yes, it has been a tough year for me. low and it s going back high again. i think the biggest heil for me, though, has been working with you. mine too, as well. it was great to always have you with us. that s it for us, morning joe, everyone, starts right now. good morning, it s friday, december 29th. welcome to a special edition of morning joe on the last week day of the year. joe and mika are off. we have columnist post david ignacious chair of the african-american studies at princeton university. commentator susan dell persio, white house reporter for the associated press jonathan la mere and columnist at the washington premier, christian solstice anderson. just when you think it s slow, a
us down from manila, the philippines. you saw his live location with the bay in the background, but apparently due to weather or science or a combination of both we have lost our ability to talk to him. we ll tri to fix it during the bralk. we ll come back and try to get jonathan la mere back on live television. i had some severe fatigue, some funny rashes.
three days remaining in the president s asia trip after his stop in vietnam. the president heads to the philippines where he s expected to meet with the president, rod re reco duterte, condemned by human rights groups. last may trump drew fire for saying duterte doing, quote, an unbelievable job. with us in vietnam is jonathan la mere. we last saw jonathan in one of the photos from this trip on board a u.s. military helicopter with another of our friends, ashley parker of the washington post. great to see the kids grow up and fly around in black hawks. we re also joined tonight by one
remote areas that are hard to access. people that do need medical attention, people that are on ventilators. people that have asthma or other debilitating diseases are having a hard time. and people are, as the mayor is saying, dying. hospitals are running on generators. that cannot happen endlessly. generators burn out. access to fuel. it s just layer upon layer of challenge. and right now, we only have 10,000 between troops and relief workers, 10,000 people on the ground. that general that you spoke to that dealt with katrina said right now he d have 50,000 troops on the ground. not federal workers, troops. let me bring in the rest of our panel and please stay. joining us white house reporter and msnbc political analyst jonathan la mere, former communications director jen palmieri and the reverend al sharpton and president of the national action network. i want to let the others ask you questions as well. but i want to i have one more
cofounder of the news organization axe owesen a a veteran of new york times. washingtons politic of appear time magazine moreno shannon pettypiece and white house reporter for the associated press welcome back all of you and mr. la mere we ll begin with you. you did some thinking and writing today about what might be the president s the what might be behind his thinking in going after fellow republicans in congress. it s a couple of things here. first, the president, look, sees a congress that has pretty low approval ralt rating not that the president doesn t. he is remember he has never been a true republican. he used to be a democrat. he ran last year this was not -er did not adopt muchway in the way of republican orthodoxy in his campaign. he still gofrps that way. he has done little to mend relationships for forest relationships with many senators or those in congress among in his own party. he is someone who is looking to