathetic to israeli strategic calculations. i think he's exploited what little opening he's been given. >> it seems to be a narrow space. >> i would say that was true of foreign policy broadly, isn't it? you know, mitt romney is trying to distinguish himself as tougher on foreign policy, whether it comes to israel, iran, whether it comes to russia, for example, or china. but actually when it comes to the specifics of what he would do, he hasn't laid out a foreign policy vision that is hugely different from that enacted by the obama administration. i mean, it's not like we're looking at george bush here and saying, okay, there is a doctrine, our position on promoting democracy around the world that's very interventionist. mitt romney is not that person. so i think it's slightly a struggle for him to create a

vision of himself who is very different from barack obama on foreign policy issues and maybe he's found a little bit of wiggle room on israel and certainly obama's approval ratings in israel have been rock bottom. you couldn't do worse as american president amongst israeli public opinion. they may feel mitt romney is talking tougher. it's not clear to me what he would do that is very different. >> okay. thanks so much, guys. we're going to continue the conversation right after the break, and, mike, when we come back, we'll be talking to a former clinton -- or former obama official about the economy, the sagging economy. >> that's exactly right, joe. and peter orszag is going to be with us asking the question, is summer making kids dumber and fatter? the former white house budget director, and he's been crunching the numbers, and he's going to join us right here and chris matthews is sticking around. you're watching "morning joe"

brewed by starbucks. ging you better technology helps make you a better investor. with our revolutionary e-trade 360 dashboard you see exactly where your money is and what it's doing live. our e-trade pro platform offers powerful functionality that's still so usable you'll actually use it. and our mobile apps are the ultimate in wherever whenever investing. no matter what kind of investor you are, you'll find the technology to help you become a better one at e-trade. you'll find the technology to help you become a better one this is new york state. we built the first railway and the first trade route to the west. we built the tallest skyscrapers, the greatest empires. we pushed the country forward. then, some said, we lost our edge. we couldn't match the pace of the new business world. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs.

build energy highways and high-tech centers. nurture start-ups and small businesses. reduce tax burdens and provide the lowest middle class tax rate in 58 years. once again, new york state is a place where innovation meets determination and where businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com.

joining us now, columnist for bloomberg view peter orszag. he's also an adjunct senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. we have had steve rattner's charts. we've been talking about growth and the lack of consumer confidence. you're responsible for no consumer confidence and the lack of growth. >> thank you. >> where are we? >> i think we are most but not all of the way through the deleveraging process that follows a financial crisis and the problem is we're getting hit by two major head winds. one is from europe and the other is from this coming fiscal cliff and the right response, by the way, in this kind of scenario is a barbell where we do more stimulus, tax cuts and infrastructure spending coupled with a lot of deficit reduction enacted now takes effect over time. >> i think that's clearly the path forward, but unfortunately we have as you know a somewhat dysfunctional situation in government so the probability of

that actually happen something pretty low. i think the probability of a double dip recession is also quite low. i think we bump along at this stall speed for the immediate future. >> isn't it stall speed when the plane crashes. >> it's right before the plane crashes. >> this will be an interesting week because the federal reserve is meeting this week and it's going to make a decision about whether to do more monetary stimulus and that's actually pretty important decision the markets are watching. and then on friday we'll get the next jobs numbers, one of the last three jobs numbers before the election. >> but in the real world, in real time, i mean, in washington, the congress, they look at the extension of the debt limit and they drag it out as we saw and drag it out. talk about the real impact that that has on real institutions of finance like on wall street. >> well, it just creates uncertainty. the way i would put it, we will get a deal at some point. i don't think it will be late this year, i think it will be early next year. the question is how much

turbulence do you encounter just to continue the plane analogies before that and how much confidence gets affected from that? with an economy just at stall speed or maybe even below that, you don't want any other shocks or kind of uncertainty out there, and that's exactly what we're walking right into. >> the problem was it's a great question, mike. the problem is it's really hard to measure. there's no way to measure the way you measure gdp, how much does that unsesht cocertainty c? i think everybody intuitively believes if you don't know what the tax rate is going to be, you don't know what the government is going to be spending, you don't know what's going to happen to tax rates, then how do you plan your business? how do you plan your life? how do you decide whether to buy a new car? how do you decide whether to build a new factory? i think it's damaging to the economy. >> even before that kind of damage is done to the economy in terms of consumer confidence, you pick up the paper on almost any day and in addition to the stats that we're all talking

about now, you see governor romney yesterday or the president of the united states talking about, you know, well, if iran does this, you know, we'll give a green light to whatever happens and people are saying what's going to happen here? are we going to get into another war? jooch wh >> what's the incompetent influence of the fact that business pretty much top to bottom hates obama? what do you think? >> i think there's certainly that kind of talk, but in terms of what is the real effect, i think -- look, i think businesses are not expanding their workforces mostly because the economy is growing so weakly and that's actually the cause, it's not the reverse. and so there's a lot of -- sure, there's a lot of kind of talk but i'm not sure it has a first order affect on actual activity. >> i just wonder because it seems like there's such hatred of obama. you hear epa all the time, regulation all the time, that somehow he's holding us back, that this could be a great economy if it were not for him

and his regulators. >> you hear that but when you delve into what has happened on the regulatory front, who things have been done that hurt business, it's a pretty small subset. i think business operates focused on whether there's a market, whether they can sell their product, whether they can make money and they don't get caught up in their business decisions. >> but they'll be cheering if obama loses. >> wildly, in unison. >> katty kay is in washington. >> still sitting here in washington. peter, you talked about two headwinds facing the american economy, that's europe and that's nothing washington can do very much about. the other you mentioned was the fiscal cliff and that's something politicians could do something about if they had the political will to do it. clearly they don't at the moment. do you think that after this election season is over, are you more optimistic about the ability of washington to do the kinds of things it needs to do to get the american economy moving again? >> katty, he's having difficulty

hearing or he's pretending he doesn't hear you. >> you doesn't like my question. >> so thank you, katty, for whatever you said. >> her question was after the election -- >> are you more opt stick or less opt misistic? >> i think sometime earlyish next year we may have a more impressive deal that comes out of this trifecta of the tax cuts and debt limit and the sequestration than anyone believes at this point. the problem is to get there i think we're going to have to bounce along for a little bit and that's going to create a lot of anxiety. so by february or march it may look like we did something significant, but the path there is not going to be pretty. >> presumably or optimism or pes nition mism on that is dependent on who the next president is. >> i think we get a deal regardless because you have to.

the difference is with romney it's pretty clear what the deal will be, which is extend all the tax cuts and then punt a lot of the bigger decisions to a budget process in may or june and even if we temporarily go over the fiscal cliff at the end of the year, the financial times has called it bungee jumping because you're going over and you know where you're going to wind up back. with an obama victory it's much different because the path forward is a lot less clear but we're still going to get a deal by january or february. >> before we let you out of here, we managed to insult huge numbers of american children with your latest piece, how summer is making u.s. kids dumber and fatter. are kids getting dumber and fatter in summer? >> here is the problem, let's talk about the school achievement. kids on average go back t school a month behind where they left in the spring and it's very related to income and education. >> what grades are we talking about? >> k through six. you can explain the entire gap in student achievement between

better educated families, higher income families, and less educated lower income families by sixth grade by each summer the lower income kids fall behind and that ratchets and by sixth grade it's a huge delta. >> why don't we extend the school year. >> i'm in favor of it. i think we should be extending the school day and extend the school year and that makes me really unpopular with school-aged children. >> why don't we spend some more money in terms of real impact and have like summer reading camps for kids in inner cities? >> and there is evidence suggesting that kind of thing works. time at task matters. if you spend more time -- it depends, you need a high quality program, but time at task matters and we're not spending enough time. >> it would be safer place for many kids who live in the inner cities. >> we're still -- the whole built the day in a year are based off an agrarian cycle

where we need the summers off to work in the fields and the afternoons off for the same reason. it doesn't make any sense anymore. it's not only bad for the kids, but as you point out for a lot of parents, they don't have adequate child coverage and the kids get in trouble during that time. >> how do they get fat? >> has this been studied on a socioeconomic basis? >> yes. >> how does it break down? >> it's very differentiated. people have called it the harry potter effect. kids from better educated higher income families get books and other things that are exposed to over the summers. lower income kids don't on ank. obviously this is all on average. and they fall behind. >> so the s.a.t. scores are being an objective estimate of somebody's ability to learn academically is untrue. if you have a tutor, if you have smart parents who are going to read the paper, your numbers will go up. >> it's not just s.a.t.s. >> it's a fundamental question. >> practice matters.

>> a kid who grows up in a lousy neighbor may be much smarter than the kid who has tutors. >> but it hasn't been developed. >> the s.a.t. is not an iq test. >> it's supposed to be about learning ability. >> we have a problem here. peter talks about the concept of time at task and this whole show is the whole contravention of time at task. >> did we lose a month? >> i have fallen behind in the last 15 minutes. >> back to may already. >> i have never liked harry potter. >> okay. >> but i like you peter. thank you for joining us. coming up, campbell brown takes on the teachers' union. in a new op-ed, her message to the school system when "morning joe" comes right back. i am you

and you are me if you want it, you just got to believe. i believe weight watchers strength [ jennifer ] confidence beautiful amazing [ emily ] this goes way beyond happiness i believe. i believe. because it works. [ female announcer ] weight watchers -- rated number one best plan for weight loss by u.s. news and world report, again. join now for $1. hurry offer ends august 4th. weight watchers. believe. because it works.

join now for $1. hurry offer ends august 4th. orgdoes your cauliflowernic have a big carbon footprint? not at all. that's great. melons!!! oh yeah!! well that was uncalled for. uhh... mr. gallagher. incoming!!! hahaha! it's wasteful. you know jimmy. folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. how happy, ronny? happier than gallagher at a farmers' market. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

welcome back to "morning joe" on this monday morning. you're looking down live at the flame, the olympic flame. what a show it was friday night.

most watched every, 40 million people watched that in the united states. even more than the atlanta games itself. look a beautiful game in london. barnicle still mad at me because of the rain in new england. we'd love to get some of that in the middle of the country. hasn't happened lately. this map shows you the drought conditions. the brighter the red, the worse it is. you go from utah to indianapolis and we're in extreme and exceptional drought conditions. so we just need the rain. it's just hot. it's just baking hot. today 105 to 110 from tuls a to oklahoma to little rock. look at dallas this week. you're getting into the action, too, with easily 105 about each and every day. if you're on the east coast, beautiful day in new england but wul see showers and storms as we go through the southeast coast. west coast no, problems, a nice, dry, mild, period of weather.

the return once again of campbell brown coming up. stay tuned. this happy couple used capital one venture miles for their "destination wedding." double miles you can "actually" use. but with those single mile travel cards... [ bridesmaid ] blacked out... but i'm a bridesmaid. oh! "x" marks the spot she'll never sit.

but i bought a dress! a toast... ...to the capital one venture card. fly any airline, any flight, anytime. double miles you can actually use. what a coincidence? what's in your wallet? [ all screaming ] watch the elbows ladies. not in this economy. we also have zero free time, and my dad moving in. so we went to fidelity. we looked at our family's goals and some ways to help us get there. they helped me fix my economy, the one in my house. now they're managing my investments for me. and with fidelity, getting back on track was easier than i thought. call or come in today to take control of your personal economy. get one-on-one help from america's retirement leader.

what about this, huh? the one and only. >> hi! >> the one and only. >> the most fantastic thing about monday so far. >> i'm so happy to be back with you guys. >> my favorite white house correspondent in those days, it was you. you were tough, skeptical, hard hitting, from the old school of great, tough white house correspondents. you're the best. >> that was a good time but i'm happy to have left those days behind. >> and by the way, tough in print, too. campbell brown, she takes on the teachers union in her op-ed in today's "wall street journal." he writes in part, in the last

five years in new york city, 97 tenured teachers or school employees have been charged with he can s sexual misconduct. our public school children are defenseless. under current new york law an accusation is first vetted by an independent investigator. then the case goes before an employment arbitrator. the local teachers union and school district together choose the arbitrators who in turn are paid up to $1,400 per day. therein lies the problem. for many arbitrators, their livelihood depends on pleasing the unions, whether the united federation of teachers in new york city or other local unions, and the unions, believing that they are helping the cause of teachers by being weak on sexual predators, prefer suspensions and fiennes and not disha m--

dismissal. i have to tell you and i'm sure i'm not alone, when you pick up the paper too often and read about another public school teacher in new york accused of having sex with a kid or things like that, it's stunning that very little happens to that teacher or that it takes so long for the teacher to be thrown out of the door and into jail. >> as you pointed out, it said in the piece, 97 tenured teachers or school employees over the last five years, and in the really bad dayscases, the pe come in, it's a criminal case. where it's a problem is the gray area, where it's sexual harassment, where a teacher is engaging in sex you'ual banter. the process by design favors the teachers over the students consistently. there are examples. i got interested in this just by following the local papers.

the tabloids have covered this a lot over the last few years, but i went back and read through the arbitrators' reports, the independent shall arbitrators. the justification they find is let the teacher off the hook is amazing. one example, this teacher found guilty of asking a young girl to give him a strip tease, of engaging in sexual banter with kids, of harassing them, sexually harassing them by text, on facebook, the arbitrator concluded since the teacher had actually solicited sex from the stunts it only warranted a suspension. there are multiple examples of this. they can't be fired essentially. >> what percent, you mentioned 97% or whatever you want to use as your base, what percent of these cases end up with the teacher being dismissed as opposed to being suspended for sent back? >> percentagewise, i don't know.

i can tell you that 16 in new york city, 16 teachers right now the chancellor is trying to hold who he believes should have been fired and haven't been because of this process. >> trying to hold. >> trying to keep from getting back into the classroom. two of them are repeat offenders. and there's nothing you can do. so let's take it beyond -- we're all horrified by this as parents and human beings. but as a political issue, there's legislation in albany that would address this. there's one lone senator who is sponsoring it that would keep the system as it is, but let an arbitrator only make a recommendation to whoever is in charge, be it the school clans lor in new york or outside of new york the school district. with due process according to collective bargaining treatments so the teacher could appeal any decision, give that person the final say. only one person has signed onto this legislation.

democrats in albany. >> where is the head of the eft? what is he saying? >> the uft, which is the teacher's unifor new york city basically says we have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to cases of sexual misconduct but they have a narrow definition of what that means. so they don't define these things as sexual misconduct, but i certainly wouldn't want my child in that classroom. would you? >> well, the uft, united federation of teachers, has a statement about this. they not only believes in zero tolerance on the issue of sexual misconduct but we also proudly put in place the most stringent rules of any school district across the state governing such situations including provisions that go far beyond state law, blah, blah, blah, blah. >> how do the cases fall through the cracks? how is this happening? if there's a zero tolerance policy? >> we have a lot of questions for you but katty kay has a

question first off the bat from washington. >> campbell, it's katty, this is a great piece. congratulations. i'm so glad you've written it. i wanted to get a sense of when you spoke to teachers in schools, what they made of this process and what they thought should be happening? were those teachers who are teaching in schools and then somebody comes back who has done something like asked a kid to do a strip tease, do they have any leverage at all? >> they have no leverage, but they feel very strongly about it. i mean, obviously the vast majority of teachers in our public school system are amazing teachers and they don't want the bad apples in the classroom any more than students do, than parents do, and they believe -- i quoted a few in the piece -- that it's damaging their credibility, and obviously the credibility of the union. just, again, as a student of politics, i don't get it. it's like -- it's dumb. it's a dumb strategy. why dig your heels on an issue like this as we are going through clearly this transformational period i believe in educaon reform

nationwide where the unions should want to have a seat at the table with some degree of credibility to have an argument, a debate over the things they care about. >> why doesn't somebody sue the union? that will end the argument. once they become defendants in a civil case they will have to pay the damages when there's been improper behavior by a child. >> that's what's happening in some of these cases. they are being litigated, but for the school's chancellor to appeal this decision and take it to the next level after an arbitrator makes a decision, the standard is so high it's almost impossible for them to win the cases. >> let me ask you about the school chancellor and the chain of command. what happens in the chain of command, teacher is accused of something, due process begins. teacher to principal to school chancellor, baing to teacher, you're out. >> what the union will sayteachl say is that there are often unfounded accusations.

obviously a kid gets a bad grade on a test, they get mad at their teachers, they can say crazy things. the first time an accusation is made, it goes to an independent investigator of some kind. sometimes they'll bring in an independent law firm to look at the accusation, interview everybody, make sure there is something there before it even goes to the next level. so until those accusations or charges have been substantiated, it doesn't even go to the arbitrator. then it would go before this arbitrator chose bin tn by the and the city, and the arbitrator has the final say. under this administration, they would take the issue a step further and have the chancellor here in new york, school district, people around the state say at the end of the day, the buck stops with this issue. this is what the legislation

hasn't dealt with in the past, because now the teachers can engage with kids an entirely different way, obviously through social media, so they're putting bans in play at a lot of schools preventing teachers -- it's funny, because it should be a way for teachers to engage in a good way to students, to be able to reach out to them. in fact, it's been a problem, so they're telling teachers not to contact students via facebook or anywhere else. katty kay, thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. chuck todd joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe" brud brewed by starbuck's. ♪

hey america, even though slisa rinna is wearing the new depend silhouette briefs for charity to prove how great the fit is even under a fantastic dress. the best protection now looks, fits and feels just like underwear. we invite you to get a free sample and try one on too.

it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do...

because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter.

chris, how do we thank you for joining us? >> you've done it just by letting me come. >> what a book! buy it. tonight, live at 7:00 p.m. -- what is wrong with you? >> don't love my book to death. don't do that. coming up next, the democrats bring out the big guns, the biggest of all.

bill clinton is going to have a prime time spot at the convention. we'll discuss that impact that it perhaps will have on the election. plus, john and i are finally going to get steve ratner on the show. tate. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. ♪ i want to go ♪ i want to win [ breathes deeply ] ♪ this is where the dream begins ♪ ♪ i want to grow ♪ i want to try ♪ i can almost touch the sky

[ male announcer ] even the planet has an olympic dream. dow is proud to support that dream by helping provide greener, more sustainable solutions from the olympic village to the stadium. solutionism. the new optimism.™ ♪ this dream [ male announcer ] it started long ago. the joy of giving something everything you've got. it takes passion. and it's not letting up anytime soon. at unitedhealthcare insurance company, we understand that commitment. and always have. so does aarp, an organization serving the needs of americans 50 and over for generations. so it's no surprise millions have chosen an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help cover some of the expenses medicare doesn't pay. and save you uto thousands in out-of-pocket costs. to find out more,

request your free decision guide. call or go online today. after all, when you're going the distance, it's nice to have the experience and commitment to go along with you. keep dreaming. keep doing. go long. why severy room deserves ll us what outo look great.or is? and every footstep should tell us we made the right decision. so when we can feel our way through the newest, softest, and most colorful options... ...across every possible price range... ...our budgets won't be picking the style. we will. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. make room for savings with $37 basic installation on martha stewart living and platinum plus carpet. let's talk about that 40

. good morning on "morning joe." hope you're having a good

morning. steve ratner, richard heinz. in washington, d.c., patty day, mike barnacle. the amazing things about the olympics, you remember the civil war, so i don't need to explain this to you, but you can go back through time and you remember these events that used to unite us as a country where everybody would stop, and weather it was a jfk assassination or the beatles or ed sullivan or walking on the moon or just about every political convention, you could go house by house by house and it seems like everyone was watching. that doesn't happen anymore, but it does happen every four years, still. i can't believe it. even though we're cynical, everybody seems to stop, watch these olympic games, and whether you're going out to the restaurant or grocery stores or seeing your friends, they're

talking about phelps coming in fourth place and, you know -- this does unite us every four years. it's pretty crazy it still does in 2012. >> no, i think you're right, joe, in an age when all we talk about is polarization and our politics, polarization and our country, economic disparaities n this country, the olympics seems to be a unifying event. i was struck over the weekend in different places i was, gas stations and stuff like that, where there was such intense viewership in the olympics despite the fact that willy and doc rivers were at the olympics. they were doing basketball yesterday and i have to tell you, they were fantastic. willy, i'm sorry you missed that. >> willy, what are you wearing? what is that thing? >> he's wearing a sweater i gave

him in the 1948 olympics. >> maybe it's not reading on camera. >> seriously, i never took you for, like, wearing dick buttons wear. congratulations. >> joe, you would like it. it's like one of those duty type things. >> it looks sort of euro trashy, i admit that. >> not trash, just euro without the trash part. let me give you a couple results. i also wonder what katty thought about being on the inside. david vollmer setting a new world record in the 100-meter butterfly. she swam 59.98. she didn't make the team last year, she made the team eight years ago and won a medal. she was down in third place at the halfway point of the race and turned on the jets in the

second 15 metres, winning that gold medal in record time, dana vollmer, the 24-year-old from texas. also the men's 2400 relay, not the result the americans were hoping for. michael phelps swam a great second leg. ryan lochte went in the lead as the anchor and was caught by the frenchman, so the french take the gold there and the americans settled for silver. lochte, of course, won the gold against phelps a couple days ago but couldn't hold on in the anchor leg there. of course, team soccer beating up on france. 22 points, nine rebounds. tomorrow they play tunisia of the that should be a quick game there. jordyn weiber, someone a lot of

people expected to win a gold medal there, did not make the finals. you see her there in tears. she was defeeted by all ally raisman. raisman also in tears. she said she felt so bad for weiber. she felt so bad she didn't get it. four years ago they lost to china, settling for silver. after a weekend's worth of competition, you can see china leads the way, 12 medals, six gold, usa one back with three gold. ryan lochte wins against the deep field 200-meter freestyle. miss i franklin gets her chance for gold in the 100-mighter backstroke, but first the water polo team take the first step for their first ever olympic gold. they get hungry live this afternoon, and you'll also want to watch the men's gymnastics

team. the men qualified first and surprised everybody that they could win a gold medal tonight. katty, i want to go to you. i thought it was different and you can't compare it to china. everybody said, well, it's not as good as china. china was a once in a lifetime experience. this was different and very british, i thought. >> it's funny, because i remember watching the chinese opening ceremony back in 2008 and thinking, oh, my god, what the hell are we going to do in london, there is no way we can match that. danny, to his credit, didn't even try to match china. he spent only half the money china spent on it. but it was an incredible british opening ceremony. you had this british history from the time of the industrial revolution, 1908 when london first hosted the olympics, through the second world war, the rise of the welfare state. i was longing to know what american viewers thought of this celebration of socializatiosoci

and then on to what britain is today which is known for its culture, its music, it's rowan atkinsons, its daniel craigs. i liked it. i liked it a lot more than i thought i was going to. i went into it quite skeptical. i love td the humor, i loved th sense of irony, and i loved james bond parachuting out of the helicopter with the queen. >> you also got mccartney and the world singing "hey jude" together. >> what more do you need? i thought it was a fantastic ceremony. i wanted to ask you, willy, and katty, about a "washington post" story this morning talking about a lot of empty seats and that the british are desperately trying to hand out tickets to members of the army and school children, getting them to fill up and see what's going on after

this extraordinary opening ceremony. are the olympics ho-hum for a bad number of brits? >> well, these olympics have been sold out for years and years, and it does look, though, at some of these events -- i always talk about yankee stadium where it's full from about the first phase line up, but down below in the so-called corporate stee seats, it's a smattering of people. they're going to invite military people to come in, schoolteachers and so forth to come in and see the games, but they believe people affiliated with the ioc or whoever it is just not showing up for every event they bought tickets for. >> but it's been sold out for years, and it's not like london couldn't be more excited. it seems like they're so excited about this, but yeah, i guess it is a lot like yankee stadium, which reminds me, we're going to be doing a story because the red sox finally have something to

talk about. it took them about four or five months. let's go to washington ligrightw and go to the news. mike barn kacle, the irony so thick you can cut it with a big old fat steak knife, bill clinton, the man america shunned for years, the man they wanted to pretend did not exist, the man they called a racist during the south carolina primary, suddenly he's the big star at the upcoming d and c convention at bank of america convention center in charlotte, north carolina. my, oh, my, this is going to be a fun democratic convention. >> you got that right, joe. former president bill clinton coming out of the bullpen for the obama administration, the reelection effort. we're going to give willy time to return the duke of he h

edinborough's sweater to him. clinton will take the stage to make a speech to formally nominate obama for a second term. his efforts will be on putting the economy back on track. if you'll recall, the president was deeply critical of barack obama during the 2008 democratic primaries. time reports an official announcement about clinton's role. it will come later today. joe, that clearly is another sign that the obama reelection campai campaign, i think they realize this is a jump ball campaign and they need the big guy. >> it is so close, and joel kleinbach maybe back in '99 or 2000 wrote a book. he said when it comes to politics, bill clinton is a

natural. obama is many things, but he's not a natural politician. sometimes you get the idea he doesn't like politics. perhaps he doesn't even like being in his job. and bill clinton, it seems to me, and i'm sure you'll agree, will bring a certain joy to that convention that right now even the incumbents may have a hard time stirring up. >> joe, i only take exception to one thing. barack obama is a pretty good politician and his political skills have been demonstrated. back in 2008, he could do certain things extraordinarily well, including his mastery of big scale oratory is unpair lellelunpair -- unparalleled, i'm sure. but talking blt econoabout the talking about the struggle of real lives of real people,

talking about how a democratic vision of the future is compelling to the kind of voters who are still on the fence right now, that 7 or 8% of the electorate who are uncertain about the democrats, but are sure about mitt romney not giving that speech, that story as well as joe biden, and they'll give him time to talk about that, particularly to that group of voters, those they need to bring over, and those two guys together are a great tag team setting up president obama's big speech on the other side of the convention. >> there's no doubt that's exactly what barack obama needs right now. the economic news keeps getting worse. we've got a slowdown that looks like there may be a recession. and, again, i was not suggesting that barack obama isn't an

extraordinary speaker. politicalical politically when he gets in front of large groups, but he does have trouble talking to americans who are out of work and struggling. joe biden good in that round, also bill clinton, but after the latest numbers, they're going to need to be able to talk about the economy in a way that will move independent swing voters and struggling americans. >> no speech is going to reduce the anxiety level that exists among so many americans today. the white house has downgraded their expectations for the economy this year, saying gross domestic product will grow at a rate of 4.3%. that's a modest recovery expected to last until at least 2015. the white house has also said that spending is at a slower rate but still expected to meet

$1.2 trillion. i was looking at some of the charts you have, consumer confidence and consumer spending. these are indicators that are kind of troubling. >> the numbers are getting weaker, there's no question about that. i don't personally believe we'll have a double dip recession, but the president also is going to be facing reelection with some numbers that aren't quite pretty. and as you mentioned on friday, the white house released the latest gdp numbers for the second quarter, and you can see the trend on this chart where back in 2009, we obviously were in the middle of a recession, had a very sharp negative growth rate and then we moved into recovery in 2010 and 2011. but as you look in the first path of 2012, which would be two bars to the right, you can see the economy is slowing down. we're now at a 1.5% rate of growth or gdp. this is not fast enough to allow the economy to add enough jobs to bring down the unemployment rate. that's really the core of the

issue. when you have this kind of gdp number, it may be an abstract comment to most americans, but when it translates itself into jobs, i think they'll understand it pretty well. housing did pretty well in the quarter off a very low base, and retail sales are also not turning out very well. you had retail sales turned down. people are nervous, they don't have the incomes, they're holding back at the moment. if you then turn to manufacturing is another example of weakness in the economy. manufacturing has been one of our strengths through this. the way this chart works, anything above 50% is positive, so you can see we had this long positive period of expansion after the recession, but it's just now this latest month gone down 49.7%, which is a contraction in manufacturing.

a lot of it has to do with slowdown in europe and slowdown around the world where simply there isn't as much demand in manufacturing goods as there was before. >> steve ratner, bobby jones always talked about the economy also. we see all these numbers, but at the end of the day, it comes down to how confident people are that they can get money out of their wallet and spend it if they have it. what does consumer confidence look like right now? are americans getting more or less confident as we move towards the election? >> well, joe, you gave me a great segue to the last chart which will show you what's happening with consumer confidence as we move closer to the election, which is not good. consumer confidence dropped here. this huge drop over here was a debt where congress single ha handedly destroyed consumer confidence, but you can see we've had a significant drop in consumer confidence. >> what's causing that?

what are analysts saying caused such a precipitous drop this spring and summer? >> things make people nervous, whether it's the mideast, the unemployment numbers, what's going to happen at the end of the year with taxes and budget finally starting to bear, political uncertainty. it's all starting to weigh on consumers and they're just getting nervous. still ahead, the heart of rock and roll. music icon hughie louis is going to be here and why he compares social media to a drug addiction. chuck todd, he compares the race 100 days before voters head to the ballot box. here is bill with the forecast. >> everyone is well aware the weather segments are by me. the eastern seaboard, liga lot

us were dodging thunderstorms. the heat remains the story. as we head into august, nothing is going to change. these temperatures today are just off the charts. numerous record highs. tulsa, oklahoma could be 111 degrees today. that's like phoenix, arizona during a hot spell. little rock today, 107. as far as the west coast goes, we're looking for a nice day today around seattle. still a little cooler than we'd like in san francisco, but here in california it's looking beautiful. and the forecast for tomorrow, nothing really changes, but the increased chance of rain for areas of the mid-atlantic and northeast. the forecast in london today is already off to a beautiful start that he see head to the lunch hour there. just a splash of showers this afternoon. london looks pretty nice right now, better than the weather we've been having in new england lately. they're well on their way to the games in the 34th olympiad.

[ "human" by the human league playing ] humans. we mean well, but we're imperfect creatures living in a beautifully imperfect world. it's amazing we've made it this far. maybe it's because when one of us messes up, someone else comes along to help out. that's the thing about humans. when things are at their worst, we're at our best. see how at libertymutual.com. liberty mutual insurance -- responsibility. what's your policy? i'm barack oba ma and i approve this message. [romney singing]: oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty,

above the fruited plain, america, america, god shed his grace on thee, and crowned thy good, with brotherhood...

there was one year when you paid about a 13.9% tax rate. can we clear this up by asking you a simple yes or no question? was tre ever any year when you paid lower than the 13.9%? >> i haven't calculated that. i'm happy to go back and look, but my view is i have paid all the taxes required by law. i don't pay more than our legally due, and frankly, if i had paid more than our legally due, i don't think i would have

qualified to be president. i think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires. >> have you gone back and looked for us? >> i haven't looked at the tax rate paid year by year. i know i pay a substantial rate of taxes every year since the beginning of my career, so far as i can recall. >> welcome back to "morning joe." i'm not so sure he said he would go back and personally look. the question asked again and continues to be asked and will continue to be asked, i'm sure, as we have a beautiful look at the white house this morning. happy monday. i hope your week is starting off well. let's go ahead and bring in right now chuck todd. chuck, the questions persist with mitt romney. a lot of people think mitt romney may have lost june and july even though the polls are

pretty hit, but how do they think they can change the dynam dynamic. >> i provided a piece of interview he's never been interviewed on before. i didn't mishear it or misread it on the transcript, and he confirmed that yes, he misread it but he hadn't read it in ten years. many people get audited by the irs, but it's one of those where you wonder why people keep asking him questions, and it was one of those cases where he had been pretty disciplined to answer the tax questions the same way every time until maybe you get a little tired and you don't and you provide a piece of information that will have plenty of reporters scratching their heads and curious about something. but as of july versus august,

june and july, yes, the polls are even, but he lost an opportunity, he lost control of his biography. august is essential. august is when all challengers usually get either for a small period of time or for the entire time take the lead in the race. it's when clinton pulled ahead of bush 41. kerry was ahead after his convention come august at that point in time than bush. it is when -- august is that important to a challanger. he's got his vp rollout and he's got his convention. he has to win august, he's got more pressure on august to have a good august because june and july were lost a little bit. >> chuck, i'm looking at the wall street journal poll from last weekend. i'm looking at the like/don't like number. president obama, likes, 67%. mitt romney, likes, 47%.

a 20-point gap there. there's been a lot written and a lot spoken about the potential impact that all these negative ads run by both sides, on the obama campaign's side right now might have on the likability factor. how big a factor is that on this campaign? >> i can tell you the obama campaign is worried about it. just in the conversations i've had with them, they veare very concerned. they know they're spending some of obama's capital by hammering romney over and over. the big difference between what bush did to kerry in the summer of '04 and what obama has been doing to romney is that bush had outside groups helping him. that's not the case. obama has had to do these negative hits themselves. they've had to come from the president's campaign, so the concern about -- i think that's why you've seen this change in tone, if you will, where it's

the president trying to say, well, here's the choice and him talking the camera, try to boost up that a little bit because i think they're concerned that you can't keep doing it this way. if you did, then you would erode the one strength the president has in this election, which is the personal strength. >> chuck, your long lost pal luke russert here. you once joked on twitter to romney in israel that if he kept up the promises, he may as well have the inauguration over there. but i want to ask you, in terms of what this trip is doing, how much have you heard to reinforce concern amongst evangelical voters getting close to election day? >> i think my joke was that's the only thing he hadn't promised, that that was the next step, and i think it was during the republican primary, all this overpromising. there's a couple thing about

this trip that stood out to me. the biggest is romney's big speech, which was a policy speech about israel, was all iran. there's no doubt that iran is a huge -- it is the primary issue right now. but to not even talk about the peace process, to not even talk about what your view is of a two-state solution, how it would work a little bit, something. ultimately, right, that is still the baseline problem in the middle east, figuring out this relationship between the israelis and the palestinians. and i was just very surprised it didn't get aligned. t it just seemed a little odd to me. and again, i know iran is everything, but a lot of this trip and a lot of this israel seemed more aimed at base

republican voters than it did at swing voters. >> well, chuck, yeah. i think also it's what ant aryea wants to hear. the polls have obama on the higher 60s. what's your impression of what obama has with the jewish vote and where the impact is on the election? >> i don't think it has a huge impact. when you look at the makeup of the jewish vote, the republican

jewish vote lives in the northeast, so the places where it could have an impact would be pennsylvania or in florida, but the more conservative, the more republican jewish voter lives in new york, new jersey, this area, the northeast corridor. i think that the electoral impact is minimal, but we've been hearing about the republican party's push to win over jewish voters probably for as long as they've said they could win the state of pennsylvania in election, so like i said, i'll take the overage at 75. >> the other place it could help with this is money because there are obviously a lot of wealthy jewish. >> it already has. >> a whole bunch of them went to jerusalem. but let me turn to another subject, which is the economy. we've had relatively weak economic numbers. on friday we're going to get another employment number. i don't think anyone is terribly

optimistic about that. does the white house have any new spin they're going to use to try to convince people they're doing as well as they can do with this economy? >> i think they're going to continue to pivot and put the emphasis on house republicans saying they have a vision, they have a way to do this but half the republicans are standing in their way. that your frustration about the economic picture, there are some things that could get done right away but congress is holding them up. but that's been their answer, steve, for what, the last three or four employment reports that have all been below expectations, below where they want them to be. i think right now they're simply crossing their fingers and hoping these numbers don't get lower. i mean, they believe right now they are at the lowest possible employme employment, as low as it could possibly be and then still win. if somehow the unemployment rate started rising again and the job creation numbers get below

80,000, let alone 100, they would feel it was below their control. >> chuck, did you watch kershaw this weekend? >> i did a little bit of that. how about the crazy match game? you had a crazy match game that the brewers bullpen, that apparently they don't have one. which thank goodness for that for the nats. and the dodgers, it was sweet. >> chuck, come to a game with me. come on the bandwagon. get rid of that dodgers free ticket, too. >> i don't know what i'm going to do at the nlcf, though. we know that's happening. if you talk to chuck todd, that's terrible to do. up next, the bell with tyler matheson. back in a mommy.

this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com.

there are projects. and there are game-changers. those ideas that start with us rolling up our sleeves... ...and end with a new favorite room in the house. and when we can save even more on those kinds of projects... ...with advice to make them even better... ...that's a game-changer in itself. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get this all in one vanity, faucet, and hardware for just $249. the global ready one ? yeah, but you won't need... ♪ hajimemashite. hajimemashite. hajimemashite. you guys like football ? thank you so much. i'm stoked. you stoked ? totally. ... and he says, "under the mattress." souse le matelas. ( laughter ) why's the new guy sending me emails from paris ? paris, france ? verizon's 4g lte devices are global-ready. plus, global data for just $25.

only from verizon.

all righty. times square looking good. let's get a check today on business before the bell. live at cnbc global headquart s headquarters.

global headquarters, wow. >> it's pretty big. we have all the globality going for us here. a couple things, not too much going on in europe which has been the main economic worry for many of us for so long over this past weekend, apart from the olympics which are in europe. but today, a very interesting case going to jury trial, pitting on the one hand apple and its cell phone/iphone interface against samsung, now by volume the largest manufacturer of cell phones in the world. and at issue here, patent claims that go right to the heart of how cell phones work. samsung and apple taking that feud to court, so says the san jose merc. in an earlier inning in this case, the judge involved in it issued a temporary injunction against samsung's ability to come out and sell in the united states its very popular and sort of forward-looking galaxy cell phone. so that has been put on hold here, and the question is, how

do the interfaces work? the question and answer woman, the ability to swipe and drag and pull and do all those kinds of things that are so famous. we'll be watching that one, and of course apple in the news over the weekend as apparently some talks took place way back in the past about apple maybe hooking up with twitter. so apple, can't get enough of that, folks. >> apple in the news, and joe scarborough here, the markets can't get enough of that. how will the markets be responding overall to the not so exciting news over the weekend that the economy is just dragging along -- it seems to be dragging down. steve ratner gave us a beverage -- bevy of depressing charts this morning. how do we expect the markets to react this week? >> we saw the markets go up two days in a row of gains more than 200 points in the dow which

carried the dow up above 13 nourk13,000. you go, why that if the economy is growing in europe? that number at 1.5%, so why did the market go up? i think it's two reasons, and i think the main ones are these. number one, it's pretty clear that mario dragy, the head of the european central bank, is going to do in his words whatever it takes to defend the european monetary union and the euro. that is regarded as positive news. and in the united states, the fact that the u.s. economy is growing as slowly as it is and probably growing at an even slower pace now than it did in the quarter whose data was just reported last week, that suggests to investors that maybe bernanke will jump in and do some stimulus. that's why the market is higher. we'll watch this week. wouldn't surprise me if it pulls back a little today because of those big gains, but those are the reasons the market has been

up despite the bad economic news, joe. >> you heard it right here from tyler madison at global headquarters. global headquarters. up next, hip to be square. he's a god. hughey lewis is joining us on the set when "morning joe" comes back, and he's a big baseball guy. how do you know which ones to follow? the equity summary score consolidates the ratings of up to 10 independent research providers into a single score that's weighted based on how accurate they've been in the past. i'm howard spielberg of fidelity investments.

the equity summary score is one more innovative reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. get 200 free trades today and explore your next investing idea. sometimes, i feel like it's me against my hair. [ female announcer ] weak, damaged hair needs new aveeno nourish+ strengthen. active naturals wheat formulas restore strength for up to 90% less breakage in three washes. for strong, healthy hair with life, new aveeno nourish+ strengthen.

♪ ♪ you don't need money, don't take fame ♪ ♪ don't need a credit card to ride this train ♪ ♪ it's certain and it's cruel sometimes ♪ ♪ but it might just save your

life ♪ ♪ that's the power of love >> man, still getting it done. hughie lewis and the news still getting it done. you were at jones beach last night, you were saying? >> yep. >> really? >> we're better than ever, mike. that's my story and i'm sticking to it. >> the joe cocker tour. >> yep. >> let me ask you about joe cocker tour. what's the deal with his physical movements? he's great and i love him, but what's the deal? >> he's feeling the music. he's a lovely guy. and it's really a great show. he's doing all of his hits, and i play a song with him and we collaborate a little bit. it's really a fun show. >> did you ever think you would still be doing this? how old are you? >> i'm 62. it's hard for me to form the words. i look in the mirror and i think, how did it happen? >> yeah. you wake up thinking, you know,

do you fall asleep and think your mother is going to come in and say, hughie, it's time to go to school? >> i have children and a family, so i can't be a kid, but in my business, you can be a kid quite often. if he can do it, you can do t. look at those videos. you really grew in that period. that's a pioneering time. you were right there in the birth of mtv and that whole way of selling music. >> interestingly, our first video, we did a couple little videos ourselves, and the first time we had a record deal, they had a big time video director do our video. and he designed everything, and he had pastels in the back and rouge on your cheeks, and we did "the power of love." i remember we had the big playback on the video and the record company came, and we were all there, and it was going to

be the first time everybody saw the new cut. they played it and i thought it was just horrible, cringeworthy. but yet when they stopped it i was thinking to myself, this is just terrible, and when the video ended, the place broke out in applause. i thought to myself, wow, anybody can do this. from that point on, i decided we were going to direct our own. and then we made all those other videos we did ourselves. >> what's happened to your fan base over the years? as you've gotten to 62, what's happened to them? are they also 62? >> a lot of them grew up with us, but there's a new generation. nowadays kids listen to anything and everything because of the internet. it's not so age specific anymore. a lot of college kids, oddly enough. >> and you try to engage them in social media? do you use social media? >> we have all of that. i don't do it personally, but we

have a hugh hughielewisandthenews.com. we have a guy who tweets and do all that stuff. i don't tweet myself. >> you only get in trouble by tweeting. >> what i do is not even interesting to myself, let alone to somebody else. >> tell me about the tour. what are you doing? how many states? >> we just did new york, obviously, so we still have chicago, detroit, denver, san francisco, l.a., boston. bethlehem, pennsylvania. >> whether you n are you in bos? >> night after tomorrow. wednesday. >> tying skpe >> tigers and red sox are in town, you know. >> i'll be there. >> after fenway park, they need a new drug. >> i have seen red sox fans that can relate to you. we need a new drug. >> never mind red sox, i have seen him throw out his pitches at a couple different ball parks. >> and anthems.

we do anthems, which is fabulous. we do an a capella anthem, and it's a very nervous thing because we do it a capella, but it's a slam dunk because we have the best seats in the house. >> what's your passion with baseball? >> i played as a kid, and i'm kind of a lousy fan because we live in montana and we don't get games. but i'm a fan. larry berra is a great guy and a great friend. >> where do we go to get concert updates? >> hueylewisandthenews.com.

>> you have top 40 hits. you're out on the road, what do people want to hear more than anything? >> "power of love" "stuck with you," "this is it," "i want a new drug." ♪ with the spark cash card from capital one,

olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less? great businesses deserve the most rewards! awesome!!! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? i've worked hard to build my family. and also to build my career.

so i'm not about to always let my frequent bladder urges, or the worry my pipes might leak get in the way of my busy lifestyle. that's why i take care, with vesicare. once-daily vesicare can help control your bladder muscle and is proven to treat overactive bladder with symptoms of frequent urges and leaks day and night. if you have certain stomach or glaucoma problems, or trouble emptying your bladder, do not take vesicare. vesicare may cause allergic reactions that may be serious. if you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, stop taking vesicare and get emergency help. tell your doctor right away if you have severe abdominal pain, or become constipated for three or more days. vesicare may cause blurred vision, so use caution while driving or doing unsafe tasks. common side effects are dry mouth, constipation, and indigestion. i've worked hard to get to where i am... and i've got better places to go than always going to the bathroom. so take charge of your symptoms by talking to your doctor and go to vesicare.com for a free trial offer.

it's a public service for you. we're going to take a look at the morning papers. "washington post," olympic organizers are scrambling to fill empty seats that are now giving tickets away to school children and british event. hundreds of fans were left out in the cold after they failed to get tickets through a public lottery. officials blame the seating situation on unused ticket provided to corporate sponsors. young adults on usa today say they are anxious, uncertain

and hopeful things will turn around. >> the "new york times," jhadists are now taking a growing role in the vir yann revolt. the rebels have become more organized. the houston chronicle, one of the most expensive parties in history will be decided when the republicans ted cruz and governor dewhurst face-off. former presidential candidate nick santorum, but they say the republican establishment,

including governor rick perry. up next, what, if anything, could we learn today? wow. ♪ [ jennifer ] better. stronger. believe. happier. healthier. i believe weight watchers made me more powerful. it's time to believe again. stand up and take charge. i believe if you want to change your life, you can. ♪ believe in yourself [ female announcer ] weight watchers -- rated number one best plan for weight loss by u.s. news and world report, again. join for $1. hurry offer ends august 4th. weight watchers. believe. because it works.

and this is what inspires us to create new technology. ♪ technology that connects us to everything the world has to offer and vice versa. ♪ technology that makes lightweight stronger, safer, and faster than ever before. ♪ technology that makes electric electrifying and efficiency exhilarating. ♪ technology that doesn't just drive us, but drives progress. ♪ and driving progress is what we do every day. ♪ ♪

♪ it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter.

why severy room deserves ll us what outo look great.or is? and every footstep should tell us we made the right decision. so when we can feel our way through the newest, softest, and most colorful options... ...across every possible price range... ...our budgets won't be picking the style. we will. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. make room for savings with $37 basic installation on martha stewart living and platinum plus carpet.

mitt romney wondered aloud weather lond whether london was ready for the olympics, and i'm sure it's clear voters wonder aloud whether mitt romney is ready for the world and i'm not sure the world is ready for mitt romney. >> on the eve of a significant event for one of our strongest allies makes a huge intelligence gaffe by revealing the existence and saying out loud the existence of their biggest intelligence agency. i think he's demonstrated pretty repeatedly since he's been out of the country that he lacks the experience, he lacks the preparation and the diplomatic skills to be able to be the commander in chief, to be able to be the president of the united states.

>> okay. debbie wasserman schultz, thank you very much. john, what have you learned today? >> i never knew before what it felt to be a member of the salt lake city elks club. today i learned and it's not good. >> what did you learn? >> campbell brown's piece about what goes on in the new york city schools and how little is able to be done about it is pretty remarkable. >> it is remarkable, and it also leads to something i learned which is that chris matthews never disappoints you. i can see you've really held yourself together. >> oh, my god, he never -- he never disappoints! unbelievab unbelievable. all right. mike, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> if it's way too early, it's time for "morning joe." olympics coverage!

good morning, everyone. welcome to our nbc olympic headquarters in new york. we're getting set for a full day of live olympic action here on msnbc, including water polo, women's basketball, and men's field hockey all live. day three of these london olympics follows an opening weekend highlighted by a series of surprises and disappointments interlaced with historic moments and stories of hope. the much await the ryan lochte/ryan phelps showdown dropped plenty of jaws. and jordyn wieber's failure to qualify for the women's gymnastics all around has us shocked. and spain leaves the door wide open for brazil, and americans were given a much-needed boost by two women who made history.

as we watched live her yesterday, the olympic record was broken by hitting 99 out of 100 targets in skeet shooting. last night, dana vollmer, who failed to qualify for beijing, redeemed herself in spectacular fashion inmeter butterfly. here's the race. the world record holder in lane six. two lengths of the pool. the heavy favorite is vollmer of the united states. >> not a great start for vollmer. she got in the water pretty well and came out of that hole fairly well. not off to the quicker start she has been earlier. that might be good. she didn't overswim that first 25. that's for sure. >> pretty good start for dpr donahue. here's vollmer in lane four. they're fightly