Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20111013

haagen-dazs black walnut, it tastes good all the time. call me haagen-dazs black walnut. >> i think herman cain could do well going up against obama in the fall. >> it is thursday, october 13th. welcome to "morning joe." with us onset, msnbc contributor mike barnicle. also financier steve rattner back with us. hi, willie. >> excited for herman cain. he called himself haagen-dazs black walnut, says it tastes good all the time. it may taste good all the time. mark it down, flavor of the week. remember last year, sarah palin is -- i came out and said no, no, the mainstream republican party will not accept her. oh, oh the hate mail. >> you got hate tweets, hate mail. >> remember when i said glenn beck wouldn't last at fox because he was too extreme even for fox. remember the hate mail? that would never happen, right? >> right. >> what i said about michele bachmann after the iowa deal. they get so angry. it made me sad right here. when it hurt you, it hurts me. it want you to know that. i'm telling you the truth and it upsets you. i don't want to upset you. i really don't. it's like when i said all that about newt. remember i wrote an op ed saying this guy is too extreme, his rhetoric is too extreme to win. i was called hateful. joe, you carry a grudge? why do i carry a guj? he didn't kick us out of washington. we kicked him out of washington. >> trump. >> trump. perry. i don't hate rick perry. i think you know and mike barnicle knows i've got nothing but love in my heart. nothing but love in my heart. but it really has to be irritating to these wing nuts that keep calling me a rhino that i know the republican party better than they know the republican party. i've got the republican party nailed down. i know the heart of the republican party. they know the heart of nut bar land. so let me just say herman cain, flavor of the week. he will not win the nomination. by the way, say all the ugly things about me when i said it about sarah palin, when i said it about perry and when i said it abiliout bachmann. the list is so long. glenn beck. i understand you hate me despite the fact i love you because i've got christ in my heart. you hate the fact that i'm always right and you're always wrong. >> oh, joe, you were doing fine. >> when do they land on the planet reality? >> when they wake up and herman cain is not the nominee and perry is not the nominee and bachmann is not the nominee. all these people that i say can't win don't win. and yet, it's like the same old story every time. your stupid websites, it's the same story. you say what you want. i'm like obey juan khan nobody bee. just strike me down and i only get stronger darth. it's getting boring. i'm going to sleep. you do the knees. >> somebody put a bee in your bonnet this morning. >> seriously i don't read them anymore because they're so wrong. it makes me sad, willie. seriously, how many times do i have to be right. you're a rhino, you don't understand the republican party. no, i understand the republican party all too well. i'm right again. so i'm bored. let's talk about sports. >> haagen-dazs black walnut -- >> he will not be the nominee. >> let's look at the poll a different way. if you don't care that herman cain is up 20 points and perry is down, should mitt romney be concerned that since late august he's completely flat lined despite every debate everyone saying romney looked great, he's the president on the stage, his poll numbers are flat from a month and a half ago. >> willie geist, once again, cracks the nut. gets to the heart of the matter. the fact is this is not about herman cain or michele bachmann or rick perry or sarah palin, this is about the conservative base of the republican party rejecting mitt romney time and time and time again. look admit romney. he's at 23% a month ago when rick perry is at 38%. they find out rick perry has a hard time finding his way out of the front door of his house in the morning despite the fact he's lived there ten years. so they go, okay, he may not be qualified to be president of the united states. so then they go, okay, what about the guy that made pizza? so they move him in first place. they'll find out that this 9-9-9 plan is a deck of cards that's going to fall down. grover norquist is coming later today and he'll say this is a bad plan for conservative america. look admit romney. this is a stunning thing, and you're a numbers man mr. rattner. if you stayed at 23% when perry shot in front of you, and 23% when bachmann shot in front of you and now 23% when cain shot in front of you, you would be very concerned if you were mitt romney, wouldn't you? he's not building his base. >> here is the question. is it because he's been rejected by the conservative wing of the republican party or is it something in his personality, in his nature that people don't want to seem to get enthusiastic about him? >> if mitt romney had not pushed universal health care in massachusetts, if he had not flip-flopped on abortion, if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on gun control, on gay marriage, if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on so many things, it would be over. the fact is this isn't about mitt romney being stiff or being a mormon, this has to do with the fact that conservatives were burned following george w. bush for eight years. he ended up not only being conservative, but giving us this massive debt, so they don't want to repeat the same mistake with mitt romney. i understand that completely. >> i understand that can be a mistake. look at it the other way, is mitt romney the most electable of the republicans, should they be happier having mitt romney as president. >> i would expect if rick perry spoke in complete sentences, he would be pulling away with this. >> that's a big if. >> an establishment candidate like paul ryan, like jeb bush, and i would say like chris christie, had they got in the race, they would be occupying a very big space right now. they didn't get in the race. so now we go through yet another cycle which i've got to say is probably not good for the republican party, that mitt romney just -- he cannot build on this 23% support. >> it doesn't look good for him. one or two flavors, okay, especially if they're a little crazy, but beyond that -- >> they're trying to draft willie's 2-year-old boy because his nickname is w. it's george w. they want another george in the white house. seriously, where do they go next? tito is looking for a job. >> tito is going to pass on that one. >> the red sox manager theo is going to chicago. praise the lord. >> eventually the republican delegates and potential republican delegates are going to have charlie sheen's picture up there. hets's all about winning, that's where they'll go, winning. >> the thing about romney is this. people say he needs to give a religion speech. he needs to give a conservative speech. he needs to convince, and i will say it, people like me, that he's not going to get in there and go along with the status quo and be interested in what george bush was interested in. that is spending as much money as possible to draw in as many diverse constituencies as possible to get re-elected. >> if you look at his positions, his positions are good solid republican positions. his problems as you said before are the sound bites out there and all the clips jon stewart keeps playing about what he said in 1994, 2008 and 2000. >> what presidential candidates on the campaign trail is not binding. a lot of times it doesn't matter. george w. bush said in 2000 to jim layer laird in a debate he wanted a humability foreign policies and he didn't want to rebuild other countries. >> we've gotten to the polls. herman cain is a flavor, black walnut. i want to get to steve rattner's charts so we'll do that in a moment. then i want to show you the vice president and ask you whether or not he is acting in the way we would like to see a president act. first, occupy wall street. the protests sweeping across the country and the globe, those marching against economic inaekities were given rhetorical am nation when warren buffett released how much he made. in response to the editorial saying he pays less in taxes than his employees, there's a kansas republican congressman who issued a challenge to buffett. >> well, i'm saying if we're going to shape an entire nation's tax policy based on one man's claim, show us the proof. if mr. buffett came before my budget committee, we'd expect him to show us the information under oath. and that's a reasonable expectation if we're going to change our entire nation's tax policy based on his claim. i'll trade my tax returns for his tax returns and we'll compare them. and then we'll make a discussion about tax policy after we see them. >> i tell you right, he backed him into a corner. there's no way warren buffett is going to come forward and say this is how much money i made last year. congressman husk, you got him nailed. he's not going to follow you into that briar patch. >> warren buffett responded -- >> what? >> to be specific, my adjusted gross income, line 37, was $62,885,38. my taxable income, line 43 was $39d,814,784, and my federal income tax, which is line 60 was $6,923,494. in addition, my payroll taxes were $15,300. >> kind of like watching a tennis match. so buffett has hit the ball back over. so buffett went on to point out that, if you look at the statistics that are published by the irs, it shows the 400 highest income americans whose incomes average $227 million each paid 21.4% of federal taxes, 14% below the actual top rate. what was warren buffett paying? about 17%. so warren buffett pays a 17% tax rate. >> good for him, isn't it? >> we've known this for a while. we knew his taxes. he never disclosed his income. from his taxes you could figure out his income. i know you talked a lot about account tantsz and lawyers and all this stuff. this is not complicated. a $100 from pensacola could have done these taxes. >> i'm sorry, was that a jab? >> are you going after my hometown where are you from yankee boy? >> that's a need-to-know basis. >> willie, that sounded director of my hometown. >> i think it might have been. >> you could take accountant from pennsylvania and herman cain's accountant from cleveland. >> the guy from cleveland who takes pride in the fact he's not an accountant. >> warren buffett takes advantage of 15% capital gains. that's because he pays 17% in taxes. not complicated. very simple. we have a 15% rate compared to 35% rate for dividends and capital gains. >> answer this question because it's been debated for years, going all the way back to jfk who believed lower capital gains rates would spur on the economy. what has been the impact of the drop to 15%. tell our viewers, when did we drop it to 15% and has has been the impact over a decade? >> it was dropped from 28 to 20 to bill clinton, 20 to 15 by president bush 43. you can see what's happened to the economy since then. >> so i guess game, set and match for the conservative guys who say cut it. look how great we're doing. >> that was sarcasm. >> yeah, way to go. did your accountant from schenectady tell you that? show us your charts. >> we want to talk about occupy wall street. i think the point is that underneath all this rhetoric and emotion and everything, there is a lot of substance behind what they're saying. the first thing to look at is what's happened to incomes since this recession. they're down 2.3% in the first year of recession. and if you look at the last two recessions before that, in the recession after the dot com bubble, they were down 1.2%. in the recession from bush 41's recession in the early '90s, they were down 8%. incomes are down more in this recession than the last two, down 3.2%. >> let's talk about the lost decade. that's a chart people will be fascinated by. >> the lost decade, what's happened to real family incomes over the last ten years, they have essentially ended the decade lower than they began it, down 7%. the first decade in american history where this has happened. >> this is the census bureau, and i'm a guy that's always argued for lower capital gains rates for the same reason kennedy liked it, for the same reason a lot of people liked it because they thought that was spur investment. you don't want to punish people for making smart investments. that said, the past decade since it's gone down to 15%, the results have been bad. >> yes. there's no evidence that it's helped the economy. but looks what happened to income. they're straight down. when we got to our peak in 2007 before this recession, it was the first time family income had not gotten back to the previous peak before the next recession started. so you can understand why people on wall street are unhappy. if you look at the last chart -- >> this chart basically takes us back -- it's fascinating the parallels -- to 1929, the accumulation of wealth among the richest americans now on par -- as divergent as it has been since 1929. >> let's look at that. we do this by income. first let's take a look at the top 10%. these are people who make on average about $125,000 a year. you can see they were bumping along in the postwar period about 33%, 34%, 35%. it started moving up. it's now 50% of national income, higher than it was actually. >> people who make $125,000 or more take up 50% -- >> 10% of people, 50% of income. >> the next chart, more fascinating. >> let's look at the top .01%, about 15,000 americans who make on average $27 million a year. you can see they were also bumping along at around 1% if you look at the right-hand scale for this one, all through this postwar period. then they took off. they hit over 6%, well above where they were in 1928. the only reason it came down a little bit in 2008 was because of the stock market crash. i would bet in 2009 it will go way up again. >> so you have 15,000 americans getting 6% of all the money made in this country. >> let's boil that down, mike. .01% of the population has 6% of the wealth, people making $27 million or more. >> that's why there's a lot of legitimate aspects to people occupying literally wall street, occupy wall street protests around the country, smaller cities as well as larger cities. a real legit mat complaints about what's happened to incomes. >> i tell my friends on wall street, you may not agree with it, but you have to get it. these people have a reason to be angry. if people on wall street don't understand that and respond to it, we'll have a lot worse social problems in this country. >> incomes have remained stagnant for working people. i classify working people as obviously people who work, but making $100,000 a year or less. >> they've been going down, not stagnant, down, down, down. >> mika, you would think at a time like this a progressive president who came in talking about hope and change would fill the void. i would think this would be a situation custom-made for barack obama. >> it really is, especially given the fact that senate republicans followed through with a filibuster that led to the defeat of part of the jobs bill proposal. the president says he's going to push that forward. he says that. what i want to show you is the vice president. first of all, you have an nbc news poll that shows there's overwhelming public support for the american jobs ability. there's anger to tap into. at an event in michigan, vice president biden i think used public service workers, firefighters, policemen as the perfect example as to why you want to get this bill through. you could see emotion and anger and perhaps a reason for this bill. take a look. >> we're going to come back and back and back and back and make them vote on every single solitary piece of this bill. let them explain to the american people why we should depreciates jets at five years and lay-off 10,000 firefighters and police officers. this is a perfect storm, man. and what a perfect storm is, reduced budgets, reduced manpower, disseminated neighborhoods and rising crime. that is a witch's brew. that is a mixture for cancer in a city. >> i mean, that's the way to handle it. wouldn't you expect this from our president? the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll showing president obama is struggling to connect with voters. according to the poll 51% of americans disapprove of the way he's handling his job as president. this is paired with the poll from gallup which has the president on the same number. on the economy, the nbc/"wall street journal" poll finds 39d% of americans approve of the president's handling of the economy. on the issue of terrorism, the president received a 61% approval. again, there is support for this jobs bill. >> there's a disconnect -- no doubt about it, willie geist, a disconnect between this president and the people he governs at a time that again would seem to be custom-made for a former community organizer, for a progressive, for a guy that wanted to shape things up and change america. >> it's not that tough an argument to make as vice president biden displayed yesterday, show passion, show anger, show the people who are being cost jobs by the inability of washington to get anything done. mika highlighted the number, 63%, almost two-thirds of americans support the president's jobs bill and yet he can't get it through congress. that means there are republicans in the country who support it because it gets people back to work and yet he can't get it through congress. there's a disconnect there. >> remember the republicans have no plan. there's nothing in any of the republican platforms to create jobs in the short run. >> if you're talking about, though, the presidential candidates, that's one thing. if you're talking about legislatively what's happening in the real world on capitol hill, just the opposite. you have paul ryan who has a plan, a series of plans killed in the senate. you a democratic senate who hasn't produced a budget in years. >> those paul ryan plans are plans to deal with the budget problem in the longer run. >> why don't democrats in the senate actually provide a counter to the paul ryan plan and say this is our budget, there's paul ryan's budget, we'll come together and compromise? that's how the legislative process works. if you have democrats in the senate that haven't put a budget out for two years, how do u i don't move the process along? i think the idea of the ryan plan was, here is what we're going to do. this is our suggestion. and then you're supposed to have something on the other side. i just think there's a total breakdown. >> i don't disagree. the democrats should have gotten behind bowles-simpson. they should have done it. they didn't. that's the long run. the short-run problem that willie was talking about is why we can't get this jobs bill or something like it through the congress. >> one of the most mystifying aspects of this, you just heard the vice president, these issues income inequality, the anger that's out there, the vice president gives voice to it. it's been there for two, two 1/2 years. where they have been? it's made for them. >> i know. it just seems to me -- sometimes, mika, the president is about as effect as a blackberry on a wednesday afternoon. >> blackberry, is it back? you are among 70 million people part of the outage. some people saying it's the last straw for the company, even loyal customers. they're in big trouble. up next, politico is revealing the winner of its politico primary after asking readers and viewers to pick a public figure they wish would run as an independent candidate. a little later we'll bring in grover norquist and dig deeper into the new nbc news "wall street journal" polls, chuck todd will join us. and aol co-founder now part of the president's jobs council, steve case will be here. two more rain any days and then a nice weekend throughout much of the eastern half of the country. right now the worst of the morning commute is through providence and hartford. all the green on here is a solid shield of rain. it's moving quickly to the north. we have a couple of showers approaching d.c. everyone carry the umbrella today. it doesn't look like it will pour all day long. new york city to philly, your best chance of showers will be during the afternoon hours. as far as the rest of the country, also chicago your morning commute is damp with wet weather. east of the mississippi has a chance of showers today. if you're west of the mississippi by dallas, denver and the northern plains, you're just fine. the southeast and also new england, that's where we could have possible airport delays and minor travel issues this morning. you're watching "morning joe." there's the capital, locked in the clouds. we're brewed by starbucks. luck? i don't trade on luck. i trade on fundamentals. analysis. information. i trade on tradearchitect. this is web-based trading, re-visualized. streaming, real-time quotes. 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rules. 27 past the hour. time now to take a look at the morning papers. we begin with our parade of papers. the new jersey star ledger says governor chris christie's popularity is rising in new jersey. after his high profile decision not to run for president, and a closer look at the new quinnipiac poll shows women in new jersey are warming up to the governor. 51% of women approve of governor christie, a 25 point swing against august. >> if you look at his overall ratings, chris christie has the highest approval rating of any willing governor in america. "the boston globe" headline says exit epstein. multiple sources says red sox general manager theo epstein has agreed to a five-year contract with the chicago cubs. i can guarantee you right now, five years from now the cubs will be the best baseball team through august. what have you got? >> that's it. let's go to politico. >> let's go to politico. executive editor down there is mr. jim vandehei. good morning, jim. >> good morning. how are you? >> big day, results of the politico primary. you had your readers vote for their dream candidate, their fantasy independent candidate. i'm going to count down slowly from five and you can reveal. >> number five. >> david petraeus. >> we love him. >> number four is michael bloomberg. >> we love bloomberg. >> number three jon huntsman at 14%. number two, how about this, joe, david walker, our friend. >> i love him. >> we love david walker. >> 19%. former u.s. comptroller general. >> he tells the truth about the budget. >> he's a budget hawk. i'll let you reveal it, jim hand high, the number one choice, independent candidate. >> ross perry row again -- hillary clinton. hillary clinton finished number one. my guess is on hillary clinton it's partly miss chief makers. david walker i don't think is a household numb, baugh real truth teller on budget issues. has a big following with this no labels group, a group of republicans and democrats who are pushing for a third party alternative in the next campaign. then huntsman who obviously on stage, he often seems like he's running as an independent when he's being critical of republicans. it seems like there's at least a group out there who thinks he would be more appealing as a third party candidate giving that he worked in the balk administration and obviously was a successful republican governor. >> did you find, jim, there was a real clamoring for a third party candidate as you talked to your readers and experts you worked with on this? >> it's still tough to tell. it's clear that people are so dissatisfied with washington in ways that they weren't, by the way, in 1992. much more palpable today than in 92. if you talk to greenberg, carville or mckinnon, a lot of these different strategists, they say the environment is exponentially more ripe for a third party candidate today. it's not clear that anyone has harnessed it right yet, they've figured out a way to harness this anti-institution fervor out there, this almost hatred of washington in an effective way. the question is can somebody do that? can they come around, have some money, use technology to harness that and make a challenge to the system? it certainly feels like it out there. out don't know until there's an actual candidate trying to do it. >> what a fascinating arc for hillary clinton's career. in 1993 guys like me were running against not just bill clinton but hillary clinton. she was seen as being really a left wing elitist who was disconnected from middle america. 2008 she found her voice. middle americans connected with her in a remarkable way. now she's seen as a topic as an independent. it has been -- it's been quite a ride. >> no politician in america has done more to repair their image over the last two or three years than she has. if you look at her favorable ratings in polls even among republicans, like you said, joe, didn't like her a few years ago, she is sky high. obama would kill for her favorable ratings. >> no doubt about it. >> we're going to be showing her statements on iran, holding iran's feet to the fire on the latest foreign policy terror plots. and she is strong. >> boy, she is. >> she is just building at every level. jim vandehei, thank you very much. willie, what's up next. >> sports to show you. rangers and tigers went to extra innings in a crucial game four. nelson cruz hit the walk-off grand slam, he does it again with his bat and his arm. texas within a game of the second straight world series. up next in sports. 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. texas within a game of the time for some sports. a big game four in the alcs between the rangers and tigers. if detroit wins, the series is tied. if texas win it is game on the road, one game away from their second straight world series. last night's game in detroit started two hours late base of a rain delay. in the third inning, tiger slugger miguel cabrera, doubled to left field. tigers take an early lead. in the fifth, nelson cruz at the plate hits a shot back to rick pour sell who makes a nice play and turns the 1-6-3 double play. check it out again. nice grab and turn. went six innings, gave up three runs. in the seventh, tigers even the score. brandon inge, a clutch solo home run ties the game at three. extra innings. tigers, men on the corners with two outs. delmon young with a deep fly ball to right field. this is in the eighth. miguel cabrera tagging at third, nelson cruz with a great arm. those things don't go well together. great throw slow runner. game remains tied and it goes into extra innings. rangers facing valverde gave up a hit to napoli, 4-3. nelson cruz, the very next pitch puts it away, a three-run home run puts the rangers up 7-3. that's the final score. game five this afternoon in detroit with texas now up 3-1 in the series. they can wrap it up and head to the world series today in detroit. to the nlcs, game three in st. louis, brewers and cardinals, series tied one game apiece. in the first inning, cardinals on the borderly. jay with a bloop to center. mark kotsay can't get to it. raphael furcal comes from second to score. the next batter, albert pujols has been hitting .646 in the postseason. that was a one-hander. a ground rule double. that brings in another run. st. louis scores four runs in the first inning. that's all they needed. milwaukee came back with three runs, the final score stayed right there, 4-3 st. louis. game four tonight in st. louis. up next, mika's must-read op pages. "news you can't use," don't miss this one. jimmy fallon puts on a show last night impersonating almost the entire republican presidential field in one sketch including, yes, michele bachmann. we'll be right back. so, how was school today ? i have to be a tree in the school play. good. you like trees. well, i like climbing them, but i've never been one. good point. ( captain ) this is your captain speaking. annie gets to be the princess. oh... but she has to kiss a boy. and he's dressed up like a big green frog ! ewww. ( announcer ) fly without putting your life on pause. be yourself nonstop. american airlines. i just signed the whole family up for unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. you're kidding. no. where's that money coming from, steve? did it even cross your mind to ask your wife before signing us up for something so expensive? my mother was right; i should have married john clarke. they were free. i got them when i signed us up for unlimited messaging. 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[ giggles ] time now for the must-read op pages. it's 42 past the hour. we'll start with kathleen parker. then i want to do "the new york times" editorial, that's a. first to "the washington post," the shameful bias against mormons. this is about two of the republican candidates. anyone watching the republican debates, especially tuesday nights on the economy can't be missing the obvious. the two smartest, coolest, most independent and least ideological. this is to say most presidential and electable candidates are the two mormons, mitt romney and jon huntsman. it is utterly ludicrous that at this point in our history some conservatives insist on raising the question of religious belief in a presidential election. regrettably we have but one presidency and two mormons. both romney and huntsman would bring considerable talent to the white house, romney primarily on the economy and huntsman a one-time ambassador to china on foreign policy. if anything, republicans should be trying to figure out how best to use them both. mike barnicle, we saw this a little bit in the last election with obama, he went through his own issues with religion. so it's not new. >> no, it's not new. and it will stay with us. the romney aspect of it is amazing to me. and i think to anyone who pays attention to what's happened in this country. mitt romney was governor of massachusetts. never once was the issue of his religion raised. never once did it play any part in his governance of the state. not once. the idea that people on the fringe of the republican party try and make this an issue is obscene. >> it's important to point out, mika, this is the fringe f. you look inside the nbc poll that came out yesterday, 66% of republican primary voters say they're totally comfortable with hills faith. only 12% say they're not comfortable with the fact that he's a mormon. this is a fringe issue and perhaps overplayed in the press. >> but it will impact the ut come, will it not? >> i don't know that it will impact the outcome. it certainly colors the primary process in that party right now. >> i think it makes us potentially even more despondent about our prospects. moving the "the new york times," no jobs bill and no ideas. i want to queue up, if we can, alex, eric cantor's sound bite. the senate republicans went through a filibuster that led to the defeat of the jobs proposal. this is what "the new york times" says. republican candidates fear the tea party too much to acknowledge that economists are solidly behind government intervention to awaken growth. the jobs bill will now be introduced piece by piece and republicans are likely not to go along with much more than an extension of the payroll tax cut which is opposed by mr. romney, but at least the record is increasingly clear who was advocating real ideas and who is selling an empty vessel. and now let's play eric cantor who previously declared the jobs bill, quote, dead on arrival, who is very happy about the senate's decision to vote it down. >> the senate's action last night proved that the month-long campaign that the white house has been on to promote the president's bill failed. so i do think that now hopefully we can see through what the activity has been about and try and get to work for the people. >> okay. some some senate republicans are moving forward with their own proposal to jump start job growth. this is according the politico, they got a draft of the plan, real american jobs plan. it targets labor and environmental regulations, enacts a balanced budget amendment, lowers corporate and individual tax rates and encourages energy production to name a few. steve rattner, do we have time, do we have time to introduce another one and to go back and forth? >> that's the point. the fact is the republicans have produced lots of economic plans, the ryan budget plan, this plan you just went through. but these are, whether good or bad, they're longer range plans to retool the economy in a way the republicans see it. they don't address the immediate jobs problem. obama's plan address it is immediate jobs problem. what "the new york times" is trying to say is the republicans don't have a plan to address the immediate jobs problem. given the situation, we should do something. that's what's on the table. >> is there something in obama's jobs bill that the republicans can get their arms around as he claims? what is it that brings -- that makes the jobs billion phiing? are they being difficult? >> a couple things. first, the problems with the jobs bill from the republicans point of view is it has to be paid for, that obama is insisting it be paid for by this 5.6% surtax on millionaires which are the republicans are adamantly against. there are elements that involve spending that the republicans are opposed to. payroll tax cuts, of course, the republicans like that idea. i think what's going on washington is you'll see a lot of horse trading. the bill will get broken up into pieces and 2 the democrats and republicans will try to trade pieces. to get the payroll tax decrease, may they'll give on the corporate tax issue floating around. hopefully some sane people will sit down, do some trading and get a package together that deals with the immediate problem and then we'll deal with the long run problem. >> nothing is going to get done. that's in the water down in washington. you can tell nothing is going to get done. the vice president alluded to where they're going. it's a simple proposition. the democrats will continue to say it exactly this way. they, the republicans, would rather defeat president obama than help you, the american people who happen to be unemployed or in financial difficulty. >> but as a matter of pure politics, mike, don't you think it's a mistake for the republicans to do nothing? >> yes, i do. absolutely. >> they're not politically stupid. why then are they doing this? >> i think they're banking on the fact that people are so dissatisfied with the obama administration and what has not happened over the last three years that they can just say no, we're not doing anything. we're going to wait until we get a republican president. >> what's better for the country, to push through an imperfect jobs bill or go through it piece by piece? >> i think we need to do something now to deal with this problem, to create some demand, to try to get the economy going, whether it's in one package or piece by piece, that's for the politicians to decide. but i think it would be a terrible thing on a substantive level for the country if we just did nothing. >> in a few minutes we're going to talk to grover norquist and willie's "news you can't use" is next. we'll be right back. the markets never stop moving. of course, neither do i. solution: td ameritrade mobile. i can enter trades. on the run. even futures and forex. complex options? 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am i supposed to say don't mess with texas or mess with it. whatever y'all want. you can mess or not mess. i don't care. i need your back. i'll go on dr. oz and get a prostate exam. i'll learn how to dougie. teach me how to dougie, america. was it the corn dog thing? was it that? i don't even want to eat corn dog. i don't care. i'll eat whatever y'all like. i'm rick perry, and are you breaking up with me? [ cheers and applause ] >> oh, my gosh. >> good stuff. >> a little george w. bush mixed in with perry. a composite character there. up next, grover norquist, chuck todd. we'll be right back. titles corner offices don't win. what wins? original wins. fresh wins. smart wins. the world's most dynamic companies know what wins in business today. maybe that's why so many choose to work with us. we're grant thornton. audit. tax. advisory. with advanced power, the verizon 4g lte network makes your business run faster: smartphones, laptops, tablets, mobile hotspots. but not all 4g is created equal. among the major carriers, only verizon's 4g network is 100% lte, the gold standard of wireless technology. and while other carriers may have limited lte coverage, verizon is the largest lte network in america and ever-growing. with verizon 4g lte, you can invent new ways to upgrade your business using real-time group meetings from remote locations, video conferencing, mobile credit-card payments, lightning-fast downloads, and access to thousands of business apps. plus, verizon has the largest selection of 4g lte devices and the most 4g lte coverage for your business. all on america's fastest, most reliable 4g network. no wonder more businesses choose verizon wireless than any other wireless carrier. verizon. it's the potential to turn plans into projects and rooms into remodels. it's the freedom to turn a single lithium battery into hours of doing. with guaranteed low prices on the names we know and friends in orange with all we need to know, let's unleash the raw power of possibility. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. get a free ridgid hyper-lithium battery worth up to 99 bucks with select ridgid cordless tools. get a free ridgid hyper-lithium battery worth up to 99 bucks at aviva, we wonder why other life insurance companies treat you like a policy, not a person. instead of getting to know you they simply assign you a number. aviva is here to change all that. we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before policies. aviva life insurance and annuities. we are building insurance around you. [ female announcer ] starbucks via® is planted the same... ♪ ...harvested the same... ♪ ...and roasted the same as our other premium coffees. ♪ it only makes sense it would taste the same. so, try it for yourself. buy a pack of 100% natural starbucks via® ready brew. we promise you'll love it or we'll send you a bag of starbucks coffee. it's the starbucks via® taste promise. look for it at starbucks stores and where you buy groceries. i thought charlie rose did a nice job of making the debate seem a little more lively. he put some thought into it. pretty entertaining. take a look. watch this. >> before i bring some of those results in, i want to take a look at a series of clips beginning with this one of a former president. >> more debating after these messages. >> oh, lordy. >> david letterman has not been able to use the george w. clips in a while. mike barnicle is still with us. >> sorry. >> and steve rattner as well, financier. joining the table -- exactly, you should be sorry. national affairs editor for "new york magazine" john heilemann. and in washington we have the president of americans for tax reform, grover norquist. >> with a very ominous capitol behind him. speaking of ominous, you're a little upset about theo leaving, about "the boston globe" story talking about the red sox. bad stuff, huh? >> the whole thing is such a nasty, ugly grotesque cota to a grotesque end of the season. mika, let's go to the news. that's what we say when we lose. when we win -- >> when you win you go on forever and ever and ever. >> it doesn't stop. i wish baseball season was still going on. >> baseball season is going on. >> is it really? >> are the phillies winning, the yankees. >> just in the midwest. a midwestern past time. >> how is larry doing? >> oh, he's doing great. at the top of his game. >> take away all sharp objects. plastic utensils for that man for the next couple months. >> poor larry la keen know. according to the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, the republican presidential field has a new front-runner. yes, it is the surging ceo of godfather's pizza, herman cain now leads all candidates. cain receiving 27% support. that is up 22 points since august. the poll also shows former massachusetts governor mitt romney holding steady at 23%, followed by texas governor rick perry in third with 16%. now, according to the nbc poll, cain is also wildly popular among the base with 72% of conservatives giving him a favorable rating. it's important to note that in the most recent reuters poll romney is in the lead with 23% followed by cain second with 19% and ron paul in third with 13%. >> by the way, ron paul's numbers a little higher this year than even four years ago. >> but what do you make of herman cain? he's pretty excited? >> he's pretty excited. he's mott the flavor of the month. calls himself haagen-dazs black walnut and he says it tastes good all the time. i think the big story here is you look at those numbers and you have mitt romney stuck at 23% last month in the nbc news "wall street journal" poll. it was rick perry who was ahead of him. this month it's herman cain. >> look, the question is, and we don't know the answer to this question yet, certainly the case that mitt romney has been in this zone all year long. 100% of republican primary voters know who he is. he has not been able to convince 75% of them that they should be with him. and that -- the question is, that we don't know the answer to is whether that is a hard ceiling for him. >> it looks pretty hard right now, doesn't it? >> yes. but it's not yet time to pick a president. the numbers change as people start to make decisions about not who they like this month but who they'll vote for. mike's point about whether people will decide they want to be with the guy with the best chance of winning, steve made this point earlier, as the decision time comes, it may turn out that's not a hard ceiling. if you're in the romney camp you have to be worried that he's been between 20% and 25% nationally for an entire year. >> you can't just look at this campaign by itself. you have to look at the eight years under george w. bush, mike barnicle. a man who passed himself off as a conservatives's conservative. you look at his legacy and his legacy is dead, an endless war in afghanistan, rebuilding afghanistan instead of rebuilding america. there are a lot of small government conservatives like myself who are saying we won't get fooled again. >> won't get fooled again. but are they going to end up sticking with herman cain? >> no, they're not. there is the problem for conservatives in america. >> it's a problem for the whole party. who is the alternative? they're not going to nominate herman cain or ron paul or rick perry. michele bachmann, you got to be kidding. so where are we? >> your point that the romney people are concerned or ought to be concerned, however you phrase it, they're not. at least the romney people i've spoken to, they're very confident. they're confident with one caveat. they feel and you just alluded to this that once people vote, that ceiling pops and they win. >> they believe that. >> and they win and win and win. >> they believe that. >> here is why they're not worried. take a look at the latest nbc news polls that show president obama struggling to connect with voters. it shows 51% of americans disapprove of the way obama is handling his job as president. this is paired with the latest daily approval poll from gallup which has the president at the same number. >> 41, three lower. >> on the economy, the nbc/"wall street journal" poll finds 39% of americans approve the president's handling of the economy. on the issue of terrorism, the president received 61% approval. while campaigning at the 99 restaurant yesterday in concord, new hampshire, herman cain addressed the criticism of his 9-9-9 tax plan during tuesday's debate. >> governor runts hand and representative bachmann were trying to be cute. governor romney was trying to do a putdown because his is so complicated and mine is so simple. i think it is the one by senator santorem particularly bothered me. the audience was smarter than he was because it's a package. 9-9-9. what did he try to do? he tried to get the audience to react on each one of those individually, and it backfired quite frankly. >> actually nobody agreed with him, with herman cain. that's twisted logic. i'm not going to take him into a courtroom with me. >> do you get the feeling he's just throwing stuff out there? he may be making it up as he goes along. >> that is a man right there who is feeling his oats. that is his moment. i will say one thing about him, he reminds me of no one so much as ross perot. there's so much ross perot, the plain spoken, this notion of let's get up under the hood and fix the engine. there's a perot thing going with him. >> except his plan makes no sense. >> let's go to grover norquist. we have a lot of questions for you. the first question, let's tackle the mitt romney issue. we showed you the polls. he's stuck at 23. it seems likes one month michele bachmann is ahead of him. the next month perry is ahead of him, the next month cain is ahead of him. do you agree a lot of small government conservatives are feeling burned from a decade of george w. bush's big spending and they don't want to make the same mistake again with mitt romney so they're not jumping on the romney train right now. >> there's a glass ceiling and it's a fascinating question as to why, i'm not sure. a successful republican candidate to win the presidency has to run both against george bush's record of eight years and obama's record. they both moved us in the wrong direction. it's true that obama put it into hyper speed and made things much worse much faster. but if you can't say i'm not going back to where bush was on spending and regulatory burdens and we're not -- we're going to undo obama, you have to run against both. if i see a challenge for romney, he thinks there's some sort of virtue in not criticizing bush's mistakes. i think a successful republican presidential candidate has to take away from obama his opportunity to say, well, i'm not bush. good, you're not bush, but we don't like you either. >> we've got to go after both their legacies. as you and i both know, bush took $155 billion surplus, turned it into a $1.5 billion deficit. the national debt doubled -- trillion, i'm sorry. a $14 trillion debt. a $7 trillion medicare drug plan that just doesn't add up. now you've got, speaking of plans that don't add up, you've got cain's 9-9-9 plan. it's cute and catchy, but i think it undercuts what people like you have been talking about for a very long time, and that is overhauling the entire tax system. i know this will offend some conservatives, but there's nothing behind this hood once you lift it up. the only thing that's behind this -- under this shood is a european style vat tax that you and i both know congress will raise over time if given the opportunity. >> here is the good news for cain. he has said -- the present system is very bad, redistributionist, tax people who work on saturdays too much and we ought to radically go to a flat single rate and not have a redistributionist tax code. that's what he's getting the applause for. the challenge is creating of that and a sales tax and keeping the income tax, having three taxes, all of which can grow. it's like having three needles in your arm taking blood out. it's much more dangerous than just one. and because he has a transition period where you have these three taxes and then he wants to go to a retail sales tax, what if the democrats win the house, the senate orr the presidency during the transition period and say let's keep all three, all three would grow over time. new jersey back in the '70s said their property taxes were too high, they had no income tax. let's have an income tax to get the property tax down. they now have high income tax and high property tax. why would we create new taxes supposedly to replace the old ones -- >> groveer, look at lowell week kehrt. connecticut was the most competitive state. so he gets up and decides to add an income tax, thinking that's going to be a more fair tax. all the editorial pages love it. this is the responsible thing to do, way to go. guess what? now connecticut has one of the highest tax burdens in america. and all those jobs that kept streaming in to america, they're leaving, they have been leaving. you can look at connecticut, and it's not as competitive as it was 10, 15 years ago. this is a problem when you open the door and herman cain is opening the door on the federal level. >> we can't -- if all taxes are raised to the point where politician's careers are broken. if you have a property tax, income tax and a sales tax, all three get increased. if as texas has, you only have the sales tax and property tax, two get increased. at the national level we have one big one, the income tax. why create a second one, both of which would grow over time. >> so you oppose this 9-9-9 plan? >> with the caveat that i understand this cry of rage that people have about the present structure and wanting to go to something radically different. i'm much more comfortable taking the present mess and chipping away at it like an ice sculpture to get it down to what you want. >> i guess since you said it would be like sticking three needles in your arm at one time. there's some guy named rich lowery, not the national review editor, he was asked who is your economic team. there was this rich lowery guy from texas, rich lowery, he's an accountant who brags -- >> would you seriously talk about a challenge to the republican party, a front-runner who has an economist on the side who is trying to radically overhaul the american tax system, you and i both agree need to be overhauled. >> here is the good news. >> what is the good news? >> the good news is the next republican president only needs a forefinger and the pen and the capacity to hold a pen. he doesn't need to come up with ideas. we have a republican house, we will have a republican senate, they will fix the tax code and send them stuff to sign. he can fly around in a cool big plane and hang around at the white house and he can sign the legislation that boehner and mitch mcconnell send him, and we'll be fine. >> we'll be fine. >> that would be what we call lowering expectations a great deal on the republican candidates. so what do you make, john heilemann, of a guy that sky rockets to first place and he's asked who his economic advisers are. and he says it's this guy that i like that i met that lives in ohio or texas. >> well, you aisle notice that when he was asked questions about who he would put in his administration, he basically has a secret plan for everything. he won't name who his advisors are. >> can we say he's making this up as he goes along. >> oh, yes. >> the answer to your question is he doesn't have a campaign. he's not running a campaign. it has been, throughout, a vanity campaign. people noted last week when everybody ills was in new hampshire and ohio, he's on a book tour in tennessee. he's selling books. >> he's in first place. >> this has not been constructive in the way a normal campaign -- >> he's in first place. >> as you've noted many timetion, many candidates have been in first place for a while over the course of the last year. some have not been serious candidates and then they've -- >> he's not black walnut, he's the flavor of the week. it's going to coming and go. he's not a serious candidate. it's not a serious proposal. by the way, his 9-9-9 plan would be incredibly regressive. if you don't want warren buffett paying 17%? how about we make him pay 9%? >> warren wouldn't be hit by the vat tax. a lot of working class people would. let's talk about afghanistan. we have news on afghanistan as well, mika. this is something surprisingly enough that i think republicans should seize on. there's a report out, of course, that in afghanistan we have been exaggerating our gains against the taliban. the fact of the matter is it's a much bigger mess than we expected. >> that's part of it. there's also news on the surge drawdown. nbc news has learned that defense secretary leon panetta and joint chiefs chairman marty dempsy presented president obama with the first round of the afghanistan surge drawdown. the plan which the military is calling a surge recovery includes how the u.s. will bring home 10,000 american forces by the end of this year. this first round will be a combination of troops that are finishing their tour, not being replaced, troops not deploying at all and troops leaving afghanistan efrlier than expected. according to ooh senior defense official, this first decrease will be mostly noncombat forces, while the second exit round of nearly 23,000 troops by the end of september 2012 will include more combat forces. it comes, of course, as the guardian reports, which you were talking about, joe, nato's success against the taliban in afghanistan may actually be exaggerated, making the military campaign there look more effective. the report shows that every leader killed in the raids, eight other people also died despite a design for precise weaponry. >> grover norquist, you were there in the 1990s when the republicans ran the armed services committee. you heard us talking about the humble conservative policy, the conservative policy that george bush promised in 200. things happened in 2001 that required us at least to go into afghanistan. by any stretch of the imagination would you call a war that continued for a decade, moved from an anti-terror campaign to an anti-sur genesee, to a rebrilding campaign, would you cull that a conservative war? >> it's certainly not reaganite. reagan won the cold war by having the strongest economy in the world and having a sufficient defense to deter aggression. he didn't go around occupying countries he couldn't pronounce. we have a challenge here. that is conservatives need to be as skeptical of the pentagon's plans as we are of hhs's plans. some politicians say i'm going to ask the generals what to do. can you imagine a president saying i'm going to ask the bureaucrats over at the department of labor what to do, ask the guys at hhs what to do? >> why is it though? you listen to the debates and it seems like everybody is trying to actually move even -- i wouldn't say further to the right because there's nothing conservative. trying to be more wilsonian than the next republican up there. has the republican party been permanently taken over by wilsonians? >> i don't think so. when you look at people calling, there was an interesting poll done recently, two-thirds of conservatives and tea party people said they were very happy with everything we had done in afghanistan up until now. and two-thirds felt we should do something radically different in the future. your first question is what happened last week. but i think it's very understandable. nobody wants to diss the sacrifice of american soldiers in trying to do what bush was trying to do in afghanistan, but people do want to take a different approach moving forward. the question is are we more secure or less secure with a policy of occupying a country that seems to be allergic to occupation. >> and $2 billion a week? can we afford $2 billion a week in afghanistan? >> we can't. at some point one spends enough money that it weakens the country rather than making it stronger. we need to have a polite conversation on the right. fred barnes and i did a panel discussion on this just last week, how does the conservative group of the republican party have an internal conversation about where afghanistan, iraq, defense spending without somebody saying, well, you're a liberal? it's not an easy conversation to have, but a necessary one. >> the fact of the matter is spending $2 billion a week in afghanistan, occupying these countries that's not good for our national defense. that makes us weaker. >> we know this is a conversation that republicans are having quietly. why it doesn't connect to the overall conversation on the economy is beyond me. >> we hear one congressman and senator after another on the republican side behind closed doors saying we agree with you, keep talking about afghanistan, we don't want to spend $2 billion a week there either. we know we have to come home. >> grover norquist, thank you so much. >> glad to be with you guys. >> 9-9-9, three needles. >> or not. haagen-dazs. >> coming up, dylan ratigan, also former adviser to george w. bush and co-founder of no labels, mark mckinnon. the "financial times" jilligill tett is here along with chuck todd breaking down the new polls. you're watching "morning joe" brewed by starbucks. at adt, we get financing from ge capital. but they also go beyond banking. we installed a ge fleet monitoring system. it tracks every vehicle in their fleet. it cuts fuel use. koch: it enhances customer service. it's pretty amazing when people who loan you money also show you how to save it. not just money, knowledge. it's so much information, it's like i'm right there in every van in the entire fleet. good day overall. yeah, i'm good. come on in. let's go. wow, this is fantastic. ge capital. they're not just bankers. we're builders. they helped build our business. i'm being polite to him. i'm being polite to him. >> a foggy, foggy day. >> giving him a nice kiss out the door, way to go thee row, thank you for the two world series. now leave. is that polite? theo is gone. epstein is the best gm in baseball. >> the smartest young guy in baseball. >> he'll turn the cubs into winners. the fact of the matter is, it's time for him to leave. >> it would be nice to bring a world series to chicago, don't you think? >> no. i'd rather he would have brought a world series to boston this year. >> well, he did. >> no, he didn't. not this year. i spent a lot of time watching nesn just to see him pull up 13-year-old pitchers from catholic high school in pensacola down the stretch. who were those guys? >> i hope that wasn't director like rattner. >> it's not derogatory. my god, he gets hundreds of millions to play with and we go down the stretch and you look at the dogs we're taking out to the mound at the end of the year. come on. with us from washington, d.c., nbc news chief white house -- i thank him for the world series. here is chuck todd. >> dodgers fan. what have you done for me lately. >> it could be a lot worse, buddy. >> it could be worse. you've been suffering with the dodgers. i will tell you they've got extraordinary baseball. they just need an owner. >> takt sales, that being said, i hear it's police state. i hear it's a police state when you walk in. let's talk about the polls, fascinating numbers coming out, mika. >> what do you make of these, break it down, chuck. is this about herman cain or mitt romney? >> it's more about i think where the republican party is today. it's a fun little math game you can play here with cain and perry. if you look at the august numbers and you look at the october numbers, herman cain and rick perry combined got 43% both times. and mitt romney got 23% both tiles. joe, let me ask you this. if you were running in a republican primary, and i told you candidate x were winning among high interest voters, men 55-plus, college educated and very conservative and i told you candidate y was winning among the less interested voters, women and the moderate to liberal republicans, would you rather be candidate x or candidate y in a republican primary? >> candidate x. >> candidate x now is herman perry. >> candidate x was perry and then bachmann. >> two months before that it was donald trump. >> the problem is that candidate x has as much longevity as the number three in al qaeda. you can enjoy your moment in the sun, but you know somehow -- >> somehow that's not going to play well in the media blog. >> you know that political drone is coming and you're not going to hear it when it hits. >> and it's true and cain doesn't have the resources. but if all things were equal, you would sit here and look at our numbers and you'd say oh, man, herman cain has the inside track, and you would say mitt romney has the tougher road. now, of course, it's just the opposite. romney has all the money, all the organization. herman cain does not. i don't think he'll report a million dollars cash on hand when we see his financial reports in a couple days. >> i will tell you this, chuck. if i were mitt romney, if i were in a campaign where i was steady after turning in one good debate performance after another, when i was alone at night in a hotel room in manchester, i would be throwing things against the wall, i would be so frustrated. if you don't see the base expanding and still at 23% and you're per forming and everybody else is blowing themselves up and you're staying at 23%, that is an ominous sign. i'm not making the sell to conservatives. i'm not pulling anybody over. that's an ominous sign. >> the other thing is we saw this movie play out off broadway in 2010, right, where you'd see the establishment. if i were mitt romney, it was fascinating yesterday, he trumpeted cochran, mole ferry, chris christie, judd gray. he's building the case, but we saw what happened when the establishment rallied around one guy or gal in a primary, and it was almost a kiss of death. so it is a fine line he's got to walk. he's still got to find some outsider credentials here because here was the other thing that our pollsters did is they literally reinterviewed cain voters and said why are you picking cain. this is more like a focus group. it's not statistically sound, but here was the answers. ten different people. they all said a version of this. he isn't a politician. he seems like a real person. i think he balances his own checkbook. the point is, the idea that he's the unpolitician -- they're looking for the unpolitician. mitt romney is anything but an unpolitician. he looks right out of central casting. >> i don't think it's an ominous sign. john heilemann, if you look at what the obama campaign team is focusing on, and i would suggest they know a little bit about running campaigns and single out their opponents, they're focused on mitt romney. take a listen to david axelrod. we don't have him? he told reporters yesterday he's discussing romney's stance on tax cuts and saying the former governor is stunningly inconsistent and the flip-flopping would catch up to him. president campaigns are mris for the sole and focused on romney. they're not thinking about any other guys. >> they think romney is going to be the nominee and that's ranl bet. here is what's happening right now. we're about to move into a new phase in the campaign, the iowa and new hampshire are going to be early. with very a couple months now before voting starts. the television campaign is about to start. >> by the way, just to add this in as a footnote, the new hampshire secretary of state said he would move it to december 6th if nevada doesn't back down. december 6th. >> so we could be in theory -- i don't think that will happen, we could be less than two months from the first votes. there is now going to be an air war, the television part of this campaign is about to start. rick perry is going to run a lot of ads trying to detroit mitt romney. he's got a lot of money in the xwaning himself. they're going to bludgeon mitt romney. does romney survive that? if he doesn't, who benefits? it might not be rick perry. this is the unknown part of the campaign. these next two months when mitt romney is hit with $50 million in negative tv advertising, what happens then? >> can you imagine if mitt romney is taken out of this field? who is left standing? it's a remarkable question. he is going to get budge ended by $50 million in negative ads. >> i think the smart money has always been he'll figure out how to survive it. he's been planning for this to go long, not go short. that is why he's not taken the bait yet to jump into iowa. frankly, when you look at the numbers we've been looking at this week, i understand why he hasn't taken that bait. as much as you can say, gees, if he won iowa and new hampshire, he could end it. it may be fool's gold for mitt romney to try to go after and win iowa. what does that mean? it means you're planning for a very long campaign. i think romney can hold up in a very long, delicate counting campaign. the calendar, while not great for him early, does get better as it goes on. >> feeding into that obama's approval ratings. chuck todd, thank you very much. we'll see you at 9:00 on "the daily rundown." >> good luck with the dodgers. >> mvp in cy young and not make the finals? >> the "financial times" gillian tett and aol co-founder, member of the president's jobs council, steve case. we'll be right back. [ female announcer ] when kate collects her pink yoplait lids she's supporting breast cancer programs for her neighbour's tennis instructor's daughter's 1st grade teacher who's also her mom. help fund breast cancer programs in your community. redeem your lids today ♪ [ multiple sounds making melodic tune ] ♪ [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, every innovation, every solution, comes together for a single purpose -- to make the world a safer place. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. and people. and the planes can seem the same. so, it comes down to the people. because: bad weather, the price of oil those are every airline's reality. and solutions will not come from 500 tons of metal and a paintjob. they'll come from people. delta people. who made us the biggest airline in the world. and then decided that wasn't enough. this is exciting mika. we need jobs. our problems are over. they'll be solved today. today, f.t. is going to do it. they brought out the big guns. >> yes, they have. we have the u.s. managing editor for the "financial times" gillian tett along with aol founder and revolution chairman and ceo steve case, a member of the president's council on jobs and competitiveness. i want to ask you as that, serving as the chairman of the startup america partnership. >> tell us what you're doing. >> a dig cons fence today with a whole collection of business leaders and asking the question what is going to happen to america, and really above all else, what can we do to make ka work, both in the soens of getting america to work but having the system to support business, create growth and above all else create jobs. >> steve, if you adjust it for inflation, the fact is american salaries peaked in 1973. the middle class has been hollowed out over the past 40 years. how do you turn that around? >> you have to focus on entrepreneur ship. the story of america is the story of entrepreneur ship. it's the reason we're the leading economy in the world is the work of entrepreneurs. we need to get back to celebrating entrepreneurship and recognizing it is the secret sauce that made america great. one of the key areas of focus is son high growth companies. if you look at data from the kaufman foundation, 40 million jobs have been created by high growth companies. you've got to focus on unleashing the next wave of american entrepreneur ship. >> how do we do that in manufacturing? i saw a fascinating statistic after steve jobs passed away, people said we need more steve jobs. we need steve jobs in the manufacturing arena as well. if you look at how many people gm employed in 1980, you can add up the number of people at yahoo! google, apple, our top high-tech companies, that equals one-third of the workforce that gm employed in 1980. >> two things. first of all, technology is always going to be a driver. if you look at high growth companies, most are services and manufacturing companies, much outside of silicone valley. too much focus on technology in silicone valley. that said, these technology companies actually have eke systems around them. sew they actually create far more jobs. aol, at our peak we had 10,000 employees within the companies, but tens of thousands in companies working with us. >> i think a facebook between 5,000 and 10,000 employees for sandberg. but hundreds of,000s working there. you've got to focus more on manufacturing. under armour took an idea and scaled it and for him one of the key things was an sba loan, a $250,000 loan, 88% guaranteed by the sba he said was the catalyst that drove underarmor. >> how do we get more sba loans moving out there? >> that was one of our recommendations. when we looked at this, we got mckenzie involved as well. all the proposals made by all folks on all sides over the last few years and analyzed them and prioritized them. there are things the administration can do, we recommended seven. there are things congress needs to do. there are four things that need to be part of a bipartisan package and things the private sector can do. the president signed one of his key people within the administration to drive these things including streamlining access to sba loans and making it easier for entrepreneurs to understand what's available. >> you talk about a focus on entrepreneurship as part of it. the other part is innovation. remember wendy schmidt yesterday and the wendy schmidt i think it was x challenge to figure out a solution as to how to pick up oil from the gulf and how two companies ended up winning this and, by the way, breaking new ground on an area we really need growth on. >> that's a small version. > > . >> there is no reason why a car given all of the eu's regulations and all of the restraints there, there's no reason why there should be a european car built on the european continue nentd. those all should come to america. there are new models that we have to create. and that's one opportunity for new manufacturing jobs. >> well, that's certainly a point, i think one of the issues right now is one of the reasons why the crisis in america will not feel more severe is partly because it's even wrors in other parts of the world. one of the interesting things to think about is president obama said recently the rise of china was like a sputnik moment and it ought to be shocking americans and shocking the administration into action. the problem is the rise of china has been so steady and stealth, in a sense everyone has gotten used to these problems developing. certainly one of the first questions i'm going to be asking sperling on the platform today is what is the administration actually going to do when faced with these very sensible ideas that people like steve case and others are putting forward. >> john heilemann? >> steve, the entrepreneur ship thing is hugely important. you talk about various recommendations you have for the government being involved in trying to spur entrepreneurship. the first thing that jumped to my mind was solyndra. here is a company in an emerging market that people think is an important growth market. the government got involved, tried to encourage it in the way it did. it's a huge question of political controversy. they failed. the government shouldn't be picking winners. how do you do the kind of things you're talking about to encourage entrepreneurship without it becoming a partisan thing where the government is being attacked for industrial policy. >> i don't understand. we're concerned about that. is sba has been around for decades. fedex and apple have benefited from the early sba support. we don't want it to become a partisan issue. these are all small loans to a large number of companies, not all large loans to a small number of companies. it's kind of an apples and oranges comparison. the private market has to take the lead. the government can create the right policy framework to insent capital, sometimes prime the pump. but ultimately the private sector needs to lead and the government needs to get out of the way. some of our recommendations relate to incenting capital formation, making it easyier. 90% of job creation happens after companies go public. >> steve let me ask you quickly about aol. reports that aol is trying to get yahoo! to possibly buy them. it is a constant challenge. there's a constant churn. a oofrnlthsl is on top, and you've got yahoo! on top and google on top. then you have facebook on top. >> that's actually the nature of it. i left aol a decade ago. in this world, like a century. it's one of the things that has made our country great. i talk about how the world is about attackers and defenders. entrepreneurs are attackers trying to change the world and disrupt the status quo. once the companies get to be large we need more of an attack irmentality. >> does that merger happen? do you think that merger is going to happen? >> i have no idea. my focus is on the next generation of companies like zip car and living social and so forth as well as trying to celebrate our nation's entrepreneurs. >> steve case, thank you very much. jillian, stay with us if you will. up next an exclusive first look at "time" magazine with rick stengel. i'm not a number. i'm not a line item on a budget. and i'm definitely not a pushover. but i am a voter. so washington... before you even think about cutting my medicare and social security benefits... here's a number you should remember. 50 million. we are 50 million seniors who earned our benefits... and you will be hearing from us... today and on election day. ♪ that's why northern trust offers a full team of experts who work to understand your goals and help you achieve them. as one of the nation's largest wealth managers, northern trust's goals-based investment strategies are tailored to your needs. ♪ and overseen by experts who seek to maximize opportunities while minimizing risk. ♪ expertise matters. find it at northern trust. i cannot be any fatter. >> joe is going to lose 40 pounds. >> with us on that happy note, "time" magazine managing editor rick stengel is here with the latest cover. >> joe klein went north to south for three weeks and came back. the cover story is the return of the silent majority. it's how people are alienated by both the left and the right, by the shouters on both sides and that they feel like government needs to compromise. we did a poll that showed 70% of people were in favor of the grand bargain that didn't happen. 80% want their politicians to compromise in washington. this fundamental disconnect between what's going on in washington and what's going on in america. a lot of people said you all are having an election and we're having an economic crisis and that's a big problem. >> i'm looking at the article entitled "it." i love it. >> that's the story on the occupy wall street. one of the interesting things the poll showed is there's twice as much support in america for the occupy wall street movement as there is for the tea party. that's kind of surprising. a lot of what joe found and a lot of what the poll found is that people see the tea party as essentially obstructionist, as the getting in the way of things happening, this kind of extremism that prevents that old-fashioned kind of compromise that washington used to have. it's new and old all at the same time. >> it plays into your cover. let me read a little bit about your coverage of occupy wall street. like the tea party, however, their unifying idea is simple enough. the anger they express has a clear target. not the government, but the wealthy. talk has already turned to bankn favor of credit unions. they have e-mail list serves and person to person meetings and weekend protests being planned. it goes on and on that this is building. and one organizer of moveon.org says inequality is suddenly a topic of conversation in politics. we are there now. >> absolutely. and, again, even in the poll, we had 75% of people say they do think that the 1% should be taxed at a higher rate than they are now. >> right. >> so has the media been slow to the occupy wall street protests? >> you know, it's so funny. i mean, we're all in this together in the sense that you're looking at some phenomenon. and i've heard people say, well, actually, the european media has been on to it more than the american media. and what we do is try so ascertain is this something that's fundamentally realistic, a real grass roots movement, or is it a phony kind of artificial movement? and we don't really know. we have a guy we have been sending down there every day. >> what was interesting for us, we have been sending people down right from the beginning. and for the first couple days, yes, it was mostly the green-haired kids brigade. but if you go down there now, you've actually got older people, and there is this ground swell and shriek of anger and the sense that things just aren't fair. and that's not just because inequality has been rising. it's also i think because there is a fundamental question facing america today which is that if the pie -- economic pie does not keep growing rapidly, how are you going to have to divide up that pie in a way that ensures that everyone keeps buying into authority. >> are you skeptical? >> i think it was today or yesterday that carl roefs got op-ed in the "wall street journal" basically saying a bunch of dirty hippies, weirdos, democrats stay away from these people, it's marginal. it's so 1960s and the way that people who had their heads in the sand about the anti-war movement dismissed them all as dirty hippies when they were -- whatever else they were, they were fundamentally right about the vietnam war. and these people are also -- there's a lot of truth here. >> the bottom line is, though, it's also reminiscent of what happened a couple years ago when the tea party came out and started talking about big government spending and run-away debt before we saw greece start to collapse, before europe was in the crisis. they were right too. but at that point, a couple years ago, it was the far left saying the same thing about those protests, that the far right are now saying about occupy wall street. >> and -- takes us right back to rick's cover story. seriously. >> it does. >> but also -- no matter who lights the match, the tinder was ready. we have been saying for a long time, there is this spirit in the country of people who feel left out and it's not working for them and it's not fair. >> it was not just the republicans. even the mayor was a little off. mayor of new york city was a little off on this at first. he's warming up to them. >> he's also protecting their interests. >> believes that america is the middle of the road. something i've said for a very long time. we are not -- and we have never been an ideological country. >> exactly. >> we have always been, for 235 years, pragmatic. but washington doesn't get it. >> exactly. and we need more pragmatic caucus in washington. that's what people say. >> rick stengel, thank you. the new issue, "the return of the silent majority." very good. we're back in a moment. ♪ [ male announcer ] dove and suave beauty products, degree deodorant with motionsense and...silver high heels. you should probably try this. what is it? 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[ male announcer ] get low prices every day on everything you need to stay fresh. like degree deodorant with motionsense, only $3.83. backed by our ad match guarantee. save money. live better. walmart. delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet they're closing thousands of offices, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains 5 billion a year from post-office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. congress created this problem, and congress can fix it. ♪ is that on video? coming up, the return of money party. dylan ratigan. >> oh, my lord you can, i'm scared. >> bus, co founder of no labels. up economist and financier steve rattner rejoins the conversation. and he's brought his charts. companies you're just a policy. at aviva, we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before policies. aviva life insurance and annuities. we are building insurance around you. sadly, no. oh. but i did pick up your dry cleaning and had your shoes shined. well, i made you a reservation at the sushi place around the corner. well, in that case, i better get back to these invoices... which i'll do right after making your favorite pancakes. you know what? i'm going to tidy up your side of the office. i can't hear you because i'm also making you a smoothie. [ male announcer ] marriott hotels & resorts knows it's better for xerox to automate their global invoice process so they can focus on serving their customers. with xerox, you're ready for real business. for fastidious librarian so they can focus on serving emily skinner,s. each day was fueled by thorough preparation for events to come. well somewhere along the way, emily went right on living. but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. six week ago, there were some pundits who said i should just drop out. they don't know her man herman ca cain. how am i feeling? i'm feeling great, because a lot of people are taking a second look, and they're saying, maybe this long shot is not such a long shot. the difference between the flavor of the week and hagg haggen-daaz black walnut, it tastes good all of the time. call me black walnut. >> good morning, as you take a live look at new york city, welcome back to "morning joe." back on the set, mike barnicle. and steve rattner, as well. hi, willie. >> hi, mika. >> how are you doing? >> i'm excited for herman cain. >> oh, my gosh. he called himself haagen-daaz black walnut. says it tastes good all the time. and it may taste good all of the time, but mark it down, flavor of the week. >> you kblt go on your ipad. give it to me. >> no. remember last year -- sarah palin -- i came out and i said, this isn't -- nope, the mainstream republican party will not accept her. everybody said oh -- oh, the hate mail. >> hate tweets, hate mail. >> remember what i said about glenn beck, that he wouldn't last at fox because he was too extreme even for fox? remember the hate mails? that would never happen, right? >> right. >> then what i said about michele bachmann after the iowa deal. >> same thing. >> so angry. they get so angry. and it made me sad right here. it really does. when i hurt you, it hurts me. i want you to know that. because i'm telling the truth that it upsets you. i don't want to upset you. remember what i said about newt, he had come on and i wrote a really stinging op-ed that said this guy is too extreme, his rhetoric was too extreme to win? i was called hateful, joe, you still carry a grudge. why do i carry a grudge? he didn't kick us out of washington, we kicked him out of washington. >> trump. >> trump. perry. remember perry? i don't hate any of these people. everybody knows i've got nothing but love in my heart. nothing but love in my heart. but it really has to be irritating to these wing nuts that keep calling me a rhino that i know the republican party better than they know the republican party. in fact, i've got the republican party nailed down. i know the heart of the republican party, they know the heart of nutbar land. so let me just say, herman cain, flavor of the week. he will not win the nomination. and by the way, say all the ugly things you said about me when i said it about sarah palin. when i said it about perry and when i said it about bachmann and when i -- the list is so long. glenn beck. you see, i understand that you hate me, despite the fact that i love you because i've got christ in my heart. i know you hate the fact that i'm always right and you're always wrong. i know that hurts you. i just said, i have christ in my heart. >> when do they land on the planet reality? >> they land on the planet reality when they wake up, and herman cain is not the nominee and perry is not the nominee and bachmann is not the nominee. and all of these people that i say can't win don't win. and yet it's like the same old story every time in your stupid websites. >> oh. >> it's the same story. you say what you want. i'm like obiwan ken obi. just strike me down. and i'm only getting stronger, dearth. it's getting boring. i'm doing the news. >> somebody put a bee in your bonnet. >> no -- >> give me a name. >> no. i'm serious, i don't read them anymore, because they're so wrong. and it makes me sad, willie. but seriously. how many times do i have to be right? and then -- you're a rhino. you don't understand -- no, i understand the republican party all too well. and i'm right again so i'm bored. >> so he will -- >> he will not be the nominee. >> if you don't care that herman cain is up 25 points and rick perry is down 20 points, should mitt romney be concerned that since late august he has completely flat lined? >> sure. >> despite every debate everyone was saying mitt romney looked great, he's the president on the stage, his poll numbers are flat. >> willie geist, once again, cracks the nut. gets to the heart of the matter. the fact is, this is not about herman cain or michele bachmann or rick perry or sarah palin. this is about the conservative base of the republican party rejecting mitt romney time and time and time again. look at mitt romney. he's at 23% a month ago, and rick perry is at 38%. they find out that rick perry has a hard time finding his way out of the front door of his house in the morning, despite the fact he's lived there ten years. so they go, okay, he may not be qualified to be president of the united states. so then they go, okay, what about the guy that made pizza? and so they move him in first place. and they're going to find out that this 9-9-9 plan is a deck of cards that's going to fall down. but look at mitt romney. this is a stunning thing. and you're a numbers man. >> i'm a numbers man. >> mr. ratner. if you stayed at 23% when perry shot in front of you and when backman shot in front of you, and then 23% when cain shot in front of you, you would be very concerned if you were mitt romney, wouldn't you? he can't -- he's not building his base. >> so here's the question. is it because he's been rejected by the conservative wing of the republican party or something in his personality, in his nature, that people just don't seem to want to get enthusiastic about? >> if mitt romney had not pushed universal health care in massachusetts. if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on abortion. if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on gun control. if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on gay marriage. if mitt romney had not flip-flopped on so many things, it would be over. but the fact is this isn't about mitt romney being stiff or a mormon. this is that the conservatives were burned following george w. bush for eight years. and he ended up not only being conservative but giving us this massive debt. so they don't to repeat the same mistake with mitt romney. >> i understand that can be a mistake. but look at it the other way. is mitt romney the most electable of the republicans and should they be happier having mitt romney as president than having herman contain not being president. >> i would suggest if he would speak in complete sentences he would pull away with this right now. >> that's a big if. >> an establishment candidate like paul ryan, like jeb bush. and i would say like chris christie. had they got in the race, they would have been occupying a very big space right now. they didn't get in the race. so now we go through yet another cycle. which i -- i've got to say, is probably not good for the republican party. that mitt romney -- he cannot build on this 23% support. >> it doesn't look good for him. one or two flavors, okay, especially if they're a little crazy. but beyond that -- >> they're trying to draft willie's 2-year-old boy, because his nickname is w. george w. >> yeah. >> they want another george in the white house -- i mean, seriously. where do they go next? tito is looking for a job. >> yeah. i don't think that tito is -- tito is going to pass on that one. >> red sox manager theo is in chicago. prays praise the lord. >> eventually, it's a potential republican delegate. charlie sheen's picture up there, because he's all about winning. that's where they're going to go. >> the thing about mitt romney is this. people say he needs to give a religion -- he doesn't need to give a religion speech, he needs to give a conservative speech. and i will say it, yes, people like me, that he's not going to get in there, and he's not going to go along with the status quo, and he's not going to be interested in what george bush was interested in. and that is, spending as much money as possible to draw in as many diverse constituencies as possible to get re-elected. >> his positions are good solid republican positions. his problems are the sound bites out there and all of the clips that jon stewart keeps playing night after night in 1994 and 1998 and 2000. >> what you see on the campaign trail, i'm sorry, mitt romney has proven it, george w. bush proved it. what presidential candidates say on the campaign trail is not binding and doesn't matter. george w. bush said in 2000, to jim lehrer in the debate that he wanted a humble foreign policy. that we didn't need to rebuild other countries. and now ten years later, we're still rebuilding afghanistan instead of america. >> okay. so we've gotten to the polls. herman cain is leading, he's a flavor. last walnut -- and also, i want to get to steve rattner's charts. we'll do that in a moment. and then i want to show you the vice president and ask you whether or not he is acting in the way we would like to see our president act. but first, occupy wall street. the protests sweeping across the country and the globe. those marching against economic inequities in america were given more rhetorical ammunition when one of the world's richest men, warren buffett, revealed how much money he made last year. in response to his fap famous "new york times" editorial where he says he pays less in taxes than his employees. there is a republican congressman who issued a challenge to buffett. >> i'm saying if we're going to shape an entire nation's tax policy based on one man's claim, show us the proof. you know, if mr. buffett came before my budget committee, we would expect him to show us the information under oath, and that's a reasonable expectation if we're going to change our entire nation's tax policy based on his claim. i'll tell you what, i'll trade my tax returns for his tax returns. and we'll compare them. and then we'll make a discussion about tax policy after we see them. >> boy, i tell you what, he really backed him into a corner. he backed warren buffett into a corner, there is no way he's going to come forward and say this is how much money i made last year. >> exactly well, actually -- >> you got him nailed. you got him nailed. he's not going to follow you into that breyer patch, my man. >> warren buffett responded to the congressman. >> what? >> just now? >> to be specific, my adjusted gross income line 37 was $62,885,038. my taxable income, line 43, was $39,814,784. and my federal income tax, which is line 60, was $6,923,494. in addition, my payroll taxes were $15,300. >> kind of like watching the tennis match. >> yeah. >> so buffett sees the ball back over. so buffett went on to point out that if you look at the statistics that are published by the irs, it shows that the 400 highest-income americans whose incomes average $227 million each paid 21.4% of federal taxes. 14% below the actual top rate. what was warren buffett paying? about 17%. >> ah. >> so warren buffett pays a 17% tax -- >> good for him, isn't it? >> so we have known this for a while. we actually knew his taxes. he never disclosed his income, but from his taxes you could figure it out. be that as it may, i know you have talked a lot about accountants and lawyers and all this stuff. this is not complicated. $100 an hour accountant from pensacola could have done these tax returns. >> i'm sorry, was that a -- he's going to get -- >> are you from my hometown? >> i'm complimenting them. >> where are you from, yankee boy. >> that's a need-to-know basis. >> willie, that sounded derogatory. >> i think it might have been. >> take the accountant from pennsylvania and herman cain's accountant from cleveland. >> let's hear from the guy from cleveland -- >> how about we get to steve rattner's charts. >> all this, as warren buffett takes advantage as a 15% capital gains and dividend rate. that's why warren buffett pays 17% in taxes. not complicated. very simple. because we have a 15% rate compared to 35% rate for an ordinary income for dividends and capital gains. >> so answer this question, because it's been debated for years, going all the way back to jfk, who believed that lower capital gains rates would spur on the economy. what has been the impact of the drop to 15%? tell our viewers, when did we drop it to 15%, and what has been the impact over a decade? >> it was dropped from 20 to 15 -- actually, 28 to 20 by bill clinton. 20 to 15 by president bush in '03. and you can see what's happened. >> so i guess game, set, match for the conservative guys who say cut it. because look how great we're doing. >> that was sarcasm. >> yeah, way to go. yeah. did your accountant tell you that? okay. so show us your charts. >> all right. so i think -- we want to talk about occupy wall street. and i think the point is that underneath all of this rhetoric and emotion and everything, there is a lot of substance behind what they're saying. so the first thing to look at is what's happened to incomes since this recession. they're down 2.3% in the first year of recession. and if you look at the last two recessions before that, in the recession after the dot-com bubble, down 2%. bush's recession, edina do down .8%. and they were actually down 6.3% over the last years. >> let's talk about the lost decade, a chart people will be fascinated by. >> so the lost decade, essentially, what's happened to real family incomes over the last ten years is they have essentially end of the decade lower than they began it, down 7%. >> now, this -- first decade in american history where this has happened. >> this is the census bureau steve, and i'm a guy who has always argued for lower capital gains rates, for the same reason kennedy liked it, for the same reason a lot of people have liked it, because they thought it would spur investment and you don't want to publish people for making smart investments. that said, the past decade, since it's gone down to 15%, the results have been bad. >> yes. there is no evidence that it's helped the economy. but look what's happened to income. so they're straight down. and, in fact, when we got to our peak in 2007 before this recession, it was the first time family income had not gotten back to the previous peak before the next recession started. so you can understand why people on wall street are unhappy. and if you look at the last chart -- >> and this chart basically takes us back -- it's fascinating, the parallels to 1929. the accumulation of wealth among the richest americans now on par, as divergent as it has been. >> let's look at that. and we do this by income. and first let's take a look at the top 10%. these are people who make on average about $125,000 a year. and you can see they were bumping along in the post war period about 33, 34, 35%. and then it just started moving up. and it's now 50% of national income, higher than it was, actually -- >> so people who make $125,000 or more take up 50% -- >> 10% of people, 50% of income. >> 50% of income. >> now, the next chart. >> now, let's look at the t top .01%. this is about 15,000 americans who make on average $27 million a year. and you can see, they were also bumping along at around 1%, if you look at the right hand scale for this one, all through this post war period. and then they took off. and then they hit over 6%, well above where they were in 1928. and the only reason it came down a little bit in 2008 was because of the stock market crash. so i would bet in 2009 it will go up again. >> it's going to be way up. >> so you have 15,000 americans getting 6% of all the money made in this country. >> so let's boil that down, mike. .001%? >>.01%. >> .01% of the population has 6% of the wealth. people making $27 a million a year or more. >> that's why there's a lot of aspects to the people occupy wall street protests around this country. and now smaller cities, as well as larger cities. there's a real legitimate concern and complaints about what's happened to incomes. >> i tell my friends on wall street, you may not like it, you may not agree with it, but you've got to get it. these people are angry and they have a reason to be angry. and if people on wall street don't understand that and respond to it, then we're going to have a lot more social problems in this country. >> i mean, incomes have remained stagnant for working people. and i classify working people as obviously people who work. but making $100,000 a year or less. over a decade. >> they have been going down. not stagnant, down. >> they're getting crushed. >> so mika, you would think -- at a time like this, a progressive president who came in, talking about hope and change, would fill the void. i would think this would be a situation custom-made for barack obama. >> it really is. especially given the fact that senate republicans followed through with the filibuster that led to the defeat of part of the jobs bill proposal. the president says he's going to push that forward. he says that. but what i want to show you is the vice president, because first of all, you have an nbc news poll that shows that there is overwhelming public support for the american jobs act. there is anger to tap into here. and in an event in michigan, vice president biden, i think, used public service workers, firefighters, policemen, as the perfect example as to why you want to get this bill through. and you could see emotion and anger and perhaps a reason for this bill. take a look. >> we're going to come back and back and back and make them vote on every single solitary piece of this bill. let them explain to the american people why we should depreciate jets at five years and layoff 10,000 firefighters. and police officers. this is a perfect storm, man. and what a perfect storm is, reduced budgets, reduced manpower, decimated neighborhoods, and a rising crime. that is a witch's brew. that is a mixture for a cancer in a city. >> i mean, that's the way to handle it. wouldn't you expect this from our president? the latest nbc news "wall street journal" poll showing president obama is struggling to connect with voters. according to the poll, 51% of americans disapprove of the way obama is handling his job as president. this is paired with the latest daily approval poll from gallop, which has the president at the same number. on the economy, the latest wall street journal poll finds that 39% of americans approve of the president's handling of the economy. on the issue of terrorism, the president received a 61% approval. but, again, there is support for this jobs bill. >> there is a disconnect. there is no doubt about it, willie geist. there is a disconnect between this president and the people that he governs at a time that, again, would seem to be custom-made for a former community organizer, for a progressive, for a guy that wanted to shake things up and change america. >> it's not that tough an argument to make, as vice president biden displayed yesterday. show a little passion, show a little anger, show the people who are being cost jobs by the inability of washington to get anything done. mika highlighted the number. 63%, almost two-thirds of americans support the president's jobs bill, and yet he can't get it through congress. that means there are republicans in the country who support it, because it gets people back to work. and yet he can't get it through congress. there's a disconnect there somewhere. >> and remember, the republicans have no plan. there's nothing in any of the republican's platform -- that would actually create jobs in the short run. >> if approximate you're talking about the presidential candidates, that's one thing. if you're talking about legislatively, what's happening in the real world, that's just the opposite. paul ryan had a plan, a series of plans killed in the senate. and you've got a democratic senate that hasn't produced a budget in a couple years. >> right. but those paul ryan plans are not going to create jobs in the short run. they're plans to deal with our budget problem in the longer run. >> so why don't democrats in the senate actually provide a counter to the paul ryan plan and say this is our budget, there is paul ryan's budget, we'll come together and compromise? that's how the legislative process works. but if you've democrats in the senate that haven't put a budget out for two years, how do you move the process -- i mean, i think the idea of the ryan plan was here's what we're going to do. this is -- this is our suggestion. and then you're supposed to have something on the other side. i just think there is a total -- >> i don't disagree. the democrats should have gotten behind bowles/simpson. it was a thoughtful plan, the right one, they didn't. that's the long run. the short run problem we have is why we can't get the jobs bill or something like it through congress. >> one of the most mystifying aspects of this, you just heard the vice president. these issues, income inequality, the anger that's out there, the vice president gives voice to it. it's been there for two, two-and-a-half years. where have they been? it's made for them. >> coming up, he is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. dylan ratigan. >> oh, my. money party. >> joins us less along with no labels co founder mark mckinnon on their push to get special interests out of politics. also, it might be the next frontier in the battle against obesity. going after the cute characters pushing us to the sugary cereal? >> i love tony the tiger. >> man, just hug him. you can get the sweetest cereals -- >> for breakfast. seriously. no. >> the greatest cereal ever. >> what about froot loops? >> count chocula. >> i do like him. >> also, joe camel? i mean, seriously, these are the cutest characters. >> stop it. all right. the latest on the blackberry blackout. but first let's go to bill karins with a look at the forecast. >> you left out lucky charms. some delays, nothing too horrible. philadelphia and chicago have been reporting delays. philly, one hour, light rain in boston, but logan airport, no delays. i think there will be possible on and off threats throughout in the morning in new england. later on this afternoon towards this evening, some showers and thunderstorms. it's not going to rain all day, just periods of rain on and off. tomorrow very similar. we also are going to watch the tampa thunderstorms in the southeast. and if chicago is going to get storms, the worst will be earlied this. this afternoon should be just fine. you're watching "morning joe" on this thursday. on a cloudy day in d.c., brewed by starbucks. i'm not a number. i'm not a line item on a budget. and i'm definitely not a pushover. but i am a voter. so washington... before you even think about cutting my medicare and social security benefits... here's a number you should remember. 50 million. we are 50 million seniors who earned our benefits... and you will be hearing from us... today and on election day. ♪ today and on election day. ♪ ♪ ♪ when your chain of supply ♪ goes from here to shanghai, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ chips from here, boards from there ♪ ♪ track it all through the air, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ clearing customs like that ♪ hurry up no time flat that's logistics. ♪ ♪ all new technology ups brings to me, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪ ♪ i think you have civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, the vietnam war. and on the right, the conservatives, the tea party groups and the pro life groups, all those things, you know -- that's part of being an american, being able to organize with people that you agree with. >> yeah. >> and trying to make your voice heard. but to make the change eventually what it is you're advocating has to be clear enough and focused enough that either there's a new political movement which embraces it or people of one of the two parties embraces it. they need to be far something specific, and not just against something, because if you're just against something, somebody else will fill the vacuum you create. >> okay. i think they are for a little bit more equality in our society. joining us now from washington, the most of msnbc's dylan ratigan show, dylan ratigan. and from boston, a man of many titles, former adviser to president george w. bush, contributor to "newsweek" and the daily beast. co founder of no labels. and vice chairman of the consulting group, mark mckinnon. anymore? >> almost as many titles as scarbs. >> good to have you both. dylan. >> you're trying to get a constitutional amendment passed, you're collecting tons of signatures. and you have presented it to a very powerful player on capitol hill. get us up to date. >> well, i'm not actually trying to do anything. i have partnered with now 190,000 other americans who are adding signatures at 5 to 10,000 a day and all of us agree that the auctioning of our elections through the fund-raising process is the primary reason why we have a health care debate where we never reformed the health care system, a banking debate where we never reformed the banking system. talk of getting out of wars that we never get out of. the list is long. and i think myself and a lot of other people are frustrated with sort of pretending to pay along with the pro wrestling of these bogus two-party debates when 94% of the time the person that raises the most money wins. and really, we just want to have an honest debate in this country. and myself and these other people have agreed that the only way to begin that process is to ban a federal politician's ability to take money from special interests. >> mark mckinnon, you heard bill clinton, what he said coming in about occupy wall street. what's your take on that movement, on what dylan is doing, on what joe klein reported about in "time" magazine this week about an america can -- even more disconnected from washington than ever before. >> well, there's a lot of concern about money and politics. and this came to light to me when i first started in politics 25 years ago, when i worked for a texas governor. he named his campaign chairman the appointments guy when he was governor. and there was no caps on contributions in it texas then, nor is there today. you can give $1 million to a candidate or more. he was meeting with his counter part from wisconsin where they have heavy campaign finance rules and the guy from wisconsin told the guy from texas that you can't give more than $500 to a candidate for governor. and the texas guy thought about that for a second and then looked at him and said, "el well how do you know who to appoint?" what's outrageous, it's still the same and even worse with the citizens united and other decisions that have now created a situation where we have 155 super pacts that are creating money that have little accountability and have no caps on how much people can give. the bottom line, there should be reasonable limits. that's why there were $5,000 federal caps on what a person can give. but now because of the citizens united decision, those caps are meaningless, because you can just go to a super pack and give $1 million or $2 million. and also there's the issue of disclosure, so unlimited money and we don't know who is giving it so it's completely corrupting the system so special interests are running the campaigns. >> john heilemann, do you see the special interests coming together, money, special interests, what's happening on wall street, the occupiers. can there be some sort of coordinated force brought out of all of this? >> i think that if there is anything that -- that -- a place where you could find a constructive -- if it's right, what bill clinton says, you need to have some kind of a concrete call for action, this is as good of a place as any. there is a -- you know, the root cause of a lot of what is wrong in our politics today is the nexus of money and politics. there is no question that's true. it perverts public policy on a lot of different levels and certainly contributes to a tax system and economic policies that are -- that go to the questions of inequality, wall street regulation not being as tough as it should be. i don't know who is going to emerge as the leader of this movement where it can coalesce. but this is an idea whose time has clearly come. and if this movement can meet that moment in the idea, you can have someone that can get some change going in the country. >> dylan, it's willie. good to see you, my man. >> you as well. >> how do we harness the energy you bring every day at 4:00, the energy you brought to washington, the energy on wall street and across the country now into something meaningful of and not just signs and protests? we have been down this road before. here's a shot of dylan actually down with the occupy wall street people. we have been down this road before. we have identified the problem that money corrupts politics and yet nothing meaningful has been done. why should this time -- why could this time be different? >> the only way, willie, and that is the question, obviously, the only way that this is different or could be different, and i honestly don't know whether it will be different nor am i predicting it will be different. but the only way it could be is if people come to the awakening and the realization that the culture of heroes and villains that has dominated our politics where, oh, barack obama is the hero and he's going to save us, and george bush is the villain, and if we get rid of him, all of our problems will go away. and all this sort of thinking, ignores the fact that you have a system -- it does not matter who the people are, as long as you have a system where policy is determined at auction, and the auction is one to john heilemann's point, where the money is donated, not for what you are in favor. the auction is for when you want to make sure a policy is not made. so when the banking regulations come up, the bankers are like, oh, man, how much is this going to cost us to make sure they don't take away our little money machine, or the health insurance monopolies are like, oh, send me the bill, we'll send it to the auction to make sure max baucus doesn't break up the insurance monopolies. and as long as you're making policy to protect dated businesses that are dead at a time when the 21st century has blown open, a whole new set of solutions, it's very stressful and very harmful to pretty much everybody, except for those who win -- a given auction. >> mark mckinnon, i was speaking several months ago to a potential candidate for president who chose not to run for president, because of the time burden involved in raising money. like 75% of his day was figured, you know -- he would have to be raising money. you've run campaigns, you've been associated with a lot of people in campaigns. talk about the time burden. just the time burden of raising money. >> well, mike, it's outrageous. in the old days, you know, candidates would have to spend 10 to 25% of their time raising money. but you talk to people like evan bayh who have left congress because of the fact they had to spend so much time campaign and raising money and not any time on public policy or trying to make progress for the people that they represent. so literally, when people get to office today, they start raising money from the day they get into office for their next campaign. and i would say that easily 75% of candidates' time and office holders' time today is spent raising money. >> wow. >> and that's time that should be spent on public policy and it's no wonder that we have a paralysis in washington when people are so fixed on raising money rather than fixing our problems. >> all right. dylan and mark, thank you very much. come back soon. >> dylan, what do you have planned today in washington? you've got a lot of targets in washington. we're right behind you. >> i'm trying to get out of here. i think that it's the people of america that are the ones that are going to do this. i'm confident that this town is bought. i think it's foolish to waste energy here. >> all right. >> okay. up next, listen up. why some argue the cartoon characters on your kids' favorite cereal box need to go. >> no, no, no! >> debate over marketing rights. >> come on. >> and childhood obesity, next. >> american icons all. ♪ living with the pain of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis... could mean living with joint damage. help stop the damage before it stops you with humira. for many adults with moderate to severe ra, humira's proven to help relieve pain and stop joint damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, lymphoma, or other types of cancer, blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before starting humira, your doctor should test you for tb. ask your doctor if you live or have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. tell your doctor if you have had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, cough, or sores. you should not start humira if you have any kind of infection. ask your rheumatologist how you can defend against and help stop further joint damage with humira. ♪ anybody having sugary cereal for breakfast? if you're eating sugary cereal, any chance -- >> cocoa puffs. >> count chocula. >> i hate to interrupt you, mickey, because you know i never to unless it was important. >> this is going to be key to our -- >> they tear everybody apart. shaughnessy goes after the pitchers who do deserve to be gone after. >> yeah. >> go after everybody. >> uh-huh. >> i think unfairly goes after the owners. but this is just -- it's horrible. these guys will be playing video games, eating fast food and mickey, you know how i feel about fast food. >> fried chicken and video games, a good training regimen for your starting rotation. >> well, it's boston, it's who we are. >> you should have seen what joe had for lunch yesterday. it was disgusting. >> tell us. >> it was disgusting. >> so anyway, the question mika wants to ask is whether cereal cartoon characters help convince kids what to buy or not. >> no, i don't think it does. i think they need to change the cereal, actually. just change the cereal. anyhow, some of the nation's leading health experts think it's big enough concern they're talking about cutting the ads on the cartoons. >> no, no, no. >> no, cut the cereal. >> no if. >> nbc's tom costello joins us live from washington. tom, i'm sorry, it just seems like a silly approach. >> i need my lucky charms, the cute little leprechaun, count chocula. >> i mean, seriously. >> tony the tiger. >> this is like 100 voices in my head. i can't -- trying to follow this. but you -- >> this is the exact debate on capitol hill that they have been having for the last day or so. you know, nutrition experts, they warn us about the villains, the fast food, sugary cereals, the drinks, the fake food, the snacks, too much salt, everything that's in joe's diet. >> wait. did you say fake food, because let me tell you something, tom costello, you look at the chemical breakdown of crunch berries, and i will tell you, those are packed with seven essential vitamins. but go ahead. >> you just ruined my roll cue. so let me -- >> hey, tom -- >> are the cute characters. pushing us to eat stuff we shouldn't buy. >> yes. >> going cuckoo for the great chocolatey taste of cocoa puffs. >> for anyone who feels a bit of nostalgia for the cocoa puffs birds -- >> cuckoo for cocoa puffs -- >> the lucky charms leprechaun. >> i think i know why my kids love my lucky charms so much. >> and tony the tiger. >> they're great! >> you can rest easy, they're not going anywhere. >> my children will immediately go up to the products with their favorite characters on them and ask what this product is, and what -- can i get this. >> i wish i could take the stuff that is nutritious and put a character on it, because then my kids would eat it. >> nearly everyone agrees, america has some serious health issues. the cdc reports 17% of kids ages 2 to 19 are obese. more than 12 million kids. and the rate has nearly tripled since 1980. consumer advocates say the advertising gets some of the blame. >> can bring out the tiger in you. >> it shapes the whole way they think about food. and unfortunately, the kind of diet that's marketed to children as desirable to eat is light years away from the kind of diet that's healthy to eat. >> the food industry insists, it takes nutrition seriously and offers lots of healthy choices. but reacting to the obesity crisis, the government this year offered voluntary guidelines for food manufacturers, suggesting new maximum levels of fat, sugar and salt. and asking the food industry to stop advertising some of the less wholesome choices to kids under the age of 17. >> we're not talking about banning food advertising. we're talking about modifying food advertising. but the food industry insists that amounts to government overreach, staying in a statement, ultimately, the proposal is anything but voluntary and will have little or no impact on obesity and public health. on wednesday, a republican-led congressional committee seemed to agree. >> we all want to see an end to childhood obesity. but this seems to be a far-fetched approach. >> so tony the tiger and lucky the leprechaun will stay on america's tv sets and cereal boxes with parents getting the final word on what's appropriate and what's not. so the food industry, including the cereal makers, all say they offer plenty of healthy choices and are already making voluntary changes to child-directed marketing. but in the end, it all comes down to personal choice and making the right choices about what we eat. >> okay. fine. but you know what they could do, tom, seriously? they could take crunch berries, count chocula and put them in little bags and put them in the candy aisle. >> stir it all up. stir it up! >> it's not breakfast. >> with some chocolate milk. i wonder what bo sefus would say about this. this is a challenge to our first amendment right. of package that. >> it's breakfast poison. it's not good for your kids. it's like candy. drinking a soda. it's just like having a milky way. >> have you no decency sir? >> thank you for your patience, tom. >> tom costello is awesome. >> so is frosted flakes. >> no. up next, the blackout and new weekly jobless numbers. simon hobbs, next. people have all kinds of retirement questions. no problem. td ameritrade has all kinds of answers. call us for quick help opening your new ira. or an in-depth talk with a retirement expert. like me. stop by my branch for a free retirement check-up. retirement hows and how-muches? whens... and what-ifs? bring 'em on. it's free. you're gonna retire. and we're gonna help. retirement answers at td ameritrade. roll over your old 401(k) and get up to $500. exclusive to the military. and commitment is not limited to one's military oath. the same set of values that drive our nation's military are the ones we used to build usaa bank. from free checking to credit cards to loans, our commitment to the military, veterans, and their families is without equal. ♪ visit us online to learn what makes our bank so different. usaa. we know what it means to serve. yesterday doesn't win. big doesn't win. titles corner offices don't win. what wins? 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[ female announcer ] the travelocity guarantee. if your booking's not right, we'll help make it right, right away. from the price to the room to the trip you'll never roam alone. let's get a check on business before the bell. we've got cnbc's simon hobbs live at the new york stock exchange. simon, you haven't been carried off yet with occupy wall street crowd. what's going on down there? >> no, we survive on, despite the reality to a comeback to that in a moment. weekly jobs have come through, 404,000. still pretty bad. today is importantly one of the most respected and controversial figures gets his day in the sun four times a year and this morning is that point. jpmorgan has just reported results, ceo jamie dimon was meeting with the analysts later. he always grabs the headlines. he always rails against regulation and today he suggested that the volcker rule, remember, that separates off risky proprietary trading from more normal retail banking, high street banking, he says that's going to strangle u.s. banks if the definitions are as tough as they think they might be. so he's railing there. meantime, the co ceo of rimm, research in motion, has just put a message on their website, apologizing for the -- a fourth consecutive day, he says they're stabilizing the situation. but still may be too soon to say if the issue is fully resolved. >> too bad they can't e-mail them. they won't get it. >> the worst possible moment. this crisis comes at the moment with the blackberry teetering on the edge. they're dead, doomed, over, it's history. simon -- >> on fire. >> simon, that's a harsh assessment, but shared by a lot of people i talked to yesterday. >> remember, the stock was already down 60% so far this year, because the competition with apple was so fierce. you've got to say, if you've got -- if you've got -- if businesses have ground to a halt in their communication for three days around the world, a lot of those people that give their employees blackberries are going to reconsider whether it isn't time to switch. this is huge, potentially, for the business. >> all right, simon, thank you so much. >> have a good day. >> greatly appreciate it. we'll be back in a minute and make you laugh by getting milk through the nose or something. cap'n crunch. 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