0 >> congratulations. i fully support the friday wedding. it's a strong move. we need to see more of it. have the wedding, get that out of the way, then another night of parties. good call. what else do you have? >> john on twitter says i'm wondering if i can finally have a chuck todd. >> still. we made one mention of the chuck todd button. it blew out of proportion. we had newt gingrich handing them out to the crowd. we have a couple left. we need some kind of contest. >> i'll work on that. i love willie in the a.m. playing madden '13 and watching "way too early," but an important correction, it's the "b" button not the "y" button. >> i tried to make a cool reference that you hit the "y" button. screwed once again by my producers. i can't even get that right. "morning joe" starts right now. >> they can hold it. >> contiguous. >> right angles to each other. orthagonal. >> do we look at polls? >> a couple other things going on here, bernanke. trying to do whatever he can do to force a job recovery. it's certainly not happening out of washington, d.c. so the fed's moving very quickly. and the middle east turmoil spreads. but i think one hopeful development -- i guess one of the things that i was really surprised by, we were talking yesterday about how mitt romney made that terrible mistake in our opinion, at least in my opinion. i won't speak for anybody else. i was really stunned when the president -- you know, because of course republicans were saying goo hardsay saying go harder, go harder, set the entire region on fire. i actually went the other way. i was actually taken aback when the president said that the egyptians were not our allies. whoa, whoa, wait. these are our most important arab partners, and yes, we've had a chaotic week and some bad things are happening, but, you know, this is a time you do what the president did i guess yesterday and call the guy up and say hey, buddy, right here. you do not want to go this direction. and he did. and i think that was a great call by the president. i think he made a terrible mistake, and we can get past it by saying that our most historic partner starting in 1979 with your dad and jimmy carter is no longer a, quote, ally. >> well, we give them a lot of military aid, so i hope they're our ally. >> yeah. but that means nothing. pakistanis, billions. >> the government tried to walk it back. one of the big critiques of conservatives of the media this week is that there hasn't been enough scrutiny of the president and his conduct during all of this. and i think that's absolutely fair and right to point out. >> sure. >> although if you look at george bush after 9/11, a much bigger crisis, obviously, but the press wasn't inclined, and democrats andclined to critique him. he made plenty of mistakes in the immediate aftermath. in the time of national security crisis, there's a tendency to cut the president some slack. >> at least for 24 to 48 hours until you have a dead united states ambassador come back home. i think that was the unbecoming thing. >> but the egypt mistake is an interesting mistake and i think deserves some scrutiny. >> it was an interesting mistake. i think we can get past it. i think it is very good news that the president spoke with president morsi and let him know, this is not acceptable. this is not how you guys behave. and john, from all the report s i've read, the egyptians said message received. the muslim brotherhood, even, said message received. i will say for the jackals running around capitol hill that we need to not fund either egypt or libya moving forward, seriously, please go inside, wrap yourself in bubble wrap, stay away from sharp objects. you are a danger to the long-term health and national security of the united states of america. now that we've got that off the plate, willie, we can move forward. and talk about the conservative critique. and i think it's a fair critique. the conservative critique that all you guys in the media were talking about mitt romney. you should have talked about the warnings with the embassy, et cetera, et cetera. and yes, perhaps we should have. but you know who didn't allow us to do that? >> mitt romney. >> mitt romney. if mitt romney had kept his mouth shut, if he had not acted like a rank amateur, if he had not embarrassed himself -- and by the way, internally the campaign understands they screwed up, he's moved on, they know that. so no conservatives can say oh, the mainstream media, blah, blah, blah. they know how badly they screwed up, and they were having to fight internally before he even went out and did it. but romney got in the way of the media looking at the president going -- what happened here? how did this happen? now, those questions are going to be asked in the coming weeks, but they weren't asked in the first 24 hours because romney was holding this horrific, irresponsible press conference. >> it's significant and important, what mitt romney said. if he wants to be the commander in chief, if he wants to be president, we should know how he would conduct himself on the world stage. we should know what he would have done, not just his critique of president obama but how he would have handled this crisis. but it's also true that we should evaluate. the real story is not mitt romney. the real story is what happened in the middle east? what's our relationship like with egypt? we give them $1.5 billion a year. why aren't they able to protect the embassy? president morsi again this morning, we just talked to jim maceda from cairo calling for more protests, peaceful protests, but he's calling for protests around mosques. so the question is are we going for nationwide protests. and we've got to underscore that these are supposed to be peaceful and dignified protests. that's what he's called for after friday prayers. so joe, i think that morsi is getting the message. these protests will be organized by the muslim brotherhood. they are to take place outside of mosques throughout the country. and that might take the pressure off of what's going on here behind me and these protesters. but you know, it's very volatile. these protesters, many of them are calling for the burning of the anti-islam film and the hanging to death of the so-called u.s. producers or the producers of the u.s. film. back to you. >> nbc's jim maceda live in cairo. thank you, jim. so coming off the political conventions, we do have some updates for you on the polls. president obama is leading mitt romney in three key battleground states. the president has a five-point lead over romney in virginia and florida. and in ohio, his lead is up to seven points. numbers that you need to win those states. >> yep. >> and they're places the president, even though he's had a lead in those states, he hasn't been at 49% and 50%, number one. number two, the ohio number is incredibly important. and it's a state where, because of the strength of organized labor, the president's always had -- >> and you were saying yesterday ohio is one of the few states where labor still really matter. if you're sitting at 50% in the polls before you take in the turnout impact of that, it's tough. >> and then you step away from ohio and virginia, which are states where the president has led consistently over this race, and you look at florida, a state that's been the weaker of those three states, the weakest, for him to have opened up a five-point lead in florida where the economy is not as good, that's just a troubling set of numbers for romney across the board. >> it is. again, let's put all of this in perspective, mike halperin, michael dukakis was 18, 19 points ahead after the democratic convention back in 1988. but this is not 1988. this has been a deadlocked race for months now. and the conventions did have an impact. i think republicans have reason to fear after the romney gaffe the past couple of days. those numbers may spread even more. and then you go to colorado. here's another swing state, a state that i've always suspected that in the end romney would end up winning. a new poll out in colorado shows the same thing. barack obama up by five percentage points. >> i think that for romney to improve his position, he's going to have to do something that he's not really exhibited yet. >> here's the poll of likely colorado voters. >> close to 50. he's going to have to raise his game. the associated press has a story today that says that romney's going to come back by putting on more tv ads and working harder. and then they quote -- they quote a woman -- they quote a woman named lillian. >> tv ads. >> lillian glass, a los angeles-based body language expert who says about romney, he's turned into a different person. he's become more passionate, more emotional, more dynamic. >> wait, wait. the associated press is actually -- >> quoting lillian glass. >> body language expert? >> this woman comments. >> she's an expert. i would say i don't see what ms. glass sees, but i think if romney's going to have a chance to get back in this, he needs to do exactly what she says he's already done. he needs to become more compassionate, emotional, dynamic and a communicator. he has not done that yet. >> he's gripping the microphone as opposed to holding it like a teacup. >> he used to hold it like a teacup. >> she's right about what needs to happen. i just haven't seen it yet. >> she's a body language expert. they're going to do more 30-second ads, but they've been doing the 30-second ads. i think mitt romney needs to tell people what he'll do when he's president of the united states. >> commercials can have an impact as well as money, mark. very hard. and in ohio you have sort of the not only the economic situation overall in terms of the numbers, but spillover from the auto bailout. >> yeah. >> which has helped the president a lot. can money and ads work to compete with that? >> well -- >> historically, at least, you know, television advertising, late in the game against an incumbent president, it has not traditionally -- not on margins this large. you know, the most of -- people have been living with barack obama for almost four years. they know the economy's not good. most of the bad stuff about obama is baked in for a lot of voters. and to try to move big numbers, not on the margins but like substantial numbers with tv ads in the last two months of the race, when the ads are -- when the airwaves are saturated with ads -- >> first of all, willie, how surprising that we hear the word "baked" from john heilmann on a friday. >> he is half-baked. >> i'm more than half-baked, mika. >> more than--baked. >> great. >> baked in is an expression i was going to use because unlike '88, unlike 1980, you know, there aren't a lot of undecided voters. if you really dig into the numbers, you've got 3%, maybe 4% undecided. fewer undecided voters than ever before. so for mitt romney, if romney's down even by two or three percentage points going into the final week or two, he's going to have to pull 80% of the undecided voters. that's just not going to happen. and it's certainly not going to happen because of 30-second ads. >> and this campaign's been going on for well over a year. the country knows mitt romney. the country has a feeling about who he is. they don't know, though, what exactly he'd do. and that's, i think, his opportunity. he's got two months to lay out in stark terms specifically what he would do on the economy. instead of just ripping president obama about what's happening overseas, how would you handle the situation? some of his aides are coming out this morning and explaining a little bit what he would have done. get specifics. we feel like we know who you are. now tell us exactly what you'd do. but if you look inside those numbers, if he loses florida, it's over. there's no chance. we're talking about ohio. but if he's down five in florida, forget it. >> if he loses florida, it's over. if he loses ohio, it's over. i'm sorry. he's got to win those. and losing virginia makes it much more difficult as well. >> so what's a campaign to do in a state like this, at a junction like this? is it time for a big speech on policy with details and prescriptions, or that will be even more contrived than everything else we've seen? >> no, tell people what you believe. i think also, whoever is advising mitt romney, whoever is running this campaign is a disaster. i'm not going to point any fingers. i don't know exactly who it is. but whoever is running his campaign day to day and whispering in his ear is a disaster. they are making one terrible mistake after another. whoever was ultimately in charge for the convention, having a bumbling clint eastwood following one of the most political films i've ever seen at a convention about mitt romney screwed up, whoever told him to go out and try to make political hay of an ambassador being murdered overseas, whoever is telling him, as "the wall street journal" says, to have as a preexisting condition a feckless campaign, again, is engaging in political malpractice. mitt romney has to tell people what he believes in, what he's going to do. and he's going to have to be bold about it. he's too risk averse. >> from what you're seeing, does he have it in him? >> i don't know. i don't think he does. is mitt romney the one running this campaign? >> he makes a lot of the decisions, but he's going to have to have it in him. if he doesn't have two months to elevate his game and show people what he believes, what he would do differently, a foreign policy address, but also tell people more about the economy than he's done so far. and the debates are just not enough. >> they're not. they're too short. >> here's the tragedy for republicans. the tragedy for republicans is the fact that they are running against a guy who's spent $5 trillion. got us $5 trillion deeper in debt, biggest stimulus plan ever, health care boondoggle as far as we're concerned, a trillion dollar deficit every year, unemployment still high, right track/wrong track. and president obama, if you look at his speech, he's got no plans moving forward on how he's going to revive this economy. nothing new. no ideas. he is lost intellectually, and yet romney can't provide a contrast to that because he's not saying anything either. >> well, i think the president is certainly running a very safe campaign because they're very confident they're going to win. they don't see the need to put out bold plans. you can criticize that legitimately. but i think they're running a very safe campaign. it's interesting to me, given all the criticism that romney has taken, just as the an throw po throwpological, and there's never been a discussion about a big public shake-up. every presidential cycle, you think about the gore and kerry campaigns, going back cycle after cycle -- >> what about ronald reagan firing john sears? it happens all the time. >> it happens all the time. historically, even if campaigns that win, there's often a reboot that becomes necessary where the candidate finally says, if nothing else than to turn the media page, he throws out all of his top advisers, brings in a new team. it's surprising that we've never had that conversation around romney. he had a hard time getting past rick santorum and others in the primary. there's been unrest. i wonder if we might have that discussion. the second thing quickly, this first debate, mark is right. he can't just turn it around with one debate. but boy, given where the conservative intelligencia is now, where things are around him, this first debate, the level of pressure on him is so high because if he doesn't perform really well and clearly win that debate, it seems to me like a lot of the republican party is going to say, this is dole '96. we're done here. let's focus on the senate and house. >> you know, the conservative int intelligencia has turned on him. there are some things that they will not say publicly. there are some things they will not write publicly. but behind the scenes, they're all talking dole '96. george h.w. bush '92. this past week, they've really privately written this guy off, despite the fear and loathing that they have about a second obama term. it is so depressing. so depressing that they feel like they had to settle for john mccain four years ago, a guy that went out of his way to stick, you know, a sharp stick in their eye any chance he had a chance to poke at conservatives, he would. and now they're having to deal with mitt romney. this is terrible for the conservative movement, terrible for the republican party, and a lot of us believe pretty darn bad for america. >> part of why they've jumped so quickly to that is, romney is for them turning out to be exactly what they feared. can't relate to people. can't talk about obamacare because of massachusetts health care. >> they're hamstrung. >> bain capital, all the things that they talked about in the nominating process, for them is coming true right now. coming up, we're going to talk to the former governor of florida, jeb bush, jon huntsman, eugene robinson and chuck todd. up next, the top stories in the "politico playbook." also, don't miss "willie's week in review." >> i wouldn't dream of it. >> i can't wait. that's going to be fun. is it a good one? don't let us down. but first, todd santos with a check on the weekend forecast. todd. >> hey there, mika. good morning, guys. looks like a beautiful setup across a good stretch of the country. there are a few showers. one of them -- i know this has sounded like a broken record, florida with some of those chances. same story down towards, say, hilton head, south carolina, may see a few light showers. if you're headed out to the golf course, may see a chance of thunderstorms. south florida, certainly some of those chances on the i-95 corridor especially later this afternoon. once you get up towards boston, new york, beautiful clear skies initially. you do see some of those low clouds pushing in from the west. starting to see increasing chance for showers. buffalo back down towards pittsburgh during the daytime at least to start off the day. temperatures for your friday. again, not so bad across the east coast itself. we'll see some better chance for light showers to make their way into the new york city area maybe late tonight, early tomorrow morning. so if you're one of those super late-night people, you may see at least a few showers. looks good for the remainder of your saturday. we'll have more coming up and certainly more "morning joe" right after this. ♪ ♪ [ 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.