0 right now still a lot going on in arizona. people coming to grips with this terrible tragedy, and, you know, this town is really trying to move forward afterp an unimaginable loss, thomas. >> what are they saying about weather conditions as they get back out there? >> well, you know, yesterday there was some monsoon winds may have flared this up. right now, there's still hot, dry conditions, and the firefighters hope to be able to make some headway on this fire today. really it's anybody's guess right now. still 0% contained and really don't know when they're going to be able to get ahold of this thing. >> nbc's gabe gutierrez reporting. >> mike, there's one guy out left out of 20. >> 19 out of 20. i personally have almost no frame of reference for tragedy. we're used to reading about fires and firefighters responding in large cities but the explosive action of that fire like a bomb exploding involved, means that this ultimatum will be met one way or another because this is the way that they got rid of mubarak. >> well, the president issued a statement last night -- >> robin wright? washington. >> good morning. >> something wrong with the sound. >> we can hear her. >> we can? >> something wrong with my sound. >> let her talk, barnicle, let her talk. >> it's me, not you. >> good morning. >> i'm going to get q-tips and i'll be right back. >> good morning. look, this is a turning point for egypt. very, very important moment. the military has issued very tough language that in a way gives the presidency a real challenge in how it responds because the military has basically come down on the side of the millions, maybe tens of millions, who turned out in the streets of egypt on sunday. the presidency did issue a statement last night indicating it plans to stand firm, but it's hard to see how president morsi will salvage his presidency when you have that kind of outpouring, even larger than the protests against president mubarak. the presidency argues that morsi was elected democratically and that it intends to try to launch a national reconciliation dialog. but that's really been on the table for months now, and it's difficult to see how the opposition is going to respond in a way that allows morsi to stay in power. >> you know, what's incredible, steve ratner, as we watches these pictures and seen the pictures prior to this and it was nice hearing robin for the last -- >> you got your ear horn. >> i got it fixed now. millions of people in the streets of cairo, you have an entire geographical arc from turkey, syria, lebanon, israel, egypt, even into libya. nearly a year in revolution or unrest. egypt, what is going on in egypt? what is the next step in ugipts? the army, as robin alluded to, is saying 48 hours. 48 hours is going to pass and nothing is going to happen. >> i'm not sure nothing is going to happen. you've got more people in the streets now that voted for morsi. i think you've got the generals being very clear he's got to go. it's not obvious to me how he stays. but what's also interesting, you have president obama basically standing behind morsi, as i've seen his comments from africa, and arguing unlike mubarak, morsi was democratically elected, this was supposed to be the transition for egypt to a democracy. i'm not sure where the u.s. interests lie and how we're going to work our way through this and end up on the side of whoever is on top there. >> robin, how does the united states work our way through this situation? haven't we not learned -- i mean we cannot import -- export the league of women voters to places where they don't want what we have, what we profess to do every day in our democracy. >> the administration last year or two years ago, actually, in 2011, at the time of the ouster of president mubarak had to make a very tough call, standing up against an alley of 30 years and it took 11 days to make that strategic decision and responded in many ways to what was happening on the streets. the difference now is you have a democratically elected president and it's very interesting that the language from the white house supported not president morsi specifically, but the idea of a democratically elected president. the solution in egypt clearly is to, whether it's an interim president or have president morsi call for new elections, that there is a way to see a democratic transition that would not put the military back in power. the military is not a viable solution either. there are not many attractive options. the question is, how do you diffuse this tension? with the military and the opposition now in one united camp, the president morsi will have to respond one way or another in ways that introduce major changes and potentially see him step aside. >> i think you've got a classic case of where you have an anti-mubarak, anti-repressive mome movement, that has been misinterpreted by morsi and others as pro them. sometimes reformers forget the grievances of people is not for them, as it is as much against the grievances. with morsi in a year and people feeling conditions haven't changed, he now becomes the object of what he benefited from. i think the challenge now is how you have a democratic transition if we're going to transition out, or how he deals with the issues that brought him to power in the first place. >> that's -- >> remember, that conditions have not only not changed, they've gotten worsep. a country that's on the verge of economic collapse where there's fuel shortages, electricity shortages. the currency is falling apart. you have inflation. you can't get food. underlying the social movement you have a collapsing economy which someone has to deal with. >> if they don't wait for an election or get an election and there's a coup or anything happens to remove morsi it's an absolute failure. then it becomes what it's always been there, which is something that doesn't follow the rule of law according to democratic standards. so you need to do it in a democratic way to make it work or else they regress in terms of how their politics work. >> but -- >> one of the problems there, as well, is that there's very limited al it ter natives, that the opposition, the traditional parties, have not been able to coalesce, they are between ego and ineptitude, they have not provided a viable alternatives. one of the big questions, not whether morsi stands down, the question is who is either capable or viable as an alternative. that's as big a question as what happens to president morsi. >> what comes next. can we show the video of the helicopters flying over the crowds. that was a signal to the protesters that the army had given this ultimatum, they stepped in and the clock is ticking down now of 48 hours. they were towing those egyptian flags underneath and the protesters went crazy, knowing that the fact that the army has now stepped in to intercede and give this ultimatum. so robin, as you point out, the alternatives of what may come next, what are morsi's best options? >> morsi doesn't have many options right now. the danger is that the muslim brotherhood has waited for 80 years, it's emerged from a bad movement, it believes its moment has arrived and it charges there are conspirators behind this effort, that it's the old regime trying to make a comeback and to a certain extent there are still those from the old regime who are among the opposition, who do want to make a comeback. and so, you know, this may not be solved in 48 hours. whether the military will move in and actually escort him out, that's not clear that that's what the military is talking about. it's really issued a political ultimatum, not one that it looks like it will automatically engage in a coup. i think it's tough on that 48 hours. we're now down to 24 hours, in fact. >> when the 24 hours have lapsed, steve, on the ground, these people are looking at helicopters, they're still going to be living in a country of a median age of about 19.5 years with horrific unemployment, no prospects for jobs. as you said, an economy that is being shattered by daily events around the world, that's what's going to be left for whoever takes over. >> yeah. really it's very hard to see exactly where it goes from here. personally, i think it's going to be very hard for morsi to stay there and i take the generals at their word we're going to see action from them pretty quickly. >> let's move on and figure out what's going on with this story. edward snowden is speaking out publicly as the former nsa contract continues to leak highly classified information about the u.s. government's surveillance program. snowden who's currently stuck in a moscow airport has withdrawn his request for asylum in russia after president putin said snowden would be welcome in his country, but only under one condition, quote, stop hurting our american partners but publishing classified documents. former president george w. bush who put many of the nsa programs into place, spoke about the threat that snowden poses to the u.s. >> i know he damaged the country. the obama administration will deal with it. >> but do you think it's possible for one man to really damage the security of the nation? >> i think he damaged the security of the nation. i put the program in place to protect the country and one of the certainties is civil liberties were guaranteed. >> so really interesting, though, about the fact that snowden is not getting any love from russia. the ecuadorian president has said they're not considering his asylum request. never intended to facilitate his flight from hong kong apparently. the reason why ek ka dor was originally thought to be potentially an area of interest for him because julian assange is living in the ecuadorian embassy in london. a lot of people wonder if snowden could get from the airport to the ecuadorian embassy in russia, would they provide, you know -- >> they don't seem to want him. they don't seem to want him. biden called the president of ecuador. threatened to take away their free trade status which has economic consequences for them. i read this parsing of things saying he has to be an embassy of ecuador or ecuador, as saying they don't want him either. >> they clearly don't want him. when you take a stand of conscience, you got to be willing to stand up for it. i agree the government ought not to be listening to american citizens under any president, including this one that i support. but at the same time, if you're going to take a stand, you should take a stand and a lot of people find -- it's complex because at one level, you don't want to pay for what you stood up for and come to the u.s. and say this is what i did, let's deal with it. but another level now you find no refuge anywhere and it's a torturous journey for a lot of people that support the overall view of not have the spying, but we're not too clear on exactly what snowden is doing. >> it's hitting the wires india has rejected his request. he apparently has put out applications to 15 different countries seeking asylum. >> he's going to have to go to a bad place if he wants to find a country for asylum. everyone talks about the impotence of the u.s., they're showing they're not impotent in this case, wherever he goes it's going to be a problem for that country and that's the pressure being beared across the world. >> why do i think his best bet is to get himself a team of lawyers in the united states, cut a deal with the department of justice, return to the united states to face the legal music. >> he doesn't want to sit -- >> first of all i agree with the reverend al, if you want to take a stand on principle the way daniel ellsberg, daniel ellsberg stayed here, did go to trial, it was a mistrial, but he faced justice so to speak. i would only quibble, nobody is listening to american's phone calls. they're collecting data but we can argue about that separately. coming back to the u.s. and putting himself in the hands of american lawyers means one thing which is life in prison. he's trying to find something better than life in an american prison. >> robin, you were going to jump in here, i thought? >> there's one real danger here, that he is not the only person with access to this information. he has left copies apparently or so he claims with others in case something happens to him or he is unable to release further details. so the danger is not just -- is no longer just ed snowden. it's also who else has access to that information and could take action even if he was, for example, silenced in russia as a condition for refuge. >> robin, do you imagine he has a trump card, other than what he's placed around -- you would think this guy would have some type of trump card up his sleeve? >> i think he had a plan in terms of releasing information, but it's clear that he didn't have a game plan for what to do next. i think he was terribly naive in considering what the outside world would want of him or would offer him in exchange for information. >> yeah. >> and he just didn't think this through. >> he planned so much of this out except for his exit strategy. >> not only that, but in speaking with several intelligence officials over the past week, i am told that snowden, while he had a general idea of what he had, he had no idea of the extent of what he had and what he has is certainly, again i am told, it's been reported to me, that there's no intelligence service in the world that would be surprised that anything that's in what he had, but what it does, is it provides a road map to intelligence services how we collect and our targets of collecting. >> it's the confirmation. everybody knows we're in the business trying to steal secr s secrets. this is the confirmation of how we've done it. he continues to live at moscow international airport. >> tom hanks made that movie. >> "terminal" in '004. if they have a virgin atlantic concourse there, it's fine. those concourses are excellent. they've got pink berry. they've got all kinds of stuff. i just say that now. coming up on "morning joe," the "washington post" eugene robinson will join us, campbell brown, later medal of honor recipient dakota meyer on set. the top stories in the politico playbook. first meteorologist todd santos. >> good morning to you. looking similar to what we had out there yesterday. for air travelers if you were in the east coast airports, get ready for more delays. there's a look at warm temperatures, 76 in philly, 77 down towards d.c., a look at the satellite and radar a few showers dotting the skies. not that much in the way of heavy rain. thunderstorm activity, could see thunderstorms later on in the afternoon. up towards 84, 80 through far eastern pennsylvania. did see at least a few lightning strikes a short time ago. the rainfall amounts could again lead to some localized flash flooding. some of the areas you're seeing yellow on the map 48 hours, see accumulations an inch and a half to two inches. a look at some of the flash flood watches in place, the bright green color, and the forecast, the good news i should say, the fourth of july it's starting to clear up a bit, models backing off on those rain chances. more "morning joe" coming your way, next. 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