that's what has the to change. >> david axelrod. what's interesting. a lot of messages sound a lot like barack obama before he was president. right? somebody who seemed or felt to be more of a progressive at his core, who obviously in trying to compromise with republicans in a lot of ways disappointed the liberal base. you know, barack obama, abut as -- about as well as anybody. is the core of the person who sits in the white house more like a de blasio than he has been able to show as president of the united states? >> i think that, he is some one who cares deeply about the issues that i raised earlier. if you go back to -- through out his political career. activities and rhetoric. how do we create an economy. people who are poor can work their way up. middle-class is growing, thriving. the central theme of his political career. i would argue he has done within the context. a lot within his presidency to promote this. health care reform itself is part of that expanding pell grants is part of that. refundable tax credits. child care tax credit. all par

david gregory, the moderator of "meet the press" on sunday's on nbc, and david axelrod is a former senioriser to president obama and an msnbc senior analyst. david, i want to start with you. as a democrat, it seems to me that the democrats are enjoying this for the reasons i would suspect is that they suspect he might be the toughest republican candidate for president in a general election. he gets knocked off, then they only have to face at best maybe scott walker, if jeb bush gets back in the game, of course, but probably face a right-winger who they think they can beat. >> you know, for all the reasons that very few republicans stood up, christie has some broader appeal as a candidate. he is somewhat independent of the kind of most strident right-wing voices in the party. just the day before he got into trouble signed a dream act in new jersey. these kinds of things enrage the base of the party. but they make him a more appealing candidate nationally. so yes, he was an attractive and may well yet be, chris. i'm not in the camp that says the guy is done. i think if any of these threads

and david axelrod. institute out there at the institute of chicago. >> thanks, chris. >>> up next, the christie bridge scandal has become gold for the late night comedians. no surprise there. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ male announcer ] the new new york is open. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to bold ideas. that's why new york has a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here and pay no taxes for ten years... we're new york. if there's something that creates more jobs, and grows more businesses... we're open to it. start a tax-free business at startup-ny.com. bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. fro

former senior adviser to president obama, david axelrod, writing on twitter, quote, christie handled it about as well as could, unless a smoking gun turns up, he lives to fight another day. joining me now with the key parts of what happened next. andrew mccarthy, political contributor for the review. and chris stirewalt, our fox news digital contributor, andy, let me start with you. because you, i think it is fair to say are a right-leaning person in your politics. and yet, you are critical of the governor in terms of the questions answered today in saying there are still many issues you think he has yet to address. what are they? >> well, i think he has to explain how it is that a couple of weeks ago he said that he put it to his team, to his aides, to give him a full explanation of what happened. and that they did, in fact, give him a full explanation. he was satisfied with that. and then when he was asked in a town hall forum what about this traffic study, which is supposed to be the thing that was the explanation, the counter-explanation, not the corrupt explanation for what happ

>>> coming up on "morning joe," former new york rare rudy giuliani and senator chris coons and david axelrod and david gregory will join the show. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. there's a saying around here, you stand behind what you say. around here you don't make excuses. you make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up, and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it when you know where to look. anncr vo: introducing the schwab accountability guarantee. if you're not happy with one of our participating investment advisory services, we'll refund your program fee from the previous quarter. while, it's no guarantee against loss and other fees and expenses may still apply, we stand by our word. lactaid® is 100% real milk? right. real milk. but it won't cause me discomfort. exactly, because it's milk without the lactose. and it tastes? it's real milk! come on, would i lie about this? [ female announcer

joining me is a man who knows a thing or two about threading the needle, david axelrod, msnbc and nbct, director of the university of chicago institute of politics and former senior adviser to president obama. david, i think this area of politics and policy is really fascinating because we are seeing just an absolutely historic level of change in public opinion. if you look at polling, support for legal marijuana now up to 55%. the only thing that is similar to this rapid change is marriage equality. what do you think the president is going to say tonight? what would you advise him to say if you were still in that white house? >> well, i don't know that he should expand on what he said before if he addresses this in his skpeepeech. i'm where you were at the beginning of, and for the first 15 minutes of your show. there is one overarching question facing this country which is how in a rapidly changing economy where so many people are being marginalized do we restore a sense that if you work hard, you can get ahead. if you work, you can earn a living wage. this to me is what americans a

>> joining us now for our political roundtable ari fleisher, former white house senior advisor david axelrody, david axelrod, thinking about you and your family. >> thank you, joe. >> with the passing of your mom. a remarkable woman and a real trail blazer in her own right. tell us about her. >> she was. my mom lived a good, long life. she was a reporter in the 1940s when very few women were big-city newspaper reporters. she was a pioneer on madison avenue. she was an advertising executive during the mad men era which wasn't easy for a woman. she was a trail blazer in qualitative research. she was one of the early pioneers in focus groups. and so, she did an awful lot in her life, and, you know, we're really, really proud of her and sad -- sad to not have her with husband anymore, she did it all. >> thanks for sharing that. >> an extraordinary life. david, let's move to politics, and specifically the president last night speaking with an awful lot of challenges, whether you look at the polls or look at the fact that any president six years in is going to be facing a certain tune-out factor.

there is something bad in the water. >> david axelrod has been good to me. i will take him out of your list at least i will. there is new over the irs targeting scandal. won't file any charges. they are furious, your reaction? >> this is unconscionable. you have to look at the fact that really this was not a very thorough investigation done whatsoever. it was done in the civil rights division. it was not done in the criminal division and, of course, i forget barbara -- i forget her last name, the lawyer that was brought in was a donor to president barack obama, that's kind of like asking the muslim brotherhood to investigate benghazi so for them the all of a sudden come up and say we were not going to have any charges there was wrongdoing. i saw letters that sent out to these groups. the president said he was going to get to the bottom of this. now, what this is showing is that there is a sense of lawlessness in this administration that, you know, places their ideology, their goals and objectives above of this of protecting the american people. >> the presid

dealing with ron emanuel and david axelrod, he understands the politics of it. >> let's talk about the politics. gates talks about how he was at ads with barack obama's controlling inner circle. he hasn't seen anything like it since kissinger and nixon. in one ex-cert he said: -- excerpt he said: >> i want to hear what you think general, and larry, you have both served in administrations. is this unusual as to how much politics determined national security decisions? >> well, i don't think it's surprising at all that in the first two years of an administration, especially for a president that ran on getting out of one war and trying to reform another, that there'll be that level of micromanagement coming from the west wing. that is something that i suspect secretary gates understood what happened at the beginning of administration. it's not something we want to see in public servants, that level of micromanagement done by nonelected, not even appointed politicians. it's a fact of life and shouldn't be surprising. i don't think that g secretary gates was overly harsh, but just acknowled

axelrod, david axelrod said this afternoon. you know what?bama never even knew who the lois learner is. the idea to handpick people. the ones who have all had to quit their jobs or been fired were all people he put in those jobs. obama didn't put these people in the irs. they're bureaucrats. >> and david axelrod said he didn't even know who she was. that's the big difference here. with bridgegate you had people who work directly with governor christie. with irs, you don't have anyone who is directly working with the president of the united states. and you certainly don't have the president of the united states directing the irs to go after tea party people. reince priebus and other republicans are throwing up irs, benghazi, and you want to throw in there the foul-up of the healthcare.gov roll-out. >> oh, fast and furious. let's get the whole list here. >> fast and furious. right. well, all of these things are throwing up, trying to, as joy said, you know, get the media to change, you know, focus their attention on other things. but it also is

there has never been an e-mail found from david axelrod or bill daily or rto suggest irs should investigatepolitical groups. i think that distinguishes these two quite a bit. >> go down the whole list. the total fiasco of the website after hundreds of millions of dollars leaving people in some states even today -- >> that was incompetence. >> who has been fired? >> more than incompetence. days before they were saying it is ready to roll. they knew it wasn't ready to roll. >> i think that was -- there was no one person saying we can't go, that it is not going to work. it was incompetence. this was political retribution. the remaithe e-mails say it was >> by the way, they were fired. he stepped in and fired them. let's say the people who advised the president to lie to the american people about obamacare, have they been fired? >> there is no evidence -- >> a lot of people have retired. >> a lot of people are retired. >> the contractor was fired over the holidays. >> you are doing a great job of defending chris christie tonight and i wish i could say there were a lot more people. you know who

david axelrod's mother passed this morning. an amazing woman.the 1960s, the mad men area, was one of the first vice presidents. and was known professionally to us as mrs. axelrod and was a real pioneer in both journalism and advertising. one of the first people to use focus groups. so, thoughts are with david axelrod this morning. >> absolutely. politico's mike allen. thank you. >>> what's driving today's market? cnbc's brian sullivan joins us for business before the bell. >>> plus bill gates is standing by in the green room with bold predictions in the fight against poverty. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ verizon innovators are creating air and soil sensor networks that help use water wisely, so american farms can keep growing for generations to come. because the world's biggest challenges deserve even bigger solutions. powerful answers. verizon. there was a boy who traveled to a faraway place where villages floated on water and castles were houses dragons lurked, giants stood tall, and the good queen showed the boy it could all be real.

it's convincing ram emmanuel, david axelrod, he's acknowledging that this is a fact of life. he didn't like it. i wonder how much he grappled with understanding how to get through it or whether this was a man where the politics surpassed his time. i think that's the case. both gates and panetta left office with scathing, scathing peaches about the state of washington, state of politics, and congress. >> maybe aside from his attack on congress is that he even though he says he's a big fan of former secretary of state hillary clinton and points out flattering things about her, there was one moment that he was clearly upset by, and she was with president obama, and he says, hillary told the president that her opposition to the 2007 surge in iraq had been political because she was facing him in the iowa primary. the president conceded vaguely that opposition to the iraq surge had been political. to hear the two of them making these admissions and in front of me was as surprising as it was dismaying. we reacted very strongly to that when we saw that here in our newsroom, general.

it's the equivalent of if the president to put it back in the first had to fire david axelrod or david plouffe, it's that sort of person who has been in charge of chris christie's political world. there's a reason why he was going to be simultaneously chairman of the new jersey republican party and chris christie's among his eyes and ears at the republican governor's association. to be in both places tells you everything you need to know. he was in charge in many ways. you have a few others also very important in the christie political operation, who apparently -- not a part of this it appears. but this is a -- this is a major shake-up in his political world. he's got his deputy chief of staff who some people describe as enforcer but the person who ran the state day to day. when i say that, meaning, made sure trainses were running on time then chief political person. it's a big shake-up in the christy worcris christie world. >> kelly o'donnell joins frus fm trenton. the enigma was why he dismissed the fact he did not ask questions of the people he fired, beyond they had lied to them, b

joining me now is heather mcgee and david axelrod. the new narrative, president obama is a tyrant. is it going to be effective? >> it's at war with reality. at times you wonder whether any execution of authority that he use, constitutional, authority is offensive to people who don't like the fact he's the president of the united states. he's been pretty modest in the use of some of the tools that are available to the president. i don't think the american people are going to be real interested in that. i think the american people want to see action. they want to see solutions to problems instead of game playing in washington and point scoring in washington. and if the president of the united states can act to move forward to move solutions to help people, then i think they're going to be all for that. >> it's amazing to me and audacious that the party that shut down the government is now accusing the president of being a tyrant. n nonetheless, there is this narrative out there. facts aren't really in the republican corner. obama's team is hoping and guessing that the public won't fe

opposition to iraq war had been political as surprising as it was dismake and former obama advisory david axelrod got up early top clear that up. >> it was vague and subjective, no allegation on the president's part, he was opposed to the war in iraq from the beginning. >> but bill isn't axelrod parsing words? >> that surge was massively unpopular. it proadvocated a huge outpouring of rage among democrats. it would have been crazy for either obama or clinton to have supported the surge. they would have been destroyed in the democratic party. i think surprising about what the author is writing here is hirl clinton he says without quoting her directly referred to that as a political move, that she opposed the surge for political reasons. there is no surge here and it was reported as secondhand. >> and perhaps the most brutal victim of this, i saw most of congress as uncivil, timely appropriations, micromanagerial, parochial, egotistical, thin skinned and prone to put self before country. wonder how he feels about congress? jim papa, brushed it off by saying gates was entitled to his opinion. but hi

book, i go through why that happened, who gave him the bad advice, the people i spoke to blamed david axelrod for telling obama to go big and to try to talk directly to the american people. it very clearly blamed mr. axelrod. there's another gentleman who advised the president to keep looking down at notes, who had been in the debate prep as well. then we go through -- >> who was that? >> michael sheehan. then we go through benghazi, inside the war room there, and end with the storm. >> what happened there with benghazi? >> well, i think -- >> inside the war room. what were they trying to manage? >> i think what happened was that the white house itself was looking at benghazi as part of a larger con fla grags in the middle east. we sort of seized on benghazi and focused on that. when they're in the war room over the next week or two after, they're thinking the entire middle east to central asia could go up in smoke. that's what they're concentrating on. once they realize that the ambassador is missing and likely dead, all of the sudden you have what would have been a bad, horrible situation b

david axelrod tweeted this about christie today.christie handled about as well as he could unless smoking gun turns up ping him to scheme or others arise he lives to fight another day. take a look at the real clear politics average for polls. these are polls as they are lining up right now. there you see the possible republicans and there are many others. i will get a lot of emails about. this take a look at this. chris christie against hillary clinton as it stands now in 2014. and this is before, obviously, bridge gate. we're back with the panel. chuck, what about the presidential implications. you know, this very day that this storm was breaking, the quinnipiac poll came out showing that in their sort of ratings of how warmly voters feel towards the various politicians that might run for president. chris christie came out as number one, the most warmly regarded of all the possibilities, substantially ahead of hillary clinton. and so there is this huge irony that this guy is literally hot in american politics. he is fresh off the t

david axelrod just tweeted out earlier, said that from the start christie could survive so long as no smoking gun leads to him. this could be it. now don zimmer the mayor of hoboken new jersey, she has had no reaction to this. the republicans have had no reaction yet. rnc on their twitter feed, no reaction. if you get something new and hot that pops up there, weigh us in. >> good to see you. you have read through the statement on the "new york times" web site. what is your reaction to this? >> listen, there is reason for euphoria in democratic circles if you want to see chris christie go down for this vengeful act. but, in fact, this says nothing about whether it was revenge and when you read into the governor's statement that was just read, it says that we had no prior knowledge. does that mean he didn't know it was going on beforehand and did he really tell the truth at the press conference? there are ways of him getting around. we are looking at a lawyer's posturing on behalf of david wildstein. lawyers are known to posture from time to time. >> can he survive if he is parsing lang

. >> somebody in the middle of a lot of what gates writes about was on today this morning, david axelrod and playing down all this stuff in the book. let me play that for you. >> the stories themselves are confusing, matt, because in it not only did he praise him for the bin laden raid, but that he made the right decisions on afghanistan, that he was a clear, thoughtful, decisive decision maker, so his big complaint was he thinks he wasn't personally in his heart committed to his own strategy, and i don't think that's true. >> he does point out, ron, that gates did compliment the president, calling the raid on osama bin laden one of the most courageous decisions i had ever witnessed in the white house. what's this all about, is it about selling books? how much is this going to be viewed, do you think, as some real insight into what goes on inside the obama white house? >> yeah, i might be old fashioned, but i just have a problem, whether it's a democrat or republican office, i have a problem with his or her advisers coming out of the white house and then trashing the president, especiall

david axelrod and top ready for hillary adviser will be here to talk about that. trivia question, before john kerry, who was the most recent catholic secretary of state? first person to tweet the correct answer, @chucktodd or @dailyrundown. [ female announcer ] who are we? we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all... with a signature. legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses, turning dreamers into business owners. and we're here to help start yours. [ male announcer ] new vicks dayquil severe. helps relieve your ugliest, nastiest, roughest, toughest cold symptoms. new dayquil severe. with maximum symptom fighting ingredients. ♪ new vicks nyquil severe. helps relieve your ugliest, nastiest, roughest, toughest nighttime cold symptoms. new nyquil severe. with maximum symptom fighting ingredients. ♪ we're gonna be late. ♪ ♪ ♪ oh are we early? [ male announcer ]

on the one hand, we have de blasio who wants to be more pragmatic and we saw david axelrod noting howon with de blasio helps to bolster that image and we have hillary clinton and the clinton family looking ahead to 2016. de blasio is a progressive champion and he has incredible credibility on the left. so i think that this is a marriage made in heaven, political heaven. >> when we talk about that, do you think that he can have influence politically beyond new york in a national capacity that could be helpful to a potential hillary clinton candidate? >> absolutely, de blasio is the income inequality focused progressive wing of the democratic party, he and elizabeth warren. if clinton doesn't run and she is associated with de blasio it gives her traction when it comes to rebutting a potential argument from the left that she isn't concerned about the income gap. >> i want to turn really quickly to get this in because this has a lot of people talking about edward snowden and the nsa leaker and the new york times calling on the govern to allow him to come home. he deserves better than a li

. >> now, former -- now, the former white house senior adviser, david axelrod, was a guest on the "today" show today. they asked him if he ever got the sense that former secretary gates seemed, in any way, disgruntled during his time as secretary of defense. here's how he responded. >> absolutely not. in fact, i was surprised when i saw the stories yesterday, because i always felt they had a good working relationship. he always indicated that he had a good working relationship with the president. >> now, of course, this all comes at a crucial times in terms of u.s. policy in afghanistan. we're now in 2014, which is the year that the combat mission there is expected to end. and chuck, it's still unclear whether any troops will remain there after this year. >> it certainly is. that's a matter that must be attended to. lea gabrielle, thank you. >>> newly published e-mails and text messages suggest that an aide to the new jersey governor, chris christie, knew about an apparent revenge plot against the mayor, who refused to endorse the governor for re-election. this has been big news in the t

. >> that, as david axelrod put it is the slam dunk of all time. >> rose: and you suggest the number may between somewhere between $15 million and $20 million. >> exactly. i know what both of us will get for our memoirs and that michelle obama has started work on hers and at this same age it was expected she'd get something like $12 million. as you know, presidential memoirs are -- it's premature to talk about in the obama's case. they're pretty bad, usually. they feel like products rather than books with the exception of grant and a couple others. even clinton's was terrific for about the first third of the book. once it gets to the presidency. >> rose: it's like reading his diary for the day. >> it's like a desk calendar. then we net king of bhutan. >> rose: do you know where he'll live? >> no, chicago or some place. >> rose: what did he not want to talk about? >> chris christie. i had a follow-up call as we were closing the piece to go over a couple subjects that i wasn't able to talk about on the record that i wanted to talk about the record, one or two things about foreign polic

here's david axelrod on "morning joe" and sean spicer appearing in the last hour with chris jansing. >> all right. >> if it looks like he was forthright, i thought he looked good in that press conference. if you were uninitiated watching that press conference, you'd say here's a guy standing up, taking responsibility, admitting faults. i think that he can survive this. >> governor christie took responsibility and showed what a leader does, and i think that's refreshing, and i think it's important that you see that that's what happens when republicans deal with situations. >> all right, our nbc news "first read" team writes christie's enemies, democrats and republicans, are ready to pounce. michael, do you think the crisis is going to get worse before it gets better? and i understand what sean spicer is saying, the governor did take responsibility, but that's taking responsibility because he's been exposed, because his top aides have been exposed. this is something that he laughed off and basically also demeaned reporters when asked about the severity of this issue, and just said, wha

>>> this morning on "today," former white house senior adviser david axelrod objected to the idea that the president was opposed to the iraq surge for political reasons. >> i'm not suggesting that he made things up to sell a book. but i think the language that he used, for example, on that iraq story was -- was vague and it was subjective. and it was -- there was no declaration on the president's part that he made that decision on a political basis. and there wouldn't have been. because, as i said, he was opposed to the war in iraq from the beginning. i'm not going to -- i'm not going to impugn him in any way. i'm just telling you from my experience, and i was rather close to the president when he was in the united states senate, that was absolutely not the case. >> as you can tell, this tap dancing around what to do about this gates memoir is fascinating. look at this statement from the white house that they put out last night from the national security council spokesperson. she writes, as as always been the case, the president welcomes differences of view among his national security

a tweet from david axelrod saying he handled about as well as you could, unless smoking gun turns upight another day. that's david axelrod. >> he was believable and convincing and then proceeded to then go to the mayor of fort lee and apologize in person. i think the fact that he went there after he had been hearing from someone in the press that he might not want to see you. he went there and say this is what is owed. they came out together. he and the mayor. it was, quote, productive. >> sure. i just got an e-mail from one of our viewers, greg. he said what we saw yesterday was leadership 101. when you compare and contrast chris christie with the way our president, barak obama, handles things, when you think about it, chris christie made it very clear, he didn't know anything about the bridge thing and the mainstream media says that's a big scandal. when you look at the president of the united states, he says, i didn't know anything about the affordable care act web site. i didn't know anything about the irs, the doj, james rosen. what's the answer from the mainstream media? cricke

about how some of the senior advisors to the president, like valerie jarrett, robert gibbs and david axelrodhat domestic politics had -- was discussed as part of the dialogue on national security issues to an extent that i had not previously experienced. >> you mean when you say domestic politics, get reelected? >> not just getting relie detectorred, but what's the reaction of the democratic base going to be. by the way, i also heard this on the bush administration. >> okay. >> but by the time i arrived in the bush administration, most of the sharp ill bode political gurus had pretty much disappeared. so i heard less of it and it was a different time. he was not going to run for reelection. but the points i do make is that although politics was a part of the discussion, i would say -- the way i've described it is that obama was aware of the politics, but not driven by them as biden and rahm emanuel were. and on several occasions, including the decision on the afghan surge, he basically made a decision that went contrary to the advice of all of his political advisors and the vice president. >

we're also saying that people like valerie jarrett, david axelrod, robert gibbs, press secretary allissues. he says, mr. gates says that he had never seen anything like that before, maybe it happened in other white houses, but he couldn't believe it. >> remember, the administration was calling to be a transparent administration and certainly the curtain is pulled back at this point. we want to know from you. do you think it's okay to criticize a sitting president? does robert gates have a right to do it? every administration since nixon, minus clinton. does this seem okay with you? is this information that's helpful? >> from right inside the oval office onto the pages of this new book called "duty." >> meanwhile, it's our duty to toss to heather nauert and tell us what else is happening. >> howdy. >> good morning. the weather causing real problems out west right now. a deadly avalanche in colorado taking a tragic twist. the 24-year-old man who was killed skiing near the veil resort -- vail resort is a grand son of the founder. they were skiing when an avalanche occurred. on monday, t

david axelrod is a former senior adviser to president obama. he's now an msnbc senior political analyst. hi, david, good morning. >> hey, matt. how are you? >> i'm good. thank you. on the positive side, robert gates says president obama's decision to okay the mission to kill osama bin laden was one of the most courageous decisions he'd seen in the white house. but as we just heard, other comments in the book are pretty critical. while you were witnessing secretary gates, did you get a sense he was a guy who was stewing over what he was witnessing? that he was disgruntled in any way? >> absolutely not. in fact, i was surprised when i saw the stories yesterday because i always felt they had a good working relationship. he always indicated he had a good working relationship with the president. and the stories themselves are confusing, matt. because in it, not only did he praise himself for the bin laden raid, he thought he made the right decisions on afghanistan. he was a clear and decisive decision maker. so his big complaint is that he thinks he

>> i look at david axelrod and barack obama's chief adviser who said this is no big deal provided that he told the truth. chris christie has more trouble in a republican primary because of his embrace of barack obama than he does this scandal. this would be an issue. >>. >> the republicans are criticizing. >> which is fascinating to me because it's republicans against republicans. >> thank you. >>> president obama approved a disaster declaration this morning for west virginia. nine counties are dealing with a chemical spill. it contaminated the water supply up to 300,000 people are being told not to utsch it the tap water. at least five were treated at a hospital. jesse schaefer of our affiliate wowk is in charleston. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, nora and charlie and good morning to the viewers in the west. the chemical began leaking in a storage tank in the facility behind me. the department of environmental protection is trying to figure out where that came from and how the chemicals have leaked out. as much as 5,000 gallons have leaked into the water. crowds filled store

former adviser to president obama, david axelrod weighed in cloin's role on de blasio's inauguration tweeting it may reassure the left in regards to 2016 but doesn't it also signal to the elite that de blasio's agenda is not radical. robert gibbs what do you make of concerns of his agenda being too radical. >> we have to start remembering bill de blasio got almost 75% of the vote in new york. it's a significant and solid mandate to ensure that equal opportunity is spread throughout new york, and look new york is a great example. last year you look at what the stock market did over the course of the year. a huge jump in the stock market. people talking about economic health as being the health of the stock market when, in fact, you know, we know that for a lot of hard-working middle and working class families that the economic benefits that we see in the stock market have not been spread as evenly as you go down the economic ladder. so i think he has a significant mandate to take on many of those challenges. i absolutely agree with steve, though, we're going to get an opportunity very

david axelrod would say he's surprised about the book.ing it. one person is reading it and now they're going to decide how to go out against it. >> apparently jay carney got the book on tuesday night, they handed it to somebody. they read it overnight. yesterday morning when people walked into work at the white house, there were excerpts and certain people got complete chapters so that they would know what was going on even though jay carney said, no, i haven't really read it yet. >> they're throwing it at biden, maybe this is part of the strategy. focus on that and he'll take the hit perhaps in the mind of many. >>> coming up, a principal said she was fired for protecting kids from humiliation. she fought against a policy requiring kids to get their hands stamped if they don't have the money for school lunch. we have both sides of this very controversial story coming up. >>> and looking to buy a home this year? the rules are changing. but don't worry. bob massi is on deck with everything you need to know and he looks like that. >> you kn

and the top democrat david axelrod said we have a tendency to look at these moments in the moment when there are very few of those. we're too far away to look at that kind of long-term impact. it will certainly fortify critics who think that christie peaked too early in his popularity after a good re-election. and republicans in the party who don't think he's that electable anyway. a northeastern governor, there are comparisons to rudy giuliani. but overall, too early to really judge that impact, i think. >> david gregory in washington, i know you have a lot more on this on sunday on "meet the press." let's go to willie now back in new york. >> savannah, thank you. >>> now to a really alarming situation, west virginia, a chemical spill leading to a state of emergency overnight and serious warning to business owners and residents there. anne thompson is the chief environmental affairs correspondent. good morning. >> good morning, willie. president obama has authorized fema to coordinate emergency rescue efforts. american water has a clear statement to the residents. don't use the water.