But it was an easy choice after doing the diligence on the network itself. They do an excellent job. Can you see at home how people might think absolutely. Hes asking me in my life to make choices about light bulbs and a cost benefit analysis for the purpose of sustainability when i just want to see my book. That was a different approach than we took yesterday. Welcome, everyone, to morning joe. Good morning. Its thursday, january 31st. With us on set, we have msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle. Msnbc political analyst and visiting professor at nyu, former democratic congressman, harold ford jr. Good morning. Morning. Professor, wow. And in washington, nbc news capitol hill correspondent, Kelly Odonnell. Willie, good morning. Good morning, mika. How you doing . Im doing great. That made me a little uncomfortable. Why . Jon stewart was being awfully tough on al gore. Oh, really . I dont think so. I think he gave him a pass. You asked him a couple of questions. We asked him the same question. I didnt really get an answer. He kind of went all over the place. It was like major bigpicture analysis to the point where you almost find him in the clouds. Theres not really an answer to that, is there . Took money from oil to get money for his book. I dont mean to say this well, i guess im just going to say it. Its kind of like jim baker. Jim and tammy faye bakker. You know, that sexual morality was at the center of everything he did, and then he gets busted with jessica hahn. I cant believe i remember her name. Wow, theres so many disturbing thoughts there. I used to watch larry king in the 80s. Al gore i mean, he has been a missionary for Climate Change, preaching against fossil fuels, and he got 100 million what was it, 100 million . Thats the report. 100 million of oil money. It wasnt media money. Its not like theyre making money at al jazeera. He got 100 million in oil money. So his argument is their coverage of Climate Change is extremely good, but you know what . I am sure somebody else would have bought his book. So it really i have to tell you, it doesnt look good. Could have bought the network, but 100 million. Could have bought his own book. I dont know. Yeah, i didnt get an answer. Im not sure its fair. Maybe hes doing something productive with the money. I hope so. I hope so. Hey, did you see that clown show . Which one . The gun show. Oh. The hearings. The gun hearings. Did you see the clown showdown in washington, d. C. . All of these people, all these images of these, you know, little mama with a baby. Needs an assault weapon to defend her little babies. And if we dont give them a clip with 30 these not going to be safe. Highcapacity magazine, shes not going to be safe. She cant lock and load. Do you think it would be good if i had a highcapacity magazine . No. Especially not on roids. I have a rifle. Okay. The suggestion, though, that a mom needs a bushmaster to protect her children and her house, we dont give her that with a highcapacity magazine, that somehow were come on. We need to show that. Youre talking about senator Lindsey Graham. He showed the chart. This lady. The woman had a gun. She had a. 38, six shots in it. He said an intruder comes in, shes in the closet protecting her children, she gets off six shots, five strike the guy, but it wasnt enough to kill him. So that if she had the ar15 or a semiautomatic weapon, she would have been able to kill him. He fled, she killed, but hes saying she would have been able to kill him, not just strike him down. This is just a sick conversation. But its part of theres a similar thread to all of this, and its fear. You listen to Wayne Lapierre yesterday, its fear. Gun sales are driven by fear. His opposition to background checks is driven by trying to inject fear into the culture. Its all fear based. And i thought mark kelly was the best of all. Were going to show all this because there was such powerful testimony on capitol hill. Did you see it . It was great. I got a big laugh out of Wayne Lapierre. He actually trotted out the survivalist argument. I know. I saw it. Were going to show it. We might have a hurricane, and then its going to be like stephen king, zombies. You know, you get three shots into a zombie, seriously. Did anybody read the road . Did anybody read the road . Has nobody seen the book of eli . Has nobody seen the book of eli, really . That gary oldman character, hes scary. And if you just have a glock okay. You wont see a bible. No, you are cooked. A street sweeper. I need my bushmaster because the zombies are coming after me. Theres going to be a tornado. The power grids going down. Locusts are going to descend from heaven. Is glenn beck still selling survival seats, willie geist . I didnt get the subscription when he went to the new network. He did have those ads on fox but i havent seen them lately. I need survival seats now. Im going to get you some for your birthday. I think with every bushmaster that is sold, the nra ought to give coupons to the book of eli and get the road, which is a great book. Of course, zombies, people eating people, end of the worldtype stuff. Okay. So we will get to this ridiculous testimony on capitol hill as well as some of the powerful testimony in just a moment. I want to do these other stories first. You have to stay with me here. Come on, now. They had a bushmaster. They tried to eat them, lock and load. What do i do . He almost died in the driveway. He almost denzel almost died, if he had a bushmaster or anyone a Rocket Launcher come here, now. Its all right. Have you seen the book of eli . I have. Its a great underrated movie. You know what else i saw . I just saw it. Denzel, man, flight. Thats good. Thats good. Flying upside down. There are good movies this year. Flying upside down. Including you know okay. The stewardess had a bushmaster, she could have shot him before he got on the plane. Now im going to do the top story. Cut his mike. Today the white house is facing a new set of challenges after the Commerce Department reported yesterday that the nations economy shrank for the First Time Since the great recession. How did that happen . Well, Government Data shows the Gross Domestic Product contracted at a. 1 rate in the Fourth Quarter of 2012. It was the first decline since 2009. It put the white house on the defensive after months of touting steady job growth. Theres more work to do, and our economy is facing a major headwind which goes to your point, and thats republicans in congress. Talk about letting the sequester kick in, as though that were an acceptable thing belies where republicans were on this issue not that long ago, and it makes clear, again, that this is political brinksmanship of the kind that results in one primary victim, and thats american taxpayers, the american middle class. Okay. What do you think is going on there, joe . I think whats going on is that we have spent more money as a government over the past four years than we have in the history of the republic. Added 6 trillion in debt. And we have just been on a keynesian spending spree, and the economys contracting. The idea is, the federal government put some money in, and thats going to create larger job growth across america. It just hasnt happened. So the question is how long do we make this bet . Robert reich writes about Consumer Confidence in the huffington post. The stock market is bullish because corporate profits are up, costs are down, the fiscal cliff agreement has locked in low taxes for most of the uppermiddle class and wealthy, and theres no sign of inflation as far as the eye can see. But corporate profits cant stay high when American Consumers whose spending is 70 of the u. S. Economy are this pessimistic about the future. Theyre just not going to spend. American Companies Wont be able to make up the difference in forward markets. Europe is careening into a recession. Japan is still in deep trouble. Chinas growth has slowed. Profits are the highest share of the u. S. Economy on record. Wages are the lowest. But this imbalance cant and wont last. Cant and wont. And look whats happening on wall street. Theyre doing better, willie, than ever before. Mmhmm. Ever before. For the past four years, wall street has exploded over the past four years. Real income has dropped for middleclass americans. The poverty rates gone up. One in four americans are on food stamps. You talk about two americas. John edwards is right. Incomes. Over the past four years, and its certainly not the president s fault alone, its washingtons fault, in general. But over the past four years, you just look at the numbers. The rich are getting richer. The poor are getting poorer. Wall streets doing great. Main streets suffering. Dow jones hovering still around 14,000, which is a huge number. Wow if you read reaction to this number that came out yesterday, from economists left and right, by the way, they say dont read too much into it because of what youre talking about, that Business Investment is on the rise. Consumer spending is doing okay. Housing is coming back a little bit. So this feels like its more related to a lack of government spending, cuts in defense spending than it is about some of the important consumer things that we look for in the economy. Hopefully it acts as a catalyst for congress and the senate to understand that if they get some deal around the fiscal cliff and around spending cuts, sequestration are to come, and two, we invest in things that are growing jobs, particularly energy. Im just saying this should be a sign to those in politics, dont play with this. Theres so many good things. Theres a lot of corporate money overseas waiting to come back. Profits are up. Its just waiting for that last one or two levers to be pushed. And hopefully we as a country and the congress can do it. We want to get Kelly Odonnell in on the testimony. For that we go to the testimony that took place on capitol hill yesterday. Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who survived a mass shooting in arizona two years ago made an unexpected appearance before the Senate Judiciary committee, reading off a page of handwritten prepared remarks. She urged congress to act now on gun reform. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard. But the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you. That says it all. Giffords husband, mark kelly, says expanding background checks for gun buyers should be a top priority, but the nras chief executive yesterday, even after that, refused to give any ground. We know from what happened in tucson that if there was an effective background check, which includes having the Mental Health data and the persons drug use, in the case of the tucson shooter, into the system, and if, in fact, there was no gun show loophole, i would contend that he would have had a very difficult time getting a gun. If background checks are good enough for somebody whos a federal firearms licensed dealer like walmart, for instance, where i just purchased a gun a couple months ago, a hunting rifle, and i had to go through a background check, why isnt that good for other sales . My problem with background checks is youre never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks. I mean, all the lawabiding people create an enormous federal bureaucracy. We arent going to prosecute any of the bad guys if they do catch one, and none of it makes any sense in the real world. I dont get that. Senator Lindsey Graham and others at the hearing made the case for higher capacity magazines. Would i be a reasonable american to want my family to have the 15round magazine and a semiautomatic weapon to make sure if theres two intruders shouldnt run out of bullets. Am i an unreasonable person for saying that in that situation, the 15round magazine makes sense . There can be a situation where a mother runs out of bullets because of something we do here. Six bullets in the hands of a woman trying to defend her children may not be enough. An assault weapon in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon. And the peace of mind that a woman has as shes facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home with her children screaming in the background, the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary looking gun gives her more courage when shes fighting hardened violent criminals. And therein wow lies the problem with having to defend assault weapons. Because if you go out and try to defend assault weapons, then you end up looking like a jackass. Seriously im sorry, but thats true. Willie willie that was gail trotter, a gun advocate for the independent womens forum. And before that, Lindsey Graham who said, i am unreasonable to think that a woman needs a highcapacity magazine . Rambo in the house. To defend come on. Seriously . This is so stupid. And Wayne Lapierre saying, you know, the criminals out there, the criminals out there that arent going to abide by background checks, so we should just have no background checks. Well, why do we willie, why do we have any laws on the books . There are terrorists that are going to end up just let it be the wild west. In the United States of america. Why do we even try to stop al qaeda, right . They say theyre going to attack us again. So why dont we let down all of our defenses and just give up . One of the problems or the problem, i think, with the story they told over and over again about the georgia woman with the two infants is that she did defend herself. She shot the guy five times, and he left the home. She had a gun with six rounds in it. She was able to defend herself. She didnt kill him. On your other point about lapierre on the universal background checks, cbs poll shows 92 of americans favor them including 89 of republicans and 93 of gun households, people with guns. 93 . Willie, these people are such Wayne Lapierre is from the survivalist wing of the nra. And if youre Lindsey Graham or other republicans that are going to march off the cliff with Wayne Lapierre, youre a fool. Youre going to get what you deserve. And more republicans are going to lose. Nobody listened to me. Nobody listen to me. And colin powell and other republicans warning about how this extremism is going to cost us in 2012. Its going to cost us in 2014. Its going to cost us in 2016. They can decide. They want to start winning elections again or not . Its stupidity. Kelly odonnell, you were on capitol hill yesterday. Do you think what we saw in that room over the course of a long day will have impact now legislatively, on the outcome of this whole gun debate . Well, i think one of the things thats so important about watching that is when you distill it down, you see the theater and extreme points of view, but its what congress has to work through because these issues are not easy. You can come up with a scenario to give an argument for why an individual and i notice that they tended to only speak of women who needed to defend themselves, which, you know, is perhaps an effective argument you can find those scenarios. You can do the survivalist thing like after katrina or after the riots in l. A. Where there are pockets of anarchy that might exist for a period of a few days in the United States where people might say, ive got to have a weapon. Then youve got the heartfelt, emotional testimony of Gabrielle Giffords and her husband. Its so important to remember, Gabrielle Giffords is partially blind. She is partially paralyzed. Heres somebody who i used to talk to in the hallways, and now you can see her struggle to get those carefully chosen words out. Thats a very real example of what can happen. Youre also seeing lawmakers who are trying to figure out, okay, if they do something, will it be effective . So part of what youre going to find in the debate is theyre going to kind of work through all of these extremes and scenarios to see if they can settle on something that people can agree on, having worked through it. You heard graham say, you know, if we do something, might we end up having yet again a mother who cant defend herself . So part of what youre watching is the sausage making of policy. Its not always pretty. No. Working through it, talking about it to try to get to some answers. Its not going to be easy. You know, its not going to be easy also, harold ford, not just for republicans but for democrats in the senate. You know, we, every night, we tweet out questions to ask, you know, what are your ideas . Last night after doing Gabby Giffords speech, hes from tennessee, im a huge fan of his. Glen reynolds. Glen reynolds said ask the question about the courage that Gabby Giffords is asking to be shown. Glen said ask that question of democrats in red states that are running in 2014 . Are they going to have a political courage to do what Gabby Giffords thinks is the right thing on background checks, on highcapacity magazines, on assault weapons . I think it is unlikely that the congress will pass a ban on assault weapons. What about these democrats . How hard is it for the moderate democrats . Speaking specifically of those democrats. I think they will have a hard time voting for a ban on assault weapons. I think willies point about the background checks and the almost universal support makes it a much easier argument to pass. And two what about the highcapacity magazines . Then on these big magazines, i think theres an agreement, a compromise, to be made for those who want to shoot and use those magazines at shooting clubs and while some may hunt with that, keep them there. And if you want to take them out, you have to register in a more serious and comprehensive way than you would checking out a book. I use the library analogy only as a metaphor. It would obviously have to be more stringent. On moderate democrats, pu