Ill start it and well go again. But im not im not going to be overly selfconsumed about this. And nor should the people of the state be all that concerned about whether i can do my job. I can get out of bed every morning. All right. Okay. Good morning, everyone. How about that . They keep on asking him that. What do you think about that . Welcome to morning joe. What do you think about that . I think its a little late to be asking him about his weight as if its a big, huge issue that we dont know anything about. No, they have a former white house doctor commenting on his weight saying hes going to drop dead in office. Ridiculous. You know what, though, his own doctor, he admitted yesterday in this press conference said that he was worried about Chris Christies weight and said that his luck was going to run out soon. So whats breaking news about this . I dont know. Why do you have to be such a scold . Im not a scold. I like him a lot. I think he represents a problem millions upon millions are facing. What, that hes a republican . Anyone watching that sound bite or anything else understands that it is almost an impossible journey to take the road back from obesity and that he will do it, but it will be a very, very long haul. Youve got a good friend thats doing it. I have a good friend whos doing it. Were writing a book together. 75 pounds. Its amazing what she has gone through to get there. And i wouldnt even begin to judge him. And quite frankly in terms of his ability to do office, take a look at what hes done and make your decision. I dont get it. Really . What am i missing, Mark Mckinnon . Willie geist. Modern culture. Obsession. Yeah. I kind of felt bad for him. Willie, you see this, like, Lance Armstrong quote, hes not going to give back any of his money . Is this guy im just curious is Lance Armstrong perhaps the biggest jerk in american sporting history . I mean, he says im not ty cobb is up there. Im not going to give back any of my money, the bonuses. You know, we taxpayers paid him through the u. S. Postal service. Which on its face is absurd. The fact that a bankrupt agency is sponsoring him. Livestrong, and hes getting millions and millions of dollars. I understand theres an investigation thats going to be launched against him, but why doesnt he give that money back to the people whose lives he tried to destroy when they tried to tell him the truth . This guy is such a jerk. This wouldnt just be the right thing to do, it would be a good pr move if hes interested in rebuilding his image to give a little of the money back to some of those people. You mentioned theres a federal investigation we just learned about. Drug distribution, fraud and conspiracy charges are going to be brought against Lance Armstrong. Witness tampering, intimidation. Really quickly one other sports story because i know mika loves talking about sport. Sportball, as mitt romney would call it. This ryan braun guy, mvp, right, a couple years ago. He keeps getting, like, busted. Hes got good lawyers, i guess, and now hes on this miami list. Yeah. Not looking good. He vaguely admitted that he had done some business, perhaps, with this group in miami thats now under investigation, under suspicion for having connections to other guys in major league baseball. He was cleared in the last one. You know, he was hes got good lawyers. He was an mvp, a great player for the brewers. He was on an original list, but he was cleared. You know who else is on that list . Mika brzezinski. Are you still roided out . I didnt get to the complete story. His lawyer released a comment. What is it . Would you like to read it . Yes, i would. That would be amazing to actually through your roid rage. Fully discuss something. Its a Washington Post story. His lawyer says he doesnt see any merit in the lawsuit saying my only point is no athlete ever to my understanding has ever gone back and paid back his compensation, not new Orleans Saints coach sean payton or anyone else. They were suspended, but nobody said youve got to give your paycheck back. Wow. Just classless. Im pretty close to this issue. I serve on the board of livestrong. And i believe that lance has to get to a place where he has to serve a cause greater than himself. And i dont think hes there yet. He cant do that. Well, hes got to at some point. It goes against everything that he is and that he has been. Can i ask you really quickly, mika, one other thing, too . I saw something and i dont know if it was actually in the Washington Post or if it was just online. I was blown away that the Washington Post published a story regarding Michelle Obama, the first ladys physique and that they did this because of something that a High School Football coach said in a small alabama town. That was their excuse for doing the story. Oh, right. I just thought it was way out of line. Thats a poor excuse because i believe whoever made the comments was just some random person. It was a random High School Football coach in a small town. And he said it in private, willie. And suddenly the Washington Post is using this as an excuse to talk about the first ladys, as they said, derriere, posterior . The Washington Post, really . You go to a small town in alabama with a High School Football coach who makes a statement in private, and this is your lead . I dont even talk about the story if you can even call it that. Lets jaus talk about the standards, willie, of the Washington Post. What was that about . Thats an odd peg to a story. That was a recorded coach in a locker room, one of the kids in the locker room recorded him saying some pretty terrible things about Michelle Obama including talking about her rear end. If that really was the impetus for the Washington Post story, its pretty confusing to me. The Washington Post doesnt have a lot to write about, i guess. Theres not a lot going on. No. We find out that the United States government now thinks it has the right to kill american citizens without due process or without probable cause or without any evidence. Economic calamity at hand. By the way, i want to get to all the news stories. Ive got to ask Mark Mckinnon this story. Barack obama, hell sign, like, some regulation that will say that a federal agent can go pick up a tumbleweed off the side of the road in a deserted road somewhere in Middle America. And republicans will stream to the floor and theyll scream, tonight, freedom was destroyed. How many times have you heard that . Barack obama has destroyed freedom. Tonight, you know, obamacare. They say barack obama has destroyed tonight freedom died. Thats what we always hear from these republicans in the house. And here you have something truly chilling. Here you have the United States government saying we can kill you, american citizen. You have no constitutional right to a jury by your peers. You have no constitutional right even to probable cause or to due process. You have no right to a lawyer. You have no right to counsel. You have no right to anything. If we suspect you, just suspect you without evidence that you were thinking about committing an act against the United States of america, we can kill you. And we have no there are no checks, and there are no balances. We can kill you. We can pick you out of a list and drop a bomb on you. Not only can we kill you, we can then kill your 16yearold son whos not even affiliated with al qaeda. And then we can blame it on the father for us having to kill the son. That seems to me to be something republicans might perhaps be concerned about, go to the floor about and talk about. They talk about all these other insane things where they say freedoms dying tonight. No, this is a great example of where the constitution is being stretched well beyond its limits. Well, forget republicans. How about liberals and democrats . I mean, can you imagine if george w. Bush had proposed this idea . Of course. Thats obvious. Im a little contrarian with you on this. I agree with the policy. I think its a good idea. You think its possible to kill americans without probable cause . Thinking about the threats against us and the machiavellian plots, im willing to err on the side of giving government a little bit of latitude. Americans dont have a constitution this kid, the 16yearold kid, goes out to a restaurant and gets killed. I understand. Because of his father. Im sure im in the minority of the stable, maybe in america. That causes you no concern . As i said, joe constitutionally . Really . I err on the side of giving the government latitude on this one. We have katty kay with us as well from washington. I didnt get to do the intros. Good morning, katty. Morning, mika. You want to chime in on drones . Are you with Mark Mckinnon . I think there has to be a whole lot more open discussion of the kind we tried to raise a couple years ago, roy blunt tried to raise it in the petraeus hearings and was sort of smacked down by dianne feinstein. But now its out there so much that the secrecy element is gone, and i think there has to be a real discussion both about the constitutionality particularly when it comes to american citizens but also the wider ramifications of whether this is actually serving our National Security cause. Because whilst youre taking out some al qaeda leaders, youre causing huge amounts of resentments in some of these areas and possibly fueling the next generation of militants in places like yemen and the pakistani borders, if we extend it into somalia or mali, there are a whole lot of people who are going to feel extremely angry about missiles raining down out of the sky and taking down people not always associated with terrorism. Theres a story in the New York Times this morning of an imam who spoke out against al qaeda. Operatives came to speak to him. As they were speaking under a tree to threaten him, missiles came down and took them out. What does that do in that community in terms of a sense of what america is doing, anger towards america and the fueling of more people who feel they want to join the cause of jihad . And the probable cause, by the way, jon meacham, now is and it really is if youre a man between certain ages and you are within the proximity of members who are suspected to be members of al qaeda, you are presumed guilty and they kill you. Youre in the kill zone. I would be an imminent threat. Youre presumed to be that. Yeah. You know, the rule of law here, katty and i always joke about how she feels about losing the colonies. Shes not happy. Still mad. I dont think shes as grateful as she should be that weve allowed her to come back. Exactly. This is one of the reasons we broke away from her crowd, was that there were i dont see where this is going. Im struggling with this one, jon. That the rule of law could not simply be in the hands of the king and could not be arbitrarily applied. And thats precisely what this is, is in the hands of an american king. And an american king that actually gets the list of people who he decides should be killed and who should not be killed. And the New York Times reports that he goes down that list. And theres so many things that are chilling here. I do got to say, mika, again, just to follow up on what Mark Mckinnon said, this is one of those times where you cant even say if george bush were doing this because if george bush were doing this, everything that was going on in washington, d. C. , would stop today. Yes. There would be congressional hearings called. There would be articles of impeachment. All of washington, all of manhattan, the entire press corps would stop and focus its attention on this unprecedented overreach, constitutional overreach. Well, i think some of it will come out in the brennan testimony, and that should be very, very interesting. I think we made the point yesterday that if this was happening in the Bush Administration, people would be going crazy especially in the sort of echo chamber. But i do think, when you think through the debate on this and the debate you and i would have on this, we would end up exactly where we are on the debate about torture. Where we both end up evolving a little bit because we both love this country. We both want to respect the moral values that its pinned upon, but we also both want our children to be safe. Right. I mean, i think that the debate would sound the same. Its a balancing act. I am surprised and willie, let me bring you in here because we went through this a lot, talking about enhanced interrogation techniques. And pretty soon even sleep deprivation and things that are done to u. S. Soldiers in basic training started being defined as torture. So im going to say enhanced interrogation techniques. I never could have imagined, under george w. Bush and dick cheneys leadership, that it would devolve this far. As i said, i was upset after reading the New York Times article about how long padilla had been incarcerated without seeing an american lawyer. I mean, some things just arent right. And this just doesnt seem to be right. Well, i said it yesterday. Ill say it again. I have a big problem with people being held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for years and now decade. But i have a bigger problem with people who are being killed without charge in the field of battle. So if youre outraged about enhanced interrogation, man, you should be really outraged about somebody being killed on the spot on suspicion of being a terrorist. And a lot of this is a semantic question. If you read that memo, the word imminent is used a lot. What does it mean exactly . How do we know that this person is intimately involved in something that is intimate . Also, the term senior, operative. When we hear these come down and they come across the a. P. Water, we ought to start using a little more scrutiny and ask, what does that mean exactly . What does it mean that the guy you killed is a senior al qaeda operative . How do we know hes senior . An operative . Al qaeda . There are more questions that should be asked. So youre right, hold somebody at gitmo without charges. Thats one level here. You kill somebody without probable cause or evidence, thats right there. And then you make it an american citizen who is protected by the United States constitution . Jon meacham, and suddenly that raises it to an entirely new level. The u. S. Government can decide which american citizens its going to kill without probable cause, that is frightening. And, of course, the next step is, the killings start taking place on american soil. Sure. And were not far from that. I think i said this yesterday. I think this is the ultimate manifestation of this blending of Law Enforcement and warfare that was thrust upon us by the attacks of september 11th, 10, 12 years ago. Theyre now so intertwined, its almost impossible to pull them back apart. And one thing i think we have to be wary of is the history of executive power in the country bounces from one extreme to the other. We almost always overreact. So you dont want to get too much oversight and too complex about it because president s know, there is a need to be able to strike. But i would love to hear what the debate on this was. And also, i want to get to a couple more stories before we go to break, but how history will look at this will be so interesting because it might be the Bush Administration policies from wiretapping to gitmo to torture that led to information that led to whats happening here. I mean, it all will be related at some point. And the debate will be complete i muddled. And its the debate we were having before president obama went into office. Everything that you predicted has come to pass. And more. And more, exactly. Other news. A new government report predicts the budget deficit will drop below 1 trillion for the first time during obamas presidency. The Congressional Budget Office which assumes that federal spending cuts will go into effect march 1st says the government will run a deficit of 845 billion this year compared to last years 1. 1 trillion shortfall. But the cbos tenyear outlook predicts those improvements will not last. It warns that an aging population will drive up entitlement spending and Rising Interest Rates will put the debt at unsustainable levels. If current laws remain in place, debt by 2023 only ten years from now will equal 77 of gdp. Thats roughly double the 39 average seen over the past 40 years. And president obama is asking lawmakers to take quick action as a march 1st deadline approaches that will trigger deep spending cuts. The New York Times writes this morning that mr. Obama, who missed a deadline this week to submit his annual budget to congress, acknowledged on tuesday that a broader deficit agreement is unlikely to be reached by the march deadline. He provided no details about the tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts and tax adjustments that he wants congress to pass quickly. More specifics could come when he delivers his state of the Union Address next tuesday. With nearly 1 trillion of domestic and defense spending hanging in the balance, the president says the impacts are already being felt. Theyre never there are never were not going to run it. Okay, go ahead. There are never specific spending cuts. Democrats never provide specific spending cuts. Democrats alex, im just curious, how long has it been since democrats have passed a budget in the senate . Watch this. Watch this. 1,379 days. Wheres the full screen . I thought we had a full screen. Since before the ipad. Since before the ipad, exactly. No labels, nonpartisan group, of course, has this no no budget, no pay, w