Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20171127

Their source was a shocked and stunned and deeply saddened unnamed viewer. A moron. Who didnt wish to be identified. It was a moron i have a conversation to make. No. Can you believe that . It was definitely the president of the United States. Are there no editors working through thanksgiving weekend . No. You cant really say an unnamed viewer who wishes to not be identified. One. Last time i checked im stuffed. By the way, happy fourth of july. Those fire works last night. Its a joke. Were going to do it again. We will go really slowly so you can get it. Donald. And we were just maybe the humor they get is like an animal falling on bugs bunny or something. Trump doesnt do humor, do you remember . Seriously, editors, please. Good god. Do you remember when they tried to show trump the jokes that he could tell at the Alfalfa Club Dinner and he didnt get it . He didnt get them. One moron viewer might have been all right. No, no, of course not. For nbc news and msnbc, jon heilmann. How was your thanksgiving . Excellent, thank you. That was for real. We meant that. Hold on. Stay with us. Hold on. Hey, hey. Whoa, im awake. That was for real, okay . Because were not going to now speak in obvious generalities and be laughing. Did you have a good thanksgiving . Excellent. Thank you very much. Harold ford jr. I havent introduced him yet but okay. Say who he is. How was your thanksgiving . Im not going to mess up this live show. You and i had a bad College Football weekend, you and i. Bad College Football weekend. Backtoback. I watched them both backtoback. My team has got the program has got some thinking to do here. At least youre paying your coach 9 million a year to keep losing to ohio state. Secretary to president obama now, political analyst josh earnest. Should we hold up the headline to the newspaper . This is monday, november 27th. Monday the 27th. The day after thanksgiving or the holiday weekend. Whatever day it is. And also from bbc news, carol lee joins us. How was your thanksgiving weekend . Great. The eagles did well. Im happy. Good, good, good. And Michael Schmidt is on the case. He rocks for thanksgiving. Alone in a corner. Not even smiling. I think hes trying. Thats a smile. Did you have a good thanksgiving, mike . Yeah. No, it was good except i didnt make my family got a little disappointed in me because we had some news to deal with as we were driving and kind of looked at me and said the lengths youll go to, to get out of driving. So you were on your phone. Was it the flynn news . Yeah, it was the flynn news. Thats a good place before we get to the news, this happened a couple obviously while we were kind of all getting ready for thanksgiving dinner and our family was all flooding in and my son actually said did you hear the news about flynn . No, we didnt. We needed to speak privately about it. I said no gloating. We dont talk politics at the table. We somehow managed we dont talk about politics and so somebody said bada baba. You didnt play any scar b borr borough music . Well on spotify. Its actually fun. Well play it going to the break. Its hysterical. Youre crazy. Mike, so, yeah, this broke thanksgiving day. What can you tell us about it . Well, it looks like it happened on wednesday. The lawyers for flynn called trumps lawyers and said, look, we cant talk to you anymore, share any information with you anymore about the special counsels investigation. They had this agreement in place where they could do that. But they said that that could no longer happen. And theres really only one reason why that would certainly two reasons that would happen. One is that theyre no longer sort of on the same side of the things and secondly that flynn may be talking to mueller. And because flynn it is talking to mueller, hes no longer on the same side of things as others in the investigation and because of that, they said look, we cant share information with you anymore and have to go our own way. Michael, is there any other explanation to this . Is this much ado about nothing . Does mike plins son, who said everybody calm down, have a reason for saying that . Is there any other explanation other than they are now either cooperating with muellers investigation or preparing to cooperate with muellers investigation . I dont think its much ado about nothing. Either hes cooperating or is going to plead guilty to something. Theyre pretty sure of that and dont understand why this would happen for any other reason. Theyve tried to publicly downplay this and said this is not a big deal. We assumed that flynn would plead guilty. At the same time this is deeply troubling for them and folks were speaking to over the weekend. Not only is flynn looking at significant criminal exposure, his son is in is being looked at for the same exact things. And flynn is very motivated to try to save his son from having to go to prison and is willing to do anything to stop that. And because of that, is trying to figure out how he can help mueller and prove to mueller that he has something to give up. It was a pretty Significant Development we thought. Equaling troubling to the trump team, somebody was actually in information sharing arrangement to get all the information from the trump team as they were preparing to mount a defense against mueller, who has now broken away. Along with breaking away, they also have all that information that theyve been gathering. Yeah. So that makes a bad situation even worse for the trump team. Doesnt it . It does. If you remember earlier this year, flynns lawyer said when we were reporting that flynn was looking for some sort of immunity from investigators that Michael Flynn has a story to tell. If youre the white house and youre the president s legal team and you dont have eyes into exactly what story hes telling, that could be concerning. Theyre trying to distance tlemsz from flynn. You have a white house official telling Kristen Welker that flynn is taking steps that are in his best interest, facts unique to him. Flynn was in the white house. We know that Robert Mueller is looking at some of his activity while serving as National Security adviser. This is a potentially very Significant Development and gets this much closer to the white house than weve seen previously. So, jon heilmann, youll know this as well. And you can fill out a bit of the information of what i gathered, just talking to the Trump Campaign throughout the election cycle. They always said general flynn was always on the plane with donald because he kept donald calm. Yep. Had sit right with him. Sat with him all the time, kept him in check and said you know hes a very moderating influence on donald. We want him sitting next to donald at all times, especially when theyre flying long distances. These two were extraordinarily close. You think about the two in building this case, whatever the case is that mueller ends up with, the two people at the most focus are Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. Orders of magnitude different in other words to their proximatity to trump and amount of time they spent with trump, both as carol points out, because flynn was not just a player in the campaign but for a brief time was at the pinnacle of power at the white house before he was fired. But also because manafort was around for six months or so and then there was some communication that continued but he was not ever on the plane with donald trump every single day. It is the case that flynn flew around the country with trump constantly, was the person at the top of the Foreign Policy apparatus, the person who had conversations with trump constantly about the pertinent question at issue, russia. In normal settings, informal setting, on the fly, during the campaign, in the formidable stages and in the white house. Im not discounting how important manafort is, but flynn in terms of what he could give to Robert Mueller and his team is infinish infiniteely more. Manafort was a worker bee, hired gun and was never going to be let in to the inner circle but flynn was there every second of the way. We went to lunch there and he was lurking at the door, listening to everything. It was strange. That was harold. And that wasnt at the white house. That was downstairs. God, it was weird. It was just weird. All right. Lots more to get to. This is fascinating. President trump took aim at reporters over the weekend, many in harms way, while promoting a website that lavishes him with praise and spreads conspiracy theories. The president tweeted, quote, fox news is much more important in the United States than cnn. But outside of the u. S. , Cnn International is so a major source of fake news and they represent our this is the president our nation to the world very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them less than an hour later, the president retweeted a purported accomplishment list by the website, i swear to god, maga pill and wrote, wow, i didnt realize we did so much. Wish the fake news would report. Thank you. President trumps suggested news source as a sycophanted website that has aligned itself with White Nationalist movements, false flag terrorism and Mass Shootings for gun control. Also earthquake machines to destabilize regions. And the use of traumabased mind control. And thats just one post. This, as the president complained about the russia, russia, russia investigation and claimed i have the economy booming and i have possibly done more than any tenmonth president. You know what . Im sorry. This is where somebody on the set needs to say, wow, that person seems unhinged, imbalanced and not fit to be president. You just did. Who is it going to be . You just did. He really seems out of his mind. Josh, there are a lot of things the president is out there just to shock and stun people. But lets focus on what is actually very disturbing. And that is a president attacking the free press, attacking the free press that continues to actually speak truth to power, that actually continues to tell it straight. Making mistakes. We all make mistakes from time to time. But doing that and actually d l denegrading the work of reporters who go out all over the world, risking their lives, as christiane amanpour. Every day risking their lives. President trump knew the facts would never have sent this treat. Here is my late camera woman who took a bullet in the face for covering the facts and truth in bosnia. Facts first. This happens so much with reporters across the globe. Cnn across the globe really is sort of like the bbc is. But it is, again, donald trump attacking the free press. So much of this other nonsense. Nfl. Come on. Hes purposely trying to pick fights. Here, this is a challenge to the First Amendment of the United States and a free press. And republicans and democrats and independents immediate to all speak up and speak out. There are some things we have to be united on. Forget all the other tweets this weekend. Forget the nonsense, the constant noise machine. When he attacks the free press, when he attacks an independent judiciary, when he attacks our constitutional republic, weve got to speak out together. These are the foundations of our democracy and a free press constitutes democracy. Independent professional journalists would be in a position to hold people in power account wrabl for the way they wielded the power of the American People. And that is a critical element of the successful functioning of our democracy. You raise an important point. Theres an important difference between, as outrageous as it is, to attack journalists here in the United States who enjoy the protections of the First Amendment to hold people in power accountable. It is another thing all together to go out and attack independent professional journalists who are risking their lives in war zones, in some of the most remote places on the planet to bring us crucial information about whats happening around the world. The kind of information, the kinds of stories that arouz our consciousness, to make sure that the United States and people who live here are aware of whats happening around the world and can respond to it. So when we saw, for example, a couple of years ago the crisis around the wave of migrant flows from north africa to the middle east, journalists were on the front lines risking their lives to tell that story. We needed to know what was happening there. And to undermine in such a gratuitous, flippant way on twitter think about this harold, remember the reporter who had gotten beaten up by a congress youngal candidate . The dude was immediately arrested. They cuffed him. They threw him he ran for the United States congress. Who ultimately won. The guy had mug shots probably within, you know, 12 hours. They didnt put up with it. So our Law Enforcement officers, as you said, domestically, theyre always going to do the right. Theyre going to protect they understand the First Amendment. Lets say theres a Cnn International reporter or nbc News Reporter thats in turkey and maybe they do something that the government doesnt like. Well, theyve already got the message, youve got the president of the United States who says this is fake news, this is propaganda. Maybe we throw them in jail. Maybe we do worse. President of the United States isnt going to mind. Whereas they would know under barack obama or under george w. Bush. Or any other president. Any other president , dont screw with the american journalists because if you do, youre going to get a call from the American Embassy in five minutes and things are going to go badly for you very quickly. That message hasnt been sent. The opposite. By an administration that doesnt even have ambassadors in these outposts and now has sent a message to tyrants from turkey to russia, to what you want with our reporters because we dont like them. Because we dont believe them. Because they wont kiss our ass every day on the air. Okay. Now watch your language. And spew propaganda 24 hours a day. And lie to our viewers about how theyre doing. Any time theres disagreement with this white house, no pun intended, to trump and whatever they may be doing, those are the ones they take on. Our elected officials, the president and attorney general, ridiculing countries who treat journalists the wrong way, the points you just made. Marrying the two not only do you give a license to people who behave certain ways to our jirnlists, you almost celebrate it. Because of how they present and project news globally. You shouldnt believe wherever you are around the globe its another piece of icing on this cake about how this president behaves in such a poor way. Its now a stretch to say hes fit. And the New York Times that brings the world to our doorstep as they would say every morning. What about the Washington Post reporters . What about all the reporters, american reporters across the globe that are putting themselves at risk . Im hoping that somebody and i thought it would be the chief of staff would get this president s tweets in check before someone gets hurt. And im dead serious, before someone gets hurt or worse. Before someone gets hurt sbl Michael Schmidt, final thoughts on this before we go to break . While were on this topic, it would be good to hear from you. We are on the front lines of the trump story. Obviously we have to Pay Attention to what the president says, look at what the Justice Department did a few months ago when they held a press conference to announce autumn leak investigations they were doing. At the end of the day we really just have to tune it out and go back to work. Thats what we do on a daytoday basis. We have to follow the facts. Facts are our friends. As much as we wet ourselves in that and tune out what the president is doing, the more successful we will be in the end. And i think we focus on that every single day. Thats all you can do. Still ahead on morning joe, President Trump reportedly suggests the access Hollywood Tape is not authentic. Of course he does. He has already apologized for it. I have my own take i know what happened on that tape and im going to tell you. Its not what you think. He apologized . He did. But says its fake now. Ill tell you, there is something thats been massively misunderstood about it. You cant say that. Yes, i can, and im going to. No, you cant. Yes, i am. No, youre not. I want everybody to listen to it, then youre going to hear what i hear. Mikas not going to its a theory. It is a theoriy and since theories are apparently on maga pig website true, im going to put mine out there. Can we talk about the earth code machines . Earthquake machines, the thing on that website, im most curious about. Im 100 right, by the way. Im always right about these things. Thats in the third season of stranger things. President trump im scaring joe. Make or break moment to overhaul the tax code. 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Com outsmart President Trump has weighed in on roy moores candidacy and has said the last thing we need in alabama and the u. S. Senate is a Schumer Pelosi puppet who is weak on crime, weak on the border, bad for our military and bad for our Second Amendment. The times claims the trump sees the calls for moore to step aside as an aversion to the response to the now famous access Hollywood Tape in which he boasted of kissing and groping women. Trump reportedly suggested to a senator earlier this year that the tape was not authentic and apparently repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. However, trump has repeatedly admitted to making the comments and apologized for them. Ive said and done thing ice regret. And the words released today on this more than a decadeold video, are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words dont reflect who i am. I said it. I was wrong. And i apologize. Jon heilmann, donald trump goes back and forth, back and forth, changes the facts. He apologized, admitted he said it, now says its fake. We shouldnt be surprised, should we . No. When they were waiting to see it, his first theory was this tape is going to be fake. Its not going to be real. When they heard it for the first time he was like, i guess thats me. Even then he continued to say, is it edited in some way . Hes a conspiracy theorist. As we know he traffics in websites that are conspiracy theories. He continues to, as you know, after the access Hollywood Tape even though he admitted to saying these words eventually, he basically took on all those women who came forward to accuse him of Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, claims theyre all liars and said at the time he was going to sue them all. Hasnt sued any of them. Its not surprising to me at this date now, more than a year later, he is back in his mind to this is all a conspiracy. This is all a fraud. Hes telling people i never said those things. Forget about what i said in the campaign. This is all made up. Fake news. Repeating this story back to himself over and over, which he does. Yeah. He will repeat a story to himself over and over again and convince himself of his own set of facts. Roy moore is uniquely unqualified to be in the you state senate. Doug jones is not soft on crime. United states attorney who put murderers in jail, who is aligned with some of the best and strongest cases to be brought in this nations history. In addition, he has been one of the biggest proponents of expense spending. Big increases in defense spending and he has been smart and frankly outspoken about it. So this president , again, the fake news is coming from him about doug jones. If you look at doug jones record there in alabama, you will see a democrat. You will see someone from alabama who represents the values of alabamans who happens to be a democrat. I know what donald trump is trying to do. The facts, again, dont line up with these unbelievably false assertions. With the access Hollywood Tapes, you know, billy bush lost his job while the president went on to be president. Think about that. On top of it, it sounds like anything could have happened in that bus i wonder what billy bush would say if he totally told the story. It sounds like he was sort of, like come on, mika. Something happened in there, he was lunged at in some way by trump. Lets talk about congressman john conyers. Just listen to it. Its interesting. As the Ranking Member of the house judiciary committee. 27 term, made that announcement yesterday amid Sexual Harassment allegations. Conyers released a statement that read in part, quote, i deny those allegations. I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the House Committee on ethics. Former staffer says she was fired for resisting the congressmans sexual advances. Senior democratic aide tells nbc news that his decision to step aside comes after days of House Minority leader, nancy pe loclo and others laying the groundwork for him to step aside gracefully. We are strengthened by due process. Just because someone is accused. Was it one accusation, two . John conyers is an icon in our country and has done a great deal, violence against women advocates. The right wing is quoting me as praising him for his work on that. He did great work on that. The fact is, as john reviews his case, which he knows, which i dont. Why dont you . How is it that you dont . Excuse me, may i finish my sentence . Sure. That he will do the right thing. Do you believe his accusers . I dont know who they are. Do you . They have not really come forward. Its really important that the words due process have come up in this conversation. Not that its possible in every situation but in this situation. Every situation that we have covered over the past two months is different except for maybe one or two. They all have different dynamics to them. They all have Different Levels of nasty to them or bad to them. And they all need to be treated differently. And i think this one breaks my heart. It really does. How shocking the word due process. Thank you, nancy pelosi. Enraged some people yesterday. Theres Something Else bigger here. Ive even heard conservatives say this about john conyers. First of all, i dont understand this slush fund that they have in congress. I never knew about it. Im sure you didnt know about it either. Its outrageous. We need to get that open and know what thats about. We need to know all the accusers. Im sure, you know, lets just presume that the accuser was treated badly. Lets talk about john conyers, though. I think nancy pelosi got in trouble for calling him iconic . An icon. An icon. In these days, in this environment, youre supposed to wipe everything out that anybody has ever done based on some charges that are put forward. I understand that. Thats the climate were in right now. Especially if theyre yeah. I understand that. I will say this, though. Theres something bigger with john conyers. Three years ago he had articles written about him by people who adored him saying he should step aside. In 2014 i think it was, he went to the opening of air of american museum. When he got up to talk, he was talking about miles davis and john coltrane, rambling around, showing up in pajamas to meeting s. Somebody in his office needs to step in. They were talking about him having dementia several years ago. Were not supposed to talk about that when it comes to the president and the fact that the president s skills, mentally, if you look at interviews, seem to have diminished a great deal. Thats subjective. 20 years from now, look how he talked in 99. Look how hes talking now. So, please, save your shock for somebody else. I dont really give a damn about what you think about what i said because its going to be said ten years from now. When it comes to john conyers, the guy is showing up in pajamas, okay . Hes clearly not capable of being a United States congressman. But he is an icon. People need to step in. Now as far as nancy pelosi getting hammered for saying hes an icon, tell me, what do you call this person before this happened . A guy who was a korean war veteran . He got into congress as one of only four black members in congress. A guy who singlehandedly started the congressional black caucus, a guy who is responsible for rosa parks laying in state in the United States capital. I believe it was the first black woman to ever be afforded that honor. Oh, he was in selma on that bloody, bloody day so many years ago i would call that an icon. I would call that an icon. If youre offended by that, if youre offended by nancy pelosi calling a man like that an icon, let me just say that you remind me an awful lot of the bible thumpers i grew up with and a lot like jim and tammy faye bakker. Yes, he needs to be taken out of congress and, yes, they need to rip the scab off of whatever they have in the house where they pay Sexual Harassment things from tax dollars. And they give the member representation but not the accuser and, yes, hes obviously a danger to others. Hes a danger to himself. He needs to be removed from congress because hes not capable of being in congress. And people who love him and people who care for him need to gather round him now and tell him its time to go home. But when he goes home its not george h. W. Bush shot out of the skies and into the waters of the pacific. Judge the man by his 93 years. Service to america. Judge john conyers by his 88, 89 years and his service to america and get him out of congress now. Its such a good point you make. When youre talking about men in their late 80s, early 90s, youre talking about people who are suffering from health problems. I know i just had one of my closest friends, diane smith, over recently. We both recently lost our fathers and we both had that moment where we had to go to our fathers and say, it is time to go home. Its time to go home, you know, and be at home for a while. And the behavior of someone in that age range is just its hard to explain sometimes. And its very, very difficult to deal with. And its sort of sick to inject it into this conversation that were having. I think it minimizing it. Thank you, nancy pelosi, for speaking the truth. Well be right back. 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. On the only bed that adjusts on both sides to ultiyour ideal comfortweek your sleep number setting. And snoring . Does your bed do that . Its the final days of ultimate sleep number week. Save 50 on the ultimate limited edition bed with adjustable comfort on both sides. Ends monday. Visit sleepnumber. Com for a store near you. So how old do you want uhh, i was thinking around 70. Alright, and before that . You mean after that . No, im talking before that. Do you have things you want to do before you retire . Oh yeah sure. Ok, like what . But i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement . Were absolutely doing that. But theres no law you cant make the most of today. What do you want to do . Id really like to run with the bulls. Wow. Yea. Hope youre fast. I am. Get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. Welcome hhi s it going . 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 okay. This is kind of uncomfortable. I dont know. Theyre kind of cute. They have santa clauss all over them. Here im talking about john conyers showing up in pajamas and richard haas shows up in santa claus pajamas. From the waist down and has on the cutest slippers. Lets not make light. Were going to get in trouble. Were just trying to have an honest conversation about this. Its time to go home. And sometimes its okay to laugh. Just calm down. About what . Youre making fun of the whole conyers situation. Im not making fun of it. Im making fun of richard. We should be able to laugh, cry and be dead serious all about this same topic at the same time. No, no, we dont laugh about this topic. I think you would really wear wait, we wear pajamas on the air christmas eve. But i do that on purpose. We just roll in. Thomas roberts said i always had waistband wednesdays. Yes. Stretchy pajamas. You know, the most shocking thing this morning is here we are at 66 41 a. M. On a monday morning, november 27th and mika what . Still did not know, harold ford, that the alabama can i talk . Good god, can you stop like its an snl skit. I know. Did you notice that she was the crazy one on the snl skit . See, im going to complete a sentence and you let me complete the sentence and then you talk. Okay. Go ahead. Im listening. So, harold, here we are on monday morning. And mika did not know at 6 41 a. M. That the university of alabama lost to their instate rival the auburn tigers. Shocking loss, even more shocking that she is so disconnected from my life that she doesnt know that the worst thing that could have possibly happened in sports happened to me. It was devastating. Look how devastated i am. Alabama, though, we had an offcamera conversation. I dont know if they make the playoffs. Your thinking is theyll make the playoffs. I mean, if ohio state beats wisconsin i think ohio state makes no, they dont. Ohio state lost to iowa, a really bad loss. Alabama, number one, lost a great number six team. Instate their instate rival away on the home field. Its hard. You look at you look at all the losses. Everybody has a really bad loss right now. So alabama will probably get in there. Ive got to say theyre so banged up and so hurt right now, i dont think theyre going to win it anyway. When you lose your best linebackers, theyre decimate sfld they lost one of their defensive backs also. Whats the kids name . Fitzpatrick . Minka. Minka. Oh, i thought you meant me. No. You dont deserve the name. My view is this. Joe is not one of those guys who walks around saying oh, we lost. He watches a Football Game and if alabama loses hes the same as if alabama wins. It never happened. And i was surrounded i had chickens walking into my kitchen. I had four dogs, three cats and melania got loose and almost got killed. The rabbit. Donald was missing. The rabbit. I almost just closed the door and let him freeze to death. Thats the rabbit. But instead we found donald. So i had a lot going. And kids everywhere. I was not watching football. Its not the truth that im the same if they win or lose. You seem the same. Youre a nice guy. My friends will go crazy for weeks and weeks. Ill say their yre 18yearold kids throwing a ball around. Yeah. Were proud of them when they win but its cruel when they lose. To have a six wild card one. Theyre going to expand it. Even one of these outside conferences. Central florida will lose to memphis in this conference championship f they win theyll be the only Undefeated Team in this country and particularly if ohio state theyre going to expand it out to eight. At least to six. Browns, giants or 49ers browns s will not win. Carol lee, will you text me and let me know so i can be more yes. Okay, thanks. President trump told president erdogan during a call friday that the United States will stop p arming kurdish fighters in syria. The announcement came from turkey before later being confirmed from the white house reportedly took the state department by surprise. No details on timing will be released or confirmed. Of course because turkey has been such a great ally. What the hell have the kurds ever done . Oh, wait a second. Theyve done everything thats ever been asked of them. Theyre an Extraordinary Group of fighters. Its an Extraordinary Group of people. They should be at the top of our list for allies. Theres been an historical pattern here where time and time and time again the kurds, they get screwed, and often by the United States. We decide even after we work with them, then we basically cast them aside. This looks to be the latest. Not only wrong morally, what overer other leverage do we have over syria, over iran, russiabacked Syrian Government . The kurds are only players. By the way, the idea that turkey doesnt like it, that iran and iraq doesnt like it, whats so bad with that . You would think we would you would think. The kurds, everybody talks about how israel is, you know, to boro from jirmy carter right before i hate to do this, president carter. You know what he said about iran, an island of stability and a sea of chaos. Well, thats what israel has been. And we have always supported israel. Thats what the kurds are in that region. The kurds we can always count on the kurds. We cant count on the iraqis. We sure cant count on the iranians and the turks have prove tobd about as disloyal a nato ally as you have but the kurds are always there for us. Makes sense morally, politically, strategically. Why leave them in lurch again . What tools do we have to influence syria . Unless i missed it, thats it. Thats acknowledging that assad with his iranian and russian backers have won the game. Game over. Catching the state department off guard once again. Theres so many things. We talked about the importance of the First Amendment, importance of the free press, what donald trump is trying to do to undermine the First Amendment. I think close behind is the gutting of our diplomatic core. And the state department being caught off guard. This is so dangerous for this country. I dont know how this gets repaired. I told mika, the institutions will be fine, the First Amendment will be fine. It will survive. The state department, not so sure. Thats the thing thats important to remember here. These institutions dont just exist on paper. Theyre people that make these institutions work. Theyre hemorrhaging, the senior most people that have advanced the interests of this country all around the world and it is a tragedy what is happening at the state department right now. It is not something that is going to be rebuilt in just the next presidency. But its going to take some time over a generation to sort of restaff and make sure that weve got decades of work. People in this these position. This could be the tragic legacy of this secretary of state, that he presided over the did he s decimation of his department and disrespect for diplomacy and the idea we dont need a stroit strong state department now, given all that harold, jump in. Joint chiefs are saying likelihood of north Korea Nuclear war is rising. Athletes going to south korea to compete, would you sanction that delegation . Chance of war with north korea is serious. Some kind of an incident could grow out of this sort of thing with the north korean defector, b1 bombers near north korean air space. These two countries, United States and north korea, simply are not in a position to manage a situation, escalation. People are discounting way too much a chance that something could happen that could lead to war between the United States and north korea. We have a whole block on state Department Issues coming up. Speaking of Foreign Policy, mika and i, and everybody here. And im sure all of you want to extend our thoughts, prayers, and best wishes to our muslim brothers and sisters and eswript who were victims of a tragic t attack. Donald trump will talk about building walls in america, and he will talk about extreme vetting. The reality is if you dont know this, the number one by far victim of islamic extremism are muslims across the world. And in iraq right now, i think 10,000 people have been victims of extreme islamic terrorism just this year alone. And so our thoughts and prayers are with our friends in egypt. Still ahead, a look at Jared Kushners shrinking role inside the trump white house. Well be right back. Ancestrydna is the gift of the season. And its now just 59 but the real gift isnt whats inside the box. Its whats inside the person who opens it. Give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions and open up a world of possibilities. Save 40 at ancestrydna. Com. The lowest price of the year ends monday. 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 . Fullbodied. They appear out of nowhere. My secret visitors. Appearing next to me in plain sight. Hallucinations and delusions. These are the unknown parts of living with parkinsons disease. What stories they tell. But for my ears only. What plots they unfold. But only in my mind. Over 50 of people with parkinsons will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. And these can worsen over time, making things even more challenging. But there are advances that have led to Treatment Options that can help. If someone you love has parkinsons and is experiencing hallucinations or delusions, talk to your parkinsons specialist. Because theres more to parkinsons. My visitors should be the ones i want to see. Learn more at moretoparkinsons. Com prshl soninlaw and white house adviser role in the white house was in the news over the weekend. Profiles in both the New York Times and Washington Post on his shrinking role are signaling his desire to step back from the responsibilities he accepted during the first eight months of the administration. By the way, also vanity fair was reporting earlier this week. Ive been hearing this is third story, first with vanity fair and then others followed up. Ive been hearing from insiders theres a lot of discussion around jared and ivanka and President Trump telling ivanka go back to new york. This is not good for you. And yet, carol, if you talk to people close to jared, they deny all these stories and say that theyre actually planning their second year. So whats the truth . What gives . Well, look. Its not like Jared Kushner has been downgraded to delivering the newspapers inside the west ring. He still has the middle east peace portfolio. Hes still involved in renegotiating nafta and other big pieces of policy, but theres no disputing that hes his portfolio has shrunk. If you look at where he was when this administration started, and thats for a number of reasons. One, i think theres realization that what they put on his plate nobody could do. Nobody. Entirely, it was too much. And the other is russia is taking its toll. That investigation is taking its toll, and inside the west wing and in Jared Kushner. What youre seeing and then john kelly coming in as chief as staff. Hes instilling order and commanded a respect from people like Jared Kushner that maybe Reince Priebus didnt have. Thats all resulted in shrinking of his portfolio. And carol is right. They gave him everything coming in, everything. There was no way anybody should have, could have handled that role. So it is a smaller role right now, but ill talk to richard at the top of the hour. For instance, he was in saudi arabia all weekend right before all the things that went down there. Well talk about that on the other side. All right. Coming up, as the year winds down, the pressure ramps up for republicans to score a win on tax reform. Well go live to the white house for the details about the president s push. Well be right back. Dad molly trash whoo mom hey, molly . Its time to go bell ringing class, lets turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. Who would like to read . molly i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. Its running much faster now. See . Its amazing, molly. Thank you. thank you. Bp is taking safety to new heights. Using drones and robots offshore so engineers can stop potential problems before they start. Because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. I just saved thousands 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. Welcome back to morning joe. It is monday, november 27th. Still with us, National Affairs analyst for nbc news, john heilemann, richard haas, former White House Press secretary to president obama now political analyst, josh earnest. And hold on. Hold on. Listen up. Its so good. All right. Political writer for the New York Times nicholas con iffisor and heidi przybyla. And also bob costa. Heidi, is it busineprzybyla . Prison belzybyla is how i sa. Chris matthews has messed it up. Przybyla. Have it got it . Przybyla. Przybyla. Heidi, a lot going on. A lot went on throughout the weekend. Where are we right now as we head into the new week and congress is trying all they can, at least the republicans there, to pass a tax bill . So much on their plate, and its about priorities first. Joe, every year it seems this time of year we have the potential of a government shutdown. What were going to see is the First Priority is keeping the lights on, getting the spending bill passed, a short term spending bill but so much else on the plate and so much tension over additional issues not just the tax bill but what theyre trying to do for for instance on health care in repealing the mandate on daca. Many things that the disaster funding aid. And so the question is can they keep the lights on and handle all of these other things plus pass major tax legislation . Joe, i was just corresponding with some top lobbyists on the tax front last night, and they were saying they think by the end of the week hopefully they can try and appease some of the republicans that are concerned and have varied concerns about the tax bill, for example, Susan Collins, and ron johnson, what theyre really concerned about are two members in particular. And thats john mccain and jeff flake. I think things will start to narrow a bit on these two senators, and in terms of just them being major holdouts in the end. They will say its over principles. The president and his team will say its personal. But according to lobbyists i was talking to, those are the two theyre worried about the most and they were saying they could forsee a situation where mike pence would have to be the tie breaker. Bob, theres so many moving targets here. You have jeff flake, and you have john mccain. Imagine john mccain voting for this bill for a lot of different reasons. Mainly on policy. But jeff flake as well. But then you even go to bob corker. Maybe hes changed his mind, but when he was on this show, he was talking about the deficit and talking about it would blow 1. 5 trillion hole in the defic deficit. Now some estimates have it over 2 trillion. How does Susan Collins support that . It seems to me holding all but two republicans in check is a pretty tall order. So add to heidis smart points, when you think about the core problem here for Senate Republic can leaders, there are those who think the tax plan is progrowth. Others think it adds top of the deficit. Speaker ryan said put aside your concerns about the deficit. We need a growth bill for 2018. The other problem they have is even if they can reconcile the problems and convince the deficit hawks, you may have moderate members who think the plan is too friendly to corporations. If the democrats could get a talking point or have it resonate nationally that this is a corporate friendly bill, not a great bill, it hasnt caught on yet, but theyre trying to make that case. You could see moderates grow wary of this bill as well. Richard, you talked about in your last book, you talked about the challenges the United States has and one of the top challenges was the National Debt. I mean, you and i, youve worked in a republican administrations, ive worked in were a Republican Congress, and republicans have always believed you tax the right type of taxes, you grow the economy, and everything takes care of itself. In this case, nobody is subjecting even with dynamic scoring that this is going to grow the economy. Which, by the way, were almost at full employment right now. So nobody is suggesting that its going to grow the economy in a way that it will justify blowing another 2 trillion hole in the u. S. Debt which is already at 20 trillion. Is going to go up to 30 trillion by the end of the decade, and then you look at entitlements, and the crisis there. This is the exact wrong thing to do at the exact wrong time. I dont know any fiscal conservative could ever vote for this bill. Goldman sachs came out with a prediction the u. S. Economy is going to grow at 4 . The idea you need this to stimulate Economic Growth is contradicted by what all sorts of people are now predicting. Inflation is beginning to pick up. The fed is going to have to raise rates as a result. And as you said, the debt is large. As the interest on the debt grows, as rates go up, by the way, youre not just going to have the debt go up, but youre going to have interest on it going up. Its going to cost us more and more and crowd out virtually every other fom of spending. Its going to hurt defense and investment in our economic future. It makes to sense. It leaves us more vulnerable to international markets. And having to borrow from the chinese and the japanese, having to borrow from the saudis. Its so reckless. These are interesting policy points and i know you have a long standing view about the debts and deficits and sometimes these are politically salient and sometimes not. I want to ask josh this question. This bill is not middle class friendly. Just on the distribution tables, just the facts of it are it is weighted toward rich people and corporations. It doesnt help the middle class. Bob said if democrats find a talking point, why cant they find a talking point when the facts are clear it is prorich people not promiddle class. Why cant democrats make that argument . Thats right. One of the things republicans have tried to do on capitol hill is hide the ball a little bit. They keep tweaking the bill and changing it. Theyre doing that to try to cobble together a coalition to pass the bill. But what it does is makes it a bill thats hard to attack. And that is the challenge thats facing democrats. This is the chief vulnerability of this proposal. Look, there is no nobody who showed up at a donald trump rally last year who was chanting cut Corporate Taxes. And it is obvious on its face that this is snag benefits corporations and wealthy people and people prepared to inherit multimillion dollar estates from their parents. If you have to punch a clock, you are not going to benefit from the bill, and in some cases youre going to pay higher taxes. Nick, you have not been on since the last star wars trailer which suggests that luke dont spoil it for me. I havent seen it yet. Luke is sort of in the middle. Its sort of amambiguous. We dont know if hes on the good or bad side of the force. If luke can have a cut in the inheritance tax, he can finally build the light saber business he always wanted to build. For me the real tell on the bill is the us kate testate tax. When you stick it in, its like a tell. This is just a grab bag of things they always wanted to do on taxes, and theyre running around trying to find pots of money to pay for it. Think about this. Think about donald trump running for a year and a half saying im going after the rich people. Im going after the Goldman Sachs. You have been forgotten. The bushes and the clintons are owned by wall street. I am going to remember the forgotten middle class. Steve bannon is like hey, this is about populism. Were going to raise taxes on the rich. And here they have the most just nakedly pro corporate rich tax cut at the expense of working class americans that ive ever seen in my life, and you combine im getting a a point here. You combine this with the Health Care Bill that they passed which hurt the very people that voted for barack obama eight years ago and then switched to donald trump, and i just have to ask myself a question. What the hell is wrong with the Democratic Party . If i were a democrat and running for office, i would get 99 of the vote. Maybe you ought to do it. If i believed in socialism in the redistribution of income, i would get i wish i were a liberal, because its so easy. If you become a democrat, ill watch alabama with you. I dont believe in socialism. But it would be so easy to beat republicans because they have become cartoon characters of themselves. Its unbelievable. Spreadtorial south park characters of themselves. Doug jones feels zero pressure to back this bill. Hes a democrat running in alabama. It shows you how toxic this bill is and how obvious the interests are that a democratic in alabama is like no, its pro corporate. Im not going to do it. Its true of others. Ten years ago you would have had others that would have backed it. Now no democrat wants to back it. Roy moores opponent is doug jones. Right . Correct. Just making sure. For him to win you got it right. Im noticing hes not doing a lot of unless ive missed it because i dont watch a lot of television, not doing a lot of interviews. Its like he knows in alabama they hate the media and this could go either way. Whats his strategy to win, and would he work it in a way hes not talking to the media or maybe he lets them talk about him . I think what hes doing is hes not talking to the national media. Thats a smart strategy for alabama but hes active on the campaign trail, doing events. Letting himself be the story without i think hes happy to have roy moore and his proclivities be the story and doug jones tell the story about his public career. Bob costa, you were on the campaign trail nonstop. You heard the populist banter coming from the Trump Campaign. How is this Corporate Tax cut give away how is this playing in Trump Country . Consultants and strategists im talking to arent sure. They look at what happened in the virginia governors race in the 2017 elections and wonder when voters flip, is it because of policies like the Health Care Bill or the tax bills or policy or because of President Trumps temperament and the tweets and the cultural chaos, and they wonder if its because of the policies, then maybe this tax plan is a huge mistake going into the 2018 midterms. At the same time, they believe the mainstream republicans in capitol hill they have to have something to run on in 2018 besides gorsuch. If its because of temperament, they think theyre fine and this will revive the republican coalition, but theyre not sure. John heilemann, there was such a populist campaign. The clintons are owned by wall street. The bushes are owned by wall street. Trump, i hear you. Im a queens guy. I hear you. That was sort of the message all along. Steve bannon, the home stretch of the Campaign Running against Goldman Sachs, running against the fed, running against the bankers, running against the rich. Im thinking about you. I just dont understand. How did democrats not open these people up and destroy them on the campaign trail . This is literally so easy to do. Look, you can never overstate incompetence of trying to align working class voters with their economic interest. There are a lot of cultural factors. Its the case that with donald trump youre right, during the campaign he talked about getting rid of the carried interest loophole. Then he arrived in washington d. C. And stocks his Economic Team with people from Goldman Sachs. Can i interrupt for a second. Stocks his people with billionaires who pay 14 . And are flagrant in their lifestyles. They pay 14 in taxes in their taxes while Small Business owners sometimes pay 55 . You have all these people who are the classic example of the kinds of folks that steve bannon and donald trump railed against during the campaign, and yet the trump base has largely stuck with donald trump. It suggests to me that the reason that people were for donald trump is not because have they . To a large extent hes still got his 35 . Hes still got 80 of republicans who support him. The trump base is with him. His numbers have fallen but hes still strong with his base and republicans. It suggests the reason people are identifying with him was they identified with him in a broad sense of hes change. Hes going to blow everything up. Not that there was some notion that they were for him on terms of policy consistency. They just wanted the question of the loophole or what the tax rates were going to be. They just liked the guy. Heidi, hes trying to pass a tax bill that will enrich his own family. Im going to say this slowly. Now, be nice. Im being nice. Heidi, donald trump is trying to pass a tax bill that reportedly will make his own family 1 billion. He will become 1 billion richer. The trump family will become 1 billion richer if this tax bill passes, and trump was the one complaining about bill clinton sell v serving, getting 500,000 speeches from Foreign Countries . Heres joe what democrats need to do but theyre not doing, because i have talked to these people out on the campaign trail, joe, and they dont view it as a zero sum thing. They believe that donald trump can get his and they can still get theirs. Heres the big theyre getting theirs. But thats the problem with democrats. Right . They need to make that connection for voters. They need the pie chart, and they need to show that, yeah, when you put through a huge tax cut bill like this and you give all this money to corporations which doesnt trickle down, whats the next thing that happens . What is the Republican Leadership already talking about doing . They want to make these entitlement cuts already. Theyve been wanting to do it for a long time. Will those cuts be steeper . Whats going to happen . Youre going to get maybe they say for people making 25,000 and less you get 50 back in your wallet . Well, then what is taken away from you on the other side of the ledger in terms of yoush health care . What are those entitlement cuts . Are they going to cut programs at your school for your kids . Are they going to renew the programs, for example, on education and whats going to happen to our infrastructure . Democrats need to do a better job of making that connection instead of just focusing on what donald trump gets they need to focus on what gets taken away from anybody else. You josh who made a great point of this, claire mccaskill, he said youre going to give them 50 back, but you dont tell them youre taking ho 40 0 400 out of their other pocket. I read what i thought was a close look at why people voted for donald trump and one, i thought revealing element of his story is that if you look up and down look at voters by income. Hillary clinton won one group of voters by income. It was those at the bottom. From that standpoint, democrats have made a successful case on an economic basis about what democratic policies will do. I think, joe, but to answer your question directly about how you would get 99 in some of the congressional districts, the fact is people arent voting on this issue right now. They voted for donald trump not because of the economy. They voted for him for Something Else. But there is an accumulation at some point. Try to take away my health care. Wait a second. Actually, hes giving rich people i mean, at some point they go wait a second. This guys not telling the truth. Thats right. Thats not an excuse. The point is democrats have a responsibility to go and make the case so the people are making their voting decisions not based on some cultural touch stone. I dont know about the culture issue. This is across the board. And by the way, lets let me say this. I want to go to abortion for a second. Every time i say this i get people mad at me, but if the democrats want to have speaker of the house again, sometimes they can find somebody who is progressive in areas that line up culturally with people in alabama. I will tell you this right now. As offended as democrats may be by that, if there were somebody who were conservative to moderate on abortion own guns but with democrats on 99 of the other issues, doug jones would be up by 50 points right now. The democrats have the problem the republicans had. Politically the democrats are winning on some parts of the culture war, but losing on abortion. The reason people are with him is because he calls out black athletes on twitter and says theyre lazy and entitled. They are with him for the performance of anger and rage against the people they hate, and he is about describabtribal this country. Its powerful and working for him. Its very base. Thats why they voted for him. Hes talking about looking at his next thing on his agenda. Welfare reform. Which is what is welfare . What do you have to lose . Wow. Bob costa, his solution is a 33 solution. He is targeting older white males and there is no future. This is this is not wishful thinking. This is a demographic loser. Five, ten years from now, people will look back on this as the death cry of old angry white america. They just will. The numbers are demographics ive always said it, ive said it obsessing over entitlement reform, but in this case demographics is destiny, because even now this is a 33 solution. This is not how you run a party that wants to run america in the future. So the question is is it enough to get the republicans through 2018 or does it blow up in their face before then . The republicans on capitol hill who im talking to, they know the party is fractured. Their point is in conversations with themselves or with reporters is we have to have a coalition. The party is so split. We have to get the suburban office park warriors to be with us. We need to get the trump voter who is obsessed with trade with us. This is an imperfect coalition. They said its the only coalition they have, and theyre going to bank on that growth number that Goldman Sachs was talking about to carry them over to try to erase all the tension in this country, the division to paper it over in their eyes with a tax plan. So youre talking about theyre going the obama recovery . Exactly. Its the obama recovery. I hate to say this, but by the way, bob, i know some republicans will angry, but ive said this for 30 years. The economy moves like a very lumbering aircraft carrier. Whats happening now is the result of policies that were put in place seven years ago. Bill clinton thats important to make. George h. W. Bush turned the economy around. George h. W. Bush did the things required to get the economy growing again and take care of the deficit. Bill clinton benefitted from that and grew on it. President trump is going to take credit for what happens next year regardless of the back story. Yeah. He will. And so will the democrats, bob, from what youve seen on the campaign trail, be nimble enough to push back . I think you have to watch the democrats like senator casey and joe donnelly. Theyre thinking we may not vote for this tax plan. If youre a democrat that doesnt vote for it, what do you run on . Trade. You have to reclaim the populism. Robert, thank you so much. So much to talk about this morning. Still ahead, as lawmakers return from a holiday break, they are facing increased pressure to end the culture of secrecy over Sexual Harassment on capitol hill. It comes as al franken addresses the allegations made against him after more than a week of media silence. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Ancestrydna is the gift of the season. And its now just 59 but the real gift isnt whats inside the box. Its whats inside the person who opens it. Give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions and open up a world of possibilities. Save 40 at ancestrydna. Com. The lowest price of the year ends monday. More people shop online for the holidays than ever before. And the United States Postal Service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. Because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest. 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 [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. Live binge dvrd shows,te sport, while painting your toes. Ture. On demand laughs, during long bubble baths. Tv on every screen is awesome. The Xfinity Stream app. All your tv at home. The most on demand, your entire dvr, top networks and live sports on the go. Included with xfinity tv. Xfinity. The future of awesome. S you have no intention to resign . No. We have an ethics process i agreed to cooperate with completely. Hasnt your credibility been undermined . I would say yes. And i have a long way back. I have a long way back to win back the trust of the people of minnesota. Ive let the people down. Ive let the people of minnesota down. Joining us now nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie dc on msnbc. Where is it, guys . Alex is off today. Good job, dan. Kasie is here. Heidi is along with us. We have a lot to get to this morning. Kasie, where are t 3shirts . Ive got them. Were going to wear them on friday to promote the sunday show because kasie dc airs monday nights on msnbc. Im going on kasie dc at some point soon. Im excited. Will you wear the tank top . Im not sure i have the biceps for a tank top anymore, but how about a t shirt . You can do a long sleeve t shirt same with willie. She did. Kasie, al franken appears to be at this point pushing back a little bit. We havent heard much from him. We havent. It took him over ten days to do this. The allegations surfaced some time ago. I think behind the scenes the thinking of both the franken team and also other democrats on capitol hill and the reason you hear the focus on the ethics investigation is because quite frankly people are waiting for the other shoe to drop. In most of the other cases where youve seen people who clearly have serial problems with Sexual Harassment and per dags, its been a snowballing effect. I think in the case of franken you had the initial tweet with the photo, and that photographic evidence was obviously very difficult for franken to deal with. Since then youve had a few other women who say they took photographed with him and he touched them inappropriately during the pictures. I think theres a sense theyre not sure that anything beyond that is going to come into the public view. Perhaps the ethics investigation will show that differently, and so its pretty clear to me based on the interviews the strategy here is to try to apology and to try to rehabilitate his image. Its a difficult thing for franken, because hes had many women work for him who has been champions for him behind the scenes. Hes not a natural politician. Hes a comedian first. He had to stop being funny to get elected. He had to deal with a few things in his career that were a problem that he had to address. And in the progressive movement, theres a deep feeling of betrayal. And that was really where he was getting a lot of his political support. He is going to have to, i think, do this contrition tour if he wants to stay politically alive. Lets bring in yamiche alcindor. It did take ten days for him to say anything. I kind of think that in some ways that that says something in itself. What do you make of this . It says that senator franken was really deliberating about how to deal with these issues. And i think he as many reporters who are covering this issue were i think waiting to see what other women were going to say so he could in some ways ready his defense. And hold that thought. I should point out that he did issue very strong apologies that were written statements. So its not that he didnt say anything, but im saying that he didnt publicly push back, or also completely admit to what he is accused of. And he didnt do what amounted to on sunday as a media tour where he was actually kind of on an apology tour where he was sitting down with reporters and answering tough questions. He said he understands hes connected to the photo where hes seen mockingly groping a woman and hes embarrassed. He didnt say if he thought he could still serve the people of minnesota in a way of whether or not hes compromised. You have conyers stepping aside because he said the allegations against him are too distracting. Franki franken is trying to hold on for dear life. Unless his colleagues in the senate turn on him, he may be able to keep his seat. It will be remarkable. Hes being compared to roy moore. At some point in these conversations were going to i think there will be a public reckoning is al franken as bad as connier or millier. The conversation started already. Theres a general flattening of people that i wont say the website, but they put up pictures of Harvey Weinstein and al franken next to each other. Actually, the New York Times biusiness. Im just saying that youre having more and more women talking about this unnatural flattening of these accusations. Lumping everybody into one place, and saying its a public Death Penalty for all. Thats to say that nuance has been lacking in some of the discussions and headlines would be an understatement. At the same time, its very difficult to have the conversation because if you step out of or if you try and add nuance to it, usually the reaction is so severe that people run to their corners, heidi, and assume that youre taking a side instead of trying to pick apart what is a very complicated problem at times its clear predator behavior. At times somebody has an issue or a condition. At times women feel that they absolutely have no part in this at all. And i just said that. Thats all i said. Im not taking a side here. And i dont think were looking at the whole problem when we do this. I think this has been one of the looming dangers from frankly the beginning of the whole me too explosion onto social media which was from the beginning we saw some horrific stores of women who had been actually assaulted, actually raped, or faced retaliation in the workplace with stories of Sexual Assault blended in with legitimate stories about women feeling maybe slightly uncomfortable because a congressman put his arm around me. And that has been a problem that i think as a woman and probably many women have been concerned about, that con flags between the two which are not the same, and so we are at a point in this discussion where we also need to discuss when men like al franken come forward who may have groped someone and admits to it right away is contrite. Is it fair that he is being conflated with someone like Harvey Weinstein . Most people would say not. And mika, you, for instance. I mean, it is maddening when you look on twitter. Twitter is the theres so many good things about twitter. Theres so many horschrible thi about twitter. This is twitter at its worst. There is no knnuance, and youl see people on the far right attacking people on the left who are accused. People on the far left only attacking people on the right. Ive got to say as far as people going to the corners, though, you have been shown nuance toward al franken from the beginning. And no one can say thats tribalism on your part, because you were critical of bill clinton, oh, i dont know issue. From the get go. 18 years before this second wave, this new awakening to concerns about bill clintons affair, you were 1 yea8 years a. If you want to say al franken shouldnt be compared to harvey w weinstein, youre not saying tribal. Someone wrote an article saying mika is against clinton now. No, i said this in realtime, i think bill clinton was a problem for hillary running against trump, because they cancel each other out on key moral issues of our time. Sexual harassment being one of them. I said that in realtime all along. Kasie hunt, on capitol hill how seriously are they taking all this . I kind of feel the way nancy pelosi does about the john conyers situation, but i also know that theres a problem on the hill. I think that there is a sense that that is the these rules are completely archaic. They were an improvement at the time in the 90s when they were written, but now frankly the workers dont have their protections. And i think on the point of nancy pelosi. Ive talked to a number of democrats who feel kind of betrayed by the way she approached this. They feel conyers has plenty of people to stand up for him and the challenge for the women is that this is why you dont speak up. You dont speak up, because the person youre speaking against is an icon, and so you have no power in that situation, and so i think there is going to be a lot of pressure for some of these things to change. I would also add ive had enough people bring it up to me independently, that is the role conyers has on this committee would be the central democratic role during any impeachment process if democrats win back the house. Thats important to this context to what you were talking about earlier in the show about whether conyers was the right person to serve in that job. All right. Kasie hunt. Thank you. Yamiche, thank you so much as well. Coming up, putting himself at odds with several top republicans, President Trump is boosting roy moores senate bid. Morning joe will be right back. What if we could keep more amof what we earn . D. Trillions of dollars going back to taxpayers. Who could possibly be against that . Well, the National Debt is 20 trillion. As we keep adding to it, guess who pays the bill . Him. And her. And her. Congress, we should grow the economy. Not the debt. 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 . Strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection. Neulasta helps reduce infection risk by boosting your white blood cell count, which strengthens your immune system. In a key study, neulasta reduced the risk of infection from 17 to 1 . A 94 decrease. Applied the day of chemo, Neulasta Onpro is designed to deliver neulasta the next day. Neulasta is for certain Cancer Patients receiving strong chemotherapy. Do not take neulasta if youre allergic to neulasta or Neupogen Filgrastim . Ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries, and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. Report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. 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I think hes effectively the secretary of state for the middle east. The bad news for jared is its not going anywhere. Hes obviously got the lead with saudi arabia. Much more than the secretary of state. He got the United States to side with saudi against qatar several months ago and more recently he was just there before the big crackdown in saudi arabia. This administration has gone all in. He has very close ties with leaders across the middle east, doesnt he . The israeli leadership and the saudi leadership and the ue. The problem is the saudi leadership has done a major roll of the dice. They are pursuing an aggressive Foreign Policy in yemen and lebanon and so forth. At home theyve essentially done a political consolidation that risks the entire power balancing that has been the history of saudi arabia since the creation. The administration has gone all in with saudi arabia. It remains to be seen if this is a bet that pays off or blows up on the United States. Coming up on morning joe. Ive said and done things i regret, and the words released today are more than a decade old video, its one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words dont reflect who i am. I said it. I was wrong. And i apologize. I think the actions did. That was President Trump apologizing for the access Hollywood Tape last year, but does he still feel sorry . Well dig into that next on morning joe. Lets get the big guy in place. The ford year end sales event is here. I can guide you in. No, thanks , santa. I got this. Santa uh, it looks a little tight. Perfect fit. Santa needs an f150. Thats ford, americas best selling brand. Hurry in today for 0 financing for 72 months across the full line up of ford cars, trucks and suvs. For a limited time, get an additional 1,000 cash back on top of 0 financing for 72 months. Get these exclusive offers during the ford year end sales event. 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Was supposed to be a wake reup call for our government . Sh people all across the country lost their savings, their pensions and their jobs. Im tom steyer and it turned out that the system that had benefited people like me who are well off, was, in fact, stacked against everyone else. Its why i left my Investment Firm and resolved to use my savings for the public good. But here we are nine years later and this president and the Republican Congress are making a bad situation even worse. They wont tell you that their so called tax reform plan is really for the wealthy and big corporations, while hurting the middle class. It blows up the deficit and that means fewer investments in education, health care and job creation. Its up to all of us to stand up to this president. Not just for impeachable offenses, but also to demand a country where everyone has a real chance to succeed. Join us. Your voice matters. We are strengthened by due process. Just because someone is accused and was it one accusation . Is it two . I think there has to be john conyers has done a great deal to protect women. As john reviews his case, which he knows, which i dont that me. May i finish my sentence. That he will do the right thing. Do you believe john conyers accusers. I dont know who they are. They havent come forward. That was House Minority leader. Defending john conyers on meet the press yesterday. Hours before the michigan lawmaker announced he would step down from the role. Joining us now is we had you on the other day. I spoke to you at an event a few weeks ago. Felt like the conversation didnt have enough time even standing backstage because theres something happening here. I mean, there is definitely a moment has come where women feel like the fear of raising their voices about being sexually harassed is melting away, but i think we need to get to the point where we can talk about where it happened, why it happens. What are some of the surrounding factors that might enable it and how we raise it in realtime without risk of losing our jobs. So ive said a lot. Ill pair it down. I want to ask you about office conduct. You mentioned the other day that we have a role in this. Because in a way, i know its going to be frightening to talk about because people will think youre victim shaming. This is not what were trying to do, but there are certain types of men in the workplace who are predators, sexual harassers or who have problems that they need help with that impact the women who work there. There are certain types of women in the workplace that ive worked with over the years who participated in sleeping their way to top. Yes. And thats the atmosphere in which all of this happened. Thats what we need to talk about. First of all, we have a moment in history where women are breaking their silence. The silence has been complacent. Oh, boy. Dont even go on twitter for saying that. Complacent, rather. Complacent, when we are silent because of shame and worry and fear, then we allow it to happen. Now this is broken. So this is stopping. Its broken. Do we acknowledge that. Acknowledge the pain. Most women have stories about harassment. We need to take a moment to breeze through that. In order for this historical moment. Not the moment where we fire few people, but to be a cultural revolution. Cultural change. We need to talk about the big picture. What happened. How did we get here. And to talk about the big picture, we need to talk about the institutions that allowed that. We have not treated women as equal. We still are not tweeted equal. We dont get paid equally. When we complain they blame it on us usually. There are so many issues. In order for this not to be a big guys discussion, only the rich and famous. Now we dont project or anger. That we protect and defend the lower ranking women when she has grievance. One that. That way ranking women can see it in realtime. Think about the big picture. We need protection. We need training. How industries. Advertising industry. How to objectified women and lowered womens images. And we need to talk about the women who also played a role in that. Were not only recipient of this. Objectify occasion of women and sending messages. Its a small part. Heidi, you want to jump in or stay out of it. I mean, there is definitely the best part of the discussion that the relevant and difficult as women to have, it must be had which is the aspect of participation. How much of this is women also hurting other women who may have participated in this behavior in the workplace. Thats an aspect of this that is legitimate. Doesnt take away from the fact that women are just victims. Its not a black and white issue. That is the difficulty in analyzing this. I think we need to find the right solution. Push back. When the contract is up, you dont have to think for hours and hour and days and days. Maybe he has a crush on me. No, you can think thats Sexual Harassment. Right away. And say that is Sexual Harassment. Id like to work for you and you can make a decision. If this ever happens again or my job is impacted were going to have a big problem. If you stop right now and leave me alone, we may not have a problem. That might be the decision you make personally, but you got to know Sexual Harassment when you see it. You cant be blind to it. A lot of men dont know actually. Thats the discussion. I think women should know. We should know and men should know. Thats the discussion we need to do. When you touch her like this. When you touch her like this. When you say this. We need to have a public education. I had a very high end boss ask me if i would participate in a sexual act with him. I remember saying it was very politely said i remember saying no, but i absolutely love my job and i loved working for him and i hope that can continue. And it did. And it never happened again. And i thrived. And thats what standing up. Im not saying thats the solution for everybody, but im just saying there are so many different dimensionings to this conversation. So women do. Some women do. And in order to take this to the next level, we need men to engage in the discussion. So which men . Only the good men. Publically. The men need to discuss it. You guys are dead silent. Exactly. All the men have been dead assignment silent. Do we want to hear from the harassers themselves. I want the harassers to publically understand why his behavior was wrong. Me too. I want to hear that. So he can impact other men. We need to reach out to the average men in the locker room so they dont speak about women the way they are speaking. I suggest you and i do not open or phones today or read twitter, but i think it was a really productive conversation. I would love for you to come back. Would love that. Heidi, thank you for jumping in. Still ahead. President trump launches another attack on the socalled fake news, but touts a website that traffics in conspiracy theories at the same time. Morning joe will be right back. Cable. Just like some people like wet grocery bags. Getting a bad haircut. Overcrowded trains. Turnstiles that dont turn. And spilling coffee on themselves. But for everyone else, theres directv. For 1 rated Customer Satisfaction over cable, switch to directv. And for a limited time get a 100 reward card. Call 1800directv buried just under the surface, the answer to it all. We want to need each other. The lowest price of the year. For just 59 its the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions and open up a world of possibilities. Save 40 at ancestrydna. Com. Ends monday. For her compassion and care. He spent decades fighting to give families a second chance. But to help others, they first had to protect themselves. I have afib. Even for a nurse, its complicated. 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My son actually said did you hear the news about flynn. Reporter now starting. So that was an interesting somehow managed. I said we dont talk about politics. So somebody said. Thats a little provacative. We didnt mention it. Just having fun. Your brother thaulought thats okay. No. Its actually fun. Well play it on the break. Its hysterical. Youre busy. Mike, so this thanksgiving. Thanksgiving day it broke, what can you tell us about it. It looks like it happened on wednesday. The lawyers for flynn called trumps lawyers and said, look, we cant talk to you anymore. Share information with you anymore about the. Secondly. Because of that. You know, we sort of have to go flynns son who said everybody calm down. Have a reason for saying that. Is there any other explanation other than they are either not cooperating with muellers investigation or they are preparing to cooperate with the investigation. I dont think its much to do about nothing. The assumption by trumps lawyers is theres a few things going on. Hes cooperating. Hes pled guilty to something. Theyre pretty sure of that. They dont understand why this would happen for any other reason. Now, theyve tried to publically down play this and say this is not a big deal. We assumed that plflynn would plead garnishmentuilty. At the same time, its deeply troubling for them. The question that not only is flynn looking at significant criminal exposure. His son is looking after the same exact thing. Flynn is very motivated to try and save his son from having to go to prison. And is willing to do anything to stop that. And because of that, hes trying to figure out how he can help mueller and prove to mueller that you know he has something to give up. So he was a pretty significant sdwomt. The fact it actually was information sharing arrangement to get all the information from the trump team as they were preparing. They also have been gather. So that makes a bad situation even worse for the trump team e. Doesnt it. It does. You remember earlier this year flynns lawyer when they were reporting that flynn was looking for some sort of immunity from congressional investigators that Michael Flynn has a story to tell. Story telling that it could be concerning. Very interesting to lay the groundwork to try to distance themselves for flynn. Thats going to be very hard. You had white house officials telling christen welk well. Flynn was in the white house and we know that Robert Mueller. Serving as National Security adviser. This is a very Significant Development and gets this much closer to the white house. Weve seen previously. John, youll know this as well. And you can fill out a bit of the information of what i gathered just talking through the Trump Campaign throughout the election cycle. They always said general flynn, always on the plane with donald because he kept donald calm. Had to sit right with him. Next to him. Sit with him all the time. He was the one going to keep him in check. Actually say hes a moderating influence on donald. Want him sitting next to donald at all times. These two were extraordinarily close. You think about two in building this case. Whatever the case with mueller ends up with. The two people that generally the most focus are Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. Orders of magnitude different in terms of proximity to trump and amount of time they spend with trump. Both as karl points out because flynn was not just a player in the campaign, but also for a brief time was at the pinnacle of power inside the white house before he was fired. Also because trump overstates the degree to which trump manafort was a stranger. Manafort was around for six months or so. Then there was communication that continued, but he was not every ever on the plane with donald trump every single day. Flynn flew around the country with trump constantly. Was the person at the top of the Foreign Policy apparatus the person who had discussions with trump constantly about the pertinent issue in question. Which is russia. Something discussing with him in formal settings. Informal settings. During the campaign. Formative stages and again in the white house. He is again not discounting how important manafort is. Flynn just in terms of what he could give to Robert Muellers team is influential. You say manafort. As a worker bee. The inner circle in the same way, but flynn, flynn was there every second. Remember he was lurking at the door. Supposed to be a private flight. Lurking at the door listening to everything. That wasnt the white house. That was downstairs. It was weird. It was just weird. All right. A lot more to get to. This is fascinating. President trump took aim at reporters over the weekend. Many in harms way. While promoting a website that lavishes with prayers and spreads conspiracy theories. President tweeted fox news is much more important in the United States than cnn, but outside of the u. S. , Cnn International is still a major source of fake news. And they represent our nation to the world very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them. Later retweeteds a accomplishment list by the website. And wrote, wow. I didnt realize we did so much. Wish the fake news would report. Thank you. The conservative Weekly Standard describes the suggested news source as a website that sends conspiracy theories aligned itself to the a lot right and White Nationalist movements. Among the claims, falls flag terrorism and Mass Shootings for gun control also earthquake machines to destabilize regions and the use of trauma based mind control. And that is just one post. This as the president complained about the russia, russia, russia, investigation and claimed i have the economy booming and have possibly done more than any ten month president. You know what, im sorry. This is where somebody onset needs to say wow, that person seems unhinged. Unbalanced. And unfit to be president. He really seems out of his minds. There are a lot of things the president throws out there just to shock and stun people. Attacking the free press that actually continues to speak trooult truth to power. Making mistakes from time to time, but doing that and actually dem grating the work of reporters who go out every day across the globe. Reporting in bosnia. Every single day risk their lives and heres if President Trump had noknown the facts. He would have never sent this tweet. Here is my camera woman who took a bullet in the face for recovering the facts and truth in bosnia. Facts first. And this happened so much with reporters across the globe. This happens so much with cnn, which across the globe really is sort of like the bbc is. Across the globe, but again, its donald trump attacking the free press. So much of this other nonsense. Nfl come on. All this other stuff. Hes purposely trying to pick fights. Here, this is a challenge to the First Amendment of the United States and a free press. Republicans and democrats and independents need to all speak up and speak out. There are some things that we have to be united on. Forget all the other tweets this weekend. Forget the nonsense. Forget the constant noise machine, but when he attacks the free press, when he attacks independent judiciary. When he attacks our constitutional republic, we got to speak out together. These are the foundations of our democracy. Certainly free press constitutes our democracy. Even the founders of our country envisioned that independent professional journalists would be in a position to hold people in power accountable for the way that they wielded the power of the American People. That is a critical element to the functioning of our democracy. Theres a difference between as outrageous as it is to attack counselorists here in the United States who enjoyed protections of the First Amendment and hold people in power accountable. Another thing all together to go out and attack independent professional journalists who are risking their lives in war zones, in some of the most remote places on the planet. To bring us actual information about whats happening around the world. The kind of information the kinds of stories that riles consciousness. To make sure the United States and people who live here are aware of whats happening around the world and can respond to it. So when we saw for example a couple of years ago the crisis around the wave of migrant flows. North africa and the middle east. Journalists on the front lines risks lives to tell that story. We needed to know what happened there. To undermine them in a gratuitous flippant way on twitter is egregious for anyone to do. Got beaten up by congressional candidate. Dude was immediately arrested. Cuffed him. Run for the United States congress. And who ultimately won. The guy had mug shots probably within you know 12 hours. They put up with it. So our Law Enforcement officers as you said. Theyre going to protect. They understand the First Amendment. Lets say theres a Cnn International reporter or nbc News Reporter thats in turkey. And maybe they do something that the government doesnt like. Theyve already got the message. You grot the preside youve got the president saying this is fake news. This is propaganda. Maybe we throw them in jail. Maybe we do worse. President of the United States is going to mind. Withdra whereas they would know under any other president , dont screw with the american journalists because if you do, youre going to get a call from the American Embassy in five minutes and things are going to go badly for you very quickly. That message hasnt been sent by an administration. That doesnt even have ambassadors in these outposts and now sent a message to tyrants from turkey to russia. Do away what you want with our reporters because we dont like them because they wont kiss our ass every day on the air and spew propaganda 24 hours a day and lie to their viewers about how were doing. Any time theres disagreement with the white house or not an effort. Thats really the issue. Those are the ones they take on. Long history in this point the elected officials including the president and attorney general. And parting ridicule in countries that treat journalists the wong way. To your point, not only do you give license to the way they treat the journalist, they almost celebrate it. How that present and project news globally. Its another piece of icing on this cake how this president behaves in a poor way. Its really a stretch to say hes fit. Still ahead on morning joe, president doubles down on support of roy moore. Theres a new report that trump is privately questione eed authenticity of the access Hollywood Tape for which hes already apologized. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. 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. The lowest price of the year. For just 59 its the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions and open up a world of possibilities. Save 40 at ancestrydna. Com. Ends monday. If yor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough, it may be time for a change. 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Remember those. On sunday trump tweeted against the democratic candidate doug jones saying the last thing we need in alabama and the u. S. Senate is a Schumer Pelosi puppet who is weak on crime. Not weak on the border. Bad more military. Bad the way not. Great vet. Bad for Second Amendment and wants to raise taxes to the sky. Jones would be a disaster. The New York Times reports that President Trump has told Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell that the woman might not be telling the truth. Trump suggested to a senator earlier this year that the tape was not authentic. And apparently repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. However, trump has repeatedly admitted to making the comments and apologized for them. Ive said and done things i regret. The words released on this more than a decade old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me, knows these words dont reflect who i am. I said it. I was wrong. And i apologize. Well, i mean, this is donald trump goes back and forth and back and forth and changes the facts. So he apologized. He admitted saying it. Now hes saying it might be fake. We shouldnt be shocked, should we. No. At the time when the tape came out at trump tower when they were waiting to see it. His first theory was this tape is going to be fake. Theres not going real. Its going to be phony. When they actually heard it for the first time. He was like, well, i guess thats me. Env she he continued to say is it edited some way . Hes a conspiracy theorist. He traffics websites that are conspiracy shoetheorily litheor he eventually took on all the women who came forward and accused him. He claimed they were all liars and said they were going to sue them all. Hasnt sued any of them. Not surprising to me at this date now more than a year later, hes back in his mind to this is all a conspiracy. This is all a fraud. Hes telling people i never said those things. Forget about what i said in the campaign. This is all made up. Right. Fake news. Almost repeating the story back to himself. Which he does. Yes. Hell repeat a story over and over and convince himself of his own set of facts. Roy moore is uniquely unqualified to be in the United States senate. Doug jones is not soft on crime. Puts murders in jails. In line with the best and strongest cases to be brought in the nations history i hes been one of the biggest proponents of health spending. Hes been smart and outspoken about it. The fake news is coming from him about doug jones. If you look at doug jones record in alabama. You will see someone that alabama who represents the values of alabama who just happens to be a democratic. Coming up on morning joe. Opposition in Rex Tillerson state department have gone unfilled. More diplomats expected to leave and new concern according to the New York Times that tillerson has been repeatedly turning down security briefings. Plus, its cyber monday and millions of americans are expected to purchase something online today. Were going to talk about what Small Businesses are doing to keep up with the competition. Morning joe will be bright back. Nahelps protect eyesin blue from damaging blue light, filtering it out to help you continue enjoying your screens. Or. You could just put your phones down and talk to each other. [laughing] natures bounty lutein blue. Because youre better off healthy. I mwell, what are youe to take care odoing tomorrow 10am . Staff meeting. Noon . Eating. 3 45 . Uh, compliance training. 6 30 . Sams baseball practice. 8 30 . Tai chi. Yeah, so sounds relaxing. Alright, 9 53 . I usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. Wouldnt it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do . Yeah. Introducing essential portfolios. The automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life. 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 . Fullbodied. Firstthen you put yourselfareer. Through school. Got the degree. Youve given it your all, to reach the goals youve set. Dont let student debt hold you back. Refinancing Student Loans with sofi can save thousands. So you can get where youve always been headed. Sooner. See how much you can save with sofi. The leader in student loan refinancing. Needs of their families and perhaps everyone to have a night you see a bill passing by christmas . I do believe in prayer. I hope we get it done through christmas. If not, well be here through christmas looking at the end of the year. I believe in prayer too. That was a good answer. Joining us now, jeff bennett. Jeff, President Trump is said to huddle with republicans over the next few days to try to lock down the votes needed to get a tax plan approved. Whats on the agenda. Thats right the president is going all in on tax reform this week with vote and senate scheduled as early as this week. President as you mentioned is going to have lunch here today with the Vice President and some members of the Senate Finance committee. Im told by a white house official that senators warren hatch who you see on the screen, senator pat toomey. Senator scott who we heard from earlier. Senator cornyn and reportman a handful of members to meet with the president today. Republican tax plan seems to have a little bit of momentum. It of course passed the house. Passed the Senate Finance committee. Got a boost. Was a hold yut. Says she will vote for it in exchange for drilling she got in alaska. And the president im told is feeling pretty good, feeling pretty optimistic about the prospects for his tax plan. He tweeted some hours ago this, he writes, back in d. C. , big week for tax cuts and many other things of great importance to our country. Senate republicans hopefully come through for all of us. Tax cut bill is Getting Better and better. End result will be great for all. It appears voters are not buying the message about the tax plan. Take away from recent poll. Voters on republican tax plan. 52 disapprove of the republican tax bill. See just 25 approve and then when you break it down bipartisan lines. Look at the republican number here. Says 62 or rather 60 of republicans approve whereas just 15 approve of that bill. So you know, there are still some holdouts in the senate. The senate can only afford to lose two votes. At least six republican senators who have a lot of concern so thats the focus on the president today and hes going to be on capitol hill tomorrow to rally the troops ahead of the scheduled vote. Nbc. Thank you very much. Seems that the voters dont see it as a big beautiful tax cut. What is the timeline on voting. Look, theyre trying to get it done by christmas, obviously. The problem is they have to cell these three or four votes. They can try a career or two. The one thing theyre maybe about to do is not popular mplts moving on. Joining us u. S. Ambassador for the organization of security and cooperation in europe under president obama and current diplomat and resident at university of Denver School of international studies. In response to New York Times report, about Rex Tillersons ongoing reluctant to meet and collaborate with staff at the state department. Daniel tweeted this, this is outrageous. If bob corker doesnt call immediate hearing, senate along with tillerson, will have blood on their hands if diplomat gets hurt. This is a moment for congressional oversight. Whats going on at the state department or more importantly, whats not going on . Exactly mika. We seem to have ventured from kind of general and competence which was disappointing. Seems willful and competent. Exactly. Now to a stage of negligence. Not only do we see talent that is really important to National Security fleeing the state department in droves or being pushed out. We now hear these latest reports of secretary tillerson failing to get key security briefings. That puts depo matts at risk. These are American Public servants that work every day. To advance u. S. Interest around the world. They deserve the security and protection that they need in order to do their work. Is really a shame their boss, their leader is neglecting to take care of them. Is it possible he doesnt understand, he doesnt comprehend what is needed in order to have a functioning effective state department . I have to say in confidence and negligence seem too soft. Reading the New York Times over the weekend. Seems to me a purposeful plan is being cared out to hollow out the state department. This is intentional. You can like it or dislike it. Clearly you dislike it. I dont think negligence is the issue now. Looks like secretary tillerson came in and said im going to through other means, im going to try to basically gut the state department. Is that not what the story basically conveyed to you. I think youre right. Theres a difference between saying im going to try to cut 30 from the state department. Impossible to continue the functions they need to do on behalf of the American People. Theres a difference between that and willfully reflecting to take security briefings which ends up sabotaging the very mission of the state department. Gone from a point last summer i wrote they needed to apologize to the American People for endorsing tillerson and supporting his nomination. They should be calling for him to be fired. We have reached a point tillerson should be removed. Its unacceptable. His behavior in this job. Secretary mattis i believe had sort of a famous comment about this. If youre going to cut funding for the state department, you better increase funding so i can buy more bullets for the department of defense. The work the diplomats are doing on the front line are effective preventing war and conflict that ultimately cost american lives. I guess the question for you related to senator cork er. Are they hearing the same kind of thing were reading in the New York Times. I had a Good Relationship with both members of the parties when i was serving overseas i enjoyed when senators came to visit and engaged in our work. Im sure senator corker has Good Relationships with people in the state department. One of the problems with the kind of failures of leadership that weve seen both from the white house and from the state department is that diplomats may not feel secure speaking up to senator candidly right now. One of the jobs for the senate is to provide oversight for the executive branch. This is an opportunity for senator corker who made it clear he is no longer interested in maintaining a polite relationship with the president he deems a failure. This is an opportunity for him to exercise that kind of oversight as chair of the fsrc. So what does this negligence look like . What key roles are not being filled . What positions are empty . What alliances potentially could be impacted longterm . Str strategic alliances because of vacancies in the state department. Failure to fill the state Department Like the other bureaucracies in the federal system is set up to respond to political leadership. Political impulses. Thats the design. Its a failure to fill key positions, assistant secretary jobs under secretary jobs et cetera. A lot. Just a few. Dozens of these. And very slow to nominate people and nominating people with questionable qualifications in some cases. Hes directed a senior career officer working for mooins. This is politicizing the career diplomatic cord that we depend on. For the average person out there who thinking ive heard of ambassadors and they talk to other people in the government. A third of them are donors. Whats the big deal. Walk us through a concrete example. If theres a crisis in the world somewhere. What is the role that the u. S. In particular will play typically and our state department will play typically in rallying around action and solution to our problem. I mean, i think first of all, its important to understand that the United States by nature of our success in the world has interest everywhere in the world. We have citizens living everywhere in the world. We have businesses doing business everywhere in the world. When a crisis occurs in the world, it unavoidably implicates u. S. Interest. The International Community will always turn to the United States first and look to us to lead not necessarily going to pay for everything. Are they now. Decreasingly. A lot of our friends in europe look at whats going on right now diplomatic part of europe looks at what is going on in the United States as a kind of psychotic episode and hoping we will recover in 2020 and restore principal to american leadership. The United States for the last 70 years has been the long poll in the tent. The thing stable when other things are unstable. Are we seen as stable. I think were seen as stable. Were not just seen as leaders right now. People dont realize hfragile ad precious things are until theyre gone. American leadership depends on the trust and confidence of the world. Yes. I like that. Psychotic episode in history. Thats one way of putting it. You know, when i talk to my former colleagues, other ambassadors from other countries, theres a deep love for american principles and values and the leadership we have historically brought. And a yearning to see that return. That actually speaks well for all that im pessimistic about in this day and age. Hunger for us to return to the world stage. Not in a domineering way, but being the leader of free world of universal values and an example for others. Former ambassador, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Coming up. Last years Small Business owners generated reported 15 billion thanks to shoppers who turned out on the saturday after thanksgiving, but how did Small Business saturday go this year. Well talk about that next on morning joe. Us. Its what this country is made of. But right now, our bond is fraying. How do we get back to us . The y fills the gaps. And bridges our divides. Donate to your local y today. Because where theres a y, theres an us. When this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. Yeah, my dad says our insurance doesnt have that. What . you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Bps natural gas teams use smart App Technology to share data from any well instantly. 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By the way, you can buy your dog a santa uniform too. Maybe at a Small Business near you. Friday was black friday. Saturday was what. Small business saturday. Monday is what. Psycyber monday. What is tuesday. This past saturday was the eighth annual Small Business saturday where consumers are encouraged to shop small. Joining us now, host of your business which airs on weekend morning at 7 30 a. M. On msnbc. Your business is sponsored by American Express which is the Founding Partner of Small Business saturday. Which i love. So, its so fascinating how tumultuous our economy has been, especially with retail. Barnes and noble, basically wipes out small bookstores. Amazon wipes out a lot of those big books, barnes and noble types. You see sort of kick back to going to independent bookstores again. People shopping local again. Its interesting the unintended consequences of the growth of amazon. Is main street america starting to do better than it was five years ago. I think Peoples Awareness that they need to shop at main street is doing better. This Small Business saturday the awareness was 70 . This started eight years ago. We talked about it then. Nobody knew what Small Business saturday was. I dont think people were thinking i need to go shop small. I think they were thinking this is amazing. Its convenient. I can go on amazon and i think the awareness if you dont shop on main street, it is going to disappear is becoming much more common. Its true. Small business saturday its not just saturday. Its just like on black friday isnt the only day you go to these you know door busting gift box stores. Its just the kickoff to knowing that you got to shop at these stores or theyre going to be gone. Youre spreading the word. The branding of Small Business saturday itself spreads the word. Youre saying the awareness is there. Doesnt sound like the numbers are there. Theyre getting there. 108 Million People shop small. Retailers are starting to think differently. Theres some really neat Small Businesses doing different things. We did a story recently on a Company Called mgmi. Its a Small Business. They sell shoes. Theyre having showcase of stores. Where you go in, you try on the shoes, but then you eventually buy them online. When we think of Small Business, its not just the stores on main street. Its Online Stores also. So, yes, theyre struggling. Right. Big box stores are struggling right now too. A lot of them stores are closing, but a lot of Small Businesses are being clever about the way theyre drawing people in. It can also be incredibly inconvenient to shop online. You get the wrong thing. Its a pain to send it back. Ordered turkey brine. Spilled in the box. All over the floor. I didnt know that happened. Im just saying the boxes, sometimes its. The boxes. Im so sick of the boxes sgls i have a lot of boxes in the house. If you go in a big box store, you wonder around for 20 minutes looking for something to help you. If you go to a small store, someone right there to help you. And a proprietor who knows it. We do the Small Business saturday show from a different town across the country. This year in franklin tennessee. In this place and it was a lovely store. Right. Its the kind of place you want to go with your friends for a day to just wonder around. Go have lunch. Wonder around the store. Find something you wouldnt think of buying until its right there in front of you. Its an experience. Right. Its an experience in a way that shopping online isnt. The big overall question here. Were heading into the holiday season. Consumer spending is usually important to the american economy. Somehow retail doing . Broadly, its doing okay. Supposed to be up 3 this holiday season. Online sales are supposed to be up even more. Right. Its off of a smaller base, but still online is still capturing more than it used to, but its still tough. Even though were doing okay now. A lot of the stores are going to have trouble getting people in the door. A lot of the challenges is how to have two ways of shopping coexist. Online isnt going away. Thats right. Look, certain things if youre going to buy 20 paper towels, perhaps amazon. For smaller things, is there a way people can allocate their buying or think about the slightly higher price they would pay at a smaller store as an investment of community. Well, so thats what you need to think about. Right. Do you care about your community . When you spend a dollar at your community store, that store is around when you need it. And also that dollar goes to support the local Baseball Team right and the local contractor and its about knowing youre going the find something that you might not find elsewhere. Youre going to have Customer Service you dont have online and youre going to have this kmu community that you care about. Thank you so much. Great to have you on the show. Up next, never seen anything like this before in politics. Thats something you often here from historians and political commentators about President Trump. Trump does have something specific in common with fdr and jfk. Were going explain that straight ahead on morning joe. So thats the idea. What do you think . Hate to play devils advocate but. I kind of feel like its a game changer. I wouldnt go that far. Are you there . Hes probably on mute. Yeah. Gary wont like it. Why . Because hes gary. phone ringing what . Keep going yeah. laughs voice on phone its not millennial enough. There are a lot of ways to say no. Thank you so much. Thank you so were doing it. Yes we got a yes start saying yes to your companys best ideas. Let us help with money and knowhow, so you can get business done. American express open. Aand its now just 59 of the season. But the real gift isnt whats inside the box. Its whats inside the person who opens it. Give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions and open up a world of possibilities. Save 40 at ancestrydna. Com. The lowest price of the year ends monday. Dad molly, can you please take out the trash . sigh dad molly trash whoo mom hey, molly . Its time to go bell ringing class, lets turn to page 136, recessive traits skip generations. Who would like to read . molly i reprogrammed the robots to do the inspection. Its running much faster now. See . Its amazing, molly. Thank you. 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 joining us now, historian and bestselling author robert dellic. His new book is franklin d. Roosevelt, a political life. He writes this about fdr, considering franklins life almost 75 years after it ended allows us the distance to weigh dispassionately the influences that facilitated his reach for and use of power. There was much about Franklin Roosevelt that still seems unremarkable, but some attributes, supreme selfconfidence and unfailing selfreliance, distinguished him from earlier and later aspirants and help explains why he stands apart from almost all of americas other leaders. Thank you for being with us. My very, very, very republican mother was born in rural georgia, dalton georgia, back in 1932. When fdr died in 1945, she and her family were shattered. And my mother said, we literally didnt know if the world was going to continue. She said he was like our king and we practically worshiped him. You know, joe, when he died, somebody stopped mrs. Roosevelt on the street and said to her, i miss the way your husband used to speak to me about my government. And who can imagine that being said about any politician now. The man a man stood by the Railroad Track as the body was being moved from warm springs georgia to hyde park. He was sobbing. Said somebody to him, did you know the president . He said no, but he knew me. Wow. It really is such a testimony to how he had a built to touch people. Ability to touch people. We often look at historical figures and many people will look at Winston Churchill in 1940 and think Winston Churchill was always that Winston Churchill of 1940. You read some accounts of fdr before he got polio, before he became president of the United States and a lot of people just regarded him as a lightweight, didnt they . Absolutely. They called him a feather duster. Okay. And of course i think the polio had a huge impact on him. Because, you know, what he did for the country which was so important, he didnt end the depression. That took industrial mobilization. Because in 1940 there was still 10 Million People who were unemployed but industrial mobilization did that. He humanized the american system. Those programs, social security, National Youth administration, the ccc, i wont go on, all those alphabet agencies that they put in place. So there was a kind of humanity to him. And even more so to eleanor roosevelt. Because she was extraordinary. So there was a humanity to him and he was able to connect with people. You also write about his ability to make deals. Yes. That you say was a brilliance that he without question. He understood the tremendous importance of creating consensus in this country. And he brought the country together. You know, when he came into office, there was still leftover from the 1920s the bitter divide between the modernist and the fundamentalist. By the end of his term, there was this consensus in the country that he had done extraordinary things and not only did he humanize the American Industrial system, the country shifted from isolationism to interinternationalism. It became much more realistic Foreign Policy government. He also benefiteded to a large degree on the fact that the predicate for his election was the great depression. Absolutely. He was able to mobilize anger against the big banks for what theyd done to american society. Beyond that, im kind of curious what he was like as a communicator. These fireside chat, the ability to use a new medium. Im not comparing him to donald trump, dont worry about it, but we have president s who are able to take advantage of the new waves of technology and it seems like fdr was a bit of a revolutionary in that. He was, because he used radio and these fireside chats were they resonated powerfully across the country. Sunday nights, people would gather around the radio. And if you go to fdr memorial in washington, youll see people sitting around the radio, listening to him. And of course john kennedy used television. To give his due to trump, he used twitter. Seasoned social media. Thats correct. Direct line, fdr, kennedy, trump. Thank you so much. No, but they did, those three that you just named though, they really did, they used the medium that was in front of them to connect. Let me ask you, 19 the late 1980s, and i dont know he meant it as a compliment, but george will wrote a column, the conservativist columnist, that said we are all children of fdr now. Basically saying social securitys not going to be moved. No. And the safety nets not going to move. Are we still all these years later in 2017, are we still when it comes to government all children of fdr . I think without question. That he set in motion that welfare state. Which is never going to go away. I mean, you know it alters and steps back, a little bit forward. President obama liked to talk to president ial historians and at one dinner, they were talking about the difficulty of enforcing the Affordable Care act. And i said to them, look, this is a legacy from fdr. A continuation of this kind of humane approach to Public Affairs in this country. And thats theres a wonderful book by bill lucketterburg, historian, called in the shadow of fdr, and how every president somehow why do we always talk about the 100 days . Right. From roosevelt. Well, this is amazing. The book is franklin d. Roosevelt, a political life, fascinating, robert dulleck, thank you. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Thanks much, mika, thanks, joe. Hi there, im Stephanie Ruhle with a lot to hit this morning. Starting with mixed message. Congressman john conyers steps aside from a key post amid a Sexual Harassment probe as his partys leader gives what many call a tone def af response. John conyers is an icon in our country. He will do the right thing. And whos the boss. The acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sues the administration after President Trump names mick mulvaney. Were not supposed to create agencies not accountable to the American People. Back to work. A deadline to avoid a shutdown looms as the margin to pass tax reform narrows. Failures not an option when it comes to the Republican Party and cutting taxes. We begin this