Welcome on to the lead. Im jim sciutto. And we begin with the politics lead. The primary election that could signal the divide between democrats and republicans getting bigger. Andrew gillum backed by Bernie Sanders scored the democratic nomination. He would be the first africanamerican governor of florida. That is if he can beat republican congressman ron desantis, the far right candidate endorsed by president donald trump. But the morning after desantis won his partys nomination, he was on fox news using language that many are calling racist today. This while talking about his opponent. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda. Phil mattingly joining me. Hard not to say it, it is getting off to an ugly start. Yes, it is a race that will put somebody in position to decide Something Like medicaid expansion, lay the groundwork for a swing state in 2020. But it has already started into a fierce battle and it didnt look like it will ease an
Any Disaster Relief effort. You know, the putts are not going to move the way you wanted them to putt originally. The president was down there. He was in a couple of states, North Carolina and south carolina. Weve got around the table msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state departments, elise jordan, historian, author of the soul of america, rogers professor of the presidency at Vanderbilt University and soon talk oscarwinning actor jon meacham. Ill explain that in a moment. Hes in a new film, also is an nbc news and msnbc contributor. Oh, god. And nbc news capitol hill correspondent, host of kasie dc on msnbc, kasie hunt. Mika has the morning off. Joe, back to you. So, you say meachams going to win an Academy Award . Will he have a photographer with him when they hand hows that going to work . Heres the back story on this, and jon i know is glad were starting off the show with this, this morning. I really am. Frontrunner about the gary
Had. Remember, thats the Current White House chief of staff who denies calling the president an idiot. More on that shortly. The book describes a president reportedly seen as so dangerous by one cabinet member, he actually swiped a document off the president s desk, in his words, to protect the country. A president who mocked h. R. Mcmaster behind his back, saying he dressed in cheap suits like a beer salesman. A president according to woodward calls jeff session mentally retarded and says he talks like, quote, a dumb southerner while reportedly mocking the mans accent. S a for reince priebus, his first chief of staff, woodward reports the president referred to him, excuse me, a little rat he just scurries around. For priebuss part, he referred to the president ial bedroom as the devils workshop and called the Early Morning hours on sunday night the witching hour. Bob woodward says the people who told him all this anonymously, but nearly all on tape either directly witness order took p
But also the potential dirty deeds we dont know about, but may soon because other people very close to donald trump are talking, are cooperating and they were in the business of buying the president s secrets and burying them. Those people have seemingly sat down the shovels. Today, Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years behind bars for crimes including lying to congress, tax fraud and Campaign Violations tied to payments to two women who said they had affairs with the president. In his sentencing hearing in new york this afternoon, cohen characterized it like this. And i quote, recently, the president tweeted a statement calling me weak, and it was correct, but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again, i felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap . That sort of depends. Some may think 130,000 is a bargain to keep a story about an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star out of the news right before an e
Attorney general Jeff Sessions at the department of justice, will become our new acting attorney general of the United States. He will serve our country well. We thank attorney general Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well. A permanent replacement will be nominated at a later date. That is obviously going to be of great interest to us who that permanent replacement is. After that, after the president held that big hour and a half long News Conference touting the midterm results in the senate and then was asked whether he would fire Jeff Sessions, he said that is a matter for later on today. So what we are covering now is this news that Jeff Sessions has been asked to resign by the president of the United States. Kelly odonnell joins us now, shes covering this very closely. Kelly, Peter Alexander well, lets first talk about this news. What do we know about it . Well, it is in many ways the most expected news post Midterm Election and yet it felt like a mini quake politically