so, we asked for people you'd like to see on twitter or not, and we thought people would be alive, but it turned out we got characters from people who are no longer with us. we opened it up for everybody. john tower has john tower has some answers. >> the man in black johnny cash. our own eric. i hate to admit this is pretty good. cosmo kramer. mel gibson's character from "the beaver." and herbert hoover? >> herbert hoover? i was thinking silvio berlusconi. i thought he was better on instagram. >> jesus christ. number one, stewy griffin. >> stewy griffin would be fantastic. "morning joe" starts right now.

♪ >> i'll tell you the one option he is not going to take, that weird october special election. you know is in the one that is going to happen three weeks before the general? i know he is not going to do that because in 2009, governor christie commented specifically on what he would do when he was asked -- and this is true -- if frank lautenberg died. >> i don't think any responsible governor at this point would call for a special election that would cost $10 million. >> of course, they wouldn't. >> christie said a special election for october 16th. >> what the -- what? good morning it is thursday, june 6th. with us on set we have former communications director for president george w. bush and former senior adviser for the 2008 mccain presidential campaign nicole wallace. also with us political writer for salon.com and host of

msnbc's "up" steve kornacki. and jeremy peters in washington. joe, a lot to get this this morning. i'm looking at the front page of "the new york times." no matter what you think about these choices politically i think it's kind of amazing to see samantha power and susan rice two top foreign policy positions being filled. president obama choosing two women who, by the way, happen to have very young children from ages 1 to into high school between the two of them. so kind of a momentous occasion on that level. we are talking a lot about women today because i'm hosting with arianna the women's conference we have been talking about all week. the third metric. we have great news, joe. we raised over a million dollar for women's group. million dollars before the conference even started. so exciting day ahead. >> that's fantastic.

a lot of people -- and congratulations on that. looking forward to the conference today. a lot of people obviously waiting to see what the response would be in washington, d.c. from republicans that susan rice got appointed. obviously, there was a lot of criticism. interestingly enough, though, john mccain, kelly ayotte, others harshly critical of her what she said on the subjected shows and "meet the press" on ben ghazi saying they disagreed with her but they were going to work with her and do whatever they could to make sure that there was a good relationship between the hill. also other big events. your daughter carly's 15th birthday. holy cow. that is huge! >> yes, it is. >> she is also on the history books. she was born on the anniversary of d-day. that is, of course, when the allies stormed across the shores of normandy and omaha beach.

i went over there with tom br brokaw and others on the 60th anniversary. so remarkable watching these young gis now in their 70s, 80s, walk through the streets of those normandy towns and have young children come up with flowers saying thank you for making me free. the french especially in that region still remembered. the men would break down crying. it was one of the most moving things i've ever seen. just a remarkable story and, of course, they began their march to berlin that liberated all of europe from hitler and nazyism. also today, sadly on this day 1968, one of my big political heroes, bobby kennedy past away. he was shot the day before after winning the california primary and then the next day on this

day in 1968, he died. bobby kennedy a remarkable man. it was a remarkable campaign. that united a lot of forces that had not been together. bobby kennedy more than any politician in our time really, you talk about an evolution from where he was in the 1950s to where he was in 1968 and that remarkable short campaign. it's a campaign, mika, that many historians still look back at. i think one of the greatest speeches, jeff greenfield, who was actually a speech writer for bobby kennedy said that one of the graets speecheatest speeche gave and why bobby kennedy was my hero was what he did on the nig night martin luther king was assassinated. he went into indianapolis when he was told to stay away. the police said they wouldn't escort him into the inner city

of indianapolis because there would be too much violence. bobby kennedy went in and gave one of the most remarkable speps and as jeff greenfield said, it was his best speech ever and we speech writers hated him because nobody wrote it for bobby. he wrote it himself. he said, yes, you lost a friend. i lost a brother. but, tonight, he basically said let's do what martin luther king would have us do and let us move forward in peace and that night, cities all across america bur d burned. that night, indianapolis went to sleep in peace. and it was because of one man, bobby kennedy. and, mika, bobby kennedy, i think, taught a lot of people that if you have moral courage, you can, in his words, bend history itself and it's an opportunity that we never really got to see bobby kennedy do. steve kornacki, he still

inspires so many politicians on both sides of the aisle because he was just such a remarkable man. >> yeah, and he is one of those sort of -- he was a great what if's of history. if you look back at the 1968 presidential election, hubert humphrey came really within an inch of winning the presidency over richard nixon in 1968 and if bobby kennedy had lived and won the democratic nomination, if hubert humphrey could have gotten that close under those circumstances hard to believe that bobby kennedy wouldn't have won that election in 1968 and wouldn't have gone on to be president. we wouldn't have had nixon and had bobby kennedy instead and how much different history could have looked today. >> mika, one of the great if's of history, no doubt. let's move on. >> every sometime you're trying to -- we are looking for moral courage these days, often you bring up that incredible speech. we will get to the news.

yep? >> bobby kennedy, really quickly, on that front, bobby kennedy, in that final campaign, he was pushing boundaries and he did things that everybody else was afraid to do and whether you're a conservative or a liberal or a republican or a democrat, you can look back to the fact he went to south africa. two years to the day he was assassinated and spoke loudly against apartheid and made him an enemy of the johnson administration if he wasn't already. politicians on both sides that fear the moral courage to do the most basic of things that this country needs. they need to look back to leaders like bobby kennedy and dare to make a difference. >> we are going to get to more politics of today in a moment. first, two other stories making headlines this morning. in philadelphia, we begin where firefighters made a remarkable rescue of a 61-year-old woman who was trapped in the rubble of a deadly building collapse for 13 hours. look at that.

six people were killed and another 14 injured when the structure suddenly came tumbling down. rescuers used bucket and their bare hands to remove debris and onlookers joined in the frantic rescue as well after hours of searching. surviving woman reached out and grabbed the hand of a firefighter. the four-story building was in the process of being demolished when it toppled on to a salvation army thrift shop next door that was open for business. the search and rescue operation continued through the night to see if anyone else was trapped inside. we will gikeep you posted on th. a federal judge overruled kathleen sebelius ordering her to suspend government rules to allow a 10-year-old to go on an adult donor list for a critical organ transplant. sarah munehan has cystic fibrosis that badly damaged her

lungs and her parents say she has three to five weeks to live without a transplant. few children's lungs available for a transplant and as a 10-year-old government rules said she is not allowed to be on an adult donor list. lawmakers called on sebelius to suspend the rules but earlier this week, she resisted. >> i would suggest that the rules that are in place and reviewed on a regular basis are there because the worst of all worlds, in my mind, is to have some individual pick and choose who lives and who dies. i think you want a process where it's guided byedical science. >> with the court's rule, mirnahan has a better chance to be matched with a donor. kathleen sebelius says 40 patients already in pennsylvania alone where sarah lives waiting for an adult lung donor so we will follow that. a horrible position that she was in as well.

a disturbing report of uncollected phone data by millions of americans by the federal government. according to the british newspaper "the guardian," the obama administration is conducteding a massive diagram surveillance program which requires vor eye son erizon wit thelve informati telephone information and includes domestic calls and other calls between the countries. the order was issued by the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court and granted the government unlimited authority to collect data over a three-month period ending on july 19th of this year. the guardian report says the actual contents of the calls are not recorded, but the government does track the phone numbers, location data, and the length of the conversation. now nbc news does not have independent confirmation of the report or the legitimacy of the document at this point. the order falls under a controversial section of the patriot act which allows the government to make these types

of requests from the telephone carriers. however, "the washington post" reports this appears to be a so-called rubber stamp order, one that is reissued routinely every 90 days and is essentially is ongoing at all times. the white house, justice department, and verizon have declined to comment on this story. joe, would you like to comment on this story? >> mika, i'm telling you, it's just one more story that has come out that i think, again, hurt the obama administration by feeding in to this belief that this government is too big, too massive. it plays right into the hands of the president's political opponents. you know, let's look at the checklist. so we have got the nsa, the federal government seizing our phone records. i'm on verizon so they have seized all of my phone records and everybody else. it's frightening to everybody.

the justice department, of course, we found out approved going after journalists phone records. the irs, obviously, being accused right now of targeting political opponents of the administration. welly geist, it's unbelievable. it just feeds into this narrative of the republicans and of tea party members. it is hard taken in totality to of actually put together a worse narrative for a progressive president and a progressive white house who, on the eve of the president's health plan being fully implemented. it's hard to come up with a worst scenario for them publicly. >> a great piece by him in "the guardi guardian." i think what is exceptional and unusual about this it went to

the patriot act. the fbi granted permission to do this. what is unusual is the unlimited scope of it and it's not targeted and they are not looking at specific people and asking for their phone records. this is to say over three-month period beginning in late april and extending through the end of july that the government gets all of the phone records from verizon and we don't know, as glenn points out in the piece, if there are other phone companies as well who may be handing over their data, but, nicole, you and i were talking about this. you had a little bit of a different take on this. >> it rendered ludicrous the notion that barack obama ran as the anti-george w. bush. he has now accelerated and intensified almost every single anti-terror policy that was ever imagined by the bush administration. so, you know, on its face, i'm not offended by steps that we take to look for people doing bad things. joe, if you're not calling anybody dodgy, i wouldn't wore about them looking at your

verizon records, but the notion that this man ran as the anti-bush has now rendered completely ridiculous. >> and to that point, no matter what you think of whether or not this is a good idea and protects our national security, steve kornacki, as a candidate, the president was against this, was he not? >> i think what this really is a story, this is a story about the bipartisan security state, because it was during the bush years that we had fisa became a big controversy in 2006 when it came out that after 9/11 in the wake of the enactment of the patriot act the bush administration doing the bulk of the phone records. the bush administration has listening in without a warrant and listening in on phone calls that involved the domestic party and international party so the big controversy last decade was you really should go through the fisa court to do that and that got resolved. what we didn't know until now, from that point forward, very possibly the bulk collection of phone records was continuing very possibly through the bush years and obama years. we only know from this report it's verizon. as willie said we don't know if

this is more phone carriers, if is this a three-month, one three-month order only or rolling ongoing thing but it strongly suggests to me this is the sort of unbroken off continuation of 12 years of post 9/11 policies and it becomes a bipartisan thing. this idea of a bipartisan security state is real and what this is telling us. >> joe? >> it really is. it is a bipartisan security state. historians won't look at george w. bush as a guy who had one separate set of policies and barack obama as a president had another. jeremy peterson, there are, though, it seems whether you talk about drone policy, which nbc has a report we are going to be getting to in a minute or you talk about what we are learning from the guardian in this report about just seizing indiscriminately just massive amounts of phone records or you look at how reporters are now

being tracked. it seems like the obama administration has amped up so many parts of the bush security state. what are you expecting to hear on the hill from republicans today? >> i think it's going to be really -- they have to be very careful. it's a tricky argument that they are making because when the bush administration was pursuing these policies, these policies that set in place the laws that are now allowing obama to do this, i don't think you heard much complaint about it. so for now, if they are to come out now and say this is the government overreaching and one more example of the obama administration kind of run amuck and extending too deeply into your lives, i think that may ring false and disingenuous with a lot of people. >> beyond the politics of this, are you surprised by the scope of what has been reported in the guardian today? >> let's not forget that something similar was revealed back in 2006 when "the new york times" disclosed that the nsa had been wiretapping phone calls

within the united states. actually, i was not surprised. i'm pretty alarmed by that, by how little this shocked me, because i think in this day and age, you just have to assume that everything you do, every communication you put into an e-mail, every phone call you make there is a record of that and it can be subpoenaed and looked at by government at any time. >> we also have new information today about the military's controversial drone program as classified intelligence reports show u.s. officials may have ordered strikes in pakistan without fully knowing their target's identity. richard engel has the story. >> reporter: does the u.s. always know who drone strikes are actually killing? nbc news has examined classified documents detailing 114 drone strikes in pakistan in 2010 and '11. they also reveal what u.s.

officials don't know like how many killed between 7 and 10 in one strike, 20 to 22 in another. u.s. officials do seem certain they almost never kill civilians. in those 114 strikes, only one acknowledged civilian casualty. what is more, about a quarter of those killed are described generically as other militants and suggest u.s. officials don't always know exactly how many or who they are killing. sometimes targeting suspects based on what is called a signature terrorist profile, where they live, who they meet, who they talk to. several former senior officials have told nbc news that they had concerns about signature strikes. one told us the u.s. sometimes executes people based on circumstantial evidence. but many counterterrorism officials insist drones are far more precise than conventional

attacks and they work with a proven track record against al qaeda. >> it's been a tremendous step forward in military technology. it's combined the capabilities of surveillance strike and long endurance all in one platform. >> reporter: drones are part of war now. but determining from afar who is a terrorist remains less precise than the weapons used to kill them. >> richard will be joining us later. joe, though, you have been raising concerns about this for some time now. >> actually for years now. the idea that this is a sanitized version of war that somehow this is a cleaner way to conduct operations, it may be cleaner for americans that are able to control these drones from military bases halfway across the world. it's not cleaner on the ground. this is another great example. people that think somehow we have moved away from the dirty wars of george w. bush to the clean wars of barack obama just

have absolutely no idea what is happening on the ground. when you hear richard talk about, quote, other militants, other militants is sanitized way of saying we kill people that we didn't know, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and, as i said yesterday and have been saying for some time now, they were in the wrong demo. they were males 18 to 35 or 40 and they were in the vicinity of somebody else, a bad guy and so they were killed. i'm telling you, this is something and mika, i said this going back to 2009. this is something that we're going to be wringing our hands about for years to come when the truth of this program is put on the table. again, we can do it and it has been -- you talk to people in the intel community, they will tell you it has been

extraordinarily effective in killing terrorists, and intimidating al qaeda, in breaking up the organization. my objections, my chief objections -- first of all, we are killing a lot more people than we did when we were going in and seizing terrorists. and interrogating them. but my biggest objection is which nicole touched earlier today that somehow this is a clean sanitized version of what george w. bush was doing for eight years. anybody who is telling themselves that it is is lying to themselves. >> okay. we are going to debate this later because we are running out of time in this block, but i don't see anybody saying this is clean and sanitary. i want to knock that down a little bit because i think it's a very difficult decision. it's a different one. every decision when it comes to torture and intelligence gathering and war has a repercussion but nobody is saying it's clean. >> it does have a repercussion but this policy was put in place because people were offended by

what george w. bush was doing, what the cia was doing. >> right. a better option, yeah. >> as a better option. >> rilvght. >> under the bush administration, three terrorists, known terrorists were waterboarded. >> right. >> we killed more innocent people in a single drone strike than were ever waterboarded by the united states government. so if killing more people in one drone strike that may have been innocent, then we are waterboarding. some people sleep better at night, then i just -- i think they have a -- i think their moral bit askew. >> ar anna huffington joins the conversation and rick stengel with the "time" cover story.

along with howard wolfson and d. jeffrey sachs. the first name storm of the atlantic season andrea is making landfall in areas of north florida. we have already had tornadoes from this tropical storm overnight near tampa and now we are watching the threat of tornadoes from orlando all the way to miami till nl about 11:00 today. we have two strong bands. one coming up over towards the i-95 corridor of the florida turnpike west portion of florida stay indoors as those storms go through. another strong band off the coast will come onshore later today. the winds should not be too much of a problem. it's flooding rains and possibility of isolated tornadoes the next two days but winds up to 60 miles per hour. this actually intensified overnight unexpectedly and right now you can see it's centered due west much there of tampa and heading up somewhere to the north there of tampa, probably making landfall just about knee

apalachicola, florida and near the gainesville of tallahassee area. it goes up i-95 the next 48 hours and soaking rain and not a lot of damage but heavy rain. 2 to 3 inches of rain from florida all the way northward with isolated amounts up to about 4 to 5 inches. today, it's making its landfall. heaviest rain in the southeast and tomorrow morning at this time rain through north and south carolina and areas up through the mid atlanta and through new england after that. can you believe already a tropical storm we are dealing with the first week of june? starting off as a nice day. tomorrow, won't look like this around the nation's capital. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. walmart has all the latest phones look the samsung galaxy s4. it's like what i've got.

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8 past the hour. 28 past of the hour. time to look at the morning tapes. "usa today." the tsa is dropping its effort to allow small knives on planes. the change comes after a wave of opposition from flight attendants and family of terrorist attack victims. the agency hopes the policy would allow screeners to focus on more serious threats like explosives. >> that was short-lived. >> yeah. >> from the parade of papers susan g. komen will cancel three-day walk in district. >> miami herald. the winner of the 590.5 million dollar powerball jackpot has come forward. that's a lot of money.

oh, my god. gloria mckenzie, an 84-year-old from florida accepted her winnings in a lump sum of 38.70 million. easement she was allowed to cut in front of someone else in line because she is elderly with a cane and somebody said, please, you go first. >> oh, no! >> lost themselves $580 million. new york city daily news. a minivan crashing into a taco bell yesterday during the lunch time rush. >> oh, my lord. look at this. >> good news, nobody seriously injured. the driver who was in the middle of a medical emergency during the crash was charged with open container violation and police say it was not a contributing factor in the accident. the l.a. times. pippa middleton named vanity

fair contributing editor. the first time she attended wimbledon when she was 8 years old. she writes a monthly column for a magazine in uk. vice president joe biden along with hillary clinton to frank lautenberg. he was remembered as a progressive fighter who had a strong affinity for amtrak. >> one day, i'm breaking my neck to get to the train. i am sprinting. i am like those old commercials, running for the airplane, jumping over chairs. i'm carrying my bag. i'm loaded down with ways to slow me down and i swear to god, true story, i get up, the conductor says, joe, joe, hold up. don't worry, you're okay, we are

holding it for lautenberg. >> i encourage everybody take a few minutes today at lunch time and watch that entire eulogy online. it is joe biden -- >> he celebrates frank lautenberg in a joyful and funny and beautiful way. it was really incredible. >> he had them rolling. he was great yesterday. with us is the chief white house correspondent there is mr. mike allen. he has got a look at the plk. mi playbook. >> darrell issa, now republicans leadership looking to rein him in a little bit. how are they going to do that? >> republicans think he is falling into exactly the trap they have been worried about and we have been talking about here on "morning joe" when chairman issa on sunday referred to jay carney as a liar. the kind of overreach and

self-inflicted wound the republican leaders have been warning everyone about. it makes it personal and takes the emphasis off the substance of what they are finding in their investigations, and it makes it easier for democrats to say, darrell issa is just a hatchet man and not trying to find the truth of these controversies. politico is reporting in leadership meetings this week, darrell issa has been told to cool it and other leaders are reminding members that this is what can happen. this is the one thing that could derail what they have here as a lot of material to work with for republicans. other self-inflicted wounds. this week we have seen on "morning joe" republicans making stupid comments about women. again, teeing up a great issue for democrats. politico reporting that senate democrats are going to use this in their campaigns and they will be out there this week calling on republican senate candidates to dance distance themselves from these remarks being made in

washington. >> jeremy peters, in the politico piece, a senior republican is quoted as saying issa has made this personal and added an unnecessary element to the news cycle. a lot of republicans believe questions about ben ghazi and frustrated that congressman issa has taken away from the facts and made it too personal. >> well, that's exactly right. i think this is the darrell issa we have seen for years now. he somehow managed to repress his anger for a while back during the irs hearings. remember how polite he was to loy business lerner. he let her go after she pleaded the fifth amendment and enraged some of the more conservative members on his panel. now you see him is at full mint here. i don't know how many americans expected that, you know, a -- an investigation led by a political party was going to be impartial any way. but he has got a real problem on

his hands and i think the bigger problem is for john boehner and his leadership. just how much he is able to exert control over some of the rogue members of his conference. >> nicole? >>ism jumping out of my chair here. the notion that darrell issa is a problem outside of washington, d.c. is ridiculous. the problem outside of washington, d.c. is that the obama white house is a wash and scandal and controversy. i just spent a week in northern florida and nobody is talking about darrell issa calling the white house press secretary to most of the country who is a white house staffer a lier. what they are talking about is the fact that the obama administration, whether you voted for him or not, promise change from business is as usual. in seattle, washington, really from both sides but the white house is where the focus has been is a white house, a wash and scandal, a wash in double talk and they are looking for the congressional committees in charge of investigating the executive branch to do their

job. >> i appreciate your point of view. but, steve, you might agree, but i just look at this from a political strategy and darrell issa he wants to like hurt the administration. he is trying to say what you're saying and every time he says it, it just helps the administration. that's all i see is a guy who just overplays his hand. >> i hear people talking that way on conservative talk radio that this is a white house in washington scandal but i haven't seen that backed up in the polls. >> except for the fact among independents and in the united states -- and you can say after it doesn't matter but obama's support has collapsed! >> let's be clear. >> your own poll. i watched you for an hour yesterday! >> what is his approval rating now and at the start of the scandals? my point is this. there's intense polarization in the country right now. >> sure. >> that is sort of a constant story and what darrell issa is doing is feeding into that polarization. >> i don't disagree with you.

i don't disagree with you. >> he is making anybody who is sympathetic to the president feel this is a republican witchhunt and same thing in the 1990s. it's darrell issa -- >> but a political witchhunt is an investigative community doing their jon. henry waxman was cheered on when he investigated the bush white house. we are not talking about the polarized elements. but independent voters and your own poll reveal this. support for this president and really, more importantly, trust of this president has evaporated because of these scandals. >> it's a fact, though, he is where he was when they started. he's at 48%. you're talking about independents only? >> independent voters. i think when you look at the impact of these things, your hard-core supporters you can kill a puppy and they are still there for you because he has enough support of people who voted for him three months ago are going to stand by him no matter what. the point was that darrell issa has somehow wrecked the prospect of republicans being able to reveal these scandals and what

they see is a white house sort of listing going from scandal-to-scandal and this is an impact and trust me, i've been to this rodeo and i know how it ends. >> it ends like it end -- i remember how it ended in 1998 when the republicans overreached and historically for the first time since james monroe's presidency, the incumbent party gained seats in the midterm because republicans overreached on what they taught was a huge scandal that had collapsed -- >> nicole, last word. last word. >> i think this is much bigger than what darrell issa says or does. i think republicans need to stick with the fact, the notion that darrell issa has somehow ruined the opportunity to reveal scandals is ludicrous. >> just yes or no. just advising darrell issa, wonts you say let it breathe. >> absolutely? >> mike allen, you started a debate here. thanks, mike. the pull fes at politico.com. >> have a great day. coming up next, teammates of

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time for a little sports. nhl playoffs. a late finish.

bruins and penguins to the second overtime. this happened. >> malkin. right back to marshawn. cuts in front and score! bergeron has ended it! >> patrice bergeron in the second overtime gives the bruins the win and they now take a 3-0 series lead. they play game four going for the sweep in boston on friday night. mike barnicle, they are tough. they are skating to the finals. >> they have just rocked the penguins surprisingly so. surprisingly so. >> good story here out of baseball. the players union now weighing in on the possible suspensions that could be coming for as many as 20 major league players including alex rodriguez and ryan braun of the brewers. in the statement urged caution in this report put out by espn two days ago. about jumping to conclusion. the union vowing to defend the rights of its players.

adding another layer to the story. "the daily news" in new york reporting that anthony bosch at the center of the investigation asked a-rod for financial help after an mlb lawsuit against him in march. "the daily news" says that rodriguez denied bosch the request for money in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. shortly thereafter, bosch approached mlb willing to cooperate on this case. some of alex rodriguez teammates were asked about the allegations. mariano rivera and cc sabathia would support rodriguez no matter the outcome. mark teixeira was less enthusiastic speaking on the report from "the new york times," quote, i think this is embarrassing and it's all speculation but if it is true it's not good for the game. we are supposed to be good example for kids and fans. one thing if we didn't have a tough. we have had had a tough policy a long time and if that many guys are still cheating it's very disappointing and no excuse for

it. in the late '90s you could claim ignorance but you can't claim g ignorance any more. >> the important thing about what teixeira said he, i think, speaks for the majority of players today in the game. the players association would tend to go -- if the evidence is conclusive in this investigation, when the investigation is completed, i think teixeira speaks for the majority of baseball players. >> do you think this is a tough case, though, mike? there is no tests. one guy in miami has got names scribbled in a book. it's a hard thing to prove that alex rodriguez or ryan braun or anybody else took steroids from this guy. >> yeah. and bosch is not exactly the kind of guy you want on the stand. >> take a look at him. >> yeah. he'll be a belmont in a panic this weekend looking for two dollar bets. >> still ahead, nbc justice correspondent pete williams with his exclusive interview of

attorney general eric holder, asking him if he would resign. also richard engel who has some important details on america's drone program overseas. up next, mika's must read opinion pages. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. i want to make things more secure.

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all right. 48 past the hour. let's get to the must read opinion pages. david ignatius writes in "the washington post" about susan rice. he calls her a provocture in the west wing. he writes rice has star power. she is smart. funny. profane and passionate and she can also be her own worst enemy should go sharp words or elbows when a softer touch would work better. in that sense she and obama are well matched. the cool and cautious chief executive may benefit from a more hot tempered national security adviser and vice versa.

jeremy, is that fair? >> i think the. a great line in that piece later on where he talks about how obama has trade inside a gray sedan for a flashy sports car, rice being the flashy sports car. it's interesting to see how the national security team reacts now in obama's inner circle. you have john kerry and powers who is no shrinking violet and susan rice. this is going to be quite a combo. >> the choice of two women who happen to be mothers. what is going on? nicole, what is going on? >> i'm a huge susan rice fan and i think the poiappointment is w one and she was thought to be the next secretary of state. the men all lined up beyond john kerry and now he is the secretary of state. i think this appointment doesn't come close to righting the wrong's that came about when she was thrown under the bus over

the public performance over ben ghazi but i think she is certainly more than capable to be the president's national security adviser. >> it will be exciting to watch how this happens. i agree she was hung out to dry. willie, you have chosen a must read? >> we have a very special must read from the onion. when a guest on our show headlines one of our must read's we like to include it in the segment. this comes from "the onion" of yesterday. "the new york times" reader stoked after noticing article penned by favorite reporting duo. >> i might as well hang it up now. my career has piqued. >> here we go. these guys balance each other out perfectly. peter brings shear out of his comfort zone. you might have a favorite. my wife is a shear person and

i'm a peters guy but you get the two together, boom, it's like lightning in a bolts. not bad, jeremy. >> at least they didn't have me being hauled out of dave and buster's after getting out of a drunken brawl like did with joe biden. >> your biden reporting is amazing. >> willie, thank you so much. i thought you didn't read it because there are some "f" bombs. thank you very much for that. we will be right back with "news you can't use." to dream about that steak. i'm going to dream about that tiramisu. what a night, huh? but, um, can the test drive be over now? head back to the dealership? oh, yeah. [ male announcer ] it's practically yours. [ wife ] sorry. [ male announcer ] but we still need your signature. volkswagen sign then drive is back. and it's never been easier to get a passat. that's the power of german engineering. get $0 down, $0 due at signing, $0 deposit, and $0 first month's payment on any new volkswagen. visit vwdealer.com today.

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>> now it's my turn to talk. >> rick, give a nice message to the people. >> in this movie, we play witches. >> brick, what are you possibly describing? look. it's -- it's going to be a fun movie. >> there you go. "anchorman ii" out in december and visit the mutual in november. >> i just saw the first one this year. it's fantastic. all too real. >> all-timer. coming up next, arianna huffington and howard wolfson in the studio. more "morning joe" back in a moment. ♪ i turn to stone i turn to stone turn to stone when you're coming home ♪ you can't say 'one size fits all'. it doesn't. that's crazy. we're all totally different. ishares core. etf building blocks for your personalized portfolio.

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♪ you know, susan rice claims that she reads the classified dailies. obviously, if she had, she couldn't have been so wrong on ben ghazi. it's unfortunate the president is rewarding somebody for reading talking points that simply weren't true. >> how are they going to have the authority for people to believe what they are saying when he is promoting someone who directly and deliberately misled the public over ben ghazi? >> it's curious that they would choose ambassador rice as the national security visor only because she is such a political lightning rod now. >> sounds like an "snl" skit. more that doesn't work for the republicans.

welcome back to minnesota. mike barnicle is still with us. president of huffington post, arianna huffington. with us is the deputy mayor of new york city howard wolfson. good to have you all on board along with me, willie, and joe as well. before we get to susan rice and apparently what they are saying, we have a big day today. third metric. i see you've brought gifts for the gentlemen on our set? >> i did. i brought our program and it's a little lavender sash and sets when the set goes it's time to unplug, recharge and renew yourself and fortune cookies with third metric wisdom. >> thank you. we are going to have some incredible guests talking about the secret to success that goes beyond money and power. of course, women achieving high levels of power are in the headlines today which we will get to. but this is an important conference with some incredible women and men coming.

>> the theme of our conference, of course, that started over breakfast with me talking about our own lives you can't just find success in the money and power. this is an unsustainable way to lead our lives and women need to lead a third women's revolution which is about redefining success for women and for men. you know? the american workplace right now is being fueled by burnout, stress. >> injury. >> injury. and, as a result, 75% of our health care costs because of chronic preventable diseases and many because of stress and women are paying an incredible price. 40% greater threat of heart disease and 60% greater threat of diabetes among women in stressful jobs. >> we will be addressing those issues today and we will be talking about money and making a lot of it for one point and that is the race for women challenge which we're at 1 million dollar point already before the

conference has even started. go to crowdrise.com/raiseforwomen if you want to help. we have already hit a million. what is your fortune, willie? >> you will not look at a screen an hour before bed tonight. i've heard a lot of people to say that and it's a hard one but i'll try tonight. >> mike? >> that's mine. >> clearly you both need to do that! >> good luck, guys. did you get a different one? >> when one door closes, it's time to go to sleep which is not advice i took this morning! >> there you go. >> we will get to the headlines now. actually, this is an incredible picture given the conference we are having today. two women, by the way, both with school-aged children or very young children. one a baby really. >> amazing. >> it is amazing what is happening in the high levels of power in this country and i really hope some of the gentlemen in this country who are also very powerful can handle this destruction of our social order.

i don't know. depending on what network you're watching you may not be able to handle it. the headlines. u.s. baeed susan rice has faced criticism over hur handling of the ben ghazi incident is happened to be the nation's national security adviser. rice was once thought thought to be a shoo-in for secretary of state but battle unwinnable because of the way the ben ghazi talking points were handled in the extra. her new role doesn't require senate approval and president obama stood alongside his long time confidant yesterday during the announcement. >> she is passionate and pragmatic. i think everybody understands susan is a fierce champion for justice and human dignity but she is also mindful that we have to exercise our power wisely and deliberately. susan is the consummate public servant and patriot who puts her country first. she is fearless. she is tough. >> joe, i think a lot of us

agree she was kind of hung out to dry during the ben ghazi incident. >> she was. it's very interesting, though, many of the people that were most critical of her, especially in the united states senate, republicans now saying while they disagree with many things that she has done in the past, they are going to work with her. you heard that from john mccain. you heard that from kelly ayotte and lindsey graham i'm sure. the fact is john mccain and kelly ayotte and lindsey graham and some of the neocons in the senate and the house want this president to be more aggressive in syria. humanitarian crisis reaching 80,000 and a hundred thousand people dead there. more evidence of chemical weapons used in syria against the citizens and against the insurgents. john mccain was on our show earlier this week. he wants the united states to be more actively involved. the president has shown

restraint and not only in this war but many other wars and it's frustrated john mccain with susan rice and samantha powers you have two who believe in the use of power for good. samantha powers, of course, actually one a pulitzer prize for a book that she wrote about the conflict in the balkans. and so, yes, this morning, we can certainly, mika, you and others can celebrate the elevation of these two women to the positions that they are in. this morning, you know, willie geist, i am a lot more focused and a lot more concerned on whether the united states is going to become more active militarily in syria and if you look at these women and their positions in the past on military intervention across the globe, it is far closer to john

mccain and madeleine albright's position in the balkans in the 1990s than it has been to barack obama's over the past four years. >> absolutely. and for susan rice, a lot of her views on intervention were colored by her time in the clinton administration when she was on the national security council. she looked back on rwanda with great regret as president clinton has as well wishing they had done more. she is stepping if nto prevent genoc genocide and shown restraints when it comes to syria. >> looking at the political aspect of this, air ran that. i'm reading the different versions of coverage of these choices. it's being described the samantha power choice as well as susan rice as defiant on the part of the president. >> somebody described it as revenge best serve called in the case of susan rice. but i think the point that joe is making is an important one, which is now the president is

going to have two people who are very close to him and advocating more. they are going to be military interventions if he decides to go ahead. the jury seems to be in and we all have to agree, no matter whether we are liberals or conservatives that what we have done in afghanistan has not worked and that is not going to strengthen the more democratic institutions so when we leave after all these years of war, after all these lost lives, after all these billions, hundreds of billions of dollars lost, we won't really be leaving a better humanitarian situation. not to mention what is happening in iraq with the endless suicide bombs and the continuing of the struggle and the strengthening of iran. so a lot more humility right now about the intervention can actually achieve. >> the middle of this, a report

of unprecedented collection of phone data from millions of americans by the federal government. according to the british newspaper "the guardian," the obama administration is conducting a massive diagromest surveillance program which requires verizon with national telephone information and includes domestic calls and other calls between the countries. the order was issued by the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court and granted the government unlimited authority to collect data over a three-month period ending on july 19th of this year. "the guardian" report says the actual contents of the calls are not recorded, but the government does track the phone numbers, location data, and the length of the conversation. now nbc news does not have independent confirmation of the report or the legitimacy of the documents. the order falls under a controversial section of the patriot act which allows the government to make these types

of requests from telephone carriers. however, "the washington post" reports this appears to be a so-called rubber stamp order, one that is reissued routinely every 90 days and is essentially ongoing. the white house, justice department, and verizon have declined to comment on this story, joe. >> let's bring in chuck todd right now. chuck, they are obviously going to be a lot of concerns on capitol hill. not just from the rand paul and more libertarian wing of the republican party, but also, of course, from democrats very concerned with the nsa possible overreach, the continuation of bush policies, some would eeven say amping up the bush policies, not just in drones. we the irs targeting but now, of course, this nsa policy. i think we are going to have a lot of concerns from -- it's one of these strange coming together of people in the far right and

the far left who believe the federal government is just overreaching and here is another example. >> you're speaking of, i think, the civil libertarian wing of the democratic party guys like ron wyden. and the libertarian wing of the republican party. ron wyden democratic senator from oregon has been winking and nodding and sort of -- as a way of trying to scream up and down about this surveillance. he's been hinting at this for months saying the public would be surprised by some of the power that the government has in doing some of the surveillance. a few things i want to add to what mika said there. we do finally have some response from the administration on this story in "the guardian." they are confirming. we spent a lot of time overtime, myself and others trying to get somebody in the administration to tell us something about this. there have been no denials about this court order. no official confirmation. however, the obama administration then issues this

lengthy statement that goes to defend the practice and reiterating the fact that no contents of the calls are part of the court order and that both congress and judiciary branch as well as the executive brarge, all three branches of government have a is a soy on this. here is what we also don't know. we don't know that it's only verizon. it's just the verizon court order that leaked. one would assume if it's this broad with verizon, then it wouldn't be a shock if we find out at&t and a whole bunch of other cell phone carriers on this. i think you're going to go bipartisan outrage as you just pointed out, joe, whether from ron wyden or rand paul. people will wake up i have veriz verizon. what are they doing? >> this is legal, you know, the patriot fact. got the order. the fbi is doing this legally. are you surprised by the scope

of what they are doing? it's give us all of your records. it's not just records on person a, b, or c. >> it's a shocking report that exploded overnight and a lot of people are waking up now and i think they will be horrified. it's not just the civil libertarian wings of the democratic or republican party. i think most people will be surprised that the federal government is having access to their calls. if they are doing it for verizon they are not excludeing other phone carriers as well. i don't think the administration's response that chuck described is anywhere near adequate. i think you'll see an awful lot of questions asked in the coming days and not just people from the wings of the parties but every american has a stake in sort of this massive information that the government is accessing. >> i agree with you. people will get up today and they will read the papers and hear this news and they will be surprised but the surprising thing about this, at least to me and i think others is it's not really surprising when you consider the scope, the web that

has been cast on september 11th, 2001 and for politicians on either end of the spectrum, republican or democrat, to express outrage and shock at this. have they not read the patriot act that they passed? >> i think there was an expectation that when the government went to the fisa court for a demand like this there might be some reasonable checks and balances put by the court. i don't think anybody had an examination. maybe it was legal but i don't think they had an examination that the government would be accessing every single phone call that every american made over a major carrier, major network. one thing to say we believe that somebody is engaged in illegal activities. we want to know he who they are calling and who they are calling and calling but every single american in? that is about as broad a scope you can get literally. >> it really is. i don't think anybody when the patriot act was passed expected the surveillance to be so widespread, so indiscriminate,

so general. and there are parallels between what is going on and this nsa case if, in fact, it is what "the guardian" is reporting this morning and we are not getting pushed back by the white house so that certainly leads knee to believe that a lot of this story is actually accurate. but it's just -- it's just like the a.p. story and the fox story. this administration has been so much more aggressive, so much more indiscriminate and the net they have thrown out has been so much more widespread than what we have ever seen before that i think this goes well beyond the scope of what people envisioned when they passed the patriot act. >> also when they elected barack obama. >> yes. he was against this as a candidate. >> he was in favor of transparency. now chuck todd saying he is spending all night to get an answer against the white house.

he ran against george w. bush. he has strengthened the bush state when it comes to national security, when it comes to going after whistle-blowers and when it comes to criminalizing investigation by the press. >> arianna, what about drone strikes? when it comes to drone strikes, i mean, he has increased the number of drone strikes. the actual requirement for when you're trying to figure out exactly who you are killing by firing a drone in there. again, that -- the metrics of that, nbc reporting has been far more indiscriminate and far more widespread and richard engel is coming on to talk about that. air ran that, you could go back to 2008 and nobody would believe just how much more aggressive this president has been in drone strikes, in nsa surveillance of phone records, in going after reporters. nobody would have believed that barack obama would have been

this much more aggressive than george w. bush and dick cheney. >> actually, the drone report is really chilling because it's going to have far reaching consequences. when we are killing that many civilians and we still don't have the number, can you imagine how that the anti-america hatred that breeds more terrorists? that is to me the greatest concern not to mention the absence of a moral compass. >> chuck todd, to your point, i can't imagine this doesn't go well beyond verizon, the story that started this conversation, and it does really, it has this president starting on one end of the spectrum talking about things conceptionally and having a moral opinion about them but ending up on the other side. >> no doubt. candidate obama would have been outraged and candidate obama if this were the middle of the '08 campaign they would be front and center talking about how outrageous this is and this isn't what people expected of

their government. what is interesting, joe, i'm curious when the bush administration was doing these tactics they said we are doing this and it's national security and ts. forget about it. the obama administration does these same things. they hand-wring about it and talk about we are uncomfortable and wish we didn't do it but still do it any way. i don't know which way of handling doing these things is better or more reassuring to the public but either way, they are both doing -- both administrations doing the same thing. more public hand-wringings about it to this the other. >> it's going to be interesting as more information comes out from this "guardian" report and the white house confirms the details of it. i think we are going to find this administration being more aggressive than the bush administration and, my god, my god, remember back in 2006, chuck, what supporters of barack obama and what progressives were

saying? some were comparing verizon to nazi war criminals. the screaming and hand-wringing was unbelievable. i'm not so sure, from what i'm reading here, that this is even more indiscriminate than what the bush administration was caught doing in 2006. again, you can go to surveillance of reporters. you can go to drone war fare. they can wring their hands but it seems all fairly hollow and i suspect you're not going to see much change in policy, chuck. >> no. i don't think you will. because they will always do that whole, you know, use the umbrella of national security and it's an umbrella protection and it might be enough for some in the public. i don't know if it's enough for all. >> chuck, chau. see you coming up on "the daily rundown." howard thank you for the definition of t.s.

it was helpful. still ahead a new report shows the cia did not always know who it was killing in the drone strikes. we will talk about that with our chief foreign correspondent richard engel here with an nbc news review of classified intelligence reports. also pete williams who asked attorney general eric holder about the uproar over the d.o.j. secret seizure of journalists phone records. we will have that and much more when "morning joe" continues. ♪ i'm the next american success story. working for a company where over seventy-five percent of store management started as hourly associates. there's opportunity here. i can use walmart's education benefits to get a degree, maybe work in it, or be an engineer, helping walmart conserve energy. even today, when our store does well, i earn quarterly bonuses. when people look at me, i hope they see someone working their way up. vo: opportunity, that's the real walmart.

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>> there's some things that i want to do. some things i want to get done that i've discussed with the president and oncive finished that, i'll sit down with him and we will determine when it's time to make a transition to a new attorney general. >> but to be clear, you're not stepping down now? >> no. i have no intention of doing so now. >> that was nbc news justice correspondent pete williams' exclusive interview with attorney general eric holder. pete joins us now from washington. pete, what did he tell you about how changes will be made, given there are some things he can't

tell us apparently? >> reporter: in terms of these leak investigations, mika, he says -- i should make clear that we had this discussion before the story about this latest nsa data collection operation, which, undoubtedly, you can be sure is going to trigger another leak investigation because of the sensitivity of the court document that was made public. as for the -- how leaks in general are investigated, he has been meeting with news executives and he says he wants to make it possible for news organizations more often to be able to go to court and try to block the government's efforts to get phone or e-mail records in the most recent two cases with the a.p. and fox news, the material was gathered and then afterwards, the organizations were told about it. he says it ought to be more often for the news organizations could be able to go to court and argue against that before it happens. secondly, he says that under the current law, the justice department has to make a certain showing to the government when

it got, for example, the e-mail records of james roens, tsen. as an aider, abetter and possibly a coconspirator. holder says he is not comfortable with that. he says that the law should be changed that makes that requirement. those are the two main areas where he says he wants to see changes and will support them. >> nicole wallace? >> a lot of history of attorney generals coming under a lot of political fire. does holder seem blindsided by that or is he war weary or what is his sort of -- they are not supposed to be political but he really has been the most political lightning rod in the obama administration of late. >> reporter: yes about that. he says that he has developed, he believes, a guinness book of world records thick skin. he says that some of the criticism is justified and he learns from it, but he says a great deal of it, he believes is

politically motivate. you've seen him push back in the second term when he is up on the hill. i think he does have the sense that a lot of it is politics and he does want to try to make a distinction between the two -- the differences between the two. >> mike barnicle? >> howard wolfson, let's get back to the fisa court that we were talking about. the way it works and the leaks having to do with the fisa court. as pete williams just referenced, this is just going to add to the burden of the attorney general in terms of where are all of these leaks coming from in various aspects of the government that is supposed to keep things quiet. >> look. i assume the white house will get asked today whether or not they are going to begin an investigation of journalists who may have participated in spreading this story. mr. green dwald who probing the story in "the guardian" will be be investigated now given what happens with fox and given what happened with the a.p. that will

be a very hot topic today. >> reporter: very briefly. number one, i was told last night definitely there will be a leak investigation but, number two, holder made it clear yesterday in talking about these previous leaks that the government has never gone after the reporters. that it doesn't want to prosecute reporters. it wants to get to the government people who leaked this information although sometimes it says it's necessary to look at both sides of the transaction. the prosecutorial focus is on the leakers and the government and not the reporters. >> i'm not sure it makes the reporters feel that much better. >> james rosen was described as a coconspirator and shouldn't make anybody in journalist feel particularly good. >> pete williams, thank you so much. howard, thank you as well. joe, it's a lot of different questions being raised today. fascinating conversation. >> it's been a fascinating conversation but if you want to know. every reporter needs to be worried because glenn greenwald

needs to be worried. has his phone records been seized by the government already? they have going to launch a investigation and we have a construct anybody who is critical of this government and brings information to the american people, that their phone records are being seized in indiscriminately by the federal government, they have a reason to be worried that the feds and the justice department is now coming after them. this is not an overreach. there is -- there is connective tissue that goes from one story to another story to another story and it's painting a fairly bleak picture, not only as howard said for civil libertarians but for middle class americans who don't believe the federal government should have this much power. >> a good point. howard, i won't let you respond, t.s., okay some. a new report reveals

surprising details about the use of drone strikes. why the united states government may not know as much as you think exactly who is being targeted. nbc news richard engel has the tails next on "morning joe." ♪ this day calls you.

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there is new information today about the military's controversial drone program classified intelligence reports show u.s. officials may have ordered strikes in pakistan without fully knowing their target's identity. joining us now is nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel with more on this. good morning. >> good morning. we reviewed some documents that suggested that while a lot of intelligence goes into picking targets and people scrutinize over data, they watch locations for days, some times months at a time, when you look at the actual documents, you realize there are flaws in it and they don't know exactly who they are killing all of the time. look at the tall man in white flanked by body guards. experts say it's osama bin laden in afghanistan one year before 9/11 in footage captured by the predator drone mish but the

drone isn't armed but a year later drones are with rockets. 49 drone strikes under president bush. more than 300 under president obama. >> conventional air power or missiles are far less precise than drones and are likely to cause more civilian casualties. >> reporter: but does the u.s. always know who drone strikes are actually killing? nbc news has examined classified documents detailing 114 drone strikes in pakistan in 2010 and 2011. locations, death tolls, adbut ty reveal like how many killed between 7 and 10 in one strike and 20 to 22 in another. u.s. officials do seem certain they almost never kill civilians. in those 114 strikes, only one acknowledged civilian casualty. >> they want to maintain the

myth that drones are not -- sqha what is more a quarter of those are described generically as, quote, other militants and suggested that u.s. officials don't always know exactly how many or who they are killing. sometimes targeting suspects based on what is called a signature terrorist profile. where they live, who they neat, who they talk to. several senior official have told nbc news they had concerns about signature strikes. one told us the u.s. sometimes execute people based on circumstantial evidence but many insist drones are far more precise than conventional attacks and they work with a proven track record against al qaeda. >> it's been a tremendous step forward in military technology. it's combined the capabilities of surveillance strike and long endurance all in one platform. >> reporter: drones are part of war now. but determining from afar who is

a terrorist remains less precise than the weapons used to kill them. >> for balance, tell me the pluses, richard. but then also the questions this raises which is a long list. >> the pluses are these are very precise weapons and the weakness is generally in the targeting. at the end of the day, you know, people don't -- guns don't kill people. it's people who operate the drones who do it. they are more clearly precise than conventional weapons and they have done an enormous amount of damage to al qaeda. the problem is they are operating in this completely secret vacuum. you can't know anything about them. when we ask about them, we are told basically what drones? and that is a problem. they are not operating in any kind of open way. and you saw in the piece. there is a hole in the logic. these documents show we don't know exactly how many people are being killed which is understandable. you're firing from above. you don't know who is in the house or not.

you don't know exactly who they are, but we somehow know who they are not. and there is -- that doesn't hold up. >> i have to let nicole wallace who is jumping at the bit. >> i'm in an incredibly uncomfortable position of wanting to defend the tactic that the obama administration is employing. we are still at war and that is uncomfortable. the whole notion we don't know anything, we never know the details about war before an attack and i'm just curious what makes you so uncomfortable? i mean, we're getting bad guys. we are not targeting -- as you said, these are incredibly precise tartings. presidents choose between bad choices and worse choices and obviously the worse choice would be an indiscriminate bombing but these targets aren't hit. aren't they posing a threat to our troops? >> so pose ago threat to the troops. we spoke to a senior white house official and there are two kinds of drone strikes. one is a personality strike, so

you're going after a known individual. >> someone on our list? >> pablo escobar or someone on our list. a known bad guy and you follow him and you kill him. the other are signature strikes where you follow patterns of life, patterns of behavior, who they are, where they are operating, who they are talking to, the kind of locations they are visiting and you strike based on the sum total of that kind of data you've gathered. a lot of these signature strikes are taking place in the border area with afghanistan so they are people who look like militants and act like militants and hang out with other militants, some of whom are known, and in some cases are heading toward afghanistan. white house officials told us that this -- a lot of this has to do with forced protection, that these are people who would otherwise be going toward afghanistan to carry out attacks against u.s. troops in that country and that as u.s. troops numbers go down in afghanistan, so will the need for these kind

of attacks where, at the end of the day, they don't really know the names of of the people that are killed. >> aside the morality, what about the national security implications? the fact we are actually being made less safe because we are stirring up so much hatred of civilians especially civilian deaths no matter what the white house is saying. >> that is a much harder question to answer. this report was pretty limited in its scope. it was just basically not trying to cast morale it's on drones and if they are causing more civilian deaths or not. it was pointing out the whole logic. you don't know how many. you don't know exactly who they belong to. yet, you claim to know with absolute precision who they are not and that is a problem. the secrecy that you're not allowed to know about these things. the u.s. claims that they are just another weapon of war. when people die because of an air strike by an aircraft is there a system in place and you can about it and even knows about it. when you ask what happens when a

drone strike took place, they answer, what drone strike. >> iched richard engel, thank y much. up next, rick stengel joins us. people join angie's list for all kinds of reasons. i go to angie's list to gauge whether or not the projects will be done in a timely fashion and within budget. angie's list members

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♪ 44 past the hour. a lot of look at washington, d.c. on this sort of hazy thursday morning. welcome to "morning joe." >> hey, mika. >> yeah? >> happy birthday to carly! your daughter turns -- what she turn? 19, 20? >> i think she thinks she is 35 but she turns 15 and we got her ears pierced yesterday.

how good am i to wait this long? >> they grow up so fast. >> yes, they do but thank you for that. joining us now, joe, we have "time" managing editor rick stengel here to reveal the latest issue of "time." beautiful. >> look at this cover. it is gorgeous. tell us about it, rick. it is stunning. >> i think it is the most beautiful cover we have done in our history. it's the world according to china. pegged to the talks between the president of china and president obama. the cover is by i way way who did it from his studio in beijing. he is on trial with the government. it's a paper cut. ancient chinese technique of paper cutting. the flowers represent happiness and prosperity. that is in the shape of china and that emanates from the spot on the globe where china is. since the story is how china proceeds itself and looks at the world, he says this is china's conception of itself.

china is the idea of the chinese is that they have been the central kingdom and middle kingdom on the planet for millenni millennium. the last few centuries because of oppression they are down. president is a little more aggressive than his predecessor. he wants to create a new super power relationship which is interesting but we will see what happens. >> how do you create a new super power relationship between china and the united states when they seem obsessed with trying to tap into every financial system we have, every military system we have and steal secrets from us? they have temporary cell phones. how do we grow this relationship? >> i am certain that is one of

the topics being discussed by president xi and president obama. how that happens in a relationship, i don't know. but more and more, china and the u.s. are tied by a thousand strings. they will become eventually our largest trading pattern and probably supersede the size of the u.s. economy some time in the next 20 years. there are many, many things that are worth negotiating and many reasons that we need to come to some kind of understanding. >> what is interesting, rick, is that during the bush years, there was a lot more debate around china's human rights violations than there is now. why is that? >> well, it's a good question. i don't know the premise is exactly true, but, obviously, obama has talked about it and the whole administration has talked about a pivot towards asia and tom donilon said the fact he is most proudest is

asia's policy. we are not so much enemies but competitors and when you're doling with a competitor whose success is in part dependent upon your own and fuels your own success. >> turn a blind eye? >> i wouldn't say that necessarily but maybe it's not emphasized as much. >> do you think this is the most read article in your magazine this week? my husband is a miami fan so i have to give a shout-out to lebron. a lot of see him as not just a sports einstein but a brilliant mind. >> the peace by sean gregory is about this idea of genius among athletes and that lebron james is in fact, a genius by pretty much any definition you want. no it's not that he is solving physics evasions quations on pa he is in the air.

>> there is nonverbal communication. he is the greatest player in the world right now. >> i certainly think so. >> plus, he is a marketing genius. he has a deal with the fenway sports group who own the boston red sox and it's marketing and he is marketing genius. >> can i tell what he does? efficient time we invite him to the "time" 100 and every year, he sends me a handwriting note that he can't come because he's in the playoffs. >> the new cover story of "time" magazine, the world according to china. rick stengel, thank you. it is truly beautiful. how jfk's leadership in the civil war shaped the american foreign policy for decades. dr. jeffrey sachs is here with his new book. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. the secret is out. hydration is in.

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good morning. it's 8:00 on the east coast. 5:00 on the west coast. k wake up now. you know you can. take a live look at new york city. it's thursday. back on secretary, we have nicole wallace, and from washington "the new york times" reporter jeremy peters. joe, we have a lot to get to this morning. i'm looking at the front page of

"the new york times." look at this picture. no matter what you think about these choices politically, i think it's kind of amazing to see samantha power and susan rice, two top foreign policy positions being filled. president obama choosing two women who by the way happen to have very young children from ages 1 to into high school between the two of them. so kind of a momentous occasion on that level. we're talking a lot about women today because i'm hosting the women's conference we've been talking about all week. we have great news, joe. we raised over $1 million for women's groups. 1 million before the conference even started. >> that's fantastic. a lot of people -- congratulations on that. looking forward to the conference today. a lot of people waiting to see what the response would be in washington, d.c. from republicans that susan rice got appointed. obviously there was a lot of

criticism. interestingly enough, john mccain, kelothers that have bee critical for her because of what she said on the sunday shows over benghazi saying they disagreed with her but they were going to work with her and do whatever they could to make sure that there was a good relationship between the hill and them. that is great news. also some other big events today of course. your daughter's 15th birthday. holy cow. that's huge. >> it is. >> she's also in the history books, she was born on the momentous day as it's the anniversary of d-day when the allies stormed across the shores of normandy beach and omaha beach and i got to tell you, i went over there with tom brokaw, phil griffin and others back on the 60th anniversary. can't believe it's been nine years now. and it was so remarkable

watching these young gis now in their 70s, 80s, walk through the streets of those normandy towns and have young children come up with flowers saying thank you for making me free. the french especially in that region still remembered. the men would break down crying. it was one of the most moving things i had ever seen. just a remarkable story. of course they began their march to berlin that liberated all of europe from hitler and gnatsnaz. >> sadly on this day in 1968, one of my big political heroes, bobby kennedy passed away. he was shot the day before after winning the california primary and then the next day on this day in 1968 he died. bobby kennedy, a remarkable man. it was a remarkable campaign that ignited a lot of forces

that had not been together. bobby kennedy more than any other politician in our time. you talk about an evolution from where he was in the 1950s to where he was in 1968 and that remarkable short campaign. it's a campaign that many historians look back at and one of the greatest speeches, jeff greenfield who is a speech writer for bobby kennedy said one of the greatest speeches he ever gave and one of the reasons bobby kennedy was my political hero was what he did the night martin luther king was assassinated on april 4th, 1968. he went into indianapolis when he was told to stay away. the police said they wouldn't escort him into indianapolis and into the inner city of indianapolis because there would be too much violent. bobby kennedy went in and gave one of the most remarkable speeches. as jeff greenfeld said, it was

the best speech ever and speech writers hated him because nobody wrote it for bobby. he wrote it himself. he said tonight let's do what martin luther king would have us do and let us move forward in peace and that night cities all across america burned. that night indianapolis went to sleep in peace. it was because of one man, bobby kennedy. and bobby kennedy taught a lot of people that if you have moral courage you can in his words bend history itself and it's an opportunity that we never really got to see bobby kennedy do. he still inspires so much politicians on both sides of the aisle because he was such a remarkable man. >> we'll get to more politics of today in just a moment. first, two other stories making headlines this morning. we'll begin in philadelphia where firefighters made a

remarkable rescue of a 61-year-old woman who was trapped in the rubble of a deadly building collapse for 13 hours. look at that. six people were killed. another 14 injured when the structure suddenly came tumbling down. rescuers used buckets and bare hands to remove debris and onlookers joined in the frantic rescue as well after hours of searching. the surviving woman reached out and grabbed the hand of a firefighter. the four-story building was in the process of being demolished when it toppled on a salvation army thrift shop next door open for business. the search and rescue operation continued through the night to see if anyone else was trapped inside. we'll keep you posted on that. a federal judge has overruled health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius ordering her to suspend government rules to allow a 10-year-old to go on an adult donor list for a critical organ

transplant. sarah murnaghan has cystic fi fibrosis which badly damaged her lungs. there are few children's lungs available for transplants and as a government rule, she's not allowed to be on an adult donor list. earlier this week sebelius resisted recalling the rules. >> the rules that are in place and there on a regular basis are there because the worst of all words in my mind is to have some individual pick and choose who lives and who dies. i think you want to process where it's guided by medical science. >> with the court's ruling, murnaghan has a better chance to be matched with a donor. kathleen sebelius says there are many patients waiting for an

adult lung donor. we'll follow that. a horrible position that she was in as well. also this morning, a disturbing report of an unprecedented collection of phone data from millions of americans by the federal government. according to the british newspaper "the guardian" the obama administration is conducting a massive domestic surveillance program which requires verizon to provide the national security agency with telephone information on "ongoing and daily basis" including domestic calls and communications between the u.s. and other countries. the order was issued by the secret foreign intelligence surveillance court and granted the government unlimited authority to collect data over a three-month period ending on july 19th of this year. the actual content of the calls are not recorded but the government does track the phone numbers, location data and the length of the conversation. now, nbc news does not have independent confirmation of the

report or the legitimacy of the document at this point. the order falls under a controversial section of the patriot act which allows the government to make these types of requests from the telephone carriers. however, "the washington post" reports this appears to be a rubber stamp order, one that is reissued routinely. the white house, justice department and verizon have declined to comment on this story. joe, would you like to comment on this story? >> i'm telling you, it's just one more story that has come out that i think again hurts the obama administration by feeding in to this belief that this government is too big, too massive. it plays right into the hands of the president's political opponents. let's look at the check list. so we've got the nsa, the federal government seizing our phone records. i'm on verizon.

they have seized all of my, you know, phone records and everybody else's. it's frightening to everybody. the justice department of course we found out approved going after journalists' phone records. the irs obviously being accused right now of targeting political opponents of the administration. willie geist, it feeds into this narrative of the republicans and of tea party members. it is hard taken in totality to actually put together a worse narrative for a progressive president and progressive white house on the eve of the president's health care plan being fully implemented. it's hard to come up with a worst narrative for them politically. >> great piece of reporting in "the guardian" relentless on

this issues regardless of who is in the white house. that's the first thing to say. what's exceptional and unusual about this, it's under the patriot act. they granted the fbi permission to do this. what's unusual is the unlimited scope of it. the fact that they are just taking it all. it's not targeted. not looking at specific people asking for their phone records. this is to say over three-month period beginning in late april extending through the end of july that the government gets all of the phone records from verizon and we don't know as is pointed out in the piece if there are other phone records handing over their data. we were talking about this. you had a different take on it. >> it renders ludicrous that barack obama ran as the anti-george w. bush because he's now accelerated and intensified almost every single anti-terror policy ever imagined by the bush administration. on the face i'm not offended by

steps that we take to look for people doing bad things. if you wouldn't call anyone dodgy, i wouldn't worry about them looking at your records but the notion this man ran the anti-bush is now completely ridiculous. >> no matter what you think of whether or not this is a good idea and protects our national security, as a candidate the president was against this, was he not? >> i think what this really is -- this is a story about the bipartisan security state. it was during the bush years that they became a big controversy in 2006 when it came out that after 9/11 in the wake of the enactment of the patriot act the bush administration was doing bulk collection of phone records. the extra thing the bush administration was doing was listening in without a warrant and without going through a court on phone calls that involved a domestic party and international party. the big controversy last decade was you should go through court to do that. that got resolved. what we didn't know until now was from that point forward very possibly the bulk collection of

phone records was continuing. very possibly through the bush years. very possibly through the obama court. we only know from this report that it's verizon. we don't know if this is more phone carriers or a three-month order only or a rolling ongoing thing. it strongly suggests that this really is the unbroken off continuation of 12 years of post- 9/11 policies and it becomes a bipartisan thing. this idea of a bipartisan security state is real. that's what this is telling us. > > >> joe? >> it's a bipartisan security state. historians won't look at george w. bush as a guy that had one separate set of policies and barack obama as president had another. jeremy peters, it is continuous. there are though, it seems, whether you talk about drone poli policy, which nbc has a report we'll get to in a minute or what we learned in this report about

seizing the massive amounts of phone records. or you look at how reporters are being tracked. it seems like the obama administration has amped up so many parts of the bush security state. what do you expect to hear on the hill from republicans today? >> i think it's going to be really -- they have to be very careful. it's a tricky argument they are making. when the bush administration was pursuing these policies, these policies that set in place the laws that are now allowing obama to do this, i don't think you heard much complaint about it. for now -- if they're to come out now and say this is the government overreaching and one more example of the obama administration kind of run amuck and extending too deeply into your lives, i think that may ring false and disingenuous with a lot of people. >> still ahead, jonathan alter joins the political roundtable and up next to move the world. dr. jeffrey sacks has a new

book. a lasting precedent for the american initiative on the world stage. but first, here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> all eyes on our tropical storm. warnings are out. strength at 60-mile-per-hour winds. it's getting closer to the florida coastline. now 162 miles due west of the tampa area. on radar, the trouble right now is a lot of these storms that have been forming have had little weak tornadoes with them. we've had numerous reports of these weak tornadoes, damaging carports. we're going to deal with that over the florida peninsula during the day today. one with a band to the north of miami around coral springs and south of the port saint lucie area. that will be the thing to watch. the forecast for this storm is a

small storm and weak. by 8:00 p.m. it should be over the top of savannah, georgia. by 8:00 a.m. friday morning over the top of the raleigh-durham area. weaker by that point. a big rainmaker. your friday forecast for morning drive looks like a soaking drive from new york city down to d.c. and then by friday night, the center of the storm pretty much over the top of the jersey shore. again, it's a very weak storm. not going to do beach damage. no wind damage. a lot of rain friday night up in new england. the good news for everyone is it looks like it is gone by the time we get to saturday. that's the official forecast here from the hurricane center. gone by the weekend. a big rainmaker. we shouldn't have too much damage. as you can see from clearwater beach in florida, the surf is up. no damage expected. just a rainy day in florida. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. many people are struggling with issues related to mental health.

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>> both the united states and it's allies and the soviet union and its allies have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in holding the arms race. if we cannot end now our difference, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity for in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. we all breathe the same air.

we all cherish our children's futures and we are all mortal. >> 50 years ago president john f. kennedy made a push for peace in the middle of the nuclear arms race and here with more on that credit moment of history, dr. jeffrey sachs. author of a new book out today "to move the world jfk's quest at peace." you say that commencement address was one of the most important speeches it not the most in the modern presidency. explain why that was a game changer? >> you listen to those words and every time i hear the words for in the final analysis our most basic common link is we all inhabit this small planet, he brought the world together in a realization we had to pull ourselves back from the nuclear abyss.

this was just months from the cuban missile crisis. the feeling in the world was we're going to war. it's inevitable. the cold war will become the hot war. there's no way to make peace. the u.s. did not believe you could make peace with the soviet union. untrustworthy. no way there could be a partner on the other side. soviets felt the same way. kennedy found a way through. it's the most amazing act of presidential leadership in modern times in my view because it was so decisive for the world's survival. >> unifying in many ways. not only had an impact emotionally to those there. >> what's unbelievable is a speech could make such a difference because kennedy showed such empathy in the speech he talked about the russia people having great virtue and he appealed to the russian people to their courage and virtue and their success and

their culture. and khrushchev heard this speech and said it's the finest speech by an american president since fdr. i want to make peace with that man. seven weeks later the nuclear test band treaty. it's an incredible story actually. it was a world changing story but the words were so per persuasive. these are human beings on each side and we share a common difference. even if we can't now end our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity and the insight is stunning. and the success is stunning. what i also like so much about these events, kennedy was not only a soaring visionary at that

moment but a politician. he had to pass it through the senate. how are we going to get two-thirds vote in the senate when hardliners will be yelling. he got 80 votes in the senate at a time of the height of the cold war changed history. >> mike barnicle? >> what's additionally truly impressive about a series of speeches that the president gave that are in this book over a period of ten months or a year is context of the times. at the time these things occurred, you're not thinking about the times that we're living in but this speech -- the american university speech is given within 18 or 19 months of the time when supposedly he had kennedy cowered. it occurred as you just pointed out several months after the cuban missile crisis at a time when americans and i was a very young american at that time thought it inevitable that we would have a war with russia and

yet this speech changed both the context of the times and the direction of the world. >> you know, there's no doubt the cuban missile crisis, which was a haeartbeat away from globl destruction, changed kennedy from a young and inexperienced president to a historic statesman and on the other side khrushchev had the same reaction. they had responsibility not only as leaders two individuals to save the world and both of them showed really remarkable statesmanship and this period from october '62, the cuban missile crisis, through the signing of the test band treaty is one of the most remarkable periods of presidential leadership you can find in u.s. history. it is an incredible story. like you say, americans were so pessimistic at the time, kennedy's great speech which is

the 50th anniversary next monday, people should really listen to it and learn from it and just thrill to the words. he had to overcome this profound pessimism. he said first let us examine our own attitude toward peace. too many of us think it impossible and unreal. that's a dangerous defeatist belief leading to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed and we're gripped by forces we cannot control. we need not accept that view. our problems are man-made and therefore they can be solved by man. breathtaking. >> what's breathtaking is that it's so relevant. if you had to transport these moments to the times we live in now, what is the modern day corollary? >> the thing for me is that kennedy wanted to make peace from the first days of his

administration but it didn't happen. they were adrift. after the cuban missile crisis, kennedy understood in the american system and with voices shouting from all sides, you need presidential leadership purely. >> that sounds familiar. >> you need to lead. he led. and he knew that this would be unpopular and he knew that he actually at the end had to pass it through the senate. he was so attentive to the details. he was counting the votes. it was war and politics and statesmanship. he said i can't give this away to the aids. this isn't getting an adviser here or focus group there. it's leadership. that's the lesson for today. the vision, the idea that a leader can shape a new reality of the kind that the world wants and then you have to be active and lead. it's not good enough to give a speech. the book is about the speeches but about turning the speeches

into a reality of a treaty. that's hard work. it's day-to-day politics. >> the book is to move the world. jfk's quest for peace. fantastic. stay with us if you can. we'll continue the conversation here on "morning joe." up next, steve rejoins the table along with jonathan alter for the "morning joe" political roundtable. we'll be right back. can acne cleansers be tough on breakouts and be good for your face? [ female announcer ] now there's new neutrogena® naturals acne cleanser. acne medicine from the wintergreen leaf treats breakouts. no parabens or harsh sulfates. for naturally clear skin. [ female announcer ] neutrogena® naturals.

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>> susan rice claims that she reads the classifieds daily. if she reads the classifieds daily, she couldn't have been so wrong over benghazi. >> how will they have authority for people to believe what they're saying when he's promoting someone who directly and deliberately misled the public over benghazi? >> it's curious they would choose ambassador rice as national security adviser only because she's such a political lightning rod now. >> welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now political analyst jonathan alter, the author of the new book "the center holds obama and his enemies" and back with us the host of msnbc's "up"

jeff kornacki. susan rice is controversial for a lot of reasons. you heard darrell issa. and another sees it differently. his use of loyalists such as rice in many cases to replace more independent figures contradicts the wisdom of obama himself who in 2008 spoke of emulating abraham's lincoln's cabinet. he's in his comfort zone with loyalists such as mcdonough who the president described as one of my closest and most trusted advisers.

the scene in the rose garden looked like a family reunion. i wonder about that jonathan alter. when you look at susan rice's record and samantha power, they differ from the president on a lot of levels in their approach to foreign policy. >> it's hard for me to believe that samantha power has, you know, no objections to this policy of nonintervention in syria. she'll have to represent the united states in the united nations with a view i don't know for sure but i would imagine she at least has qualms about because she's been for humanitarian intervention in every situation. but as dana points out, this is a big theme of the kind of white house chapters of my book, the noncampaign parts of my book, this is a president who gets uncomfortable when he's out of his comfort zone and his comfort zone involves being surrounded

by people with whom he is familiar, comfortable and they are more junior to him. the consistent theme here is that he doesn't have what are sometimes called big men, big women, hillary clinton being an exception, who can really challenge him as peers. all of these folks, rice, power, right on down the list, these are junior to him. they are not really what you would consider to be in his direct peer group. that's a potential problem a president. >> it is hard for me -- almost impossible for me to believe that samantha power and susan rice would not stand up and articulate their differences. >> i'm making a different point. both of them are very outspoken. they will both give the bad news to the president. i'm not saying he's being surrounded by yes men and women. i'm making a slightly different point about how he needs to get

into a place where his thinking is disrupted a little by people that he isn't immediately comfortable with. >> leadership. >> dr. sachs, i think susan rice would bulldoze through any conversation if she felt she was right and someone else is wrong. i know that of her. the foreign policy team as a whole and i'll say something that perhaps those i'm talking about wouldn't appreciate me saying. i think it's important. when you look at the makeup of the team, the fact that we now have two women is a very important approach to bring to the table. >> i think first of all this is an extremely strong team with secretary of state kerry who is one of our most seasoned leaders in the united states, world respected and we've seen cameo appearances all over the world because i've traveling and been seeing him at various conferences and summits and meetings and with susan rice and samantha power, this is a very strong, very experienced team.

i think we should breathe a sigh of relief that it's so experienced. it's a treacherous and trickery time. >> a bright team. samantha powers is a brilliant person and susan rice is a formidable person. i don't want to be -- >> i'm going to agree with that. >> i am not opposed to these appointments. i was trying to reemphasize some of dana's point and the president gets to his second term and he can be a little bit in your face with the congress and put the people that he wants in there but i hope that he reaches outside of his circle and both figures were in his inner circle for years. >> let's switch gears a bit. on this day in 1968, you're a young man now, steve. you were a younger man then. on this day in 1968, robert f. kennedy was shot and killed in los angeles. what are your impressions of that era, that age, that man,

the country that we lived in then? >> it's fascinating. i'm a fan of "mad men." this is the year of 1968. the bobby kennedy story has been in the backdrop all year on "mad men." it's interesting to hear the characters, left of center characters on "mad men" talk about bobby kennedy in that area. we look back at bobby kennedy in 1968, and he was at great liberal hope against lbj and the democratic president and all of that. it was more complex because actually the real great liberal candidate in '68 was eugene mccarthy. you pick up on that watching "mad men." there was resentment of bobby kennedy coming in by that point when kennedy had won the california primary, it looked like bobby kennedy was going to be the democratic nominee in chicago.

i talked about this earlier. it is this great unanswered question of what would have happened if bobby kennedy had lived because if hubert humphrey could have come as close as he did to beating richard nixon as he did that fall, it's hard for me to believe bobby kennedy would not have beaten richard nixon that fall and that period, 1968 to 1972, imagine how different that would have been kennedy versus nixon. >> i was 14. i will never forget that day. that was my first political love affair. kennedy's magnetism was unbelievable and to this point to instill that emotion not just of the assassination but of what kennedy meant for a young person in that time, the hope, the determination to solve problems, the ability to go into a crowd of poor people and talk to them about the hope and raising the spirits in america, something that stays with you a lifetime. >> i was 11. i can remember it like it was

yesterday. just to pick up a little bit on your point, there was something else that was additional dimension to bobby kennedy that went across party lines. this is not very well remembered. >> and national lines. international. >> everywhere. >> and very appealing to some blue collar conservatives who then went into the republican party after kennedy died. >> and joe, jump in. i know that you have a couple of different ways that his leadership affected you and really kind of drives the thinking that you bring to the table when you look at leadership today. >> you know, bobby kennedy's remarkable political figure looking back, i want to go back and touch on something jonathan alter just said. you know, i work closely with joe kennedy when he was in congress. we wanted to rename the justice department after bobby. then when he retired, i worked with joe and a variety of other people and we finally got it

done. eventually. you know, as i talked to joe kennedy and talked to the kennedy family, i was struck how through the years they would always come back to me and we would talk about bobby. i think because they knew i was the staunch conservative that i was and then i was from the south. the one thing we've never been able to understand is why this great liberal hero after he died saw so many of his votes transfer to george wallace in the primaries. and wallace, of course -- i know that's what you were talking about, jonathan alter, right there. the fact is 1968 bobby kennedy was an insurgent. he was running against a federal government that seemed to be out

of control and he did, you're right, he spoke to blue collar whites and african-americans. there's a remarkable biography of bobby talking about that terrible, terrible train ride that was carrying bobby to washington d.c. >> he was concerned. >> talked about how there were whites on one side of the track and poor whites on one side of the track, african-americans on other sides of the track. they had come together from two different worlds to watch bobby kennedy and the last train ride and said when bobby kennedy's train went out of sight, they turned around and they went back to their own worlds and there is yet to be a politician since 1968, june 6th, 1968, that could bring americans together, poor whites and african-americans together like he did. >> there were two scenes that i would just bring to people's attention. one was in indianapolis on the

night that martin luther king died. just a couple months before bobby kennedy's assassination and it was bobby kennedy who told the crowd of african-americans that king was dead. you could hear the moans and the gasping and then he delivered a brilliant impromptu speech that prevented any rioting in indianapolis and there was a lot of rioting after king's assassination in other cities and for white blue collar workers in the last week of his life he spoke against welfare dependency in california. he was not one of those bleeding heart liberals down the line going back to his earlier political profile. >> i would tell you quickly to have witnessed some of those things in gary, indiana, or indianapolis or los angeles and watts, i think it was because both groups of people, poor, whites in gary indiana, steel

workers, poor blacks in los angeles, they knew that they recognized in him a figure who had been hurt by life. who has had his own life diminished by loss and who knew, had a sense of what their lives were all about being diminished and having lost things. that was a huge, huge attraction for both groups of people toward robert f. kennedy. >> you nailed it. >> there were so many people that followed him around in the 1968 campaign that said that bobby, wherever he went, he was followed by the ghost of his brother. that had hung so heavy on his heart. and i think you're exactly right. the compassion that he showed not only the '68 campaign but in 1966 in cape town, south africa, talking to a young group of students againwhen his own stat department didn't want them to go there talking about how one person could make a difference

and we could bend history. a remarkable message then. and it's remarkable message this morning still. >> it is. you know, i think of the conversations we've had in the office among friends about what makes success in business and what makes success in politics and what makes success for our country, it often is one person. you can have a lot of great people but if you don't have one who can really lead and that's in some ways the message of your book too as well. it doesn't happen. jonathan alter, thank you very much. your new book, "the center holds obama and his enemies" and dr. jeffrey sachs, your book out today. steve kornacki, we'll see you on the weekend on "up" at 8:00 a.m. eastern. we'll be back with much more "morning joe." this day calls you.

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47 past the hour. live look at the white house. pentagon investigators have uncovered the source of the national security leak that found its way into an oscar nominated hollywood screen play. former cia director leon panetta reportedly revealed the name of the commander in charge of the raid on osama bin laden's compound. he apparently disclosed the name during a 2011 ceremony attended by "zero dark 30" screenwriter. a source close to panetta said he didn't know a member of the general public was in attendance. the report did not accuse panetta of wrongdoing but under the federal law the commander's name was supposed to remain confidential. a report in "the l.a. times" says hollywood producers "buttered up government officials who wanted to see their roles glamorized in the film" there were promises of

"real l.a. lunch and they were given special access in washington after the white house signed off on the project." joe? >> wow. mike barnicle, i don't know what to say here other than this investigation was launched supposedly it was completed a year ago and they have not allowed it to see the light of day in over a year. not very comforting signs of our federal government willing to be buttered up by hollywood types and then spitting out confidential information. >> i know. you know, i am the director of the central intelligence agency. what do you want to know? can i have an autograph? not very comforting. >> and if i get an autograph, i will give you the name of the man that led the raid on osama bin laden. i mean -- >> i hope he did something

better than an autograph. like he got a red carpet appearance or the oscars. i hope he got something better than that. >> special lunch. >> i do find it hard to believe that this would have happened. i don't know. >> i feel like we're missing something. >> leon is -- i don't understand this. >> isn't there other stuff in that movie they don't know how they got it? that's disturbed everybody in d.c. >> and this really -- this really underlines the fact -- i'm sorry, mike. it underlines the fact that this white house and it's what i was critical of in 2012 and my words have been wretched from proper context because people want to try to make political points, we were all complaining in 2012, this white house leaked information during the campaign when it suited their purposes. and now they are investigating and have been investigating reporters trying to criminalize

jou journalism according to "the new york times," this sheds another terrible light on a white house whose idea of protecting classified information varies on whether they paint them in a positive light or not. coming up, david letterman takes on new allegations of doping by new york yankee alex rodriguez. the best of late night is next. i turned 65 last week.

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welcome back to "morning joe." time to talk about what we learned today. learned so much. i don't know where to start. what did you learn? >> i'll have to stick with my theme of the day of women in power starting at the white house but also with the women's conference i'm hosting today. the third metrics redefining success beyond money and power. we'll bring you highlights here on "morning joe." i'm very excited about it. we raised a million dollars for women's organizations so far. what did you learn? >> i learned with phone records i'm going to go old school