Claimed the u. S. Title. And today, we say farewell to our technical production manager, adrian cotega lets hear it for adrian. Hes an going to head over to n after five years here with us on morning joe and way too early. Hes been at msnbc for 18 years. Why are you leaving us . Its tiring to get up this early, so im going to get up earlier. Isnt that a great excuse. Adrian, good look over there at nbc. Thats going to do it for way too early. Morning joe starts right now. Welcome to morning joe. Hold on. You dont want a painting of new york city. We want an after shot. This is a print that b. J. Has in his bathroom. Lieu how beautiful that sky is. Can you believe that . Its august, but it feels like summer almost over. Feels like september actually. Oh, look at d. C. These are paintings. Can you guys get us good morning everybody. Boy, a lot of news, a lot of news overnight to talk about. I dont even know where to start. Were going to get to a lot of news in a second. We have, though, the two richards here, right . You need the two. On a day like this, cant get any better. Richard engel is going to be here. Hes got a great passion on everything you need to know about isis. Well be showing that in about five or six minutes. Richard haass, we actually pulled him back. He was trying to get away with his family. We called him because i read this incredible piece in the Financial Times where richard proposes some things that would have been unthinkable, forget about six months ago, six days
ago. Because most experts believe youre not going to stop isis in iraq. You have to go into syria. Richard has a really thought provoking op ed in the Financial Times well talk about right after news. Thats going to make waves. Do we actually have to turn to assad and make him an ally in this battle . The lesser of two evils. Well talk about that in just a few minutes. This morning an American Writer held hostage for nearly two years in syria is finally home. Peter theo curtis is back with his family in boston after being freed earlier this week. The 45yearold was met by his mother after landing at Logan International airport. Still several other hostages remain in captivity, held by militants of the islamic state, a terror group which is increasingly attracting western jihadists, including americans into the fight. As that group rampages through
syria, there are growing signs the u. S. Military is poised to cross over that border from iraq. Well get to richard on these issues in just a moment. An openended ceasefire is in place between israel and hamas after nearly two months of deadly clashes. Egypt held negotiate the truce which is similar to an agreement that ended fighting between the two sides in 2012. Israel agreed to ease restrictions on imports into gaza while hamas is declaring victory. The deal falls short of the initial demands. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing criticism. Critics are outraged crews still have weapons after the 50day war. New polls show a dramatic drop in netanyahus ap trovl rating, down nearly 40 points from last month. Richard, i know netanyahu is getting hammered. This is a deal that hamas didnt
like. This is exactly the deal they rejected, an unconditional ceasefire. They didnt get the relaxation of all the economics they wanted. It shows, i think, the gap between hamas and people of gaza and they realized they had to make compromises. The palestinian authority, theyre in the drivers seat right now. A group of Police Officers, Police Sergeants is sending a notsosubtle message to mayor bill deblasios administration. The union took out a fullpage ad in the New York Times and the New York Post urging the Democratic National committee not to hold the 2016 convention in brooklyn. The openended letter the open letter cited the quoting danger infested public spaces adding the many your hasnt earned the right to host such an important event. The harsh critique speaks to the similar herring tension between police and city hall in part over deblasios stop and frisk
tactics. Commissioner bill brackman says theres no way the Police Department is hurting. The cops saying stay away, its getting more dangerous here. I dont see that in the numbers. Crime still down, murders still down. That was a real shot at commissioner bratton. By the way, all the over time and work are you surprised . I was surprised by it. One of brattons strengths is his ability to establish morale within the Police Department, any Police Department, boston, los angeles, new york. Unbelievable. There was a terrible accident in an arizona Shooting Range on monday where a 9yearold girl lost control of a fully automatic uzie killing an instructor who was helping her shoot down the range. The practice session was being filmed. Police released a video that is cut off just moments before the deadly incident. It is extremely tough to watch but raises questions we have to keep that elevated, otherwise the gun wont fire, okay . Turn this leg forward, there you go. Just like that. Go ahead and give me one shot. All right. All right. Pull on it. Oh, my god. Why is she shooting that gun . Why is a 9yearold girl why is she shooting that gun . Who does this . The Shooting Range manager tells nbc news that kids as young as 8 can fire weapons with parental supervision. The bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms is investigating. Thats insane. I cant even believe that. I cant even believe that. I cant either. Lets do one more quick news story and then open up. Mike, a real stunner. The New York Times decided not to endorse andrew cuomo. Not only did they decide not to endorse andrew cuomo because of ethics questions, they actually encouraged voters to go out and vote for his opponent. Didnt offer an endorsement to her but said you can send a message by going out and voting for Andrew Cuomos opponent. It was a stunner. Well, it was an easy endorsement to make for the times because the opponent has no shot at beating cuomo, no shot. So actually, its not much of a disendorsement. It was a real whack at andrew cuomo. Theyre saying make a point, vote for the opponent, because he has failed to perform job one. The State Government remains as
subservant to big money as ever and mr. Cuomo resisted and even shut down opportunities to fix it. That was his promise. Theyre saying forget it now. Its stunning, obviously a shot across the bow. Dont know it will have an impact. Lightning would really have to strike for him to not win in the fall. Not happening. I think hes going to win. Lets get back to our top story on the advance of isis. Richard, you know more about this than anybody certainly around here, other thanks of course, Richard Haass who knows more than anybody around here. We have the two richards, surrounded by the twin towers of brilliance when it comes to this issue. Isis is on the move, obviously. Here is your package and then i want to ask you questions about what happens next. Lets go to the package. Reporter the u. S. Air campaign in iraq may soon be
extended into syria to attack isis, the radical Group Responsible for killing american reporter james foley. America does not forget. Our reach is long. We are patient. Justice will be done. Well continue to take direct action where needed to protect our people and to defend our homeland. Reporter isis is taking ground in syria. On sunday attack ag checkpoint held by a Syrian Opposition group near aleppo. This video filmed by a local cameraman shows that deadly battle. Nbc news has learned that one of the isis fighters killed in the battle was an american, this man, 33yearold Douglas Macarthur mccain. Nbc has seen pictures far too graphic to show of mccains body with his distinctive tattoo. His u. S. Passport was in his pocket when he died. Born in illinois, mccain moved with his family to minnesota. He attended cooper high school. A friend described him to nbc as a joker, always smiling. After high school, mccain had several runins with the law. Nine arrests. At 19, Disorderly Conduct, obstruction of justice six years later. In 2004 mccain converted to islam. His social media postings went from talk of basketball and pizza to islamist propaganda. Under the name duala t slave of ala, he wrote the ominous words, they are coming back, soldiers of ala. This spring mccain left the u. S. For turkey. On june 9th he wrote an alleged isis member to say i will be joining you toon. The ranks of isis include many westerners including people who are converts to islam, who have no Prior Experience to islam and the culture, who are just like any other american. Reporter like thousands of other foreign fighters, he made his way from istanbul to the
syrian border and then to areas of isis control. He died near a town called oraya. Richard, we get some clues obviously from the fact that an american was killed in the front line. You had actual footage again of the fire fight that led to his death. Some experts are saying, wait a serksd they dont see americans as special enough to hide and bring to america, theyre putting them on the front lines like anyone else. This one getting killed. They have a lot of foreign fighters, and i think thats part of this issue. If they only had two or three americans, they wouldnt put them out there. Katty kay said yesterday they have over 100 American Pass pords, over 1,000 british passports, they can go anywhere they want. Numbers are complicated. Probably 70 to 100 americans that have siblgd through. There are probably 15 to 20 americans there, a dozen to two dozen at any one time. They think there are about 100245 have cycled through. Maybe some have come back, maybe some are abroad. Maybe theyre spreading out. Also, mike, did you have a point you wanted to make . It feeds off of what Richard Haass is going to speak about in a couple minutes. They funnel through syria through turkey into syria. This has a lot to do with our relations with turkey in terms of cracking down on who is arriving in turkey. Turkey has a lot of questions to answer regarding this whole situation. Turkey and qatar actually, too. If you land in qatar, theres no way to get into syria. Qatar always has this strange role of playing both sides of the game. Turkey has a big border. If you want to get into syria, turkey is the way to do it. Turkey has been making noises
recently that its trying to control its border more. I was just a few days ago down on the border area. And i didnt see any significant changes that would indicate that theyre going to limit or are able to limit the flow of fighters. Richard, we were talking about your article in the Financial Times. And a couple of really jarring points that you make that seem fairly obvious to some people in Foreign Policy, but the first is if were going to go after isis, we cannot destroy them in iraq. Weve got to go into syria. Explain. Syria has become a sanctuary. You cant go after an organization in one geographic low kale, if they can regroup and rearm and recruit in another. We need to have a global strategy against what has become a global threat. What does that mean in terms of are we working with syria . Are we accepting certain things . What would we have to give up because your fourth point in here is, if you really wanted to feed isis, then youre going to
probably have to become an ally in this battle with assad. That means accepting assad as the leader of syria for the foreseeable future. Let me explain how i got there. I argue we need to attack isis on the ground through syria in our power. Its a question of, but not if. Air power cannot do it all. Air power cannot take territory or hold territory. It can simply weaken an adversary. In iraq we have partners, curds bs, sunni tribes. We can be our own partner. Were not going to send in ground forces, obviously. We can get a panarab force. I dont see one in the making. We can try to build up the Syrian Opposition. We havent done much of it. Its a big idea. It would take a long time. Theyre divided. The most capable elements are quite islamist and radical. I said this a week ago. We find ourselves in a very
peculiar position to stop possibly the greatest threat since 9 11. Iran to the east and syria to the west. I get there reluctantly. Its because of many reasons, what we didnt do over the last couple of years. Im not saying we should do it unconditionally. We should begin the process now of having that conversation under what conditions would we be prepared to work with this syrian government. And, richard, as horrific as assad is, we can look back at Saddam Hussein and say, okay, if we can turn back the block, would we rather deal with what were dealing with in iraq or rather have a tyrant like Saddam HusseinHolding Things down there . We may be asking the same thing in syria ten years from now. Look how we got here, almost a year ago to the day we were having this debate about bombing syria because there had just been a horrific chemical weapons deck. The idea was we were going to
bomb assads forces. Now were gathering about bombing syria, but for bashar al assad. Does it mean he gets a pass . Does it mean were going to look back and say we should have been with him, the tyrant all along or do we look back and say we played our cards so badly, that we have no choice but to accept this option. We have been playing our cards badly for a very long time. Youre right. Its a bad hand. You can be dealt a bad hand and you can also play your bad hand badly. Richard engel, thank you very much. Richard haass, stay with us if you. Stay with us, mr. Bond himself, Pierce Brosnan joins us. Plus, the biden charm. Why age is just a number for the Vice President. Then miley cyrus takes a stand at the vmas. Was he a wanted man . Thats up next in hollyweird. Ahead, what it means to be sleep drunk and how its probably already happened to you. This is my excuse. He is sleep drunk right now. When folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. But the energy bp produces up here creates Something Else as well jobs all over america. Engineering and innovation jobs. Advanced Safety Systems technology. Shipping and manufacturing. Across the United States, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. When we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. Thats not a coincidence. Its one more part of our commitment to america. From safety. To fuel economy. To quality. Todays chevrolet has it all. And the time to buy is now. Its the chevy labor day sale and 0 financing for 72 months is back plus, no Monthly Payments for 90 days. 0 financing for 72 months plus no Monthly Payments for 90 days on most 2014 vehicles. The chevy labor day sale going on now. Find new roads at your local chevy dealer. All right. Its time now to take a look at the morning papers. Hello, thomas. Good morning. Good morning, thomas. You bring a good voice to the table. Im struggling. From our parade of papers, the los angeles times, the Beverly HillsPolice Department is expressing, quote, regret for the extremely unfortunate event when officers cuffed and detained a black Film Producer in town for the emmys in connection to a crime he did not commit. Wow. Officials say the man, charles belling matched the description of a bank robber wanted in the
area. In a statement on facebook, the producer said, quote, i was tall, bald, a male and black so i fit the description. He has retained a lawyer. The department maintains its officers, quote, properly detained the producer. Wow. Not the headlines he wanted to make for emmy week. No. I think there are are issues there that weve all been talking about lately. Well talk in about ten minutes, theres an op ed in the New York Times about how the Supreme Court protects bad cops. Certainly weve seen whats happened to black young men across america and certainly saw it there. Well be talking about that in about ten minutes. The wall street journal is reporting social messaging app snap chat has a 10 billion valuation. According to insiders, funding
has been put in to raise the valuation. The firm was also last week facebook offered 3 billion to purchase the company which was turned down. Snap chat has 100 million monthly amazing. I do every day with my kids. The thing is theyre going to put commercials on them. You need to see it right away. I dont know how they or going to do it. The valuation, i think that always blows peoples mind, that theyre able to put that type of dollar figure on what this means. As youre talking anti, the commercials, news headlines. 100 million users a month. Kids do it all the time. I am really old. I am, too. Its crazy. Its a kid thing. Youre doing it. I know but im trying to do it and the kids will do it in two seconds. And they take a picture they snap chat all day, like 50 times
a day. I banned computers from my house, iphones. Ive scrambled the signal. We just sit around and read oliver twist. You put a slammer in your house. Joe, you should read this. From the Atlanta Journal constitution, the town of my birth. New Research Suggests waking up disoriented and confused may be more serious than it seems. According to a new study and here i am im sleep drunk. Th