Transcripts For MSNBC Morning Joe 20090810

[ engine powers down ] gentlemen, you booked your hotels on orbitz. well, the price went down, so you're all getting a check thanks. for the difference. except for you -- you didn't book with orbitz, so you're not getting a check. well, i think we've all learned a valuable lesson today. good day, gentlemen. thanks a lot. thank you. introducing hotel price assurance, where if another orbitz customer books the same hotel for less, we send you a check for the difference, automatically. you're asking us to trust turning power over to the government when there clearly are people in america who believe in establishing euthanasia including standards. >> let me explain what reform will mean for you and let me start by dispelling the outlandish rumors reform will promote euthanasia or cut medicaid or bring about a government takeover of health care. that's simply not true. welcome to the dog days of august. joe scarborough with you on "morning joe" along with the new and improved, back from northeast harbor, mika brzezinski, and just crazier than ever. >> she looks rested. >> she does. also we have willie geist here. >> willie. >> actually we on "morning joe" do support turning willie over to the death penalty but, i mean, it's nothing personal. we have to cut somewhere. we have to cut somewhere. it's like logan's run, they all about around in those track suits and then they walk -- you can live to 30 and it's a great life. do you remember it from the 1970s? >> do you know what i'm looking forward to is when the new administration takes power and you're trying to get an ambassadorship and they go, no, no, no. we do have a spot on the death panel. >> i told my wife, hey, honey -- >> speaking of the death panel. >> we have pat buchanan with us. i don't think that was a good segway. hey, pat, she's a little rusty. got to work on those segways. pat is not that mean. pat, here's what i was thinking this morning, as i come in and i'm reading all of these horrible quotes and you've got the death panel from sarah palin -- >> evil. >> and then the evil and you have newt gingrich talking about the death penalty, nancy pelosi last week talking about swastikas and nazis at these town hall meetings. rush limbaugh calling them nazis and now nancy's calling these protesters un-american. what a colossal mess. we had the poll last week saying obama washington is divisive. it's just this is a mess. what do you do if you're inside the white house? how do you call a time-out and say enough already? >> i don't know how you do it, joe. joe, i'm afraid that all the beginning of the obama a administration, you are down there on the mall that's thousands and thousands of people that air of good feeling and national unity and the belief that obama may just be that agent of change that can bring us together i'm afraid that has all dissipated and is all but gone. he's not down to bush levels but he's down to the point where he about won the election but it is a much more divisive situation. this is one of the ugliest debates i've ever seen. >> it is. it's ugly. you know, mika, we had said this before, several months ago, that every president over the past 16 years, 17 years, said they're going to change washington. bill clinton was going to bring us all together. divisive. george w. bush was going to be a uniter not a divider, and it got more divided. and then barack obama was going to be of change. it's even more divided than when george w. bush was president. it's a mess. this president has to regain control somehow. >> he does. >> i'm going to ask lawrence o'donnell after news how does he regain his control of this situation? >> nancy pelosi, i believe, has a piece out trying to sort of set the record straight with steny hoyer. we'll get to that coming up. but first it's time now for a look at some of today's top stories. president obama is in mexico today for the second time since taking office. he's meeting with president calderon as well as steven harper. while the summit focuses on trade they will discuss the swine flu outbreak along with violence along the u.s. southern body. two bodies still missing following saturday's midair collision over the hudson river in new york city. nine people were killed when a tourist helicopter and a small plane collided. although the investigation could take months, mayor bloomberg discu discussed the incident on sunday's "meet the press." >> this may have been just an accident, a total tragedy or maybe, in fact, if we had different procedures it could have been prevented. we've not had very many accidents in the area. the last one that was most notable was the plane putting down on the hudson river where everyone survived. in this case we don't think it was survivable from virtually the time the incident took place. it's very tragic, as you point out. >> a wave of violence has killed at least 42 people in iraq today. in baghdad a pair of bombs exploded including one near a group of construction workers. there were also attacks in the northern city of mosul. the congressional budget office says the federal deficit grew by another $181 billion in july. >> that's how much it used to grow, by the way, for an entire year. >> just july. according to thehill.com, that number stems from the massive bailouts of financial and auto giants and the filing of tax revenue due to the recession. the deficit projected to hit $1.8 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. there are more questions for governor mark sanford after reports the governor used state aircraft for personal and political use. the trips often involved his family members. they include hair and dentist appointments and his children's sporting events. the governor's office says all the flights were for official state business. parts of asia are swamped in rain this morning just hours after a powerful typhoon ripped across the region. nearly 1 million people were forced to evacuate their homes along china's coast where thousands of homes were damaged. in tijuana six-story hotel was swept into a river in that country's worst flooding in 50 years. that is a quick look at the news. horrible. >> terrible. south florida back in the early 1990s. >> stop it. >> what? >> i just keep -- you don't say something inappropriate. >> do we have to -- okay. now let's go ahead and do what we do every morning. it is time for america's awkward moment where bill karins says something about my wife and he goes on and does the latest forecast. what's up, bill? no, i'm calling a truce. >> really? >> my wife thanks you. >> yes. if you'd like, i'll apologize to your wife, take her to lunch. >> oh, my gosh. >> what? that's a nice offer. >> i'm sorry. >> susan, i'm sorry. i can't control him. >> did i say something wrong? >> what's the east coast look like? what's the east coast look like, bill? >> hot and steamy. >> oh, my goodness. >> should i just stop? all right. >> it's too early for this. >> it is. >> it's 6:08 on the east coast. just a little too early. what's wrong with you? >> a lot. yesterday in d.c. was 96 degrees. waking up this morning to 77. today is going to be the hottest day of the summer in many places. you need your umbrella in a few spots new york up to boston. it's going to be a little mixed today. it's going to be hot and steamy and possibly stormy. look at today. 97 is the forecast high for d.c. we easily could see somewhere hit 100 philly down to the raleigh area. southern new england not bad. low 90s today. the other travel trouble spot, st. louis. some early morning storms at the airport. the northwest is cool. the other story we're watching today, we had hurricane felicia last week. now it's down to a tropical storm. it's still going to approach the hawaiian islands tonight into tomorrow. so any tourists there, it's not going to be devastating but it will be interesting. the winds will gust a little bit. we'll have some large waves and some rain squalls. and that's a wrap. >> that's terrific. >> that's great. >> thanks a bunch. >> where is he because i'm hearing him out of this ear and i look around -- >> he's up above you. >> sounds like he's -- >> he's in the mussolini -- >> we like to keep him away. >> all right, thank you, bill, so much. what's going on with top talkers, willie? >> worst yet. >> that was horrible. >> he's just so inappropriate. >> right in your face, too. >> hello! i'm here. talking about my wife, yeah. let's do some top talkers. we showed video friday of the chaos at that town hall, health care town hall in tampa. senator mitch mcconnell, the minority leader from kentucky, was on fox news yesterday talking about the need for some calm here. he doesn't want to see these kind of scenes but at the same time he says let's not belittle these people who are out standing up for what they believe in. here is mitch mcconnell. >> i don't think either side ought to be trying to engage in disrupting meetings, either the democratic side or the republican side. we ought to focus on the issue. and to demonize citizens who are energetic about this strikes me as demonstrating a weakness in your position. >> joe, health care has become chaos, death panels, everything but the issues. >> you read the blogs, the blogs on the right will say this is patriotism on the left. they'll say this is the worst thing that's ever happened. it's unpatriotic. and, you know what, average americans are just watching this and being turned off. my god, things have gotten even worse. they're not sitting there trying to lay the blame on one side or another especially when you have both sides bringing up nazi images. and you have speaker of the house accusing these people of bringing swastikas to events, and then you have rush limbaugh calling nancy -- calling democrats nazis and then you have the left -- it's out of control. every time something like this would happen, i know you heard it in the senate. i heard it in the house. people try to sort through it and i'd say, guys, let me break it down for you. we look like jack -- and we're not going to pass the bill because of it. >> chaos is not the feeling you want when you're moving into this life or death territory of health care reform. the fear here is on all sides. we've seen the fear on the conservative side which is a fear of you're going to take something away that i'm enjoying right now. there's a fear on the liberal side, on the democratic side that i'm going to lose my health care and maybe then lose my house, so i want the government backing me up on this. and then there's a fear in the white house, there's a fear in the house and there's a fear in the senate. they fear this thing slipping away and all of this fear feeds on each other. the opposition, the conservative fear, consents that the white house is now afraid and that the democrats are afraid in the congress so they raise their volume and so this just gets more and more intense. the dynamics of fear will drive this debate. >> and then you have nancy pelosi's op-ed suggesting that the people are, her word is un-american. and, you're right, it's getting ramped up on both sides and, pat buchanan, at this point, again, it seems, you know, like this debate has gotten out of control. what does president obama do? >> joe, i really don't know what he does right now because this is no environment in which to legislate over 16 or 17% of the entire gross national product. we have this tremendous polarization. >> and speaking. polarization, pat, what do you think about death panels? what do you think about sarah palin saying that her little boy would be killed under an obama plan? which is in effect what she said. >> there is nothing in the legislation that i think deals with people with severe maladies, children or something like that. it's just not in there. joe, i don't see anything like that in there. this 1233 section, charles lane wrote about in "the washington post" which talks about end of life recommendations by counselors is enormously controversial, unexplained, and it's the cause of enormous controversy. >> all right, pat, hang on there. we have a big show this morning for you. senate dr. tom coburn, how he's pushing forward the debate in his state. "mad money's" jim cramer will be here. a look at wall street's four-week winning streak. pulitzer prize winner jon meacham of "newsweek" magazine. reporter out of iran. the washington editor of bloomberg news al hunt will join us. and we'll go live to mexico with savannah guthrie. she's with the president. plus, an exclusive preview of politico -- >> speaking of death panels -- >> yes? >> we have mike allen next. your segway. >> politico's top stories including town hall rallies from the democrats. the great taste of splenda® no calorie sweetener and added a little fiber? sweet! sweet! (together) sweet! (announcer) now for the first time, a gram of healthy fiber in every packet. sweet! 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(announcer) side effects were generally mild and included headache. viral infection, sore throat, nosebleeds and coughing. ask your doctor about symptom relief with nasonex. and save up to $15 off your refills. john bolton's hair and mustache must meet for a beer. john bolton criticized bill clinton's sitdown with kim jong-il. come on, he can't even get his hair and mustache to agree. a small, white minority clinging to a single mouthpiece. >> pretty good. >> okay. >> a friendly brush broom. >> he needs that. >> mike allen, another great transition brought to you by "morning joe." >> i hope he hasn't shaved yet. >> he has. >> he's the chief political correspondent for politico. he has a look at the "morning playbook." hey, mike. >> i've been looking on the chuck todd list but it's taken me a while. >> don't do it. let's talk about the white house and how it's striking back on the health care plan, starting a new website, i understand? >> just went live about an hour ago. you remember the fight, the smear site the campaign did where they put up untruths about president obama that were being circulated in e-mail, tried to rebut them. they even dealt with the birth certificate way back then, whether michelle ordered room service. turns out she hadn't even stayed in that hotel. they're using the same method now with health care to try to push back a reality check. it's health insurance reform reality check. the white house new media have put up this site that features videos of administration officials talking in a casual way about some of the charges that are being made against health care and they've embedded tools that make it easy to forward this to your friends. there's social media elements with preloaded messages about health care and this is my favorite part. the idea behind this is a viral response to viral charges, viral rumors. they have this long fax q, the e-mails you and i all get. >> let's try this. you go one side and we'll see if it works. you accuse me of setting a death panel. >> how dare you, sir, set up a death panel that will kill my grandmother. >> thank you so much, willie, for your thoughtful question. if you look at subsection four of the third chapter index, what you really see is what we're trying to do is divide the mechanism that will slow ly rei in the costs -- >> it doesn't work. see, that's the problem. >> always had end-of-life discussions. this is nothing new. >> hey, by the way, bill karins, our meteorologist, is going to be calling you after this. what else? it. >> we heard about these dnc counter rallies. >> it doesn't work, though. this stuff does not work. >> no one is going to go to that website who isn't already onboard with the president's plan, but that can be helpful to some people at dinner table conversations trying to refute -- >> maybe it will help them move the upper west side over to the obama camp. >> it could help. >> the idea also is to goat people wget people who are amenable to this. we used to have two sides of it out there circulating, the other side soaking up -- >> i also hear they're doing counter rallies. >> yes, i was looking to hit a counter rally this week. anywhere i can do this, mike? >> this is for joe. he's going to love this. last week the dnc was talking about evil conservatives, those evil republicans who were organizing people to go out to these health care rallies. as my mother would say, two can play at this game. the dnc through organizing for america, the obama grassroots organization is now encouraging people to don't wait for the town hall. go directly to the member or senators office. last week we discovered dnc interns were calling the offices of every senator and member to find out when their office hours are, and so you can get from the dnc a custom tailored e-mail that will tell you the hours and location of your member so you can drop in and share your views about health care. >> you get the mob scenes actually outside the representative's office? >> exactly. >> mike, is that intended to pressure the blue dog democrats or moderate democrats who aren't onboard yet with obama? >> it's intended to allow constituents to be served but, of course, yes, it's to remind people -- it's to remind member senators that it's not only the other side that feels passionately. the idea is to let them see some information from the other side so that's not a one-sided argument. >> certainly i'm sure they wouldn't try to intimidate anybody. >> no. >> either with that or ads. >> it wouldn't be fair. >> all right, politico's mike allen, thank you very much. and you have the headline here that we're going to be talking about with pat buchanan later on american attacks, can't derail health care. coming up, a look at the morning papers from around the country and in a few minutes atlantic media political director ron brounstein will join us. join us on the radio right after "morning joe." you can find a link on our website. >> today advice on how to beat the death panel's recommendation when your time is up. bicycle, i've missed you. gathering dust, as pollen floats through the air. but with the strength of zyrtec ® , the fastest, 24-hour allergy relief, i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. with zyrtec ® i can love the air ™ . ♪ well i was shopping fort as long to go for our ride. ♪ which one's me - a cool convertible or an suv? 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( shouting ) this is crazy. you. let's run a free upgrade check. see if you're due for a new smartphone. don't i need to go to my carrier's store for that? no, you don't have to. we sell phones and plans on all the major networks. ok. well, is time travel possible? yes, i am from the future. announcer: phones, plans, and advice from thousands of people eager to help. somebody recently tried to sell an xbox autographed by sarah palin for $1.1 million. yeah, unfortunately, the palin xbox kept quitting in the middle of every game. >> that's just -- you know what -- it's all right. time now to take a look at the morning papers. why don't we start with "the wall street journal." taliban now winning u.s. commander in afghanistan warns of rising casualties. look at that picture. >> "the washington times," recipe for civil war in iraq. all good news this monday morning. welcome, mr. sunshine. the national defense university warns iraqi police are becoming pawns of sectarian political parties. in "the new york times," mika, what's it say? >> effort to rein in pay on wall street hits new hurdle. u.s. scrutinizes return of hefty payouts by bailed out banks. and did you see that piece yesterday on hank paulson and how many times he talked to the head of goldman sachs during the bailout? >> totally inappropriate. >> seems so. we'll be talking about that with cramer coming up. >> "the washington post," preparing for swine flu's return. new wave expected after virus flourishes in southern hemisphere. >> "l.a. times," pakistani taliban preys on youth. militants have been kidnapping and training teens to baolster their forces. all right. when we come back, we have ron brownstein. ron says, hey, if you're an obama supporter, don't push the panic button just yet. he's got the same position and support he was at when he won in the fall. >> also ahead, the must-read opinion pages -- >> mika's must-read opinion pages. in your hands... knees... and back. for little bodies with fevers.. and big bodies on high blood pressure medicine. tylenol works with your body... in a way other pain relievers don't... so you feel better... knowing doctors recommend tylenol... more than any other brand of pain reliever. concierge claim centers. so i can just drop off my car and you'll take care of everything? yep, even the rental. what if i'm stuck at the office? if you can't come to us, we'll come to you in one of our immediate response vehicles! what if mother won't let me drive? then you probably wouldn't have had an accident in the first place. and we're walkin'! and we're walkin'... a live look from washington, d.c., as the sun tries to come up over the white house. a little hazy there. welcome back to "morning joe. "it's just after 6:30 on the east coast. time for a quick look at today's top stofries. leaders of mexico and canada meet with president obama. the summit is focused on joint efforts to combat the swine flu which is expected to break out again this fall. a new survey shows gas prices have jumped nearly 16 cents over the past two weeks. a gallon of regular is averaging $2.64, down more than a dollar from this time last year. and the death toll in a series of attacks across iraq this morning now stands at 42. the deadliest was a double truck bombing in mosul where another 138 people were wounded. >> here with us now political director of the atlantic media company ron brownstein. ron, great to see you here. we're going to go to mika's must-read opinion pages. >> pat buchanan is with us as well in washington. let's start with "usa today" and this piece by nancy pelosi and steny hoyer. un-american attacks can't derail health care debate. here we go. these disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views but of the facts themselves. drowning out opposing views is simply un-american. drowning out the facts of how we failed at this task for decades. health care is complex. it touches every american life. it drives our economy. people must be allowed to learn the facts. >> lawrence, you're laughing. why are you laughing? could it be because newt -- >> i love nancy pelosi. >> the left -- >> what's wrong with this? >> but you are laughing, though, because i suspect -- i see in your eyes the fact that it is the left that mastered this technique through the years and now conservatives. is that not the case? >> drowning out arguments is un-american, that stretches my notion of un-american. that has normally been considered a first amendment option and not the most sophisticated. >> and a tactic by which side, which side has mastered this? >> i think i remember some drowning out in 1968 in the protest against the vietnam war. i believe there was drowning out once in a while. >> there was a recent example up at columbia. celebrated, may i say, by the american left nonstop. >> yeah, he tried to do a little lecture in law school. >> a little bit of heckling. that's all it was. i'm sure if he had stayed in the room, the kids would have quieted down and taken notes. >> so you're laughing because this is what the left -- >> i think un-american is a strong word for that particular exercise. >> strong words, though, are being used like evil. all right, take a listen. >> how about comparing these people in middle america, comparing them to terrorists? >> i'm sure in context it makes sense. >> i'm sure it does. >> sorry, guys, hold on. not only are anti-reformists showing up they're terrorizing legislators -- >> terrorizing? did he really use terrorizing? >> on this network last week i called it political terrorism which doesn't mean there's a physical threat. >> from the left or the right? >> from the people who are trying to drown out the conversation. >> blinded by fear and passion, armed with misinformation and misplaced anger they descend on these meetings, hoom and hauler, this says more about them than any forthcoming legislation. belligerence is the currency. >> i don't believe that. >> pat, i'm going to follow up with a point lawrence made earlier that the left has done this for years. >> i didn't make that point. you made that point and i didn't argue with you. there's a big difference. >> pat, so lawrence was telling us that this is the technique mast aered by the left and now they are protesting. >> one of the worst mistakes you could make in politics is to start to believe in your own propaganda. this is what they are doing. they believe it's all disruption. let me tell you, i've never seen such anger or rage. all over america they're being canceled. claire mccaskill canceled hers. there is tremendous anger out there. contrary to what steny hoyer and pelosi are saying, the more people learn about it, the angrier they are, the more obama falls in the polls, the less they want health care reform. when we started off this looked like it was a doable thing. the more they talked about it, the worse off they're doing with the american people. this thing is in deep, deep trouble and what they're doing is whistling past the graveyard saying all those evil guys are disrupting our meetings. they'd better look at what's happening because this thing is going down. >> ron brownstein, the extreme statements on both sides are disappointing and i want to ask you what's the political impact again for an administration that promised to bring us together, promised to be post partisan? on the right you have sarah palin and newt gingrich talking about death panels that are going to kill babies with down syndrome and on the left you have a speaker calling americans un-american for going to town hall meetings and accusing them of carrying swastikas in there. she did. no, she did, mika. >> how do you respond to this ridiculous stuff that's coming out of the right? >> well, can i finish my question? >> sorry. go ahead. >> well, you don't do it by calling your opponents nazis. what is the political impact of just both sides behaving very badly right now? >> you're seeing the ferocity of modern politics. i talked about how our political system now seems more designed to kind of manufacture disagreement than to reach consensus. the overall situation here is pretty complex. on the one hand there is enormous polarization and we're seeing the centrifugal force in its full fury in every dimension from sarah palin to, frankly, the democrats demonizing the insurance industry when they support most of what they want to do. everybody looking for a boogieman to look up against. >> nancy pelosi, for instance, calling them evil, saying they're villains. >> this is not '93-'94. larry lived through that. the industry is supporting the core idea which is fundamental insurance reform. so there is this intense polarization out there and you see it and in some ways these town hall meetings are reflective of the fact there is more energy and intense opposition right now than intense support. the one poll that i see measuring strong opinion on the obama plan has found in an npr poll 40% strongly oppose, 25% strongly supported. when you get down to the specifics, the plan does poll better on your wall street poll, the majority said they support it. abc/"washington post" the same thing. >> ron, we're not going to get there because the left accuses the right of being nazis and of setting up death camps. >> and, in fact, you see the same problem in congress, mika. there is agreement on some big things but the disagreements as so often in modern politics are overshadowing them and making it almost impossible. this bi-papartisan process sinc june 17th, six members in the senate finance committee trying to negotiate it in a historic way. they have seen itself as adults on the playground. that seems to be running out of gas and both sides believe it's likely to end up in a partisan conflict in september. it doesn't mean obama can't win the legislative fight but it's not -- it is much more difficult than they expected be a much more polarizing. >> ron, the part you made about insurance companies supporting most of what they want f. you have to support the whole thing as the vehicle is moving through or you are just plain opposed to it. so i think they got tricked into the notion a lot of these health care sector industries, pharmaceuticals and others, support them because they support most of what they want to do. most is never good enough because when it comes down to it, the insurance companies, in fact, will probably be opposed. to the final thing that is trying to move on the house floor and they will, in fact, lobby against it moving on the house floor. and so that's the quicksand of health care legislation. if you don't have somebody who is locked in with you all the way, committed all the way no matter what stays in the bill and what falls out of the bill, then you need them when it comes down to the yes or no vote. i don't think the insurance company is going to be there when it comes down to the yes or no vote. >> joe, what happens if -- look, we've heard that in reconciliation you can get 50 votes and you can do it and you can roll this thing through and jam it down the throats of the minority but what happens if, as ron says, you have intense opposition, intense approval at 25% and obama whose numbers are down is becoming a divisive figure. if they ram it through and basically roll over almost a majority of the american people, what's the political situation going to look like in this country? are people going to say, well, that's wonderful, it's a great victory? are they going to say let's get these guys no matter how we have to do it? >> listen, the truth of it is -- >> pat, you cannot pass this with 50 votes. that's impossible because what happens is the senate parliament is going to rule 50% of the bill inappropriate for reconciliation. in order to preserve those pieces in the bill, pat, the only way to do it, it requires 60 votes in the senate. to waive that rule so you can include it. you need 60 votes. there's no way around it. >> it raises the question, lawrence, can they get 60 votes for the government option? >> not now. >> okay. then what have you got? then we're talking downsizing or nothing, aren't we? >> right. >> that's what lawrence said a couple weeks ago, lawrence saw this coming up, mika. >> also, when you look at what this has been lowered to at this point, i ask you because the democrats seemed to have gotten dirty here with language they're using as well, the whole thing is out of control, how did we get here? >> i've just got to be honest. it all starts at the top. it did with george w. bush. it does here. the president turns his agenda over the past six months -- well, look at what americans have seen in the middle. you've had a stimulus package basically pushed by nancy pelosi, cap and trade. henry waxman was the face of cap and trade. what was the other issue? well, finance. all the finance issues, who is the face of finance reform? barney frank. so if democrats are wringing their hands going, my gosh, how have we not found the middle ground? well, the people pushing the agenda for the past six months are not just a little left of center. they are the far left portion of the house caucus. >> on health they've gone distinctly to the left of obama. remember in the campaign he was opposed to mandates. that was the big difference between him and hillary clinton. he was opposed to mandates. all have an employer mandate and an individual mandate. more mandates than hillary. >> i want to talk to ron and pat when we come back about the fact that -- and this has been my argument. i think all legislation that's been passed over the past six months the house has gone much further to the left than candidate obama said he was going to go. my argument remains the president needs to take control of the agenda much more aggressively. we'll see what you have to say. >> ron brownstein, stick around if you could. we're going to go live to mexico coming up with nbc's savannah guthrie traveling with the president. and right after the break, the yankees sweep the red sox. >> it's over. >> sports with willie geist when we come back. bicycle, i've missed you. gathering dust, as pollen floats through the air. but with the strength of zyrtec ® , the fastest, 24-hour allergy relief, i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. with zyrtec ® i can love the air ™ . this is my verizon small business specialist, tom. now, i know the catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use mifi to get my whole team working online, on location. i was like, "woah". woah ! only verizon wireless has small business specialists in every store to help you do business better. you're like my secret ingredient. come in today and connect up to five devices on one 3g connection. now only $99.99 welcome back to "morning joe." a beautiful live picture of las vegas where dreams with beautiful flowers. i love that place. >> this is a test of character. we're going to see whether you pass or fail. >> it brings me no joy to report to you that late last night, as most of us were asleep, the yankees swept the red sox. >> okay. you fail. >> go away. >> a failure. >> i love the red sox. >> willie geist highlights. >> after a scoreless drought that spanned three games, the red sox finally got on the board with victor martinez's two-run home run. gave the red sox the 2-1 lead as they looked to salvage the last game of the four-game series. in the bottom of the inning former red sox johnny damon bites the hand that once fed him, solo shot. ties the game at 2-2. the very next batter, mark teixeira, gives the yankees the lead with a dong of his own. >> what? >> sports speak. >> i've listened to a lot of sports and have never heard that before. >> a 6 1/2-game lead in the a.l. east winning seven straight games. >> teixeira, they paid a lot of money. he was worth it. >> how many games ahead for the yankees? >> 6 1/2. >> cubs and rockies, double play. the second baseman was not on the bag. lou piniella wants the ump to know about it. he comes out, demonstrates just how far away from the bag he was, measures it out. he gets tossed. holds his nose. your call stinks. rockies won the game, by the way, tied with san francisco for the lead in the wild card. how about golf? tiger woods, paddy harrington, wearing the red. you know it's game over. look at this. his approach shot on 16 and paddy harrington melted down from there. here's tiger putting in for another birdie on 18 winning his second straight avent heading now into the pga championship. >> also, i know it's an oversight but yesterday manchester united was beaten. >> we'll do a full segment coming up. >> fabulous. >> in news you can't use. hillary dancing in africa. >> what? >> dancing? does your mouthwash work in six different ways? introducing listerine total care. everything you need... to strengthen teeth, help prevent cavities, and kill germs. introducing 6 in 1 listerine total care. the most complete mouthwash. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and wherever i go, i've got plenty of room for the interne and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. when you think about all you can do in an all-wheel-drive subaru... you'll find there is a lot to love. that's why we created the subaru a lot to love event. where you can get a great deal on any new 2009 subaru. and see theee really is a lot to love. hurry in and lease a 2009 impreza for $179 ppr month. now through august 31st. oh, is it time? >> mika's back. people tried to silence rob blagojevich. >> yes? >> he will not be silenced. >> of course not. >> we shall overcome. he has something to say and he's going to say it on his new website. kind of a blog called governorrod.com. it says there on the site he has refused to be silenceded. he's not holding back. he's not playing politics or playing nice. he's speaking his mind and telling the truth. he's going to give his daily musings, his thoughts on life, love, the world around him, the way he sees it. his spokesman says rod blagojevich needed his own website. it was time. very exciting. and if you -- you know, i think some of the things you'll hear are references to great world leaders, civil rights heroes, comparisons to himself. >> exactly. >> he was the agent that came and said what they said and i said, who is this? are you playing a joke on me? i thought it was a friend of mine playing a practical joke of the unfortunately, it wasn't. can and then the day unfolded and i had a whole bunch of thoughts, of course my children and my wife and then i thought about mandela, dr. king, gandy, and tried to put perspective on all of this. >> this never gets old. >> even after all of this and the controversy, the arrest, i still look at him as a ghandi-like figure. >> please move on. >> what the british did, seriously, no more than what the united states government is doing to rod blagojevich, america's governor. america's governor. >> the trial starts next year. "morning joe" will be there at his side. remember levi johnston, sarah palin -- he was back in the news yesterday. kathy griffin, the comedienne, brought a date to the teen choice awards. she brought levi johnston. he walked the red carpet. he gave her a little kiss on the cheek. apparently he's in town doing a magazine shoot, working on some re reality stuff. levi johnson -- >> don't go to pat. >> willie, lock and load. >> i told you not to go to pat. good lord. >> what's wrong with america? >> secretary of state hillary clinton, as you know, is on an almost two-week tour of the continent of africa and she was dancing. she was doing some dancing. first to wednesday night in kenya. she got herself in a dance circle, getting low, grooving, reaching for the sky. good for her. she's getting involved. then saturday night, this time in cape town. this was saturday afternoon in cape town. >> nice head bop. >> head bop, toe tap. she wants to feel it. she wants to feel it before she commits to it. >> that's neat. >> i give her points for trying. >> what's she supposed to do? she is doing great, having a great time. >> we love hillary clinton. >> just what you do. >> do we have any other -- i don't know, heads of states dancing with african -- t.j.? >> then there was that. >> he got into it. >> he did. >> working the drums, too. >> one more story for you. >> i just report the news, i don't create the news. this comes to us from houston, texas, where a man was arrested. he was arrested for stealing some cds apparently. he's a heavier man, so when he came into jail he was searched three times. he was in custody for 14 hours until, well, guards realized he had a nine millimeter pistol and ammunition hidden in one of his fat rolls. >> oh, we've all done that. >> he carried the weapon into the jail with him. he carried it in there. we don't know what he had in mind, a prison upbreak or uprising. we have a mug shot of him. maybe you can see him better. he's a 25-year-old and he had a nine millimeter -- >> he pulled up his fat and put the gun in there. >> we don't know what he was up to. >> that's kind of convenient. i'm heading in that direction. >> searched three times and didn't find the gun. >> your joke -- >> i wasn't going to go there. >> we have a heck of a show this morning. mika brzezinski is back. she's tan, rested and ready. northeast harbor has been good to mika brzezinski. >> according to what you put on my blackberry, never should come back. >> crazy lawrence -- >> good to have mika back. >> she does, ron brownstein is with us and also pat buchanan. we've moved beyond the levi johnston talk so we'll be talking to pat about so much going on out there. as pat says this is about as divided as he's seen this country politically in some time. i'm going to ask lawrence o'donnell and also ron brownstein if that's their take as well and we're going to be showing clips of newt gingrich talking about barack obama is going to be setting up death panels. and ask if that's really a wise thing or the right thing to do. nancy pelosi, steny hoyer talking about those un-american protests. those are their words. un-american protests out there. and got a lot to cover. >> given the words she used last week, i'd like to ask you after news, what do you think the democrats should be doing in response to the kind of criticism they're getting, which a lot of it is low blows. and some of it is untrue. fair? is that fair? >> that's a good question. >> that is a good question. we'll talk about it after news. >> we need time to think about that. >> all right. >> it's called a tease. >> he's thinking. >> i keep the time. i'm a broadcaster. it's in my blood. it was born in me. >> yeah. >> time now for a look at some of today's top stories. president obama wrapping up a series of meetings in mexico today. he's meeting with mexican president calderon as well as the can adian prime minister harper. they will talk about the swine flu outbreak and the drug outbreak. two bodies still missing following saturday's midair collision on the hudson river in new york city. these are live pictures you're looking at here as the recovery operation continues. nine people were killed. a tourist helicopter and a small plane collided. people actually got pictures of this scene as it played out. although the investigation could take months mayor bloomberg discussed the incident on sunday's "meet the press." >> this may have just been an accident, a total tragedy, or if we had different procedures you could have prevented it. we've not had very many accidents in the area. the last one most notable was the plane putting down in the hudson river where everybody survived. in this case we don't think it was survivable from virtually the instant the crash took place and it's very tragic as you point out. >> you remember dr. bob. >> mm-hmm. >> he said he's covered a lot of stories. he said up and down the hudson it's the wild, wide west. >> it is. my husband is covering the story and they just have to talk amongst themselves, fly over the area. >> jim has told you the same thing. bob just e-mailed me there is absolutely no control in that airspace and he said he almost got taken down one time, that you have planes swerving around and helicopters. they have got to control that. they do it in washington, d.c., as bob says. they have to do it along the hudson river. it is chaos. >> airspace above hudson river is a highway with few signs. >> and on a summer afternoon it is very, very, very busy with the tourist helicopters and small planes. a live report from the scene of the crash coming up in a few moments. a wave of violence has killed at least 42 people in iraq today. in baghdad a pair of pipe bombs exploded including one near a group of construction workers. there were also attacks in the northern city of mosul. the congressional budget office says the federal deficit grew by another $181 billion in july. according to the hill.com, that number stems from the massive bailouts of financial and auto giants and the falling tax revenue due to the recession. the deficit is projected to hit $1.8 trillion by the end of the fiscal year. parts of asia are swamped in rain this morning just hours after a power 0ful typhoon ripped across the region. 1 million people forced to evacuate their homes along china's coast where thousands of homes were damaged. in tijuana six-story hotel was swept into a river in that country's worst flooding in 50 years. and there's growing criticism in the senate over a plan in the house of representatives to spend more than $500 million on several gulf streams and boeing planes to ferry government officials around. >> that's insanity. this year, talk about tone deaf. >> it seems to be. according to the wa"the wall st journal," a group of bipartisan senators say they'll work to oppose the funding when the measures are taken up in september. >> the way that got set up -- >> it just doesn't look good. >> the way it got set up, the air force asked for one plane. democrats in the house asked for three. they forced them to be located in washington so they could fly them around. they wanted to be -- >> convenient. >> g-5 jets. they are jealous of the governors. governors get planes. and we see how mark sanford uses -- >> but not g-5s. >> no, but they're planes. >> do you know how fast a g-5 would get down to argentina? >> i don't know what it looks like. i don't live the way you live. >> a hollywood elitist, i've never been on a g-5. >> this is joe and me hitchhiking a ride on a g-5, anybody who wants to give us a ride. >> a are you listening, mort zuckerman? let's go to top talkers, this sort of crazy conversation about death panels. sarah palin on their facebook page friday suggested that ratcheting health care would lead to people -- elderly people, people with disabilities, like her baby son who had down's syndrome essentially being given euthanasia. newt gingrich was asked about it by george stephanopolous on the sunday talk shows. here is what he said. >> you're asking us to trust the government. now i'm not talking about the obama administration. i'm talking about the government. you're asking do we believe that the government is to be trusted. we know people who have said routinely you're going to have to make decisions. you're going to have to decide. communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept. the bill is 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms, it sets up 45 different agencies, have all sorts of panels. you're asking us to trust turning power over to the government when there clearly are people in america who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards. >> ron brownstein, what's going on here? >> well, you know, to go back to the point from before, i did not mean to imply and i don't think anybody should imply that there's equal kind of responsibility for the polarization here. i think you are seeing it much more from the republicans than from the obama administration. in fact, going back to something, joe, you and larry said, i would disagree. i think if you look at the major changes obama has made from the campaign to now on health care, they have the changes that have moved into the center. first of all, supporting an individual mandate, which is what he opposed as a candidate, his 20rcally an idea that has been opposed by the left including organized labor and something that's allowed him to talk to republicans and also to industry groups. the other big change they've made in the bill since the campaign is now supporting the idea of an independent commission that would have the authority to impose payment reforms on medicare designed to reduce costs over the long run. >> ron -- >> opposed by most congressional democrats. they don't want to lose the power. >> ron, i'm going to have larry take you on on the health care issue. but on the other side about the partisanship, how can you not blame an obama administration and a democratic party that puts one bill after another after another out over the past six months that no moderate republican can vote for? if you're just talking ideologically, there is no way a moderate republican could vote for that stimulus package. it would be hard for most republicans to vote for cap and trade the way it's drawn up. there has been no attempts other than cocktail parties and super bowl parties to pull republicans in on these talks. is that not fair to say? >> joe, i agree and disagree. the stimulus was clearly a partisan bill, it was very difficult for republicans to support and one that has made everything that followed more difficult for the obama administration than they expected because it's inflamed and ignited concern about the deficit. but when you look at cap and trade, even on cap and trade, the change moved it more to the middle from auctioning away the kred toits moving them away and, yes, several republican governors, charlie chryst, arnold schwarzenegger, jon huntsman and others who support it. and on health care as well, the basic format of this bill largely follows with the exception of the public plan which obama has said he might be willing -- >> you disagree? >> the structure that mitt romney followed in massachusetts. >> ron, let us in here. we don't have a lot of time, ron. we have to keep it moving. lawrence? >> look, the house ways and means committee bill three new top tax brackets that obama absolutely promised would not happen in the campaign. he said the way we'll pay for this is by allowing the bush tax cuts on the top tax bracket to expire. so that is a very dramatic move to the left on the tax piece of this. there is an employer mandate in all of these bills which is very, very much to the left of where obama was in the campaign. the employer mandate will impose an 8% -- it will double the payroll tax on companies that do not offer health insurance. the individual mandate because it was authored, its federal history is it was offered by my old friend john chafy in the senate finance committee, now deceased. he had a republican bill back in 1993 that got nowhere that had virtually no real co-sponsors in the senate. hillary clinton used the chafee bill to move to obama's left on health care because obama was on her left. >> ron, respond and then i need to get to pat. go ahead, ron. >> real quick, i think, larry, obama, first of all, supported employer mandate and, second, hillary clinton was moving -- obama moved to her left by opposing the individual mandate. the politics of that is complicated. i guess what i would say is what we're seeing, joe, you're right, a fundamental ideological right between where obama wants to go and the republicans want to go. on the other hand his success at bringing in republican leaning business groups on both cap and trade and health care, the utility industry, a variety of medical interests, shows they have some willingness to reach out and may be the basic ideological distance is too big to bridge but i do think they have made an effort to find the places where they can agree while moving forward in the direction they want to go which admittedly is one that is difficult for most republicans to follow. >> ron brownstein's argument this morning is barack obama's actually moved more to the center than he was on the campaign trail. what's your take on health care? >> well, on health care i think right now from what lawrence said before he's going to have to move to the center or he ain't going to get anything. but let me say this, it's quite natural that the republicans would be strongest in their opposition because you take the stimulus package, you take cap and trade, you take the health care thing which starts out on the left and who is most opposed philosophically to many of its details and many of its most important proposals? the conservatives and the republicans. naturally they're going to be on fire and they're the ones on the attack on this thing. i think quite frankly if i were obama and what lawrence said is true, you can't get reconciliation and you're not going to get 60 votes, he'd better sit down this august and say, what can we all get? who can we get from the other side? let's get it through in september because, look, what i was doing isn't succeeding any more better than what george bush did when he spent about six months selling social security reform and it went down from day one. >> let me ask lawrence o'donnell, i want to follow up on something ron said that a lot of us said at the time. do you think that the stimulus package was such a huge bill to start with and such a partisan bill to start with and such an ugly bill that was cobbled together, that democrats said they didn't even read, do you think that set a tone barack obama is still paying for six months later? >> i certainly didn't think so at the time and i don't think it's fair that it does set that tone because the stimulus package by definition takes a while to play out and we've only spent a small amount -- >> oh, sure. we can't judge that. i'm talking the politics of it, though, starting out your administration. >> it turns out the imagery of that and the imagery of the so-called pork, which was tiny stuff that was in the bill, did hurt the way it looked moving through and so, yeah, there's a kind of aftereffect from that. >> the politics and the public will, though. people are impatient. they want jobs. they want everything and it's not going to. if it does, it will take a while. >> the glimmer of hope for the obama administration, if i'm in there i'm look iing at the fact unemployment went down for the first time in quite some time and i'm praying to god it just starts moving to eight and americans start relaxing, spending more money. the economy picks up. that gives you a lot more political cobble. when you talk about health care and afghanistan -- >> re-establish some trust that might have been lost along the way here. ron brownstein, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> and still ahead the front page of "the wall street journal" says the taliban is now winning. we'll get a live report from afghanistan with nbc's richard engel. also, time magazine's editor-at-large mark halperin will join us. also, "mad money's" jim cramer givers us insight into wall street's four-week rally. you're watching "morning joe." bicycle, i've missed you. gathering dust, as pollen floats through the air. but with the strength of zyrtec ® , the fastest, 24-hour allergy relief, i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. with zyrtec ® i can love the air ™ . [ engine powers down ] gentlemen, you booked your hotels on orbitz. well, the price went down, so you're all getting a check thanks. for the difference. except for you -- you didn't book with orbitz, so you're not getting a check. well, i think we've all learne a valuable lesson today. good day, gentlemen. thanks a lot. thank you. introducing hotel price assurance, where if another orbitz customer books the same hotel for less, we send you a check for the difference, automatically. sfwhen you own a business,g saving sounds good. so hear this: regions makes it simple to save money and time with lifegreen checking and savings for business, free convenient e-services and regions quick deposit, so you can deposit checks right from your desk. so switch to regions and start saving. plus, get a business financial review through a regions cashcor analysis. it's how business gets into the rhythm of saving. my investigators have advised me the helicopter sustained significant damage. they are going to be conducting further examination of the wreckage to determine what pieces might be missing once it's on the pier and we have an opportunity to go over it. welcome back to "morning joe." we're looking at the recovery scene on the hudson river. the search continues there for two victims of the deadly midair collision over new york city's hudson river over the weekend. the crash between the sightseeing helicopter and small plane killed nine people. with more on that, wnbc's tracie strahan live in hoboken, new jersey. tra . >> reporter: day three is set to begin in about 15 minutes, but the task for divers focusing on recovering the fuselage of that small piper aircraft that took off from teterboro airport in new jersey as well as two victims, the bodies of two victims, the plane's pilot and another passenger onboard. coast guard and ntsb officials are already in place as they try to search for the sonar scan that located the plane earlier today. neither the plane or helicopter involved in this collision were equipped with the so-called black boxes and flight data recorders so recovering the wreckage for both of them has become essential. nine people total were killed in this collision. most of those victims were on the liberty tour helicopter, many of them were tourists from italy. now divers have their work cut out for them today as the ntsb said visibility in some parts of the hudson is only about a foot in front of them and we are expected to get another update on the ntsb on this investigation today. mika, back to you. >> tracie strahan live on the scene in hoboken, new jersey. thank you very much for that report. and coming up, "mad money's" jim cramer on the show here. right after the break, president obama returns to mexico. a live report from nbc's savannah guthrie. this is my verizon small business specialist, tom. now, i know the catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use mifi to get my whole team working online, on location. i was like, "woah". woah ! only verizon wireless has small business specialists in every store to help you do business better. you're like my secret ingredient. come in today and connect up to five devices on one 3g connection. now only $99.99 new aveeno nourish plus. active naturals wheat formulas proven to target and help repair damage in just three washes. - building shiny, strong... - hair with life. announcer: new aveeno nourish plus. when i really liked to be outside, i did not like suffering from nasal allergy sytoms like congestion. but nasonex relief may i say... bee-utiful! prescription nasonex is proven to help relieve indoor and outdoor nasal allergy symptoms like congestion, runny and itchy nose and sneezing. (announcer) side effects were generally mild and included headache. viral infection, sore throat, nosebleeds and coughing. ask your doctor about symptom relief with nasonex. and save up to $15 off your refills. go to nasonex.com for details, terms and conditions. obama's getting -- at this. i don't blame him. he's guesting testy. he said if i want to hear endless hours of babbling from the aged, i'll ask joe biden a yes or no question. >> president obama is in mexico for the north american summit. yes, if it's august it must be the north american summit. it is a milestone by which we measure every summer. this year no different. on the docket this morning, everything from climate change to the swine flu to the economic crisis. nbc news' white house correspondent and of course the new managing editor of "nbc nightly news" -- >> oh, no. >> issavannah guthrie is in mexico. savannah, what's your lead going to be tonight on nightly news? >> reporter: well, i'm glad you asked. i've been thinking about it all morning. i think we're going to be talking about the swine flu. that's really the big issue to come out of this summit. i mean, it's the most current issue for these three leaders. we all know the flu season is going to kick back up. swine flu will be back with a vengeance. this is about getting together, having a coordinated response, making sure there's not panic because, look, the president's counterterrorism adviser said it flat out. there's going to be more deaths, more sicknesses. they want to keep the panic to a minimum. and then the other issue is about the economy. what they don't want is the swine flu to cause disruptions in trade or travel which could really hurt these economies, all three of which are recovering. so a lot of issues on the agenda but i think that will be the lead tonight even though i'm not really the managing editor -- >> oh, yes, you are. stop being so modest. >> putting her in a bad position. >> reporter: the white house, this is surreal, talking about swine flu in mexico. while america's town hall meetings are -- america politically on fire right now. what's the white house thinking about their next step in that battle to get control of the debate again? >> reporter: well, look, i think they recognize that what's happening at these town halls is getting a lot of traction, certainly a lot of coverage and taking up a lot of air in the media universe and so they know it's important and what they're trying to say behind the scenes is we don't have a problem with people who have legitimate concerns about health care. in fact these town halls are supposed to be a dialogue and they encourage that. what they don't like is when it becomes a shouting fest or where people are just coming in to disrupt and where it turns to violence. and we also see a very aggressive campaign on the internet, certainly from the white house but also from the organizers, the campaign wing of the obama administration which is called organizing for america to try to hit right back when there's misinformation out there. there's an old theory selling rumors on the internet, you don't respond to them. that's not the tack this white house is saying. if there is something out there, rumors of misinformation, they want to battle right back. >> pat buchanan, if richard nixon were in this situation right now or ronald reagan, forget about how you win or lose the health care debate. what do you do to manage the next week of political events? let's talk about the next week, the president 50% of the quinnipiac poll, 53% of the nbc news poll. what do you do to make sure he stays out of the 40s? >> i think, joe, what you have to say is be honest with yourself and be honest with the president and say, mr. president, you've been out here for weeks now and you've had these town hall meetings and you've been involved in this debate and we are steadily going down. now we are doing something wrong and we're not going to redeem ourselves by yelling there are mobs out there and all the rest of it. we need a different message. we need a focused message on health care. we need just all the parts -- everybody talking along the same lines, the same pattern so that when we come back we will at least have a package where we can get a majority and get it through. that's what i would do. the first thing you have to do is tell him the truth. it's not working. >> i want to go back to something you said last week, two weeks ago. you said august was going to be a bad month. you basically told him not to do this, to back off. you saw something we didn't see. what does he do now? does he retreat? does he stop talking about health care because when you go on, like you said, when you go on and say i am not a euthanasia -- it's like the nixon equivalent of i am not a crook. we are not going to kill your parents. >> yeah, once you're forced as the white house decided he was this weekend to answer the single craziest thing that is said about your proposal, you're in losing territory in this debate. all we know is what they've been doing doesn't help. what they've been doing actually hurts. sending him out there to push this thing hurts the so now you might want to try pulling him back. mexico's a good idea and maybe other foreign -- >> martha's vineyard. >> yes. pull him back. let the congress have their struggles with their town hall meetings and pull him back from this subject for a while. >> all right. >> pat, thank you for -- worried about savannah in mexico on the whole climate thing. >> don't you worry about savannah. she's doing great. in fact, she's the president of nbc news. she will be running the department soon. the great taste of splenda® no calorie sweetener and added a little fiber? 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[ engine powers down ] gentlemen, you booked your hotels on orbitz. well, the price went down, so you're all getting a check thanks. for the difference. except for you -- you didn't book with orbitz, so you're not getting a check. well, i think we've all learned a valuable lesson today. good day, gentlemen. thanks a lot. thank you. introducing hotel price assurance, where if another orbitz customer books the same hotel for less, all right. welcome back to "morning joe." everyone ready? >> i'm ready. this goldman sachs thing, i want to understand. i want to know. with us now cnbc's jim cramer of "mad money" and the author of "jim cramer's real money." mika, no, i'm not. this is a problem. >> i think this is the kind of thing that gets people really mad. front page of the "new york times" talks about hank paulson having frequent conversations with the head of goldman sachs, his former company, many more conversations than he had with other executives that were dealing with the bailout issue. does it -- is there some sort of connecting of the dots here that we should be doing in our minds especially when it comes to trust in the very people that were supposed to be getting us out of this mess? >> absolutely horrible because goldman has been portrayed, not the tri-lateral commission. >> i think the word evil was used. >> if you were paulson, what the heck were you doing? the western world was falling apart. you couldn't call merrill because they have been trying to come up with a term that means less than truthful but i can't. you could not talk to aig because as the justice department is finding there was not a lot of truth being told there. morgan stanley frantically trying to find a buyer for anything that it can. the only guy who had a clear image of the situation, maybe because goldman was better but it was the place where you understood what was happening. >> goldman came out smelling so sweet in this and paulson is so connected with goldman sachs. goldman sachs, is it not true, they always seem to come out smelling like a rose. >> goldman was at $48 and about to collapse. everybody who was pulling their money out, short the stock, knew that. there was a tremendous raid on goldman, a five-day raid. it was this close -- >> okay, great. so hank paulson makes some policy moves. the government moves and listening to goldman sachs, now they're doing great, soaring when everybody else is collapsing. >> gretchen would have been thrilled if goldman had been under. i, myself, like my atm machine to work. >> you're avoiding the bigger question, though, jim, doesn't goldman always get the good deal from the federal government? we can go back to the mexican bailout crisis 1995. we were talking about mexico and the peso for years before figuring out it wasn't a mexican bailout. it was a goldman sachs bailout. >> that's not true. >> bob reuben and the same thing with aig. that was about helping goldman -- >> $5.6 billion that it was on the hook with aig. if you go to the bailout, you will find multiple -- multiple -- numbers that were far bigger than what goldman was owed and, by the way, just so this is important. it was geithner who decided to pay out the claims. goldman never asked for the money not once. >> you don't think that he had hank paulson a vested interest in goldman's success even in terms of his own personal can connection with the company? >> i think he had a vested interest in saving the western world and if he wasn't trying to save them, then what was he doing? >> so what's good for goldman sachs is good for the western world? >> i like that. >> oh, wow. >> okay, i worked at goldman 3 '83-'87, i am part of the vast conspiracy. >> this is all about conflict of interest, the perception. >> because the treasury secretary used to run goldman everybody -- and because bob rubin worked there before worksing on the mexican bailout, everyone is looking at those situations and saying is there a conflict of interest there? what do you see when you look for conflict of interest in these stories? >> i would have liked to have seen he got ticked off about certain things he could do, position himself in the bond market, position himself on the short side of the stock, position himself to have no inventory and, you know, he had no inventory. we're a dry cleaner. we're not a retailer. from day one you're told you're a dry cleaner. goldman in the end -- >> does anybody else know what that means? i like it, though. >> don't take merchandise, unlike merrill lynch which had about $100 billion worth of exposure. in and out. in and out. >> we just launder money. very good. >> this is why i worked so hard this weekend to figure out a way to justify this. >> you're doing a pretty good job. >> thank you. you have to understand paulson had a total vacuum of information, aig -- aig was never -- >> we know where you are. good work this weekend. let's talk about the economy. >> the red sox. >> the unemployment rate going down at least this past month. >> don't try to portray that as positive. >> is it going to continue that way? what's happening? >> i think it is. i think people are going to be called back, things were made too lean. too many people fired. i expected ford motor will have to crank up production. gm couldn't crank up production because it had been too busy firing people. can't bring them back fast enough. i see a lot of industries, the steal industry coming back, aluminum industry coming back, part and parcel with the auto bill which will go from $8 million up to $11 million. >> interesting we do -- mika and i do radio and we were talking to one of the radio advertisers last week. hey, how are things going? well, we use car dealerships are obviously an important part when things are bad. i said, oh, i know. no, they're out of inventory. i said -- >> the whole country is out of inventory. >> so they're not advertising because they've sold all of their cars on the showroom floors. >> restocking, that's all it's going to be. forget it. the whole country is out of inventory whether it's steel which is why the price has gone up, there's not a lot of aluminum, fiber board, there's not a lot of clothes at the department stores. everyone thought -- >> i know. i slept in this. >> my gosh. i don't want to know. >> when you sleep in your car, it's all dirty. >> cash for clunkers simply accelerating demand? >> thank you for saying it that way. yes. ford motors is having a great quarter without cash for clunkers. it hey has made it so inventory is depleted. i still think is good. there's probably a spin against people -- just like this weekend they spun a story saying consumer debt is going down so we're not spending enough. i thought that was positive. >> i thought it was, too. >> you're misinformed. >> okay, thanks very much. also, inside the unemployment numbers, though, you do find there are people still having a hard time getting a job. people have been out of work for a long time, having trouble getting back in. >> bread line and apple line. i think it's absolutely true. there's this group of people who cannot find jobs, who are geographically located where there are no jobs and can't be retrained fast enough. i also think there was a dramatic decline far, far better than anyone thought at this stage of the recovery. >> you said something i've been saying for some time. this is the worst recession since the great depression. no, it's not. this isn't as bad as the recession of the early '80s or of 1970 and, like you said, there aren't bread lines. there are ipod lines. >> cash for clunkers. going to create a dent in the demand curve in the next year when they would like to have more than that. >> gm and chrysler safely got out of the car business, welfare institutions for the federal government. there are unemployment programs. they're not going to produce enough cars. >> i think there's a lot of people -- i understand the ipod line thing but -- i think there are a lot of people really hurting. >> there are a lot of people really hurting and they are people that hurt every time there's a recession. my family was hurt for a year and a half without a job for -- in '73 to '75. i'm just saying when politicians say this is the worst recession since the great depression, it's just not true. >> it's not. >> listen, september, october, november, there were -- there was a depression. bernanke stated that. >> all right. you need to stay. i'll get you another cup of coffee. >> i didn't get to evil. >> stay with us. we'll be right back with jon meacham. tools are uncomplicated? 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( shouting ) i know, maybe one of my first-born son. dad, mom says the boys gotta go. personalize your card by uploading... your own photo at capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? ♪ you need listerine® whitening vibrant white™ rinse. the mouthwash that gets teeth four times whiter than the leading toothpaste. and kills bad breath germs. listerine® whitening vibrant white™. i'm one republican that would support more troops in afghanistan. i do believe, quite frankly -- i'll be shocked if more not troops are not requested by our commanders. my message to my democratic colleagues is is we made mistakes in iraq. let's not rumsfeld afghanistan. let's not do this on the cheap. let's have enough engagement to make sure we're successful. >> with us now the editor of "newsweek" magazine, jon meacham, the author of "american lion: andrew jackson in the white house." a remarkable book. you obviously as editor of "newsweek" have some concerns about the well-being of what's going -- of somebody in iran. tell us about it. >> it's funny the sources within a cultural a.d.d., cultural a.d.d. we experience. remember iran was a big story not too long ago. it's still a very big story and a very vivid symbol of that regime's totalitarian theocratic instincts is the holding of our correspondent who was picked up on the 21st of june, taken from his 83-year-old mother's house. he is expecting his first child in november. he's been held in the prison there in tehran since the 21st without access to counsel, without any formal charges in violation of iran's own due process regulations and expectations. he has been part of these two or three moments of video'd show trials as they attempt to establish a competing narrative, that it was not the people seeking a fair count in the election that ahmadinejad won and was declared to have won so decisively so early. but the regime would like to create a narrative it was the western media. >> and what are the charges against him? >> there aren't any. >> what are they suggesting? >> the suggestion is that we and others in the media were part of a concerted conspiracy to undermine the regime, and he read a clearly coerced confession on video. he has been held without access to anyone we know or that he knows since the 21st. so aside from the humanitarian concerns which are obvious, i think people who are interested in the future of iran as a potential foe of ours, as they pursue nuclear ambitions, as they pursue and continue to be theocratically governed, it is a regime so interested in its own preservation, that it's going to violate in the highest profile way, its own rules. >> and i don't understand why you target "newsweek" writers. we saw a video of a french woman that they arrested. i don't understand what the end game is for this regime. >> that's where it gets orwellian, a kind of logic that you -- that's worrisome, that's quite worrisome because it doesn't make any political sense. why take journalists, particularly one who has been very fair-handed, about whom there were no complaints from the regime until he was arrested. he's an iranian-canadian citizen, a very well known documentary worker, living there for years. the regime has never said this is a dissident we have to watch him. it was only when they were facing what they believed to be a crisis that in my own personal analysis they overreacted. they grabbed people that they believed they could make this case internally that see this is the media. this is the reason people are in the streets is because of people like this, not because maybe you want an actual just count in the election. >> here he is, a reporter being held indefinitely. no charges that you know of against him. >> right. >> what then does this mean, this backdrop mean for those three hikers? >> well, exactly. general jones said that yesterday. it's not encouraging, obviously. and, in fact, it gets, again, more and more into the kind of frightening totalitarian logic where you just keep going -- you believe your own story and you continue. you compound it. you stay within it. so you have the french woman. you have about 100 dissidents including the former official of the regime being brought in to say that they were trying to undermine. so there's a level of sovi soviet-style action here that is not helpful respectfully we suggest if iran wants to be taken seriously as a family of nations, this is an opportunity. this is an opportunity to say we respect the rule of law and we are a system confident in itself that we can allow a discussion of issues and will release people being held because we are strong enough and legitimate enough to do that. >> is canada helping in in any way, since he is a canadian? >> yeah, we are going all out to get him. >> this also, mika, strengthens the hands of some, where they say iran crossed the line and they are going in. when they treat journalists this way and hikers this way and others this way, all they are doing is strengthening hard liners' hands, and there is a cost for this type of behavior. >> john maen meacham, you can s with us, along with jim kramer. >> keep it here on "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. bicycle, i've missed you. gathering dust, as pollen floats through the air. but with the strength of zyrtec ® , the fastest, 24-hour allergy relief, i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. with zyrtec ® i can love the air ™ . i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. well, if you'd like your own personal tour of paris, there's an app for that. or, you'd like to figure out the metro, there's an app for that. or you'd like to send a postcard home, there's an app for that too, because there's an app for just about anything. only on the iphone. welcome back to "morning jo joe". al hunt is coming up straight ahead. and jon meacham is still with us. and nancy pelosi is accusing people of swinging things to rallies, and rush limbaugh calling the other side nazis. you have nancy pelosi saying these protestors are "unamerican." the extremes are choosing upsides, and it's getting uglier than it was been in a while. >> yeah, bipartisan ship could be still up and kicking. perhaps the kingdom of god is not coming to us. i think -- to be completely serious, i think it's revolting, and it cheapens and lessens and minimizes the important lessens we have to learn from the 1930s and '40s to introduce a once-civilized nation. whatever we want to say about health care in this country in 2009, we should not be using imagery of a suicidal society. >> 77% of americans think bipartisanship is the same as george w. bush or has gotten worse. >> i think we are in the media -- just because i want to make fun of it -- >> that's a little harsh. >> well, irony. >> thank you. because it just seems like -- maybe it's a sweden model, which is okay, the dutch model, and i think that is worth arguing about, and civilized nation where everybody got paid to do nothing. >> where do you get paid to do nothing? >> in the netherlands. >> i'm moving there. >> just to track it, it began with rush. rush on his radio show said the symbol obama was using looked like a swau stau kau. that's where it began. it should cease, but it has not. nancy pelosi played off of that. she should have been bigger than rush, but she did not and played off of it. >> january 20th came in, and he was going to be post racial, and post partisan, and this is an ugly political summer with the gates battle, and here it is. >> i think this is the reason james madison is important, and we should get him a statue. you will always have a battle of clashing interest. there are ways to fight that are more productive than others. when you think about the intense personal interests literally that people have in the health care, it's not surprising it's the most passionate of a debate. >> in a way you can see it as inevitable. you can take some of the words at face value and put them where they belong. phrases like death care -- well, is it fair to throw it out there if that's how you feel. >> before i have to go, and the big winners are going to be united health, cigna, and the health care companies will be dismantled. they are for profit manage care players. they won. they were supposed to go to nonprofit status. >> when we get money again and can afford to invest in the stock market, we will keep in that mind. jon meacham i had a lot of people on the left angry when i said this looked like 1993 and 1994. i have to revise my statement. i went to town hall meetings in 1993 and 1994, and they have nothing on the level of anger i am seeing out there in 2009. i go to the town hall meetings that we have in my area, and it was televised, and while there was anger there, both sides were not calling each other nazis. we were have a discussion. do we go with cooper's plan, or clinton's plan? we had those discussions. we are not even having those discussions now on policy. this is just pure rage. on all sides. >> yeah, in my mind this is at some level about health care is not a rational subject or market, and it never will be because it's about your life. who is sitting in a room fearful about one's health is going to say no, i don't want that test because that will add to the health care cost spiraling out of control. >> that is a rational choice. multiple test and excessive testing is a rational choice. >> when it comes to the political sense you will have people reacting more strongly than to taxes. >> this is what i suggest to the republicans running around there talking about death camps or death panels, instead of doing that, just say we will just actually get the free market more involved, because that's what conservatives are supposed to believe. and then it becomes rational. when i say jon meacham, your loved one over there needs x, y, and z, and we will pay for some of it, but you decide for some of it, too. you decide if six more months of suffering of your loved one will be worth this much more to your family. conservatives could make that decision. if it's a rational decision, and it's based on money, the way the market is based on it, and that sounds harsh. conservatives could talk about that instead of killing kids with down's syndrome. >> that gets lost when the passions run high because of the nature of the topic. >> i don't think it has been too small. >> i think leaders who are making a difficulty bait much worse. >> i would love to hear what you think we should be out of the white house. thank you so much for coming in. >> lawrence o'donnell knows much more than i do what the white house should be doing right now. >> we'll ask lawrence then. >> two weeks ago he said they should have putted, and they have lost 5 to 10 points on health care since that time. i was on capitol hill a couple weeks ago, and a new congressman came up and said what do you think we should do? i said i think you should all get plane tickets and go to france, and stay out of here for six months. every time you open your mouth you only hurt yourself. do you like that idea? >> do we have to pay for that? >> yeah, you do, but it will be worth it. >> i will be going to expedia today. >> and we have somebody calling this place crazy central. >> he makes me very calm, jim cramer. >> by the way, i have a bit of advice for you, if you need an appliance at a discount rate, crazy larry. it's a man in manhattan. he is -- >> can he get any price? >> he can not only get any price, he will beat any price. the crisis, mika, are crazy. >> and it's time for some of today's top stories, with mika brzezinski. >> you are not calling me crazy? >> no, you are sane. >> don't listen to him. >> yeah, the family has been going there. >> giving the attire my daughter wore, we are not going back. our top story this morning, president obama is in mexico today for the second time since taking office. he is meeting with the president of mexico and the canadian leader, steven harper. they are talking about the swine flu, which is expected to break out again this fall. and they are still searching for two bodies. the investigation could take months. mayor bloomberg discussed the incident on sunday's "meet the press." >> this may have been an accident or total tragedy, and maybe we could have prevented it with different procedures. we have not had many accidents in this area, and the last notable one was where a plane was put down in the hudson river and everybody survived. and in this case, we don't think anybody survived. baghdad, a pair of bombs exploded, including one near a group of construction workers. the congressional budget office says the federal deficit grew by another $181 billion in july alone. >> think about this, from 1977 to 2001, if i am not mistaken, the deficit grew less over those four years than it grew last month. to put perspective on it. >> that's perspective. according to the hill.com, the number stems from the massive bailouts of financial and auto giants and the falling tax revenue due to the recession. >> can i give you one more -- >> please. >> from the time george washington was inaugurated to the time ronald reagan was inaugurated, they did not wrack up the deficits through all those years that we have this year. >> it always goes up in a recession. >> not like that. not quite this extreme. in fact, never even been close to this. >> but there was a huge drop in tax revenue because of the recession. >> yeah, there has been a tax revenue drop before. >> i am just trying to add a perspective. one is defensive of obama, and one is not. >> one is not, and it depends on republicans or democrats that have spent -- >> andrew jackson paid off the debt. >> that will be the last word. parts of asia are swamped in rain this morning hours after a powerful typhoon ripped across the region. 1 million people forced to evacuate their homes along china's coast where thousands of homes were damaged. in taiwan, a six-story hotel was swept into a river. and that is the worse flooding in 50 years. that's incredible. >> yeah, and they need the building standards they have in florida in the 1990s. and there is growing criticism in the senate. they are talking about what carries around the senators. >> let me ask you a question. in four terms in congress, i never once on a congressional trip was not only flown around on a g-5 jet, or private jet. i took commercial. i don't know anybody during my time in congress that was ever flown around on a political trip in a leer jet. >> those are not for political choices. i was never on one of those either. >> i am talking business trips. >> fact finding trips for governing. >> do you remember ever remember flying around on a g-5. >> i flew commercial. >> yeah, everybody flew commercial. they are talking about the economy, the worse it has been in 20 years, and they are talking about buying five jets -- >> no, three. >> it's good for the economy, the stimulus. according to the wall street journal a group of senators talk about this. jim jones said they are talking about releasing the hikers. we go to richard engel reporting from afghanistan. what is the latest there? >> reporter: there is international pressure growing. and iraq's foreign minister this morning told nbc news he urged iran to release the americans. he said at one stage he was hopeful, and then a few hours after we spoke to him, a member of iran's parliament suggested yet again the three americans could be spies, and could have been spent by the u.s. government to stir unrest, and perhaps they were linked to all of the unrest surrounding the election. the controversial re-election of mahmoud ahmadinejads. no official word as to what will happen to the americans. >> some say the situation is worsening in afghanistan, and it seems more troops seem inevitable. what are you hearing? >> reporter: there was an interview today published in the "wall street journal," an interview with the commanding general here and he said the taliban is effectively gaining the upper hand and the taliban has gotten so strong the u.s. has to change its strategy, not only focusing on protecting civilians, which is something the general mentioned before, but consolidating u.s. troops in population centers, and not spreading them out in the remote valleys where they are fighting the taliban, but bringing them together so they can protect major cities. and the casualty rates will stay high for months. >> richard engel, live from afghanistan. thank you very much. let's go to al. the rhetoric of both sides being ratcheted up. what is going on? what is going on in the health care debate and where does it end? >> i think august is the sixth month for the obama administration. and i am not as pessimistic as some of the early analysis for the success here. i think they are crazy to think the revolution is contrived in washington. >> duck army could not run joe scarborough. >> yeah. >> i think people are scared about it. jon, others said when you deal with your health care, it's more personal even than taxes. but there is a -- let me give you one example. everybody out there says how much they are worried about the government making decisions. that's a legitimate concern. and ken bacon, he wrote a column two weeks ago in the "washington post." he got cancer and it spread to the brain. he is saying every day he and his wife have to fight because his insurance company is fighting radiation. and the status quo is something people hate. >> but al, the obama administration is saying in effect the government will be the decider of what is medically necessary. you hear president obama saying we don't want to do the unnecessary things. and so how -- what people fear out there is that the solution here will leave your friend in exactly the same situation, but the decision about it not being medically necessary will be made by some government bureaucrat? >> yeah, that's good a point. having dealt with both, but both are bad but i would prefer the borough krat over the insurance company. and this is incredibly complicated stuff. i don't think that we are going to resolve it in the next couple months. i think it's likely they will come up with a compromise that will be a starting point before the year is out. >> there is a contest. who do you hate more, the government or insurance companies? >> al set up a wonderful video game there. >> yeah. we know where andrew jackson would come down. >> okay. al hunt, stay with us. >> thanks, al. >> coming up, the health care mob scene or a national disgrace. and also, chuck todd will be with us. and when we come back, senator and dr. cobrin, where he is pushing health care in his home state of oklahoma. you are watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. imodium multi-symptom relief combines two powerful medicines for st relief of your diarrhea symptoms, so you can get back out there. imodium. get back out there. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops c't. i'm bill kurtis, and wherever i go, i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. 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(announcer) side effects were generally mild and included headache. viral infection, sore throat, nosebleeds and coughing. ask your doctor about symptom relief with nasonex. and save up to $15 off your refills. i don't think either side ought to be trying to engage in disrupting meetings, either the democratic side or the republican side. we ought to focus on the issue. and to demonize citizens who are energetic about this strikes me as demonstrating a weakness in your position. >> now, a republican from oklahoma, senator tom cobrin. he will be hosting town meetings throughout the month of august. it has not gone well so far for some of the senators in town hall meetings. why? >> i think people are afraid. we kind of have a predicate in our country right now with the recession, and the big spending and big deficits, and with the unemployment, loss of control and loss of personal control. you come in and say, i have my health care, but somebody is going to tinker with it, and i don't want anybody to mess with that. everything else is a mess, why mess with it right now. i think it's fear based. >> speaking of fear, i want to show you a graphic. you and i came in in '94 together. we were unpopular together because we hammered on deficits. we went after democrats and republicans alike. >> i have stayed that way. >> yeah, look at this number. july's deficit, 1.8 trillion -- sorry, $181 billion. yeah, i am exaggerating! i think that was more than we had in '97, '98, '99 and 2000. >> i asked allen greenspan not long ago, what is the upper limit? he said we don't know what it is, but we are getting close to what we can borrow. had we spent the stimulus the way it should have been spent, we would be at $1.8 trillion deficits. >> republicans took control, happy days were here again. what happened, tom? how did a republican congress and a republican president get us to a point where we were just six months ago? >> i think it's not republican, president or congress. it's a career-based congress that does not pay attention to details. that's number one. and number two, don't forget, the revenue peak was based on an it expansion and revenue expansion. don't forget that. remember in 2000, we were going to have the year 2000 square, and we advanced forward in sales by year and a half on all the i.t. stuff. and we had a tremendous boost in revenue, and we had one year that you and i were in congress and we actually cut spending, discreti discretionary spending. >> let's remember what the revenue boom came from. it came from something that republicans religiously believe is a private sector. it came from the biggest tax increase in history in 1993, and legislated by democrats exclusively. republicans told us if you raise that top tax bracket, revenue will go down because rich people will work less, which of course has never happened in the history of economics. so the revenue burst was a democratic revenue burst, and the spending control was republican informed, and the first thing clinton did was the reduction bill for the deficit. and george bush never did a deficit reduction bill. >> clinton was not your model on spending. he was fortunate on the i.t. boom. >> and the cambridge spending cut. >> one year, and that was the only year we had decreased the growth of the size of the federal government. and gingrich got in trouble, because we signed up for a team that would shrink the government. >> remember gingrich's last speak, and he attacked people like me while he was siding with nancy pelosi, and trying to pass the largest bill at the time. >> there is fear out there about spending. we have seen it in the polls. and there is another fear about how this thing will work and affect our lives. and the conversation we just had with al hunt, who is still with us. chris, read the last e-mail that we got in. >> kay says, al hunt is wrong, at least when the insurance company makes a call you can fight it and change companies, and when the government makes the decision, you have no way to fight it. >> what do you say to that? >> i have a good insurance company now, and in the past i did not. we sad a sick child that we had to fight for years and years and years. if chris can give me a road map as to what we could have done with the sick child. i think he is just dead wrong. >> jon meacham? >> well, sometimes the government does do things well. >> like what? >> defending the borders. >> the borders? you have to look at that. there are some things it does efficiently and effectively, and there is nothing it does efficiently and effectively. >> do you think it wages war efficiently? >> no, maybe effectively, but the cost to do that, and -- >> you are a disturbingly consistent person. >> yeah, i thought i had you there. >> no, it's troubling. he does not go to one side or the other. we don't appreciate it. if you could please, next time you come, be partisan or something. >> no, we like that conversation. >> i want to ask al hunt quickly, where does the president go over the next week or two? you don't think health care is doomed, as does crazy larry. >> i am not saying it's doomed. >> it shouldn't be doomed. here is an important point. we have the best health care in the world, one, and it cost way too much, and we don't get the value for it. we ought to fix health care. but that does not mean -- >> by doing what exactly? >> bynum on number one, elimina the differential for people that are sick, and we can get everybody covered in the country. we have 11 million people that need our help really. >> thank you so much for being with us. >> al, stay with us. we'll be right back. international superstar erin burnett will be with us. ♪ bicycle, what are we waiting for? the flowers are blooming. the air is sweet. and zyrtec® starts... relieving my allergies... 2 hours faster than claritin®. my worst symptoms feel better, indoors and outdoors. with zyrtec®, the fastest... 24-hour allergy medicine, i promise not to wait as long to go for our ride. zyrtec® works fast, so i can love the air™. this is my verizon small business specialist, tom. now, i know the catering business but when i walked in here i wasn't sure what i needed. i'm not sure what i need. tom showed me how to use mifi to get my whole team working online, on location. i was like, "woah". woah ! only verizon wireless has small business specialists in every store to help you do business better. you're like my secret ingredient. come in today and connect up to five devices on one 3g connection. now only $99.99 obama's getting ripped at this, and testing about the protestors. he said the other day if i want to hear endless hours bobbling about anything, i will ask joe biden a question. >> that is hurtful. joe biden was the only primary candidates that gave a one-word answer. >> yeah, debate after debate after debate, he did the best of all of us. >> that was very mean of bill. >> i don't know why he hates him so much. >> it is funny, i will grant him that. >> vice president is such a thankless job. >> you get a house, come on. >> yeah, biden is real and in the room. >> yeah, he is in the room, and he is very important to the president, and in a lot of different ways. let's get a check on business before the bell with cnbc's international superstar. she is so important to us. erin burnett is live at the new york stock exchange. she is locked and loaded with information. what is going on on the street today erin? >> it's an important week. i know it's august. we have a federal reserve meeting, and what they say about whether we have turned the corner for the economy, especially if they change in any way, it will be watched. and so that's going to be very important. >> erin, on friday we had a couple people coming on and saying we are looking at 15 or 10% interest rates down the road because of the massive deficit. do you think the fed may issue a warning that will stair wall street? >> it would be unlikely for them, joe, to directly address the deficit in the actual statement, but you raise a good point that when ben bernanke testifies, he mentioned that. and there is talk about the tax increases, and they said the minute we can, we are going to start with the deal with the deficits. >> there is a fear that the fed will talk about the thought of rising interest rates? >> the street will focus on the inflation, which is the way it would come out from the fed. the street would interpret that as interest rates may go up, too. it's unlikely the fed will do that quite yet, but the market is looking for the fed by the end of the year and early next year to start to maybe bring interest rates up. but, you know, joe, when you talk about that, and on friday we talked about peter and this interest rate forecast of going up 20% plus, and there are some people that have that perspective, but they are still in the great minority. >> what are you looking at today? >> one thing to watch is gasoline prices. they are up about 16 cents over the last couple weeks. >> why is that? >> well, there you have just stepped on the third rail. nobody knows, joe. partially they are up because china is recovering. and china consumes two barrels of oil per person per year, and america consumes 25 barrels per person perfect year. there is a demand story there. and a lot of surge, when you look at where the money comes, it may be due to speculation. it could be from people like you, for the first time, i can get into oil, and oil is going to go up and i want to have some of that in my portfolio. >> erin, i don't have a portfolio. i have off-track betting. no ge, otb. >> otb? >> uh-huh. >> in this world, that could be just as good. and we talk about three stools to the recovery, the u.s., europe and china. er europe is a big story today. we have much better than expected surveys on manufacturing joe, which matter as whole lot. in fact, one survey of european manufacturers say it's at the strongest level of january of 2008. and that was before bear stearns, keep in mind. >> already, that's the weak leg. >> yeah, and it's not that bad, so hey. >> erin, the international superstar, so thank you so much. >> i will go get the angus black beef sticks. i can't stop him, but i can try and improve. >> how many grams of fat? >> how many grams of fat -- >> coming up, mark alfred has strong words about the protests. he is coming up. you are watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. the great taste of splenda® no calorie sweetener and added a little fiber? sweet! sweet! 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(announcer) splenda® with fiber. how far can you see? at pnc, taking the long view is how we help you take the right path. even to change it when conditions demand. keeping you on the road to achieving your goals. it's something we've been doing for over 150 years. let our strength and stability be the basis for yours. pnc. leading the way. you are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are people in america that talk about establishing -- >> let me start by disspelling the rumors about a government takeover of health care. that is simply not true. >> now, with the white house correspondent, and nbc news political director, chuck todd in new york. and mark halperin. you say you lost the debate when you have to say as the president of the u.s., i do not support another naysa. >> you have to have the president deal with this. but, at the same time, i think it's a big test this week. the obama machine is trying to flip the switch a little bit politically and officially. they have started this reality check website on the official white house.gov page, and now they are doing this with the dnc, hoping to flood congressional offices with supporters in the district themselves. what has gotten lost in the entirety bait about the fact whether conservatives are organizing or not, and let's say they are organizing. they are organizing. flooding town halls, and overshadowing everything else. politically, it should be something that concerns the white house because it may mean their own supporters are not getting fired up enough. they want to see, does all the coverage of the conservative movement that is pushing to overrun some of the town halls, will that fire up their own supporters. they will find out this week. >> that could have an alternative affect not too good, joe, because what are the options for the white house if lies and name call something being put out by republican groups and conservative groups, and what are they supposed to do? >> they are getting it from both sides. the liberal wings are attacking him for not going far enough, and the conservatives are out there being political, and people are talking about nancy pelo pelosi. you call the town hall meetings, quote, a national disgrace. >> not the town hall meetings, it's the way in which -- >> it's the rights. >> well, i am for a healthy decent on what the president is trying to do. whether they are orchestrated or not, just to disrupt it, a free piece of video that can be shown over and over on cable tv, they are a disgrace. and there are parts of the media culture that let the discussion of this, rather than the discussion of the republican option as a good idea, that's also a discretion. >> you would say if a law professor went to a university, and he was shouted down, it would be a disgrace if they showed it over and over. >> yeah, it's not the discussion we should be having. >> if people are disrespectful during the iraq war, and shotted down the vice president or secretary of defense, that would be disgraceful? >> yes, it would be, if that dominated the discussion. >> well, this actually was not happening in the ramp up to the iraq war. >> lawrence, you were the one that educated me and said the left has always been the political faction that specialized in these tactics. that's why i am surprised it was not a disgrace. and suddenly the republicans use that from the play book, and it's a disgrace now. >> did you say the conservative senator that went off on glenn beck and lou dobbs and said turn off the tv. this is a guy that will not vote for any part of the obama domestic agenda. okay? >> he is challenging him in the primary. we saw congressman castle in delaware, and he could win a senate seat for the republicans. he is getting shouted down. >> but, if bob is getting frustrated with what is going on at his own town meeting in the very conservative district in south carolina, and this is a guy that doesn't exactly vote the wrong way as far as conservatives are concerned, what does that tell you? >> let's have a national discussion. let's use the town meetings, and have congress hear what peoples' ideas are. let's not have it be about showing a map where the various town meetings were disrupted, and showing things because there are tomb stones or death threats. national consensus, this should be talked about and dealt with, and that's not what we are doing. >> what does the president do at this point to reign it in and make eigit a real discussion? because it has gotten out of control. >> well, just like 15 years ago, the more the president talks about it the more the popularity goes down. do they see how much a he decides to confront the issue. i know the white house would like to have a confrontation take place there to see if the president himself can create a moment where maybe he can tone down the rhetoric. but also, politically, i think the plan is going to be hurry up and get health care passed and get it done and get it in the rear view mirror. he would rather talk about some other issues, preparation for h1n1. >> yeah, and i want jon meacham, i want to follow-up on what chuck todd said. i want to very quickly, go down the litany of what has said in the last two weeks. rush limbaugh compared president obama to a nazi, and nancy pelosi also says protestors are carryi carrying swastikas to the rallies. what is going on? >> it's an issue that is as emotional as war and peace, i think, because it affects everybody. everyone has a stake in the health care system. and there is an enormous amount of frustration, because my personal opinion is nobody knows exactly what to do if you are just going to reform an existing system. so therefore the frustration with not having a solution leads to having, as mark says, quite rightly, a debate about a debate is easier. we can fight about town halls. >> yeah, it's led by emotions, what is going to happen at the new hampshire town hall? >> the president succeeded last year, because he seemed to be above the frey. he has to figure out how to get above the frey, and that's not only glenn beck, but also nancy pelosi. >> you will be on the radio with us today. >> good to know that. >> did you not know that? >> i do now. >> let's look at what is making headlines around the country. to college, so she needs one. - can you help me? - ( shouting ) - yes, you. - our line of next class laptops are perfect for college, and they start at just $650. are those good? 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(announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastestg network. only from at&t. ♪ ♪ i am meteorologist, bill karins. here is the business travel forecast. showers in st. louis could be a problem. chicago, flying in and out of detroit will have scattered storms. hot in the east from boston all the way down to d.c. and also a chance of showers in the north west, and much of the west coast looks great. have a great day. apples to apples, against other top companies, to help you get the best price. how do you do that? with a touch of this button. can i try that? [ chuckles ] wow! good luck getting your remote back. it's all right -- i love this channel. shopping less and saving more. now, that's progressive. call or click today. you need listerine® whitening vibrant white™ rinse. the mouthwash that gets teeth four times whiter than the leading toothpaste. and kills bad breath germs. listerine® whitening vibrant white™. welcome back. it's time for us to tell you what we learned today. willie, what did you learn? >> i got a new nickname. willie. >> we don't know where willie is right now. he has his own tv show, and he becomes a diva. >> i learned willie geist is skipping what we are doing today. and i am on the fastest growing radio show in america today. >> in america? in china. >> you do think, though -- look, it's television's willie geist. >> yeah, good to see you. >> did you learn anything other than that? national protestors, a national disgrace. >> what did willie learn? >> i am the guy with the role of monitoring the show today. >> your program is good, too. and carole king said it was better than ours. and she e-mailed me and apologized. if you cannot be with the one you love, love the one you are with. what did you learn today? >> not to

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