a dive a reacting to the news. the question is why are the ratings agencies still not impressed by the understand rece united states recent conduct? >> and plaxico burris known for accidentally shooting himself in the leg at a new york night club is returning from prison to the big apple, but not to the g men. the question is, if plax keeps the safety on the gun in his sweatpants, will the jets take that next step this season and go to the super bowl. it's way too early for this. good morning, i'm willie geist and this is "way too early," the show hoping it can make a debt deal with that bookie who's been coming by the house quite a bit lately. we're good for the money. i'm glad you're up with us this morning. shoot me an e-mail at way too early and let us know why you're awake.

622639. we'll read the best responses latter in the show. the next 30 minutes will be your cram session for this monday, the first day of august. yes, its eye august. there's a lot going on today including the syrian government opening fire on its own people again in it a slaughter yesterday. how will the united states and the u.n. respond? plus hugo chavez sweats to the venezuelan oldies. all part of hisdy play to the world that he's on the road to recovery and that he can crush a tracksuit. that clip a bit later in the show. but first let's get to the news live at 5:30 a.m. with just one day to go now before the budget deadline, the house and senate are expected to vote today on a package to raise the nation's debt ceiling after all this talk. president obama announced from the white house last night that congressional leaders had reached a last minute agreement to avoid default. admitting, though, the deal does

have some flaws. >> is this the deal i would have preferred? no. i believe that we could have made the tough choices required on entitlement reform and tax reform right now rather than through a special congressional committee process. it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis that washington imposed on the rest of america. it ensures also that we will not face this same kind of crisis again in six months or eight months or 12 months. and it will begin to lift the cloud of debt and the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over our economy. >> the agreement proposes a two stage process to raise the debt ceiling by at least $2.1 trillion and includes an initial $1 trillion in spending cuts over ten years. next it forms a bipartisan committee to recommend additional cuts of at least $1.5 trillion. if congress fails to act on the

committee's recommendation, the deal would force automatic spending cuts, what's called a trigger. the proposed deal also extends the debt limit through 2012 which you just heard is a priority for president obama. it gets him through the presidential election. moments before the president spoke, majority leader harry reid and minority leader mitch mcconnell both a ddressed at senate announcing they will meet with their respective caucuses this morning before the vote, the leaders both encouraging their colleagues to support this bill. >> america and the world have been watching expectantly and my message to the world tonight is that this nation and this congress are moving forward and we're moving forward together. >> a high degree of confidence that there is now a framework to review that will ensure significant cuts in washington spending. and we can assure the american people tonight that the united states of america will not for the first i'm in our history default on its obligations. >> now house speaker john

boehner has to sell this deal to conservatives in his own party. last night, boehner held a conference call with all 240 republican members of the caucus telling them t deal is not perfect, but said they had come a long way. he said in part there's nothing in in framework that violates our principles. it's all spending cuts. the white house bid to raise taxes has been shut down and as i vowed back in may when everyone thought i was crazy for saying it, every dollar of debt limit increase will be matched by more than a dollar of spending cuts. we'll see if he can get everybody to come on board came. many from the president's own party already criticizing the proposed plan. the congressional progressive caucus and congressional black caucus scheduled a news conference for today to discuss their opposition to the deal. editorial pages this morning offering strong reactions to this deal, as well. the "wall street journal" calls the deal "a tea party triumph." the "new york times" editorial page reads to escape chaos, a

terrible deal and paul krugman, the president surrenders. within that piece, krugman writes the damage is not over. le there will be more choke points where republicans can threaten to create crisis unless the president surrenders. and they can now act with confident expectation that he will. now for the political fallout of the deal, national affairs editor for new york magazine, john heilemann joins me by phone. good morning, john. >> good morning, willie geist. >> so is paul krugman write, did president obama surrender to this small faction of the republican party known as the tea party? >> pretty much. i think that's about right. the president, if you think just from the 30,000 foot vantage point, the president talked for months about a balanced approach and from his point of view, a palled approach included revenues. he didn't get any revenues. so almost everything, gave in. the only thing he got that he wanted was a debt ceiling increase that would carry him

through the end of next year. and that's something. certainly not just in terms of his political calculus, but also in terms of economic stability for the country. but it really was the only thing that he ended up winning in these negotiations and they were fought almost entirely and concluded almost entirely on republican terms. >> here's a big question with no obvious short answer. how did this happen? you have a democratic president. you have a democratic senate. obviously the house controlled by republicans. but it seemed the small group of complains drove the conversation and drove the president into a corner where he had to agree to this deal most of which progressives hate. >> well, i think the question of had to, you know, will be a question long debated and certainly a lot of the president's core supporters don't agree that he had to agree to this deal and he could have ended up someplace better. but there's no question that in a system of government like we

have, a committed band of very strong i'd londeal logically du members, because those people had not just control over the president, they basically had tr control over their own leadership. the tea partiers were fighting as much as with john boehner as barack obama. if you're willing to hold the line and the other sides keep caving, you can get a lot of ground even though you have relatively small numbers and only partial control of one chamber. >> and real quick, john, looking at the nuts and bolts of this deal which has not been approved yet, this congressional committee, we get the first round of cuts, and then the congressional committee, what is that exactly? >> well, it's a bipartisan committee with equal numbers of republicans and democrats who are going to try to sit down and hammer out some kind of a deficit reduction compromise. and if they don't, a series of

things happens. including pretty draconian cuts, particularly to the defense budget. and thdomestic programs. that triggers what's supposed to force these people to come up with a plan that can get agreed to in the congress. i'm not sure that anything we've seen in the last three months indicates that there's any kind of plan that that committee can come up with that will be acceptable to get past. so we may be just rerunning this entire fight all over again on the back of that special committee. and that might be the representative place where the triggers in combination with the expiration of bush tax cuts which that would allow is how we end up getting a bug budget deficit reduction after 2012. >> thanks for waking up extra early. and by the way, on behalf of all your twitter followers, that picture of the steak you defeated ought saturday night,

fantastic. >> yeah. it was good. john heilemann, we'll talk to you later. after a bruising week, global markets are higher this morning. for a preview what have we can expect on wall street, let's bring in anna edwards. how do the markets >> not too bad from a global perspective. nikkei up by more than 1%. around a percent on the hang seng. that positive different feeding through into european equity markets. in a couple hours in to trading here, the ftse 100 for example up by 1.3%. the futures for wall street also suggest that wall street will see a decent bounce perhaps by around 1% at the start of trade today, as well. >> all right, anna edward, thank you so much. and the credit ratings agencies have not said we're not going to downgrade you because of this. they still have larger concerns. other news.

act it i viss say the syrian government is she willing the flash point city for the second day. security forces backed by tanks and snipers reportedly opened fire on protesters yesterday. reports say troops stormed the city to quell dissent and continues calous calls for remo al assad. the attacks comes as the muslim holy month of ramadan begins today. mike taibbi has more. >> reporter: in this amateur video described as coming from the scene, government troops set fire to vehicles while shooting

their way into the city. the narrative described a coordinated attack using tanks and grupd troops that unconfirmed reports later said let scores dead and hundreds wounded. many of the casualties reportedly shot at point blank range. one blogger wrote that government troops even surrounded the city's main hospital to pre-haven't treatmeprevent treatment of the wounded. children among the victims. the death hole nationwide at more than 1600 now in these months of largely peaceful protests. but it's a flash point city in control of activists who have promised daily demonstrations until assad relinquishes power. >> president obama called the reports horrifying. still ahead, plaxico burris, fresh off 20 months in prison for shooting himself in the leg, makes his nfl comeback moving over one locker room in the

meadow lands. so how does g. does he make the? plus scott brown and that old shirtless cosmo spread come up smack dab in the middle of sunday's debt debate. how does that handsome son of a gun figure into the conversation? that and a check on weather when we come back. [ male announcer ] if you think "heroes" are only in movies,

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welcome back to "way too early." 5:45 in the morning as you look at a beautiful live picture of the united states capitol where there will be all kinds of voting going on this morning on that debt deal agreed to yesterday. let's get a check of weather from bill karins. >> morning. good weekend? >> pretty good weekend, although i'm looking at that hot -- >> yeah, the same map i've been using all summer. >> you are not even bothering to put up new maps. >> no, just keep recycling. the sheet returning to the middle of the country. the heat dome if you want to call it, whatever term you want to use, a see liridiculous fore. dallas the hottest week you've seen all year. also the weather headlines at the end of this week will be on

what will probably be hurricane emily. right now it's just beginning to form, it will be near puerto rico in two or three days. the reason this is of concern, it could be somewhere near the bahamas or possibly florida by the time we get to next weekend. so that will be the big story. everyone in new england also bring the umbrella because of thunderstorms. >> a lot of clouds and humidity. thanks so much, bill. let's it turn to sports. remember this man? after serving 20 months in prison for illegally carrying and firing a handgun in new york city, plaxico burris is back in the nfl. he fired the handgun into his own leg. both the giants and steelers reportedly interested, but the jets have signeded h ehim to a year deal. burris signing means meaning it's unlikely they will keep braylon edwards. the jet also resigning antonio cromartie to a four year deal worth $32 million after losing

out to the eagles for nnamdi asomugha. a great pitching match-up in baseball. tigers verlander and angels weaver scoreless when a two run home run stays just inside the foul pole. and then in the event, guillen crushing a fastball. weaver has a talk with the home plate umpire and here's why. he stares down weaver as he trots to first. both teams get a warning. there you go. you knew that was coming. next batter, weaver sends a fastball at his head. he's thrown out of the game. comes unraveled on the way out yelling at the detroit dugout and he has a case. meanwhile verlander has a no-hitter going. you can't bunt to break up a

no-hitter. he reaches second. verlander gets a throwing error. the crowd boos. unwritten rule, you don't break up a no-hitter with a bunt. same inning. aybar caught in a run downle pl should have been an out, but verlander drops the ball in the tag. no-hitter still alive. two outs. slapped in to left field making it 3-2 and it that's the final score. verlander allows just one hit over eight innings with nine strikeouts. the aybar bunt was ruled an error, not a hit. so that was the one that broke up the no-hitter. apparently the x games getting bored with regular dirt bike racing. their solution, litter the course with dangerous rock obstacles. results, poetry in motion. this is your x games, friends. pileups on every turn. the track is impossible to maf

maf gate. what is this? a beautiful chaos 50u6 created there, x games. might want to scrap this one and go back to the drawing board. coming up on "morning joe," in a sunday night announcement, president obama tells the country there is a deal on iz rag the debt ceiling. we'll tell you why progressives, though, less than enthused by the news coming from the commander in chief. that man very happy, john bay they ar boehner. when we come being about a, we'll watch the chavez workout. i love that my daughter's part fish.

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the tentative deal on the deficit will give president obama the chance to increase the debt limit, something he's done three times since taking office. it's a move just about every president who has had the chance to do it has done during his time in office. if you want to sound smart today, tell your friends since the first federal debt limit was set in 1939, harry s. truman the only u.s. president not to raise the debt ceiling. truman came into office nine days after the debt limit had been raised and actually lowered the limit one year after taking office. let's huddle up around the water cooler to hear grover norquist

who has been at the center of this debt conversation roping scott brown's modeling career into the conversation. making the point that there is vulnerable republicans sitting out there in 2012. here's what he said. >> the republicans will take the senate in 2012 if you look at the 23 democrat seats up, half in reddish states and ten republican senate seats up, all in reasonably rop states with the possible exception of massachusetts and he's got $10 million in the bank and looking great in a bathing suit. >> take it back to june 1982, cover cosmo pal tan magazine. brown won the sexiest man in america. 22 years old. grover norquist was like no bathing suit. i don't know what bathing suit he's talking about. hugo chavez is working out to promote the healthy government healthy body campaign and to showcase his fight against cancer. the government produced the video showing chavez doing

exercises right there at the palace. he's got the country's emblem right there on the jacket of his workout suit letting the country know that he's healthy and able to govern. he's kind of like our michelle obama. she's doing the let's move campaign. he's doing the whatever that was. i'm not really sure. still ahead on "way too early," why are you awake is th? and "morning joe" just moments away. [ male announcer ] this...is the network -- a network of possibilities. in here, the planned combination of at&t and t-mobile would deliver our next generation mobile broadband experience to 55 million more americans, many in small towns and rural communities, giving them a new choice. we'll deliver better service, with thousands of new cell sites... for greater access to all the things you want, whenever you want them. it's the at&t network... and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say.

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call or click today. welcome back to way too early. number one story obviously, washington strikes deal on debt ceiling. we'll talk a lot more about that here on "morning joe." want it show and y to show you last night. it's been a long couple months for john boehner. he's walking through the halls of congress and he has the old quack ring on his cell phone. watch this. >> do you think you'll get the

votes to pass? >> hello. >> so he has the quack e-mail. what kind of process has this been, how tired is this man? just watch him get on the elevator. that map man is tired. at the top of the show, we asked what you you're doing up. rob has a few answers. >> between quick ones. chris writes i'm awake because open registration at my college begins at 6:00 a.m. and i need to make sure i register for a political rhetoric class to better understand what you all are talking about. >> no, no, you must be a freshman. you twoowant to get into rocks jocks. and a gym class. >> and sherry writes i'm up doing my chavez routine. tomorrow i