kennedy elusive hero. good to have you all on the set this morning. chris, you look at maureen this morning and you look at dana millbank and howard fineman. the reviews aren t positive for the president yesterday. you re laughing. i heard cokie. cokie and i winced at the same time. it s not my job to get them to behave. congress s job is to not behave and have 78% approval ratings and dragged. i thought it was a necessary press conference rather than a good one. he did one. the only question he liked was about the basketball player. the other question did you notice he played the four corner offense, joe, the four corner offense? slow it down, seven questions? right. in an hour? that s what you do. long answers that reduce the number of questions. guns didn t really get going a lot. you ve been talking about that a lot.
top of the hour. welcome back to morning joe. mike barnicle is still with us. he won t go away! along with caty kay in washington and joining us is wretch stengel. columnist for the new york times and former rome bureau chief for the paper, frank bruni. i didn t know that. two years in a row. what have you not done? in washington host of msnbc hardball and author of jack kennedy elusive hero, chris matthews and along with the post, e.j. dion. we have so many good catholics here. except for let me restate that. we have so many catholics here! e.j., let s start with you. i know that this is an interesting selection for you. because this is a pope who does focus on the poor, has focused
and i just want to say, you know, i was here 15 years ago or something. you know, i had no idea what i was doing. i stood out here in front of you all. really just a kid. and i went out, you know, and i never thought that i would be back here. and i am. and it doesn t matter how you get knocked down in life. because that s going to happen. all that matters is that you ve got to get up. violet, sam and sara, i love you. this is for you. all right. welcome back to morning joe. mike barnicle is still with us. and joining us on set, the host of msnbc s hardball and author of jack kennedy: elusive hero, chris matthews. also on board this morning, the editor of the new yorker, david remnick. the latest issue of the magazine is now out on newsstands. david, good to have you here as well. good to be here. so what? nothing. let s go through it real quickly. i can t wait to hear about everything.
wow, we have hardball s chris matthews, the author of jack kennedy elusive hero and democratic mayor of san antonio. most commentators on all sides of the political spectrum say this was a progressive speech. what was your take on what the president said, how he said it and what it means for this country moving forward? i think it was what grabbed me in the beginning, recognition is another point of view. when he talked about skepticism. he listed all the good things, regulatory power and administration and legitimately questioned the ability of the government to do any of these things. he talked about what i thought was the news was iran. i think he said, i m not going to war with iran last night. i think it was about iran, iran,
people as they judge that period have to see what we accomplished and what we did wrong. and for the future, i would advise all those who follow me and the position of president, do the big things as well as you can. but when a small thing is there, deal with it. deal with it fast. get it out of the way. because if you don t it s going to become big and then it may destroy you. after a memorial ceremony at the nixon library in yorba linda california, the president s oldest daughter tricia said she hoped people would remember her father as a good and decent man. with me now is host of hardball chris matthews. author of kennedy & nixon. also jack kennedy: elusive hero out in paperback. there was a column by roger simon that inspired me to sit there and say you can t. everything about nixon is complicated. roger simon just went through every single of the nastiest things that nixon said on those