Dennis rodman ends up in north korea. Apparently he was a big basketball fan. Is that it . I thought he was a huge double team fan with jeanclaude van damme. We know m. J. And pippen wont go, are you telling me he wouldnt get grant out of clemson . Benny the bull wouldnt go . All right. At the top of the show we asked why you are awake . Producer john towers is the man with the answers. John . J. R. Tells us im awake because the sequester cut my sleep by 42 . Phillip writes beating the d. C. Snowquester, heading down to florida. I dont like to bash d. C. , but i will do one of those, only in d. C. Could they make light of the sequester. A tweet from lazy gal who says shes lazy and a librarian. Im up way too early to get in a workout before to get in a workout before my 90 minute commute. You dont sound so lazy. Morning joe starts right now. As bob rueben says, you never know when a bond crisis is going to come. Its not like you get a warning. Youre going to wake up one day and suddenly theres going to be a crisis. When is that going to happen . I dont know. All kinds of things can happen. All kinds of things. Youve been predicting this for 20 years. Its such a tired argument to search for quotes i said once upon a time. You said this for 15 years. Then you woke up one day and said, i was wrong. You said we needed to create housing bubble to replace a nasdaq bubble. Come on. You know i was joking when i said that. You were joking . Yes, of course. In is so disappointing. Is all you can do is ad homonym . Im quoting back what you say. Were trying to have a serious discussion here. What is it in the next ten years thats going to force us to do something . We dont know. As richard hoss said, youre right until the day youre wrong. Then thats a very bad day indeed. Good morning. Its tuesday, march 5th. Welcome to morning joe. With us, we have msnbc analyst Mark Halperin and steve schmidt. Good to have you on board. Were going to have more on the faceoff between charlie rose and joe i like that background. Yeah, i just it was a good debate. Good conversation last night. Yeah, it was good. On the way there, lewis is like, hey s this a good idea . Didnt he win the nobel prize . I said, thanks for bringing that up right now. Jeff thought maybe its not. I said considering i dropped out of econ 1 to study sports history. It was good. It was intense from beginning to end. I dont know if they kept that really, really tough part at the end. Well see. I dont know. I was just tired. I mean, i wake up at 3 00 in the morning. Lets get to the news. It was tension city, man. It was. All right. Were going to have highlights. You remember that quote, halperin . It was a great quote. Like joe kennedy swam out and saved some kids. They said, what was it like out there . He goes, it was tension city, man. But you know what . It was a real conversation looking at how i mean, quite frankly vehemently the two of you disagree. Im fascinated by the man. It was fascinating. It really was. You know what else is fascinating . Steve schmidt. He is. Good to see you. Its good to have you here instead of you broadcasting from your lair in california. Hes got it figured out, man. Bring the studio to you. Smokes his cigarette, walks downstairs. All right. Lets get to the news. I want to get to the highlights. Governor Chris Christie is slamming leaders in washington for failing to find Better Solutions to last weeks across the board spending cuts. The new Jersey Republican called out praesident obama and congress. The worst thing about sequester in my view is theyre not spending any time talking about entitlement spending, which is where we really need to focus on over the long haul to make a big difference in terms of our longterm Fiscal Health as a country. Im disappointed in that, but, you know, if you stacked up all the things that disappoint me about washington, d. C. , it would be pretty tall. If anybody in this room thinks they understand washington, d. C. , please come up, stand behind the podium and give the answers because i dont have the first damn idea what theyre doing down there. I dont understand it. I dont understand why they havent fixed it already. Seems to me it should be pretty easy to fix. Real leadership would get this fixed. Get everybody in the room and you fix it and you dont let them leave until you fix it. Thats what real leadership is, not calling a meeting two hours before the thing is going to hit to have a photo op in it the driveway of the white house. Thats not real leadership. Fix it. Yeah, i mean, it is easy for him to say, but i did wonder why everyone didnt just get in the room and not leave or the president go to capitol hill and say, here i am. Look what the guy has done in new jersey. Look what hes done in new jersey. Steve schmidt, that sure looks like a guy who is talking for 74 of new jersey. Also, its not a bad position to launch a 2016 campaign. No doubt. And if you look ahead to 2016, the congressional brand of the Republican Party is so deeply unpopular. Hes someone whos clearly comfortable triangulating against it. Hell run against the democrats as much as he would against the congressional brand. Every day we see this dysfunctional washington making a compelling case for a christie candidacy. I think any republican that comes out of the congressional wing of the party whos in congress right now is going to have a really difficult time. Going to have problems. No doubt about it. Mark . He looked like if you had those little frank lutz meters, every word would be going like this. The guy has hit the sweet spot. This is his time to say washington doesnt work, look what im doing up here with a bunch of Union Members and union bosses and democrats. Im working with them. Im beating them and working with them. Why cant washington get anything done . Why cant republicans in washington get anything done . Why cant the president lead . Its a compelling message. Once youre willing to unshackle yourself from the party, once youre willing to step out from the orthodoxy of the party and be unafraid of criticizing your own party, you got a lot of running room. Given the conditions in washington and christies record of getting things done, hes in a great position. President hits will keep on coming. He can keep up a running dialogue like that all the way through as he chooses to. By the way, when you get outside the beltway bubble, some people in washington will hear that, the white house will hear that and say thats not a very sophisticated view. Its not just about leadership. Theres more to it. But when you talk to people in the world, they say exactly what he just said. How hard is it . Get in a room and figure it out. So hes giving voice to the majority of the country, not just the beltway. The overwhelming majority. Mika, a lot of times bloggers will mock that type of talk, that centrist talk saying, well, thats just theres nothing to it. Thats where most americans, at least most americans ive talked to over the past, you know, 400, 500 speeches on College Campuses and rotary clubs and all the other places we go over the past four, five years, were hearing the same thing everywhere we go. Also, just sort of big picture looking down at Chris Christies career. I dont get the Republican Party. I dont get cpac. This is a guy who can embrace the president when hes doing a good job for his state and also cult him down when he thinks hes not doing a good job without blinking an eye, without feeling shackled to anyone. Isnt that ultimately someone whos grounded and with a sense of leadership . I dont know. Doesnt get it. Education secretary arne duncan says he misspoke when he said the sequester was already costing teachers their jobs because of the sequester. In fact, it will be several more months. A new poll shows 38 of americans blame Congressional Republicans for failing to reach an agreement to avert those cuts. 33 hold president obama and democrats accountable. Hey, look at those number, steve schmidt. These days, if republicans arent losing a poll like this by about 80 points, were doing well. Its a win. All relative, i guess. President obama is so much higher in his generic approval numbers. In is goi this is going to take a big impact on him. He overreached. We said it last week. This whole thing, planes falling out of the skies, children being kicked out of classes, leeches being put on Senior Citizens instead of hospital services. I think they said everything but that, that theyre going to have to resort to leeches. Toads in the street. Its like the finale of magnolia, raining frog. They oversold it. Were supposed to do that. Right. Thats true. And were good at it. The republicans are supposed to do that. No, actually, the media is really good at overselling stuff. No, i think it was oversold in terms of everything will happen at midnight when the clock strikes 12 00. Having said that, lets not overcorrect here in our criticism and pretend that nothing is going to happen as a result of the sequester. Its a mess. The cuts are completely stupid, and they bear no resemblance to anything the Republican Party would want and certainly not what the president was putting on the table as well. Its just dumb. And unfortunately members of congress now are beginning to work to make the cuts a little less stupid. A bipartisan plan to curb gun trafficking is taking part. Straw purchasers could face up to two decades in jail, and the dealers who sell the guns could face heavy penalties as well. Introduced by senator Patrick Lahey of vermont. Republican senator tom coburn is key on any senate deal on expanding background checks, but hes highly skeptical of requiring private sellers to keep records. His blessing, though, could carry with it widespread republican support in the senate. Without t even some democrats may defect. Meanwhile, a new 60 minutes vanity fair poll reveals 80 of people think gun violence and video games have some or a lot of impact on society. Yeah. The Obama Administration is fighting back against charges that access to the president is being sold to the highest bidders by a new Advocacy Organization with close ties to the white house. The New York Times first reported that people who donated at least half a Million Dollars to the Nonprofit Group organizing for action, the direct offspring of president obamas outfit, obama for america, would be granted quarterly meeting with the president. Yesterday and watch this. White House Press Secretary jay carney disputed the allegation and defended the white houses involvement with the group. Any notion that theres a set price for a meeting with the president of the United States is just wrong. As you know, organizing for action was set up to promote the president s Public Policy agenda. Therefore, as anyone would expect, the president would likely meet with their representatives to discuss his agenda. Again, any notion theres a price for meeting with the president is simply wrong. The bottom line here is this is a separate organization, as weve noted. The existence of which is a perfectly appropriate and the white house will engage with it consistent with the way we engage with a whole host of outside constituencieconstituen. Thats fascinating. He was reading the whole thing. You think theyre a little lawyered up on the whole thing . I think it needs to be looked at more. Steve, whats going on there . As reported by the New York Times, its cash for access. Look at the dna of the embryonic Obama Movement was the notion were going to do things different in washington. Listening to it, it remind me of earlier in my career. We had all manner of organizations like this fronted by tom delay where we would sell access, where people would come in, have an opportunity, meet the congressional leadership. Its absolutely no different. But its totally disdent from what the president said he was going to do when he ran for office. Politicians have been doing this for years. Jay carney also tried to put a little daylight between the white house and organizing for america, which is not the way it was conceived originally. Yesterday he tried to say there was some separation there and there was no direct link, but it was supposed to be a place where policy was developed and the message was delivered to the white house. History of the obama operation is if they have the financial advantage, they take advantage of it. Regardless. Regardless. One of the things about this group, besides the question of access, is theyre taking corporate contributions. Thats a big change. Why are they doing this . Why would the president it just seems like hes making his life more complicated politically. Why would he do this . I think they want to take the strength of their grassroots operation, their access to money, and try to marry them up so he can succeed in the midterms. So he can do in the last two years of his second term what he did in the first two years of his first term. They think the only way to do that is fight the chamber of commerce, fight corporate money. Im not shocked by it. Its just pretty not shocked by the practice because its how washingtons run forever. Im just very surprised, as you pointed out. Even taking corporate money to do this. Were a long, long way okay. I want to get to the thriller in bloomberg. That doesnt work. Last night in his debate with New York Times columnist, joe raised some concerns about spending and longterm debt, particularly with an ageing population, reaching retirement age. Take a look. We should have used the 90s. We should have used the bush years to pay down debt so we would have come into the era of a baby boomers retiring with very little debt. We didnt do that, and that is not the choice right now. Whats changed since 1997 the world. The worst economic crisis in three generations. What has not changed is the fact that baby boomers you predicted theyd be moving towards retirement. You said specifically, why worry about deficits, theres a huge army on the march. Baby boomers are getting older. The enormous generation is going to be turning 65 in 2010. Their ranks will swell. The ageing population will create huge, foreseeable budget problems. You predicted that in 97. Everybody knew that was coming. That was a reason to pay down debt back then. Now the urgent problem is the highest longterm unemployment since the 1930s, right . A deeply depressed economy. But in this problem you predicted, its still with us. But the opportunity to pay down some debt in advance, we missed that. Now we need to run budget deficits and the difficulty were having is that 2 1 2 years ago, the conversation in washington totally turned away from creating jobs to deficit issues as if the deficit, which is a problem for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years out, as if that were the crucial issue we needed to deal with now, and it is not. So ive also learned a few things, you know, in the last 15 years. So using things i said in 1997 is not actually the best way to analyze my views now. But the main thing is this is what you said in 2 0 2005. Medicare and medicare will greatly increase the deficit. That will make argentina look like a model of responsibility. Well, things have changed since then too. Since 2005 . Got a little mad there. It got really intense. Were going to to show more. Didnt like me quoting him, actually. Its a real question right now, mark. This debate does matter because its always been understood that this president ive been assured by David Axelrod going back to 2008. Youve been assured that the president understands this entitlement crisis, understands its a generational theft were engaging in, that were stealing money from our children, from our grandchildren. As i said last night and as bob rueben has said, you never know when the bond crisis is going to hit. You dont see it coming like a hurricane. It comes immediately like an earthquake. Then are you ready for it or not . So i guess this debate matters so much right now because there is a question as to whether the president has changed his position on entitlement reform. Do you still believe he thinks that we need to protect social security, medicare, medicaid by reforming it now . I think he does, but i think hed like to do it when the economy is better so these choices are less difficult to make. In the short term, he wants stimulus. He cant always say that, but thats what he wants. In the long term, he does want to put the programs on better footing. I think where he differs from you is the medium term and the question of do you really need to do things in the tenyear space, tinkering with entitlements, tinkering with defense spending, Discretionary Spending in a way that makes people feel better about the next ten years. Not so much because the Balance Sheet requires it, but that the markets react to it. Were talking, though, about medica medicare, medicaid. But if he doesnt do that in his term, the programs are not going to be insolvent when he leaves office. He doesnt want to make a deal when the economy is bad because the deal has to be much more draconian with low growth rates. But steve, every year that goes by is another year we add more debt. When barack obama came in off, we were at 11. 5 trillion. Now were at 16. 5 trillion. Every year gone by is an opportunity lost. If you look at a secondterm presidency, typically theres 18, 19 months to get something done on the domestic front. Then your administration becomes. The province of foreign policies, where you look to build your legacy. On all this fiscal issues, it looks like it will be the work of the next president because theres not going to be a deal done. All right. Joe also challenged krugmans ideas about Government Spending. Basically, any kind of spending cut right now is going to hurt the economy. Entitlements or not . Whether its entitlements or not. Even if its wasteful defense spending its going to hurt the economy if you cut it right now, which doesnt mean we shouldnt be looking for ways to cure waste. Right now, spending is spending. If we so do the kind of entitlement reform i want and stop overpaying for medicare, stop paying for unnecessary treatments. Thats clearly something we want to do in the long run. Right now its going to mean less income for hospitals. Its going to be a problem for the economy. I dont think spending is spending. Not all dollars not all investments are created equally. Then you just dont understand what it means to be a depressed economy. How did we end the Great Depression . You just throw money at the problem . All right. And the answer was, yes. That was his answer. We have much more of this ahead. It got incredibly heated and intense at times and went on for a full hour. It was exhausting to watch. But in a good way. In a good way. It was really enlightening. Still ahead, former governor jeb bush will be onset. Boy, he made some news yesterday. Real big news. Also, economist Jeffrey Sachs, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra day oconnor. And the Washington Post eugene robinson. First, heres bill karins with a check on the forecast. Well, we have this winter storm bearing down on chicago. Shortly itll move into the ohio valley and the east coast tomorrow. Let me show you the latest totals for your area. Right now the snow is flying from minneapolis to rochester, cedar rapids, the quad cities. Its not yet in chicago. I think you got another two hours before the snow begins there. As far as the snow today, during the daylight hours, fullfledged snowstorm for chicago, northern indiana. Eventually that light snow will go into areas of ohio and southern michigan. Mostly a wintry mix near the ohio river. Minneapolis, 6 to 10. Chicago, 4 to 8. Madison, about 4 to 8. A little less around indiana and iowa. Indianapolis, you miss out on a lot of the heavy snow. Itll stay to your north. By wednesday, the storm comes off the east coast, especially wednesday afternoon. It looks like coastal areas on i 95 will be rain during the morning and afternoon, including new york city, philadelphia, and washington, d. C. Itll go rain to snow late in the day on wednesday. Its going to be a heavy, wet snow. Its going to be windy. I am concerned about power outages, especially if we get more heavy, wet snow than im calling for here. This is kind of my first forecast. Were looking at about 3 to 6 for d. C. Baltimore baltimore, 3 to 6. Areas of southern new england t looks very messy and sloppy. If youre at higher elevations, youll be getting more snow. Bottom line, chicago, already 1,000 Flights Canceled for today. Tomorrow, areas like Reagan National and bwi in baltimore, youre going to have a lot of flight troubles tomorrow. Make your plans accordingly. What a beautiful start to what will be a messy period of weather. I know what youre thinking. Transit fares as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. No . Oh, right. Youre thinking of the 1. 6 million daily Customer Care interactions xerox handles. Or the 900 Million Health insurance claims we process. So, its no surprise to you that companies depend on todays xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. Which is. Pretty much what weve always stood for. With xerox, youre ready for real business. [ sneezing ] she may be muddling through allergies. Try zyrtec®. Powerful allergy relief for adults and kids six years and older. Zyrtec®. Love the air. Ah. 4g, huh . Verizon 4g lte. 700 megahertz spectrum, endtoend, pure lte build. The most consistent speeds indoors or out. And, obviously, astonishing throughput. Obviously. You know how fast our home wifi is . Yeah. This is basically just as fast. Oh. And verizons got more fast lte coverage than all other networks combined. So its better. Yes. Oh, why didnt you just say that . Huh what is he doing . Welcome back to morning joe. 26 past the hour. Time to take a look at the morning papers. The New York Times, Oberlin College canceled classes yesterday after experiencing yet another surprising hate crime. Oberlin students have seen a number of racist, antisemetic and antigay messages in the recent weeks. The dallas morning news, despite growing pressure, Texas Governor rick perry says he has no intention of accepting federal funds from the Affordable Care act, even though texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation. Usa today, according to a recent study injuries and deaths from gun violence cost americans at least 12 billion a year. Those costs come from court proceedings, insurance and hospitalization subsidized by Government Programs. The total bill amounts to a direct societal coast of 32 per gun. The Washington Post, president obamas newest c esest includes two women, quelling a talk of a lack of diversity. Gina mccarthy is his choice to head up the epa. Also nominated yesterday, a physicist for energy secretary. The wall street journal, despite warnings that the sequestration would cause massive flight delays, airports reported they ran as usual. But did the planes run into each other on the runway . This finding is in direct contrast with Janet Napolitanos claim that Miami International airport and jfk had waits 150 to 200 longer than normal. Okay. Thats a look at the headlines. Wow, willie. We dodged that bullet pep red sky more than over washington national, flyers warning. Look at that plane just flying into the friendly skies. You know, willie, they say a noreaster is coming to washington. It is. Whipping its way up. I dont think its noreaster. I think its a south to wester. Anyway, its coming up. Can we do politico . I think theres a lot of snow coming into washington. Wintry days. You guys noticed its colder in march . Freezing. Middle of february, i said, okay, im a florida guy, but im okay with with the changes of the seasons. Turns march and i expect to be on the beach. It is cold out there. March is the cruellest month here. Im telling you, man. You think youre in spring, youre not. You know what ive always said. Beware. Can we do politico . With us now, the chief White House Correspondent for politico, mike allen, with a look at his playbook. Good morning. Good morning. We still have some postgame analysis about what went wrong for republicans in 2012. Still the consensus among many top leaders in the Republican Party, a lot of people with a lot of different ideas about what went wrong and how to fix it Going Forward. What are they . This is a new sign of how its hurting republicans that they dont have any clear leader. Ever since the election, which is now four months past, republicans on the hill have been involved in the budget fights. Nobodys really figured out what happened. Itll be very interesting to hear governor bush on this one when hes on. What politico found in the story is that republicans are divided. Some of them argue that the problem is cosmetic, that they need new and better candidates, younger, more diverse. Some people are arguing its dated. That this democratic advantage will continue to be decisive. Others are saying its ideological and policy. No one can agree on what the problem is let alone a solution. In the next couple weeks, the Republican National committee will be coming out with its findings and its autopsy. But the parties are so much weakened now that there are these outside groups. So maggie has people saying they really miss a haley barber like figure, somebody who can knock some heads in the party and get hem all moving in one direction. Steve schmidt, isnt it the answer that its sort of all of these things . You have karl rove saying its candidate quality. Thats true in some cases. Its true they didnt connect with minority voters. Also that they were outrun by the Obama Campaign in terms of Grassroots Organization and technology. Isnt it all those things put together . We have many problems, and theyre deep problems. One of the things thats a big problem for republicans is this notion that we lost the election because the Obama Administration, the president gave stuff away to people. Theres a part of the electorate like children looking for free stuff. You win elections because you can make a case to people that you have a plan to make their lives better. You have a vision for the future of the country. You have a plan to move the country forward. Were just totally deficient in this space. Not to mention, and its no small thing, the cast of characters and loons who dominated that primary stage. From Michele Bachman talking about immunizations to the dozens of others we could throw out. I think part of our problem thats fixed is our leaders and responsible people get more forward on the stage. 999. Exactly. Thats all i got to say, man. People come out and say, we have to change our belief systems, change our values. Thats not the case. I think we have to be able to articulate how what we believe is relevant to more than just ageing white guys who make over 100,000. As you know, the republicans who win campaigns and are dangerous everybody, when i ran, no republican had won in my district. Working class voters all voted for me. You go through working class neighborhoods and every pickup truck wasnt the democrats. Its so funny. You go around the bayou and where the doctors live, not there. You get to where the country was, all those people voted for me. Thats what weve lost, that Ronald Reagan populist appeal. Absolutely. If you look at new jersey, for example, Chris Christie, hes put the states fiscal house into order. Hes taken on the teachers unions. Hes taken on the excesses of Public Employee unions. He straightened the state out. He has Record Number of support with hispanics in new jersey. Republicans can advance conservative agenda and get the support of minorities and women and democrats. Okay. When we were in tampa, we were walking down that street. I wish i knew what was street was. There were a bunch of little ranch houses. Every time i saw a ranch house of about 200 square feet, i go, theyre voting for me. The bigger the house got, i go, probably voting for my opponent. So there were these ranch houses lined up. I said, look at these houses. There were people out in the yard. I said, how many people here do you think are going to vote for mitt romney . We looked and said, some, but not enough. Yeah. You know what . Its my ranch house theory. You can look at a ranch house thats maybe 20, 25 years old. If youre not winning that house as a republican, youre not winning the election. We have lost middle class, working class voters. Were not going to win again until we can explain why conservatism makes their lives better. And we havent done that in a while. We need to get back to it. Okay. And jeb bush has answers on that. Hes going to be on in a couple minutes. By the way, all those people in tampa voted for jeb bush. Mike allen, thanks for a look at the playbook. The playbook on the smackdown on charlie rose, scarborough schools krugman. Are you serious . Thats kind of cool. Coming up next, a fight breaks out on the court during an nba game last night. I thought you were talking about spring court. Let me check out that headline. Z sas i said, joining us in couple minutes, jeb bush. He played power forward. Can we get to a break . His new book on immigration in america when morning joe comes back. [ indistinct shouting ] [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. Splitsecond stats. [ indistinct shouting ] its so close to the options floor. [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ]. Youll bust your brain box. All on thinkorswim from td ameritrade. All right. Lets do some sports now. The miami heat taking a 14game winning streak on the road against the timberwolves. Minnesota a good place to take your winning streak. Things get a little physical in the fourth quarter. J. J. Berea gets pushed by ray allen. Hes about 57. He was charged with a flagrant foul. Heat go on to win their franchise best 15th straight game 9781. They have not lost since february 1st. Running away with the east right now. San antonio is great in the west. Could be a good final. Womens College Hoops now. Topranked baylor playing kansas state. Brittney griner, a huge game. Here she is in the half court throwing down a onehanded dunk. Going baseline for the throwdown. The 14th of her college career. She scores a career high 50 points. 50. Thats her last home game at baylor. Baylor wins the game. Bayl you know, steve, that willie can dunk. With one hand . Sort of a dr. J. Thing. I used to be able to do it routinely. If you put a gun to my head, i could still get it down. It would require a gun . Yeah, the stakes would have to be really high. You know, i can jump as well. Trampoline . Right into the coffee. Boom. By the way, we married the top sports story today. Whats that . The view for sports. A lot of notre dame stories. All right. Thats great news. Coming up next, former governor jeb bush enters the conversation. Youre watching morning joe brewed by starbucks. [ construction sounds ] [ watch ticking ] [ engine revs ] come in. Got the coffee. That was fast. Were outta here. [ engine revs ] in the middle of the night it can be frustrating. Its hard to turn off and go back to sleep. Intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you cant get back to sleep. Its an effective sleep medicine you dont take before bedtime. Take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. Do not take intermezzo if you have had an allergic reaction to drugs containing zolpidem, such as ambien. Allergic reactions such as shortness of breath or swelling of your tongue or throat may occur and may be fatal. 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This is nature valley. Nature at its most delicious. She cant always move the way she wants. Now you can. With stayfree ultra thins. Flexible layers move with your body while thermocontrol wicks moisture away. Keep moving. Stayfree. All right. 45 past the hour. A live look at the white house. Beautiful day. Everybody should be wake up now. Here with us now, former republican governor of florida, jeb bush. Good to see you again. Hes the coauthor of the new book immigration wars forging an american solution. Really quickly, we were just talking, your dad is doing a lot better. He is. And your brothers library is opening up soon. Yeah, in april. Everybody is excited about that in dallas, including my brother. Well, i was just going to ask and you lost weight. Does your brother even care . Im on the scarborough diet. Thats in the going to help you at all. You might want to rethink that. All right. I want to start with what was in the miami herald and launch into the conversation here. Theres a former rom nromney ad who takes a shot at you. They argued, where the hell was this jeb bush during the campaign . He spent all this time criticizing mitt romney and it turns out he basically has the same position. So he wants people to go back to their country and apply for citizenship . Well, thats selfdeportation. We got creamed for talking about that. Okay. Lets back up. First of all do i have to talk about unnamed advisers as part of the rule here . Lets set the table. Talk about the book first of all. The book has six points to it. Its comprehensive immigration reform, different than what was advocated in the campaign by either candidate, frankly, a year ago. Thankfully now theres a consensus brewing amongst democrats and republicans that there needs to be a consensus. We wrote this book last year, not this year. And we proposed a path to legalization. So anybody that had come illegally would have immediately a path to legalization. Whats the difference between a path to legalization and a path to citizenship and why is that so important . The principle underlying what weve proposed is that if you dont have a difference between a path to citizenship or a path to legalization, youre going to create a magnet Going Forward for more illegal immigrants. Youre going to repeat what happened. Yeah, so Going Forward, we broke this last year Going Forward, if there is a difference, if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isnt an incentive for people to come illegally, im all for it. I dont see how you do it, but im not smart enough to figure out every aspect of a really complex law. But i think the premise should be this should be a forward leaning immigration reform. Whats it going to look like five years after you pass the law . You want aspiring immigrants to come to rebuild our demographic base. You want people to come that have skills that can make a difference to jump start our economy. And you dont want a repeat of the last 30 years where you have people coming in illegally or waiting in line. You talk about this we started campaigning together in 1994. You started warning republicans back in 1994 of the growing number of hispanics that were going to get out there. A good thing, by the way. Yeah, a very good thing. But my gosh, 16, 17, 18 years later after you were issuing those warnings we got beaten because we did so poorly with hispanic voters. And this was a big part of the issue. I would say the best indicator of the canary in the coal mine, if you will, is Asian American voters, where you have higher incomes, more intact families, higher levels of education, more entrepreneurship. According to the exit polls, president obama won 7524. Bigger numbers than the hispanic margins, which is an ipd kandic of not just tone. Its an indication of a stiff arm people feel. Whether its fair or not is not relevant. If you look at this moment and sort of do the diagnostics or postmortem on the romney campaign, what are some of the other things that our Republican Party needs to stand for to appeal to more people . First of all, i wish mitt romney was president right now because i think wed have someone who would be in the midst of trying to form a consensus. It breaks my heart hes not there. His campaign wasnt the best, but he would have been a really fine president. I think Going Forward, we have to deal with our structural problems. The biggest one, as far as im concerned, is were no longer socially mobile as a country. You have people that are born poor, and theres a higher and higher probability theyre going to stay poor. You have people born rich. Theres a greater possibility theyll stay rich. It is so unamerican. Yet, none of the conversation and the debates are really about this. Upward mobility is the chance to solve a lot of problems because then people dont default to out of fear or exacerbation, you know, get in line basically. If they feel like life isnt fair to them, they cant succeed. Its only the big interests that can succeed, you know, big government, big business and all that. Then they default to something that looks a little more like europe than historically how do we get the upper hand on that issue . Immigration is a core issue. Im pleased people have thembrad this idea to come up with a consensus. Marco rubio has done great work with that. But education reform. If people dont have the skills to succeed, no matter how many they dream, its not going to work. I think tax reform is something that would make this possible as well. There are a whole lot of people in our country today that dont see the benefits of deferral of gratification or risk taking to be successful. So theres a lot of things we can do. Regulatory reform. Rules are created for the 1970s. Were living in a completely different world. Embrace innovation. Embrace the dynamic interaction of people rather than having a government response to every problem we face and persuade people thats the better path. We only have a minute left. We have three questions. Lightning round. Steve . Rapid fire. You got one . Yes. Steve, make sure you dont take up the first 20 seconds. Go. Governor, when you look at education, and the education reform that has to take place and the upward mobility you talk about, can you flush that out a bit more . What should the republican message be to minority communities in that space . High standards for everybody, not lower standards for one group. More school choice, more compensation for teachers tied to student improvement, a demand that we have equality of education because we dont today. That we spend the money on reforms to assure every child has a chance to learn. We dont have that today in america. Too many places theres just pockets of ill literaclliteracy. Were now going to the game change 2016 camera. Just to clarify, if there was a piece of legislation that had a pathway to citizenship, people came here legally, eligible to become citizens without touching back in their home countries, would you support that . I would support it if it didnt create an incentive for people to come illegally at the expense of coming legally. Today, mark, if you there is no path to citizenship for a majority of the people that are trying to come to the country. If you say get in line, there is no line, or the line is so large its a mythical line. 160 years for lines in philippines. So if you change the system so that there is a legal path and you have a different term for people that are, you know, here already illegally so that the incentive isnt to continue to have that processed, then i would support that for sure. The book doesnt propose that because this is a clearer way to create that delineation. Before you go, im curious of what you think of Chris Christie as a leader. I love the guy. And whether or not the Republican Party and conservative organizations are making proper use of his popularity. We had that one the other day. His mother was all upset. Are they not taking advantage of his popularity and his ability to breakthrough with the leader . They took advantage of it last year. Im sure theyll take advantage of it this year. They have low lives like me. Oh, i dont think so. I love Chris Christie. I think hes been an incredible leader and role model for a lot of people about how to lead and govern. Theres something about leadership. Ive always said it about you. You were thinking christie when you looked at me. You know, i actually am thinking about who could be in the next round. Youre looking at him. And chris. And healthwise, i have noticed that youve lost weight. Thats good. We should be able to talk about that. All right. Thank you so much. The book is immigration wars. If youll just stop now, he may come back if he runs for president. Hes fine with me. Im good with you. Thanks so much, jeb. Greatly appreciated. You can read an excerpt on our blog mojo. Msnbc. Com. Thanks, jeb. On tomorrows show, jon huntsman is going to be here. Hes going to be running in 2016. Well be right back with more morning joe. Many cereals say theyre good for your heart, but did you know theres a cereal thats recommended by doctors . Its post shredded wheat. Recommended by nine out of ten doctors to help reduce the risk of heart disease. Post shredded wheat is made with only one ingredient one hundred percent whole grain wheat, with no added sugar or salt. Try adding fruit for more Health Benefits and more taste in your bowl. Its the ideal way to start your heart healthy day. Try post shredded wheat. This has been medifacts for post shredded wheat. Try post shredded wheat. 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We support nearly twohundredfifty thousand jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. Were working to fuel america for generations to come. Our commitment has never been stronger. So now youre telling me that, oh, yes, but something could happen terribly, even though the numbers say that nothing should happen for the next ten years, and i should be afraid of that phantom. Afraid of the phantom . Again, its not an ad homonym attack. You used the words that erskine and simpson used. Thats disappointing. Its disappointing to you because you act as if all these people warning about the deficit and debt have been wrong for decades. No, theyve been wrong in this crisis. Over the past two, three, four years youve changed your tone. And thats fine. Because the world changed. This is the worst depression since the 30s. And the world can change again. Welcome back to morning joe. Mark halperin is still with us. Joining us onset, Mike Barnicle. And economist dr. Jeffrey sachs. Wow. So did you watch the entire i did. The whole country stayed up late for this great macroeconomics boxing match. It was fascinating. What struck you . You heard your name mentioned in this. They certainly didnt end up agreeing on a lot. Yeah, i think there is a little bit of a problem here to say that that doesnt matter, or it doesnt matter for the next ten years. The problem with debt is that when you run it up, you have to pay it back. Even in what the Congressional Budget Office has said recently, which krugman cited, we show already that within the next few years, the Interest Payments on the public debt are going to rise so much that theyre going to squeeze out a lot of valuable Government Services or force further tax increases that people dont want. Thats why debt really matters, not that theres necessarily a calamity of a market crisis, but because when you borrow today, you have to pay it back in the future. Thats painful. Its painful for young people. Its painful for taxes that have to go up or spending that has to go down. Its painful for the country as a whole to the extent were borrowing from abroad. I found the debate wonderful. Can you imagine latenight tv dominated by macroeconomics . It was fantastic. It was great of these guys to get together and do this. Joe also challenged krugmans ideas on Government Spending. Basically, any kind of spending cut right now is going to hurt the economy. Now whether its quientitlements not . Even if its wasteful defense spending, its going to hurt the economy if you cut it right now, which doesnt mean we shouldnt be looking for ways to cure waste. Right now, to a large extent, spending is spending. Do the kind of entitlement reform i want, and stop overpaying for medicare, stop paying for unnecessary treatments. Thats clearly something we want to do in the long run, but right now its going to mean less income for hospitals. Its going to be a problem for the economy. I dont think spending is spending. Not all dollars, not all investments are created equally. Well, then you just dont understand what it means to be a depress eed economy. How did we end the Great Depression . You just throw money at the problem . Thats a fundamental difference of opinion there. Look, im on the side that government needs to do things, needs to help educate our young people, needs to help train our young people, needs to build infrastructure that is safe and resilient so hurricane sandys and other superstorms dont wipe us out. But to say that government should do something also puts an extra obligation that taxpayer money is going to be handled carefully. To say, oh, were just going to throw money, it doesnt matter what its for, completely undermines, in my view, the legitimacy of all the Government Programs we really need. So i really resent that approach completely to say spending doesnt matter. Wasteful military spending, doesnt matter. If you want government to be able to carry out its function, you have the responsibility that tax dollars are well spent. Thats an irresponsible position, in my view. Youre the world famous economist, not me. Isnt that a crude approach . Isnt that reductionism . He didnt say that in his writings, did he, that all dollars are created equal . Even in the Great Depression in the 30s, in 1937, he said, we reached the limit of what can be done just by general spending. If we want to do more, we have to target it. So the idea that you just put money out there wasnt even his idea. Of course, anybody with the sense about the need for Government Services should care that theyre done properly, that theyre done carefully. Also, what paul assumes its a very kind of basic idea, but a very simplistic one, is that theres an automatic translation. You put a dollar of public spending of any kind, wasteful or not, and you get 1. 50 back in the economy. He said that. Yet, when actually that stimulus was done and the Congressional Budget Office ran it through their model, they overpredicted the benefits that would come, and people, like paul, should look back and say, why didnt the economy respond as was predicted . He said, we should have done more. The fact that the cbo, which is kind of our scorekeeper, predicted what would happen and gnp growth fell far short and deployment growth fell far short of what was predicted on the basis of the 2009 stimulus. We need to ask, whats happening with our economy . The problem is you cant just throw money at jobs. You cant just throw money at transfer payments and so forth and expect that theres an automatic 1. 5times return in growth and employment. Thats a little too simple. I brought up last night, jeffrey, you know, from january 2009, you and i were concerned about the stimulus package. Not even the size as much as the targeting. We said that in realtime and the lack of targeting and six weeks youre going to spend nearly 1 trillion and know what youre doing. We also said it was going to create a bubble. What i thought was so fascinating and he was offended by me bringing up the quote, but, you know, back in 2002 2001 and 2002, but he wrote it in an op ed in 2002. He said we need a housing bubble to replace the nasdaq bubble. We got it. He was right. It did snap us out of the recession, and it grew the economy until that bubble blew up. The second that bubble blew up, he and others wanted to create, as you said in 2009, yet another bubble. Well, their dream was to go back to 2007. In other words, they looked at 2009, they said the housing markets collapsed, the market for consumer goods has collapsed. We just need to boost back where we were. It was kind of unimaginative to say that lets just to back as opposed to saying that didnt work, we need something longer term, more serious, something thats going to take us out of these cycles. The truth is, they havent recreated the bubble, at least yet. It didnt work. They couldnt recreate it. Young people are saying, we dont want to get into debt the same way anymore. People dont want to spend that way. They gave the money or but saved it or paid down credit card debt. The public was scared by that point. We need a new approach thats longer term. We need to think ahead. To say, just throw money at the problem, doesnt work, builds up debt, doesnt solve longterm problems. And takes away, as you said before, investments in other programs we need. Weve got structural problems, mike, that weve been talking about on this show all the time. You look at effects of globalization, at the effects of increased american productivity, the fact that wall street is making record profits while americans continue to lose. Totally jobless recovery. Jobless recovery. Their net worth continues to go down. Its been going down for four years. Poverty at an alltime high. Weve got structural problems that arent going to be taken care of by throwing cash out. If we were running surpluses, then, yeah, lets just throw cash at the problem and see what happens. But thats not the case. Were 16. 5 trillion in debt. So help me out here. Off of that. As i listen to professor krugmans monstrous brain at work, and its way above my pay scale its a big one. I think i heard him say that you continue to throw bad money at programs in a depressed economy, that thats what you have to do. Thats what were doing. Were going to continue to do that. Doesnt it make more sense to take a scalpel and cut programs that arent working and build up head start or public works projects. It seems to me hes saying the status quo is fine. He doesnt take care of getting some return on our money. Thats the problem. For him, as he said, spending is spending. Who could think this way . But is that because he lives in a classroom and not a real world environment . Where does that come from . It comes from a kind of abstract thinking called keynesian economics. It doesnt have different categories of spending in the theory. It has one kind of spending. Its called gnp. You add it up. Its more or less. Theres no detail of whats happening in the deep structure of the economy. Are children trained . Are they educated . Are young people trained . Whats happening to the structure of the economy . What should public investments be . Thats why in 2009 when they were in a few weeks proposing to spend 1 trillion, i said, slow down, lets take a look. We need a tenyear program of how to build infrastructure. Shovelready projects, are you kidding . This is the 21st century. There are no decent shovelready projects for the 21st century. Were beyond shovels if we want to live in a modern economy. But no, they to hurry. For them, spending is spending. Obviously it doesnt work. Again, thats something we brought up in realtime. Its not like were looking back now that they came up so short on the stimulus spending and the investment. Like you said, the cbo numbers show that they didnt hit their targets. But we said at the time its not the size of it, its the investment. What are you investing in . We saw it around the table here. We had every congressman and senator that came on this show we asked them if they knew the specifics of the bill. No. We asked one on a friday, why dont you just wait until monday to vote on the bill . And one said its always like that. Thats absurd. If its always like that, were doomed. Is it like that when you were the largest spending bill in American History and you have more americans that are in more need of smart, wise investment . You know, i dont think you just throw caution to the wind like that. The other thing that surprised me was paul said, look, we have no debt problem, look at the budget numbers. The debt as a share of National Income is flat, but thats because the numbers hes looking at dont do what he says to do. If you do what he says to do, the numbers arent flat at all. The Congressional Budget Office says the debt would rise from todays 72 of gnp up to 87 . If we did what he did, no, theyre not flat. Hes looking at numbers that contradict his own idea. Lets show a little more. Joe debated krugmans assertion that the country wont have a spending problem until the year 2025. Joe said first nobody agrees with me then maybe three or four people. I said paul krugman versus the world. I meant it as a compliment. I really did. I sat there and was like, wow, he doesnt think we need to address that until 2025 . Thats not what i said. What did you say . I said we have a problem in 2025. We dont have a problem this year or next year. If it wasnt for a me and a few people loudly saying the deficit is not a problem without qualifying first that longer term it is a problem, i dont think this message of spending cuts well, by the way, paul just agreed that only three people agree with him. I said only three people are saying it without prefacing it with the obligatory three paragraphs. Ben bernanke gave a speech last week that was for all practical purposes saying the same thing im saying. He said, you know, the debt outlook looks relatively okay for the next ten years. We would like it to be lower, but its relatively okay. Spending cuts right now are a really bad thing. It was essentially indistinguishable on the substance, not the style. I got a different style, but the substance yes, you do. But the substance is no different at all. The problem with not focusing on the longterm debt now is it is a generational problem. Again, im not playing go ining but going back to what paul wrote and has been writing until the crash, youve got to plan ahead. Its uncon shenable not to plan ahead. For my 4yearold child, for my 9yearold child. At some point, were going to have to tell beneficiaries whether you cut it off at 50 or earlier or whether its 55 or earlier. Were going to have to say, the rules of the game are going to change for medicare recipients at some point. I dont think we can wait. You say you didnt say wait until 2025, but i dont think we can wait another decade before we start addressing medicare. Jeffrey sachs, does ben bernanke support what hes saying . The funny thing is we all went to school together, harvard, m. I. T. , same years. Barnicle and i went to harvard. We got the tshirts. We invite this idea that we dont care what the spending is on, dont need to look beyond the short term. Most people went away from that over time realizing thats not such a good idea. Whats surprising is there is a basic point that if you borrow, you have to repay. The Congressional Budget Office really an important document, of course, a kind of nerdy one, says that right now this year well spend 1. 4 of our National Income on servicing the public debt. By 2023, before krugman says we have a problem, they estimate it will be 3. 3 . In other words, two Percentage Points more just to pay interest on the debt. Where is that going to come from . Its squeezing things we care about. If you dont think ahead, you take up debt. Then when you have to pay it back or service it, you dont have money for the roads, you dont have money for education. Programs for the poor. Thats exactly whats happening. Thats why its important, not because itll be calamity and over the cliff necessarily. Just because debt has a tradeoff. All right. Still ahead on morning joe, the first woman to ever sit on the Supreme Court, retired Justice Sandra day oconnor is here with her new book. Up next, chuck todd and joe klein on the saddle. Youre watching morning joe brewed by starbucks. Ive discovered gold. [ female announcer ] roc® retinol correxion max. The power of roc® retinol is intensified with a serum. Its proven to be 4x better at smoothing lines and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. Roc® max for maximum results. With simple, real ingredients, like roasted peanuts, creamy peanut butter, and a rich darkchocolate flavor, plus 10 grams of protein, so its energy straight from nature to you. Nature valley protein bars. All right. A live look at capitol hill at 23 past the hour. Joining us now, nbc news chief White House Correspondent and political director, chuck todd. And Political Columnist for time magazine, joe klein. And in washington, Pulitzer Prize winner eugene robinson. We were just jabbering away on the break. This conversation is so fascinating on so many levels. It is. In the grossest possible form, krugman is right. When you have a recession, Government Spending is a way to get out of it. But our government has become so complicated and so inefficient that if youre going to do that, why not just lower peoples taxes . Mike was saying before that we should spend it on things that work like head start. Well, guess what . Head start doesnt work. There has been one serious evaluation of the Head Start Program by the government, which runs it, which showed head start makes absolutely no difference. And were spending 1 billion a year on it. Problem is democrats just want to pass new things but they dont want to manage them. Republicans just want to cut things. In the old days, republicans wanted to manage things. What you need now is a Republican Party and centrist, smart democrats who agree we have to start managing the government again. Yeah, and, you know, one of the things, chuck, that is so makes me despondent is we have these debates and were talking about debt and you have people that say lets throw money at the problem. Again, one of the things that shocked all of us is when he said last night even spending on wasteful defense programs are okay for now. But nobody in washington seems able to address the underlying structural problems. Corporations making more money than ever before. The stock market being higher than ever before. Poverty being higher than ever before. Jeffrey sachs wrote in his last book, since 1973, average wages for males in america have been going down. This isnt a problem that started with barack obama. This isnt a problem that started with george w. Bush. This isnt a problem that started with bill clinton. It started the year Richard Nixon was sworn in for his second term. But nobody in washington seems capable of getting together, republicans and democrats, to fix this structural problem or at least address it. The frustrating thing is that the government is i feel like both parties are trying too hard to protect the legacy economy. So theres this issue of what is the real crisis in america . That is the small towns, small city, large towns that have been gutted. Theyve got no economic base. Theres no Manufacturing Base. The idea that a Small Manufacturing Company can prop up a town and create an economy. So thats missing. That is something we havent figured out how to replace. Thats the crisis in the country. Were in this, shifting from the industrial economy to this Service Global technology economy. We havent figured it out. The hardest hit are these folks did by the way, this is who the tea Party Appeals to. Its like, geez, we wish it could be like the way it was, when levi strauss could come in here and start up a jean company. The democrats say we just need to get everybody and education and itll solve itself. We havent figured out out how to build this new economy. I think you had the right word, very much legacy. Its not only the legacy of small towns and industrialization. Its the legacy of an economy built in the 60s and 70s thats built around oil. Its built around overpriced health care. Its build around phenomenal tuitions much too high for higher education. Now we have an i. T. Revolution, we have a globalization revolution. Theres Renewable Energy thats safer and competitive. There are much better ways to educate. There are much better ways to run the health system. Nobody wants to change anybody because the Interest Groups are so powerful everything based on the old ways of doing. Exactly. Both parties. Eugene robinson, do you want to jump in on this and the conuc conundrum we face . What will recharge this economy would running into the problems that either paul krugman is worried about or joe is worried about. Another Scarborough Krugman debate. I think we should take this on the road. Jeff sachs makes a really good point about how things are different now. Technology is different and needs are different. And the need for a much more fundamental rethinking and restructuring of our economy, which itself is going to have costs. I mean, there are those cities that chuck was talking about where the Manufacturing Base is hollowed out. Theyre now trying to survive on what they call eds and meds, the big educational institutions and hospitals who are often the biggest employers in these cities left after manufacturing has dried up and gone away. And those institutions now holding up the cities are themselves inefficient and need to be reformed because there are cheaper ways of doing it and better ways of doing it. Thats going to be more dislocation, but it needs to be tackled. The problem is, these manufacturing jobs that have gone overseas, theyre going to come back. Theyre starting to come back. The problem is there arent going to be as many. The jobs that were going were paying 35 an hour. The jobs coming are paying 15, 16 an hour. And they require a higher level of technical education. The problem at the heart of this is for the last 40 years from nixons inauguration, there have been greater awards for our smartest young people to go into casino gambling on wall street than for them to run refrigerator factories or come up with new products. In part, thats because of the way taxes are structured, but its also because of the way, you know, globalization and computerization and technology have developed the economy. Weve got to get smart, young people into inventing new things and make things. We had jeb bush on. I know you i did 20 minutes with him yesterday. You interviewed him yesterday, made some news. Sounds like in this book, it sounds like he may be running for president. May be . This was the most significant when i read the news of your interview, i said, oh, my gosh. Jeb has always done exactly what jeb believes. I dont want to ascribe i think hes fully i think hes going to run. Thats the point. This, to me, just by him saying im not ruling it out is something weve never heard from jeb bush before. He has, for a decade, in some form or another, been recruited by some in the party. Big donors, whoever you want to say. Raise your hand, be the leader of this party. Hes always attacked back for reasons, maybe they were personal. This time hes saying no, im in. I want to have the conversation. Hes using the book. What i think is interesting, hes not shying away going, no, no, no, i want to talk about my book or immigration. He wants to use the immigration debate to say this Republican Party is a mess, i want to see the party stop being against things, i want to start seeing my point, this is big news. He is much further along to 2016 in his head than Hillary Clinton for sure. I would say if youre thinking about running for president as a republican, you suddenly now are dealing with theres an establishment front runner. You have to get through jeb. Every donor now sits on the sideline of a big, major fundraiser is going, okay. So eugene robinson, Hillary Clinton is taking up the democratic space, jeb bush taking up the republican space. 24 years later its bush versus clinton. This time its personal, baby. It will be like terminator eight. We never had the sequel. Thats the point. We never got it. We just have bushes and clintons. Its fascinating. Although, you know, you would say that on the republican side there is some new talent. Theres some new names out there. But again, jeb bush is in their way. On the democratic side, boy, obama and clinton have just sucked all the air all the oxygen out of the air. Its unclear who is going to come up, if not hillary. Yeah, we got to go really quickly. Eugene, you write about the sequester, a stupid idea whose time has not come. I hate it. I hate the name. I hate the way everybody has handled it. I hate the way it bolsters the stupid both sides are at fault argument. Thats rarely the case. It drive mess ks me crazy. In this case, the both siders point. Were going to take a quick sequester here. Chuck todd, thank you. Well see you on t he daily rundown. Joe klein, thank you as well. Eugene, your column online on the Washington Post. Up next, leadership from governor Chris Christie, who has something to say about washingtons failure to solve the sequestration. Thats coming up. 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Were working to fuel america for generations to come. Our commitment has never been stronger. Weve been talking this morning about joe and economist Paul Krugmans debate last night with charlie rose. At issue, can congress grow the economy and deal with the debt all at the same time . He has said that washington, d. C. Cannot deal with shortterm fiscal issues and growth and cutting the deficit at the same time. Is he right in that . No. Thats the basic difference. Heres the problem. Washington cant do either. If you look at the sequester and see how that happened, that train wreck but does it have to be either or as far as Joe Scarborough is concerned . It doesnt have to be either or. Im not going to look at the reaction that Larry Summers got from an oped and make my decision based on that. What im saying is you have no choice. You have got to grow the economy now. You also have to start planning ahead for whats coming in 2020. When you say that, if you got to grow the economy now, do you have to say to yourself, we cannot deal with the deficit in the next several years until we grow the economy to a level that unemployment comes down . Youre talking about the deficit. Im talking about the debt. Im talking about longterm debt. Im talking about the entitlement crisis. I just dont know many people, other than paul, that are saying we can wait another 10, 15 years to worry about medicare. You say we cannot wait ten years. We cant wait ten years because this will happen. Go ahead. Again, youve got 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day. You can look at the projections for the cost of medicare and medicaid in particular. And you cant wait for that to go up. The Congressional Budget Office says debt is stable for the next ten years. As a percentage of gdp. Right. Now, you can say it would be desirable to do something in the next ten years what will happen later on, but whats the desire to do this . Wheres the evidence we have to do something, that we have to be focused on this as opposed to the clear and present problem of high unemployment . You know, where is this coming from . Bowles and simpson said i mean, i like this because they gave us a date. They said two years well have a fiscal crisis unless we deal with this. That was two years ago. Youve made some projections yourself in the past that have been wrong. Thats the point. If you want to tell me this is urgent, tell me whats going to happen if we dont deal with this right now. Why is it that five years from now, according to the cbo, debt being a little lower relative to gdp than it is now, something will happen if we dont address those longterm issues. The thing is, though, we dont know. As bob rueben says, you never know when a bond crisis is going to come. Its not like were going to get warning. Youre going to wake up one day and suddenly theres going to be a crisis. When is that going to happen . I dont know. All kinds of things can happen, right . I mean, spain what do you mean all kinds of things . Youve been predicting this for 20 years. Thats such a tired argument to go and search for things i said once upon a time. Once upon a time . You said this for 15 years. Then you woke up one day and said, i was wrong. You said we needed to create a housing bubble to replace the nasdaq bubble. Come on. You know i was joking when i said that. You were joking . Yes, of course. This is so disappointing. So disappointing. It is disappointing. Is all you can do is ad homonym and say you said this. Anybody that knows me knows i dont engage in ad homonym attacks. Im quoting back what you say. Were trying to have a serious discussion here. What is it in the next ten years that is going to force us to do something . We dont know. As richard hoss said, youre right until the day youre wrong. The day youre wrong, thats a very bad day, indeed. What do you want me to do . To tell you the markets are going to turn on us on january 27th, 2014 . No, i dont want you to tell us the markets are going to turn on us at all. Theres a record here of the last few years that the deficit hawks have been predicting imminent disaster again and again. They told us Interest Rates were going to soar in 2009 and 2010. They told us inflation was going to rise. They said were going to turn into greece any day now. They keep on being wrong, whereas people who have this analytical framework, and im not just making numbers up. Im taking a very basic analysis and saying its not a problem. That framework has led to the correct prediction that Interest Rates will stay low as long as the economy is depressed. That countries that borrow in their own currency are not at all like greece. In fact, every country that borrows in its own currency, including japan with its 200 debt to gdp ratio, continue to have low Interest Rates. So now youre telling me, oh, yes, but something could happen terribly even though the numbers say that nothing should happen for the next ten years, and i should be afraid of that phantom. Afraid of the phantom . Again, its not an ad homonym attack. Its not an ad homonym attack to look back at what youve said for the past 15 years. Youre talking about from 2009. Thats very disappointing. Its disappointing to you because you act as if all of these people that have been w warning about the deficit and debt have been wrong for decades. A crisis is a very different over the past two, three, four years youve changed your tone and thats fine. Because the world changed. This is the worst depression since the 30s. And the world can change again. Up next on morning joe republicans in the house step up, offering a bill to avoid the next Government Shutdown while softening the impact of the sequester cuts. House gop conference chair Cathy Mcmorris rodgers joins us when we come back. Cold feels nice on sore muscles, huh . You know you could just use bengay zero degrees. Medicated pain relief you store in the freezer. Brrr. See ya boys. [ male announcer ] bengay zero degrees. Freeze and move on. You name it. Ive hooked it. But theres one. One thats always eluded me. Thought i had it in the blizzard of 93. Ha never even came close. Sometimes, i actually think its mocking me. [ engine revs ] what . quattro its delicious. So now weve turned her toffee into a business. My goal was to take an idea and make it happen. Im janet long and i formed my Toffee Company through legalzoom. I never really thought i would make money doing what i love. [ robert ] we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. Go to legalzoom. Com today and make your business dream a reality. At legalzoom. Com we put the law on your side. What a great song. All right. Before we get to our next guest, Jeffrey Sachs or mike. Jeffrey, i just heard paul krugman say in that clip we played that the debt will remain stable for the next ten years. But Interest Rates right now are at historic lows. What happens to the debt even if it remains stable over the next ten years if Interest Rates creep back up to normal percentages . Whats so odd about what paul said is he cites the Congressional Budget Office and the document by the cbo, this one, shows exactly whats going to happen in terms of if they go back to normal. Right now were spending 1. 4 of National Income to service the debt. Ten years from now, paul said, what could possibly go wrong . Well, the cbo shows it will be 3. 3 of National Income, two Percentage Points, squeezing out the rest of government. Thats the problem. And the document shows it. Whats also odd is he says the debt is flat, but thats because as a share of National Income, thats because theyre not doing his policy. Theres another part of this document that says, well, what if we did essentially what paul says . The debt would soar. 87 of National Income by 2023. What he doesnt say is if you do what he wants, take off these spending caps and so farther, the debt absolutely starts soaring again. All right. Joining us now from washington, republican representative and chair of the House Republican conference, congresswoman Cathy Mcmorris rodgers. Great to have you here. Obviously, were talking about sequester. It seems like a bad idea, whose time should have never come. And a weird name. Tell us whats happening on the hill right now. I heard that Committee Chairman and chair women are starting to work to try to fix some of the bluntness of those cuts. Well, we didnt have to get to this place. We knew for a year and a half that sequester was going to hit the president s across the board cuts that unfortunately disproportionately impact the military. Thats why the republicans why republicans, nearly 300 days ago had passed a replacement bill. And so today we find ourselves continuing to need the senate to take action. Im hopeful that we will start getting those serious discussions to cut spending. Americans recognize that we need to cut spending, that washington is spending is out of control, that this is not sustainable, and that now is the time to act because it does impact our economy. When do we start focusing though on the real issue at hand, and thats longterm entitlements and not discretionary domestic spending which only takes up 9, 10, 11 of the budget . Over the next couple of weeks the republicans from the house will be introducing our budget. Again, we need the senate to pass a budget. This is the fourth year now that the senate has not even proposed a budget, not introduced a budget. The president hasnt introduced a budget. Its pretty fundamental to governoring that you need a budget in place especially during difficult times. Families recognize that, businesses recognize that. And yet the federal government is operating without a budget. Actually, the president did actually send budgets to the hill. Up may not have noticed it. Not this year. Not this year, right. Thats true. Mark. Congresswoman, i want to ask you on budgeting, would you like to see medicare change, become like a Voucher Program or stay the way it is with just some cuts on some funding levels . I would like to see us take action to save medicare. We need to be honest that the current path is on a path to bankruptcy, and we have 10,000 seniors signing up for medicare every day. Im sorry to interrupt, but to save it, do you need to fundamentally change the nature of the program or not . Well, we need to have a conversation about how we save medicare, and recognize that the current path is not going to work. So that is so the republicans have been putting different proposals on the table. I hope that the democrats will join us in this effort so that our seniors have the confidence moving forward that medicares going to be available to them. What are some of the fundamental changes that have to be made in order to save it . Right now, what has been happening is that we have been cutting medicare in the president s healthcare plan, we cut, or i didnt, but medicare was cut 600 billion in order to fund the president s healthcare plan. So what were seeing is that providers, doctors, hospitals, Home Healthcare agencies, medical device companies, theyre seeing their reimbursements from medicare cut, and its getting harder and harder to find a provider who will take medicare. So our seniors are out there unable to find providers who will take medicare, so that means theres going to be longer lines, and thats where we need to start making sure that we have medicare and that it is that we are taking steps now to make sure that it is available to our seniors, that promise that weve made to our seniors, that we can keep it. Congresswoman Kathy Mcmorris rogers, thank you. Youre watching morning joe, brewed by starbucks. [ female announcer ] going to sleep may be easy, but when you wake up in the middle of the night it can be frustrating. Its hard to turn off and go back to sleep. Intermezzo is the first and only prescription sleep aid approved for use as needed in the middle of the night when you cant get back to sleep. Its an effective sleep medicine you dont take before bedtime. Take it in bed only when you need it and have at least four hours left for sleep. 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So if you suffer from middleofthenight insomnia, ask your doctor about intermezzo and return to sleep again. But at xerox weve embraced a new role. Working behind the scenes to provide companies with services. Like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. Reducing document costs by up to 30 . And processing 421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. Helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. Hows that for an encore . With xerox, youre ready for real business. Ill tell you why. Coming up on morning joe, retired Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day Oconnor. Shell be here on the set. Well be right back. The capital one cash rewards card gives you 1 cash back on all purchases, plus a 50 annual bonus. And everyone but her likes 50 more cash, but i have an idea. Do you want a princess dress . Yes. Cupcakes . Yes. Do you want an etchasketch . Yes do you want 50 more cash . No. You got talent. 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Thats such a tired argument, to search for quotes i said once upon a time instead of dealing with the issue. Were talking you said this for 15 years, and then you woke up and said, i was wrong. You said we needed to create a housing bubble to replace the nasdaq bubble. I was joking . You were joking . Yes, of course. This is so disappointing, all you can do is say you said this. Anybody who knows me knows i dont engage in those kind of attacks. Were trying to have to serious discussion. What is it in the next ten years that is going to force us to do something . We dont know. As Richard Haass said, youre right until the day youre wrong, and then the day youre wrong, its a very bad day indeed. Good morning, its 8 a. M. On the east coast, 5 a. M. On the west kose. It is time to wake up. Wake up, everybody. Yes, take a live look at new york city. Back with us on set, we have Mark Halperin and steve schmidt. Lets get to the news because i want to get to the highlights from charlie rose. Governor Chris Christie is slamming leaders in washington for failing to find Better Solutions to last weeks across the board spending kuts. The new Jersey Republican called out president obama and congress. The worst thing about sequester in my view is theyre not spending any time talking about entitlement spending which is where we need to really focus over the long haul to make a big difference in terms of our longterm Fiscal Health as a country. Im disappointed in that, but you know, if you stacked up all the things that disappoint me about washington, d. C. , it would be pretty tall. If anybody in this room thinks they understand washington, d. C. , please come on up and you give the answers because i dont have the first damn idea of what youre doing down there. Seems to me it should be pretty easy to fix. Real leadership would get this fixed. You get everybody in the room and you fix it and you dont let them leave until you fix it. Thats what real leadership is, not calling a meeting two fours before to have a photoop in the driveway of the white house. Thats not leadership. Fix it. Yeah, it is easy for him to say, but i did wonder why everyone in the room didnt just leave and go to capitol hill. Look what the guys done in new jersey, look what hes done in new jersey, and steve sh submit, that sure looks like a guy who is talking for 74 of new jerseyans, and also, its not a bad position to launch a 2016 campaign. No doubt, and if you look ahead to 2016, the congressional brand of the Republican Party is so deeply unpopular, hes smnl whos clearly comfortable triangulating against it. Hell run against the democrats as he would the unpopular brand. And every day we see washington make such a compelling case for a christie candidacy. Hes in a good position. And i think any republican who comes out of the congressional wing of the party whos in congress right now is going to have a difficult time. Mark, he looked like, i mean, if you had those little frank luntz meters, every word he said would be going because the guy has hit the sweet spot. This is his time to say washington doesnt work. Look what im doing up here with a bunch of Union Members and union bosses, im working with them. Why cant washington get anything done . Why cant republicans in washington get anything done . Why cant the president lead . Its a compelling message for him. Once youre willing to unshackle yourself from the party, once youre willing to step out from the orthodocksy of the party and be unafraid of criticizing your own party, youve got a lot of running room. Given governor christies record of getting things done, as steve said, hes in a great position, and the hits will keep on coming. He can keep up a running monologue like that all the way as he chooses to. When you get outside the beltway bubble, some people will hear that, the white house will hear that and say thats not a sophisticated view. But if you go out to dinner with people, they say exactly what he just said. Get in a room, figure it out. So hes giving voice to the majority of the country. The overwhelming majority, you know, mika, a lot of times bloggers will mock that type of centrist talk, saying thats just theres nothing to it. Thats where that is where most americans, at least most americans ive talked to over the past 400, 500 speeches on College Campuses at rotary clubs and all the other places we go over the past four, five years, were hearing the same thing everywhere we go. And also just sort of big picture looking down at Chris Christies career, i dont get the Republican Party, i dont get cpac. This is a guy who can cut him down when hes not doing a good job, without feeling shackled to anyone. Isnt that ultimately someone whos grounded with a sense of leadership . I dont know, mrs. Cardnis, i love your son. The Obama Administration is fighting back. That assess to the president is being sold to the highest bidders by a new Advocacy Group with close ties to the white house. The direct offspring of president obamas outfit, obama for america, would be granted quarterly meetings with the president , yesterday. And watch this. Whout press secretary jay carney disputed the allegation and defended the white houses involvement with the group. As you know, arguing for action was set up to promote the president s Public Policy agenda, therefore, as anyone would expect, the president would likely meet with the representatives to discuss his agenda. But again, any notion that theres a price for meeting with the president is simply wrong. The bottom line here is that this is a separate organization, the existence of which is perfectly appropriate, and the white house will engage with it consistent with the way we engage with a whole host of other outdoors constituencies. He was reading the whole thing. Right. Do you think theyre a little lawyered up on that one . Whats going on there . As reported by the New York Times, its cash for access. The dna of the embryonic movement was were going to do things differently in washington, and listening to it, it reminds me of earlier in my career i was Communications Director at the national committee, and we had all matter of organizations like this fronted by tom delay, where we would sell access, where people would come in, have an opportunity, meet the congressional leadership. Its absolutely no different, but its totally dissonant from what the president said he was going to do when he ran for office. Politicians have been doing this for years. Jay carney also tried to put a little daylight between them and the white house. He said there was no direct link, but when it was conceived of and announced it was supposed to be a place where the message was delivered to the public separately and transparent from the public. The history of the obama app racing is if they have the financial advantage, they take advantage of it. Regardless. And one of the things about this group besides the question of access is theyre taking corporate contributions. Thats a big change. And why are they doing this. Why would the president it just seems like hes making his life more complicated politically. I think they want to take the strength of their grassroots operation and their money and try to marry them up so he can do what he did in the first two years of his first term, which is have an alldemocratic controlled congress. So they can fight groups that are going to come after them to keep them winning back the house. Im in and out shocked by it, im not shocked by the practice because its how washingtons run forever. Im just very surprised, as you pointed out, even taking corporate money to do this, were a long, long way. Yes. I want to get to the thriller in bloomberg. The thriller in bloomberg. That doesnt work. Last night in his debate with paul krugman, joe raised some concerns about spending and longterm debt, particularly with an aging population reaching retirement age. Take a look. We should have used the 90s, we should have used the bush years to pay down debt so we would have come into an era of baby boomers retiring with little debt. Whats changed since 1997 the worst economic crisis in three generations. Okay, but what has not changed is the fact that baby boomers, as you predicted, they would be moving towards retirement, in 1997, you said specifically, why worry about deficits . Theres a huge army on the march. Baby boomers are getting older. Theyre going to be turning 65 in 2010, the ranks will swell. It will create huge foreseeable problems. You predicted that in 97. That was a reason to pay down debt back then. Now the urgent problem is the highest longterm employment since the 1930s. A deeply depressed economy. In this economy you predicted that you saw coming is still with us, is it not . Yeah, but the opportunity to pay down some debt in advance, we missed that. Now we need to run budget deficits, and the difficulty that were having is that 2 1 2 years ago the conversation in washington totally turned away from creating jobs to deficit issues as if the deficit, which is a problem for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years out, as if that were the crucial issue we needed to deal with now, and it is not. Ive also learned a few things in the last 15 years, so using things i said inform 1997 is not the best way to analyze my views now, but the main thing this is what you said in 2005. Medicare and medicaid are going to sharply increase the deficit. The deficit might well exceed 8 of gdp. Thats a deficit that will make argentina look like a model of responsibility. Ive learned things since then. Youve been wrong for 15 years . Oh, you want to go that way. Oh, right. He got a little mad there. It got really intense. He didnt like me quoting him, actually. But its a real question right now, mark, and this debate does matter, because its always been understood that this president , ive been assured by David Axelrod, going back to 2008, youve been assured that this president understands the seriousness of the entitlement crisis, understands that its a generational theft that were engaging in, that were stealing money from our children, from our grandchildren, and as i said last night and as bob reuben has said, you never know when the bond crisis is going to hit. You dont see it coming like a hurricane. It comes immediately like an earthquake, and then, are you ready for it or not . So i guess this debate matters so much right now because there is a question as to whether the president has changed his position on entitlement reform. Do you still believe he thinks that we need to protect social security, medicare, medicaid by reforming it now . I think he does, but i think hed like to do it when the economy is better so these choices are less difficult to make. In the shortterm, he wants stimulus. He cant always say that. In longterm he does want to put the programs on a better footing. I think where he differs from you is the median term and the question of do you really need to do things in the tenyear space, tinkering with Discretionary Spending in a way that makes people feel better in the next ten years, because markets might react well to it. No, were talking, though, about medicare, medicaid. Were not talking about but you dont need to change shortterm. If he doesnt do that in his term, the programs are not going to be insolvent when he leaves office. He doesnt want to make a deal when the economys bad because the deal has to be much more draconian with low growth rates. But, steve, every year that goes by is a year where we have more debt, where its 16. 5 trillion now. When barack obama came in office, we were at 11. 5 trillion. Every year that goes by is a year that its an opportunity lost. Soon well be over 20 trillion. If you look at a secondterm presidency, typically theres 18, 19 months to get something done on the domestic front and then your administration becomes the province of foreign policies. It looks like this will be the work of the next president because theres not going to be a deal done. Coming up on morning joe, she was mentored by great authors such as tony morrison, and now tiasalasi is out with her new book, ghana must go. And next, former Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day Oconnor, called the most powerful woman in america. We sit down with the first woman to be sworn in on the Supreme Court. And from that we go to bill karins with a check on the forecast. Crash at the end. Well, good morning, everyone. Our winter storm is now hitting chicago, just beginning to move into the windy city. Shouldnt be too bad until a little later today when the heavy snow moves in. The white on the map shows you its been snowing pretty good around the quad cities of iowa, now pushing into Northern Illinois. Soon indiana, the snow will fly your way, even southern michigan. So heres your travel forecast. The white shows you where the snows going to be from Northern Illinois to indiana. Wintry mix southern indiana. Kind of a mess for you in indianapolis. Tomorrows totals, still looking 4 to 8 for chicago, quad cities, 3 to 6. Almost done in indianapolis. End up with 6 to 8 inches. Overnight its going to snow in portions of ohio, west virginia, especially in the mountains, and then during the day tomorrow, tricky forecast, not quite as cold as it is in the great lakes. Later in the day, after the sunset, well break out in wet snow. Windy at the coast. Heavy wet snow on trees and windy conditions could cause power outages. These snow totals, a lot of will be a heavy wet slush. The city totals are definitely on the lower side, d. C. 3 to 6, about how many times, 3 to 6. We could have some snow totals nth poconos, catskills, down through northern portions of virginia and west virginia, approaching one foot of snow. So significant snowstorm outside the big cities. Ill watch that storm throughout the day and well have updates tomorrow on morning joe. D. C. , you look beautiful today, tomorrow rain and snow. Youre watching morning joe brewed by starbucks. [ female announcer ] let our chefs take your lettuce from drab to fab with new lean cuisine salad additions. The perfect combination of grilled chicken plump edamame ripe pineapple crunchy broccoli colorful carrots all topped with a savory ginger vinaigrette and crispy noodles. For 300 delicious calories. All you have to do is bring your own lettuce. Well dress it up. New lean cuisine salad additions. Just byol. Theyre the hottest thing to hit the frozen aisle. Nestle. Good food, good life. You name it. Ive hooked it. But theres one. One thats always eluded me. Thought i had it in the blizzard of 93. Ha never even came close. Sometimes, i actually think its mocking me. [ engine revs ] what . quattro transit fares as in the 37 billion transit fares we help collect each year. No . Oh, right. Youre thinking of the 1. 6 million daily Customer Care interactions xerox handles. Or the 900 Million Health insurance claims we process. So, its no surprise to you that companies depend on todays xerox for services that simplify how work gets done. Which is. Pretty much what weve always stood for. With xerox, youre ready for real business. Im pleased to announce that upon completion of all the necessary checks by the federal bureau of investigation, i will send to the senate a nomination of judge Sandra Day Oconnor of Arizona Court of appeals for confirmation as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. She is truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good, which have characterized the brothers who have preceded her. So as soon as possible she may take her seat on the court and her place in history. What a day its been here on morning joe, and it continues. You watch that excerpt months later on september 25th, 1981, Sandra Day Oconnor did take her place in history when she became the first woman to be sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. And here with us now, former associate justice of the u. S. Supreme court, Sandra Day Oconnor. Shes out now with the new book, out of order, stories from the history of the Supreme Court. And you, sir, are out of order. It is such an honor. Thank you. Its fascinating, listening to Ronald Reagan, mike, you remember when that happened, it was such a great day, but what was even more remarkable about your career is it wasnt just because you were a woman that you made history. You were once called the most powerful woman in america because you were such a thats an exaggeration. You were a crucial swing vote on the court. Not really. Come on. There are only nine, you know. So youve got to have five. Right, and a lot of times you were the fifth. Or maybe i was the first. I dont know how you count them. Do you think joe is exaggerating by saying you were one of the most powerful women . Well Jeffrey Rosen said it. I didnt make it up. A lot of other people said that. The Supreme Court is important in american life, and it has to decide a lot of Critical Issues that affect all of us. I agree that the Supreme Court counts, it matters. Yeah. I want to talk about out of order in a minute, but before i do, i want to talk about your website good. That is important for me. For my 9yearold daughter she will love it. She will absolutely love it. Games. Talk about i civics, because it addresses two things that mike and i always talk about, the fact that younger people dont know their history and dont know how to write. Icivics. Org. I felt we had a serious gap in young people. I felt we could start a website to teach about the judicial branch, that was my branch. And no sooner has we done that then i felt we had to address all three branches of government. Its not enough to talk about the judicial. And over the intervening years weve developed that on this website, and its really terrific, because we have i think 19 games on it now, and we have an Advisory Group of teachers that tell us what the next substantive message should be incorporated in a game, and weve tried to follow that advice in a game so that at the end of the day, the young people show what they should know about our government. I will tell you why younger kids, my 4yearold boy and my 9yearold girl, they go to the computer and they want to play games on the computer. Thats right. Thats where you get them. Thats what im doing, and we have about 30,000 young people a day now using it. I have a chairperson, at least one, in all 50 states, and its doing well. And it should, because the gap on knowledge is scary. Its really deficient. So im very pleased to be active in this effort. And our most recent effort is to try to teach them how to write better. Thats hard to do, but we have a new, game for that that i thinks going to be very helpful. Thats something we talk about when we talk to young people all the time, how do we make it in this business, it looks so glamorous, and the first thing joe says is usually its college kids or teenagers, learn to write. Mike, youll appreciate this, and mark, theres so many different formats now and we dont know the future, i say yeah, whatever that format is, its going to require that you tell the story right, and require that you write a sentence. Look at that most recent game thats posted to teach them how to write, see what you think. Evaluate it. Let me know. I will do that. Youre being put to the test. Its so important because weve gotten so far from the basics in education, and were not dumping this on teachers, but i mean, writing, diagramming a sentence, noun, verb, object, tell a story net beginning and end. Punctuation. So im enthused about what im trying to get accomplished and i think well make Real Progress with it. Can i ask you something . Sure. Your book, in the time that you were on the court, do you think that cases arrived at the Supreme Court level because numerous state legislatures, numerous politicians refused to address the issue and bumped it up to the Supreme Court . No, i dont think so. I think they got there in the normal course of events because typically there was a law or case at the state level that dealt with some critical issue, and it was a holding that was controversial in some way, and we had applications from various people saying please take this case, its trouble and we need to consider this issue at the Supreme Court level. And often it was on an issue where the courts had reached conflicting holdings on the same question, and thats what typically leads to a Supreme Court decision. So the makeup of the current court, there are more women than when you were there. Oh, my goodness. It was incredible, because i was it for a while and before i go there, no women. So what do you hear about the impact it has on the deliberations . I dont think it has an impact on the deliberations that you have women there. You dont think women have a different approach to solving problems . They might, but you hear those different approaches in the briefs that are filed in the court and the arguments that are made. Its not that the court wasnt hearing that viewpoint. They were. But you have a makeup of the court that now includes three women, and thats a huge change. Not that it necessarily changes the outcome of cases, but i just think we feel better as a nation when the court is a little more representative of what we have out there. I mean, half of us are female. Thats right. So its kind of nice to see at least three up there. And were more sensible, really. Can we just be honest . Im not going to say that, but you can. I will. And she does every day. So lets talk about out of order, and start with a case that has to be one of the most important if not the most important case in the history of this country, brown v board. You talk about the importance of saying less is more, and marshall understood that. Well, sometimes thats right. And you have to when youre a member of the court, you want to be very careful about how much is said and what is said because its going to be out there as doctrine for all the country for some time to come, and it matters. So i think we try to be very careful there about what we say and how we say it. And you said thirgood marshalls understated method of answering the questions has an influence. I think so. He didnt go beyond what was necessary to decide the case, and i think thats a good principle. Im sorry, go ahead. No, i just think thats a smart thing for the court to do. Why get expansive when youre deciding a case . Go slow. Let it develop slowly. Court watch has always talked about justice marshalls sense of humor. He did have a good sense of humor. Talked about Justice Scalias sense of humor, but you say william rinquist had a sense of humor. He and i were classmates at stanford, and i thought that he had such a clear understanding of what the professors were saying. He got it immediately, and it was fun to watch him in law school. Isnt it remarkable, you saw the arc of his career, you saw when he was the lone dissenter, you saw when nixon appointed him and he was on the wrong side of 8 to 1 decisions. On the minority side. Not necessarily the wrong side. I prefer to win, but the minority side, 8 to 1. Right. What was it like seeing through the years he go to a position where he led the court . Well, he did. To become chief justice was quite something. And he was a good chief justice, and he handled things well, and he handled people nicely. So that was quite interesting to watch. I want to ask one more question about court decisions, and then ill let you say terrible things about men, mika. No. And i know im probably note going to get an answer to this, so ill just say, i was fascinated by john roberts decision in the obamacare case. Absolutely fascinated. Mmhmm. Im trying to ask a question that shell answer. I just dont think theres one there. What do you think his question is . But i did think, though, roberts looked at himself as the head of that court and made a decision that he may not have agreed with ideologically. Im not going to comment on some opinion that he wrote, but its a very sensitive position to be the chief justice, and it can be even more difficult when you as chief justice may be concerned about the outcome and you dont want it to go beyond whats necessary to decide the bare bones of the case. And sometimes you have to worry about the legacy of the court. Yes, you do. You have to worry about that all the time. You wrote about that in some cases yourself, worrying about the legacy of the court as well as the law thats in front of you. Thats right, because when the court speaks, its binding on all the lower courts and the public bodies in the country, so thats quite a concern. See, a perfect example of how sometimes saying less is just perfect, something you could learn, less is more. I couldnt figure out the question to ask. And you also can learn from icivi icivics. Org. Be sure to visit the website, icivics. Org, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra day oconnor, thank you, a pleasure to meet you. Thank you. It was nice to be here. Great. Still working. All the time. Coming up, an update on the markets where the dow jones is within striking distance of an alltime high. Business before the bell is next. No two people have the same financial goals. Pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. Visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. If youthen this willbrids arbe a nice surprise. Meet the 5passenger ford cmax hybrid. Cmax come. Cmax go. Cmax give a ride to everyone it knows. C max has more passenger volume than competitor prius v and we havent even mentioned. Cmax also gets better mpg. Say hi to the super fuel efficient ford cmax hybrid. Time for an early look at the markets this morning where gains in u. S. Stock are pointed to another positive start on wall street despite the implementation of budget cuts. Yesterday the dow jones closed with second highest ever,en ending with 37 points below the alltime ever. Approval for the new chinese budget. Still ahead on morning joe, great talent, taiye selasi is here along with wes moore. [ male announcer ] at his current pace, bob will retire when hes 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. But hes not. Hes an architect with two kids and a mortgage. Luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. And with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. Its not rocket science. Its just common sense. From td ameritrade. [ female announcer ] roc® retinol correxion max. The power of roc® retinol is intensified with a serum. Its proven to be 4x better at smoothing lines and deep wrinkles than professional treatments. Roc® max for maximum results. Do you have a sweatshirt . I do. We are live. We are live. We are live with a very alive author, taiye selasi. Shes out with her new novel, ghana must go. Wes moore also joins the table. Hes not part of the incredible talent. Mark halperin is here, marginally talented. This is a stunning piece of work, ghana must go. You have a stunning life story. Its all right. But the story encompassed in this book, just skimming it, its a 20th century of roots, taking us with ghana to new england, to the United Nations. Tell us about the story. Its an immigrant story. So at the heart of it, we have a father who was born in ghana in poverty, works his way up to become a successful surgeon. Marries a woman, has four kids. The kids go to schools, milton academy, oxford. And when this family thinks it has finally reached the apex of success, a tragic incident turns everything around and the family falls apart. And the father leaves and when we meet them here,th father is dying. And by the end of the novel, the four children have come to ghana for the funeral, forced to confront the sorrows as well as the triumphs in their family history. Its a stunning story on many levels. Where does it come from . You know where did this come from . I know. The singersong writer Leonard Cohen put it best. He said, when asked where do your songs come from, he said, if i knew where they came from, id go there more often. And thats how i feel. I genuinely dont know where the material comes from, but i do remember when it arrived. I was on a yoga retreat in sweden in october, freezing, cold, and i went to take a shower, and all of these characters, all six of them, their back stories, past, present, future, just appeared there in the shower. And i ran out into the room, i was sharing with my friend, and i said, i just found my first novel, and she looked at me and asked quite reasonably, where . I was like, in the shower. And i explained to her that i had just this vision of this family. I wrote the first ten pages then, and then the next 300 over the years to come. I tell you, this book is not only frighteningly well written, its important to the larger dialogue were having in this country. We had jeb bush talking about immigration, and in many ways, this is the story of the larger contribution of immigrants to this country. What does the immigrant story mean to you . Its a wonderful question. I wasnt born in this country. I am an american citizen now, and sometimes i think i had the good fortune of becoming a citizen because i was born before 1985. So my parents were born in rural poverty, but intelligent. But what the immigration laws of their time made possible was that a bright person born outside of the United States without access to the many opportunities that this country affords could, showing enough wherewithal in their home country to get here, stay here and become in many ways what my mother is today, shes a very talented pediatrician. My fathers a surgeon. Ive gone to some of the most wonderful schools in this country, all because we were allowed to come here and try. So my views on immigration are formed by my own experience of the same, which is that if we allow all immigrants to this country, if we open the pathways to success, if we bring these people who are willing to work and want nothing more than to succeed, we will find that immigrants to the United Nation nations. I think of Barack Obamas father born like any parent on the continent of africa, who because of programs at the time ended up at the university of hawaii in the say way my father in scotland, and ends up at harvard and ends up giving birth to the current president of the United States, and when i think about my parents, i think about barack obama sr. , and i think immigration has to happen and can be an incredible force for good. You have some pretty good blurbers here. How did you get those as mentors . Mentors is a strong way. Im grateful just to know such luminary and incredible authors. I met professor morrison when i was finishing my degree. My entire family, theyre all doctors, and i thought, okay, i cant add and subtract so im not going to become a physician but ill get a ph. D. That was for the birds, so i dropped out of my ph. D. Program, and right at that moment professor morrison came to get an honorary degree. I ended up sitting next to her. I told her i was leaving grad school to follow my lifelong dream of writing. And when i got back to the United States, she kindly invited me to her house in princeton, and we talked about writing. She said send me something by the end of this year. She said im going to publishing my next novel, send me something by the end of the year. So what do you do . You had a deadline. You know what i mean. What do you do . Two incredible stories here this morning. Taiye selasi personal story, her life story, and a novel, ghana must go. Taiye, thank you very much. It was really, really terrific meeting you. My absolute pleasure. Thank you very much. Good to see you guys. This day calls you. To fight chronic osteoarthritis pain. To fight chronic low back pain. To take action. To take the next step. Today, you will know you did something for your pain. Cymbalta can help. Cymbalta is a pain reliever fdaapproved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. 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