Good morning, it is friday, august 1st. Oh, look at that. Oh, dear lord, where did july goes . Time flies when youre having so much fun. Welcome to morning joe, everybody. Time goes a lot faster. Boom with us on set, we have Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst, euGene Robinson. Pulitzer prize winning author jon meacham is here. We have so many pulitzers here. Won the masters in 86. Wasnt it odd three or odd four . We have breaking news so if we can just move forward here. Right, willie . In washington, senior Political Editor and White House Correspondent for the Huffington Post sam stein. Never won a pulitzer. He has so many years ahead of him, though. What did we win our pulitzer for, willie . It was fan fiction we wrote. Yes that is it i think it was a how to. That was it. Did you forget what year it was . It was odd three. I cant remember what summer it was. They run together. Can we go to the breaking news now . Im confused. Read the New York Times website. It is still saying this morning at 6 01 that a ceasefire in gaza conflict takes effect and, yet, breaking news came over the wires a couple of hours ago that i read industri industiously and typing away. They dont give up a lot of resources in morning joe. Then ceasefire is broken. The Associated Press is using the word unraveled. Ceasefire continues. It describes a lot of heavy
firing back and forth. It is a scene we could tape where willie is smoking and reading the ticker. Unbelievable. Both sides are accusing the other of violating the truce. Palestinians claim at least four people were killed in heavy clashes. Prime minister netanyahu, his office says terror groups blatantly broke the ceasefire. Follows another day of fierce fighting. Pen members of a Palestinian Family were among 17 People Killed thursday in israeli air strikes. Five Israeli Soldiers were also killed in a bombing and Officials Say militants fired nearly a dozen rockets into israeli an hour before the ceasefire with went into effect. This is really not a ceasefire. This is as close as youre going to get, i guess. We have live coverage from gaza and israeli now following the breaking developments. Joining us from tel aviv, nbc news correspondent Martin Fletcher with the latest. It looked good about an hour, mika, then, unfortunately,
things started to unravel. You used the word unravel but very heavy fighting. The early news that four palestinians have been killed by shell fire from an israeli tank. The Health Minister is now saying 47 palestinians have been killed this morning since the ceasefire went into effect. So we dont yet know why the fighting break out. The original israeli report that palestinian gunmen emerged from a tunnel in the south and attacked Israeli Soldiers where upon the israelis began to respond, so israeli is blaming hamas and hamas is blaming israeli so this is just happening now. We need to be careful about how we say who started it and who is fault it is. The bottom line is that this ceasefire, which everybody was in which everybody placed so much hope 72hour humanitarian ceasefire joining the two sides would meet in cairo and hopefully negotiate a way to end the hostile its, is pretty much over by now. I really hate to say it but it seems that way. A report that the israeli officials have told the United Nations directly the ceasefire is over, but we havent yet heard that officially but the death toll is mounting and the fighting is heavy. Mika . Martin, its willie geist. How could anyone Going Forward believe in or trust any ceasefire that comes about . And everyone we have talked to and everyone you spoke to said the only way for the two to take a break and sit down and talk talk and come to some kind of agreement. What is the way forward . No trust for the two sides and never has been frankly. How does this get resolved . Reporter how does it get resolved . Simple question, right . Reporter i wish i knew. Come on, buddy reporter but always it is the question. I suppose at this moment only one way which is, first of all, this is the fifth ceasefire but it was the first one in which both israeli and hamas had
together agreed in doing it. And it was, the heavy support of president obama and the United Nations. This looked as if this was the one and unraveled in almost immediate. You know what . Basically, until each side realizes the limit of its own force and the other understands the problems of the other side and accepts them and wants to deal with them, there is really no end to this. Eventually there is going to be an end to this round of fighting. It will happen one way or another through a truce and maybe israeli say we destroyed the tunnels that was our main goal and withdrawal unilaterally and probably the way it will end but the third round of fighting within five years. Martin fletcher, thank you. Now lets go to nbc news correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin. Set the stage after the tragic hours after a ceasefire was announced. Reporter i think the right
word to describe it is an implosion of a ceasefire. I can tell you what a difference a few hours makes. We woke up this morning it was very quiet along the beach here in gaza. We started seeing, within an hour of the ceasefire, dozens of families, children, and even gazas fishermen setting sail to go out for the Early Morning catch. Within an hour after that as reports coming in from the fire taking place and the sounds of shelling we heard and fighter jets and rockets launched into israeli word spread quickly along the beach that this ceasefire had collapsed and you could see in a matter of minutes people were off the coast and fishermen heading back into the way. Let me bring you uptospeed what we are hearing on the ground here. We have confirmation from the hamas delegation that is supposed to be heading to egypt and egypt shaun Officials Saying they cant travel into egypt and meaning no talks taking place as scheduled today and comes from one hamas official scheduled to be part of that delegation participating in the ceasefire talks. We are getting some snishl
casualty reports from Palestinian Health officials here on the ground who are saying as a result of that ongoing fighting taking place that at least 27 palestinians have been killed. That is just in the early hours of this morning since that ceasefire was supposed to happen. There are still a lot of questions as to how the actual ceasefire broke down, but no doubt that palestinians are blaming an initial attack by the Israeli Military in the positions that they had in the southern part of the gaza strip. Again, that is the palestinian side that is coming out of hamas official and Health Officials here. Its very difficult to confirm the exact sequence of events but you can imagine that there is going to be a lot of trading accusations how this broke down in the coming hours. Joe . And i wanted to ask you about what youre hearing on the ground. Obviously, youre right there in the middle of it. You have been during the entire crisis. And the United States, we are trying to figure out how blame is being assigned. Obviously, obviously, a lot of anger at israeli in gaza, but
what is the attitude toward hamas . What are you picking up about this was obviously a faction growing increasingly unpopular in that area. Is any blame being assigned to hamas or is this actually just reinvigorating them as a Political Force in gaza . Joe, when we talk about hamas as a Political Organization there is the distinction made between them as the ruling Political Institution here in gaza and then ultimately as a Palestinian Resistance movement and, more specifically, its military wing. I can tell you that Palestinian Resistance, the military wing as its seen here is very highly revered. People do not criticize the resistance fighters as they see them on the ground and those are the people that are engaged in the fight so to speak against the Israeli Soldiers and behind some of these attacks that were seeing. When it comes to hamas as aPolitical Organization, there is a long list of criticism against it as an organization. Here inside gaza, over how it has conducted so many of the domestic decisions, the political infighting with other palestinian factions. Some of the severe measures it has taken and imposed on people here, but that is not the opinion of palestinians when they are talking about it in the middle of a war. When you go out and you hear palestinians talk about it, when you see the news reports that are coming out that the military wing of hamas has carried out an attack, it is widely celebrated here and seen as a symbol of defiance that its fighters are capable of carrying out an attack on one of the worlds most Popular Military despite the fact they are under siege and going up against a wellfunded modern army. That is how the reality is here on the ground. It doesnt mean that hamas is above criticism among palestinians but whether it comes to theish of fighting they are perceived differently particularly its military wing, which is the most powerful in terms of the ongoing fighting here. Ayman, Gene Robinson is here with the Washington Post and so he doesnt have to tell you,
but i will. He has won a Pulitzer Prize. Go ahead, gene. Ayman, first of all, take care of yourself over there. Second, so hamas thank you. At least the political wing could not have been happy about a negotiation a next meeting set up in cairo, they are enemies of the current egyptian government. Do they or do you see a route through much hamas could even negotiate a real ceasefire . Reporter well, that is a really good question and probably one of the hardest questions to answer for two reasons. One, hamas itself is having a little bit of internal divisions. You know, you have the exile comril leadership of hamas and engaged in direct negotiations with qatar and turkey on their behalf but, at the same time, a little bit of resentment
internally here that some of the hamas leadership dont want them making decisions on behalf of the people that they are not directly in tune with. Now that is not necessarily lost on the Decision Makers aboeed but nonetheless that has been one of the difficult issues. But as you mentioned, there is a little bit of hostility now between hamas and the egyptian government, they simply dont trust them. It used to be a threeparty negotiation. It used to be hamas and egypt and israeli. Now its become a sixparty negotiation now that the United States is involved, turkey is involved and qatar is involved, so you is imagine how complicated the talks are taking as they bounce around the six different parties. Jon meacham is here. He won a pulitzer too. Go ahead, jon. Ayman, an impression in the United States right now there is sort of two levels of combat going on. One is the israeli attempt to plug these tunnels and the other, the rockets and the tanks. Can you describe what the combat
feels like . Is that a correct impression that you have something going on above ground and below ground . Reporter absolutely. When this conflict started, israeli, it launched its air campaign to stop the stated objective was to stop palestinian rocket fire. There is no doubt that as the ground operation began and israeli began to suffer some serious casualties in the first week of the fighting, it emerged that perhaps the bigger threat, other than the rockets to the israeli civilian population, was this underground system of tunnels that hamas has been building for years now. I dont think anyone had a good comprehensive sense how complex the tunnels were and deep they ran into israeli and the positions it exposed within the Israeli Military establishment, particularly that along the gaza border. That is why we are seeing a spike in israeli casualties like we have never seen before in conflicts. Ive covered two separate conflicts and this by far has the highest casualty toll for
the idf and more than the previous two combined. That is a gamechanger with respect to the palestinian fighters here and why we are seeing israeli is reluctant to withdrawal until it completes the job of destroying these tunnels. Ive spoken to palestinians who have actually been involved with these tunnels how they are built and they have a good understanding of them. Unless israeli is willing to follow the entire length of the tunnel into gaza, they can block it, they can destroy it on their end, but they are saying within a couple of months, these tunnels can be reopened. We have seen that hamas and other palestinians factions have been digging dunels acro inging border with egypt for years and they have not successfully been able to stop the tunnels across the southern border and unless there is a political solution, these tunnels will be a massive security headache for israeli for many, many years to come. Nbcs Ayman Mohyeldin, thank
you very much. Thank you, ayman. One day before the first plane struck the World Trade Center on 9 11, former president bill clinton was in australia speaking about the terror leader who was just hours from changing the course of history. Listen to this. Im just saying, you know, Osama Bin Laden is a very smart guy. I spent a lot of time thinking about him and i nearly got him once. I nearly got him. And i could of killed him, but i would have had to destroy a little town called kandahar in afghanistan and kill hundre 300 innocent women and children and then i would have been no better than him, and so i didnt do it. Jon meacham, that is absolutely stung. Its stunning. What is so stunning to me is that its taken 13 years to unearth that cape . How did we not know that . This is unbelievable this is like a history changer. We had this debate back in, like, 2002 and 2003 and 2004 about could he have stopped him, could he not . Now we i mean, youre no. I mean, i think we kind of knew the basic scenario that there was a shot that could have been taken at him and the decision was not to take the shot because of, you know, Collateral Damage that would of taken place. I think we knew that, but we didnt know it from the mouth republicans were claiming that and then there were all of these heated arguments. No, we never really had a shot at him. No. There is big push back on that. There was a lot of wag of the dog talk because it was during impeachment so there were charges that clinton was trying to use Foreign Policy to distract the country at the
time. We had no problem doing that at the time. Well, just saying. The day of impeachment, he fires missiles into iraq. I think its totally fascinating. The other great clip put together if youre studying this is when, i think it was Chris Wallace asks clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative a couple of years ago about it and very harshly, and clinton, i think, starts tapping him on the leg and says, you made your bones for fox news now, but here is the real truth. The other thing i think it does, it does show that this was not a subject that was a bolt from the blue. Right. In the National Security community in the turn of the century. Yeah. Its just amazing. Fascinating. It is. Fascinating it took so long to find that audiotape. I woned hder how we unearthed t. Was that you, willie . It was an australian who was there and holding on to the
tape. A palestinian from australian had it and was holding on to the tape that long. August 1, 14. He put it in a sock drawer and forgot it. Unbelievable. We had a lot of going on capitol hill last night. Things happened. Before we go to break, it took one session on wall street to wipe out all of the gains from the entire previous month. Did you see this . The dow sunk 317 points. Its worse day since back in february. Traders dont like what we are seeing from corporate earnings and underlying concerns about the feds plan to end some stimulus programs. We will follow that. Its still at like 17 zillion. There is still a massive divide between wall street and main street. You wonder why people were confused. Werent the headlines 48 hours
ago we are growing faster and then the market crashes. What is going on . Income and inequality goes up and the market goes down. Ahead, crippling conditions in california. We will tell you about it. Baltimore ravens running back ray rice speaks out about his, quote, inexcusable actions against his fiancee. Then a fight to save one of nashvilles legendary landmarks. Willie has that story in our 7 00 hour. Later, what its like to play one of the most influential performers of the past century and he is actually done this kind of thing before. Chadwick bosman who almost literally becomes james brown on a movie. He is an incredible young actor. Willie, you reported on this, talked to mick jagger about it. I went down to the set and
watched him transform. He is incredible. These movies hang on the performance whether or not you can believe this guy like jamie foxx in ray. Chad bossman is so good, people will be blown away. We have to make this announcement and i want to apolog