Hes not wanting that. You know ive got to check out that hug, utilizing nfls replay technology. Lets see. All right, hes walking in. There you go. Now the frenchnow, the french president goes with the open hands. I just want to touch hands. Keep it at this distance. Kerry says [ bleep ] that come on baby. Bring it in. Oh, were bros. Now the french president is saying, ive had enough. No. All right. Im done. Im done. Hollande tries to get out. Watch kerry says i tell you what, though i am never letting you go. Wow. Hes got a friend. You guys yesterday did not seem especially moved by that. Willie, they were just sort of staring at it. Were talking about moment in diplomacy. James taylor singing quoufyouve got a friend. But they did not have a friend. Its kind of like hey, oh, here lean back into me and fall to the floor listen i didnt catch you but heres j. T. Wow. Not a bad tradeoff though. Right . I dont know. Good of us to send him over there, though. Everybody loves j. T. Just a little awkward though. Good morning, everyone. Willie wasnt here yesterday, nor was i. Yeah, i noticed that. Incredible seattle end. Oh, my gosh. Can you believe they started seattle even . Actually seattle was a favorite. Had you been here yesterday we could have talked about it. Now its today. We couldnt about the odds though. This is my excuse. This is important. Why . That gives us smart guys who piled their money back on the patriots and now its back even. Two great games. Packers should have won but weve got two great teams. Who do you think is going to win . Who do i think is going to win . I have no idea. I think the seahawks of probably of a slight edge but i wouldnt bet against tom brady. I wont be betting on this game. Its too hard. Its a pickup. Basically now the odds are even . Yeah. There hasnt been an evenodd super bowl in at least a decade. Maybe more. You cant bet against the patriot. I know. Did you see the way they manhandled those colts . I just know my mom lives in madison, wisconsin. I called her yesterday. She was still too upset to talk to me. Ah no. Poor mom. Boy. All right. On this tuesday you can see we have jeremy john along with willie joe, and me here in new york. Willie is fascinated by tiger woods. Im sorry to digress. Tiger lindsay vonn broebl this incredible alltime record yesterday. Tiger surprised her. Tried to go incognito. What happened . He lost a tooth. And his representatives say in the scrum to get to lindsay vonn a cameraman knocked out tigers tooth. Do you think thats true . Or is there more complex . I have no reason to believe its not true. Is there a more complex story involved . Wow, toothless tiger. Thats something. Mika dont you think you should go to the news . Ive been trying. We have in washington julie pace with us as well. Welcome, everybody. We begin this morning in washington where we are just hours away from president obamas sixth state of the union itd. It will be his next to last one. And the first before a republicancontrolled house and senate. But president obama has voted to play quote, offense with slow down s looming over the Keystone Pipeline and immigration reform. Another deeply divided issue will be on full display. Relations with cue be. Alan gross, the maryland man who spent five years in a cuban prison. On the other side House Speaker john boehner is one of at least three republicans who have invited cuban dissidents as their guests. Republicans are expected to oppose president obamas tax reform plan which includes credits for middle class families and College Students but also increases taxes on the wealthy and big banks. In a video previewing his speech president obama says the economy is ready to turn the page despite suggestions the country isnt out of the woods just yet. Anybody who is a sports fan knows that youve got to play the whole game. And over the last six years we have been weighed down by the legacy of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. And because of the incredible grit and resilience of the American People america is now in a position to really turn the page. Last year was the best job growth we had seen since the 1990s. The Unemployment Rate has now dropped to 5. 6 . Weve seen manufacturing come back. We have cut our deficits. Gas prices have dropped. And so we are well positioned for the future. But the key is making the right choices. Nice commercial. That was lovely. With soft music in the background. I like the music. Im sold. So you know, the American People not quite sold but Getting Better for the president when it comes to the economy. Theres brand new polling on how americans view leadership in washington, the governments impact on the voters own financial situation. The president has 46 Approval Ratings. Thats as high as since the gov shut down in 2013. At 49 , Economic Leadership is the strongest since its first year. Still hes upsidedown on Foreign Policy by 19 points. While fewer than half of those polled are satisfied with the economy, that still parks s marks the strongest number in a decade. Most people feel their financial situation is staying the same. Overwhelming 85 of americans say creating jobs is the absolute top priority for the white house in congress. Defeating isis reducing the deficit, securing border and addressing Irans Nuclear program. Entitlements taxes, health care rate lower on the list. And but this is interesting. The lowest issues of all rated in this very long list had to do with Global Warming and providing a pathway to citizenship for Illegal Immigrants. Gitmo i think . And gitmo is also actually rated the lowest. John john, a lot to take from these polls. One is the issues for the darlings for the left rank at the very bottom for americans. But on the other side of it the economy, americans are more positive. Well, yeah and i think thats got to be the big headline here. You know those some other issues like immigration, the president is doing what he thinks is right and playing constituency politics. There are issues around ways stagnation. A lot of people arent feeling the recovery to the degree that people would want them to feel it. The president is the first time the president is giving a state of the union at a time when you can come in and say the state of the economy is strong. Its growing at a blistering rate. The stock market is high. Corporate profits are high. The mt. President has not been able to say that before from the well of the house. Jeremy this could be a time when things getting good for the president to reach out and try to compromise. He does seem pretty set on provoking one fight after another with the republicans. Now hes talking about going in with a massive tax increase. And weve seen this, you know with cuba weve seen it with illegal immigration. He does seem determined to keep starting political fights. He and democrats in both the house and the senate are pretty much op the same page. If you listen to his tone especially if you listen to harry reids tone its almost very pagalistic. They are intent on not being a quiet opposition. Thats something thats relatively new is there an end became ga to this . End game is the 2016 election. I think youre at a point right now where the weird cycle in american politics where the both sides think that they can have a shot at taking back what they lost in two years. Youre telling me that right now, as everybodys getting sworn in theyve already decided that the next two years is just going to be fought over the next election . Its doing to be a campaign. Yes. If you listen to what democrats say on capitol hill right now its all about 2016 how they take back the senate in 2016. Its all about making sure they keep the white house in 2016. And republicans are just as intent on keeping what they won a few months ago. So our nbc wall street journal poll is keeping tabs on the 2016 race for president. Just abouts one quarter of americans view mitt romney in a positive light. Thats down from back in september when the former republican nominee was not expected to jump in the race. What happens lit . Literally it just seems to turn. Jeb bush has seen a decline in misnumber, dropping seven points since actively exploring a 2016 run. Willie geist, this is a guy that people think presumptive frontrunner. Hes being crowned king by a lot of lets put those numbers back up for jeb bush. They both turned right when they opened their mouths. I will tell you ive been going around saying positive things about jeb bush for a very long time. Ive been struck wherever i am every time people say, who do you like . I say, i like jeb bush. I get boos from the audience. People who dont even know jeb bush. Its pretty intense. Only a 19 favorable rating. Its a good reminder that enthusiasm from the donor class does not necessarily translate to enthusiasm from the general public or the idea that people would be interested in jeb bush because hes jeb bush or he or mitt romney would be energized just being having their names floated out there over the last couple of weeks. You look at these numbers and if youre ill put his name out there again, Chris Christie or someone like that doesnt this encourage you to say the country is not excited about mitt romney who some people think is a retreader, or jeb bush either people dont know or think is george w. Bush why wouldnt you jump in if you were Chris Christie . John, are you surprised by numbers . Im more surprised by the jeb bush number than i am the mitt romney number. I think mika hes going through a little bit of the same thing as Hillary Clinton. They are much more when they are not seen as political figures and they seem to be on the sidelines. People look at them and say this is an admirable person doing the who cares about this country or his country. As soon as they become political and look like they are seeking office, people have a dimmer view of them. Jeb bush i would see that as proer troubling sign. Hes got nothing but good press really for the month that hes been aggressively putting himself out there. And yet with all that good press, all those people on television saying nice things about him, people still have a negative view. A i think a lot of that is that bush hangover. People still feel like do i want to go back or forward . Ier my jeremy peter, weve all seen the positive jeb press. Weve seen mitt romney, they cant stand him. I tweeted a couple of polls this weekend that showed mitt romney way ahead of everybody else. I just tweeted and said, yeah you know what all of these experts are right. Nobody wants mitt romney to run except republican voters. And then jeb on the other side jeb has gotten such growing press and painted as the night in shining armor but ive been seeing polls for the past six months that show a real real skepticism of him. Not only in the base but also especially when you get to the general election. I think a lot of that is name recognition, frampg lynkly. This early on, this far away from november 2016. I think people thats kind of a quirk in these early, early polls that you have to take into account. I still dont see right now how mitt romney overcomes the baggage that he has with regard to his past and private equity especially when there is going to be an election at both sides going to be fought on economic pop pop populism. Didnt jeb work for lehman brothers. Barclays. And he has a long list of things he does as well. I think they cancel each other out in some ways. I dont know. I think to willies point, if you are Chris Christie or anybody scott walker or anybody else you look at these two guy, both of whom do have a lot of donors who like them do have a lot of establishment figures who like them, but you look at the way that the dynamics of the party are right now and if youre a Chris Christie or again, Scott Walker Bobby Jindal anybody else, either within of these guys is a prohibitive frontrunner, wow, that clears the field. Theres still obviously a lot of republicans who are going to be looking for someone who represents something new. I want to bring julie pace in. Im just wondering though, also, with Hillary Clinton you have the reactions that we have been sort of weighing here over the past few months to mitt Romney Jeb Bush Hillary Clinton, and everyones kind of getting tired of them or thinking the book rollout didnt work out well. I feel like when these people come out on the National Stage it will be wawah for the republicans. Hillary clinton will excloed. Thats my gut. Julie pace clinton, meanwhile, one of the only contender to enjoy a net positive rating . Numbers have stayed within the mar margin of error. When people see her out there, they get excited, especially young girls. You have seen her Approval Rating fall as shes moved more to the political arena. I think it just reflects the different landscapes in the Party Heading into this election. On the democratic side there is just this clear frontrunner were seeingen strengthen around one person in a way you almost never see. On the republican side its a much more wide open field. I think that Fourth Quarter some voters they want to see who else is going to be out there, people dont want to just coalesce around a jeb bush or mitt romney this early on because they feel like there are opportunities for other people to jump into this race. Certainly at this point. And they want to see what this field is going to look like. On the romney and bush numbers, i think the thing that you can really take away from this is that both of them have a lot of work to do with actual americans. They have to go out and sell their case give a rationale for running. Knowing who your donor class is going to be is important but that is not a rationale for running, being able to raise money. You say that young girls get very excited when hillary comes out. Families, women. Same thing for jeb and Chris Christie . Im just wondering. I think theyre going to fall flat. Like a one direction concert, right . I like mitt romney. I think theres a lot of potential to his campaign. But i think we are underestimating Hillary Clinton and bill clinton all over again. Not that i necessarily want to see it but i have a feeling i want to know who is going to get into the democratic race against her because nobody wants to see one woman standing on stage alone at these debates. Are there going to be serious challengers to Hillary Clinton if Elizabeth Warren, lets say, doesnt get into the race . Will there be someone who can stand up to the left of Hillary Clinton and not give her a run for her money necessarily but put pressure on her in the primary . I think the biggest pressure shes going to face is going to be from Elizabeth Warren even though i dont think Elizabeth Warren is not going to run. But shes going to keep Hillary Clinton honest on the issues that they care about. You think about the rest of the democrats who are thinking or talking about running, actively talking about it. Birdie Sander Martin omalley. Theres not a jeb webb. Theres not a those are all credible people who have had real careers in Public Service but none of them are the equivalent of Chris Christie mitt romney, jeb bush like a battle of titans whereas in the Democratic Party, there will be some people who will run against her but they wont look like that. I do think about this point it looks like an Elizabeth Warren run is unlikely. Enough people tell you to run for president you start thinking about doing it. I think we just probably cant say right now whats going to happen. But who knows. My gut is yes on her. Your gut has always been yes on her. Your gut has been that she would. Youve been saying that for months. I think she will be a really important part of the process. I wish she could be more. Everyone seems to discount her. They discounted someone else once about seven years ago. I think if she decided to run that would be a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a big deal. I remember being laughed off the set in new jersey by a bunch of guys when i said this obama guy, you guys better watch out. The republicans are not going to know what to do with him. We were actually just laughing because somebody that spends weekends in the south of france was stuck in new jersey. I dont know. With fake brick walls. Do you remember those . Im having flashbacks right now. Please stop. Please stop. Should do nike a nostalgia for him. Off the set. All right. Still ahead on morning joe, Mike Huckabee will be here in our 7 00 hour. That will be good. Yeah. Well also speak with White House Press secretary josh earnest, comedian joy behar will be our 8 30 guest along with chef tom coucchio. And tomorrow we have reaction to the state of the union. Paul ryan Governor Scott walker, and senator Bernie Sanders. That should be so much fun. Still ahead this morning, pope francis brings his progressive ways to the usa. And he wants yall to just stop it if you know what im talking about. How he plans to make his american debut. Well be right back. You pay your Auto Insurance premium every month on the dot. Youre like the poster child for paying on time. And then one day you tap the bumper of a station wagon. No big deal. Until your Insurance Company jacks up your rates. You freak out. 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When asked what he would say to families who had more children than they could afford because of the churchs stance on contraception the pope said quote, some people think that excuse my expression here that in order to be good catholics we have to be like rabbits. No. Parentshood is about being responsible. This is clear. Wow. I love that. That from a pope. But the pope also reiterated the Church Stands against contraception as well. New york daily news, two planes were grounded after a bomb tret was kamd in to jfk airport. They saernds each plane for explosives be you none were found. One plane arriving from San Francisco carrying 178 passengers was evacuated immediately after landing. The other, bound for tel aviv set empty at terminal seven and was also searched. Passengers onboard from fright from San Francisco said nothing seemed wrong until they landed chlktsz this. Officials are investigating a massive fire thats believed to have killed six people at a home in annapolis. A School Headmaster says that four students and their grandparents were inside the mansion. An officials have called off the search for possible survivors. More than 80 firefighters worked monday to contain the fire at the 16,000 square foot mansion. One witness compared to fire to an inferno. At this time officials do not suspect foul play. Terrible story. Wall street journal. Dream Works Animation is undergoing major layoffs after the release of several box office disappointments. The studio has struggled to make a hit. A representative for dreamworks would not comment on the layoff it is and the number of job cuts is not yet known. The studio is stet to release the only movie for 2015 which is titled home in march. This is the Richmond Times dispatch. Did you hear about this . Willie after giving a Martin Luther king day speech in norfolk, Virginia Governor Terry Mcauliffe was admitted to the hospital with complications from seven broken ribs. He was bucked off a horse over the holidays while in safari with tanzania with his family. Giving a hour long state of the Common Wealth speech joining Vice President biden at an event. On monday he was admitted to the hospital after fluid built up around his lungs. He released a statement saying he will be back in a few days. The sacramento bee, tom steyer is considering running for barbara boxers seat in california. Steyer has said his campaign would focus on decreasing greenhouse gasses, shifting the tax burden to the wealthiest american, and improving public education. Steyer had an outsized influence in the 2014 midterm elections. Politico reporting he spent 74 million. Already attorney general harris has announced she will run for boxers seat as well. Washington post. New england journal of med sane found people ages 50 to 71 who drank at least one cup of coffee per day had a lower risk of death from diabetes and Heart Disease than noncoffee drinkers. A separate study linked a daily cup of coffee to lower risk of depression. Researchering believe the benefits may be derived in the part from the incidence of antioxidants and other chemicals. One cup though. One cup. Dont have like with eight shots in it. If its just one cup, is that okay . I dont think that helps as much. I love coffee. Youre not old enough for the study anyway. Youre like 25 years old. Im so close. Its time. What am i . 47 almost. Coming up ever wonder how the state of the Union Address gets written . We are joined with an exclusive behind the scenes look. Always just a moment of trepidation as you wait to get the president s copy back to see how far you are from actually getting it done. This is the world series and the final four rolled into one for the obama speech writing operation. Plus a look at todays must read opinion pages. Thats all straight ahead on morning joe. You just got a big bump in miles. So this is a great opportunity for an upgrade. Sound good . 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I love yoplait the other one is chobani. Really. I like this one better. Yoplait wins again take the tasteoff for yourself. Ive been called a control freak. I like to think of myself as more of a control. Enthusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. And thats why this road warrior rents from national. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. Can sniper, mika. It broke the box office. Broke the box office. Its also broken twitter on the left. A lot of very angry people very upset. Why so angry . Well, i dont know. Willie, the outpouring by the American People has been positive, but, man, a lot of people on the far left have just been going crazy. Yeah. Very angry, this movie is doing well. No one in hollywood and probably if you ask Bradley Cooper himself expected 105 million. They shattered january Box Office Records all time. Other side is youve seen Michael Moore, hes the most prominent person to come out and criticize the film but theyve kind of taken these odd potshots while saying it was a very well done film and Bradley Cooper deserves an oscar. They cant control themselves by saying its a movie that glamourizes war. If you watch the movie it does the opposite of that. It shows that war is hell from there and might be worse hell when youre home and get back into society. If you ask people who have been there they will say the its the most accurate portrayal of what an american soldier goes through when he does three or four tours and then comes back to the United States. Since iraq theres been one movie after another after another movie that shows american soldier in their worst light and people are always surprised that those movies dont do well. And this one actually shows american soldiers and marines in a good light, and surprise it was well written well acted, well directed. The American People went out to see it. I went with john ridley on the years a couple after the iraq war started and how pathetic the anti antiwar films were. The American People did not want to see sdplit with this is a good one. Before we get to the must reads joins us now melber who got exclusive access to the making of this state of the Union Address. Hes like why are you im right over here state of the union coverage. Ill tell you, it is usually the president s biggest annual speech as you know last year. 33 million americans watched live. On friday we got a look behind the scenes at the white house to see all the final preparations. This is where it all happens. This is where it all happens. Reporter the final few days before the state of the union and the west wing is buzzing. We got a rare behind the scenes look inside the white house as aides prepared for their biggest night of the year. This is the world series and the final four, all rolled into one for the obama speech writing operation. Reporter dan pfeiffer Senior Adviser to the president , oversees the strategy. The fun part is in the beginning when you sit down with the president months before the speech and let him just do a download of what hes thinking. What would it be like on the night of the state of the union around here . Reporter jennifer directs white house communications. September, maybe shortly after labor day is when the policy Development Process starts. Brian is going to be executive director at omb, he managed that process. Reporter dees was huddling with members of the National Economic counseling and white house staff when we caught up with him friday night. How close do you guys feel to be done with your part of the speech . Its all a work in progress. Were feeling good though. We try to the greatest extent possible to wrap up the Development Process, the analytical work before the really serious speech writing begins. Because you want to have the pieces in place so that then when you start to put a speech together youre not trying to do policy making on the fly. Reporter deese hands those policy pieces to speech writer codey. Codey went out to hawaii this year so the two of them had time out there when their head was a little clearer, the air was probably a little nicer, the view was definitely nicer. Reporter then the drafts start flying. Then he and codey will start exchanging drafts. So codey will share it with all of us you know not the entire staff but a good bit of the staff. Reporter and the president s rewrites begin arriving. He generally has a lot of late night back and forth with the team, particularly with the speech writer. I think monday night was when we had the first good real draft. Always a moment of trepidation as you wait to get the president s copy back to see like how far you are from actually getting it done. He will work on it. He will come back with changes and normally handwritten. Hes extraordinarily neat handwriting. Its surprising. The first time i saw it i thought it was a font. I thought it was actually i thought it was a font i had never seen before. But it was his handwriting. How many rewrites have you done on the speech so far . I have done zero. I dont write the speech. Reporter as the big night approaches, the chief of staff emphasizes after all the rewrites the final draft is up to the president. Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States. So you guys thats what we found. As you saw there, we shot a lot of that friday night late into the night. A lot of meetings and, mika a lot of young people in those meetings. Yeah. I guess young and aggressive white house. I know a lot of those people. Very nice. Great access you got. Yeah. It was interesting. As they said the first draft came through monday. And they write and this president writes and rewrites up to the last minute. Thank you. Thank you. Joining us now for the must read opinion pages Political Correspondent casey hunt. Good to have you onboard. Did you see these nbc polls earlier today . Jeb bush, lets put the numbers back up here for people just waking up. Jeb bush and mitt romney you go to the rnc, you go where all donors are. Mark halperin was out there. And it is just presumed that its jeb or mitt. But look at these numbers. Jeb right now, his positive feelings positive feelings 19 . Negative ratings, 32 . That is about the same as ted cruz in the middle of the Government Shutdown. Im being dead serious. Then you go to mitt romney feelings towards mitt romney certainly not phenomenal but a little better than jeb. 27 positive. 40 negative. As willie has been saying this sends a message to ted cruz. It sends a message to rand paul. It sends a message to Scott Walker Bobby Jindal. Scott walker talking about getting in. Hey, this is wide open. These people arent really well liked. It is. Look, the donors matter because they are going to be the ones who decide who has the most firepower to condition vince americans those numbers should change. I think in the case of bush we saw some of this in a focus group that peter conducted a couple weeks back. Colorado. Right. Where people responded to the bush name with overwhelming negativity. And there was definitely a sense coming out of that there was a hunger for something new. I remember reading that article. Somebody was like, ew, gross, Something Like that. It was stunning, the verbates. People were all independents leaning democrat they had both Hillary Clinton and jeb bush the same attitude, which was i dont want any part of this. Would congress please pass a law not letting any clintons or bushes run anymore. And the names they raised were rand paul and Elizabeth Warren. Those were the names that people offered up themselves. Its interesting, willie, i think we can get to the end of this campaign and hundreds of millions of dollars spent and, you know, the mom could be sitting around the dinner table on thanksgiving going, i told you. Everybody loves 41 more and more people are loving 43. I think most people have the greatest respect for the bush family. I certainly do. I think theyre extraordinary people. And i love i love them even if i dont agree with everything theyve ever done. But 41, 43, 45, its too much for rank and file voters who dont know them personally. It is for a lot of people. Its interesting to see how jeb bush tries to separate himself from his brother and as his policy proposals are put out there and he shows that i am a different guy and i feel differently about immigration, i feel differently about the tax code, all of these things. I feel differently about Foreign Policy. Is that enough or do American People paint it with a broad bush and say no mas on this. The downers are excited about jeb but what happens when these polls keep coming in an you see 19 approve, 32 disapprove. Name id is actually supposed to help in the other direction. You know i was watching this speech, i think mitt romney did on friday. He was talking about poverty. Yeah. I honestly is this is this Elizabeth Warren or is it mitt . He was really was it good . He was shaping his message to address the issue the nation is confronting. It was very good. Was it compelling . Look i think that theres more of a chance for him to break through and show that he has sort of learned from the last races and evolved. I never thought he didnt care about poor people. Did you . No. Ever instinctively think in his heart he didnt care . No. He had a lot of gaffes. And if he can turn his personality into a positive, i think he has more of a chance. I was at that speech on friday. Oh. Its clear that they sort of broke down what they viewed as the mistakes from last time and wrote this speech kind of aimed at fixing exactly those things. The question is going to be where does the rubber meet the road . What policies is governor romney willing to support that actually that people believe are going to help lift people out of poverty. One thing to watch is the minimum wage. A reporting came out of a speech he gave on monday out in california saying that he might skr supporting the midgenimum wage. In the past he supported to index to inflation which would cause it to go up with time. He backtracked on that in the 2012 campaign a lot of groups went after him. We did an event with him and rob workman who does agree with indexing it. I just think that hes going to come around on it. About a year ago, in the last year romney said he would be in favor of raising the minimum wage when the time was right, when the economy was strong enough. He could now start to. It would be hard because you dont if youre a republican admit that the economy is getting stronger but there is a place he could go well, if gdp grows at 5 you can do this. Casey, thank you so much. Still ahead, senators mark kirk and joe manchin join us. Good lineup today. Plus louisiana governor bobby jindal downs down on his claim that there are socalled muslim no go zones in england. Ayman ayman joins us next with that conversation. Ameriprise asked people a simple question can you keep your lifestyle in retirement . I dont want to think about the alternative. I dont even know how to answer that. I mean, no one knows how long their money is going to last. I try not to worry but you worry. What happens when your paychecks stop . Because everyone has retirement questions. Ameriprise created the exclusive confident retirement approach. To get the real answers you need. Start building your confident retirement today. Thanks for the ride around norfolk and i just wanted to say geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years roger that. Captains waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. Couldve parked a little bit closer. Its gonna be dark by the time i get there. Geico. Proudly serving the military for over 75 years. Meet the worlds newest Energy Superpower. Surprised . In fact, america is now the worlds number one natural gas producer. And we could soon become number one in oil. Because Hydraulic Fracturing Technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. Supporting millions of new jobs. Billions in tax revenue. And a new century of American Energy security. The new Energy Superpower . Its red, white and blue. Log on to learn more. For most people, earning cash back ends here, at the purchase. But theres a new card in town. Introducing the citi® double cash card. It lets you earn cash back when you buy and again as you pay. Thats cash back twice. Its cash back with a side of cash back. The citi double cash card. The only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1 when you buy and 1 as you pay. With two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem onesided. Go go go hes challenging the very fabric of society. In a post cannonball world was it Grilled Cheese . Guilty the aquatic delinquency is a larger issue to this you did it again, didnt you . Yup. Jindal is making waves over seas with criticism of socalled nogo zones in europe in a speech before a think tank in london yesterday, jindal slammed the muslim enclaves that in his words, quote carry out as much of shahryia law as they can without regard for the laws of the democratic countries which provided them a new home. Nbc caught up with the potential president ial contender who stood by his comments. Well, you know we spent several days here had the chance to meet with several elected leaders. What you hear from them for example, you socalled no go zones i think is a mistake for any country to allow the development of areas within their country, neighborhoods or other areas, where the same laws, the same values the same rules simply dont apply. In another interview, the governor again doubled down in his remarks when pressed to give specific neighborhoods of the no go zones he said the following. We had a police chief here in london today say to the daily mail there are absolutely neighborhoods, not entire cities, im saying there are neighborhoods where the police say they dont go as frequently. There are neighborhood wheres women do not well comfortable walking without veils. I want to be precise, governor, youre not backing at all away from your comments about there being various socalled no go zones in the United Kingdom. Not at all. Im also making a bigger maybe even controversial point that radical islam is a grave threat. We need Muslim Leaders to denounce the individuals, not just the acts of violence and also that it is absolutely correct to insist a on a simulation, people coming into our society, our country adopt our values. You know were not sure whether there are muslim nogo zones in london or not but if there are, were absolutely certain what muslim is responsible for the creation of those nogo zones. I cant believe youre making this funny. He is with us now from tel aviv aviv. Nbc foreign correspondent, ayman mohyeldin. Ayman, of course there are stories, i mean, you know willie and i always talk about led zeppelins biography hammer of the gods. That was your time in london. One destroyed bar after another, right . One hotel room with shot out we dont talk about. The brown shark incident. We dont even get into that incident. Ayman, seriously, man, you have left just a wave of destruction. Tell us about london. You lived in london. Talk about what bobby jindal is saying. Any truth to it . I just want to say they just recently moved to new york. I want to assure people in new york that we are not setting up any nogo muslim areas in any of the neighborhoods that i live in in new york. So people can rest assured they dont have to worry about that. Listen i would love to take the governor anywhere he wants to go across the United Kingdom and europe. I mean we have heard from every possible official even the Prime Minister David Cameron who i think probably has a slightly better sense of his own country than the governor does has come out and said it is absolutely insane to think that there is a nogo zone anywhere in the United Kingdom. I mean he even choked on his for when he heard this phrase being used by someone that there are these socalled nogo zone areas. Its an unfortunate statements. Its incorrect. Its kind of disappointing to see a sitting american politician repeat those facts and not substantiate them with any kind of evidence. Where does this concept come from . Where did it begin . Its only in the last few weeks, probably since the attack in paris that we begun to hear it more prominently here in the american media. Where does the idea of the nogo zones come from . Well, the bottom line is it came from fox news just a couple weeks ago when there are a couple days ago interviewing a socalled security analyst who said there are cities like birmingham in the United Kingdom and places in france that have, you know large muslim pop playings where theyve set up sharia courts and women and religious Police Walking around and beating people not abiding by socalled sharia law. Now weve suddenly heard it from a potential u. S. President ial candidate and now its bouncing around. To be honest with you ive never heard in my time living in london, in my time traveling across europe ive never heard that expression nogo zone. Never with large muslim populations, i have never heard that expression in my life. All right. Until, of course you moved to london. Yeah. Well, theres that. They started following you. A. Ayman mohyeldin, appreciate it. Up next. Jane fonda once again talking about the infamous vietnam photos that earned her the tape hanoi jane. What the actress is saying about it now. You drop 40 grand on a new set of wheels, then. Wham a minivan tbones you. Guess what your Insurance Company will only give you 37thousand to replace it. Depreciation they claim. How can my car depreciate before its first oil change . You ask. Maybe the better question is why do you have that Insurance Company . With Liberty Mutual new car replacement, well replace the full value of your car. See Car Insurance in a whole new light. Liberty Mutual Insurance. [ male announcer ] its a warning. A wakeup call. But its not happening out there. Its happening in here. [ sirens wailing ] inside of you. 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Dont listen to the naysayer. Take the comcast business speed test. Get faster speeds or more savings, or well give you 150. Comcast business. Built for business. More than 40 years after she earned the nickname for visiting North Vietnam and criticizing the United States over the vietnam war jane fonda is offering a big mea culpa. She does not regret the trip but she does regret the photographs that suggested she was antiamerica and against the troops. She was seen sitting with a helmet and gun on an North Vietnamese antiaircraft battery. Fonda made the comments during a speech friday in maryland. She was greeted by 50 veterans and military supporters. According to the Frederick News post fonda said quote, whenever possible i try to sit down with vets and talk with them because i understand and it makes me sad. It hurts me and it will to my grave that i made a huge huge mistake that made a lot of people think i was against the soldiers. She drew some protesters at that speech in maryland last week and thought that was a good time to come out and 40 years later say, i made a terrible mistake. Okay. Julie pace, we want to thank you for being on this morning. Before you go just what are your thoughts look fog ward to tonights state of the union . Well, obviously a lot of the focus has been on Economic Policy and equality. Im going to watch for what the president says on Foreign Policy. There are so many things going on in the world, whether he repeats his warning to lawmakers to avoid iran sanctions, what he says about russia the Islamic State campaign and of course i love good joe biden over the soldier reaction shots. That will be none to watch. We will all be looking for that. Thank you. Up next former governor Mike Huckabee has made some big headlines with his new book god guns grits, and gravy and he joins the table next on morning joe. You just got a big bump in miles. 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Find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp. Org possibilities. Ive been called a control freak. I like to think of myself as more of a control. Enthusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. And thats why this road warrior rents from national. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. You can find a new frontier. Theres nothing stopping you and a lot helping you. Technology thats with you always. This is our promise. Its never been better to wander because wherever you go, youll find us doing everything we can, so you can. The operate trots crushed the indianapolis colts, 457. The are reports the league is investigating new england for allegedly deflateing footballs during the game. I guess it gives the offensive team an advantage. Patriots allegedly deflated the balls by this is weird how they do it by telling them theyre worthless and would never amount to anything. Patriots are denying it. Tom brady called the reports ridiculous. Bill belichick said theres no tampering. All the needles they have are used strictly for injecting steroids into the players. That is it. So back off, everyone. Welcome back to morning joe. Glad he cleared that up. John is still at the table here with us now. Look who is here. Im telling you, im looking at god guns grits, and gravy and i see nothing about cooking squirrels and popcorn poppers. I should have put that in the book because it is our moment mika. Well, we had a few. We did. We had the healing moment, the cooking squirrels moment. The spiritual healing didnt take. You may have to try it again. It took. No it didnt. Not even close. What do you mean, it did not . You have complaints about my healing you dont think i was healed . It was the healer. It wasnt the healed. But i once was lost and here i am now. There it is. You still remember. Yeah. Nice hair clip. I almost got fired for that thing. Once was lost for the hair cut or for the healing . Both. So this is so but this is you say this title comes from my home and now your stoching ground. Northwest florida, the red anything riviera. A lot of it is cad the redneck riviera. Conservative. Central time zone. Lower alabama. I love l. A. Where is that and they would ask me is it near miami or naples . No its in the pan handle. Its like they didnt pass seventh grade geography and know there was a panhandle. The most beautiful beaches in america, zu garr white sand, lovely lifestyle and culture. It is the land of god, guns grits, and gravy. It is florida landscape at its best but it is the culture of the south. Everybody has s. E. C. Sticker on their car. We havent talked in a long time on air, so let me just start with tough question. Okay. What do you have against beyonce . Yeah. Nothing. She is half a page in a 242page book. You were pushing beyonce. No, come on. I cant even tell you what she since. Thats the point. You could not repeat the lyrics. It was an illustration in a chapter in a book called the culture of crude. Somebody picked it up. Of all the things in the book i thought was going to be controversial that wasnt it. But its not something that i would be afraid to talk about. In fact, the reaction to it within the land of what i call bubbleville validates my point. Can i just say though this is a capital of bubbleville. You were the boy in the plastic bubble right now. Pretty much. Why didnt you run in 2012 . It was wide open for you . I dont think so. I looked at it differently. I saw that its very difficult to challenge an incumbent president. I dont care what the perception isnd they say well the record was tough and all this. I think its very difficult to challenge an incumbent. I did not think the time was right for me for a whole lot of reasons. I think perhaps i was proven right by that. Even my wife who wanted me to run in 2012 thought i should kind of ticked off that i didnt but when it was all over, she said you know everything you said that was going to happen in this election, it did. And you were right. And in 40 1 2 years of marriage thats the only time. The first time. Its on a plaque. You were right. Oh, come on. I remembered 2008 when you were running i saw you in an airport in dallas and you were right there running with john mccain. You were chasing him to the polls, winning states. You were by yourself rolling your suitcase. Thats the guy that might be the republican nominee walking by himself with no staff. Carrying my bags from the airport. For all intents and purposes you were the runnerup in 2008. What did you take from that experience that you may carry into 2016 . Most people thought you stepping away from your show was a great indicator you were considering to run. Anybody who would step away from what was a wonderful gig like that just to spend saturdays at home hasnt got enough sense to be president. So obviously thats where im leaning. Im not changed my timetable. Still sometime in the spring. But i had to make that decision in order to go out and do what i have to do and thats determined is Financial Support because having jumped into that deep pool before the one thing i said, im not going to jump into it if theres not water in it. Its just its not much fun coming off the high dive and hitting your head on the concrete. Do you feel, looking at numbers we were looking at today, the positive and negative numbers are not great for mitt romney or for jeb bush despite all the attention they received in the last month or so. Republicans voters are not yet energyized by either of those two candidacies. Does that help you make up your mind to get in . No it doesnt. Ill tell you why, willie. At this point polls dont mean a lot. Theyre indicative of only of how people feel so far out before the process starts. By the way were showing the cbs poll. Were showing a cbs poll that has you right behind romney and jeb bush. That poll does matter but the other ones dont. Go ahead. Well, i just think that polls are interesting and effort people in the business who like to talk about it and the horse race aspect. Right. But its not substantive because its not based on anything other than what headline they read yesterday, what little clip they saw. Yeah. And theres a whole lot of time between now and even the start of the race much less between now and the finish of the race. Theres a poll that shows you up against Hillary Clinton as well, which we can put up on the screen. My question to you at this point would be given the fact that youve stopped your show to really take a look at this, its very clear by the actions of Chris Christie, jeb bush and mitt romney that they are actively, if not already in the running, what makes you better candidates than them or if i could flip it around why are they not good enough to run this country . I would never say theyre not good enough because one of them may end up being the nominee and then ive got to tell everybody theyre great. Youre thinking about it. Im more than just thinking about it. As i said i think im moving in that direction. You dont leave the fox show that i had. It was a wonderful experience. Great people that i worked with. You dont do that unless you really do have Something Else going on. Okay. I want to hear about mitt romney and jeb bush and why you think you should be in there. Look theyre good candidates. Theyre going to be for ridable candidates. What makes you different . Erned a long time in the bluest state of the country at this time. No one governed in the state that had more lopsided legislature. I know how to govern. Simple as that. I look at washington and i see how dysfunctional it is. Largely its because the people who get there forget the campaign is over and now you have to govern. Right. You govern by building relationships with people, even the people that dont like you. Jeb bush has governed. He has and governed very effectively. Would there be too many bushes . I think thats for the voters to decide. I dont think it should be that he is automatically their front rupper because his name is bush but its not fair to say he shouldnt run because hes a bush either. What about mitt romney is three times too much . Thats his decision. America is a wonderful country where people are free to make the decision. We need him to Say Something bad about somebody. No. I want him to be different. Ill attack john. I brought up beyonce and mika said i support him. I agree with you. Youre a mother. Im a mother and i have spoken out and it hasnt gone well for me in some areas about miley cyrus and beyonce and these are, you know i have two daughters. And there is just kind of no line, no filter anymore to what is appropriate or what is ready for their age and what is not. That was so kind of you to affirm me in that. Im going to cook up a batch of fried squirrel and popcorn popper just for you. I will eat it. While were on the subject, better jayz album, blueprint or black . Im lost. I lost all credibility on the topics. Youre taking this time off to figure out whether youre going to do this and Financial Support is one of the things you just mentioned. Clearly. Back in 2012. One of the reasons that you didnt get in was because you were worried about you were abling to able to raise enough money. Yeah. Youre not a wall street guy. Youre not a guy who loves Walking Around and talking to rich people and asking them for money. No. Whats the concrete indicator that what you got to come away thinking i can raise x in x amount of time and then ill get in. Whats that decision marker. John, one of the things thats very different unlike it was in 08 and even in 2012. This time i have had people for the past number of months almost a year come to me and say, i want to support you. I think you can win. I think you can communicate. And ill write you a check. And ill write you a check. Im talking about people who are very capable of writing the check and people who have written many many checks to other people. Many of whom, you know are people that wrote checks to folks that i ran against before. So that was it got my attention. Again, whats the number . Whats the number . Ive got to be able to raise x in what period of time for it to be plausible . I have an internal number but its not something i really want to share because i dont want to put it out there and then, you know make it like heres my whole campaign plan. On the set. It will be fine. Nobody will hear. Were inside a bubble. One thing about running for president before you learn a few things. Youre better prepared. One thing you learn is dont tell everything you know. Let me ask you, mike. Its something thats always surprised me but we saw it in 08, we hear a lot of grumbling. Why is it that conservatives, im speaking mainly of like club for growth type conservatives, seem to love taking potshots at you . A lot of it is because there was a template that was established by the money funded by political opponents in 2008 that became the narrative. And its a very frustrating thing. But if you look at for example, 94 tax cuts when i was governor in a state that hadnt had them. Right. People say, but government grew. Well, it grew one half of 1 per year but if you figure each state does how they figure state employees and budget growth, because they do it differently, its not possible to always make a comparison unless you extrapolate the specific things that go into what youre examining. Right. This is my frustration with any of these ratings of the states. If you look at the record that i have, it was an incredibly conservative solid record and it was done with 89 out of 100 democrats in the house and 31 out of 35 democrats in the senate. No. There was no legislature in america more lopsided than that. Can i ask you, why dont we just hold hands and juchmp off the cliff together op populous issues together. Yeah. Im going to go there. Okay. Im a conservative. I am a club for growth conservative. But where we are and where we want to go in 2016 there are a couple of things were going to have to be open to. Are you open to raising the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation . You know i think the real question when we talk about minimum wage why dont we talk about the maximum wage because heres where were missing it. Were missing it if we think that somehow the government can set a new bar that is the lowest common denominator. Lets say if its 10en hour, can a person really live on 10 an hour . No, not really. What are you going to do is if you raise to it 10 an hour . I hear people gripe about walmart. Walmart has 1. 2 Million People who work for them. Do you know how many of those 1. 2 actually make minimum wage . 4200 of them. Thats how many. Very few people that work at walmart make minimum wage because minimum wage is an entry level. It is not sustaining job. It is a place to get your foot in the door to start working. Whats the answer if you had to vote yes or no for minimum wage increase. It depends on what they were asking for and whether or not lets say were going to think fast here. Democrats want 9. 5 per hour for minimum wage no exchange for keystone peep line. Ipeline. It want to see how it will work out. The head of the club for growth who is supposedly the david mcintosh. Voted for the minimum wages. Its not the purist issue. Would you agree with me and a lot of other americans that income disparity huge issue. One of the biggest issues . Absolutely. Im one of the few feel that grew up on the other side of the economic spectrum. I grew up as a kid in a family poor. So i understand it. When i hear these people talking about poverty, sometimes im amazed. You were there. They act like they know what that means. They dont know what it means. Along those lines is it wrong for Hedge Fund Manager to pay 14 taxes on the billion dollars he makes while his secretary pays 28 tax snes. You know i would say why dont we make it so the secretary pays the 14 . As you know joe should there be a minimum, like Warren Buffett talks about 30 minimum for billionaires and millionaires. Do you have any problem with that . I have a problem with Warren Buffett saying he really wants to pay more taxes and then he fights the irs for 7 million. Come on. Thats nonsense. I agree. Okay. So youre talking to Joe Scarborough here though. What if i say there should be billionaires and millionaires should have pay at least 28 , that should be their minimum tax a year. Is that a good idea, bad idea . I think most billionaires and millionaires will be happy to get down to 28 . A lot of them pay 14 . Passive income. I do think theres a need to make it so that people pay a standard rate but i would like to see the standard rate not on our productivity. As you know im a fair tax supporter. I think we ought to pay on consumption, not on productivity because i think that the model of paying on what we produce, whether its income savings, Investment Income Capital Gains. We ought to be paying at the point at which we consume something because we shouldnt punish people for being productive. This is not about rich people. Im at a machine shop worker in new hampshire. Hes working two shifts to help his daughter through cornell grad school. He thought if he worked two shifts 16 hours a day he would make twice the amount of money. He found out his check for the two shifts was not much more because of tax bracket. Those arent the guys im talking about. Those are the guys im talking about. Im talking about the guys who make 10 billion and then pay 1 . Im not worried about them. Theyre going to find a way to get around it. They always do. Theyre going to have accountants and attorneys. Im worried about the machine worker. They shouldnt be allowed to pay 14 taxes. The banks. Should the banks be broken up . The big banks that was too big to fail or even bigger now than ever before. If one of them collapses all taxpayers are going to get hit again. When people question my conservatism conservatism, i was the only people who thought that the bailout thing was utter willyitutleyitutterly wrong. You dont bail out people for being irresponsible. They were recklessly irresponsible. They treated wall street like it was a casino instead of like a tool of investment. And they bet wrong. And then the taxpayers, often the taxpayers at the bottom of the economy were the ones who took it on the teeth. I was going to say we preach free market capitalism to single moms and we practice socialism for the i dont begrudge were helping single moms with assistance with food and rent because, look there are people who are really struggling. That ought to be a transition to help them get on their feet. I have a lot more sympathy for helping people that the end of the spectrum than i do to bailout the biggest ink babanks in the country. I tested four things here and calculating on the club for growth specter, he gets spectrum, he gets 100 and i get zero. So thats about where he should be. You need to tell those guys. Slippery on a few of these and im going to go back to where we began because i dont hes straightforward. Governor huckabee i dont want to hear an answer to a question with another question. Would you raise the minimum wage . Is it possible . Yes or no. I think its possible. The question is does that thats a question. I know it is a question. Thats how you govern. Thats how you negotiate. You ask what does this do . You dont just say yes or no because the problem is if you ask are we going to raise the minimum wage not how many people does that employ how many people does it cost them their jobs how many people look, let me tell you this. I was in europe last year. Went to mcdonalds. I notice there were really only like one person at the counter. Goodman who goes to Mcdonald Mcdonalds in europe. In barcelona, france. There you go. Heres the thing. They have a kiosk. You go and push the buttons and you order napts how. Thats how it works. Im looking at josh earnest over willies shoulder. Hes cold. Maybe we ought to go. I dont know. Hes waiting. Hes next. Hes on deck. Why dont we talk a little bit whats he doing out there. Lets talk a little bit about gods country. I. I would love to. How is it . The land of god gun, grits, and gravy . I am. It is a wonderful place to be. The whole thing i try to write about is the cultural disconnect between the People Living in the places like where i am and where i grew up in arkansas and the bubbles. The difference between bubbleville, the bubbles of new york washington and hollywood, right here in this bubble and the people who live in bubbaville. I love it. In bubbaville thats where the term and really the book though it has an interesting title, its a really i think, serious substantive discussion of this cultural disconnect between these parts of america. I promise you who were you doing at mcdonalds in spain . I was getting lunch. Okay. I love that. Simple as that. Thats right. I wanted to enjoy some spanish cuisine. I love it. I wanted to see how they did it there. Thats how they do it. All right. The book is gods, guns grits, and gravy. Former governor, Mike Huckabee, thank you. Good to be here. Thank you, guys. I look forward to our dinner. It will be fun and it will be tasty. Oh, the squirrel den sdpler with we are. Okay. Still ahead we connected on beyonce. Still ahead on morning joe, joy behar is our cohost for the 8 30 half hour this morning. Senators mark kirk and joe manchin both join us. And chef Tom Colicchio joins us next. White House Press Secretary josh earnest with the president. What will he be trying to accomplish in tonight eat state of the union . And allstar political roundtable. Were back in a moment. Earning unlimited cash back on purchases. Thats a win. But imagine earning it twice. Introducing the citi® double cash card. It lets you earn cash back twice, once when you buy and again as you pay. Its cash back. Then cash back again. And thats a cash back winwin. The citi double cash card. The only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1 when you buy and 1 as you pay. With two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem onesided. Here i am. Rock you like a hurricane. Fiber one now makes cookies. Find them in the cookie aisle. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 Million People. [ mom ] with life insurance, were not just insuring our lives. Were helping protect his. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Transform tomorrow. Nineteen years ago, we thought wow, how is there no way to tell the good from the bad . So we gave people the power of the review. And now angies list is revolutionizing local service again. You can easily buy and Schedule Services from toprated providers. Conveniently stay up to date on progress. And effortlessly turn your photos into finished projects with our angies list app. Visit angieslist. Com today. Is there such a thing as a sure thing in business . Some say buy gold. Others say buy soybeans. I say, buy comcast business internet. Unlike internet providers that slow down when traffic picks up, you get speed you can rely on. Its a safe bet. Like a goldplated soybean. Reliably fast internet starts at 69. 95 a month. Comcast business. Built for business. 23 past the hour. Welcome back to morning joe. That was interesting. Isnt it good to see him . Hez hes a friend. Willie geist, the first couple of years of morning joe where pat buchanan on the telephone and Mike Huckabee. That was it. Virtual coanchors. They were. And now we look toward the future. Here with us now from the white house to give us a preview of tonights state of the Union Address, White House Press secretary josh earnest. Josh, what do we expect from the president tonight that we havent heard yet, especially about his tax plan . Well, good morning, guys. I think what you can look for tonight from the president is a focus on middle class economics. Thats similar to what the president has been talking out throughout his tenure here in office. The difference is that now we have the economy on solid enough footing and a little momentum behind this nrns that we can start having a serious discussion about what our tax policies should look like and whether or not we can actually close things like the trust Fund Loophole and use the revenue to benefit middle class families who have both mom and dad working. What is the trust Fund Loophole for americans . The trust Fund Loophole is essentially a way in which people at the very top of the income scale, people inheriting millions of dollars, who benefit from whats called stepped up basis. Essentially, joe, if you have a stock portfolio valued at 10 million now over the course of the next 20 years it appreciates in value up to 30 million. Unfortunately, joe, you pass away and you pass it on to your kids, your kids dont pay a kamt tall gains income tax on that 10 to 30 million increase. Essentially what your kids do is they have that 30 Million Trust Fund now without having paid the Capital Gains on it. The truth is middle class families are paying their Capital Gains taxes and we believe everybody else should too. I was just going to say, i wish i had a trust fund to worry about. Mika, whats that like . Stop. What is that like . You always do that. You always do that. Shes a gazillionaire. Whats the word . My dadss. Rich. No. Were going to be talking about i think the president is going to be talking about focusing on other ways to benefit middle class families. One thing we know that middle class families are going to need in the future is the skills and training they need so they can get the good middle class jobs of the future. The president is going to talk about his proposal to make sure that hardworking students getting good grades can go to Community College for free for two years. Other policys will support middle class families to make sure that families can earn a paid sick leave time so that they get sick they can stay home or they have a kid who gets sick they can stay home without taking a bite out of their paycheck. How do you pay for that without increasing the deficit . We can close the trut Fund Loophole. The other tinge is assess a fee on the largest, most highly leveraged firms on wall street. They will have the benefit of providing an economic disincentive for law street firms to borrow money and raise money. The tax proposals we put forward in terms of this new financial fee on the largest wall street firms, closing the trust Fund Loophole and raising the capital gains tax rate where it was under president reagan more than pays for the proposals the president is going to put out today that benefit middle class families. Josh, its willie. In november obviously democrats were wiped out in the midterm elections and in many ways the president s agenda was repudiated and yet he seems to have been emboldened by what happened in november. Immigration reform tax policy which youre talking about, the Community College plan normalizing of relations with cuba. Was there a moment was there a meeting where the president said, screw it lets go for broke in these last two years . No at least not a meeting i attended. All along what this president has said he wanted to do is focus on making progress for the American People. And we didnt. As we discussed a couple of times on this program we didnt have the opportunity to make that case on the campaign trail as much as we would have liked. Now that campaign is over we can get back to governing and focus on the policies we can put in place to benefit middle class families. The truth is now that weve gotten out of this crisis now we put this crisis behind us we can turn the page and have more freedom to be focussing on the kinds of approximately sis s policies that are going to benefit middle class families. We will see you down there. Weep r were were coming to visit. Joining us now for the political roundtable to talk about all of this nbc news political director and moderator of meet the press qult chuck todd and msnbc contributor, david axelrod. Former mccain senior strategist Steve Schmidt, and professor of Political Science at the university of maryland, tom, who is the author of the stronghold, how republicans captured congress by surrendered the white house. I hope we have 45 minutes for this segment. A lot to talk about. Chuck todd chuck, weve gone over the polls this morning, nbc polls. The president is doing better than hes done in a while. Economy is looking good. You start going though to i was i was really surprised, issue by issue on what works and what doesnt work, you actually have the president pushing a boulder up the hill. Global warming, one of the lowest rated in the poll. Closing gitmo, i think it is the lowest rated in the poll. What was the other one, mika . Trade. Immigration, legal pathway to citizenship also extraordinarily low. It seems the issues are not breaking the president s way, but hes still riding pretty good riding pretty well in this new nbc poll. Its a reminder its amazing what good economy, improving economy does for his political standing. I mean, when you look at it its the first time its first time his disApproval Rating has been under 50 since the Government Shutdown in october of 13. Its the first time that hes been rightside up on approval of the economy since january of 13. Essentially the start of his second term. So we know what accounts for his improved political standing. Its the economy. But you go on the jobs. You know the people sort of have a very simple ask of the government, help create jobs keep us safe. Number one and number two. Create jobs and defeat isis right . Thats it. You go down here. Simplify it, let me give you something here. Whats the big debate right now and going to be tomorrow night in washington . These tax code proposal simplifying the tax code. This is not a priority for republicans, democrats, or independents. Thats going to be, i think, a challenge here. They might be able to do something together but it is not a public priority. You look at the top five david axelrod, Foreign Policy in the chaos over the past six months to a year. Obviously having an impact on voters. Number two is take care of isis. Also in the top five way ahead of a lot of priorities for both democrats and republicans, taking care of iran and the nuclear weapons, addressing Irans Nuclear program. 56 . And the forth, securing the southern border. Americans, if you look at the top five reducing the deficit, americans on issues look increasingly conservative. Yeah, but i think, you know, the thing about polls is theyre only as good as the questions you ask. If you have conversations with the American People, the first thing they talk about is they want to live in an economy where if you work hard you can get ahead. Where they get treated fairly and everybody has the same deal and everybody plays by the same rules. And you know, the fundamental values that we believe in, that work should be rewarded responsibility should be rewarded, guide the economy. Thats very very much in peoples minds. I think thats what youre going to hear a lot of tonight in this speech. Ultimately people vote on the issues that they talk around their kitchen tables about and that has to do with their own well being and thats why chucks right. As the economy improves his numbers are going to improve and peoples outlook is going to improve. Lets go. Show me the top five again. I want to go to Steve Schmidt for a second. Steve, when i looked at these numbers from nbc news slb wall street im reminded of how isolated we are in this bubble that Mike Huckabee talks about. Creating jobs, beating isis. A lot of people dont think theyre a jv team. Three, cutting the federal deficit. The deficit is supposed to go back up over the next five years. Four securing the border. I mean that straight out of the tea party. And, five addressing irans nuke program. Look at the who tbottom issues, im just saying that the electric is swinging right. The least important to american voters, Global Warming, pathway to citizenship for Illegal Immigrants and the third i forget what the third is. I said it. I think were conditioned when we talk about politics in the United States that these National Security issues are not top of mind of voters. Gitmo at the very bottom. And i just dont think thats the case. I think you have a couple of dynamics youre seeing here. First is the economy is certainly improving. The president is going to get credit for an improving economy. All president s get credit for improving economy. When you look at the events over the last couple of weeks you look at what happened in paris. You look at the breakup of these terror cells across europe. You look at the threat posed to all of western civilization by radical islamic extremism. The fact that 14 years two administrations, one republican, one democrat we dont have a National Strategy to combat it. None of our National Leaders are able to articulate what that strategy should be. We dont have a plan to defeat it. King abdullah came gave an important talk. General sisi in egypt talked about this as military strategy that we need a political strategy, an idea olological strategy over the long term. Is the president going to talk to the American People tonight to a National Audience at this important moment when the couplery faces a real profound threat . I think its a real open question. But certainly its the case as we head into this next president ial election the American People understand, i think, intuitively the depths of the threat of the radical islamic extremists across the depth and breadth of europe. The threat to this country, we have thousands of westerners. Were at a very dangerous moment in time. Will the president address that will he talk to it . This is the work of the president of the United States, to talk to these issues tonight. Not to talk about tax increases that have no chance of passing and more spending on top of our 20 trillion debt. Professor, the president is going to be going to talk to congress that is solidly republican solidly republican since 1929 at least on the outside. I love the title of your book the stronghold how republicans catch congress but surrendered the white house. Talk about that. As you know divided government has defined 70 of the last 60 years. Prior to the rise of clinton, eisenhower through reagan bush president ial dominance by republicans in a weak Congressional Party and just the reverse. Clinton comes in and gingrich comes in. The book is explaining how and why and when that happened early 90s. You were there with the republican revolution. You see republicans saying on key seenstone and other issues. Were going to put these on your desk because were going to position our party for 2016 and whats the president going to do tonight . Put middle class tax cuts and tax on the rich which poll well right back on the agenda. The president is responding in kind. Two can play that game. Ill put things before the American Public i know you wont pass to reposition Hillary Clinton or whoever the democratic nominee is for 2016. And i think theres a consistent pattern of this behavior not to accomplish anything not solving problems between the two branches, but this sort of gamesmanship this political chicken game between the two parties and its been going fon for 20 years. I tell liberals and democrats, im liberal, when you say the part of no, when you say this is the least Productive Congress in history, that sounds like a criticism but to republican and conservatives, thats a compliment. Theyre not trying to do stuff. Of course chuck todd i said on Election Night we were together with brian, said on Election Night you could fill volumes of books with nasty things that were said about the Tea Party Congress from 2010 to 2014 and yet the reward following up with what the professor said was massive majority. I want to pick up on Something Else tom was hinting at. It is amazing how this state of the union and the debate surrounding it really is so Campaign Message oriented, and you know josh says, hey, the president , you know, hes run his last campaign. Factually correct. The president cant run again. This whole thing feels as if its being this agenda is about setting the table for 2016. Its about setting the table for the democrats or the middle class party, the republicans of the party, that the president is trying to position. Im sitting there thinking, its your second to last state of the union. Shouldnt this be about what you can get done what can you get accomplished . Thats the question. David . I got to tell you, i really strongly disagree with that. First of all, this the an interesting state of the union because all the news is out. Theres not going to be any news tonight if hes already disclosed everything hes going to propose. Hes going to make a case tonight. I think thats what the president of the United States should do, is make a case about the problems we face and where we should go and start a conversation and i think there are things that they can agree on. Some of them wont be popular within the Democratic Party. Trade, for example, is something that he will probably talk about tonight as part of his economic prescriptions. That wont be popular on the left. But its something that can get done. Its not his job to say, i believe that this is where we should lead the country but im not going to talk about it because i know you guys dont want to hear it so im going to talk about something minimal that we can get done. Thats not what the president should be doing in this speech. All right. Lets talk about what he should be. Joining us from capitol hill, democrat from West Virginia a member of the Armed Services committee, joe manchin, and republican from illinois member of the committee on appropriation, senator mark kirk. Gentlemen, i take youve been listening to the conversation. Joe, well start with you. What do you hope to hear from the president tonight . Well, were hoping, i think were going to hear a lot about the economy. You know basically our economy is improved more so in the last year here than it has in the last eight years. And i think thats something to brag about. Theres a long way to go because theres a lot of people in the mid that feel left out. They have to get engaged, we have to make sure they are engaged and put our priorities based on our values. Were going the hear a lot about the economy. 18 18 trillion debt so we have to be careful about what we do and how we do it and work in a bipartisan way to get something done and not just posture ourselves for the 16 election. Thats what i hope we do and avoid from doing. Senator kirk its willie geist. What do you make of the president s opening bid that hes already put out there that he will elaborate upon tonight on tax reform . They say its to help the middle class, tax on the wealthy. What do you make of that initial proposal even if its not the one that might get through congress . I would be a little worried if you redistribute income you will have less of it. Okay. So i take it you dont like the idea. That was a nice short answer. Put you down as maybe, senator. Ill take that check. Were still working on him, willie. Were still working on him. Basically i think well watch what we laid out. Weve seen a little bit of an outline of what the president is going to be doing along those lines of faxtaxation. Its noble to say were were going to have two years of education in West Virginia. An educated person has a better chance for a better job. The bottom line is i would like to see a couple years of service so you earn it too. Well see if theres value there. As far as the income disparity and income inequality those are the facts. Youre entitled to your opinion. The facts with we have a growing disparity of income in this country and weve got to change that. Okay. Steve schmidt . Well, look you know i think the president goes and talks about income disparity, lets go look at the Silicon Valley, lets look at the state of california, completely under the control of the Democratic Party. No place in america where w. More income disparity than the Silicon Valley to the Central Valley of the state of california. The republicans should be for progrowth, economic policies that lift the boat create Economic Growth for everybody in the country. These tax increase proposals have no chance of actually passing a republican congress. This is all kabookie theory tonight. Mark kirk, what do you hope to hear from the president tonight . A bipartisan plan to back things like joe and i have been working on to make sure that were much more pulling together as a team to reduce the overall debt, just like joe talked about. Joe, i think mark and i have talked about this. We would like to see basically some unity bringing people together okay . If we can agree not growing the debt and starting it downward, Energy Policy makes us more secure, that would be much better. Foreign policy that makes it safer and i think Energy Security makes it safer. All those things there we look for. We can Work Together on that. Mark and i have worked together since weve been here over four years ago. We know you can build relationships. I would interrupt with one thing saying that you know, the senate operates by a set of lunches and joe and i that are only partisan joe and i broke out of that. We were kind of the lonely bridge builders. I love it. We have our bipartisan lunch. We still have it. And everyone is invited. Sometimes we get a crowd and sometimes its just mark and i. I would say it has been growing now. We finally have got the leaders to agree to one bipartisan lunch. Were going to have one bipartisan today. Today is our first bipartisan i dont know if you knew that bipartisan lunch today. Fantastic news guys. Thank you so much. Joe and mark its always great to see you. Chuck todd thank you as well. Your quoo book is the stronghold. Youre not hopeful are you . Next two years, were not going the get a lot of stuff done. Nothing is going to get done. Anybody who thinks it will is crazy. Why would my lord. Boy, im going to hug this one. Its going to make me feel better willie. Optimism. I like it. Tomorrow on morning joe, were going tv exclusive reaction to the president s state of the union. I monk our guests congressman paul ryan Governor Scott walker, senator bernie sand ersz, senator tom cotton Karly Fiorina and senator john thune. Were back in just a moment. Thusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. Ers, senator tom cotton, Karly Fiorina and senator john thune. Were back in just a moment. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. If you have moderate to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis like me and youre talking to your rheumatologist about a biologic. This is humira. This is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. This is humira giving me new perspective. 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But to get from the old way to the new youll need the right it infrastructure. From a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile, borderless and secure. Hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. And stay ready for everything that is still to come. Were in seattle to see which 100 calorie black cherry greek yogurt tastes best. Definitely that one. That ones delicious. Its yoplait what . I love yoplait the other one is chobani. Really. I like this one better. Yoplait wins again take the tasteoff for yourself. The conference call. The ultimate arena for business. Hour after hour of diving deep, touching base, and putting ducks in rows. The only problem with Conference Calls eventually they have to end. Unless you have the comcast business voiceedge mobile app. It lets you switch seamlessly from your desk phone to your mobile with no interruptions. Ive never felt so alive. Get the future of phone and the phones are free. Comcast business. Built for business. We come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, were going to be there anyway why dont you just leave it for us to pick up . Or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option its kind of a no brainer ok, well, good talk across america cities are getting bigger, and the traffic and pollution is getting worse. Solutions can be expensive but theres one state thats trying the most sustainable approaches and with the most at stake. Reporter in San Francisco rush hour can be brutal whether youre aboveground or below it. The train is full. Please do not try to force yourself on the train. Reporter across the state theres an alphabet soup of transits. They are hard to coordinate and lately the population boom is wearing resources thin. So with ridership grow inging by 5 a year, bart, which operates the sprawling subway, is redrawing the map. We dont have enough cars to handle all the people. The region has been too successful. Reporter bart moves more than 400,000 people a day but they need even more capacity. They are spending billions overhauling the system and stations and buying state of the art new cars. And they are building new lines with new tech noelgnology and an emphasis on stainability. Bart has oobt 50 of our electricity comes through hydroelectric power. Reporter right now its a lam brit of twisted steel and cement designed to withstand earthquakes. But what its done, it will be a palace with access for buss and trains alike along with shop shopping, entertainment, and on the top floor a fiveacre park. But the most ambitious plan of all has Broken Ground after years of battle. America is one of the few modern countries without high speed rail. But if all goes according to plan by 2029 a train capable of speeds of 220 Miles Per Hour will race between San Francisco and los angeles. In in state where were going to have 50 Million People in the next 35 years, we need Something Different than the traditional means that we have used and rail is a very efficient, clean and Sustainable Way to meet that need. Reporter it will shorten an 11 11hour trip to less than 3. Its designed to compete with Discount Airlines in the most delayed flight corridor in america america. Backers say it will even bring thousands of jobs. Its allow eded my company to triple in size. Reporter 10 billion when it was voted on. Now its up to 70. Reporter its met with steady opposition. Protesters accuse it of being unfunded and believe it will go unused. But the man in charge of the project says the money will be there because of unique combination of billions in. Private funds, stimulus money and cap and trade revenue. Still for others the train hits closer to home. It splits my ranch into two different parcels. And its going to make real trouble for men to go back and forth as it is now. Reporter farmers in the Central Valley are fighting the train and the Eminent Domain thats left the future of some of their crops uncertain. What we have really done everything we can to minimize the impacts on agriculture and other communities. We are preserving more farmland than were taking. Its a bad situation but i guess thats progress. Reporter the way of progress is usually hard and increasingly expensive. But as california grows and takes key chances with its infrastructure, cities across the country will o no doubt will match watching carefully for what works. Kat pillar is one of the companies thats working on the expansion in california and is helping lead the way in infrastructure advancements. We should mention that they are also the sponsor of our stainability series. Joining us from key west florida, former transportation sec secretary ray lahood who joined caterpillar as a public consultant. Thank you so much for being with us. The first question has to be why are you in key west and we are not in key west . Joe, you know i am in key west to enjoy the great music, the great food and the very wonderful people. You probably know better than anybody what a great place this is. Just amazing. We have new nbc news polls out talking about whats important to people. 50 of americans say increased spending on infrastructure is important. Its certainly in the top ten. It certainly seems to be in acknowledgment that a lot of americans think we need to rebuild this country. Everybody knows this. America is one big pothole. We have had brutal winters all over america. Our roads are crumbling, interstate is crumbling. We have many many bridges that are in very very bad disrepair. America used to be number one in infrastructure. When you invest in infrastructure, you invest in americans. You invest in the people that build the roads and bridges and you also invest in opportunities for economic development. Infrastructure really creates the kind of Economic Activity that can spur on communities, spur on states and we used to be number one. Now were number 16. Its because were not making the investments. What is the exact of that . The impact is at the highest sector of unemployment in America Today are the building trades. People that build roads and bridges. You invest in infrastructure, you put the kind of commitment that we have had over a long period of time in america and well put a lot of friends and neighbors back to work and well also have good roads and bridges and be able to create economic opportunity. This is Jeremy Peters here. I was at the hoover dam over the weekend. Look at this wondrous Infrastructure Project and thinking to myself okay when are we going to see something built on this scale again . I kind of had a hard time coming up with an example of some big project thats in an early stage of development that would ever rival Something Like that again. Is america past its prime in building things like that . I hope not. We have never given up on our opportunities to do big things. Were the kouncountry that build the golden gate bridge, the hoover dam, the interstate system over 50 years. We need to get back to that kind of commitment for our friends and neighbors who needs the jobs and for america who needs this kind of infrastructure. And i believe that the High Speed Rail Program in california, thanks to the vision of president obama, thanks to the vision of governor brown, is the next big project that really has the opportunity to get america back to being number one. It is what californians want and its what america has been all about over a long rich history of building infromastructure. Ray lahood, thank you so much. Thank you. Still ahead, a maryland mother let her two Young Children walk home a mile from a park alone. Shes now under investigation for that by child protective services. The big debate it is spark over socalled free range parenting. No free range parenting in my house. All my kids in helmets. Hes not lying about that. Joy bay har will be here for this mornings big talk. As the velocity of change in the world increases new players in new markets face a choice do it fast and cheap. Or do it right. For almost 90 years, weve stayed true to the belief that if you put quality in, you get quality out. Its why everything we build, we build to last. Build on progress. Build on pride. Build on a company thats built for it. 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Transamerica. Transform tomorrow. Kerrys general frenchiness, the thing that lost him our president ial election is what make makes him our perfect envoy. Hes meeting the french president and hes going i dont think he wants that, no, no no he doesnt want to touch. Hes not wanting that. I got to check out that hug utilizing nfls replay technology. Hes walking in now the french president goes with the oprah hands. I just want to touch your hands. This is the distance. Keep it at this distance. Kerry says [ bleep ] that come on baby bring it in. Were bros. Now the french president is saying i have had enough and hes like all right, im done im done. He tries to get out. Ill tell you what though im never letting you go. Hes got a friend. You guys yesterday did not seem to be moved by that. They were just sort of staring at it. James taylor singing youve got a friend. They did not have a friend. Its like hey, here lean back into me and then let them fall to the floor. Listen, i didnt catch it but heres j. T. Not a bad tradeoff though. I dont know. Its good of us to send him over there though. Everybody loves j. T. A little awkward though. Good morning, everybody. Willie wasnt here for this yesterday, nor was i. That incredible scateattle. Can you believe seattle is a favorite. Had you been here yesterday, we could have talked about it. Now its today. We couldnt about the odds though. I guess the smart guys piled their money on the patriots and now its more like even. Its going to be a great game. Two great games. Enter we got the two best teams. We talked about this yesterday too just for the record. Who do you think is going to win . I have no idea. I think the seahawks are probably the slight edge but i wouldnt bet against tom brady. I wont be betting on this game. Its too hard. Its basically the odds are even. There hasnt been an even odds super bowl in at least a decade maybe or more. You cant bet against the patriots. Did you see the way they man handled the colts . My mom lives in madison, wisconsin, and shes a die hard packers fan. He was still too upset to talk to me. Poor mom. On this tuesday, you can see we have jeremy john and willie and joe and me. Willie is fascinated by tiger woods. Tiger surprised lindsey vonn and tried to go incognito. Lets zoom in on this picture of tiger woods. He lost a tooth. His representatives say in the scrum to get to lindsey vonn a cameraman knocked out tigers tooth. Do you think thats true . I dont have reason to believe its not. Is there a more complex story . Toothless tiger. Dont you think you should get to the news . Ive been try inging. We have in washington julie pace with us as well. Welcome, everybody. We begin this morning in washington where we are just hours away from president obamas sixth state of the Union Address. It will be his next to last one, and the first before a republican controlled house and senate. But president obama has voted to play offense with slow downs looming over the Keystone Pipeline and immigration reform. Another divided issue will be on full display. Relations with cuba, one of president obamas guests will be the maryland man who spent five years in a cubaen prison. John boehner is one of at least three republicans who has invited cuban disdents as their guests. His plan includes credits for middle class families and College Students but also increases taxes on the wealthy and big banks np a video previewing his speech, president obama says the economy is ready to turn the page despite suggestions the country isnt out of the woods just yet. Anybody who is a sports fan knows that you have to play the whole game. Over the last six years, we have been weighed down by the legacy of the worst financial crisis since the great depression. And because of the incredible grit and resilience of the American People, america is now in a position to really turn the page. Last year of the best job growth since the 1990s. The Unemployment Rate has dropped to 5. 6 . We have seen manufacturing come back. We have cut our deficits. Gas prices have dropped. So we are well positioned for the future. But the key is making the right choices. That was a nice commercial. That was lovely. Good. Soft music in the background. I like the music. Im sold. The American People not quite sold but Getting Better. I think more than you know. Brand new polling on how americans view leadership in washington and the impact on their own financial situation. The president has 46 Approval Rating. And at 49 his Economic Leadership is a strong since its first year. Still hes upside down in Foreign Policy by 19 points. Fewer than half of those polled are satisfied with the economy that marks the strongest number that its been at in a decade. Most feel their financial situation is staying about the same and 85 of americans say creating jobs is the absolute top priority for the white house and congress. Other compelling issues include defeating isis reducing the deficit, securing the border and addressing Irans Nuclear program. Entitlements entitlements, taxes and health care rate lower on the list. This is interesting. The lowest issues of all rated in this long list had to do with Global Warming and providing a pathway to citizenship for Illegal Immigrants. And gitmo was rated the lowest. So a lot to take from those polls. One is that the issues that are the darlings for the left rank at the very bottom for americans. But on the other side the economy, americans more positive. Well, yeah and i think thats got to be the big headline here. Some of those other issues like immigration, the president is doing what he thinks he is right. We now have a strong, growing economy. Theres still issues a lot of people arent feeling the recovery to the degree anybody would want to feel it, the president is the first time hes giving the state of the union saying it is strong. They are growing at a blistering rate and the stock market is high. The president has not been able to say that before from the well of the house. So jeremy this could be a time things are getting good for the president to reach out and try to compromise. He does seem pretty set on provoking one fight after another with republicans. Now hes talking about going in with a massive tax increase. And we have seen this with cuba we have seen it with illegal immigration. He does seem determined to keep starting political fights. He and democrats in both the house and senate are pretty much on the same page. If you listen to his tone and harry reids tone, they seem intent on not being a quiet opposition. And i think thats something thats relatively new. Is there an end game to this . You know what the end game . The 2016 election. Youre at a point right now where its this weird psychcycle in american politics where both have a shot at taking back what they lost in two years. So youre telling me that right now as everybody is get. Ing sworn in they have already decided the next two years is just going to be fought over the next election. Its going to be a campaign, yes. If you listen to what democrats say on capitol hill right now, its all about 2016 how they take back the senate in 2016. Its all about making sure they keep the white house in 2016. Republicans are just as intent on keeping what they won a few months ago. Our next poll is keeping tabs on the 2016 race for president. Just about one quarter of americans view mitt romney in a positive light. Thats down from back in september when the former republican nominee was not expected to jump in the race. What happens . Jeb bush has also seen a decline in his numbers dropping 7 points since announcing hes actively exploring a 2016 run. Willie geist, this is a guy that people think the presumptive front runner. Hes being crowned king by a lot of founders. They both turned but i will tell you that ive been going. Around and saying positive things for jeb bush for a long time. I have been struck wherever i am ever every time people say who do you like i say i like jeb bush. I get boos from the audience. People that dont even know jeb bush. Its pretty intense. Only a 19 favorable rating. Its a good reminder that enthusiasm from the donor class does not translate to enthusiasm from the general public. The idea that people would instantly be interested in jeb bush because hes jeb bush or he or mitt romney would be energized by having their names floated over there over the last couple weeks. You look at the numbers and if youre Chris Christie or someone like that, doesnt this encourage you to say, the country is not excited about mitt romney who some people think is a retreader or jeb bush. Why wouldnt you now jump in if you were Chris Christie . John hie land are you surprised by those numbers . Im more surprised by the jeb bush number than mitt romney number. Hes going through the same thing that happened to hillary clinton. They are not seen as political figures. This was an admirable person who cares about their country. As soon as they come political and look like they are seeking office, they have a dimmer view of them. Jeb bush is a more troubling sign for his numbers because there has been a lot of enthusiasm. Hes got nothing but good press for the month hes been putting himself out there. And with all that good press and all those people on television saying nice things people still have the negative view. People still feel like do i want to go back or forward . Jeremy peters, we have seen the really positive jeb press. We have all seen that mitt romney is finished and they cant stand him. I tweeted a couple polls this weekend that showed mitt romney way ahead of everybody else. I tweeted and said, you know what, all these experts are right, nobody wants mitt romney to run. Except republican voters. And then when jeb on the other side hes gotten such glowing press and hes been painted as the knight in shining armor, but i have been seeing polls for the past six months that show a real real skepticism of him. Not only in the base but also especially when you get to the general election. I think a lot of that is name recognition frankly. This early on this far away from november 2016 thats kind of a quirk in these early polls that you have to take into. Account. I still dont see right now how mitt romney overcomes kind of the l baggage that he has with regards to his past and private equity. Especially when theres going to be an election that both. Sides agree is going to be fought on economic populism. What about jeb . Didnt jeb work for barclays and he has a long list of things hes done as well. I think they cancel each other out in some ways. We have to see how they differentiate. If youre anybody else, you look at these two guys both of whom have a lot of donors who like them but you look at the way that the dynamics of the party are right now. If youre Chris Christie or scott walker anybody else neither one of these guys is a prohibitive front runner. Neither one gets in and say that clears the feel. Field. There are going to be a lot of republicans who will be looking for someone who represents something new. Want to bring julie pace in. Im wondering also with Hillary Clinton, you have the reactions that we have been sort of weigh here over the past few months and everyone is getting tired of them. I feel like when these people come out on to the National Stage, it will be wahwah. Julie pace is the only one of these three possible contenders to enjoy a net positive rating. They are numbers have stayed in the margin of error. You see her when she gets out there, people get really excited. They definitely do. She certainly has seen her Approval Rating fall as shes moved more to the political arena, but its stronger than any individual republican thats eyeing 2016. It reflects the different landscapes in the Party Heading into this election. On the democratic side theres this clear front runner. Were seeing strebt around one person in a way you almost never see. On the republican side its a much more wide open field. I think that for some voters they want to see who else is going to be out there. People dont want to just coalesce around a jeb bush or mitt romney this early on because they feel like there are opportunities for other people to jump into this race. Certainly at this point. They want to see what this field is going to look like. On the romney and bush numbers, the thing that you can really take away from this is both of them have a lot of work to do with actual americans. They have to go out and sell their case give a rational for running, knowing who your donor class is going to be is important. But thats not a rachtional for running. You say young girls. Same thing for jeb and Chris Christie . Just wondering. I just think they are going to fall flat. I like mitt romney. I think theres a lot of potential to his campaign but i think were underestimating Hillary Clinton and bill clinton all over again. Not that i necessarily want to see it, but i have a feeling i want to know who is going to get into the democratic race against her. Nobody wants to see one woman standing on stage alone at these debates. Are there going to be serious challengers to Hillary Clinton . If Elizabeth Warren doesnt get into the race will there be somebody who can stand up there to the left of Hillary Clinton and not give her a run for her money necessarily, but put pressure on her in the primary . The biggest pressure is going to be from Elizabeth Warren. Shes going to be out there asking Hillary Clinton trying to keep Hillary Clinton honest on the issues that a lot of Democratic Party people want to hear about. You think about the rest of the democrats who are actively talking about running. Bernie sanders, omalley theres not a those are all credible people who had real careers in Public Service, but none of them are the equivalent of Chris Christie mitt Romney Jeb Bush like a battle tightens. Whereas in the Democratic Party, some people will run against her, but they wont look like that. One thing ill point out at this point Elizabeth Warren run is unlikely. Enough people tell you to run for president , you start thinking about doing it. So i think we just probably cant say whats going to happen. Who knows. My gut is yes on her. Your gut has always been yes on her. Youve been saying that for months. I think she will be a really important part of the process. Still ahead on morning joe, a great 8 30 half hour. The great joy behar will join us. And tom will stop by the set. Plus the hidden benefits of coffee. The new study that will make people want to grab an extra cup of joe this morning. Bill k canarins has a check of the forecast. Remember we talked about this. We werent going to get bitter because the rest of the country is enjoying a january thaw and we havent had had it in the northeast. The close were getting is 42 degrees. The rest of the nation, it was 73 in wichita, texas. A record high yesterday. About 21 states were in the 60s yesterday. This time of year you get like six. New video from the ice storm on sunday. Check this out. A tandem trailer on the jersey turnpike. Thats a close call. That was video being taken out the back windshield wow. Guy didnt even flinch. Even turned to get. The rest of the shot as the truck went across the lanes. So lets talk about whats next. We cant continue the january thaw forever, but it will today. Whats going to finally cool everyone off is not this first storm. Its a little clipper thats going to bring light snow to areas and the midwest today. Into tomorrow, well see some of that snow into detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh, and it looks like about one to two inches late wednesday, maybe around the evening rush for philadelphia to new york city. Tuesday and wednesday, we hold on to the warmth a little bit in the bottom half of the country, but were going to return to reality throughout the northern half of the nation with some cooling. We leave you with a shot of a frigid new york city. We didnt get the warmup, but d. C. Youre going to be 50. Have lunch outdoors. Youre watching morning joe, well be right back. I was not expecting to get a ford. We went around the country talking to people who made the switch to ford. It felt nicer than my bmw. Good gas mileage. Ecoboost makes a four cylinder engine feel like a six cylinder. My dad went and turned in his lexus and got the exact same car as me. He had to have it. Im very happy with my escape. I dont know if ill ever not buy a ford. Make the switch to americas favorite brand. Check out special offers on ford escape at ford. Com or see your local ford dealer. Boy once upon a time, there was a nice house that lived with a family. One day, it started to rain. The house tried to keep out all the water, but water got inside and ruined everybodys everythings. The house thought she let the family down. They just didnt think it could happen. They told the house they would take better care of her. Always. Announcer protect what matters. Get flood insurance. Ring ring progresso i cant believe im eating bacon and rich creamy cheese before my sisters wedding well its only 100 calories, so youll be ready for that dress uhhuh. You dont love the dress . I love my sister. 40 flavors. 100 calories or less. Where are ewe taking me . Were taking your calls here all morning. Time to take a look at the morning papers. Nbc news, plans are beginning to come together for Pope Franciss trip to the United States. Were told the pope will begin his fourday visit on september 20th with stops in washington, d. C. Philadelphia and new york city. The pope is also making headlines for comments about family olympianing. When asked what he said to families with more children they could afford because of the stance on contraception, he said quote, some people think that, excuse my expression here that in order to be like good catholics we have to be rabbits. No, parenthood is about being responsible. This is clear. But the pope reiterated the Church Stands against contraception as well. Two jets wr grounded after a bomb threat was called into jfk airport. Authorities searched each plane for explosives but none were found. One plane arriving from San Francisco carrying 178 passengers was evacuated immediately after landing. The other bound for tel aviv sat empty at terminal seven and was also searched. Passengers on board the flight said nothing seemed wrong until they landed. This from the baltimore sun. Officials are investigating a massive fire thats believed to have killed six people at a home in annapolis. Four people were inside the mansion. Officials have called off the search for possible survivors. More than 85 firefighters worked monday to contain the fire at the 16,000 square foot mansion. One witness compared the fire to an inferno. At this time officials did not suspect foul play. Terrible story. Wall street journal, dreamworks is undergoing layoffs. The studio struggled to produce a hit. They have failed to meet box office expectations. The number of job cuts is not yet known. The studio is set to release its only movie for 2015 which is titled home in march. Did you hear about this . After giving a Martin Luther king day speech in Virginia Governor terry mcall live was admitted to the hospital with complications of seven broken ribs. He was bucked off a horse. He was allowed to resume working giving an hourlong speech and joining joe biden at an event. On monday the governor was admitted to the hospital after fluid began to build up around his lungs, but hes said to be improving. Playing hurt though. The sacramento bee, tom stooier is considering running for the senate seat. Hes already said his campaign would focus on decreasing greenhouse gases, shifting the tax burden to the wealthiest americans and improving public education. He had an influence on the 2014 midterm elections. Politico reporting he spent 74 million. Already the attorney general has announced she will run for boxers seat as well. Washington post, a study published in a new england journal of medicine found that people ages of 50 to 71 who drank at least one cup of coffee per day had a lower risk of death from diabetes and Heart Disease than noncoffee drinkers. A separate study also linked a daily cup of coffee to lower risk of depression. Researchers believe the benefits may be derived in the part from the incidents of antioxidants and other chemicals. So one cup. Just with eight shots in it. Can i put eight shots in it . Is that okay . I dont think that helps as much. I love coffee. Up next joy behar is here to cohost our 8 30 half hour. Shes going to have the take on the big stories and tell us about her big week of interviews including conversations with al pacino and martin short. Well be right back. Ive been called a control freak. I like to think of myself as more of a control. Enthusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. And thats why this road warrior rents from national. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. Major ok fitness class heres our new trainer ensure active heart health. Crowd yayyyy heart im going to focus on the heart. I minimize my sodium and fat. Gotta keep it lean and mean. Pear uhoh. Heart i maximize good stuff like my potassium. And phytosterols, which may help lower cholesterol. Major im feeling energized already. New delicious ensure active heart Health Supports your heart and body, so you stay active and strong. Ensure. Take life in. Joe. Joining us now, joy behar is back. Good to have you cohosting. Good to see you again. Youre like a radio host now. Im sitting in on thursday on npr. The coup of it all. I got al pacino. He did 40 minutes with me. And martin short and andy cohen. Yeah all three. Wait a minute, look at that. Thats kind of fun that youre plugging that. Its just one day. Thats a good day. I used to have a radio show. Rush limbaugh followed me. Actually joe, is he in the control room . Hes on his way. Hes going through our archives looking at the pickture of you and him in bed together. That was a wonderful day. Yes, it was. I am a little older than him so it was a mrs. Robinson thing, but i think he likes that. He says he learned a lot. You have to teach men how to do it correctly. You realize that. Oh really . They dont know what they are doing so you have to tell them where everything is. Im scared to go on with this conversation. I think its true. You have to teach them stuff. I agree. Then im about to form a search party. Politics state of the union. What are you hoping to hear from the president tonight . I really am a little disappointed in this new nafta thing hes into. Another thing where jobs are going to go overseas. Hes going to try to work on the tax policy. He wants that will go over really well with the republican party. Well they are not going to like it. The audience is going to be obviously primarily republican. Hes going to have a tough audience. He always does. Sounds like youre going to be a tough audience. How do you think the president is doing . His Approval Ratings are going up. I was one of his fans from the getgo. I never turned on him like a lot of liberal friends of mine. I always knew he would bounce back. He was being obstructed by the right. Now hes back in his groove. Hes got his mojo back. We have a lot of talk going on about 2016 and some of the republicans. So lets look at how the field is shaping up. We had one possible contender on morning joe this morning. Huckabee . Did you see . I did. We asked him about his beyonce comments and stuff like that. Take a look. Let me just start with a tough question. What do you have against beyonce . Nothing, she is half a page in a 242page book. You were pushing beyonce. I cant even tell you what she sings. Thats the point. You could not repeat the lyrics. It was an illustration in a chapter in the book called a culture of crude. Somebody picked it up. Of all the things in the book i thought would be controversial, that wasnt it. Its not something that i would be afraid to talk about. In fact, the reaction to it within the land of what i call bubbleville validates my point. This is the capital of bubbleville, so thank you for stepping you were the boy in the plastic bubble. Im sort of with him on the beyonce thing. Youre not old enough to remember elvis. They said the same thing about him that he was flashing his pel skpris how disgusting it was. All the baby boomers survived. I have two daughters, and i kind of worry a little bit about how young they are being exposed to some of the sexual antics on stage. I think of miley cyrus and the other young women who appeal to young girls in some way, shape or form then doing very erotic stuff on stage. Just because youre watching someone being entertaining doesnt mean they are going to act like that. This girl has talent for one thing. Are your daughters as talented . I hope they dont imitate beyonce. Shes very talented theres no question. I would argue that miley cyrus is talented too. The overriding thing about this conversation with huckabee is theres a certain mental midgetness. The world is falling apart. Were worried about being attacked. The Climate Change is going to kill this world and were talking about beyonces outfit. Who cares, this is not president ial material. Okay, what about mitt romney . A third time around is that president ial material . Republicans love him. I saw the numbers this morning. I saw that this morning. Some republicans love him. They do not really like them as much as he would like them to like. Doesnt he remember the dog on the roof . The 47 , the binders of women. Does he think that people dont have tape on this stuff . I think hes trying to reengage his message and talk about the poor and the middle class and try and rejuvenate his campaign. So hes hoping the 47 will have amnesia . What about him against Hillary Clinton . That dynamic could be interesting. They are both not very good on the campaign trail. Shes had a lot of time to practice now. You know her, i know her. Shes as light as a feather in person. She gets a little heavy when she gets on tv but she is i think shes terrific. Shes not perfect, no one is perfect. No one is perfect. Elizabeth warren, do you like her . Of course, but the reason that the democrats dont want Elizabeth Warren to run is because they know she cant win. It just throws things off kilter and then it becomes, its about shes too liberal. Same with Bernie Sanders. But he cant win. Got a story. I dont know if you have seen american sniper. I have, its amazing. I have seen it. Theres a controversy brewing about it. It had a record weekend at the box office. Film makers Michael Moore and seth rogen are taking to twitter to start a wave of conversation. He tweeted that the film reminded him of the bloody scene in the quinton tern tee know film later clarifying that he liked the movie and the two reminded him of each other. My uncle was killed in a sniper in world war ii. Well shoot you in the back. Snipers arent heroes. Invaders are worse. I wish i could tell you something about this but i havent seen it. Michael moore is known to do this on the internet. Now hes denying that hes criticizing the movie because he didnt mention american sniper in the tweet although he alluded to snipers. Although hes walking back his comments isnt it an antiwar movie . What the movie does is give i think one of the clearest pictures of what goes through the minds of not just snipers who serve for our country, but veterans. And families of veterans. If you talk to people who has an organization that works closely with veterans, they say Bradley Cooper and the producers nailed it. They captured the whole problem, the whole challenge that these men and women face when the come home and when they have to carry out these acts in their lives and what goes on in their minds. And the whole Mental Health issue, with Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings playbook also attacked mental illness. He did it in a beautiful way both times that hes really making a name for himself while also helping so many people. Isnt it outrageous that they come back and theres no program or place for them . Theres not enough in place. My father was in world war ii. Theres a gi bill. So why i dont know why anybody it has a lot to do with the inequity in our society and many of us dont have any connection with people who are serving abroad. That needs to change. Joy, stay with us. Still ahead, chef tom joins us next. Well be right back. 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The restaurant is professionally run, but you see what happens when it gets stressed. I love it but its just a little too dry. That was a scene from bra vos new reality show best new restaurant. Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio joins us along with joy behar and lewis. Food is coming . Yes, im going to lead in i hope its bringing food. What is it . Theres some sandwiches and stuff. I have my eyes on the door. Do you ever ask what that means . Because it could be like 20 miles away. Its right downstairs. Its in the building. Its on the way. So well have it soon. Im so excited. Are you starving . Im starving. After watching that clip were all hungry. Lets talk about the show. Youre seeking about the best new restaurant. We have 16 restaurants. And its a restaurant competition show. Im like some of the food competition shows where its chef against chef this is entire restaurants against entire restaurants. Were look at not only food and service, but hospitality and design and trying to understand what the restaurant is trying to execute. How great is that when you talk about food youre talking about New York Los Angeles and then you throw in austin, which is a major food city. Austin is incredible. One of my favorite chefs is working there now. He won top chef a few seasons back. His food is probably the most exciting food i have had in a long time. Also for los angeles, is that seeing a resurgence downtown . Its pretty big in terms of the fact that young people are moving down there and turning the city around. Downtown is the hottest area right now in los angeles. What about people that want gluten free . I find that irritating. Youre not in the kitchen when that happens. Is this gluten free . No its bread. What if they have celiac . How many people actually have celiac . I dont know the numbers. Im sure its a bunch of bologna. If you have a disease that a celebrity can pitch, they will find a cure for the disease. So seal yak is the new disease. If a celebrity doesnt have the disease, they will never find a cure. If you get approached by a drug company for celiac disease are you going to go gluten free . You want me to pretend . Thats what celebrities do. We have frozen pasta in our restaurants just in case someone is gluten free. Thats a big concern. They want that. I want to know what the restaurants are buying for . They are getting a featured magazine and 100,000. Thats good. You have a new restaurant opening up in miami. Its actually four different restaurants. We are opening in one hotel in midmarch. Its the one hotel. And we are doing the restaurant. We are also doing a lounge. And we have the sand box, which is the pool. Then were doing room service as well. So were going to have a busy march. So how stretched are you when it comes to the reality universe of top chef and now this new project . It takes about five weeks to shoot top chef, six weeks for this show. Im working every other day. Its not that taxing on my schedule. I still have time to do things like im going to the state of the union tonight. Im a guest, so im real excited about that. Are you going, thomas . Im not going. Im going. Joe and i are going. Were going to be on the house floor. Well say hi. Ill be watching from above where the press sits. Joy, tom, these are so good. What is it . Goat cheese and water crest and avocado. We have turkey avocado. You can see the preview tomorrow at 10 00 p. M. Eastern time. Thank you so much. Well be right back with more morning joe. woman caring for someone with alzheimers means i am a lot of things. I am his guardian. I am his voice. So i asked about adding oncedaily namenda xr® to his Current Treatment for moderate to severe alzheimers. It works differently. When added to another alzheimers treatment, like aricept® it may improve overall function. And cognition. 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[ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Music melodic, calm music. Hi this is conor. Sorry i missed you. Im either away from my desk or on another call. Please leave a message and ill get back to you. Just as soon as im available. Thank you for your patience at this busy time. Join us for stargazing with discovery at sea. Enjoy cruises from four ninetynine during our 50th anniversary sale. Call your travel consultant or 1800princess. Princess cruises. Come back new. Time to talk about what we learned today. Joy behar, thank you for coming in. Good luck with the radio show. Its one day. What did you learn . Essentially nothing. I learned about a nogo zone. Its the stupidest thing i have ever heard. So you did learn something. Tom . The way to mikas heart is a good, simple sandwich. Is it like ten minutes away five minutes . Only about five. Shes really sleep deprooied. The best thing i learned is we should keep joy micced at all times because she did the best during the commercial break. You didnt see the cup of coffee she knocked over. Somebody left that there and i didnt see it. Huckabee did it. Its like newman. You wouldnt think thats a Good Breakfast food, but its pretty good. Tomorrow live from washington, a big line up to reaction to. The president s state of the union, congressman paul ryan, scott walker Bernie Sanders and senator tom cotton and senator john thune. Thats just to name a few. That does it for us this morning. The rundown is next. Im meteorologist bill karins. For those enjoying the january thaw you have one or two more days and youre going to return to normal winter temperatures. This is a mild map. 60s and 70s through the southern half of the country. Its not frigid in the north. Well take 32 in minneapolis. Snow showers through the great lakes. Today and tonight. Its our slow simmered vegetables and tender white meat chicken. 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If you dont think top of my game when you think aarp, you dont know aarp. Aarps staying sharp keeps your Brain Healthy with online exercises by the top minds in brain science. Find more real possibilities at aarp. Org possibilities. For most people, earning cash back ends here, at the purchase. But theres a new card in town. Introducing the citi® double cash card. It lets you earn cash back when you buy and again as you pay. Thats cash back twice. Its cash back with a side of cash back. The citi double cash card. The only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1 when you buy and 1 as you pay. With two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem onesided. Good morning, im jose diazbalart. First on the rundown, today is the day president obamas state of the Union Address the speech