that s why we re there, and that s why we re going to continue to make progress on this relationship. all right. good morning. it s tuesday, july 27th. welcome to morning joe. i m mika brzezinski. willie is on his way. i don t know, he s celebrating something today. i don t know what he s up to. he s like having a party. it s his birthday. it s his birthday? that s good. okay, well happy birthday. his anniversary. for what? the show. what show? all right. on the set with us, msnbc contributor mike barnicle. msnbc political analyst pat buchanan. and president of the council on foreign relations who is more clued in than me, obviously, richard haass. author of the war of necessity, war of choice a memoir of two iraq wars. a great book. we ve got an important show coming up today. a lot to cover. some of our guests will include pennsylvania governor ed rendell. former white house press secretary ari fleischer. the new york times bob herbert. also, yesterday,
blagojevich parents, both of their young daughters today are in the courtroom to hear every word of it. jenna: that must not be easy. a lot has been said about his legal team. talk about the expectation for the defense s final argument. reporter: you can expect it to be very dramatic in large part because it s going to be conducted by sam adams jr. and that s how he conducts business. it s also going to be dramatic because it s all the defense has right now. they never put blagojevich on the stand or presented a case. all they can do is argue to this jury that the government never proved its case, and in the course of doing that they have to convince the jury because the government never proved its case that s why they never put rod blagojevich on the stand because there was nothing for him to disprove, jenna. jenna: mike, thank you very much. continue to watch it for us in chicago. sure to be an interesting day, afternoon if you will. jon: it is going to be, that is going to be a wi
desk following the events around the world and the media desk so we can turn it into television. jenna: new details on the release of the lockerbie bomber, the white house reportedly was not in the dark about scotland s decision to let the mass killer go. wendel gol ser live from the white house. what s the reaction to this report from the london times? reporter: jenna, with the release of 91,000 documents, classified documents, about the war in afghanistan, the white house perhaps understandably not wanting to comment on a new leak, london sunday times managed to obtain a memo from the deputy head of the u.s. mission in london to a scottish official that indicates the u.s. was notified about scotland s plans to release the libyan intelligence agent blamed for the pan am bombing, though it indicates u.s. permission was ago. magra he was israel dollars based on the assessment the cancer left him only three months to live. the memo makes clear the u.s. was released but said i
shut down efforts to permanently plug bp s ruptured well. good afternoon. i m savannah guthrie in for andrea mitchell today. we re going to begin with that still evolving controversy surrounding former usda employee shirley sherrod. in a dramatic turn of events that has taken her from termination to vindication in a matter of 72 hours. sherrod was forced out over remarks she made at an naacp dinner back in march but now the agriculture secretary who forced her to resign is reconsidering that move. the whole thing began when a conservative columnist posted portions of sherrod s speech in which she describes her initial reluctance to help a white farmer. on monday sherrod was placed on administrative leave and then forced to submit her resignation. the agriculture secretary, himself, issued a statement strongly condemning her remarks, standing by his decision. the naacp went further calling her actions shameful and intolerable. but by tuesday a different side of the story sta
obama aids may not be flying to chicago. it is july 21st, 2010. i m chuck todd. good morning, i m savannah guthrie. we ll get right to the rundown. we ll lead with a story looking like a classic washington rush to judgment. a flurry of condemnations, then reversals and apoll jis and the 24-hour media machine driving it all. the white house now says the usda should reconsider its firing of an official dismissed over alleged racist remarks, shirley sherrod. there are a lot of developments, so we ll do the tech talk real quick. it started when a conservative columnist posted portions of a speech sherrod gave at a naacp dipper in march. she describes her reluctance to help a white farmer who came for aid. i was struggle with the fact that so many black people had lost their jobs and here i was faced with a white person saving their land. so i m going to give him the full force of what i could do. the usda asked shirley sherrod to step down. the naacp issued a statement call