Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20171103

You look at the time line, you look at the connections with russia. You look at the statements they made, willie, during the transition and in the early parts of their presidency and the lies just keep falling one after another after other and after another. We will obviously be covering that story this morning, but also, willie, a story that you first brought up yesterday morning, the shock waves from this Donna Brazile book thats coming out. She goes after Hillary Clinton for basically losing the campaign, puts the blame squarely on her. She goes after barack obama for bankrupting the party and the dnc for rigging the election. This is something democrats are going to be fighting with for quite a long time i think. I dont think some democrats are saying, hey, we need to leave there behind us, lets not look to the past. Lets look to the future. There is about 50 of the party saying, no, we need to talk about this and talk about what happened. So a lot to talk about today. Yeah, i mean, done that brazils piece yesterday was an excerpt from an entire book thats coming out that suggests that Hillary Clintons campaign seized control of the party and in effect rigged the campaign and other prom fent democrats echoed that yesterday. You had senator Elizabeth Warren, asked directly, was the primary process rigged . She said, yes, flat out. She repeated it several times the president seized on it. It is friday, we have john heilemann, Donny Deutsche is in the building, former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner, washington anchor catty kay, nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d. C. On msnbc kasie hunt. Oh yeah. And New York Times reporter michael schmid. Michael is the author of the piece. We will be talking about a lot. Mika has the morning off. Is it true someone on the street shouted at you kasie d. C. . Its caught fire, is that right . Reporter apparently so, jake sherman was standing there in my live shot location, someone at the capital walked by. Joe and mika. There it is. There it is you guys had it right. Willie, they were going through all of these names, casety hunt does the news a couple of times on the weekend with people that are real good and they went through all these list, finally we saw kasie d. C. , that, thats it. Oh, no, theyd never examine man, thats one of the great st names for a news show i have ever heard in my life. As Donny Deutsche as well, you guys are right. Phil is not with this guy. Oh, cmon. We had a great night there. We had to break that down for him. He kind of missed all, i dont understand. He got the d. C. Part about washington, he wasnt able bring it back to pop culture. I think hes a metallica guy, a Foreign Policy adviser to President Trumps 2016s campaign has now confirmed to nbc news the unsealed confession of another trump adviser claimed that the president and now attorney general Jeff Sessions, were told in early 2016, about the advisers foreign connections and hope to arrange a meeting with russian president vladimir putin. Court records show frequent discussions between suspected russian agents and George Papadopoulos, a Trump National Security Member who pled guilty to misleading probing foreign meddling in the election. One says march 31st, 2016, papadopoulos attended a National Security meeting with then candidate trump. Then senator sessions and other advisers, when papadopoulos introduced himself to the groups, he stated he had connections that could arrange a meeting between him and putin. Now j. D. Gordon, a former pentagon spokesman, who also was a trump adviser in that meeting sitting between sessions and papadopoulos told the New York Times he remembers the offer and what was said. Gordon said papadopoulos quote went into the pitch right away. He said he had a friend in london, the ambassador that can set up a meeting with putin. Trump listened with interest. Gordon says sessions told them no one should talk about it because sessions thought it was a bad idea that he did not want associated with the campaign. White house special counsel ty cobb responded this way. So the argue here, the defense, joe, that, yes, papadopoulos mentioned a russia connection, but it was shut down immediately, nothing else was made of it. The problem is those clips we played at the top of the show saying donald trump and Jeff Sessions saying we never heard of any russia connection on our campaign. Right. Exactly. And ty cobb can say all he wants to about how insignificant it was. But it is the president s own words that dams his lawyers case against him. Its the president s own words that will follow him around. Its the president s own elevation, michael midt of this unknown young staffer, as ty cobb would have us say, where he goes into the Washington Post. This is one of his first, if not his first significant editorial page meeting and he was asked about his Foreign Policy team and that was the second name that he discussed and talked about what a bright man, young man he was, he was an expert, et set remarks et cetera, et cetera, so im sorry, its just like manafort, who they claim wasnt that connected with the campaign, they were saying in the summer of 2016, he was the man who would put them over the top at the convention, all of them said it. Its the same thing with cambridge an lit ka. In the summer of 2016, they were telling the press and they were telling all of their money people, no, no, cambridge an lit ka, theyre the people that are going to tell us where all the votes are in states like michigan, you know, north korea, and florida. Now theyre trying to do it to a stafftary donald trump said was one of his most important. They try and more they as, look, we needed to have some sort of Foreign Policy team to make the argue to republicans that we were going to be serious about this issue. A lot of folks didnt want to be associated with us. We threw this group toke very quickly. We brought them in front of the president , it was basically a photo op. I dont know how there wasnt that many photos to it. But it was a way of showing it. No one really took that it seriously, so to hold donald trump accountable for what he said many months later, white house officials would argue, this was one passing thing in a meeting. How could he have remembered it . Yeah, but maybe one of the ways they could remember it is, catty kay, they took a picture of it and sent it around on campaigntationary and it was probably one of the few Foreign Policy meetings he had at that point. You have Jeff Sessions, who was in the meeting and hes two people away from a man who had contacts with the russians and was trying to set up a meeting. Did Jeff Sessions just get caught lying to congress again . Jeff sessions hole in all of this are interesting. He says he doesnt remember, he also says very clearly, he is the one by this account in this meeting he pours cold water on this idea and says actually this company should have nothing to do with the russians. He doesnt like this as a strategy or going on. So the fact that he did that, you would think he would be very clear about, because it was something he objected to. I think it is possible the president didnt remember that particular meeting. Then the president has to learn to be a lot more careful about his subsequent language. Right . He cant say, no, those meetings categorically did not happen, no, there were to contacts between my campaign. He could have said, honestly, i dont remember there were any. That would have been a more accurate accounting of it. This report about papadopoulos and carter page told nbc news he informed Jeff Sessions he was headed for russia in june of 2016. In an email page says, quote, i mentioned in passing that i happened to be planning to give a speech at the university of moscow, completely unrealed to my limited volunteer role about the campaign. Sexes was told about two Different Campaign officials attempting to contact russian officials, after his own meetings with Russian Ambassador kislyak in july and september, initially he was unable to recall and all seemingly in on the traft with his sworn testimony in january, june and october of this year. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that company and i did not have communications with the russians. I have never met with or had any conversation with any russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump Campaign. You dont believe that surrogates from the Trump Campaign had communications with the russians, is that what you are saying . I did not. Im not aware of anyone else that did. So, john heilemann, obviously, this flies in the face of the reporting we have this morning that he was in a meeting, sitting a few chairs away from George Papadopoulos, who introduced a meeting with putin. Sexes shut down that idea. But he was aware of russian contacts within the company. There are two related problems, one is a large problem. The other is a larger problem t. Large problem is segs has now to joes question earlier, has now repeatedly lied under oath to congress. Hes had to clean up his lies on two occasions, now his former colleagues in the United States senate will have him come back. They were already sending him letters saying you have to come back up here, you clearly have been misleading the congress under oath. Thats one problem the second problem, the larger problem, the biggest context here is that everybody related to the Trump Campaign when theyre asked about russia lies about it and theyre found out later, their immediate instinct throughout has been to disassemble in public statements under oath to the press from the time Donald Trump Took Office, every question, every time this comes up, no one is straight forward about their role, whether their role is innocent or whether their role might have some nefarious overtones to it. When everybody lies about something, consistently over and over again, this is the heart of the problem again politically and legally, it calls a huge amount of tension and draws suspicion to the fact that no one tells the truth about this issue. Even if it was. Yes. Donny, this is something we have been talking about for quite some time. I think we had this conversation six months ago asking the question, why is it every time somebody in the trump team talks about russia they lie . Here have you donald trump saying about, i wrote the date down february 16th, 2017, that nobody had any contact with anybody in russia other than flynn, who only got caught after he was lying because his combhun indications were intercepted. They lied about that before handz, have you all these meetings, donald trump finding out that papadopoulos has actually was trying to set up a meeting, because he had contact with the russians. Then you have, of course, don jr. Meeting june 9th, donald trump certainly knew about where everybody, manafort, everybody was piled in there to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. And have you again, this enthe president is lying when once they, everybody finds out about that, she a guy that orchestrates it on air force one to lie about the purpose of the meeting, with i he lied and said it was about adoption, of course, it was about getting intel from our enemies, the russians. So donny, a prosecutor is not going to get somebody thrown in jail because theyre lying to the press, but it shows intent and prosecutors do look at public statements that are lies, that are meant to deceive the press and move prosecutors a tough trail. This looks bad. And theres a time loon i wrote in the Washington Post this morning, there is a time line that when you stack up all of these dates, of just what we know. Its looking, lets just say, any selfaware president would be very concerned right now about federal charges. Well, you are talking about, you guys talk about the time line last year, lets talk about the last 25 years, you know, donald trump went bankrupt in the early 90s. We know the u. S. Banks stopped lending him money. We know hess kids kept saying the money is pouring in from russia. Those are exact quotes from donald trump jr. We no ethe russians through facebook and 126 million in the u. S. Were doing Everything Possible to get this president elected. We know this president never still almost a year in officer said one negative word against our geopolitical enemy, a dictator for lack of a better word, vladimir putin, basically, he said bad words about everybody else on this walking planet. So you come back to the simple fact now as all these little nuggets are coming, there will be many more coming to fruition that donald trump has been owned be i the russians because of money, follow the money, its that simple. These are now little pieces falling in place. There is a big, big story that will happen in the coming months about russia. Money launder. It goes back to trump tower. There are so many spec instances, this is what its all about. Thats what bob mueller is looking into. Kasie hunt, i want to ask you about j. D. Gordon, in the meeting by mike schmyth midt talk about papadopoulos, saying he had a friend in london, a russian paed who could set up a meeting with putp. I understand you actually spoke to mr. Gordon this morning . Yeah, i worked with j. D. Gone, he has been in president ial politics for several cycles and so i reached out to him to try and confirm his account in the New York Times, he did, he was emphatic is saying look when this came up, this is something that Jeff Sessions immediately dismissed and said, you know, this is not something we want to talk about. I do think to echo what several around the table have pointed out, there seem to be very subtle and differing accounts of exactly what type of advisers, either one of these were. We were expanding this conversation around carter page, suddenly people that at the time of the events seem to play one role but now in retrospect people are arguing that they played different roles and the overall theme here seems to be that the special counsel mr. Mueller has a remarkable capacity to jog peoples memories some well see if that trend holds. See, its interesting, you look at ty cobb, again he tries to discredit papadopoulos, a young unpaid volunteer and supposed Energy Expert. The way we learned he was an Energy Expert from donald trump. That was a quote he used. People said, who . She an Energy Expert . We didnt realize that. He said she a fine young man. So theyre obviously playing that game. I would add one thing, i think to what john and casey may have been alluding to. You may have, you certainly may have not telling the truth. You may have problems with the money and where the money went. But the other thing you have here is basic incompetence in the sense that they are violating a basic rawl of any investigation, with i is the first thing you should do is find out everything yourself and get it out there at once so you are fought having this drip, drip, drip, where some prosecutor is finding a guy that says this happened after somebody else said it didnt happen. They dont seem to have control of the facts or the story or know what happened. It would be the first rule of any investigation, if are you the target, which is to know everything, get it out there in a clean way so that you have some credibility with the public. They dont seem to have any interest in doing that. Or they know the facts and want to clouds the facts. Few look at the language that trump and sexes used, sessions said i do not believe there were contacts him ielt not aware. I dont know if thats a deliberate f. He had spoken to his lawyer beforehand and got deliberate legal language. Trump saying something much more blunt. Sessions is a lawyer, trump isnt. That may be the difference. Where did the go now . What have, in terms of the pap done lus stuff, in terms of the sessions stuff, that meeting, what was mueller looking around . Whats the next step, do you think . Well, for better or worse, its not against the law to lie to the press, but what mueller is trying to figure out is why on the flight pack from europe over the summer, trump was so involved in trying to provide a misleading initial statement to the New York Times about the trump tower meeting . Thats something that, you know, mueller is really trying to figure out and is focused on, its interesting, it doesnt include a lie under oath or a lie to congress or anything like that. The other thing thats interesting ability what the president s statements were in february was that it came at a very crucial time in the administration, flynn had just resigned three days earlier. We now know the day after that, february 14th, you know, trump goes to comey, asks him to move past the Flynn Investigation so then that brings us up to the 16ing of feb february, where he makes those comments at the press conference and tries as hard as he can to tamp down the russia story. So its a series of events that mueller is looking at, that hes trying to understand as much as we are. And you know, willie, again, you look at what the Trump White House is saying this morning with the lawyers are saying to try to get this behind him, and you can see its red and it is so obvious that nobody can be fooled by the fact that papadopoulos went from being his key Foreign Policy adviser, one of his three in the summer of 2016, according to donald trump, to the Washington Post editorial board, to being a nobody now that he was under, put under arrest. Man for the went fra for the the one man that can get them over the top. They all said that, Cory Lewandowski wasnt up to the task. He wasnt smart enough to do it. They had to bring if Paul Manafort. He was this genius at getting delegates. Suddenly manafort gets if trouble, hes a nobody. As i said before, they will do the same thing with cambridge, an lit ka, saying all of their dono, s donors and media, we will have the best turnout because were working with cambridge an lit ka and theyre the best of the best. Hey, dont tell anybody. But this is what were doing. They cant have it both ways. And they cant minimize papadopoulos, they cant minimize nan p manafort and they cant minimize cambridge, even though they will try every day, they obviously, got connected. So, anyway, thats a fabulous discussion him we still have, of course, coming up, Donna Brazile, too and those bombshell revelations about the dnc. One other thing to point out, they have reopened questions now about what Jeff Sessions said before the senate. Have you Democratic Senators coming out now, senator leahy, blumen that, we would bring Jeff Sessions back in front of the Senate Judiciary committee, ask him why he cant tell the truth. Why he cant provide truthful testimony. Thank you very much. Great reporting. Still ahead, President Trump laments unable to involve himself with the Justice Department and the fbi. In his own words, im not supposed to be doing the things i am supposed to be doing, i am frustratesed by it. The house ways and means cramer kevin brady joins us, plus the head of the House Freedom caulk kiss congressman mark meadows. Bill kierans has a check of the forecast. 94 in dallas, that heat continues in the eastern seaboard this weekend. We have showers and storms trying to move through some be prepared for some rain in areas of new york state, pennsylvania and ohio and kentucky. Heres the temperatures,er that not supposed to be this warm, originally were vacate for a high in new york city, its 63, d. C. Has a chance of mid70 the cooler air is through the great lakes. The cooler air, into the northern rockies, thats where all the snowy bad weather, above average highs, texas, through the seiffert. 82 in tampa 80 in new orleans, this just continues the trend. We put this graphic together. This list, every dot here is all the cities that as of now yeartodate are either the warmest on record or the second warmest ever recorded and there scrolling list. 79 city, most of the cities in the eastern half of the country are on pace for one of the warmest years ever recorded. Its not an el nino year either. Thats a head scratcher. 78 in atlanta. 77 in d. C. As far as all the climate stuff goes today, a big report will be released. Its one of our biggest one we do every four years in our country. Theyre saying, human causes extremely likely for the reason for the warming on our planets. That will be the big headline. Washington, d. C. , we mention, the extreme warmth continues in d. C. This fall. You are watching morning joe, well be right back. What do you want this holiday to smell like . Balsam fir . Fresh cinnamon . Or for something really special. new car smell. [smelling] dont mind if i do. Ring in the holidays with buick. Hurry in to your buick dealer and get 17 percent below msrp on almost every 2017 sedan model. Thats nearly 74 hundred on this lacrosse. Hurry, offer ends november 14. You can do it. We can do this. At fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. Whoo while saving for the things dear dauwith our used to motherdaughter matches. But ive been taking osteo biflex ease. Its 80 smaller but just as effective. Which means, ill run you off the court. Hugs and kisses, mom. Osteo biflex ease. Made to move. Accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. If that isnt a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president , then what has our government become . Im tom steyer, and like you, im a citizen who knows its up to us to do something. 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Do you think, though, that what were learning from Donna Braziles book suggests the company, what the National Committee did meant this elect was rigged . I think it was. Its a pretty powerful charge. Well, we have to focus on now as democrats is we recognize the process was rigged and now it is up to democrats to build a new process, a process that really works and works for everyone. And that wasnt the only time senator elizabeth war rep said that yesterday. She is reacting to Democratic National chair woman done that brazil that the democratic primary was ricked in favor of Hillary Clinton. She took the everybody of the convention when congressman Debbie Wasserman schultz resigned after Party Officials internally criticized the campaign. Writing in politico, brazil says after becoming interim chair she discovered a fund raising deal that allowed checkpoints company to control the cashstrapped dnc before she won the nomination. Brazil says she broke the news to Bernie Sanders two months before the general elect. Le took it stoically and did not yell or express anger. She writes, obama left the party 24 million in debt, 15 million in bank debt and more than 8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly. John heilemann, you have studied this campaign closely, obviously, lets just establish first, how different is this from something we would see in previous campaigns . In other words, the leading candidate working closely with the dnc in controlling the way it does its business. Dramatically different in the sense that a contested democratic nomination fight the party is supposed to be neutral during the period while the fighting is taking place. If you have an incumbent president , barack obama 2012 controls the dnc because he is the state of the heir of the party. In a situation like this the party is supposed to be neutral. When you have a winner, you have that winner take control of the dfc. Traditionally, that is how its supposed to work. We did not sister a winner yet. This circumstancealed by done that brazil dating back to a couple months after Hillary Clinton announced her entry into the race, in the fall of 2015 she effectively took over secretly financial control and other control of the dfc. We only started to prussia the surface here. There were allegations back at the time that if you looked at the way the dnc structured its debate schedule, how few of them there were, when they were scheduled, on weekends and so forth that Debbie Wasserman schultz was trying to protect Hillary Clinton from competition with Bernie Sanders. Those allegations i reported on at the time were true. Everyone understood who followed this that Debbie Wasserman schultz was sort of on Hillary Clintons team the sanders team were angry about. That the extent that Donna Brazile revealed will be even two people who were supporters of secretary clintons now is pretty shocking that this degree of collusion on some level was taking place during the time of the democratic nomination fight. Donny, its so interesting, we go back to in real time, i remember mika was day if, day out, going after Debbie Wasserman schultz, saying she was rigging the process. We started talking one morning how the process was rigged the process is rigged. Trump picked it up and started using the term himself later on. I guess that was back when he watched this show, of course, he never watches it any more. Never. Donny, you look, though, to what mika was accusing Debbie Wasserman schultz and the democrats of doing and they became so enraged, they were calling phil griffin and demandsing apologies. You look, though, as we get a deep dive into this, and you see that you had a Democratic Party that had everything go wrong at once. You had Donna Brazile says a president , an incumbent president , who raised more money than anybody else in American History, disengage from the process and he left the democratic part badly in debt. You have Hillary Clinton, a very ineffective president ial candidate whose team strangled the dnc and didnt let them do their job. They had control over everything the dnc was doing before she was even a candidate and then you have the chair woman of the dnc actively rigging the process. Again, weve always said, everything lined up. Everything that had to happen for donald trump to win on that particular date happened and this is a part of the million dominos that had to fall perfectly in place for this reality tv star to get elected. Yeah. Certainly helps Donald Trumps continuing narrative as far as crooked hillary. It givers him a new sound byte. Id wonder, young people growing up, as they are entering, watching politics and that basically is there anything that isnt rigged, that isnt cheated in one form or another . I find ironically Donna Brazile is the one coming forward. She was a part of this festival of nonsense and it shows how as broken as we, fragmented as we talk about the Republican Party in search of itself and pulling into Different Directions that the Democratic Party is even in worse shape. What does it stand for . Who are the leaders . The legacy of Hillary Clinton and the clintons and barack obama in there is no there are no new face, no new voices, no new platforms and the Democratic Party has to look hard in the mirror and say who is our future and how do we leave this behind . Because unfortunately when you stay word Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton still comes to the forefront and thats going to go. Yeah, steve ratner, obviously, you supported Hillary Clinton. You supported Hillary Clinton in the past. You knew at the time that the campaign, obviously, had challenges and said so on tv and off tv. Did you ever know it was the dysfunctional . Well, i dont know the word dysfunctional would be the word. Ied the not know certainly of the things Donna Brazile is alleging about how what was going on with the dnc. It was certainly clear that the Hillary Campaign was desire, wanted to win and they wanted to take control of the dnc as early as possible because, frankly, in a campaign the quality of the Campaign Officials is generally higher than the quality of the officials, no disrespect at the party themselves, getting ahold of the Party Apparatus can be a part of winning. Whether she did all thing Donna Brazile does not have the cleanest hands in all the things that Donna Brazile alleges or not, i dont know. I would make two points related to what donny said and earlier, president obama did the party no favors here. He did not really embrace the importance of stability in the Party Apparatus the way president clinton had, as a result the party was left essentially broke and dysfunction am. As we sit here today, looking ahead, which is probably as important as looking back, web are in the same place t. Dnc is not very present in the lives of active democrats like myself they are not raising money successfully. Tom sprez a nice and capable guy, the rnc is outraising them, as you pointed out, we lost the 900 legislature seats and the senate positions. Somebodys got to pull the dnc and Party Apparatus together. Right now we dont have a leader as donny said. We will have Donna Brazile on next week. When we come back, donald trump has reacted to this Donna Brazile story and reaction from the Bernie Sanders campaign when morning joe comes right back. The friends, the independence. And since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise. Whole cam back to morning joe. We continue our revelationings of the interim dnc chair Donna Brazile, Campaign Chair jeffrey weaver said quote the behavior the dnc behaved in, is egregious, undemocratic. Cant be allowed again. They complained about it but didnt appreciate the full scope of it until they read what Donna Brazile had to say. Meanwhile, President Trump reacted, calming what was done quotes illegal and tweeting shortly before 9 30 last night, quote, Donna Brazile said they illegally stole the primary from Bernie Sanders, bought and paid for by crooked h. There is real collusion and dishonesty, a major violation of the Campaign Finance laws and money laundering. Where is our Justice Department . In a local washington, d. C. Radio interview, the president said his lack of power over Justice Department of investigations was a major disappointment to him. You know, gene robinson, once again, heres the president of the United States who just doesnt even begin to understand constitutional norms, separation of power, separations of responsibility, even within the executive branch, how sancrosanct it has been to keep the white house away from the fbi and irs and investigations, whenever that line is close to being crossed, it causes real crises and it has in the past. So i guess we now know why President Trump admires duarte in the philippines so much, because he can be the judge the jury, the prosecutor and the executioner. Yes, did yutarte and putin. Somebody ought to read the constitution, he wont read it himself, maybe in small chunks over a period of time read it to him and see if they can get some of that through his head. You know, nonetheless, donnas story was pretty much a blockbuster, wasnt it, joe . It was. Some of this was out. Some of this we sort of knew at the time and everybody said, yeah, of course the party is tilting towards hillary, but, frankly, when i read that piece yesterday, i didnt know the extent of it and the fact that the Clinton Campaign controlled the whole party, controlled everything that we are doing. I just wasnt quite aware it was to that extent. You know, we have been saying aall along it took the worst general election candidate in modern American History to put donald trump in a position to win. But weve got to add to that now. It also took one of the postdysfunctional massive organizations, the dnc at the time. It took the disinterest of the sitting president , a guy that raised more money than any person in American History to complete this interest by barack obama, according to done that brazil, leaving the dnc 25 million if debt and then you know the rigging by Debbie Wasserman schultz that everybody on the bernie side knew was going on at the time. How hard it must have been to get Bernie Sanders supporters excited about going out and supporting Hillary Clinton after that. Well, you know, you saw the result. And you know, step back for a minute, donald trump a man who had no experience, who is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States, first defeated the republican establishment and then defeated the democratic establishment so it really says something about the state of our two major parties. These very resilient and adaptive organizations throughout the decades, theyve managed to sort of figure it out, physical out where the people were and physical how to get themselves there. Im in the sure they have a clue at this point. And the result is, what weve seen, over the last year. Im sorry, there is a blessing for donald trump, in terms of opinion and mueller and his investigations go on. But trump gets to give a false equivalency, basically, any time anything russia comes up. Its the democrats are crooks the democrats are crooks. And to the average person out there who doesnt do the deep dev the way we dork its like, yeah, both sides are crooked. But, donny, but, donny, listen, think about this you bring up such a great point. This is what we were saying during the campaign. Again the clintons always gave donald trump a counter punch. Donald trump sexually harasses women, says what he says on access hollywood tapes, okay, so lets talk about bill clintons history, go back 20, 30 years, Hillary Clinton says donald trump is corrupt in business dealing, donald trump says look at the clinton foundation. Again, the number we have to look at to look at just how flaweding will harrisburg was as a candidate was honest and trust worthy, at the end of the campaign, despite the fact that donald trump lied every time he opened his mouth during campaign, we all knew it, we all said it, Hillary Clinton had lower honest and trust worthy numbers in a lot of polls tan did donald trump. This is, donald trump has survived in this ecosystem only because hes constantly compared to the clintons. What the few toy that trump has, the new bone, he is the best with a dog with a bone, its no longering will harrisburg, its the democrats t. Democrats are crooks. He is not going to let up on this, that is his counter punch going forward, obviously, its very different than a foreign actor or a geoactor getting involved in our political process, to the average guy, theyre all corrupt. We heard a permanent ago, senior warren believed the democratic nomination process is rigged. She said it twice in two different issues. Kasie hunt caught up with Chuck Schumer on an issue that will air on kasie d. C. Heres what he had to say. Elizabeth warren said earlier based on new reporting from done that brazil in a book that the 2016 primary was rigged. Do you agree . I havent read the book, i yo i dont know the details, i wont ma a comment about that. Do you have concerns about the dnc primaries in 2016 . I didnt follow it. I will read it. Bernie sanders never complained about this to you before . Zple. Oh, hes complained all the time. Senator schumer didnt follow the 2016 nominating process . Oh my god i was a little taken aback when the senator said. That Bernie Sanders is in his leadership team. If any of you, we have dramatically understated so far this morning the depth of anger among Bernie Sanders supporters. This was the thing they spent the most time and energy talking about at the Harvard Review after the election, they were still fighting with Hillary Clinton Campaign Officials about this. It is still driving how the party is evolving to this day. Tom perez just cleaned house, basically, of a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters on the dfcs most powerful committees. Everyone is paying attention to that. This divide is going to drive the next election cycle. We talk so much on this show about all the problems republicans are having with President Trump. The democrats house is a complete mess. It is in many ways on fire. I think you will see that play out and drive all of what is going to happen for them in 2020. And it may mean that they miss a chance to take on President Trump. And you had so Many Democrats who are a part of the establishment yesterday either do what chuck sclumer head in the sand. Or others saying we need to look ahead. We dont need to look behind. Bennie supporters werent buying it. Theyre like no, we cannot move forward until we confront the fact all of us together, that you guys rigged the progress in 2016. How do we know youre not going to steal it from us again in 2020 . I just want to underline your interview with Chuck Schumer. How do bernie supporters react when somebody like Chuck Schumer who is always outspoken and blunt says i didnt really follow the election yrks i dont really know . Theyre not going to trust him. Thats the issue. Its an issue of trust. Remember the convention, that email, the dnc email hack came out right before. There was a question about whether Debbie Wauserman Schultz would be allowed on stage because the most excited half of the convention was there to see Bernie Sanders who walked in, and for a lot of his supporters, a little of a grieffilled moment. I remember trying to get Bernie Sanders to talk to me as people were falling all over each other to try to get to him. The cheer that went up monday night at convention, and then it disappeared. The stage that was set was completely different, and nobody in the Democratic Party has forgotten that, and many bernie supporters are going to say theyre not a member of this party. Thats a huge problem for them. And if you have any question on if the dnc had the thumb on the scale, read emails. High level dnc people talking to each other about building a narrative that Bernies Campaign is falling apart and pushing Hillary Clinton to the forehead. Thank you, kasie. Still ahead this morning on morning joe, the russia probe has led to two indictments and one guilty plea from a former president Trump Campaign adviser. Theres new information he could be zeroing in on jared kushner. Morning joe will be right back. If you move your old 401 k to a fidelity ira, we make sure youre in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. Because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. A little bit o soul, yeah because when you know where you stand, thats why a cutting edgeworld. University counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. And why a Pro Football Team chose us to deliver fiberenabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. And why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their Dealer Network streamlined and nimble. Businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. President trumps twitter account is back online after disappearing briefly. For 11 minutes it seemed it was gone. It was inadvertently deactivated. A Customer Support employee had done it on his own. His or her own last day with the company. Twitter said it would be conducting a full internal review. Joe, this raises the question, who exactly has access to President Trumps twitter account and what exactly could they put up there causing some kind of crisis . I mean, you would think there would be im looking for a tweet that somebody did last night. Lets see here. Lizzie o leary, it was all a dream. Straight out of dallas. Yeah. And Donald Trump Tweets my twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the world must finally be getting out and having an impact. Whats wrong with it . Willie, hes president of the United States. What word is getting out . What does he mean word must be getting out and having an impact. The power of his use of social media and somebody is trying to shut it down. I dont know. Im doing interpretations. Maybe the word is getting out they all lied or something for two years about the russians. I dont know. A lot of words are getting out this morning. Yes. And were going to talk about some of the lies getting out when we come right back on morning joe. I just saved thousands on my loan at lendingtree. Com. In less than a minute, i found out how much home i can afford. I like how you shop for loans the same way you shop for flights online. I didnt realize at lendingtree you can save money on almost any sort of loan. I consolidated my Credit Card Debt with a personal loan. I found a new credit card with 0 interest for 15 months. You just shop, compare, and save. And its all free. Go to lendingtree right now and start saving. Somesend you and your family overwhelrunning. Y can. Introducing febreze one for fabric and air. No aerosols. No dyes. No heavy perfumes. It cleans away odors for a pure light freshness. So you can spray and stay. Febreze one, breathe happy. Welcome back to morning joe. Its the top of the hour. We have a lot to talk about today. Donna braziles expose of the dnc. A lot of things to discuss there. We could talk about the president s twitter account being taken down for 11 minutes yesterday. Western civilization on the edge. But activities restored in 11 minutes. Also some more surprises. It appears the attorney general of the United States did not tell the truth once again when he was testifying in front of the senate. Some senators are saying they want him to come back and see if he can tell the truth under sworn testimony. First, we want to go to the donald trump tweet desk. We have moved willies location. Its now in hong kong. Willie, for a lot of reasons, hong kong, when the tweets go out, first they go through the beautiful city of hong kong. Thats why youre there. Whats donald trump tweeting this morning . That was one of your most elaborate setups for the tweet desk. Its friday. Mika is not here. Lets have a little fun here. Youre in hong kong. Go with it. The cat is away. Donald trump, you talked about his twitter account. He initiated a new line of tweets. He begins, everybody, everybody is asking why the Justice Department and fbi isnt looking into all the dishonesty going on with crooked hillary and the dems. Theres the ellipsis. This is the theme hes been on. He talked about it on the radio yesterday. Why isnt the Justice Department going after the dnc who colluded against Bernie Sanders and for Hillary Clinton . I mean, willie, does he really think thats going to distract robert mueller, the third from what hes doing . Does he think wait. What . Wait, im going to go back. I dont understand. His Approval Ratings continue to collapse. And he keeps engaging in conspiracy theories. I really dont i dont know at this point if his lawyers cant control him now, if theyre ever going to be able to control him. Yesterday he came out as an autocrat in training saying it makes him very angry that he cant control the fbi, that he cant control Law Enforcement and go out and investigate people. Thats about as undemocratic of a reaction to the Current Events as ive ever heard from a president. He said it was sad he didnt have more control over the Justice Department because theres so many things hed like to do. He didnt get into what he meant. Lets set up the table. Donny deutsche along with john hylman, eugene washington, katty kay, and heidi prisbilla and. The unsealed confession of a trump adviser claimed the president and now attorney general Jeff Sessions were told in early 2016 about the advisers foreign connections who hoped to arrange a meeting with russian president vladimir putin. Court records show frequent discussions in 2016 between suspected russian agents and George Papadopoulos. He pled guilty to misleading investigators. On march 31st, 2017, papadopoulos attended a National Security meeting in washington d. C. With then candidate trump then senator sessions and other advisers and when he introduced himself to the group he stated he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between trump and putin. Now, j. D. Gordan who was also a trump adviser inside that meeting sitting between sessions and papadopoulos first said he remembers the offer and what was said. Gordan said papadopoulos, quote, went into the pitch right away. Said he had a friend in london, a Russian Ambassador who could help set up a meeting with putin. Gordan recalled sessions opposing the idea telling him no one should talk about it because sessions thought it was a bad idea that he did not want associated with the campaign. Thai cobb responded by saying the medias electricalness to inflate papadopoulos into an important thought leader into the campaign is lludicrous. The evidence shows he attended one meeting, mentioned russia and was shut down. He is not a criminal now because of anything he did for the campaign. Hes a criminal because he initially lied to the fbi. Well play the sound bites of attorney general sessions speaking before the Senate Judiciary committee saying he knows of no one with links russia and the company. Evidence so far suggests that. Which means the lawyer doesnt have clients that he can trust, because a lawyer that can trust his clients to tell the truth says unequivocally, he was this, but the fact that you get the idea even by how that statement is drafted that Donald Trumps own lawyers are still being blind sided by these things coming out. And heidi, we talked about this last hour, but donald trump was the one that propped this guy up. Donald trump was the one that told the Washington Post that he was an oil and Energy Expert. So his own lawyer saying supposedly no. Donald trump told the Washington Post that this guy was one of his top Foreign Policy advisers. He was an oil and Energy Expert, and we have as willie said, clips that once again show donald trump and Jeff Sessions lying not only to the American People and to the press but also in sworn testimony before congress that their campaign had any contacts with russia. Youd think that he would remember that meeting given that it sounds like from all accounts from the attendees that he was actually intrigued by the idea, but heres what is going to be very interesting which is we dont have all of the Electronic Communications that supposedly bob mueller has his hands on behind the meetings, the setting up of meetings and the contacts with the very top people in the campaign that will show that not only was maybe this one idea floated but it was continued to be a topic of conversation in terms of papadopoulos also coming back at people like Paul Manafort, and im going to throw something out that i think is a really important data point as well that plays to the question of what trump knew. And it has to do with that trump tower meeting. Because if you recall later the trump tower meet, trump was not in the meeting, but he was in trump tower. He was in trump tower. Paul manafort was in that meeting. I know from my own reporting that it was hours later that Paul Manafort attended a luncheon with trump right down the street, so trump is very close to these meetings. Including the one where it would just seem odd that Paul Manafort goes to a meeting where the russians are trying to peddle opposition information on clinton and hours later he meets up with trump and says nothing about it. Heidi, i can tell you i know from how that campaign operated that that just that did not happen. You didnt have significant meetings without donald trump being cued in by it. Certainly, willie, Paul Manafort, jared kushner, don junior, all the people at the meeting. It is that is no more possible than alex deciding that he was going to bring a juggler on the top of morning joe and you, mika and me not knowing about it. Thats coming up at 8 00, by the way. I know. I said at the top of the 6 00, and weve been informed now. Its strange. It strains all credulity for anybody who suggest that would ever happen in that campaign. It was a mom and pop operation, nothing ever happened without donald trump knowing about it. And j. D. Gordans accounting of the meeting with papadopoulos suggests trump was interested. What tie cobb is saying is contradicting that. He said everyone in the meeting immediately shot the idea down. Thats not true according to j. D. Gordan which suggests trump was at least interested in that idea which would then suggest if manafort had a meeting, it makes it even less likely trump would not have been told about it. And the white house lawyer in the statement, he acknowledges russia was raised inside that meeting by papadopoulos. Here Jeff Sessions you saw in the photograph was a couple seats over from papadopoulos, reportedly shut down the idea of a meeting between the campaign and putin. Here is Jeff Sessions in sworn testimony three times. Heres what he said before congress. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and i did not have communications with the russians. I have never met with or had any conversation with any russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump Campaign. You dont believe that surrogates from the Trump Campaign had communications with the russians. Is that what youre saying . I did not and im not aware of anyone else that did. John, we now have an account in inside that meeting in march of 2016 which contradicts what he said. You made the point earlier that there are numerous so many that i cant count them offhand, moments where the Trump Campaign has clouded or lied about a meeting or relationship with russia whether its Jeff Sessions not being able to recall meetings with ambassador kislyak or donald trump junior mischaracterizing a meeting and then having the president of the United States deictate a memo saying it was about adoption, but it was about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton. Lying and directly trying to cloud, a way to try to make to throw people off the scent of the russian connections. We still dont know the extent of the connections. We still dont know what was nefarious or innocent. The reality is when you see everyone from the president down to the most junior officials over the course of a year never answering a question with honest disclosure related to this topic, it suggests that there is something here, obviously bop muler is going to get to the bottom of it. This is another instance. Jeff sessions is now in a lot of trouble. You have al franken has previously on two occasions suggested Jeff Sessions has perjured himself in front of the United States senate where he used to be a member. Senators dont like perjury or perjury by former senators. Hes going to have to go back in frnt of his former colleagues and try to explain himself. Its not just al franken. Its now others who are saying look, youve now lied to us not just once or twice but potential he three times. This is going to be an ugly scene for the man who is the top Law Enforcement official in the United States of america. Ill read a quote. This is patrick leahy. He says sessions now needs to come back before the committee in person under oath to explain why he cannot seem to provide tru truthful, complete answers. Senator blumenthal said, this was under oath. Sessions has opened himself up to being in front of the Judiciary Committee one more time to face these questions. And opened himself up to be in the line of fire of donald trump who we know is still seething about the way that Jeff Sessions has handle third down investigation by recusing himself from it. Think the interesting parallel here is this is now the second time that the New York Times has pointed something out to the white house saying the first, of course, was the meeting in trump tower. They provided an incomplete and inaccurate account saying it was just about adoption. We went back and said it wasnt about adoption. Heres more. They had to revise their statement. Now we go to them, my colleagues who reported this story, went to them and said look, this doesnt add up. Russia was brought up in this meeting, and the lawyer for the president issues a statement saying okay, well, heres how we explain that. Now, after a while these explanations just after the fact dont quite add up and point to a number of really troubling inconsistencies. Joe . And gene robinson, its fascinating. The president finds himself in a position where he doesnt like Jeff Sessions. He wants to get rid of sessions because as attorney general he thinks is responsible for mueller but if he gets rid of Jeff Sessions by sessions being run out of his job position because he lied about russia, well, thats not exactly a win for the president of the United States who, of course, is also ensnarled in that controversy. Its not a win for him if that has to happen. Who knows whats going to happen. I come back to the words in the statement so far. It is clear that the president s lawyers dont have much better idea than we do about what really happened, and its clear that the Trump Campaign is not capable of doing the sort of selfaudit that any organization would do in this sort of situation. Find out what happened. Get it all out before it gets sort of dragged out in this incriminating way. And i think the campaign is not capable of doing that. I think we have lawyers who frankly cannot trust their clients to tell them the whole truth. Thats a problem. Joe, i want to go back to a point you made earlier in terms of its implausible to think donald trump never jumped in. This is the same guy to said basically i should be in charge of the fbi and the Justice Department. He doesnt understand boundaries to ever think any time russia was brought up, he was sitting right there saying no or no comment is completely implausible. Well, and also, donny, its been brought up on this show for six months, its been brought up again today. The fact that every key member of the administration, whether its in testimony before the senate, whether it is to the New York Times or Washington Post or wall street journal in interviews or on tv, whether it is in disclosure forms where they are sworn to tell the truth to the federal government, the top key Trump Officials have time and time and time again lied every time the subject of russia has come up. And here we have found that top Law Enforcement officer of the United States caught once again lying under oath to the United States senate. Joe, lets be clear. There is a countervailing argument about whats going on with sessions. Obviously we know donald trump is not happy with Jeff Sessions. There are people out there who think that sessions is now being set up to being taken out as attorney general so donald trump can get someone in that job who is not recused and who might be an easier vehicle through which he might fire bob mueller. Thats a theory out there right now. Theres a lot of speculation about whether that might be the end game here. Though, it would be a blow to him on some level to lose his attorney general, it might not be as severe a blow if trump is trying to figure out a way to get the special prosecuter or independent council gone. Gene, thank you. Jeremy peters thank you as well. Coming up on morning joe. Were working to give the American People a giant tax cut for christmas. We are giving them a big, beautiful Christmas Present in the form of a tremendous tax cut. Big and beautiful. President trump promising tax cuts for christmas in some of the biggest changes in the republican bill also could set up some of the biggest political fights. Well talk to kevin brady, the chairman of the house ways and Means Committee and the head of the Freedom House caucus, congressman meadows will be our guest when we continue. Its a lot easier to make decisions when you know what comes next. If you move your old 401 k to a fidelity ira, we make sure youre in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. Oh and at fidelity, youll see how all your investments are working together. Because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. Just remember what i said about a little bit o soul things are just clearer. It can detect a threat using ai, and respond 60 times faster. It lets you know where your data lives, down to the very server. It keeps your insights from prying eyes, so theyre used by no one else but you. It. Is. The cloud. The ibm cloud. The cloud thats designed for your data. Ai ready. Secure to the core. The ibm cloud is the cloud for business. Yours. I want ycome on mom t easy. Go slow. Lets go mom slow down for the ones who keep pushing. Always unstoppable. Welcome back to morning joe. Lets bring in now the head of the Freedom Caucus congressman mark meadows. Great to have you with us. Thank you for being here. Its great to be back with you, joe. Thanks. During the president s campaign, he talked about Hedge Fund Managers and criticized carried interest loophole. He said they were paper pushers who got away with murder because of this loophole. But this tax bill that if im not mistaken, blumberg and others are reporting it keeps carried interest for Hedge Fund Managers and a lot of real estate moguls. Why is that . Is that something that you support, and will you support that if its in the final bill . I think, joe, that actually will end up being one of those things that comes out whether its in the markup going through the house or over in the senate. I can tell you i was in the oval office with the president when this very subject came up. And he was very emphatic that like he was consistent on the campaign trail about the Hedge Fund Managers and the carried interest provisions that he felt like it needed to be done away with. Obviously youve got Real Estate Developers and some of those that use it as part of the way that they do business, and so trying to address that in a fair way that continues to allow for Economic Growth is key. But i can tell you that the president himself has weighed in on this particular provision. I think at the end of the day, it will get addressed whether its in the house or senate or final bill. These are the sort of provisions that mean that Hedge Fund Managers in new york city and connecticut might be 13 or 14 for taxes in a year while people in your district may be paying 35 , some Small Business owners up to 45 . Do you oppose the loophole for carried interests and will you speak up against it . Ive already spoken up for it against Hedge Fund Managers. This may be a news breaking thing this morning. You and i and the president all agree that that carried interest provision for Hedge Fund Managers needs to go away. And really, we can use that money for the middle income hard working american taxpayers to make sure they get the relief they need. The Hedge Fund Managers are not normally a large constituency in Western North carolina. Right. All right. Theyre also not in janesville, wiscons wisconsin. Before some reason its in this bill. Lets go right now to Steve Rattner at 30rock. Steve . Congressman, im also a little mystified about the hedge fund thing. This is a 500page bill with tiny provisions including small taxes on large endowments. Let me move onto another subject which is that you have been as leader of the Freedom Caucus, outspoken in your opposition to the National Debt and voted against National Debt increases. We have in front of us a proposal that would increase by its own calculations, the National Debt, by a trillion and a and a half dollars over the next ten years. How can you support a bill that does that given all your past an situation to debt . Well, i can tell you that its not just past opposition. Its certainly ongoing opposition, and youre right with my record on being a deficit hawk. Really, there are two issues working against each other. The fiscal restraint that many of my colleagues here on capitol hill are not willing to show in terms of actually looking at reducing spending and so as we look at that going forward, whether its with defense or nondefense discretionary numbers, those numbers continue to rise and having to address that. Theres only two ways that you can do that. Either you can cut back on those areas, or you can hopefully grow the economy. This pro growth tax reform is designed to not only grow the economy. The initial numbers are exciting in terms of what we will see. I believe that a shortterm deficit will end up over a 15year period paying for itself as long as we get the kind of gdp growth that it appears were going to get, and so its one of those things that you take what youve got on a particular issue. Its one of those its a choice between very two difficult reasoned approaches. At this particular time, we have to get the economy going again. Youre saying lets do the easy stuff, cut taxes first, and do the harder stuff like cut spending later. Steve, i dont know that tax reform is ever easy, and im glad to hear you say that, because over the next few weeks, it is going to get very difficult. I dont see it as an easy task. I dont disagree with that. Let me move onto one other thing. When you look at the tax cuts on the net basis, you take the cuts and back out the increases by removing deductions and loopholes, you find business is getting about a trillion dollars for business over the next ten years. Consumers are getting 300 individuals are getting 350 million over the next ten years. How is that a fair allocation of the benefits of tax cuts . Well, i dont know who did your analysis. I can tell you my analysis was done by the ways and Means Committee. Heres what im saying. That analysis was not done by the ways and Means Committee when were really looking at this, i can tell you as were starting to get into this, were looking at a four to five trillion dollar tax benefit, and when we start to look at each individual area, youve got to take it in a whole. It is not just corporations that get the benefit. And even if your analysis is spot on, heres what we have. Its when we look at the ability for our corporations to bring those jobs home, we see wages go up. We see Economic Growth here. And so its hard to take it in a static environment to suggest that youve got one block of benefits against another. And i can tell you that i was up until midnight, got up very early this morning looking at all the details. I want to make sure that my voters are the ones that benefit, and ultimately in the final bill thats whats going to happen. Congressman, during the Obama Administration the argument we used to hear from republicans in congress was the democrats are irresponsible. They want to spend now. They say theyre going to deal with the deficit down the road. Thats the argument youve just made. Youre sounding just like a democrat. Were going to have our tax cuts now and sort out the deficit down the road. You werent satisfied with that argument when it was the democrats making that argument. Why should people believe that you can do any more about it now . Well, i dont know that the democrats were ever doing a pro growth tax thing that actually cut taxes for the american middle income pawage earner. Part of that argument is right. But we had a vote on the house floor just a few weeks ago where the democrats, the progressive budget looked at a 10 trillion budget. Now, if were all concerned about deficits, perhaps that vote on the budget shouldnt have had every democrat voting for that budget. And so, listen, were here in truly a defining moment for our nation. Were going to actually give more money of the american taxpayers dollars back to them. And thats if the democrats had fought that back when they were making the arguments, maybe they would have had more of a bipartisan appeal there as well. Congressman, joe again. I wanted to ask you sort of my ongoing obsession, and it has been more 25 years as we talk about the deficit and the debt. Entitlement reform. Were talking about tax cuts. I dont think i would be quite so concerned about deficits in the future on these tax cuts if i thought congress could follow up and reform Social Security and reform medicare and reform medicaid in a way that doesnt hurt current enrollies but ensures its saved from debt 10 years from now. I remember republicans being elected saying theyre going to embrace it. Barack obama, his first two months said we cant kick the can down the road anymore. Its been kicked down the road. Donald trump says nobody is going to touch medicare or medicaid or Social Security. You and i both know that is not sustainable. My question is with you being the chairman of the white House Freedom caucus, when will members get serious about the top fiscal issue that confronts us, and that is run away entitlement spending not just for medicaid but for the middle class entietlements too, Social Security and medicare. Joe, every time i come on, i want to make sure i shoot straight with you, and youre right. That is the top fiscal thing we have to worry about and quite frankly, not enough is being done. I can tell you members of the Freedom Caucus have not only put forth a bill that looks at defining and reforming medicare, but also other entitlement programs. I believe youll see some initiatives starting in the First Quarter of next year. Not necessarily on Social Security and medicare because youre right. The president has weighed in on those, not wanting to touch those, believing he made a Campaign Promise there. But the other part of that is looking at some of the work requirements in terms of welfare. Some of the things that actually bill clinton did when he was president and that he need to revisit and bring back and so i think you will see some of those starting in earnest in the First Quarter of next year. Youre right. We have to get serious about it. If we dont, all the pro growth tax reform in the world is not going to balance out where we need to go as a nation fiscally. And we have to approach, obviously, we have to be concerned about medicaid, but medicare is just as big or a bigger problem in the long run. We have to address those middle class entitlements whether its popular or not. Thank you. We appreciate you being with us. Were going to continue this conversation with a man who pieced together that long awaited tax legislation. The chair of the ways and Means Committee is next on morning joe. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve. Lets go to sumatra. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. Which helps provide for wins family. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Has grown into an enterprise. Thats why i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. Now, im earning unlimited 2 cash back on every purchase i make. Everything. Whats in your wallet . Joining us now, the chairman of the ways and Means Committee, congressman kevin brady of texas. Mr. Chairman, always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for being with us. We have specific questions about the plan, but i want to ask you broadly, you are certainly a fiscal conservative. There can be no denying that. This plan at a trillion and a half dollars has a lot to make up on the backside. Where do you pay for this program . How do you pull it off, and if the answer is by growing the economy, can you grow it enough to pay it off over a decade. Its growth and eliminating the special deductions in the tax codes. You have to do both. We know it will grow the economy in a big way. That doesnt just grow revenues in washington. It does it at the state and local levels, but thats not enough. The reason were going with the simple postcard style approach and eliminating a lot of special provisions on the business side to to get back to a balanced budget over time. You cant do one or the other. We do both. Do you believe in good faith . I just made the case that it is growth plus eliminating so many of the special provisions in the tax code so we can simplify it. The only way to lower the rates for everyone, families in the local Small Businesses, you got to get rid of a lot of special loopholes and deductions in the tax code. You have to do growth and streamline simplify the code. Let me ask you one more before i pass it around the table. Congressman meadows said the carried interest provision for Hedge Fund Managers needs to go away. Its in there now. Do you share his concerns about that . In the bill we double the Holding Period for those who will access carried interest. That means its retained for that traditional Real Estate Group thats built that local strip center or that apartment building, but the hedge funds, the quick flips and all that will not be accessing this. We think double the Holding Period really kind of puts it back to what the original speint was, to encourage local investment in the businesses. Are you saying double the Holding Period from one year to two years . Yes, sir. Doubling it for two years isnt going to solve your problem. Private equity guys typically hold their guys for five years or more. Secondly when you talk about local Real Estate Developers, youre also throwing in huge megaReal Estate Developers who will get the benefit or continue to get the benefit of an unusually low tax rate. We want to encourage invest want and growth. We want i know you may not like those people who invest for longer periods. We think thats a good way to grow the economy and by the way, if those involved in these projects are working to grow their projects, make things succeed, do the sweat equity over time, five, and ten years, we want more of that type of investment. Sure, i like the idea of people investing their money for the longterm, but thats not carried interest does. Its 20 of the profits in return for investing something and getting a special tax rate. Everyone in those projects are putting skin in the game. Some are working hard in sweat equity to make even greater gains for everyone involved. Thats who they pay full income tax for their services and compensation like everyone else does. Over time if theyre making that investment grow and return for everybody, it is taxed at that rate. Look, i think doubling the Holding Period is very, very helpful here. Chairman, Heidi Przybyla has a question. Hi, chairman, being a recovering budget nerd, i kind of relapsed last night and reached out to some of my best budget sources. Heres what i found. This Economic Growth that you all are promising, it cannot happen unless the cuts occur at the same time. In fact, the joint committee on taxations economic model assumes that the type of tax cuts youre doing now that are not paid for could actually be a drag on Economic Growth. Can you please speak to that . Yes. So the reason we moved back toward a balanced budget is one, there is substantial growth from this. But again, that wont do it. You have to do you have to simplify the code, eliminate special breaks on the business and individual sigh as well. Its the combination of both of those that gets you wac to a balanced budget over time. Thats why people complain, look, you are really simplifying the code dramatically. Theres a lot of things that go. Not everyone is happy about that, but thats what sort of the tough choices you to make along with growth to make sure this moves us toward a balanced budget. Thats not what this bill does. These are unfunded. Youre taking out some loopholes but still blowing a big hole in the budget. Thats not like they did in 86. Im sorry. The audio went out for just a moment. Could you repeat that. Can you hear me now . Yes, maam. But that is not whats happening here. This is still, regardless of the loopholes youre closing, its a blowhole in the deficit. That is not what the model was in 86. For instance, when reagan did it. This model that im speaking of still assumes that this could be a drag on Economic Growth because youre not doing the type of spending cuts, not just simplification in the code but spending cuts. Well, here, one, there are a number of models on growth. Im sure there will be a healthy debate. We know this dramatically grows the economy in revenues not just in washington but state and local lev as well. But you make a great point. Tax reform alone wont get us to a balanced budget. We have to have spending constraints along with that, and as i know, house republicans, we are turning toward on welfare reform and tackling the entitlements in a way to save them. Thats all part of the steps it takes to get us back into a fiscally responsible area. You want to see continued deficits and debts, stay with a slow growth economy like we saw the last ten years. We know what that produced. Congressman, im sure you have many constituents in your district, hard working people making 80,000 a year seeing a 1,000 tax break. How do you explain to them the disparity between the wealthy and the middle class between somebody like myself and other financially well off people no longer have estate taxes. Yes, the middle class is getting a very small tax break. But if the income disparity continues to grow, how do you explain that to that person . I think if you want to keep the income disparity, stick with the current tax code. We know what its already produced. But how do you explain the estate tax, those two. The amt, the double, the second level of taxation hits a lot of middle income families and beyond. Like in the new york city, for example, or a new york, it requires people to do their taxes twice and usually ends up tapping them for another 7,500. Yes, we do away with the amt. We also clear out the underbrush that punishes people at whatever income level theyre at in the code. In the death tax, by the way, my belief, it isnt paid by the superwealthy. Its burdened by our familyowned farms and businesses who worked a lifetime to build up a nest egg. Thats where the damage is done. And by the way, eliminating that death tax creates 140,000 new jobs in america so if we want to help get people back to work and get the economy going, stop punishing success in a lifetime of hard work. Double, triple taxation for all you do as a local business or farmer is wrong. Were just at the beginning of this process. Share kevin brady, thank you for your time. Steve, on the estate tax. Its unbelievable. Only people who have more than 11 million, die with more than that pay that estate tax. When he talks about family farms and Small Business guys and all that stuff, its ridiculous. Its an illusion that these are the people who benefit. They dont benefit. They dont pay estate tax. I want to ask steve. This is one of the things that everybody who puts forward did tax reform wants to avoid is the notion which underlies this kind of legislation. There are winners. There are losers. Who loses in this bill . Who are the losers here, the greatest points of vulnerability for republicans . We know who the winners are, business, wealthy people. The middle class, it depends on your facts and circumstances. If youre a family of fewer than three kids, you get a little bit of money. If youre a family of three kids or more, you lose a little bit of money. The high tax states, if youre a high tax state, and 40 of the people in places like new york and connecticut file for item e itemized deduks, theyll be losers. In the middle class, the best you do is get a few hundred dollars and the worst is lose money. This is not a bill about the middle class taxpayer the way they say it is on every sunday talk show i watch. As a small family farmer, Donny Deutsche isnt happy about the estate tax. Mccain is warning his own party about the politics surrounding his party. We have that conversation straight ahead on morning joe. Alright, off you go. Casual fridays at Buckingham Palace . Surprising. Whats not surprising . How much money nathan saved by switching to geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Bp developed new, industryleading software to monitor Drilling Operations in realtime, so our engineers can solve problems with the most precise data at their fingertips. Because safety is never being satisfied. And always working to be better. A trip back to the dthe doctors office, mean just for a shot. But why go back there, when you can stay home. With Neulasta Onpro . 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Dear dauwith our used to motherdaughter matches. But ive been taking osteo biflex ease. Its 80 smaller but just as effective. Which means, ill run you off the court. Hugs and kisses, mom. Osteo biflex ease. Made to move. There have been several recent reports about secretary rex ice fraus registrationtion with the state department particularly over staffing senior positions. Yesterday President Trump was asked if that is harming his administration and its Foreign Policy. Your state Department Still has some unfilled positions. Are you worried that the state department doesnt have enough donald trump nominees in there to push your vision through . Other state departments, including reagans undermined his agenda. We dont need all the people that they want dont forget. Im a business person. I tell my people when you dont need to fill slots, dont fill them. We have some people that im not happy with there. Assistant secretary of state, youre not getting rid of that position . Let me tell you, the one that matters, im the only one that matters. When it comes to it, thats what the policy is going to be. In addition to that, we dont need all the people its called cost saving. You want your vision pushed. But my vision is my vision. Heidi, that is so instructive, isnt it . Hes talking about the United States government like hes the trump organization. You dont have to fill spots that dont need to be filled. Career diplomats would beg to differ when youre talking about seats in places like south korea, for example, which is at the border of the bubbling crisis in north korea. Weve seen this attitude with the undercutting of his own secretary of state, rex tillerson. We see it with the be fuddlement of our allies who dont know who theyre supposed to be negotiating with. We see that in the charts have shown what the hit it has been to our image across the globe since trump took over the United States standing. I want to share an anecdote. The other day when i was taking a train up to meet you all, i met up with a couple of french journalists called reporters without borders, there to protect journalists, trying to expose corruption in government in other emerging countries. They told me theyre having a heck of a time in the past several months with instances trying to get imprisoned journalists out of jail. Why . Because the state department used to play the u. S. State department used to play a big role in that in pushing on these governments. Its not happening. I think the full extent of our state department being understaffed and the new position of our state department is yet to be understood in terms of the impact on this and other parts of the world struggling to become democracies like us. Donald trump at the Republican Convention last year, i alone can fix it. Donald trump as the president of the United States, i am the only one who matters. New boss same. I alone can figure. The only one that matters is me. Heidi przybilla, thank you very much. Well see you soon. Still ahead on morning joe. He has contradicted himself so many times in the last since january, that it really is hard to believe that hes been telling the truth at any one point. Thats senator al franken on hardball talking about attorney general Jeff Sessions. Sessions repeatedly denied anyone from the Trump Campaign was in campaign with russia and said it under oath. Two of the people in this photograph now say otherwise. Morning joe is coming right fresh cinnamon . Or for something really special. new car smell. [smelling] dont mind if i do. Ring in the holidays with buick. Hurry in to your buick dealer and get 17 percent below msrp on almost every 2017 sedan model. Thats nearly 74 hundred on this lacrosse. Hurry, offer ends november 14. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve. Lets go to sumatra. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. Which helps provide for wins family. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. If that isnt a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president , then what has our government become . Im tom steyer, and like you, im a citizen who knows its up to us to do something. Its why im funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. A Republican Congress once impeached a president for far less. Yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger whos mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. And they do nothing. 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Nana, lets do this aye aye, captain and as you go through life whoo tryin to reach your goal you say you were aware whether anyone advising john mccain had contacts i told you general flynn was dealing, he was dealing, as he should have been. During the election . No, nobody that i know of. I have nothing to do with russia. To the best of my knowledge no person that i deal with does. You dont believe that surrogates from the Trump Campaign had communications with the russians, is that what youre saying . I did not and im not aware of anyone else that did. You know, thats strange because both of those men were part of a meeting last year where Foreign Policy adviser George Papadopoulos said he could help arrange a meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. That account is now confirmed to nbc news by j. D. Gordon, a former pentagon spokesman and trump adviser who was also sitting at that table. Good morning, its friday, november 3rd. Mika has the morning off. With us we have National Affairs analyst for nbc news john heilemann. Donny deutsch is with us. Former treasury official Steve Rattner. Washington anchor for bbc woerld news america katty kay, capitol hill correspondent casey hunt and New York Times reporter michael schmidt. Willie, lets get right to todays top story. A Foreign Policy to President Trumps 2016 campaign confirmed to nbc news that the unsealed confession of another trump advisor claimed that the president and now attorney general Jeff Sessions were told in early 2016 about the advisors foreign connections, hope to arrange a meeting with russian president vladimir putin. Court records show frequent discussions in 2016 between suspected russian agents and George Papadopoulos, a Trump National Security Member who pled guilty to misleading investigations probing foreign meddling in the election. One section says on march 31st, 2016, papadopoulos attended a National Security meeting in washington, d. C. With then candidate d. C. , then senator sessions and other advisers. And when he introduced himself to the group, he stated he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between trump and putin. J. D. Gordon, another pentagon spokesman who was a trump advisor sitting between sessions and papadopoulos first told the New York Times that he remembers the offer and what was said. Gordon said papadopoulos, quote, went into the pitch right away. He said he had a friend in london the Russian Ambassador that could help sit up a meeting with putin. He remembers sessions opposing the idea, because he thought it was a bad idea and did on the want it associated with the campaign. Quote, the medias willingness to inflate papadopoulos a young unpaid volunteer and supposed Energy Expert into an important thought leader in the campaign is lewd rouse. The evidence so far suggests he attended one meeting, said something about russia and was immediately shut down by everyone in the room. Its very important to remember he is not a criminal now because of anything he did for the campaign. He is a criminal because he initially lied to the fbi. So the argument here of the defense, joe, is yes, papadopoulos mentioned a russia connection but it was shut down immediately, nothing else was made of it. The problem is, the clips we played at the top of the show showing donald trump and Jeff Sessions saying we never heard of any russia connection on our campaign. Exactly. Ty cobb can say how insignificant it was, but his president s own words damns his lawyers case against him. Its the president s own words that will follow him around, the president s own elevation, michael schmidt, of this unknown young staffer, where he goes into the Washington Post. This is one of his first, if not his first significant editorial page meeting. He was asked about his Foreign Policy team. That was the second name that he discussed and talked about what a bright young man he was and he was an expert, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So im sorry. Its just like man fort who they claim now really wasnt that connected with the campaign. They were all saying in the summer of 2016 he was the man who would put them over the top at the convention. All of them said it. Its the same thing with cambridge an lit ka. Oh, no, they didnt do anything. In the sum other of 2016 they were telling the press and all their money people, no, no, cambridge analytica, theyre the people that will tell us where all the votes are in states like michigan, North Carolina and florida. Now theyre trying to do it to a staffer that donald trump said was one of his most important. They try and portray this as, look, we needed to have some sort of Foreign Policy team to make the argument to republicans that we were going to be serious about this issue. A lot of folks didnt want to be associated with us. We threw this group together very quickly. We brought them in front of the president who was basically a photo op there wasnt even that many photos to it, but it was a way of showing it. No one really took it that seriously. To hold donald trump accountable what what he said many months later, the white house would say is unfair. This is one passing in a meeting and how could he have remembered it . Maybe one of the ways they could remember it, katty kay, they took a picture of it and sent it around on campaign statione stationery, probably one of the few Foreign Policy meetings he had at that point. You have Jeff Sessions who is in the meeting, and hes two people away from a man who had contacts with the russians and was trying to set up a meeting. Did Jeff Sessions just get caught lying to congress again . Jeff sessions role in all this is interesting. He says he doesnt remember it, but he also says very clearly hes the one, by this account in this meeting, is the one who pours cold water in this idea and said this campaign should have nothing to do with the russians. He doesnt like this as a strategy, doesnt like this outreach going on. The fact that he did that, you would think it would be something he would be clear about because it is something he objected to. I think its possible that the president didnt remember that particular meeting. But he has to learn to be more careful about his subsequent language. He cant say no, those meetings didnt happen, no, there were no contacts with my campaign. All he could have said is i dont remember that there are any. That would have been a more accurate accounting of it the. In addition to the pre port about papadopoulos, carter page told nbc news he informed Jeff Sessions he was headed for russia in june of 2016. In an email page says, quote, i mentioned in passing that i happened to be planning to give a speech at a university in moscow, completely unrelated to my limit volunteer role with the campaign. That means sessions was told about two Different Campaign officials contacting or attempting to contact russian officials which adds to his own meetings with ambassador kislyak in april, july and september which he was unable to recall and in contrast with his sworn testimony in january, june and october of this year. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign. I did not have communications with the russians. I have never met with or had any conversation with anyone russians or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States. Further, i have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump Campaign. You dont believe that surrogates from the Trump Campaign had communications with the russians . Is that what youre saying . I did not and im not aware of anyone else that did. John heilemann, obviously this flies in the face of the reporting we have this morning, that he was in a meeting seated a few chairs away from George Papadopoulos who introduced the idea of setting up a meeting with putin. Sessions according to the reporting shut down that idea, but he was aware of russian contacts within the campaign. There are two related problems. One is a large problem and the other is a larger problem. The large problem is that sessions has now, to joes question earlier, has repeatedly lied under oath to congress. Hes had to clean up his lies on two occasions. Now his former colleagues at the United States senate will have him come back. Theyre sending him letters last night saying you have to come back up here because youve clearly been misleading the congress under oath. Thats one problem. The second problem, the larger problem is that this the biggest context here is everybody related to the Trump Campaign when theyre asked about russia lies about it. Theyre found out later. Their immediate instinct throughout has been to dissemble in public statements under oath to the press from the time that Donald Trump Took Office every question, every time this comes up, no one is straightforward about their role, whether their role is innocent or whether their role might have some nefarious overtones to it. When everybody lies about something consistently over and over again, this is the part of the problem for them politically and legally because it just calls a huge amount of attention and draws suspicion to the fact that no one seems to be able to tell the truth in a consistent way about this issue. Donna brazile hits Hillary Clinton for rigging the primary and barack obama for bankrupting the dnc. Her stunning new critique on morning joe. Welcome hows it going . Hi okay, so youve got two friends here. Yes. This is the j. D. Power award for dependability. Now i want you to give it to the friend that you think is most dependable. Ohhhh. Ughh. Wow. Thats just not fair. Does she have to . She doesnt have to oh, i dont . No, but its a tough choice, isnt it . Yes. Well luckily, chevy makes it a little easier. Cause its the only brand to earn j. D. Power dependability awards for cars, trucks and suvs two years in a row. Thats amazing. Chevys a name you can trust 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 . Do you think what were learning from Donna Braziles book, that what the democratic National Committee did meant this election was rigged. I think it was. Its a pretty powerful charge. What we have to focus on now as democrats is, we recognize the process was rigged, and now it is up to democrats to build a new process, a process that really works and works for everyone. That wasnt the only time senator Elizabeth Warren said that yesterday. Shes reacting to allegations made by former interim democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile that the democratic primary was rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. She took the helm on the eve of the partys convention when Debbie Wasserman schultz resigned after leaked email criticizing the campaign of Bernie Sanders and supporting Hillary Clinton. She discovered a fundraising deal that allowed Clintons Campaign to control the cash strapped dnc before she won the nominati nomination. Brazil writes, quote, in exchange for rising money investing in the dnc, hillary would control the pars finances, strategy and her campaign had the right of refusal on the Communications Director and would make final decisions on all the other stuff. The dnc was required to consult with the campaign about other staffing, budgeting data, analytics and malgts. Brazil says she broke the news to Bernie Sanders on september 7th, two months before the general election and he took it zoeicily and did not yell or express anger. She goes deeper into the dncs cash problems and writes obama left the party 24 million in debt, 15 million in bank debt and more than 8 million owed to vendors after the 2012 campaign and had been paying that off very slowly. John heilemann, youve studied this campaign very closely obviously. Lets establish first, how different is this from something we would see in previous campaigns, in other words, the leading candidate working closely with the dnc and controlling the way it does business. Dramatic clint, this the sense of a contested nomination fight, the party is supposed to be neutral during the period of the time the party is taking place. Barack obama in 2012, controls the dnc effectively because he is the standardbearer of the party. In a situation like this, the party is supposed to be neutral. When you have a winner in the democratic nomination process, you have that winner take control. Thats the way it works. We didnt have a winner yet. In this circumstance its alleged by Donna Brazile dating back to only a couple months after Hillary Clinton announced her entry into the race in the fall of 2015 she secretity took over financial control and other control of the dnc. Weve just brushed the surface here. There were allegations back at the time if you looked at the way the dnc structured its debate schedule, how few of them there were, when they were scheduled on weekends and so forth that Debbie Wasserman schultz was trying to protect Hillary Clinton from confrontations with Bernie Sanders. Those allegations that i reported on at the time were completely true. Everyone understood that Debbie Wasserman schultz was on Hillary Clintons team. The extent of it, the financial element that Donna Brazile has revealed is even to people who were supporters of secretary clinton now, its pretty shocking this degree of collusion on some level was taking place during the time of the democratic nomination fight. Done any, its so interesting, we go back to in realtime, i remember mika was day in and day outgoing after Debbie Wasserman schultz saying she was rigging the process. We started talking one morning about how the process was rigged, the process was rigged. Trup picked it upped and used the term later on himself. I guess that was back when he watched the show. Of course, he never watches it anymore. Never. Done any, you look at what mika was accusing Debbie Wasserman schultz and the democrats of doing and they became so enraged, they were even calling phil griffin and demanding apologies. You look, though, as we get a deep dive into this and you see that the Democratic Party that had everything go wrong at once. You had Donna Brazile says, a president , an incumbent president who raised more money than anybody else in American History disengage from the process. He left the Democrat Party badly in debt. You have Hillary Clinton, a very ineffective president ial candidate whose team strangled the dnc and didnt let them do their job. They had control over everything that dnc was doing before she was even a candidate. Then you have the chairwoman of the dnc actively rigging the process. Again, weve always said everything lined up everything that had to happen for donald trump to win on that particular date happened, and this is a part of the million dominos that had to fall perfectly in place for this reality tv star to get elected. Certainly helps Donald Trumps continuing narrative as far as crooked hillary, gives him a new sound bite. I wonder, young people growing up as theyre entering watching politics and basically is there anything that isnt rigged, anything that isnt cheated in one form or another . I find it ironic that Donna Brazile is the one coming forward. She was a part of this festival of nonsense. And it shows how, as broken as we talk about the Republican Party right now in search of itself and being pulled in four Different Directions, that the Democratic Party is even in worse shape. What does it stand for . Who are the leaders . The legacy of Hillary Clinton and the clintons and barack obama. There are no new faces no now voices, no new platforms. The Democratic Party needs to look hard in the mirror and say who is our future and how do we leave this behind . Unfortunately when you say the word Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton still comes to the forefront. Thats going to go away. Coming up on morning joe, the monthly jobs report is due out moments from now. Something that could inspire a tweet or two from President Trump. Lucky for him, his twitter page back up and running after a disgruntled twitter employee pulled the plug for 11 minutes. Well explain that coming up on morning joe. Ronoh really . Gs going on at schwab. Thank you clients . 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Your privacy makes you mytty number 1 place to go number 2. I love you, but sometimes you stink. Febreze air effects doesnt just mask, it cleans away odors. Because the things you love the most can stink. And try febreze small spaces to clean away odors for up to 30 days. Breathe happy with febreze. Now what . Well, after your first reaction, consider your choices. Go it alone, against the irs and its massive resources. Hire a law firm, where youre not a priority. Call your cpa, who can be required to testify against you. Or, call the tax law firm of moskowitz, llp. I went from being a cpa to a tax attorney because our clients needed more. Call us, and let us put our 30 years of tax experience to work for you. Welcome back to morning joe. Beautiful live picture on a friday morning. We were talking in our last block about the new revelations facing the Democratic Party. Clearly something on President Trumps mind this morning. Hes sent out a flurry of tweets kicking it all off reading everybody asking why the Justice Department and fbi isnt looking into the dishonesty with crooked hillary and the dems. New donna b book says she paid for and stole the nomination. People a angry. At some point they must do what is right and proper. The American Public deserves it. He went on. Crooked hillary bought the dnc and then stole the democratic primary from crazy bernie. He concluded at least for now, the president did, quote, pocahontas, senator warren, just stated that the democrats led by the legendary crooked Hillary Clinton rigged the primaries. Lets go fbi and Justice Departme department. John heilemann, a lot to wade through there. We should zero in on the fact that once again, like he did yesterday, the president is imploring the Justice Department and the fbi to go after his political opponents, using the power of the state to do that. Yes, after acknowledging at least in some notional sense that he understood hes not allowed to do that. Frustrated by that. Frustrated by the fact that he cant behave like an authoritarian dictator, hes getting pretty close to it again saying i cant do anything with the department and the fbi, but go fbi and Justice Department, making his preferences clear. Look, hes a master at changing the subject. Right now, in a week in which his Campaign Chairman has been indicted. Theres a lower Level Campaign aide who has pled guilty. Whats happening on the Mueller Probe is closing in on him, being able to throw all of this stuff to go back to one of his most Successful Campaign rifts at least for his base, crooked sillry and throw out an allencompassing set of charges here is par for the course for him. Its the way he likes to deal with problems when they land in his lap. We heard frustration from democrats already that Donna Braziles book handed him this gift that he can now dive into and talk about. As the general dysfunction of the Democratic Party has been an enormous gift for him potentially into the next cycle. Joining us, author Michael Lewis, his latest book the undoing project is out in paperba paperback. Good to see you, willie. I think lessons to be learned from it from what were talking about today. Really . Thats nice. Tell me what they are. You touch on a little bit in the book about the kind of guy donald trump is and how he ascended to power and what it was about him that appealed to the people who voted for him. So the book is the story of two guys who explore how the human mind works. People who really start to ask questions what the mind is doing is making decisions and making judgments and particularly where it goes wrong. One of the things they would say is people want the world to be a far more certain place than it is. They dont think probablisticly. Famously said, reality is not a point its a cloud of possibilities. We dont go through the world like that. We like what make the world seem very certain. Thats one of the things donald trump does. Its one of the things all con men do. They assert with Great Authority and certainty things about things that are uncertain. Thats part of his appeal. But i think if i think about whats the relationship of this book to our current president . These guys were looking at the mistakes people make when they trust their gut and this is a guy who trusts his gut constantly, and the kind of mistakes they make is they pay too much attention to what they just heard or what they just saw or whats memorable or whats vivid. They think . Stereotypes. Theyre led astray in systematic ways. I think you can read it and say, i can guess the kind of mistakes donald trump is going to make. He was a gut choice for the people who voted for him. If you ask his voters, that 33, 35 thats Holding Strong right now, theyre not particularly bothered by the fact that obamacare was not repealed and replaced, that theres no wall yet. They feel like hes a symbol of something, hes a gut guy for them. Right. I think if were going to be honest, you need more that psychology to explain donald trump. You need psychiatry. My guys werent psychiatrists. They didnt think much of psychiatry. I want to think about, curious weve known each other for a long time and watched your career from the very beginning to where you are now. I think about the turn you took and how you ended up here. This is a book that, if i thought back to the very beginning of your career, i would never imagine if you start with liars poker, thats 30 years ago. There was a trajectory, went to silicon valley. I understood all that. Then you started getting into different terrain. Talk about how you landed here. Whats the trajectory in the work and what does it tell you about where your interests are and where it might take you next. The trajectory is pretty clean. I stumbled money vol story, about the oakland as, they figured out how to value human beings better than the market was valuing them. I thought that was the interesting thing, that the market miss valued baseball players. These two guys had done work why baseball scouts made mistakes, what was going only inside the human mind when it was making an Investment Decision or a voting decision or evaluating disease, if youre a doctor, or evaluating a baseball player if youre a baseball scout. I thought, oh, my god, i didnt get to the story. Ive written this story money ball and missed the bottom of the story that this as a matter of fact screwed up, and it can be screwed up because of whats going on right here. This people had gone and systematically attacked the problem in a way well, won nobel prizes. Just won another nobel prize. That in itself wouldnt have been a book by me. The thing that attracted it to me as material is these characters. Who guys, characters of literary dimensions who were in love with each other, and that i had that to string the story out, thats what drove my interest in it. I was listening to you talk about money ball. That philosophy has now governed baseball. We sedate thatdriven philosophy. Thats where i was headed. In the last election in 2016, all the models, all the smart guys, all the data guys had Hillary Clinton at 98 chance of winning, 98. 4, whatever it was, a month out, close. With one exception. Nate silver. He didnt have her at 98. He was pretty sure she was going to win. Thats the big point. This is a problprobablistic mat. Not saying with certainty that this will happen. Things can happen. If there are mistakes in the data, that was the problem, right . There were polling errors. Systematic polling errors in these states, well have a problem. In a funny way, his way of thinking about it got about as close to the truth as you could get. The idea youre going to wander america as a loneperson and go, donald trump is going to win, i tried it. It doesnt really work. No matter what happens in the world theres always going to be someone who predicted it. The question is how they predicted it. Theres a lot of luck involved in these things. The point is, these are inherently unknowable thins. We go to political experts to tell us whats going to happen because we feel so uncomfortable with the uncertainty. Michael lewis is going to stay with us. Coming up, wall street digesting two big numbers today, the republican plan for taxes and the brand new jobs number thats just out. A live report from the New York Stock Exchange next on morning joe, and more with Michael Lewis. Its a lot easier to make decisions when you know what comes next. If you move your old 401 k to a fidelity ira, we make sure youre in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. Oh and at fidelity, youll see how all your investments are working together. Because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. Just remember what i said about a little bit o soul things are just clearer. You myour joints. Thing for your heart. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Breaking news with the release of the monthly jobs report. Lets go straight to cnbcs sarah eisen at the New York Stock Exchange. A mixed read on the nags labor market. Overall pretty strong, 261,000 jobs added in the month of october. A little light on what economists were looking for. They wanted to see above 300,000. Importantly it marks a strong rebound from what was a weak month in september due to hurricanes irma and harvey. Unemployment rate down to 4. 1 . Thats the lowest Unemployment Rate weve seen in this country in about 17 years, another sign of strength in the jobs market. Despite the good news, wages are not breaking out and rising in a way that we need to see. From last year wages grew for the month about 2. 4 . That was weaker than what we saw last month which means on a monthly basis they actually declined about a cent. Need to start seeing wages go up as hiring continues to rebound. What i can tell you is there was a little bit of a distortion with the hurricanes i mentioned from the weaker month last month. You can see that anywhere the jobs were added in the month of october. For instance, we got a nice 100,000 jobs added in leisure and hospitality. That is one of the worsthit sectors during the hurricane in parts of the United States like texas. Take it altogether, if you average the last three months, smooth it out, you get about 162,000 jobs added per month. Thats decent and its a sign that things are picking um. Jives with the record high stocks were seeing and the Rising Consumer confidence, joe. Sarah, tell us about the job Participation Rate. This is obviously something that economists look at. We have a 4. 1 Unemployment Rate, but weve had very low job Participation Rate for years now. What happened over the past month . Sad to report that that actually fell over the last month, down to 62. 7 . Were still hovering near the lowest levels in decades. Thats one of the big puzzles economics are trying to figure out, why are people dropping out of the labor force, why arent the rising opportunities in the job market and the increased Business Confidence bringing more people back into the labor force. Some people point to the Opioid Epidemic as one reason why, working men, for instance, out of the labor force. This is something that economists are trying to figure out. Could be one of the next puzzles for the future fed chairman jay powell if he gets confirmed when he takes the job in february. Inflation is going to be a big deal. Not seeing the wage growth we need to see. Sarah, can you explain to our viewers exactly, give us the intricacies of the job Participation Rate. That 62 , is that 62 of everybody that is eligible and capable to work in america . Correct, 62 . Historically its been much higher, but it started dropping after 2008 . Correct. We saw a big drop in the big financial crisis and recession. The problem is it has really failed to come back. There are a number of factors you can point to. For instance, technology, the fact that manufacturing jobs just arent what they used to be. We have this huge Skills Mismatch in the economy. And as a result, businesses complain all the time about labor shortages. Theyre just not finding people who they need to hire with the right skills. These are whats called structural problem, permanent, big changes within industry and technology. It creates a lot of problems because we have a lot of working, eligible people, people of the age that cant enter the labor force because they either dont have the skills or are just disincentivized to do so. We do need to see that number move up to indicate a healthy jobs market and a healthy economy. But the fact that the Unemployment Rate has moved down should actually encourage that number to move up. Well wait and see. Still waiting. Cnbcs sarah eisen at the stock exchange. Michael lewis is back, also a contributing editor for vanity fair, his latest piece entitled made in the u. S. D. A. What did you find when you dug in on this, what are the concerns of some of the people let me back up why im writing 13,000 words on the department of agriculture. Let me explain this. The Trump Administration basically skipped the transition in a lot of the government. The Obama Administration had prepared, like most president s going out, n exquisite course on how the federal government worked, hundreds of people were deputed to build briefing books, department of energy, Treasury Department the. The day after the election, the assumption is 20 people are going to roll into the apgt sees and cram whats going on. A lot of whats going on in the federal government is not ideological. Its like how you run the place. Its amazing to me, given all the drama, Politics Around the election. The whole point of the thing is to run that government with 2 Million People in it. They just didnt show for the briefings. So what ive been doing and going and getting the briefings they didnt bother to get. I did it with the energy department. Part two is the Agriculture Department. And there are several reasons i went to it. One was, i thought i wonder if i can pick a place where theres nothing to worry about because its so sleepy, that nothing can go wrong. Instead, oh, my god, what a mess. What specifically is a mess . Ill give you some examples. The big problem if you force me to put it in a couple of sentences. The motives of the people that are there. Why are you in the Agriculture Department if youre working for donald trump . The example is sam clovis who donald trump nominated to be the head of science in the department of agriculture. Most people may not even know theres a department of science in the department of agriculturement they spend roughly 3 billion a year making grants to researchers, most of the research is related to climate change, how to grow food or raise livestock in a different climate. This is research that will have a big effect on how were living in 50 years. If its done well, its important. The person who ran this during the Obama Administration was a woman who spent the better part of a 50year career as an agricultural scientist and was exquisitely familiar with the job she was given. Her whole life had prepared her for it. The guy trump puts in is a right wing radio talk show host who has no science at all in his background, this guy clovis. And now has withdrawn his name. Just withdrew his name. If theres this pattern in the administration, the government doesnt do anything, so we can put anybody they dump these people with no yaul kwagss into this department or didnt staff the jobs. The question im asking is, if you disable the federal government just by sheer ignorance and ineptitude, never mind malice or insanity, what happens . Only Michael Lewis could make 13,000 words on the usda so interesting. Thank you very much. Congratulations on doing that. Well read it and see how you should have done your homework. The undoing project is available in paperback. Always good to see you. Its just after 8 40 on the east coast. The president of the United States has already sent out eight tweets this morning. Senator john mccain has a piece of advice for the president , put down the phone. Tom brokaw brings us his conversation with senator mccain next on morning joe. I was playing golf days ago. Love golf. I used to love golf. Wait, what, what happened . I was having a good round, and then my friend, sheila, right as i was stepping into the tee box mentioned a tip a pro gave her. No. Yep. Did it help . It completely ruined my game. Well, the truth is, that advice was never meant for you. I like you. You want to show me your swing . Its too soon. Get advice thats right for you. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. [burke] abstract accident. Seen videoit. Covered it. C we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum protectionism, we have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions and remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on earth by tearing down walls, not building them. [ applause ] senator john mccain earlier this week with very powerful words regarding his view of the current state of america. Nbc news special correspondent tom brokaw recently sat down for an extensive and wideranging interview with senator john mccain. Senator, when you woke up this morning, did you say to yourself, hmm, where was i 50 years ago . You know, i did. I thought, wow, maybe i zigged when i should have zagged. Yeah, i thought about it a lot. But i also thought about the heroes that i have known and the benefit of having served in the company of heroes. I am the luckiest guy you will ever talk to, i promise you. Does that memory ever fade for you . Is it there constantly, or can you park it somewhere . It doesnt fade, but i have parked it. In life we have to go on and put it behind us and be grateful. Do you think were more divided now than we were then . No. I think we were more divided then because we were talking about body bags. It was a period of real upheaval in our history and all of it with the backdrop of these brave young people who were over there serving and sacrificing. Whenever i go across america, inevitably someone will say to me, are we going to be okay . I hear that as well. We are going through a period of turmoil politically obviously. Were seeing in many ways the 1930s, the isolationism, the america firsters, maybe some of the causes are different, but the fact is we are seeing the United States become much more insular and inward. If the president called you up and said, john, what should i be doing im not doing right now . What would you say to him . Stop tweeting. I think id say stop tweeting. I think i would also say, look, theres no reason to attack republicans. Weve got enough people attacking them. In the course of your political career, especially as a president ial candidate, you had mixed relations with the press. The president has no use for the press. Hes turned the country against us in many ways. I think the role of the press is more important than ever before. I hate the press, okay . But the fact is, without a free press in this country, the pillar of democracy is destroyed. In the senate and in your private life as well, youve had friends on both sides of the aisle. That doesnt happen anymore. Is that a key to getting the country i fought with and worked with and almost more than anybody in the United States senate was one edward m. Kennedy. You know, he and i would yell at each other. We would fight. We would walk off and hed say, hey, we did pretty good, didnt we . Thats the kind of relationship that you have to have. And so we did a lot of legislation together. Have you loved your life, john . Oh, yeah, ive loved my life. I cant tell you. For 60 years now, ive had the great honor of being involved in the arena. And ive loved every minute of it. Disappointment, ups, down, win, losses. But no one has had the wonderful life that ive had, no one. Tom brokaw joins us now. You know, tom, its so fascinating. You asked i thought a really important question of john mccain and that is are we more divided today than we were in 1968. Last night mika and i were talking for the Harvard Institute of politics at the World Economic forum and a lot of really sharp people there. And they asked the question, is this the most divided weve ever been. Coincidentally, i said, talk to tom brokaw and people like john mccain about 1968 and ask them if were more divided. It is good to keep things in perspective like that. And senator mccain, i think thats why he is so invaluable, this democracy right now. What do you think . Well, i think at a ground level, we were more divided then because of the war. I think body bag, the phrase he used, 15,000 people died that year. Dr. King was murdered. Kennedy murdered. The russians went into check slovakia in august. We were deeply divided. The difference is we are so much more acutely conscious of the division because of social media, joe. Its a 24hour cycle going on all the time. A lot of it we cant trust because its not very true. But people are determined to divide the country from the left and the right and the middle at the same time. So i think that theres a heightened awareness of these divisions and no effort so far to try to put it back together again, certainly not a Trump Administration. The democrats have no plan so far as i can tell for putting the country back together again. And in those days, everybody felt we had to get through all these divisions, get the war over with and then we would quietly begin to stitch the country back together again. Yeah, tom, isnt it surprising, after all the sacrifice that john mccains made for this country that actually right now over the past nine, ten months, may have been as invaluable a service as hes ever given his country. You know, joe, i was in hanoi and i went to the lake where he was forced to parachute into, almost drown at that point, his body was terribly broken when he surfaced. The vietnamese swarmed all over him, were beating on him and everything and im confident that he thought, this is it, im going to die. And that he had a life after that, so much of it was very painful, i can understand why hes greatful for the life hes had. Look, its been uneven in a lot of ways. I think hes determined, especially with his very serious cancer that he has, to use these days to say to the country we can be better than this. There are lessons in history that we need to be paying attention to. And i am going to spend my days trying to get the country to do just that. So i think that we should be grateful. Whatever your politics are. That we have somebody like john mccain who has seen so much and suffered so much. Saying to us, think about it, if you want to read a speed at the Naval Academy and its worth doing, you can just google it, because its i think really extraordinarily important view of where we are and where we need to be. I completely agree with you, tom. I think as historians look back at this time, i think one or two of john mccains speeches that hes given over the past month will actually be the words that so many people remember. Tom, thank you so much. Always an honor to have you with us. And a remarkable a remarkable package. Oh, joe as i mentioned youll get over the honor part, joe, i promise. Okay, well, i dont think so. But its very humble for you to say so. As i was mentioning to tom, mika and i took part in the great conversation last night as part of the kennedy schools collaboration with the World Economic forum. Now, it was designed exclusively for young Global Leaders to address some of the most pressing problems that are facing america and the world. And of course near the top of those, gender inequality. Something that ties in so closely with mikas movement, know your value. Now, as so many of you know on monday, mika hosted an incredible conference at the grand hyatt right here in new york city where she put her message, and it is such a moving message, she put that message into practice. Ladies, mika two big goals today, right . First, to know your value. And then to grow it. Whats your brand . My name is ross brown. I sing, i entertain, i make your life better. Anyone in the audience want to tell mika her brand . Whats your brand . A Problem Solver and a chief collaborator. Its going to be a great day. Im so excited. Mika, hey, im so glad that you told them that, listen dont interrupt me this is my thing and can i tell you know your value. I bill de blasio do here by proclaim this as know your value day. [ applause ] and that was just the first ten minutes of our jampacked jam session on women, their value and closing the deal. By raising the argument of why youre ready for that pay raise, youve put a red flag up. Youve put a marker up. You have lost nothing. You are not there because they need a woman. You are not there because they need a person of color. You are there because you are all that and a bag of chips. There was martha. When i published my first book in 1982, that was a big a hard moment. Sarah jessica parker. I spent a huge amount of time listening. What i learned and what i hear and what i put into practice is my form of confidence. Bobby brown. You do need things when youre going through things. I dont like to feel bad. Im very positive. I just take any lemon and i just make a really good lemonade and then i sell it. Jane pauley. The most important things on my resume, bizarrely, were failures. Thats when the the brain doesnt learn much from success. The brain learns from failure. We talked money, millennials, relaunching, branding and fitness. Hey, we can do arms up here. We can get and on body language, former federal investigator jeannine driver had our audience laughing hysterically. A uld shoulder shrug is uncertainty. Is it okay if i take a week off . What do guys do . Hey, fourth of july, im out for a week, wont be here. Shimmying. Try to be angry. Say, can i talk to you for a second . And crying their eyes out. We went there on what holds women back. We need to find our voices. Its time to step up and say no to wage inequality and harassment. We also get taken advantage of. No more. Its not personal, right . This is about value. Respect first, friendships will follow. Stop apologizing. We have a website. Know your value. 365. Com. Raise your voice when you need to but always own it. Be a control freak. With your voice and your posture. You obviously need to know your data. Dont act, be authentically you. And above all, value yourself. We close the day with the grow your value bonus competition. Its getting closer to that time for them to make their pitches and they are looking the part. Lets give them support. Are you ready . Im ready. Three women who we coached, dressed and supported as they pitched live and learned what it feels like to put it all on the line. So the winner of the know your value grow your value bonus competition is tiffany okay, i have to thank you for this opportunity. Youre an example of why we women need to open the door for each other, have those difficult conversations. So im here because of you and i thank you for that. [ applause ] and you can visit nbcnews. Com knowyourvalue, for all those exciting new features. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Stephanie. Thanks so much, joe. Good morning. Im stephanie ruhle. With a lot to cover. Starting with drip, drip, drip. Despite repeated denial, new revelations that Jeff Sessions and President Trump knew of russian contacts in the campaign and democrats are throwing out the p word. Perjury is a very careful standard but its something that would be looked at. This, as President Trump regrets not being able to get involved in the im not supposed to be doing the kind of things i would love to be doing. And im very frustrated by it. And jobs, job, job, 261,000 jobs created in the last month, as republicans reveal their long awaited tax plan. This is a very important and special moment for our country, for all americans. Corporations, they are getting big breaks. Individuals in high tax states, not so much. But theres least one person whos very excited about it. Get serious, get serious. And how about those democrats in disa rey . Former dnc interim chair Donna Brazile blasting the primary saying Hillary Clinton was engaged in a secret takeover, exposing a