Cambridge are celebrating their third anniversary. Really . They returned to the uk on saturday after their 19day tour of new zealand and australia. Okay. Thats it for way too early. Morning joe starts right now. Sterling insists hes not a racist. He says some of his best credit cards are black. I have an idea that would work for everyone. I will buy the team from Donald Sterling for 5,000. I would be proud to take the reins of once was and will again be the worst, nose miserable franchise in all of sports. Let me say this. All of a sudden, not such a bummer to be a lakers fan this month anymore. Good morning. It is tuesday, april 29th. Look at that beautiful shot as the sun comes up over new york city. Its light out. It is light out. That is so amazing. With us on set we have editor for new York Magazine and msnbc analyst john heilemann. But its going to be 48 degrees the high. But its going to be cold, but its going to be raining. Look, you all are here. And msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle is here. And in washington columnist and associate editor to the Washington Post, eugene robinson. Everybodys here. Willie, hi. Hi. Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Right. So whats going on . Theres a lot of stuff going on, mika. Yes, there is. Where do you want to begin . We can chat about the clippers owner. We could talk about, i dont know, john kerrys comments . Oh, my gosh. Ukraine. A lot of stuff in ukraine. Theres a lot. So in light of opeds, the New York Times i thought had a great oped on the clippers owner. Yeah. Sure. John, do we have that really quickly . And i think theyre bringing up a good point because everybodys so shocked and stunned and outraged at what this guy said on the tape. But the New York TimesEditorial Board writes why did the nba tolerate this for so long . The times writes this morning, the leagues top leadership tolerated and sheltered mr. Sterling for much too long. Adam silver needs to make clear theres no place in the league for owners with plantation attitudes whether or not theyre caught expressing them on tape. I totally agree. Uhhuh. Theyre also the great gene has a fantastic oped on
racism in america. And youve got the Washington Post and wall street journal both really critical of Barack Obamas latest round of sanctions against putin in russia. Its just been woefully inadequate. I think he had an incredible response to that criticism which we will air as well. Im sure it was incredible. I cant wait. Im sure you want to bomb everybody. You complain about war and then bomb everybody. Please. If youre going to put sanctions in place, you would hope that after you put sanctions in place, the russian stock market doesnt go up. And the ruble doesnt go up on news of the tough sanctions. But well talk about that later. Lets talk about the nba right now. Later today the commissioner of the nba will weigh in on the alleged racist rant by l. A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling four days after tmz first released the tapes. Several sponsors already making their judgments. Suspending or reviewing their deals with the clippers. Some of the top brands includes virgin america, kia, state farm, samsung. The tapes capture sterling allegedly scolding his mistress for bringing africanamericans to the games and posting photos of them on her instagram account. Look at those two. Who would know they were having problems . They look like they go together perfectly. That is a love story right there gone woefully wrong. Look at them. She thinks hes so hot. What are they in five years about . Shes like i have a winner here. Shes there for love. And hes there for love too. Both of them. Seriously . Thats a november january romance. Thats a december 31st january 2nd romance. Some old men ought to be ashamed of themselves and some very young women should be ashamed of themselves. Thats what i was going to
say. All right. Mark cuban of the Dallas Mavericks cautioned against the league overreaching. Really . Really, mark cuban . Saying theres no place in re schism in the nba. Thank you for getting that on the record. Any business im associated with and i dont want to be associated with people in that position but at the same time thats the decision i make. You have to be very careful when you make blanket statements about what people say and think opposed to what today do. Its a slippery slope. Thats why the naacp was going to honor him because hes given money and done things until finally they couldnt because he said something so incredibly inappropriate. For the second time. They honored him once again. Hypocrites. Gene robinson, akeem abduljabbar has a fantastic oped in Time Magazine, but elgin baylor sued this guy for racial discrimination. We heard one complaint after another after another. Come on. Are we to believe david stern didnt know this crap was going on for decades . David stern was a really observant guy. He knew everything going on in the league. He knew Donald Sterling for 30 years or Something Like that. So of course he knew that he knew about the guy. You know, its i mean, its interesting because if you think about it, it does make a difference certainly to the players and to the coach doc rivers that this stuff all becomes public. They must have you know, they must have known this is not a guy who was probably going to invite them over for dinner. And that there was some ugliness inside there. But as long as it wasnt expressed every day and it wasnt expressed in this very public way, you know, i think they could feel comfortable. I think those are the people who are really, i think, really
caught in this situation. The people who work and play for him. And so now publicly they have to associate themselves, you know, with this awful racist who thinks theyre inferior and not part of his culture and not worthy of, you know, coming to his games unless hes paying them. Really, the players are in a horrible position. Last night i thought a great moment when the heat joined the silent protest. They did. They did the same thing the clippers did the night before. They revealed their warmups were inside out concealing their logo. Not a statement about their own owner or team but showing solidity with what the clippers are going through. Now these guys and doc rivers in the middle of their playoff series, they had a great season. They worked hard in their lives to get to this point are having to put up with this and answer questions about this around the clock. Hopefully some pressure can come off them. Its amazing when you start at
the beginning. It shows how deep if this tape is in fact Donald Sterling, how deep his racism is that he was upset that this woman brought Magic Johnson to a clippers game. One of the most beloved athle s athletes. Thats like somebody in a restaurant in 1985 in london saying how dare you bring a woman like that to my restaurant pointing at margaret thatcher. Its terrible. But when you go deeper, it was magic he was upset that Magic Johnson was at his game. Theres so much here. Now, if you read which raises the question why was Magic Johnson at a clippers game . I think the picture actually was at they had dodgers gear on. But if you read cubans full quote, he comes down very hard on sterling. We just read part of it there. But there is something to the idea that being reprehensible and being a racist and Everything Else is not grounds for having ownership taken away, but the free market can take care of it. Free agents wont sign. Fans stop coming to the game. And the other 29 owners can start coming down on him. Thats happening already. In the space of 24 hours, thats already happening. Im sorry, but, again, gene, this guy was getting awards from the naacp. I mean, come on. So its just his money talking until his mouth actually finally does the wrong thing in public . You know, i got to think, mika, thats what it was. And i dont know. I dont know why it was the l. A. Chapter of the naacp that voted and then very quickly voted to take away that award. And it wasnt the national naacp. Be that as it may, i got to assume its because of donations he made. Ive read reports he gave some
money, not huge amounts of money, but, you know, its this was not secret. These lawsuits, these discrimination lawsuits are on the books and have been on the books for some time. The housing discrimination lawsuits that he settled for discriminating against black and mexicanamerican tenants. He was quoted as saying in one of the suits that he thought black tenants smelled bad. I mean, so this was out there. Kareem abduljabbar said this. He worked for sterling in 2000 and wrote this about his former employer. Quote, the poor guys girlfriend undoubtedly exgirlfriend now is on tape cajoling him into revealing his racism. Man, what a winding road she led him down to get all of that out. She was like a sexy nanny playing okay. This is not the part of the
thing i wanted to do. What kareem was saying, the part that i thought was fascinating was were shocked and stunned now that weve got this guy on tape. And, you know, whats going to happen. Were going to attack him and then the parade is going to move on. When the bigger question is why didnt they address this a decade ago . A decade ago . How about a couple of decades ago . Theres been seemingly indifference toward what Donald Sterling is for at least two decades among other nba owners. Now, that might be oddly enough it might be the result of the fact that the other nba owners were pleased to have such a layup when theyd play the l. A. Clippers. I mean, he was a loser running a losing team. You cannot discount that. You can also not discount the power of money in Donald Sterlings life. The corruption of cash. Lets have an dinner and another one on me. When the Justice Department has him in court, its shocking. Its worse than indifference. As a lot of people pointed out, the clippers were a joke franchise for a long time. The nba proactively intervened in the chris paul deal. David stern stepped in, squashed that deal and then sent chris paul to the clippers. That was the beginning of them being a series franchise. They took a positive sfep to build that franchise up and i think theres a lot of guilty theres a lot of responsibility and guilt to go around in the situation that allowed him to fester in the way he has. There should be a morals clause or something. Would somebody with a history like that be working here . I dont think so. Why are they allowed to be owners . Turning to politics as we get closer to the midterm elections. New signs that president obama may be politically toxic forDemocratic Candidates according to a new Washington Post abc news poll. The Approval Rating is now at 41 . The lowest in this poll since the start of his presidency. Hes also struggling on the major issues of the day. Only 42 approve of his handling of the economy, 37 of the Affordable Care act, and 34 of his handling of the situation in ukraine. When voters were asked specifically if theyd rather have democrats in control in congress or republican majority to keep him in check, 53 sided with republican majority. Wow. Only 39 want democrats in charge. Willie, do you have vertigo yet . Like three weeks ago everybody wanted republicans out of the senate. Then we got more polls out, democrats going to maintain. Now these numbers are stunning. Not so much the president s numbers because i think thats
more about ukraine right now. I personally think that. But that 53 or whatever that number was . That changes every week. His personal numbers are down to alltime lows. If you look at the Affordable Care act number, its actually down five points from previous to when they announced weve got 8 Million People signed up. Everything has changed on this. All the website stuff is behind us. Democrats are going to start running on this issue, weve heard now. And they have started to in some places. Then you see how the American Public generally feels about it and their feelings are worse than they were a month ago. The numbers are all over the place here. I think a couple of weeks ago i saw something where it was almost close to breaking evening as far as 49 . Again, its just one poll. It may be an outlier, blah blah blah. But i doubt it. Numbers this bad. And by the way, its genes
newspaper so its got to be right. Right k right, gene . Certainly a welldone poll. But the numbers are so different, joe. Theyre all over the map. And so i think, you know, you look at this poll and you take it seriously. You also wait for the next poll and see whether those numbers, you know, are confirmed . John heilemann. The bottom line is the Affordable Care act is going to get a little bit more popular as we go forward by the time we get to november it will probably be more popular than it is today given the depths to which its been. But its not going to be a net winner for democrats. If i may and some democrats will need to run on it for the reasons that you said, running away from it is more politically damaging than running with it. Its not the case its going to be in november that democrats are going to be theyre embracing it because they have to, but the numbers are not going to be suddenly swung in a direction that makes it a big trump card for democrats. Its going to be a state by state by state case which weve talked about for some time now. In some states its going to be very bad. Maybe Mary Landrieu can run on the Affordable Care act and criticize states for not accepting the medicaid money. That may be something that drives some of her constituents out to the polls. Its a state by state basis. But there is no doubt theres a connection between the president and his Approval Rating and how his party does. So obviously democrats are nervous. Right. And given that, you should also look at the other parts of the poll where when asked who they trust to solve the countrys problems, 40 say democrats. 34 say republicans. And breaking it down further the democrats have a commanding lead over the republicans when it comes to womens issues. Helping with the middle class, health care, and immigration. Yesterday republicans are up. Im confused. I have a question for the table. Yes . Yes . What do we think of the increasing reliance of newspapers, major newspapers on running poll story after poll story after poll story kind of a slow time. Rather than explanatory stories about the impact of these policies on specific states and people in this country . I think right now there are a lot of people that are trying to figure out, figure out exactly how this is going to impact the election. The fact theres so much turbulence out there, gene robinson, points to the fact that this electorate is just not sure where it wants to go in the future. And, you know, weve got gridlock in washington and sometimes its almost like americans get the gridlock they deserve. And the gridlock they want. Well, sometimes i think that may be right. You know, you mentioned ukraine, for example. And its possible impact on the president s numbers. I think thats a legitimate
factor probably. Im not sure. Its kind of the atmospherics. And people are not clicking their heels about the general state of affairs and i think thats reflected in this poll too. So, you know, the solution i think for democrats is, you know, i think its good for democrats they make it into a state by state by state midterm and let Mary Landrieu run her way and kay hagen run her way and mark pryor run his way and see if you can, you know, begich is doing it in alaska. Rather than having it be a National Election which i think republicans want. Okay. Other news now. John kerry is on the defensive about comments about americas close ally israel. Yeah. The daily beast reported that during a closed door meeting with World Leaders, kerry reportedly said that without a twostate solution israel risks
becoming an apartheid state. Yesterday kerry issued a lengthy statement that says he never publicly or privately said that israel is an apartheid state or intends to become one. This is technically correct. But in the same statement he said, quote, he knows the powers of words to create a misimpression even when unintentional and if i could rewind the tape, i would chosen a different word. Barbara boxer to ted cruz, not happy with this statement. Ted cruz calling for john kerrys resignation. Yesterday on the floor of the senate. Does anyone think, though, that secretary kerry said that intentionally or do we think that was a gaffe . Do you think he wanted the word out there to put pressure on . Its a word used by jimmy carter and its caused a lot of angst in Foreign Policy circles
after he used it. There are some people that have used it. No secretary of state though has said that publicly or privately. And obviously its not only causing a lot of concern in washington, but obviously in israel. I think the secretary understands the impact of it. I just wonder did he say that intentionally . Did he want to put pressure on people or was it purely a gaffe . John heilemann, what do you think . He was obviously very frustrated that the Peace Process hed been pushing so hard went off track. I wonder if that was just frustration talking to World Leaders. My gut says it was more frustration than a calculated gaffe. To me its the language of opeds rather than the language of diplomacy. That is the kind of thing an oped writer will put out there. Its not actually an unreasonable statement, risks the decline into a situation in wuch a Public School a
minority is governing in a way the majority. The