>>> wow. look at that chopper shot. welcome back to " morning joe ." harold ford jr . is still with us.
>> beautiful, isn't it?
>> and joining us from washington, associate editor of the " washington post " and political analyst eugene robinson .
>> i'm glad he's here. gene, really quickly before we go to the other people. honeyboo-boo's parents reportedly getting married. what's your response in washington?
>> i think there's shock and dismay, but general rejoicing.
>> what does it say about us? what does it say about us that honey boo-boo's parents are coming together and getti inting married?
>> i think this is a seminal moment the evolution.
>> there's no doubt, we're coming together. people are getting married. bill bennett was right. the societal forces that were pulling us apart in the '60s are now bringing us together. and i do suspect that 100 years from now, people studying such things. i don't know what you call them, sociologists, i don't know, what will -- i don't know what they'll be called 100 years from now. they'll look back to this date, this moment.
>> think about that.
>> this is when we started -- when we started --
>> honey boo boo .
>> you haven't seen honey boo boo ?
>> all i know because i caught a little piece of it --
>> you can't just get a little.
>> can't just get a little.
>> can't just get a little. and we're not going to talk about it any more. and here's msnbc political analyst steve schmidt. you've seen honey boo boo before.
>> i've seen it one time. i couldn't take my eyes away. it's amazing. it drew me in and --
>> leigh gallagher's here. fortune 500 , who is number one?
>> number one is walmart with $469 billion in revenue.
>> yeah. that's great.
>> yeah.
>> we're going to be talking about that and we're going to see --
>> have you seen duck dynasty?
>> no, i have not.
>> you need to see "duck dynasty."
>> compelling tv.
>> we're going to start. can we please, to the news? i'm begging you.
>> we're going to talk about "obsessed" burning up the charts.
>> don't make fun of me. thank you.
>> chris christie , you talked to chris christie last hour. he's had surgery.
>> he's in "obsessed" and we talked about whether or not he should get that surgery. anyhow, it's an amazing story. that is big news.
>> that is huge, i'm excited about that. i need surgery to expand my brain, do they have that? what?
>> your brain is big enough.
>> i think somebody stapled it when i was young, i want to take the staples out and let it expand.
>> when joe says things like that, i just say roll tide.
>> let's get started on this amazing story, mika.
>> it starts in ohio, found alive after ten years, police say three women, amanda berry , gena dejesus and michelle knight appear to be in good health after a neighbor helped them escape from a home in cleveland. berry was extremely emotional when she spoke --
>> so these girls were kidnapped for ten years.
>> yes, in their teens and one was 20 years old, they were held captive in one house .
>> one was 14, one was 16, another was 20. i think one of the girls had a baby with the captor.
>> we don't know that. there was a young child taken from the house . we don't know any of that yet. obviously there's a lot more of this story. and most investigators and people who do this kind of work trying to find these people do not have an ending like this where they're found alive.
>> right. there was jaycee dugard a couple years ago.
>> exactly. this is incredible. and you can hear on amanda berry 's voice when she's trying to explain who she is, she's having a hard time getting it across. take a listen.
>> hello, police , help me, i'm amanda berry .
>> you need police , fire, or ambulance?
>> i need police .
>> what's going on there?
>> i've been kidnapped, and i've been missing for ten years and i'm here. i'm free now. hello?
>> yeah, talk to the police when they get there.
>> okay. are they on the road right now?
>> we're going to send them as soon as we get a car open.
>> no, i need them now before he gets back.
>> how old is he?
>> he's like 52.
>> all right. and --
>> i'm amanda berry , i've been on the news for the last ten years.
>> oh, my gosh.
>> imagine getting that call.
>> i know that 911 operators get tons of crazy calls and this one must have sounded crazy. but if you're amanda berry and they say, when we get a car open, we'll stop by. are you kidding me? i don't think so. she was like, no.
>> the headline. she's like, look at the news.
>> unbelievable.
>> everything she said was absolutely true.
>> who was behind this?
>> well, there's three brothers as far as police know at this point. all in their 50s, in police custody right now awaiting charges. two of the young women were in their teens as we mentioned when they went missing, the third was 20 years old. the neighbor who came to the rescue was as surprised as anyone to discover the missing girls in the home next door.
>> heard screaming, i'm eating my mcdonald's, i come outside, and i see this girl going nuts trying to get out of a house . so i go on the porch -- i go on the porch and she says help me get out. i've been in here a long time. she comes out with a little girl and says call 911, my name is amanda berry . amanda told the police , i ain't the only one, there's some more girls up in that house .
>> it's unbelievable, it's unbelievable what courage she had.
>> yeah. sounds like she took a run for it and took a lot of chances and broke away and probably saved everybody else .
>> somebody else said --
>> that's her in the hospital to the right there.
>> somebody else said they barbecued with one of these brothers.
>> with one of the guys who lived in the house or kidnapped these girls allegedly would barbecue with the neighbor, drink, i think, mojitos and listen to music and had no idea the neighbors that there were at least three women and a child living in the house trapped in the house .
>> unbelievable.
>> there's so many unanswered questions. we'll be following every part of this and as soon as we bring in information, we'll bring it to you.
>>> turning now to other news. the ongoing investigation into the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi . according to excerpts released by house republicans, a u.s. diplomat who was in tripoli on the night of the attack, told investigators that u.s. special forces were prepared to fly to the consulate but were told to stand down by regional commanders. gregory hicks at the time the deputy chief mission said he called for military help for more special forces operatives in tripoli but was overruled. he told house republicans, quote, i believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter air or aircraft or two over benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, then there would not have been a mortar attack in the annex the next morning because i believe the libyans would've split. but the pentagon said they had to stay and defend the embassy in tripoli .
>> this is more information keeps coming out. this information is damning, reminds me when les aspen was asked for more support in somalia and refused to send that support. now we have a similar situation where you had the ambassador who was the first u.s. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979 asking the state department . asking the obama administration for more support. needed more security. he warned repeatedly of problems on the ground. and then we find out that night that actually you have somebody ready to move with special forces and they get the order to stand down. more information comes out and it's more damning information. i don't think we've heard the end of this benghazi story.
>> we haven't. and it's now taking place outside of the context of a presidential campaign . this was debated at the height of that campaign. it was politicized, politicized by governor romney. but now as this information comes out as we look more deeply what happened over the months to come, this isn't looking great for the administration and for the initial stories.
>> i mean, the more we hear, the more muddied this becomes and the worse it looks for the administration. because you always say, we've got to let this play out, we'll let them investigate it. and when the details come out. the details are really starting to come out now again with this testimony, he's going to be testifying before the steven hicks, going to be testifying before the house committee . i suspect we'll learn even more in the coming days.
>> we will. and it may take more time, but we'll learn exactly what happened that evening. and i think people who dissembled, people who were less than clear in their initial answers are going to have explaining to do.
>> let's go to gene robinson . gene, you don't want to jump to conclusions . my good friend mike huckabee is saying that barack obama 's not going to serve out his second term because of this. maybe mike has some information i don't have. but even looking at it from a distance, removed from this, you can look at it and say, hey, a lot of this stuff doesn't seem to line up right and it appears the white house needs to get as much information out as possible as quickly, would you agree with that?
>> i would agree with that. i mean, don't forget that people were reassigned and relieved of their duties and gotten rid of because of the -- in the wake of benghazi because the administration's already acknowledged that people made mistakes, made bad mistakes in responding to what was going on. absolutely, let's investigate the whole thing, let's get the facts out. outside of the political context and see what happened. but, you know, i think let's get the testimony and we'll see. but clear, just from the result, you knew it was not handled as it should have been handled. we'll find out who knew what and who didn't do what on that day. outside the presidential election context, i think this is the best way to find out.
>> exactly. and we are -- we have a distance now from the presidential race and all the noise from that race and now you just look at the facts and we'll see where the facts lead us. right now, doesn't look really positive for the administration. gene, while we're in the middle east , i've got an idea for your friends at the washington post . you and richard cohen , you should get a cable in the middle of the newsroom, turn off the lights and shine one light down on the table and you guys should have an arm wrestling contest to settle the syria thing. every morning you write a column saying we need to stay out of syria , he writes a column saying we need to go into syria or else we are immoral pigs. i, of course, paraphrase. you guys couldn't be any further apart. why do you think it's so important to stay out of syria ?
>> well, because i don't see what -- i don't see what good we could do there. i don't see how going into syria will necessarily make that situation better. i see how it could make our situation a lot worse by essentially entangling us and bogging us down in yet another middle east war. one that i don't think we fully understand. that i don't think we have a side to back in. it is a true mess. and i think those who say we ought to do something, ought to say what it is we ought to do.
>> before we get to the pottery barn rule that you talk about in your piece, i want to bring in nbc news foreign correspondent --
>> i love pottery barn .
>> i know you do.
>> they make like new tables look old and stuff like that.
>> they do. i'm not sure that's the rule we're talking about.
>> makes me feel --
>> like distressed, yeah, i understand that. i'm distressed right now. if you could give us a sense of complexities involved as to make a decision to stay out or get in.
>> that's a very good question. there are so many complexities. if you start, first of all, with the ongoing conflict itself, the actual actors insights here are now connected to players outside of the country. in effect what you really have unfolding there is a proxy war . on one hand, you have the regime of president assad backed by the militia group hezbollah backed by the iranian government , also diplomatically given cover by the russians and chinese at the united nations . you have that dimension. on the other side, you have the rebels divided into two groups. on one hand, you have the -- you know, if you will the free syrian army and political organization backed by countries like saudi arabia , qatar, which are close to u.s. allies including turkey and to some extent the united states . and you have the ultra extremists who ideologically are very different than the other countries represent. it's a very complicated situation .
>> and gene, in your column, you talk about how complicated this war would be let's look back over our history with world war ii . with 70 years of hindsight. it's the good war, we won the war. yay. korea, quagmire, vietnam, quagmire, then the first gulf war , which we thought we won but found out really it was a draw. then the second iraq war , a quagmire. afghanistan , a quagmire. i'll tell you what, a lot of those wars looked a lot cleaner. no war is easy, but they looked easier than syria . are we going to add syria to that list of quagmires? how many americans have been killed in afghanistan this week? 14? still going on in a war that america's not paying any attention to. it's a disaster. are we going to really go to another war?
>> you know, and what is the danger in afghanistan now, right, by the way, the bigger danger is our allies in the afghan forces who keep attacking our soldiers while we pay the corrupt karzai government with satchels full of cia cash. but that aside, just looking at syria , just take one huge issue, for example, the chemical weapons . you know, so if we go in there, right now they're presumably under the control of assad , presumably secured in some way. we go in there and assad falls. what happens to the chemical weapons ? who gets them? do we secure them? i've seen an estimate it would take tens of thousands of u.s. troops , boots on the ground just to be sure to secure the chemical weapons . are we going to go there?
>> yeah, that's a great question.
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