Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20190116

About that. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, january 16th, along with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, historian, author of the soul of america and vanderbilt, jon meacham. Msnbc news and contributor. A former Department Spokes mann and now justice security analyst, matt miller is with us and reporter for the daily beast, Betsy Woodruff. In a moment we will get to what we learned from testimony from trumps nominee to be attorney general. Why the public may not get to read report muellers report after all. We go live to london where Prime Minister theresa may suffered the biggest defeat for any Prime Minister in history. Brexit may be confusing. One thing it is not, it is a mess. That, we can agree on. First, the Government Shutdown, with no end in sight, both the house and senate say they are canceling next weeks scheduled recess unless theres a resolution. Right now, that appears unlikely. According to the Associated Press, President Trump showed no signs of backing down during a Conference Call with supporters yesterday. Trump reportedly said, we will stay out for a long time if we have to. Well be out for a long time. He added, people are very impressed with how well the government is working with the circumstances that were under. Actually, no. More polls came out yesterday that showed people are not impressed with it. In fact, americans are overwhelmingly still blaming donald trump and Donald Trumps Republican Party. The ap goes on to report behind the scenes the administration and its allies on capitol hill are warily eyeing the next payday for next tuesdays deadline when they need to prepare the next round of paychecks for workers who have been seeing zeros on their pay slips. The white house had invited a group of rank and file democrats to lunch yesterday to discuss trumps proposed border wall and the shutdown. None of the democrats took trump up on the offer. The New York Times reports the shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the u. S. Economy than previously thought. Doubling projections of how much Economic Growth is being lost each week, the shutdown continues. Revised estimates from the council of economic advisors show the shutdown is beginning to have real economic kwepss. The paper notes quote the analysis and other projections from outside the white house suggest the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction. Meanwhile, a growing number of federal workers face deepening anxieties about when they will see their next paycheck. Yesterday, the Trump Administration ordered thousands of furloughed federal employees back to work without pay as the shutdown drags on. Nearly 50,000 employees will have to return to work to fulfill key government tasks, disbursing tax refund, overseeing Flight Safety and the drug supply. Posting today, you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled paycheck. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in our nations History Service members in a u. S. Armed force have not been paid during a lapse in appropriations. Our friends, over at all in put together this string of local reports that shows how widespread the harps have been. It hes been hard. Its been a struggle, just trying to make ends meet. 18 year federal Government Employee williams sweeping her garage, shut down from answering calls at the irs. The single mother of two worried. My daughter is a senior this year. I have senior fees, i have graduation, and shes also going to college next year. Reporter hundreds of coast guard personnel lined up at alameda. Most of these military phoning are still working without a paycheck. Im running out of money. I still have rent and Car Insurance and necessities. Reporter matt and his wife are both epa employees, both furloughed. Is there a deadline in your head, youre thinking, were okay until here. I would think we could get through until the end of the month. You never know. Reporter resorting to touching their savings, this local family not wanting to be identified said the tips thursday were not helpful by any means. Garage sales and babysit, i think was demeaning. It will all be over soon. You can make it a couple more weeks. No . When februarys rent is due, we cant pay it. Willie, we see the suffering thats going on across the country, of course. Many people focusing on the fact members of the armed forces not being paid for the First Time Ever in the lapse of appropriations, air safety possibly compromised and endangered and food safety possibly compromised and endangered. This is a shutdown the republicans never wanted. Its a wall republicans never wanted while in power for two years. How much longer can Mitch Mcconnell hold them . This is outrageous. You listen to those stories and its been outrageous several weeks. This is real. Not a political fight in washington, not a game about tweets, impacting peoples lives. Theres a food pantry in new york city called common pantry, a great organization. Over the weekend, theyre feeding federal workers. I know people who work there and came up with tears in their eyes, choked up embarrassed theyre coming to get food from this place because they didnt get a paycheck on friday. The president of the United States, if there were humanity inside of him he would listen to these stories and people he might consider this is ridiculous and a way to open pieces of the government and continue to have a discussion on the wall, if thats what he wants to do. The truth is, as you pointed out, the American People are not pointing out the argument that there is a crisis at the border so grave it warrants the suffering. Just over half of all americans believe the president is to blame for the Government Shutdown, a new maris poll finding 54 say President Trump is at fault. 31 blame democrats in congress, compared to 5 , who blame republicans in congress. 7 out of 10 americans say shutting down the government in order to reach an agreement on policy is bad strategy compared to 22 who say that is a good strategy. This is the fourth poll showing President Trump shouldering more of the shutdown blame than the democrats. This is the president s case, there is a crisis, National Security crisis, humanitarian crisis at the border and we will keep the Government Shutdown until we get the wall. The American People not buying it. And joe, he took the ownership of the shutdown in front of Television Cameras with Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi saying, i will own this shutdown. Is he trying to figure out a way by repeatedly inviting them to the white house when repeatedly they have already been tricked two or three times. A bipartisan solution has been put in front of him. Hes gotten up and said byebye and had temper tantrums. Does he think if he keeps inviting him the shutdown will belong to them . What is in trumps mind . He doesnt think, he doesnt plan. An aide said the president s response to having a 40s plan for this crisis was basically, he quoted mike tyson, who said everybody has a plan until theyre punched in the face, maybe is his justification for doing absolutely nothing. Mike, there is no strategy. There is no 40s. This is a day trader who continues to make the situation worse for himself, make the situation worse for his party politically. Its just devastating for the Republican Party politically. We saw the real life consequences for americans, not only the 800,000 that are federal employees but a lot of contractors and their families. You go down the economic food chain and up the economic food chain, there are millions of americans who will be hurt and you now have economists saying this will have a Significant Impact on the United States economy. Joe, there is no doubt that this shutdown is on one person. His name is donald j. Trump. He wanted this shutdown, hes got this shutdown. This is clearly more prove unfortunately for the United States of american, this is a president of the United States lacks an empathy gene. He does not understand whole families, more than 800,000 people hurt here, the extended families of these people, people who own smar Variety Stores and supermarkets in areas they live, are now suffering a loss of business. I dont know about you. You get here from nashville, tennessee. My sense is, matt and i were talking about it, if the tsa and air Traffic Controllers who are shut down, went home, refused to work because theyre not getting paid, this thing would be over in about two hours. It might not take that long. Tlerl, i think right now, for all the powerful stories of employees suffering and beginning the Ripple Effect and military folks it hasnt really sunk in. Its still, for most people, this is trump exaggerating the border. Then they think, well, there are people coming and i dont like the democrats either. A lot of that going on. You shut down commercial aviation in the United States which stops the economy and a certain level of somebodyialability, i think youre right. Its 90 minutes social ability it would be an interesting question on trump. Should i be ronald reagan, should i fire them . You cant fire the tsa simply asking to be paid for the work theyre doing. It feels to me, once again, this is important, its about from the democratic perspective, this is about a principle. We do not want to put up a closed sign on the border itself. Think about just the last 96 hours or so, weve gone from knowing finding out the fbi opens a counterintelligence investigation into the president of the United States being an asset of russian intelligence, the Government Shutdown over a fundamental principle of the definition what it means to be american, are we open or are we not . This is kind of another week in america. Part of what we all have to do, it can get wearying and you can become inured to the scale, the attorney general, all these stories would have been enormously important but they come so rapidly, i do think it requires an act of patient ascent to listen and follow this. John, ive actually agreed with everything you said, except one thing. That was you had said it was a shutdown over whether we are going to remain open as a country or closed. Its not even over that. Its a seinfeld shutdown, a shutdown over nothing. Republicans and democrats agreed by unanimous consent to keep the government. This is Rush Limbaugh and ann coulter attacking the president of the United States and he was being so insecure he listened to those two people and panicked and kept the americans do not want this wall. They said they wanted to tune it to the point of 1. 6 billion. Republicans dont even want the wall. This is donald trump and donald trump alone and not even for policy reasons. He was ready to give it up. This is just him being intimidated and frightened of some talk radio pundits. Sometimes, i wonder, given the emphasis we all have on both culturally and what i do for a living, maybe we talk too much about the president. No, we dont, as it turns out. Right. Because it is this immense force and the fact we elected someone and character is destiny at once narcissistic and incompetent, a hel of a combination, the question is how stubborn is he . I didnt think he would last long and find some way to declare victory. What do you think the way out of this is . I agree with you. The tsa finally not showing up for work. Willie, when that happens, its actually republicans going to and from their districts that are going to be complaining, their constituents are going to be complaining. There will be a hit in the economy the likes of which we havent seen in quite some time. I think thats probably unfortunately the way that we get out of this, when it happens, i suspect we have republicans that have to override Donald Trumps veto, and then donald trump will run against republicans in congress and democrats in congress if he seeks reelection in 2020. We ought to celebrate those tsa workers working right now, this morning at this moment not getting paid, and people at the fda and United States coast guard for gods sake, protecting our shores for no pay. Matt miller, is there the obvious point, the republicans owned washington the last two years and probably should have gotten the wall done before they lost the house. It doesnt look like there is any movement. Were nowhere. The president is where he is, said im not moving off 5. 7 billion. Nancy and Chuck Schumer put down their marker at 1. 3 and Mitch Mcconnell is sitting the whole thing out. These things move very slowly and very quickly at the end. In terms of a political stalemate, youre right, theres no movement resolving that stalemate right now. You can see under the water things are starting to collapse for the president. His poll numbers going down. Some members in the senate, those up for reelection urging the president to take it up and open the government. You see the white house seeing this is hurting Economic Growth and will have an impact on Economic Growth this quarter. You look at the underlying signs, theyre all bad for the president. One of the things about crisis management, what i do for a living when im not here, the hardest thing for people to understand when youre in a crisis and look down the road and understand theres only one way out of this or two ways out of this, i have to do something unpopular, something i dont want to do, something that hurts me. Better to do it now than a month from now, when ive taken a beating in the press or hurt my companys reputation. When youre in politics and dropped your poll numbers and had real impact on the country, the thing thats happening, when you have a real impact on the country, the 800,000 federal workers directly impacted and others impacted if this does harm Economic Growth the white house itself says its starting to do. Eventually there will be a collapse in political support. If the president doesnt cave, the way out is for republicans in congress to cave. And the president speaks for those furloughed workers when he says, theyre with me on this, they want the wall. Im not sure he can turn this into a positive branding experience, which is what hes used to doing. Betsy woodruff, lets look at these polls. New polls show just over half of all americans believe the president is to blame for the Government Shutdown. It also says its taking a toll on Donald Trumps standing with the public. This months gallup poll finds the president s Approval Rating is down to 37 , his worst rating in a year, with 59 disapproving. Among independents, trump dropped to a 31 Approval Rating, dropping eight points since december. In a quinnipiac poll, 33 approve strongly and 8 apryouft somewhat. The poll also found the rating of President Trumps handling of the economy is dropping. 49 approve. 48 disapprove. Thats the highest disapproval for his job on the economy since his first seven weeks in office. A majority of voters do not think donald trump is fit to serve as president. 53 of voters saying, no. 44 saying, yes. 57 of independent voters find trump unfit to serve. Two other quick data points. First, donald trump is the only president in the history of polling to never go above 50 his first two years in office. His numbers have been abysmal and he has set the record for the worst two years in the history of american polling. Thats number one. Number two, get this republicans should get this, too, with all their for a mongering on the border, americans actually believe democrats can do a better job securing the border than donald trump and the Republican Party. Betsy woodruff, take your pick. Damage to the Republican Party, damage to the presidency and potential impact with these numbers to trying to get this government reopen again. These kind of numbers cause a lot of anxiety for the people working on trumps 2020 reelection bid. One data point from the quinnipiac poll youre referring to, it was striking when i was reviewing the numbers this morning. We remember the speech trump took about a week ago on the broadcast networks, about his case nor the wall. It was a demagogic address and important for the white house, how they were making the case for this shutdown devastating for hundreds of thousands of americans. Quinnipiac found after that huge pivotal effort, only 2 of americans changed their thinking about this wall. It basically had no effect. A negligible effect at all. That was their hail mary and it didnt succeed. Another number from these polls important, less than 10 of democrats think trump is fit to be president. That might not sound surprising but that number is important to people working on trumps Reelection Campaign because in part, part of the reason he won in 2016 because he did so well in democratic strongholds, michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania where historically democrats are responsible. Trump does not have a road back to the white house in 2020 unless he can peel off some of those Traditional Democratic voters. If the cohort of people who voted for obama and then voted for trump, who played a key role at making him president in the first place are right now looking at this shutdown and thinking maybe we made the wrong choice, thats a big problem for his reelection bid and being taken seriously by those in the election orbit. Explain, if you can, why is it republicans are willing to break with donald trump when it comes to sanctions, nato, russia. But when it comes to this Government Shutdown having a devastating impact to a lot of people in their own district, devastating impact on their own poll numbers, the president s poll numbers, theyre not willing to move . Its a really good question. I dont know theres an easy answer to that. Part is because the president has been so aggressive and vocal about this shutdown, we do know many senators and republicans of congress who live in very trump friendly districts and states are quite sensitive to trump on the issues hes the most vocal about. Trump has yet to vocally publicly say he thinks the United States should pull out of nato. Even though hes made his view clear about some of these sanctions particularly on russian oligarches, he hasnt really been working the phones on capitol hill when it comes to that question. We have a big story out this morning on an ally of Paul Manaforts and close ally of putins, one of the worlds richest man and it was voted to keep sanctions on him despite theyre trying to get the sanctions off these two companies he is connected to. Republicans are part of the reason they took that procedural step. A number of republicans peeled off, broke ranks with treasury despite the fact that treasury secretary mnuchin was on the hill to make the case to take sanctions off these companies. On issues where trump himself isnt making a ton of noise, not sending lots of tweets and not making key campaign issues, the issues, were perhaps, trump may feel a little bit shy, uncomfortable with his views, especially on the republican session. Thus far, only a few republicans peeling off. Thank you so much. Again, this is a shutdown about nothing. Just a couple weeks ago, republicans voted with democrats unanimously to keep the government open and move the debate forward. Here, you have again people suffering all across america. The United States Government Shutdown, and our economy, people inside the white house saying this could hurt the United States economy all over a shutdown about nothing, about a wall that republicans didnt even want up until two weeks ago. Sounds like a trump business in the months before bankruptcy. Still ahead on morning joe. Sure, william barr broke with trump over the quote unkwoeft witch hunt. There were several key areas where the president s pick for attorney general said things about the russia probe that would be welcomed by the white house. Plus, two more Senate Democrats jump into the president ial frey. Well show you what Kirsten Gillibrand and Sherrod Brown have planned. Ve planned i hear it in the background and shes watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] ive never seen that before. I have. Wat t. 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Starting thursday, free premium delivery and 36month financing. Ends monday. Sleep number. Proven quality sleep. I am a techie dad. N. I believe the best technology should feel effortless. Like magic. At comcast, its my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. My name is mike, im in Product Development at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. I have known bob mueller for 30 years. We worked closely together throughout my previous tenure at the department of justice. Weve been friends since. I have the utmost respect for bob and his distinguished record of public service. When he was named special counsel, i said, his selection was good news and knowing him, i had confidence he would handle the matter properly. I still have that confidence today. Given his public actions to date, i expect that the special counsel is well along in his investigation. At the same time, the president has been steadfast that he was not involved in any collusion with russian attempts to interfere in the election. I believe it is in the best interests of everyone, the president , congress, and the American People that this matter beresolved by allowing the special counsel to complete his work. But there were several other times during yesterdays confirmation hearing when the president s nominee for attorney general, william barr, avoided making commitments about how he would conduct himself related to the Mueller Investigation and the president s conduct. Will you commit to make public all of the reports conclusions, the Mueller Report, even if some of the evidence supporting those conclusions cant be made public . You know, that certainly is my goal and intent. Will you commit that you will explain to us any changes or deletions that you make to the special counsel report thats submitted to you in whatever you present to us. I will commit to providing as much information as i can, consistent with the regulations. You said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or available of evidence would be an obstruction, is that correct . Yes. So what if a president told a witness not to cooperate with an investigation or hinted at a pardon . You know, id have to know the specific. Id have to know the specific facts. Would it be appropriate to go against the advice of career ethics officials that have recommended recusal, and can you give an exactly or situation or scenario you would go against a recommend digs you recuse yourself. There are different recusals, some are mandated and others judgment calls. Lets imagine its a judgment call and the judgment by the career ethics officials in the agency are that you recuse yourself. Under what scenario would you not follow their recommendation . If i disagreed with it. On what basis would that street agreement be . I came to a different judgment. On what facts . The scenario. On what recommendation would you not follow the recommendation of the Ethics Committee . If i disagreed with him. In some ways he is an obvious choice for attorney general. He is well qualified and knows the department and traditions. He came in and said a lot of the right words you expect to hear from an attorney general nominee. There are some concerns you highlighted. When he talked about the end of the Mueller Investigation whether there will be a report. We still dont know if there will be a report. If there is one, he talked about other things like a decholination or prosecution memo that they write and send up the chain if they decide not to indict someone or release an indictment. Theyre always confidential. The thing is under their own rules the president cant be indicted. Its hard to see that scenario outlined where those documents remain confidential is the applicable one here and why democrats push for more transparency. I think his answers would still be somewhat acceptable if it wasnt for the memo hes written, it gives you concern not just that he has written the memo and expressed views about executive power, but he gave it to bob muellers boss and others at doj if Rod Rosenstein had been fired, he gave it to his outside attorneys, mike pences attorney and Jared Kushners attorney, sharing it with all the men and that raises questions about his impartiality he didnt go far enough to address. The tell is with cKamala Harris that and deputies attorney generals all committed not only to seek the advice of them but he wouldnt commit. He certainly said i will make a great deal of deference to ethics officials that made the decision that maybe i should not be involved with it. There would have a be a very compelling reason for me to ignore him. He didnt do that. He said, ill do what i want to do and disagree if i want to disagree. I understand it has been the guidelines of the Justice Department some time a sitting president cannot be indicted. In this case, when you have a possible illegal act the subject of the possible indictment, and that illegal act could be argued, that illegal act helped elect that president of the United States, then, suggesting that a president of the United States cannot be indicted in all cases, that is that suddenly becomes a guideline that is meaningless, because it was the illegal act that could have possibly caused the election of the president. I think that opinion by the department of Legal Counsel is suspect and wouldnt hold up in the courts. I also think its an academic debate because theyre the ones that hold the opinion an get to decide whether to bring charges or not. Its an important discussion to have. If the president cant be indicted. For that opinion to not be a farce and the president above the rule, it means at the end of the departments investigation they find evidence the president committed a crime, or not a crime but violation of oath of office, something barr indicated yesterday trying to end an investigation that would impact on him, its incumbent of the department to turn it over to the body that is responsible holding him accountable. Congress. He has criminal exposure in the mueller probe. Theres actual evidence of criminality in the New York Justice probe where they know he committed a real crime. There is a real question at the end of both of those probes, what happens. I would like to have heard from barr, maybe we wont make that evidence public but if we find he committed a crime or violated oath of office, well make that available to congress. And also committed a crime in this is campaign to get elected as president of the United States. Mike, you talk about far as, you have trumpists writing opinion pages, people formerly respectable conservatives demanding Robert Mueller have more transparency and he release information for the American People to read in the middle of his investigation which they know is something that hes never going to do. Yet, here we have mr. Barr, who i believe did well yesterday, but we have mr. Barr suggesting he may not even be transparent with congress or the American People with the final report, i must say, in an otherwise strong job on capitol hill yesterday, its something that really causes me grave concern, that they would not even allow, he would not even allow his attorney general, Robert Mueller, to be transparent with the American People. Mr. Barr had a pretty good day yesterday in front of the United States senate. He answered questions specifically. He answered questions that gave some relief to people who felt he would perhaps interfered with bob mueller. He cleared that up. There were two flags as just mentioned. One is reluctance to agree to recusal and the other is reluctance to agree to release the complete Mueller Report. One of the interesting things about his testimony to many people, was that it came as such a relief to a lot of people, given whats happened to the Justice Department. We have had a series of premeditated attacks on one of the most vital institutions of our country, department of justice and the fbi and people are saying, wow, this is great. Now, we have a guy who wont ruin the department more than its already been ruined. Hes been attorney general. Yeah. Its been 25 years, 27 years. Richard thornburgh went to run for the senate against harris whatford in 91 and bar took over the end of the first bush administration. Yes. Joe knows this well, in conservatism, barr is of a particular time, through a federalist i suspect hes of the federalist society, clearly very conservative washington lawyer. He looks like an attorney general because he was an attorney general. At this point, in trumps washington, you know, that goes for a lot. At least hes not judge piro. Whittaker. Or the one whos in office. Judge sessions. Again, Donald Trumps the only guy who can make Jeff Sessions look like oliver wendall holmes that he may have done. I think its fascinating because all these tributaries will come rolling into the same place, russia, mueller, stuff we dont know about, the campaign stuff. I think its a fascinating moment about president ial power. I understand the basic idea you cant indict a president and it would be a political target and be constant. Is someone really above the law, saying you cant indict and wait until after hes gone, out of office to try him . The founders basically wanted to entrust to the impeachment process. They wanted to make it difficult and didnt want a parliamentary system. Thats why treason is hard to prove. Sometimes people think, oh, god, does it really matter who my congressman is, senator, because the boat goes on anyway . Yeah. It does matter for moments exactly like this. Matt miller, if you were an american watching at home, you dont know bill barr or his history, he says he will protect the Mueller Investigation, it should go on. He will tell the public. He does not believe it is a witch hunt. He said he believes Jeff Sessions did the right thing recusing himself. Hes been attorney general. He was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote by a Democratic Senate in 1991. This looks like a conventional choice to become attorney general. I guess what the senators in the room, 57 republicans and 47 democratic senators, it would be a surprise if they didnt confirm. They have to decide whether the man in the room is bill barr or the 20 page memo he put out in june is the real barr. It is a tough question. Its whether you trust him or not. Im not going to defer to partial justice officials, you have to trust me to do the right thing. There are reasons to not trust his judgment and reasons to think he would be admirable in that position. It was asked is it unethical, the wrong thing for the president to do to interfere with a probe by the department of justice. He said it would be a violation of the president s office. The president has done that with mike flynn and the new york investigation, when he asked why more wasnt being done to control the investigation into him, his kids, his important business. That was an important answer. It sets the stage for something to be done about it. He said if the president were to offer a pardon in exchange for a witnesss silence, that would be a crime. Those are important things. We have to see how he applies those facts. The question is, do you trust him or not . Hard answer. A fascinating situation. We will turn overseas where the situation in the uk is perhaps as complicated and troubled as things here at home. Ive always believed the best way forward is to lead in an orderly way with a good deal and have devoted much of the last two years negotiating such a deal. In the last two years shes only had one priority, the conservative party. Her principle of delay and denial has reached the end of the line. She cannot seriously believe after two years of failure shes capable of negotiating a good deal for the people of this country. That was british Prime Minister theresa may and the leader of the opposition, labor party, jeremy, after the deal went down in a crushing defeat. The meeting is to be held this afternoon. All of this 10 weeks before the divorce date. Joining us now, catty kaye, and in london, bill neely. Bill, lets start with you, with news from london. Its always said if youre in a bad mood, go see a tragedy because when you leave a comedy, youre just as depressed as you were before. In this case, its very good medicine for americans to see whats going on in london. We arent quite as depressed about how terrible things are here. Youre absolutely right. There are parallels on both sides of the atlantic, if you want to listen to gridlock, you have just listened to it in the british parliament, two tribes not listening to each other, country divided, Peoples Trust in government ebbing away. For this government in the uk, a complete humiliation. We expected theresa mays deal patiently negotiated over two years information britain to leave the European Union would be defeated. This was unprecedented. The last time a government lost like this was 1924, by 166 votes. This was by 230, a complete and utter humiliation. Not in any other country at any other time or company, a chief executive with losses like that would be a door by midnight last night. That will not happen for theresa may. Yes, in about 10 minutes time she will begin to face questions, then six hours of a debate, then a vote of no confidence in the government which she will win because her party doesnt want to see the opposition take power. Its a crazy situation. The question then is what next and nobody knows. She must come up with a plan b by monday. Shell be scrambling around the opposition party, what do you want . Shell go to europe and said, can you give us any compromises. It is a complete mess. It almost makes whats happening in washington look pleasant. It is a complete mess. One of the problems is bill speaks of two tribes. Its not even quite that simple. There are members of labor who support brexit, conservatives who support brexit. The cross currents are pretty difficult to pin down, arent they . Absolutely right. This is the problem. There are splipts across shot through politics and families and the labor party and conservative party have been split for years. It has been split for 40 years. First of all, David Cameron trying to neutralize his eurosceptic wing by calling this referendum, won narrowly, 5248, 2 1 2 years ago, and then theresa may saying, okay, you voted for brexit, i will give you a hard brexit. That hard brexit was defeated last night. Now, what . Is it a soft brexit . Is it no brexit . We know march 29th, 70 days time, by law, deal or no deal, britain will leave the European Union after 45 years of membership unless there is a delay unless they come up with plan b the European Union says, we will give you a bit more time to work this out. Frankly, in brussels and paris and berlin, they have their hands on their head looking at the uk. Somebody mentioned the word, shattered freud delighting in the misfortune of your opponent or enemy. In britain, they always said, were the sensible ones. We can work things out in a calm and measured way. We have great diplomats, strong and stable. They are looking now, strong and stable . You have to be joking. Its a farce. The tragedy in this country everyone knows it and nobody knows a way out. Bill neely, thank you. Appreciate it. Catty, we have been hearing that a couple years. Nobody knows the way out. I always told people and said it on this show, when mika and i came back from london two summers ago, people were saying, you think you have problems there, we have problems that dont just involve one man like donald trump. It is a system and theres no way out. Two years later, its gotten even worse. Either way the [referendum seemed simple, weve been shackled to this organization and dont like the rules that governs the size of our tomatoes and that allows french and polish and italian people with no control over our borders and we want to leave. We found out over the past 2 1 2 years, the process of rolling back globalization and these intricately wound organizations is much more complicated. It might be a salutary thought for donald trump as hes looking at nato, its very difficult to get out of these organizations because they are embedded in so many facets of our lives. The European Union says, you can leave but cant cherry pick the best. You cant control your borders and have no tariffs. Britain is saying, we want to leave and cherry pick. 72 days to go, britain still doesnt know what its relationship will be. The ft editor for the United States said following mays huge defeat, britain has a second realistic chance to reverse. I implore agitated brits to implore for the vote. It can help reverse it. Mika, well talk to catty and others over the next hour or two and see if that is a possibility. Stay with us. Still ahead, President Trump has said time and time again there was no collusion with russia during his 2016 campaign. Each time, hes met with vladamir putin, trump has fueled suspicions about their relationship. New reporting on that coming up. To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. Does this sound dismal . It isnt. Its the most wonderful life on earth. Its the most wonderful life on earth. Were all under one roof now. Congratulations. Thank you. How many kids . My two. His three. Along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. That is quite the family. Quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. A lot of colleges. You get any Financial Advice . Yeah, but im pretty sure its the same plan they sold me before. Well your situations totally changed now. Right, right. How bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here . That would be great. That would be great. That okay with you, jake . Get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from Td Ameritrade investment management. We do whatever it takes to fight cancer. These are the specialists were proud to call our own. Experts from all over the world working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com. Psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, Little Things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not an injection or a cream. Its a pill that treats differently. For psoriasis, 75 clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. For psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. And the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Otezla. Show more of you. Matt miller we got earlier this week our umpteenth report Robert Mueller was wrapping up his investigation and ready to go, then we learned he is still working with rick gates and a couple of months to work with him before sentencing and the man cooperating with the investigation. Whats your sense from the outside, where this is, and how long this goes on with bob mueller . I think we are close to the end. You saw john coarse is scheduled to testify before the grand jury on friday. It seems he and stone will be going before the grand jury. This memo with gates you can read mueller wants two more months with him. Rick gates didnt just work with the trump campaign, the inauguration. There is an investigation in new york that just started. As a longtime Business Partner of paul manafort. I know we will see you on day two with the confirmation hearings with barr. We will go to one town that relies on federal funding. And robert costa joins us with what hes hearing from senior republican lawmakers what must be done to reopen the government, if anything. Morning joe will be right back. E right back the way i was made to. It nourishes and strengthens my joints for the longterm. Osteo biflex because im made to move. This rounds on me. Hey, can you spot me . Come on in find your place, today, with silver sneakers. Included with Many Medicare plans. Call the number on the screen now or visit getsilversneakers. Com its been hard. Its been a struggle trying to make ends meet. 18 year Government Employee laquisa williams sweeping her garage, working for the government of the irs shut down. My daughter is a senior and i have senior fees and graduation and shes also going to college next year. Reporter hundreds of coast guard personnel lined up in almeida for the food give away. I am running out of money. I still have rent and Car Insurance and car payments, necessities. Reporter matt and his wife are both epa employees, both furloughed. Is there a place in your deadline, were okay until here . I would guess we can get through the month. Reporter resorting to their savings, this local couple not wanting to be identified said tips were not helpful. Have garage sales and babysitting i think was embarrassing and demeaning. We are told you can make it a couple more weeks. No. So, when februarys rent is due, we cant pay it. Some local news reports from across the country that show how widespread the harps have been due to the Government Shutdown. Now, at day 26, with no end in sight, welcome back to morning joe. Its wednesday, january 16th, still with joe, willie and me, we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, historian and author of the soul of america, jon meacham. Bbc, katty kay and from the cia and department of defense, nbc analyst, jeremy bash. Political reporter for the Washington Post and moderator of Washington Week on pbs, msnbc political reporter robert costa with us as well. There is a lot of blame the president would like to not put on himself, joe, for this shutdown. I think hes trying to wait it out to see if we can brand it on chuck and nancy. We are at a historic time length now and people are really hurting. You look at everything that happened over the past four or five months. Republicans, if they are interested in surviving the future, should do the same. Everything the president has done and everything he has touched, to borrow from rick wilson died politically. He tried to gin up hatred towards immigrants, tried to make up a caravan crisis that never came to fruition. He tried to turn people against nonwhite americans. What happened . Democrats had their biggest victory and republicans had their worst defeat since watergate. Now, look at the polls that have come over the past week over the president s shutdown. This is the president s shutdown. He took credit for it. He was the one that pulled republicans back when they voted with democrats to keep the government open and keep paying tsa workers and keep paying our coast guard men and women and keep the food inspections going at the fda and continue normal operations of the federal government, air Traffic Controllers, the people who keep us safe. The president of the United States was the one who singularly decided he was going to shut down the government. Following up on what jon meacham said earlier today, we wring our hands sometimes, do we talk about donald trump too much . No. Actually, the media doesnt talk about donald trump too much because he is a one man wrecking ball. Yes. Bob costa, there are a lot of republicans on capitol hill starting to see the numbers, tilting overwhelmingly towards donald trump and the trump Republican Party. What are you hearing on capitol hill, especially in the senate where right now deliberations matter most because if republicans move like they did yesterday on russian sanctions, the house will move and the government will be open and paychecks start going again to members of the coast guard to tsa agents and air Traffic Controllers and other people that keep america safe. Last night at the capitol, several moderates of both parties say they plan to release a letter saying its time to reopen the government and restart negotiations. They dont have a deal to propose but want to pit on paper. And the Problem Solvers Group heading to the white house to discuss. The real story, all these bipartisan talks, they said they believe the bipartisan groups wont get anything done. The leadership is deadlocked. The only thing is for the American Government to become outraged. Some kind of breakdown at airports with tsa agents not showing up, only something at that level because of the paralysis in washington would enable the shutdown to end. We heard what concerns Mitch Mcconnell the most is protecting his members so he can remain Senate Majority leader. He promised us a month ago there wasnt going to be a shutdown. He passed a bill to keep the government open. The president took credit for the shutdown. You have joni ernst, susan collins, corey gardner, go down the list. A lot of republicans. Theyre going up in twinge states in 2020 and have to start being concerned, especially joni ernst. What pressure are they putting on the president , the administration to get things moving . Joe, youre talking about concern for a general election. Talking to republican senators and their aides, they remind me six years ago this month, senator mcconnell drew a primary opponent in kentucky, matt bevin, and all the senators are often keeping their eyes behind their shoulder saying who will maybe primary me if i break from donald trump. Does mcconnell want to see the shutdown end . His aides say yes. But they believe he cant get away from donald trump and put hisself to the challenges. At what point does mitt romney hop into this conversation . We heard he and other republicans say this is a fight between the white house and democrats. They have to make a deal. We cant convince democrats its a good deal. The white house has to do it. How long does this go on before he gets in the fight if ever. Mcconnell, say anything about him. He has a good temperature taker of his own conference. Right now, many of his members are frustrated, but not hopping mad. You have senator collins and gardner and senator mccowsky taking more of an aggressive posture to shut down the government. Only once a precipitating revent, National Fury will he truly act. He is someone that doesnt cut a deal just to cut a deal. He cuts a deal when he thinks it will help him keep in power and help his members stay in power. Meanwhile, jeremy bash, weve been talking about the real world impact, the commandant of the u. S. Coast guard posted this yesterday. Today, you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled paycheck. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in history the u. S. Service members have not been paid. Thats admiral schultz talking. Continue the work and the job youve been doing but you have to do it without pay. Theyre not the only ones asked to do that. And that there is a National Security emergency and crisis that necessitates all elements of the u. S. Government to protect ourselves from this massive invasion of people in flipflops 800 miles from the border. What does he do . Shuts down the government and denies pay and eviser rates the morale. You saw that letter of the Fbi Agents Association decrying the fbi employees. The coast guards men and women who actually do patrol our borders and sea borders and close jin waterways. The tsa, transportation security agency, which is responsible primarily for securing our airports and aviation systems. If in fact the rationale for our shutdown is security, the shutdown is only undermining it. This week, reporting President Trump went to extraordinary lengths to keep his conversations with russian president vladamir putin secret. It led the New York Times to disclose an off the record call with the president. It happened in july of 2017. Trump met with putin in hamburg, germany, after which trump pulled up his notes and sat in a chair with putin with no others present. Writing after air force one was heading home from germany, argued the russians were falsely accused of interference and insisted a few things be off the record and noted a few things in public in notes aside. He eraids russian hacking three times in that putin denied involvement. He said if we did, we wouldnt have gotten caught because were professionals. Mr. Trump said, i thought that was a good point because theyre some of the best in the world at hacking. Asked how he weighed mr. Putins denials against the evidence presented by james comey, john brennan and james clapper, he said mr. Clapper and mr. Brennan were the most political intelligence chiefs he knew and mr. Comey was so whoa. Jeremy, it is of course stunning it does what the president does especially with vladamir putin. Its also stunning how arrogant and how blind vladamir putin is to the capabilities of the United States military or United States intel communities. You look at the Robert Mueller indictments, not only did we catch him redhanded, we knew which officers were at the keyboards and what buildings they were in, we knew what keystrokes they used to try to hack into the United States government and hack into the dnc. We knew everything about them. We know the code names. It was like an open book, like we were opening up the ceiling and staring right into vladamir putins office. The arrogance of that statement and quite frankly the ignorance, some would say, certainly not me, some would say . The stupidity of the president of the United States to believe that denial is breathtaking. We had evidence that showed up in the indictment of the officers, this assessment has gone all the way back to january 17, in the early days of the presidency, it came forward russia had meddled in our election in a way to favor donald trump. Trump never wanted to accept that assessment because it undermined him. The way hes been pro putin, parroting putins lies has been only, i think, confirmatory that the president doesnt believe our Intelligence Community and credits the kbg spy master over our own agency. And this secret diplomacy than what he did and told the aides to go away and had a oneonone meeting with vladamir putin and went to the cameras afterwards and said, i believe them over my own intelligence agencies. Katty kay, over my lifetime, which has been considerable, i have never seen a front page headline as i saw in the New York Times on friday that absolutely staggered me and brought home so etch, so many events allinone story the president of the United States under investigation by the fbi for perhaps being suspicious that he was an asset of the soviet union, russia. Today, we have government by paralysis here in the United States. The government of Great Britain collapsing. The president of the United States implying he would like to withdraw from nato. All you can think of is this is the greatest gift vladamir putin has ever been given in his life, the collapse of western political societies he sought to achieve quietly behind the scenes, and hes achieving it. Over the last 70 years, britain and the United States have been cast as the two adults in the room when it comes to security. It has been an anglosaxon alliance to Foreign Policy, to a large extent, kept the world safe since the end of the second world war. Donald trump seems to be pulling back from that and seems to be giving a large leash to vladamir putin. Britain is so consumed with brexit negotiations it cant be on these issues. And every time hes asked about intelligence agencies, he dismisses it as too political. The people who launched the fbi into the Counter Intelligence problem, theyre too political. Vladamir putin is never too political and he always seems to be prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Its really hard to think the president of the United States could have been an asset wittingly or unwittingly of the russians. The question has to be asked because there are data points to do this. These are not people in the fbi asking these questions, they are doing it because the data points led them there. That is why the report in so stunning. Theres such a fire hose of trump news each day, its hard to stop and ask how important it is and significant it may be. A show we had yesterday hasnt gotten a lot of attention, that the president sought to withdraw the United States and wanted to get out of that 70 year alliance. Why would he want to get out . Would that be a gift to vladamir putin, or enough, 70 years in this alliance. That deserves attention. Lets be honest, do we really think donald trump could separate nato from nascar . No. Honestly. So something is going on. The focus on nato has been interesting from the very beginning, you talk about the debt ratio. Im as dorky as anyone else in america. You are. Thanks very much. We all agree. Thank you. I brought america together on that. I wasnt following the debt ratio with nato. Its an interesting thing to focus on. Its this weird moment historically, where though its still a nuclear age, were kind of back to a preworld war i, great game influence. Its hard to sometimes think about this. What putin wants, what every russian leader wanted, since peter the great. More land, more territory. Ukraine is a gas station. This is what he does. This is what russians send to do in their national character. Liberal democracy, western democracy was what was, dare i say, of the wall against that. This is a persistent attempt, usually persistent for trump to bring american influence theres a great line here you go, mika, when the first nato people, lord is made, for catty to pug is his name. Barnicle knew him. I think they were in kindergarten together. Yes. The point is to keep the germans down, russians out, and the americans in. Right now, the germans, because were out of that calculus, but the russians want in. Jeremy bash also, whats so fascinating is that fascinating and troubling but also a very compelling argument that donald trump actually is listening to vladamir putin and doing the bidding of vladamir putin. You can look at what he said about nato that did not concern him until two years ago. You can look and see he is repeating the proch ganda vladamir putin spouts out about afghanistan. And why the soviet union went to afghanistan and they collapsed. And look at what he said about Montenegro International conference, it came directly from the mouth, Propaganda Machine of vladamir putin. We have a president of the United States who keeps mindlessly parroting vladamir putin about topics he knew nothing about until he started meeting vladamir putin. This is fundamentally what drove general mattis to leave the secretary of defense. He watched how we were yielding to russia on a variety of issues and announce the pullout of syria, which was a total gift to the kremlin. It emboldened russia, emboldened iran and assad, russias client. And allowed a land bridge to be built from northern tehran through iraq and syria and eventually north lebanon. I think jim mattis and other hawks are looking at this, what has become Foreign Policy in the year of trump. We have ultimately yielded it to vladamir putin. Lets talk about william barr. What was the summons to mr. Barrs testimony on the hill . So many of confirmations now are partisan exercises, people are running for president. Republicans in the senate expect mr. Barr to be confirmed, not probably by an overwhelming vote because of the nature of Politics Today and theyre at each other. Many democrats remain skeptical of mr. Barr wondering if he will protect the investigation, a careful lawyer and treaded very neatly not mentioning any firm promises how he would handle the Mueller Report. Katty kay, one quick question, what was said yesterday, that now would be a time for a revote. This would publish the best time for a revote, would be the best time for a revote on brexit . If you asked me six month ago, i would have said it was not going to happen. Because it was defeated so crushingly yesterday, Everything Else now is back on the table, that includes the chance of a revote. I would say the chances of a hard brexit, crashing out of the European Union with no deal at all are probably a little higher than chances of second referendum. Everybody is looking at those two policies in britain. Katty kay and the others, thank you for being with us this morning. Bearing the burdens of the Government Shutdown. To huntsville, alabama, for the latest there. Latest hear those words. Breast cancer. 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We are here in rocket city because we want to get a sense how the shutdown is affecting real americans, especially those that may have supported President Trump. You have 40,000 workers here. What were hearing talking to these furloughed workers, people are starting to hurt. There was a shift over the weekend, when people missed that first pay period. We talked to everyone from pawn shop workers to preachers and people are getting frustrated and also getting angry. I know its really piss off a lot of people. These are veterans retired and it is not affecting their retirement check. Theyre not to the point its really hurting them. It doesnt affect me but its affecting so many other veterans. Thats a shame. Not just veterans but everybody. Coming down, President Trump, to the point to where youre willing to debate with the democrats and get this thing resolved. Continuing it any longer is only going to hurt hurt and hurt. Reporter just about everyone we talked to has some connection to someone whos been furloughed or is working without pay. It gives you a sense how wide this is in the community. At pawn shops, theyve seen almost 100 increase of people coming in that need cash that quickly. Theyre thinking about selling valuable items. You get a sense this is their first time coming into the pawn shops and their heads are held low. When a furlough hits, a lot more of civilian Government Contractors get affected. People dont think about that. They think about veterans or army reserve and military personnel. They dont think about the subcontractors and contractors that are employees. When a furlough hits of this magnitude for length and theyre talking about months and stuff, people get scared because they have mortgages and stuff like that. Reporter one story we heard is a group of ladies went into that pawn shop, about five of them, trying to assess it out. Theyve never been in a situation they needed cash that desperately. A little later, one came up, head held low, and put her wedding ring up. Its how much theyre hurting and when will it be a pressure point, does trumps own base force him back to the negotiating table. Hans, thanks so much. Joining us, columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Post and msnbc contributorer and former advisor to former president george w. Bush, ko creator and president of the circus on showtime coming back next week, mark mckinnon. Mark mckinnon, whats so heart breaking about this, you hear stories about people going into a pawn shop and pawning their wedding rooms, not getting paid, members of our armed forces. Every shutdown is difficult and tough. In 95 96 there was a shut down balancing the budget where the first Republican Congress in 40 years wanted to force that to happen. In 2013, it was over the Affordable Care act. Whether that was the right thing to do or not can still be debated on both sides. Here, you have people suffering for no political reason at all. You have a phony wall only 1 in 4 republicans supported when they were in power, and you had an agreement between republicans and democrats to keep the Congress Open and donald trump was for it until two talk radio hosts told him he was weak. Je. This is just cruel. Absolutely cruel and for no good reason. The question, joe, is where is the breaking point going to be . Huntsville is one of the few places. Its in alabama, right, Trump Country for sure. Theres not a lot of other places theres a lot of federal workers. Ultimately, i think President Trump says, this is a win, i will save our country and security. I think it will ultimately be a National Security threat around the issue. Fundamentally the wall is about National Security. Because of the National Security argument and Security Problems arise, thats where it breaks. Americans are feeling real pain, so much pain because of the political shutdown in washington, literally over nothing, you look at whats happened the past month. Lets talk about the political damage being done, continued political damage done to the Republican Party and republican brand. Theyre getting slaughtered in absolutely every political poll. I may push back just a little bit. This is not a good situation for republicans. Flurry getting blamed more than others. It is longer than the shutdown of 2013, but the numbers for republicans have not sunk like a rock as fast as they did in 2013. Part of that is the timing of the shutdown. The beginning weeks happened over the holidays people were already taking time off work. With the first pay period being missed, you will now see more americans saying, this isnt some issue in washington, those morons on capitol hill who cant get anything done, now, its starting to affect me. 82 of americans said they had not yet been personally in convenienced by the shutdown, in past numbers. The moment something happens at an airport, thats the thymes the numbers get ugly. Thats when you see the numbers medical for republicans get worse in a real way. Donald trump is moving to his lowest point yet. Hes down 37 in gallup. 59 disapprove. Hes down in absolutely every poll, the overwhelming majority of americans blame trump republicans and not democrats. Where is the Silver Lining youre pointing out for republicans . Its not that theres a Silver Lining for republicans, when i hooked at the polling averages, trumps points dropped half a week each week of the shutdown, not good news if youre the white house but not crisis level yet. I believe after this first week missing the paycheck, you will see that 82 saying i havent been inconvenienced by the shutdown. That number will get worse and as it gets worse you will see the president losing more than half a point a week. Were at the inflection where the slow bleed has potential to become a gushing wound. Jonathan kaye part, the president is down in the polls in every poll. 37 in the gallup poll. 37 in the cnn poll, only two points away from his lowest ever. He was in the low 40s before this began. Yeah. Its good to hear kristian break down the numbers. When you hear a president say he is willing to let this go on for months and years, maybe the president should take this into account. The issue is for the American People to understand, this is not an abstract problem, not something happening somewhere else or washington centric problem. This is quickly becoming an american problem. People should know the chiron was there that hes the pentagon correspondent, i want to tell you about my sources from the state department, i havent heard this talked about enough. People are worried about local staff funding for people around the world, their funding will run out at the end of this month. Theres concern when local employees dont get paid, the line of responsibility goes up because those people will sue for their salaries. Diplomatic security funding is expected to run out by february. This is not right now a domestic problem, quickly going to become an International Problem for the United States. 24 hours ago, former senator, Claire Mccaskill was sitting in that seat exactly. She was in the middle of this shutdown fight when she left office a couple weeks ago. She said the only way out of this is for Mitch Mcconnell to step up and do something. Mcconnell says, i have nothing to do with this. This is for the democrats and the president to make a deal. Do you think there is some point he ultimately steps into this . I think hes doing everything he can. Sure hes giving lots of options. The state of the union is coming up in 10 days. If im the president , that was one of the high points of my Administration Last year, i dont want to defend a shutdown at the state of the Union Address. I dont know if he minds that, does he . He seems to be enjoying this fight. I think he would actually relish that. I wonder if this isnt all about donald trump seeing a possible fight for impeachment coming up. If he has a hard core 35, 36 of supporters, he wants to keep them through 2019. He knows in 2019, mueller is coming after him and the democrats in the house of representatives are coming after him. Maybe, mike barnicle, he would rather keep that 36 on ice than actually try to be seen as rational by the other 36 of americans. You know, joe, one of the more interesting aspects of the shutdown, in this business and the business of politics, we rely more and more on polling data to take the pulse of the country, the temperature of the country, how people are reacting to the shutdown. While it has an impact on a certain segment of people and blah blah blah, stuff like that, the striking thing about this shutdown is the distance between elected officials specifically in the United States senate and the lives of ordinary people they represent. Its incredible. If you lose your paycheck for one week, theres a rule of thumb, it will take the average person a month of to catch up. One paycheck missing, a month to ca catch up. You have 800,000 people to catch up what theyve been missing. The Ripple Effect, shop owners in the neighborhood not getting the business they got a month ago, before the shutdown began. You dont hear a single United States senator, at least to my knowledge, maybe there are some, the majority of the members of the United States senate have not spoken out in outrage over the ordinary people they represent. It is prophetic. The depth of feeling is something no poll can ever register. Republicans need to step up and speak out on this, considering it is their president they support 95 of the time causing this pain. Jonathan, that president himself said these federal workers will be fine. Manage just fine. Nancy pelosi said they arent going to be just fine. Unlike donald trump, they cant ask their daddy for a loan, for 200 million. There are some people on their own have children, struggling, going to pawn shops to pawn their wedding rings in tears. That was heart breaking. When people elect the president of the United States, they elect someone to safe guard the National Defense and have the best interests of the American People at heart. They also want someone looking out for them, not just policywise, also empathetically. We talked about that on this show and around the country about the empathy deficit of President Trump. You have to have a sense of empathy and motorcycle conviction for someone elses being to fix this situation. The fact he wont fix it, only views this shutdown as a political game instead of a human tragedy, as were seeing, i thought i was no longer able to be speechless. But if the president of the United States were to only see only hans nichols piece with the woman in huntsville, alabama, talking about the woman who came in to pawn her wedding ring, i think anyone, any american with a heart, sense of empathy, and especially if that person were the president of the United States would call the members of congress in and come up with a deal and put this wall discussion, as phony as it is, off to the side, so everyone can get back to work and be whole. Yeah. Theyre working, just no money. Kristen, back in early 2017, we talked around the set and a lot of other people did, too, about this catch22 republicans were in. Somebody like Mitch Mcconnell cant really cross the republican president because he has a primary in 2020, as do many republicans who dont want to try to win the war of the general election but end up losing the battle and not even getting there. What helps in a primary hurts in a general election. We saw that in the midterms in 2018. Have you seen any republicans nationwide on the National Stage thats been able to figure out how to move beyond that terrible catch22 thats bringing the Republican Party down . Its hard to come wake up a specific example on that front. When i think of someone whos done that well, rick scott from florida, when he was governor there, it was a state where he was a vocal supporter of the president but he also maintained a job Approval Rating in florida that was above where the president s own job approval was by just being a good governor, do well on things like hurricanes. I think when it comes to what voters want, the way you can be a supporter of the president and win a general population by getting the basics of governing right. When the government is shut down the basics of governing are not being gotten right. You asked me before about threats to the republican brand. The republican brand has faced a lot of damage over the last number of years. This idea President Trump cant oversee a competent functioning of the federal government is the sort of thing that could further bleed some of those people away from him. To my point earlier, this doesnt end until one side or the other begins feeling really significant political pain either coming from their base or voters they perceive as swing voters that will decide their general election. Moderate republicans are the ones first seeing that calculation changing as general election prospects become dim as more swing voters go, why cant you guys govern. Thank you both for being here this morning. Coming up with the turmoil of the u. S. And britain, vladamir putin seems to be having a good run of things. The u. S. Senate may have set russias president back on his heels over sanctions. We will talk to the americanborn businessman who calls himself putins public eni number one, next on morning joe. Im ken jacobus and i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. I earn unlimited 2 cash back on everything i buy. And last year, i earned 36,000 in cash back. Which i used to offer Health Insurance to my employees. Whats in your wallet . [indistinct conversation] [friend] ive never seen that before. I have. Hey, batter, batter, [ crowd cheers ] like everyone, i lead a busy life. But i know the importance of having time to do what you love. At comcast we know our customers time is valuable. Thats why we have 2hour appointment windows, including nights and weekends. So you can do more of what you love. My name is tito, and im a techhouse manager at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. In a bipartisan rebuke on the administration, the senate voted on a resolution that would maintain embargoes for three Russian Companies linked to one of putins favorite oligarches and needs 60 votes to pass in the senate. Joining us a man who was known as the man driving the magnitsky act, that froze their assets and visas. Putin has worked to get this act repealed. Bill, good morning. A refresher for our viewers or introduction perhaps. In help sinky last effectivelyd said sure the mueller team, special counsel can come visit and interview our people in russia as long as they give us bill broward. The magnitsky act was passed in 2012. Vladimir putin is a major human rights violator who has a lot of assets so he personally feels affected by this legislation. Hes made it his single largest Foreign Policy. Hes been going after me. For literally seven years has been going after me. They issued seven interpol red notices. Extradition requests. Death threats. Kidnapping threats. Vladimir putin is so upset with this because it touches him with his achilles heel which is his money in the west. And his colleagues. Exactly. His colleagues hold his money. So, what is your take, the general take of whats happening right now. Were talking in the last couple of days donald trump is discussion openly the idea of withdrawing the United States from nato after 70 years. Were talking just this morning about brexit, whether or not Great Britain will leave the eu. Whats the view from russia over whats happening in europe and the United States . So, putin has got three big objectives and hes not shy about these objectives. He hates nato. He hates the eu. He hates a strong United States. The reason for that is that russia is really kind of a tiny little country. It has an economy the size the state of new york. A military budget 90 less than the United States military budget. And the one thing he hates is when you have these countries that can say no, you cant do that. So by weakening the eu, brexit, weakening nato through whatever means he can weaken nato, and by having the United States in a state of effective intellectual civil war, Vladimir Putin is getting away with a lot of stuff and hes pretty happy right now. What do you think the relationship is between Vladimir Putin and donald trump in the sense that it appears that donald trump collapses when hes in putins company, that he just collapses and carries on about putin after he leaves putin . Well i saw this very personally in helsinki when Vladimir Putin says we want bill broward and he said i think thats a great idea. I mean any aide or adviser would have said thats a stupid idea, terrible idea. It took him four days to walk that idea of handing me and 11 others over to Vladimir Putin. And why . You know, its either really dumb, or theres something more sinister going on. I cant say. What i can say is, and i can say this personally because it was directed towards me. It was totally inappropriate, beyond believe inappropriate and shouldnt have happened. Predicting the future is tricky, obviously, and to use an old soviet phrase what do you think the five year plan is here . What do you think the world for you will look like in five years . Well, from putins perspective he has no five year plan. His only objective is to stay in power, keep his money and stay alive. And in order to do that, as russia gets poorer and russia is getting poorer in a lot of different ways, sanctions, oil ways, putin has to make trouble. The trouble will come to us and it will be invasions of foreign countries. Cyber attacking political process. Its going to be cyber attacking networks of electricity companies, et cetera. Putin cant face any of the west in a straight up conflict but he can do all this asymmetric stuff. So it gets worse before it gets better. It doesnt get better just worse. Putin afraid internally somebody will kill him . Putin has a lot of enemies. In order to amass a fortune that i estimate is 200 billion. He had to kill a lot of people. Took hostage of a lot of people. Hes sized property. Hes worried about the elite. Then regular people. One out of four russians dont have a toilet inside their house and these oligarchs are busy on their yachts and villas and private jets and that doesnt make for a Stable Secure future for a leader who has taken that stuff away from people. Can you talk about the overall impact of the magnitsky act . The major impact of the act is in the old days when you sanctions a country you sanctioned the country and all the people would suffer. Elites would bring in their private jets with caviar and champagne. Magnitsky act goes after the elites leaving everybody else alone. The only thing i would change with the magnitsky act is i would enforce it more liberally, go after all these bad guys. Sergei magnitsky was your attorney who was tortured to death in jail. Bill broward you continue to be brave and outspoken despite Vladimir Putin having his eye on you. Thanks for being here this morning. And still ahead well be joined by the vice chairman of the senate Intel Committee, senator mark warner who said theres still a lot of Unanswered Questions about donald trump and russia. Plus, much more on the widening impact of the Government Shutdown on both the economy and National Security and peoples lives. And with no deal in sight one democrat is tweeting, please tell the president its okay to open the government. Connection condition officials keep finding drug tunnels beneath the u. S. Mexico border. Msnbcs jay job takes us inside one of them. Morning joe will be right back. E right back hey. I heard youre moving into a new apartment. Yeah, its pretty stressful. This music is supposed to relax me, though. Maybe youd mellow out a bit if you got geico to help you with your renters insurance. Oh, geico helps with renters insurance . Good to know. Yeah, and they could save you a lot of money. Wow, suddenly i feel so relieved. You guys are fired. Get to know geico and see how much you could save on renters insurance. When did you see the sign . When i needed to create a better visitor experience. Improve our workflow. Attract new customers. Thats when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. Yeah now business is rolling in. Get started at fastsigns. Com. Jeff sessions recused himself. Which he shown have done. I think he probably did the right thing recusing himself. President released seven tweets writing bob mull certificate totally conflicted. I have the utmost respect for bob. I call it a witchhunt. It is a witchhunt. I dont believe mr. Mueller would be involved in a witchhunt. President s retweets included one that showed a group of prominent democrats including his Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein behind bars. I have very high opinion of Rod Rosenstein. I have president putin, he just said its not russia. I believe the russians interfered or attempted to interfere with the election. Donald trump and william barr dont agree on everything but they do seem to agree that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Members of congress not so sure about that. Good morning and welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, january 16th. Along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle. Historian, author of the souffle america john meacham. Hes an nbc news and msnbc contributor and former justice Department Spokesman now an msnbc justice and security analyst matt miller is with us. Also with us political reporter for the daily beast Betsy Woodruff. In a moment well get to what we learned in yesterdays testimony from trumps nominee to be attorney general. Why the public may not get to read Robert Muellers report after all, but first the Government Shutdown. With no end in sight, both the house and the senate say they are cancelling next weeks scheduled recess unless theres a resolution. But right now that appears unlikely. According to the Associated Press President Trump showed no signs of backing down during a Conference Call with supporters yesterday. Trump reportedly said were going stay out for a long time if we have to. Well be out for a long time. He added people are very impressed listen to this. People are very impressed with how well the government is working with the circumstances that were under. Actually, no. More polls came out yesterday that showed people are not impressed with it. In fact, americans are overwhelmingly still blaming donald trump and Donald Trumps Republican Party. And the ap goes on to report that behindthescenes the administration and its allies on capitol hill are eyeing the next payday, hoping to reach a resolution before next weeks tuesday deadline when they need to prepare the next round ever paychecks for workers who have been seeing zeros on their pay slips. The white house had invited a group of rankandfile democrats to lunch yesterday to discuss trumps proposed border wall and the shutdown but none of the democrats took trump up on the offer. The New York Times reports the shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the u. S. Economy than previously thought. As President Trumps economist doubled their projections of how much Economic Growth is being seen each week or being lost each week, the shutdown continues. Revised estimates from the council of economic advisers shows the shutdown is beginning to have real economic consequences, and the paper notes quote, the analysis and other projections from outside the white house suggests the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction. Meanwhile a growing number of federal workers face deepening anxieties about when they will see their next paycheck. Yesterday the Trump Administration ordered thousands of furloughed federal employees back to work without pay as the shutdown drags on. Nearly 50,000 employees will have to return to work to fulfill some key government tasks like dispersing tax refunds, overseeing Flight Safety and inspecting the nations food and drug supply. As the commandant of the u. S. Coast guard posted this on tuesday, today youll not be receiving your regularly scheduled paycheck. To the best of my knowledge this marks the first time in our nations history that Service Members in a u. S. Armed force have not been paid during a lapse in appropriations. Our friends put together this string of local reports from across the country that show just how widespread the hardships have been. Its been hard. Its been a struggle. Just trying to make ends meet. Reporter 18 year federal employee sweeping her garage. Shutdown from answering calls at the irs. Shes the mother of two. My daughter is a senior this year. I have senior fees. I have graduation. And shes also going to college next year. Reporter hundreds of coast guard personnel lined up for the food and supply give away. Most of these military folk are still working without a paycheck. Im running low on money. I still have rent, car payment, Car Insurance. All the necessary advertise. Reporter matt and his wife are both epa employees, both furloughed. Is there a deadline in your head where youre thinking okay were okay until here. We can get through to the end of the month. But you never know. Reporter this local coast guard family not wanting to be identified say the tips they received on thursday were not helpful by any means. Have garage sales, telling us to babysit and i think that was pretty demeaning and embarrassing. It will be over soon you can make it a couple more weeks. No. So when februarys rent is due, we cant pay it. We see the suffering thats going on across the country, of course. Many people focusing on the fact that members of the armed forces not being paid for the First Time Ever in the lapse of appropriations. Air safety possibly compromised, and endangered. Food safety compromised and endangered. This is a shutdown that the republicans never wanted. Its a wall that the republicans never wanted while they were in power for two years. How much longer can Mitch Mcconnell hold them . This is outrageous. You listen to those stories. This is real. This is not a political fight in washington. Its not a game about tweets. This is the impacting peoples lives. Theres a food pantry here in new york city called common pant try. A great organization. Over the weekend they are feeding federal workers. I know people who work there. They came up with tears in their eyes. They are embarrassed they are coming to get food from this place because they didnt get a paycheck on friday. I think the president of the United States, if there was humanity inside of him he would look at these stories and listen to these people and might consider that this is ridiculous and that theres way to open pieces of government and continue to have a discussion on a wall. If thats what he wants to do. The truth is, you pointed out at the top that the American People are not buying the president s argument that there is a crisis at the border so grave that it warrants all the suffering were seeing. Lets look at the new poll that shows just over half of all americans believe the president is blamed for the american shutdown. 54 say President Trump is at fault. 31 blame democrats in congress compared to 5 who blame republicans in congress. The poll also found seven out of ten americans say shutting down the government in order to reach an agreement on a policy is bad strategy compared to 22 who say thats a good strategy. This is now the fourth poll this week that shows President Trump shouldering more of the shutdown blame than the democrats. Mika, again, this is the president s case. Theres a crisis. A National Security crisis. A humanitarian crisis at the border. So well keep the Government Shutdown until we get that wall. The American People just not buying it. Yeah. I mean obviously trump, joe, you know, kind of took the ownership of the shutdown when he took the ownership of the shutdown in front of Television Cameras with Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi saying i will own the shutdown. And i wonder is he waiting this out trying to figure out a way, keeping, you know, repeatedly inviting them to the white house when repeatedly they have already been tricked two or three times. A bipartisan solution has been put in front of him, meetings have gone terribly. Hes gotten up and said byebye and, you know, had temper tantrums. Does he think if he keeps inviting them somehow the shutdown will belong to them. What is in trumps mind . He doesnt think. I mean the fact is he doesnt think. He doesnt plan. There was a comment yesterday, an aide said the president s response to having a forward thinking plan for this crisis was basically he quoted mike tyson who said everybody has a plan until they are punched in the face which maybe is his justification for doing absolutely nothing. Mike, theres no strategy. There is no forward thinking. This is a day trader, though, who continues to make the situation worse for himself, make the situation worse for his party politically. Its just devastating for the Republican Party politically. But we saw the real life consequences for americans, not only the 800,000 that are federal employees but a lot of contractors and their families and you go down the economic food chain and up the economic food chain, millions of americans will be hurt, and you now have economists saying this will have a Significant Impact on the United States economy. Joe, theres no doubt that this shutdown is on one person and his name is donald j. Trump. He wanted this shutdown. Hes got this shutdown. And this is clearly more proof that, unfortunately, for the United States of america mr. Meacham this is a president of the United States who clearly lacks an empathy gene. He doesnt understand that real human being, whole families, more than 800,000 people being hurt here. The extended families of these people. People who own small Variety Stores and supermarkets in the areas where they live who are now suffering a loss of business. And i dont know about you, you get here from nashville, tennessee. My sense smatt and i were talking about it, if the tsa and the air Traffic Controllers were shutdown, went home, refused to work because they are not getting paid this thing would be over in about two hours. It might not take that long. Clearly, i think right now for all the powerful stories of federal employees who are suffering and the beginning of the Ripple Effect and the military folks, it hasnt really sunk in. Its still for most people this is trump exaggerating the border but they think well maybe there are people coming and, you know, i dont like the democrats either. I think theres a lot of that going on. You shut down commercial aviation in the United States which stops the economy and a certain level of socialability, youre right, its 90 minutes by the time you actually get everything together and clear all the big macs off the table and get the meeting going. Trump would think should i be ronald reagan, should i fire them. You cant fire tsa to be paid for the work they are doing. Well run through some of the new poll numbers including what percentage of americans say the president is unfit to serve. Pretty high. But first bill karins with a check on the forecast. Hes fit. Hes pretty high too. Not now, joe. We have two big storms. One is in california today and a piece comes to the east coast for a major winter storm saturday into sunday. The cal storm has already begun, major impacts. Were first going to deal with possibility, at least of those mud and debris flows in those fire scar areas. Up to three and four inches of rain in the mountainous areas. Everyone has a chance for tlfg. Mountains get up to four feet of snow. Winds gusting up to 60 miles per hour. Chance of 30 to 40foot breaking waves on the coast. Thats a huge winter storm for california. Two piece storm. One will come to the east. Friday morning well wake up to one to two inches of snow through the northeast. Not huge but during the night so maybe school delays. Thats the minor storm. The bigger storm is going to begin as we go through saturday. Notice the snow possibly from texas back up to chicago. Snow and ice in the ohio valley. Then as we go throughout the day saturday this heads into pennsylvania, new york state saturday night into northeast. Heavy snow to north. Band much ice on the back side of it and rain throughout the southeast. Mostly rain for the midatlantic. Sunday morning all out snowstorm central and northern new england. Ice storm likely from areas of southern new england, new jersey to pennsylvania by sunday. Tomorrow ill pinpoint actual snowfall amounts. Right now well label it as possibility of heavy snow north of new york city, moderate to the south of there and than moderate to minor event through portions of the ohio valley. A lot of travel impacts for you as we go throughout wednesday today in california and all the way through the weekend in area of new york city. If you have travel plans in the big apple the worst of it will be saturday night and especially sunday morning. You dont want to be on the roads or at the airports at that time. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. G morning. Well be right back. I hear it in the background and shes watching too, saying [indistinct conversation] [friend] ive never seen that before. I have. Zoo i am a family man. I am a techie dad. I believe the best technology should feel effortless. Like magic. At comcast, its my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. My name is mike, im in Product Development at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. Zoo. This months gallup poll finds the president s approval rate is down to 37 , his worst rating in a year. With 59 disapproving. Among independents trump has dropped to a 31 Approval Rating, dropping eight points. Since december. In a quinnipiac poll, only 33 of voters approve strongly while 8 only approve somewhat, meanwhile 50 disapprove strongly and 5 disapprove somewhat. The poll also found that the rating of President Trumps handling of the economy is dropping. 49 approve. 48 disapprove. Thats the highest disapproval j for his job on the economy. A majority of voters do not think donald trump is fit to serve as president. 53 of voters saying no. 44 saying yes. 57 of independent voters find trump unfit to serve. Mika, two other quick data points. First donald trump is the only president in the history of polling to never go above 50 his first two years in office. His numbers have been abysmal and hes set the record for the worst two years in the history of american polling. Thats number one. Number two, get this. And republicans should get this too with all of their fear mongering on the border. Americans actually believe democrats can do a better job securing the border than donald trump and the Republican Party. So Betsy Woodruff take your pick. Damage to the Republican Party, damage to the presidency and potential impact with these numbers to try to get this government reopened again. These kind of numbers cause a lot of anxiety for the people who are working on trumps 2020 reelection bid. One data point from the quinnipiac poll you referred to that i found really striking when i was reviewing the numbers this morning. We remember the big speech trump gave about a week ago where he took time on all the broadcast networks and rolled out his case for the wall. He said a lot of things that was incorrect and misleading. It was important to the white house how they were making this case for the shutdown thats been devastating to so many hundreds of thousands of americans. Quinnipiac found after that speech that huge pivotal effort only 2 of americans changed their thinking about this wall. It basically had no effect. That was their hail mary and it didnt succeed. Another number from these polls thats important, the last screen you showed up on air showed that less than 10 of democrats think trump is fit to be president. That might not sound surprising but that number is important to people working on trumps Reelection Campaign in part because part of the reason that he won in 2016 was that he did so well in democratic strongholds. States like michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania where historically democrats are successful. Trump does not have a road back to the white house in 2020 unless he can peel off some of those Traditional Democratic voters and if the cohort of people who voted for obama then voted for trump and played a key role in making him president in the first place and looking at this shutdown and thinking maybe we made the wrong choice thats a big problem for his reelection bid. Those numbers are being taken seriously by the people in the president s orbit. Explain for us why is it republicans are willing to break with donald trump when it comes to sanctions, when it comes to nato, when it comes to russia. When it comes to this Government Shutdown having a devastating impact on a lot of people in their own districts, devastating effect on republican poll numbers, devastating effect on the president s poll numbers they are not ready to move. Thats a good question. Theres not an easy answer for that. I think part of it is the president has been so aggressive and vocal about this shutdown we do know that many of the republican senators and members of congress who face who live in very trump friendly districts and states are sensitive to trump on tissues that hes the most vocal about. Remember trump has yet to vocally publicly say thinks the United States should pull out of nato. Even though hes made his view clear about some of these sanctions, particularly on russia oligarchs, he hasnt been working the phones on capitol hill when it comes to that question. We got a big story out this morning about the sanctions, on Oleg Deripaska an ally of paul manafort, very close ally of Vladimir Putin, one of russias richest men. The senate voted yesterday to keep sanctions in place on Oleg Deripaska despite the fact that the Treasury Department is trying to take the sanctions off these two or three companies that Oleg Deripaska is closely connected to. Republicans are part of the reason why the senate choked that procedural step. Many republicans broke off despite the fact that Steve Mnuchkin was on the hill having meetings with republicans to take sanctions off of these Oleg Deripaska companies. Where trump isnt making a ton of noise, not sending a lot of tweets, making key campaign issues, trump may feel little bit shy, a little bit uncomfortable with his views, especially on the russia question. We see republicans breaking ranks. When it comes to the shutdown, of course, thus far only a few republicans who are peeling off. Combing up on morning joe what william barr said and didnt say in yesterdays nomination hearing for attorney general. Morning joe is back in a moment. K in a moment to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. Does this sound dismal . It isnt. Its the most wonderful life on earth. On the sleep number 360 smart bed. It senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. Its our weekend special. Save up to 500 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. Plus, free premium delivery. Ends monday. When cravings hit, hit back. Choose glucerna, with slow release carbs to help manage blood sugar, and start making everyday progress. Glucerna. I am a techie dad. N. I believe the best technology should feel effortless. Like magic. At comcast, its my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. My name is mike, im in Product Development at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. Will you commit to make public all of the reports conclusions, Mueller Report even if some of the evidence supporting those conclusions cant be made public . You know, that certainly is my goal and intent. Will you commit that you will explain to us any changes or deletions that you make to the special counsel report that is submitted to you in whatever you present to us . I will commit to providing as much information as i can consistent with the regulations. You said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an obstruction. Is that correct . Yes. Okay. And so what if a president told a witness not to cooperate with an investigation or hinted at a pardon . You know, i would have to know the specifics. Okay. Would it be appropriate to go against the advice of careers ethics officials that have recommended recusal and can you give an example of under what situation or scenario you would go against their recommendation that you recused yourself . Well, there are different kinds of recusals. Some are mandated, for example, if you have a financial interest but there are others that are judgment calls. Lets imagine its a judgment call and the judgment by the career ethics officials in the agency are that you recuse yourself. Under what scenario would not follow their recommendation. If i disagreed with it. What would that be . If i came to a different judgment. Whats that basis . The facts. Such as. Whatever facts are relevant. One what scenario would you imagine you would not follow the recommendation of the career ethics officials in the department of justice or recuse yourself from the Mueller Investigation . If i disagreed with them. Okay. All right. Matt, what was your take of mr. Barrs first day . You know, in some ways hes an obvious choice for attorney general. Hes very well qualified. He knows the department. He knows the traditions. He came in and said the right words that you expect to hear from an attorney general nominee. But there are some real concerns about them. The first concern is when he talked about the end of the Mueller Investigation, whether theres tube report. We still dont know whether there will be a report. If there is one, he talked about other times in the hearing like a prosecution memo which are these memos that the department prosecutors write and send up the chain if they decide not to indict someone or bring an indictment. Those are confidential. Never released publicly. The difference hereunder the departments own rules the president cannot be indicted. Were not in a normal scenario. Hard to see how that scenario that he outlined where those documents remain confidential is the applicable one here and thats why democrats push for more transparency. His answers would be, i think his answers would still be somewhat acceptable if it wasnt for this memo he wrote. The memo gives you real concern not that he just wrote the memo and expressed views of executive power, he gave it to bob muellers boss, to another official at doj and gave it to the president , inside counsel in the white house, outside attorneys, to mike pence attorneys. He was sharing it with all the president s men and discussing it with all of them. That raises questions about his impartiality. The tell is that answer that exchange with Kamala Harris where he not only refuses to recuse himself but wont commit to deferring to the advice of people we know are impartial. Thats such a break with precedent. Previous attorney generals of both parties, Jeff Sessions, erik holder, Rod Rosenstein, all committed not just to seek the advice of ethics officials but to follow it. Its a real tell about what his intentions are that he wouldnt make that same commitment. Up next the Top Senate Democrat on the Intel Committee mark warner is standing by. He joins the conversation straight ahead on morning joe. As someone in witness protection, i cant tell you anything about myself. But believe me. Im not your average consumer. Thats why i switched to Liberty Mutual. They customized my Car Insurance, so i only pay for what i need. And as a man. Uh. Or a woman. With very specific needs that i cant tell you about say cheese. Mr. Landry . Oh no. Hi mr. Landry Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Lets now bring in the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Democratic mark warner of virginia. Mike barnacle, john meacham and mark mckennan are back with us along with willie and me. Senator, first of all, continuing the conversation, do you expect youll vote for the confirmation of bill barr . Ive already said i thought it was appropriate for mr. Barr to withdraw. He has a great reputation. Hes got experience. But lets look at the facts. We got a president who is obsessed about the Mueller Investigation. Hes tried to do Everything Possible to undermine it. He put in this acting guy mr. Whittaker whose only qualification is he was against the Mueller Investigation. And i think mr. Barr, unfortunately, in a sense disqualified himself when he sent these unsolicited memos that seemed to say hey look at me. Im against the Mueller Investigation. I think the president has extensive executive powers. And i think with this kind of cloud over trumps view of mueller, we dont need an attorney general that is going to be at all compromised on this issue. Compromising the investigation. So then on that, im just wondering what stands out to you the most in terms of Donald Trumps connections, compliance with russia. What one publicly known fact makes it seem most likely that President Trump was working with russians to impact the outcome of the election, do you think . Im not going to try to get into that speculation. Ill get into what we, from our Senate Investigation committee have discovered. We knew russians intervened. We knew they did it to help trump, to hurt clinton. We know that throughout the whole Campaign Donald trump said never a bad word against Vladimir Putin. We know that donald trump in a bizarre to say the least performance in front of the whole world kowtowed to Vladimir Putin and then did no kind of read out. Even his own senior team about what happened during that couple hour session and we know as recently as this week luckily a number of republicans joined us, but the administration was trying to remove sanctions from one of putins closest cronies, the oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. So, again, i think we want to see what mueller does. We want our Senate Investigation to finish. But youve got people in the Trump Administration themselves that were in like jim mattis who thought this president was taking us in an inappropriate way. Weve seen these most recent reports trump might be trying to take us out of nato. These are things that align very closely with the goals of put. Absolutely. These all facts youre discussing. These are not areas i think all my republican colleagues would agree at threat of litany there. People can draw different conclusions. In terms of the factual basis of mr. Trumps performance and the russian activities in 2016, i dont think theres any debate left. All right. Lets move to the shutdown. Sure. What is your latest sense on how this ends . Mika, this may not be affecting the whole country but the stories were hearing, because we got a lot, obviously federal employees. Were hearing people even if they get back pay they took money out of their iras, advance against credit cards. Financial penalties there. We had a young couple who had a kid right before christmas and couldnt get their child on the federal insurance and they had a Major Hospital bill because the person couldnt submit the form that was furloughed. There are a group of us in the senate who said open up the government for a few weeks, lets have a crack of coming up with a bipartisan solution. But what youve seen, i put an oped in the wall street journal today, i was a business guy longer than ive been a politician, and, you know, business 101 is if youre trying to do a negotiation, try to have a circumstance where theres a winwin, empower your negotiator, make sure you got a workforce you got them on your side. Donald trump is violating virtually every basic business rule of how to do a good negotiation and this was supposed to be the master deal maker. I think, as a matter of fact in retrospect im not sure how it ill end. Business schools and Management Consultants for years will turn to this and say how not to negotiate a deal rather than the art of the deal that mr. Trump proposed. Senator, this is willie geist. President watches a lot of tv, especially in the mornings. Lets pretend youre negotiating with him right now. What should democrats be willing to give . Chuck schumer and nancy pelosi say heres 1. 3 billion he says nope i want 5. 7 billion for a wall. What does a negotiation look like and should democrats be doing more to engage the president the first of all you dont negotiate with a gun to your head with enormous peoples lives in jeopardy and frankly in many ways increasing the safety of air spaces. Do you want your air Traffic Controller thinking 30 of their time about whether they can pay their kids tuition or mortgage. Lets do a cooling off period. Lets reopen the government for a few weeks. Whether its trump or Democratic Leaders or whether we give a crack to a group of bipartisan leaders. Lets see if we can come up with ways we can increase security at the border. Additional resources for security at the border, im all in on. But it ought to be driven by border experts and not by a political promise that was made in the 2016 campaign. So i think theres an awful lot of democrats that will increase Border Security but lets do it with the government open and a set period of time. Again, one of the things thats clear is that if donald trump is successful with shutting down the government this time, he will use this tactic again when it comes to the debt ceiling, comes to the end of the year discussions about appropriations bills. One thing that ought to come out of this and theres a bunch of us talking about this, how can we make sure that this is the last time either side ever uses this kind of, i think, draconian tactic in a policy debate. It looks from the outside, senator, to a lot of americans, especially those who arent getting paychecks that were stuck here. Nobody is talking to each other to push the ball forward. What can you tell us if you pull back the curtain for the American People this morning about whats happening behindthescenes if anything. Is Mitch Mcconnelly privately work to get a deal done. Is something happening in that building where youre standing right now to end this shutdown . First of all, willie, theres nobody more thats hearing from federal employees than me and tim kaine from vai and my colleagues from maryland. Later at this week ill be at a food bank giving out food to federal employees. Thats an embarrass merment in iran america. Theres a lot of us who are kind of i would hope to more reasonable folks in both parties trying to say hey we got to figure a way to move this off the dime and one way weve been thinking about can we get the government open for a couple of weeks and give another group to empower us to get to a level of compromise. It starts with opening the government for at least a couple of weeks. The president has rejected that idea time and time again. There might be another chance if we can show theres enough republican support. There are a whole slew of my republican colleagues that know that this is not good for our country. The current status quo. Lets hope for the benefit of those people not getting paid. Senator mark warner, thank you for your time. We appreciate it. You know, it was interesting, the senators first comment about negotiation, he came perilously close when he said we dont want to negotiate with terrorists when he talked about the president of the United States. One point is empower the people on your team. Repeatedly we have witnessed, i think, the situation were not just with regard to the shutdown. You can negotiate with his increasingly shrinking team and thinking you have an agreement and then the president of the United States himself an hour after you leave the building or an hour after you hang up the phone completely changes his mind about the agreement that was, that you thought you had. Its exactly right. You say negotiate with the team. Who is the team. Theres no team. One person. Its unclear what his strategy is. He doesnt have a long term strategy. I would like to just go back to what senator warner said about bill barr. As i was listening to bill barr yesterday, listening to testimony, 98 could have come out of sally gates mouth. You think of who else could have been picked. I shocked he picked bill barr. Theres a couple of things he said thats absolutely clear. He wont fire bob mueller. He respects him and is an old friend of him. There will be a report. Thats pretty reassuring for most of america. We want to get to some breaking news out of syria now where there are reports of an explosion in the Northern Syrian city near a u. S. Led coalition patrol. Nbc news chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel filed this report for us roughly an hour from where the explosion reportedly happened. Richard . Reporter good morning, mika. Kurdish officials and witnesses tell you that there was an explosion in the city not far from here in Northern Syria this morning and Coalition Forces were targeted. Top kurdish official told us specifically that a group of Coalition Force including americans were on foot in the city, in front of a restaurant, that they were approached by a man wearing civilian clothes but that he was a suicide bomber with an explosive vest hidden underneath his clothing. When he got to this patrol he detonated his explosive and there were multiple casualties. No confirmation on number of casualties but they did include americans according to this kurdish official. Witnesses say that helicopters soon arrived at the scene. It is a very crowded area, right in the city, in the center of manbij. The helicopter was not able to land. Troops fast roped out of the helicopter to deal with the casualties, to secure the area. More helicopters arrived. Isis through its official social media accounts has claimed responsibility, saying that one of its suicide bombers wearing an explosive vest targeted Coalition Forces. So far no official word from the u. S. Military, only that they are aware of these reports and investigating. All right. Richard engel, thank you very much for that report. Well be following that breaking news and john meacham, this will only probably exacerbate the problem of the president s abrupt draw down in syria, which is being dialed back but theres a conflict between the messaging of his administration versus what the president says himself. And i suspect the president might take this as an opportunity to use this incident to back up, actually, what hes doing when others would say its just the opposite. Yeah. Our chief concern, obviously, is with the forces who may have been injured or even killed. And this is a moment where we need a commanderinchief who puts the National Interest ahead of ones own personal political interests. And i quiver a little bit at the thought of what might be said, is it possible that were going to have a president who says see, i told you so. Exactly. Which is exactly what we dont need. And if you have any doubts about the importance of politics and civic life is, remember the character is destiny and the character of the person at the top is constantly tested. I know. Well be following this. Up next, what good is a border wall if drug smugglers can just dig tunnels beneath it . Jacob soboroff takes us inside one of the many cross border tunnels next on morning joe. that all i really know is here you come again, and here i go, here i go here we come again. Applebees all you can eat is back. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. Discover. O i like your card, but im absolutely not paying an annual fee. Discover has no annual fees. Really . Yeah. We just dont believe in them. Oh nice. You would not believe how long ive been rehearsing that. No annual fee on any card. Only from discover. The company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100 online. Now weve created a brand new way for you to sell your car. 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However, while the federal government remains in partial shutdown over trumps demand for a wall on top of the u. S. mexico border, in the last month alone mexican authorities have discovered three tunnels under it. Joining us now is nbc correspondent jacob soboroff. Youve been seeing these kind of tunnels, types like this one firsthand. Reporter i dont think we can stress enough how much the president s perception is not based on reality particularly where drugs come from and dob contribute to the greatest overdoses in american crisis. Theyre through ports of entry and smuggling tunnels. Heres what is it looks like when you go down in one. Take a look. Thats it. That is it. Thats the infamous lowering bathroom floor entry. What do you mean . The floor, the bathroom floor lowered down to provide access to the tunnel. Reporter so inside that warehouse, the bathroom floor goes down and you get to the tunnel. Yeah. Reporter last year we meant this agent to learn more about the elite agents whose job is finding and stopping cross border tunnels. It already looks like 2019 could be a busy one. This is one of the three tunnels the Mexican Police found between nogales, arizona and nogales, mexico. When President Trump headed to the border last week, the patrol said theyre seeing no tunnels there, too. This is the second tunnel that weve located. Reporter in 1993, the patrol found the first narco tunnel in this year, the same year the original border fencing went up here and theyve been finding them ever since. This is the galvezi smuggling tunnel, stopped in its tracks by the border patrol. Watch your head. Oh, wow. Is this a pretty standard tunnel . No, this is definitely not standard. This is like the cadillac of tunnels as it was. Reporter the cadillac of tunnels. Who built this thing. Mostly low levels told to dig in a straight line. Reporter told by who . Cartel . Thats probably a safe assumption. Simple hand tools. Digging is the easy part. Getting the stuff out. They sack it up in 50pound bags. Reporter are those trucks were hearing above us . Yes. Reporter so there are trucks on a road above us. So this actually is going under an existing road in the United States . Correct. Reporter is that normal . Yep. Reporter these things will. Every one of them. Reporter under roads. Airports. Reporter once youre deep enough, you can going under anything you want, under about anything. Right. Reporter including border fencing or a border wall . Yes, as long as e as long as they can get from point a to point b in secret, theyre going to do it. Reporter do you anticipate finding more of these. Theyre always tunneling somewhere. Reporter they are always tunneling somewhere, the agent told me. I reached out to dhs the last couple days to see what the current state of narco tunnelling is and how that fits into what the president is talking about. They said they did not have the resources to comment because of the shutdown over the border wall. Jacob, great report there. Thanks so much. A couple minutes left. How about final thoughts for the day as we head into another one. Jacob mentioned the shutdown. It is amazing we have a total incompetent who cannot do his job at the top of the ladder, the president of the United States singlehandedly preventing hundreds of thousands of people from doing their jobs. Jon . Be patient, an tentative. This stuffs going to keep coming as fast as possible. Pick your metaphor, were in a meteor shower, whatever. Its really important. I think its clear that the president has run into a rhetorical culdesac with the wall. The way out is semantic difference. The democrats are saying we want security. Its the wall that should become a metaphorical problem and well see if we can break through that in the state of the Union Address and some way he begins to bridge toward security. He can call it a wall, the democrats security. Reporter the president continues to dig in on the 5. 7 billion for the wall even as his Approval Rating slips to 37 in the gallup poll. Americans are saying were not buying the case youre making which is there is a crisis on the border which warrants all of what were seeing, including people not being paid in the federal government. He does continue. Its not great advice but hoping that republicans realize at some point that theyre going to having to act without this president and perhaps vote veto proof majority voting to end the shutdown before this president takes advantage of the state of the union to do more damage to the American People and to this country and to our economy. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie rhule picks up the coverage right now. Thanks so much, mika. Im Stephanie Rhule with a lot to cover this morning. Starting with setting the bar. President trumps pick for attorney general grilled by senators for a total of nine hours on capitol hill but not being coy when it comes to the Mueller Investigation. I will not be bullied into doing anything i think is wrong. On my watch, bob will be allowed to finish. His strong stance on the Mueller Investigation taking on added importance as we learn that former trump aide rick gates is still cooperating in several investigations. And we get 400 pages detailing Paul Manaforts lies. And how about this, bad news for america. Shutdown. Day