Transcripts For MSNBCW First Look 20180413

Mohyeldin. We begin with the exclusive reporting on the Mueller Investigation. The cooperation between the white house and the special counsels belief to be damaged beyond repair by mondays raid of President Trumps attorney. Nbc news reports that months of talks collapsed and muellers team is moving through without a president ial interview. One source said the president s lawyers wanted any interview to last only a few hours and were preparing to expand his legal team to prepare for it. They also wanted mueller to agree to write a report within at least three or four months after completing the interview. Now white house special counsel ty cobb said it was untrue that talks have broken down and President Trump weighed in with this tweet, quote, i have agreed with the historically cooperative, disciplined approach that we have engaged in with Robert Mueller, unlike the clintons. I have full confidence in ty cobb, my special counsel, and have been fully advised throughout each phase of this process. Without the prospect of the mueller interview, they could close the investigation more quickly. Three sources familiar with the investigation say the findings mueller has collected on trumps attempts to obstruct justice are his attempts to fire jim comey, trumps role in the crafting of a misleading Public Statement on the nature of a june 2016 trump tower meeting between his sob and the russians and his dangling of pardon donees before grand jury witnesses who might testify before him. Theres the pressuring of ag Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself in the russia investigation. Mueller would likely send the findings to deputy Rob Rosenstein. Hell decide whether to make the findings public and send his findings tots legislature. Rob rosensteirosenstein was outside of the white house. Now bloomberg reports that that meeting was meant to cool tensions though one person briefed on the meeting said trump seemed distracted during it. Now the number one book on amazon this morning, as you can imagine, is none other than the new jim comey book. Fired fbi director james comey, whose book provides his personal and detailed stories and interactions with President Trump. That includes his on the record confirmation of reports that now white house chief of staff john kelly told him he was sick over comeys firing and intended to quit his post as dhs secretary in protest. He didnt want to work for dishonorable people. I urged kelly not to do that, arguing the country needed principled people around the president. They launched a rapid website with the trumpian title lyincomey. Switching gears. As the Trump Administration begins to walk back the threat that a strike is imminent. The white house says, quote, no final decision has been made. Heres the president with a meeting with his National Security team. Were having a meeting on syria. Were having a number of meetings today. Well see what happens. Were working with that very closely but were looking very, very seriously, very closely at that whole situation and well see what happens, folks. Well see what happens. Its too bad that the world puts us in a position like that but now we have to make some further decisions so theyll be made fairly soon. Both the last administration and this one made very clear that our role in syria is the defeat of isis. We are not going to engage in the civil war itself. Now you can look back to a year ago when we did fire missiles into syria unrelated to isis and that was because of the use of chemical weapons. Some things are inexcusable and in the interest of civil evasion itself. How do we deal with this very complex situation . First of all, we are committed to ending that war through the geneva process through the u. N. Orchestrat orchestrated effort. Russia has blocked the effort. The last time we dealt with it by sending 59 tomahawks in there and clearly that didnt do the trick. Theres no easy answer to syria but now we have to be thoughtful in our reaction. Well see what happens. I know the president s looking at his options and the National Security team is trying to give him as many options as we can. Well be thoughtful about it and see what happens. So the president spoke with theresa may and french president macron. Merkel says while germany supports her ally, the country will not take part in any military action. They have observed that the assad regime repositioning military asseting closer to russia in a further attempt to shield them from their strikes. Outgoing cia director mike pompeo addressed the situation. In his prepared remarks he called syria a, quote, failed state that deserves an increasingly severe response. He later appeared to confirm for the first time that a february u. S. Strike on pro Regime Forces who had previously conducted an unprovoked attack had russian casualties as well as syrians. Watch this. Syria, now a handful of weeks ago the russians met their match. A couple hundred russians were killed. And the secretary of state nominee also broke with the president when asked this question about russia. This morning President Trump tweeted out that much of the bad blood with russia is caused by the fake and corrupt russia investigati investigation. Do you agree with that . The historic conflict between the United States and the soviet union and now russia is caused by russian bad behavior. Will you argue that we need to go ahead and implement the rest of these sanctions in a way that holds russia accountable for its interference . Yes, maam, every day. And if i make take just a moment. Please. So theres still more work to be done on katza. Theres more work to be done on other sanctions provisions as well. I readily concede that. Vladimir putin has not yet received the message. Did President Trump discuss this with you . Im not going to talk about private conversation ares ive had with the president. So whenever you come, if you were to be confirmed in the future, were going to try to talk about foreign policy, we ask you where is the president at this or that, youre not going to disclose senator im happy to answer questions about our administrations policies. Do you think special counsel muellers investigation is a witch hunt . Maam, im going to not speak about any of the three investigations that i have been a participant in today. Do you think the president has the authority, recognizing your legal background, does the president have the authority to fire special counselor mueller on his own . Senator, im in no position to make a comment on that legal question. It would be really troubling if you couldnt say here today that you dont believe the Mueller Investigation isnt ab attack on america so i want to give you a Second Chance at that. Senator, give me a third chance, these are complex legal issues that the special counsel is involved in. Theres just it is it is a mine field, senator murphy. So pompeo also confirmed that he spoke with mueller at the special counsels request. When asked if he would resign pompeo said, my instincts tell me no. Joining us now, White House Correspondent for the washington examiner, gabby morangelo. Good to have you with us this friday morning. Tensions are running high. I feel like weve entered into a different phase. With muellers team prepared to move forward without interviewing trump, what could this mean for whats next in the probe, do you think . Nbc had a great report on this actually last night talking about how this sort of accelerates muellers time line. Hes been looking to wrap up this investigation or at least the question of whether or not President Trump obstructed justice by sometime in may or early june and without a president ial interview which could take months to set up, to organize, to then process and conclude in a report that can be sent to congress, without that aspect in play, theres certainly a lot less work that muellers team has to do here. So i do think that what this does is mainly accelerate the investigation and probably produce some sort of conclusive report to congress in the next few weeks or coming months. So were learning, gabby, more about sort of james comeys book thats going to be coming out soon and some revelations that came out of it. Some pretty surprising stuff there to say the least, specifically the dinner between jim comey and President Trump. A lot of people are looking forward to the coming out of that book. What stood out to you . I think one of the main things that stood out is his comment of the meeting that took place between President Trump, Vice President pens, jim comey, former cia director brennan and Senior Intelligence officials. When they were talking about the russian meddling in the 2016 election and the response from the white house was not, you know, how can we prevent this from Going Forward not only in the 2018 mid terms, 2020, what would an appropriate response be . More they were concerned about how they can spin this away. Thats a really telling interaction and how they view that. One of the other things thats interesting is comeys description of President Trumps modus operandi. Hes like a mob boss with family and friends surrounding him. Earlier this week we saw Michael Cohen, his personal attorney, say he would rather jump off a building than turn against the president. Some of the criticisms im hearing is it seems jim comey has gotten quite personal in his descriptions in the book and of the president as well. That could work against him. To fuel what President Trump has been saying. It will make people want to buy the book tremendously. Thank you. Well talk to you at the bottom of the hour. Still ahead, another big story to follow for you. President trumps plans to pardon scooter libby. Two damaging stories on the president during the election, those stories and of course a check on your weather when we come back. Were on a mission to show drip coffee drinkers, its time to wake up to keurig. Wakey wakey rise and shine oh my gosh how are you . Well watch this. I pop that in there. Press brew. Thats it. So rich. I love it. Thats why you should be a keurig man fullbodied. Are you sure youre describing the coffee and not me . Whether its a big thing, small thing, or something unexpected, pnc will be right there when you need us. Because when it comes to your finances, if you focus on today, tomorrow has a way of working itself out. Welcome back, everybody. Connor lamb was sworn in as the newest member of the house of representatives. The pennsylvania democrat will take his seat almost one month after his upset victory over republican rick siccone in pennsylvanias 18th district in a special election. He will fill out tim murphys term. Steve scalise dismissed talk over a possible battle brewing over who will be the next House Speaker if republicans keep control. Watch this. Ive got a job as the House Majority whip and theres a lot more we need to do. You two are seen as the frontrunners for this role. Would you run up against him if the option came . No, and ive said that before. I mean, ive never run against kevin and wouldnt run against kevin. So more than a year after formally withdrawing the United States from the Transpacific Partnership agreement, President Trump apparently wants back in. He made the surprise announcement during a meeting yesterday at the white house surprising some within his own administration. That meeting featured republican lawmakers and governors from farm states who have expressed concerns that the president s threat of tariffs and other trade barriers will hurt them economically. Senator ben sass from nebraska revealed the president s uturn. The headline was the president said he was dep advertising larry cud low and lighthizer to look at reentering the tpp. The president likes to blue sky a lot but he multiple times reaffirmed the point that the tpp might be easier to join now and we might be the 12th party. The president multiple times reaffirmed in general to all of us and looked right at larry cud low and said, larry, go get it done. The president looked to clear up his position tweeting up, quote, would only join tff if the deal were substantially better than the deal offered to president obama. We already have bilateral deals with six of the eleven nations in tpp and are working to make a deal with the biggest of those nations, japan, who has hit us hard on trade for years. Lets get a check on meteorologist with michelle grossman. Youre tracking everything in the country. Hi, louis. We have everything. Mother nature not taking a day off on this friday. That classic setup where we have that cold air to the north, the warm air to the south and kind of that clash in between. Theres that trailing cold front. Were going to see the chance for severe storm ahead of that. We could see some damaging wind, heavy rain, even the potential for some tornadoes. Ill talk more about that. Heavy snow, upwards of 20 inches of snow in some parts. Some blizzard conditions. Extreme dry weather in the southwest. A fire threat there. This is a look at the sbc. Enhanced risk for tornado. The potential for a few strong tornadoes. Were looking at damaging winds and heavy rain. Were socking up to three inches of rain. Potential for flash flooding. That will be the threat over the next several days. The Winter Weather advisory, blizzard warnings and winter storm warnings. This will be over the next couple of days. Dangerous weather over the next several days. You can see up to 20 inches of snow in april. Whoa. Call that a spring weather advisory, not a Winter Weather advisory. Even though it is snow, it is technically spring. Still ahead, the hits for epa chief scott pruitt, they keep coming. What an Agency Whistleblower is now saying. Wonder why . Plus, the raid on the president s personal lawyer has white house staffers on edge. Were about to take a look. The smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. And now theres a new way to smooth. Introducing new venus platinum. A premium metal handle boosts control. To reveal up to 100 smooth skin. 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But if thats not enough, we offer innovative investing tools to prepare you for the future. Looks like you hooked it. And if thats not enough, well help your kid prepare for the future. Dont hook it kid. And if thats still not enough, well help your kids kid prepare for the future. Looks like he hooked it. Well do anything. Takes after his grandad. Seriously anything, to help you invest for the future. Ally. Do it right. His pass stolen by gord. Dash back three on two. Gord to killorn. Shooting. Scores nhl history. Working ahead. Back by pastrnak. Around in front. Scores home ice advantage. He scores Jonathan Bernier through the legs, gerard cannot find a way to defend him. In front, reaching for the hands in his pockets. Free, burn steps up and shoots. He scores. Frank burns got it through. 30, sharks. A late pass for perron with atkinson. Tips around orlov. He shoots and scores. The overtime winner and the blue jackets take game one too many highlights to fit into our short sports block. Those are the highlights from the nhl playoffs last night. Speaking of the postseason, the New York Knicks have not clinched a playoff berth in five years. Since then theyve gone 146264. Theyve won 55 of the games. Yesterday the team fired coach jeff hornacek. Now the job search has begun for yet another coach and theyve set their sights on villanovas jay wright. According to the daily news the knicks believe the twotime ncaa coaching champion would be the perfect fit to build the franchise. They may be on to something luring the coach out of the college world. Wright said a coach in the nba does not intrigue him and he would like to do so down the road but he doesnt see giving up the villanova job. It appears Colin Kaepernicks political stance is getting in the way of his return. The Seattle Seahawks canceled a visit because of his stance not to provide an answer moving forward as opposed to his particular beliefs and theyll wait until they know more to reschedule that meeting. On tuesday kaepernick sat for his deposition hearing by league attorneys for his complaint alleging the nfl conspired to keep him off the field. Meanwhile, one of the nfls greatest quarterbacks, brett favre, appeared on Megyn Kelly Today advocating for concussion research. He made some profound statements that are making headlines today. Take a look. When you have ringing of the ears, seeing stars, thats a concussion and if that is a concussion, ive had hundreds, probably thousands throughout my career. The brain and just the skull itself for eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15yearold and maybe even older is not developed enough and they should not be playing tackle football. Now favre has said he was only diagnosed with three or four but a pretty significant statement from him. One of the best ever to play the game, guys, and its stunning. The cte story and research has been pretty controversial considering it was once going up against the biggest organization in the nfl there. A voice like brett favre is really important in that type of conversation. I feel like we are once again talking about a knicks head coach. Lewis, it seems like every season the knicks are in search of a head coach. Maybe theyll make the playoffs. If i was the coach of villanova, jay wright, i dont know that i would leave villanova to come to new york. You dont leave a Championship Team to come coach the knicks. Wow. Wow. That is for sure. New yorker for you. Still ahead, everybody, a look at the mornings top stories including revelations from jim comeys book not due out until tuesday. The u. S. Has evidence that chemical weapons were used in last weeks attack. Well have details on that story coming up next. Ed with hodgkins lymphoma. I had to put my trust in somebody. 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Linzess can help relieve your belly pain, and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. Linzess is not a laxative. It works differently to help you get ahead of your recurring constipation and belly pain. Do not give linzess to children less than 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18. It may harm them. Do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. Get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. The most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. If its severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. Other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. So say yesss to help for recurring constipation. Yesss to help for belly pain. Talk to your doctor and say yesss linzess. Welcome back, everybody. It is the bottom of the hour. Well start with the mornings top stories. Monday mornings raid on President Trumps personal attorney has white house allies on edge and up ended the delicate negotiations within the mueller probe. Last night the Washington Post reporting that trumps allies worry that federal investigators may have seized recordings made by Michael Cohen. Cohen who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidante. He stored conversations with digital files and replayed them for colleagues. He declined to comment as nbc news is learning that theyre seeking communications between cohen and two executives of american media, david pecker and dylan howard oversee the national enkwiquirer. In a statement ami categorically denied that donald trump or Michael Cohen had anything to do with its decision not to pursue a story, that it determined was not credible. And the Ripple Effect of the cohen raid is coming into view changing the white houses approach to the special counsels investigation. Nbc newss National Security and justice reporter yulia ainsley has more on that. Thats right, nbc news learned that talks between muellers team and trumps legal team broke down earlier this week after trump learned that his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, had his offices raided. What this means is that the president has gotten frustrated. He no longer wants to cooperate. He doesnt want to sit down for that interview where hed be able to bring his lawyer and possibly negotiate the terms, the scope, the questions that could be asked. Instead what he wants to do is sort of go to war. Were hearing more about the possibility that he could fire the Deputy Attorney general. Were hearing about other ways that trump wants to be on offense and he does not want to be cooperating in this case. This also comes as Robert Mueller is moving ahead with the obstruction probe. Were also reporting here that on at least four areas mueller is combining findings and wants to include that in an obstruction report that could be coming out in the coming months. The areas include how he drafted the trump tower statement on air force one that was misleading, the pressure that he put on attorney general Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from this investigation, of course his intent behind firing former fbi director james comey and the pardons that he has dangled in front of grand jury witnesses that could testify against the president. So mueller is building his team right now as trump is saying that he is going on the offense. Were seeing a cooling of negotiations and this could spell a time for the president where he may soon see an obstruction charge where he hasnt had the chance to weigh in and defend himself. Back to you. Thank you for that report. Meanwhile, during yesterdays confirmation hearings for secretary of state mike pompeo explained why he would be inclined to stay on the job if the president tried to fire bob mueller. If the president were to fire the special counsel or to interfere with his investigation by firing Rob Rosenstein with an intention to interfere with the investigation. If that happened would you resign your post . I havent given that question any thought. My instincts tell me no. My instincts tell me that my obligation to continue to serve as americas senior diplomat will be more important at increased times of political domestic turmoil. In some of the most pressing foreign matters, pompeo says years of softness with russia are over. He confirmed a couple hundred russians were killed in a u. S. Air strike in syria. When it comes to iran, he says they are in compliance with the Nuclear Agreement but says it needs to be tougher. On north korea hes not optimistic that the summit with kim jongun will lead to denuclearization. The former fbi director packs vivid and unsettling details into his memoir including discussions with President Trump about an unverified dossier circulated in washington. He writes that after a trump tower briefing with intelligence chiefs in january of 2017 he privately informed the president elect of allegations that he was filmed with prostitutes during a 2013 moscow visit. Trump interrupted sharply with a dismissive tone eager to protest that the allegations werent true. I explained that i wasnt saying the fbi believed the allegations, that one of the fbis jobs was to protect him. Trump again strongly denied the allegations asking, rhetorically i assumed, whether he seemed like a guy that needed the services of a prostitute. He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault. Trump mentioned a number of women and seemed to have memorized their allegations. The conversations teet terd toward disaster. On instinct i pulled the tool from my bag, quote, we are not investigating you, sir. That seemed to quiet him down. Interesting. The United States has evidence from last weekends attack in syria that confirms chemical weapons were, in fact, used. According to two u. S. Officials familiar with the intelligence, america has obtained blood and urine samples that have tested positive for both chlorine gas and another unnamed nerve agent. Also, intelligence compiled by the United States and allies include images showing that the assad regime was behind the attack. France has confirmed it has proof of the Syrian Government that it carried out the attack and that chemical weapons were used. They have previously used chlorine and saran gas in attacks including multiple times in the past six months. It all comes as the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons is sending a team in to douma to gather information. Their invitation came at the permission of the Syrian Governments to say the city is fully under assads control and Russian Military police are currently deployed to the city. Theyre shedding new light on the excessive spending habits of the agencys chief, scott pruitt. The allegations are laid out in a six page letter signed by two senators and six house members. They met with kevin chimilenski. He served as the deputy chief of staff until he was fired by pruitt after raising objections to the excessive spending. Pruitt insisted on staying in Luxury Hotels that cost more than was allowed and he demanded that epa officials book his flight only on delta even if it cost more so he could accrue frequent flyer levels. Come on. You want to get to diamond level. Gabby martin is back with us. Just hearing from lewis these new allegations against epa chief scott pruitt, trump, he started off the week defending pruitt but, again, after those sort of rose garden comments he made yesterday, do you think we could see the white house and the president rein pruitt in . Reporter its interesting to see the drip, drip, drip information about pruitt, much of it extremely damning. To have that constantly flowing out and the president not doing anything is unrealistic at this point. Theres going to come a breaking point where the white house says enough is enough. Weve already seen questions about the epa administrators travel and security expenditures, some lavish purchases hes made, some of the demands hes made in terms of getting more pictures of his face on coins at the epa, offering these raises to different Staff Members who are particularly close to him. I mean, it is astounding the revelations that weve heard over the past week and a half. I do think after those comments yesterday in the rose garden when President Trump said he is here to drain the swamp, its difficult for him to get away from that message and leave somebody like scott pruitt in his post. Lets talk about mike pompeo facing a number of tough questions during his confirmation hearing. Do you think that his confirmation is actually shaping up to be tougher than what he personally expected . We know that its obviously going to come down to a very close vote. Do you think hes going to get the votes ultimately . Reporter i think he probably app tis si pay theed that he was going to receive a grilling on capitol hill. I dont know that he anticipated all of the questions about the Mueller Investigation or his own sitdown with the special counsels team. That seemed to really over shadow a lot of what took place yesterday on capitol hill. There are certainly some moments on north korea, russia, on his relationship with the president that stood out. The mueller questions really, really hung over that confirmation hearing yesterday. Not to mention some of the questions he was asked about his personal views about things like samesex marriage. Gabby, live for us in washington. Thanks, gabby. Still ahead, former Vice President cheneys chief of staff expected to receive a president ial pardon. And it may be mid april, but parts of the country are dealing with, believe it or not, winter storm warnings. Today were going to have a full check on the forecast when we return. I get up, i go to the office, i kill it. I go home, and i repeat. My career is moving forward, but my Student Loans are going nowhere. Itll take me 20 years to pay them off, but i finally found a way to pay them off sooner, and save money by refinancing with sofi. Sofi has helped over 200,000 people get ahead of their debt, and they can help you move forward too. See how much you can save in just two minutes at sofi. 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James comey, who was then Deputy Attorney general, named fitzgerald as special prosecutor in the libby leak case. If trump moves ahead with the pardon it will be in direct rebuke of fitzgerald, one of comeys closest friends. Valerie plame joins morning joe in a little while. Lets get a check on your weather with nbc meteorologist michelle grossman. A little bit of something out there for everyone. Hi there, lewis. All over the map. Blizzard conditions and nice weather in some parts of the country. The snow, we have some winter storm watches, warnings, blizzard warnings up to 20 inches of snow in some spots. Blowing winds. Tough travel in the Northern Plains over the next several days. That will shift to the upper midwest as well. Heres your setup area of low pressure. Cold front, warm ahead of the front. Some temperatures 20 degrees above. The Central Plains are going to pay the price. Were looking at the potential for some flooding, flash flooding and even the potential for some huge tornadoes. Heres the back side over two feet of snow in some spots. The Severe Prediction Center has put out a warning for today and thats alerting you for the potential for some strong storms, even the potential for tornadoes. Little rock, shreveport, youre kind of in the target today. That will shift off to the east. Its a slow moving system. It will take a while before it gets off the coast. Todays forecast, theres that cold weather to the west. Lots of blue on the map and we have the severe storms. Really nice weather in the northeast. Temperatures 20 grease above what is typical. I will be running out of here today and enyoig that weather. Finally. Were going to try to enjoy the 1 1 2 days we have off. Thanks for that, michelle. Still ahead. The roller coaster week for wall street as the dow surges 300 points on the easing of geopolitical tensions around the world. Well get a live report whether investors have been able to look past the uncertainty thats been fueling the markets. Well be right back. [whistling] hello. Give me an hour in tanning room 3. Cheers thats confident. But its not kayak confident. Kayak searches hundreds of travel sites to help me plan the best trip. So im more than confident. Forgot me goggles. Kayak. Search one and done. Build your next big thing to run in more places, without recoding. The ibm cloud. The cloud for smarter business. The ibm cloud. We use our phones the same way these days. So why do we pay to have a phone connected when were already paying for internet . Shouldnt it all just be one thing . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You can get up to 5 lines of talk and text included at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how you could save 400 or more a year. And get 200 back when you sign up for Xfinity Mobile and add a new line of unlimited. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Click, call or visit an xfinity store today. Welcome back. Lets return to business. Cnbcs willem marx joins us. How will this factor into whats been a fairly volatile weeks in the market . Reporter yeah, lewis after the president confirmed in a tweet that he wasnt being sbak when this attack might or might not take place against syria, we saw this rally in stocks yesterday afternoon. Weve seen that follow through into the asian trading day with most of the markets trade up. Weve seen most of the major indices in the green. It looks like the s p 500 and the dow jones will both open up based on their implied open for the futures right now. Not the case for the nasdaq. The numbers to watch citigroup, jpmorgan and also wells fargo, theyre looking to open pretty high, those shares. Pushing the market up potentially. Uber has announced a new set of Safety Measures including a potential panic button in the app that will put passengers directly in touch with emergency personnel. Theyll be able to share their location. And annual screening not just when they first sign on. This is all part of the effort to double down on safety. One of the new important stori stories heinz wasnt aware of the fervor, a kevin jun mayonnaise hybrid. Tell me what this is and why people are so angry about the m. You seem like a pure wrist. So im sure youre pretty pissed off about this, too. I am a purist, as a dutchman i am a big fan of mayonnaise, thats what we like to do with our fries, i go for the sweet potato fries whenever possible. Its called special sauce. In the midwest people call it fry sauce as well. Its not a in you discovery. Let him tell us about this product. Sorry, guys. They launched this campaign on twitter, put out a vote saying if you like the idea of this we will manufacture this industrially, it will be the first time they do that. People have been mixing it for a long time. They were looking for half a million yes votes on twitter. They are now currently at around 380,000 so they are a little short on the voting they need to push it forward. I will make my own. You have to have the exact right amount to ketchup to mayonnaise. Its very fine. As long as they dont touch barbecue sauce. Im all about mayochup. Good to have you with us. Thanks for your culinary expertise. Coming up Jonathan Swan was a look at this mornings one big thing and coming up on morning joe the Mueller Investigation moves forward. Carol lee has more on the breakdown between the president s legal team and special counsel. More details from james comeys memoire painting the president as a liar with no grasp of reality. As the white house weighs its options on syria Michael Mcfall former dod official evelyn fark can you say weigh in on what if anything could bring that war to an end. Morning joe just moments away. You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Why is dark magic so spellbindingly good . Its a bold blend of coffee with rich flavors of uganda, sumatra, colombia and other parts of south america. Like these mountains, each amazing on their own. But together . Magical. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain coffee roasters. Where were changing withs . Contemporary makeovers. Then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. Who has the upper hand now . Start winning today. Book now at lq. Com. Play [music plays]his. When everythings connected, its simple. Easy. Awesome. Joining us from washington with a look at axios am, Jonathan Swan. Good morning. Talk to us about ax i dont say one big thing today. My colleague mike allen reports about how james comey felt in realtime yesterday as the excerpts of his book were leaking out and the Republican National committee launches a website branding him lying comey. Mike reports that comey feels, quote, a sense of mission ahead of his coast to coast media tour which kicks off sunday night with george stephanopoulos. I think that phrase a sense of mission should chill some people in trumps orbit. I have a feeling this book is going to dominate conversation and headlines for a few days to come. More so than the michael wolf book do you think . Probably at the same level if not more. Lets hone in on some excerpts if you can. His book obviously describes how he felt President Trump was sitting on a throne. Break down what he meant for us by that. There was that infamous moment where they were in the oval office, had to go shake the president s hand. He described that. One of the most interesting things about james comeys book from our point of view is very unusually for a public official they usually are very dry books. He has this eye for cinematic detail and he writes about the wood furnishings, the white moons under trumps eyes and there is this fascinating scene where he describes the difference between how trump occupies the space in the oval Office Versus previous president s because, remember, comey worked under george w. Bush and obama. He says obama and bush really took an effort to make people feel comfortable and casual in the oval office, they often sat in the armchair. He says trump by contrast jacket on, very rigid behind the resolute desk and comey interprets that as a power play to make the person supple kate versus the more relaxed setting from the others. Its this quite interesting style of writing which is they unusual for public officials. He know you have some reporting on new details about that loyalty dinner with he all know about that President Trump was asking jim comey for his loyalty at the time. What details do you have on that that you can provide . Well, again, this was just james comey takes us really in very microscopic detail inside that dinner which he interpreted almost as trump as a mafia boss saying this is your chance to be a made man. I mean, its just very interesting way of interpreting that scene and he says that i didnt realize in a very memorable line that my job security was going to be on the menu at that dinner. He interpret the way he saw that meeting was that trump had already given him away the job, quote unquote, for free and that someone must have gotten to him and said you need to extract some sort of a loyalty promise in exchange for the job security. Lets switch gears because i want to ask you about a policy shift that has a lot of people scratching their heads. It looks like the president according to ben sasse yesterday has brought the issue of getting back into the tpp on the table. He said that in a meeting with several lawmakers including governors. Whats behind the potential pivot for the president . Why is he now doing this and what does it mean . A senior white house official told me late yesterday that ben sasse senator ben sasse, may be falling victim to some wishful thinking. President trump did, in fact its true, ben sasse is correct he did department advertise larry kudlow to have a look at reentering the Transpacific Partnership but trump has already poured cold water on his own comments on twitter by saying he will only get back if he gets a substantially better deal than obama did and nobody this is that thats particularly likely given how far advanced those negotiations are. Until they get more substance im inclined to believe based on my reporting that this is just a thought bubble more than something thats actually going to come to fruition. Jonathan swan, we will take your word on that thought bubble for now. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Live from washington, d. C. We will be reading in just a little while. You too can sign up for the newsletter. That does it for us on this friday morning. Morning joe starts right now. He is a show boat, he is a grandstander. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. Knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. Wow. The president had his chance to i said so i said to myself take shots obstruction of justice. I mean, you know, why do you need i understand that Donald Trumps lawyers think hes just absolutely terrified and they think he is too stupid to sit in front of Robert Mueller because mueller went to st. Pauls and mueller went to princeton. The lawyers think that donald trump is too dumb. They dont think his education is on the level of Robert Muellers, but really does the st. Pauls man and a princeton man really need to even talk to the president when he admitted it to lester holt . Well, everything is kind of out there. I know. He just lets it all hang out. I guess if he had a better education he would realize that by not talking to Robert Mueller. Yeah. He is actually strengthening Robert Muellers hand. Robert mueller can write the report without the messiness of t