Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20180116

Nbc news and msnbc, John Heilemann and theres john. White house reporter for u. S. A. Today and incoming Nbc News National Political reporter heidi pryzbyla. Did we give her a flourishing welcome . We did. On friday, we did. Was it good enough . You may want to do it again. Not good enough. What would be good enough for heidi . Champagne corks popping . Associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. Hello. President donald trump is blaming senator dick durbin for blowing a possible immigration deal. And raising the risk of a Government Shutdown. First of all no. Were going to have hard time getting through the script this morning because theres a lie coming from the white house at every turn. White house defenders, almost every sentence of this script. Jon heilemann, Everybody Knows how this went down now. Even the white house aides are admitting the vulgarity was used. Yeah. Tom cotton heard the vulgarity. David purdue heard the vulgarity. They lied on sunday morning. The lied to the American People. They lied to their constituents in georgia and arkansas. They lied to cover the president s racist remarks. We know that. Yeah. We also know that trump tells durbin and Lindsey Graham to come over to the white house. Yeah. That sounds like a great deal, lets talk about it. John kelly stops him before they come over. Mr. President , this is bad for your agenda this is bad politics. Bad for the base. Bad with your base. We want to keep you at 31 . My god, i actually lose pay if you get over 40 , mr. President. So we have to keep you at 32, 33 . So they come over and they are blindsided by a bunch of hardliners. And liars, by the way. Hardline liars. Who then along with a very angry president were basically saying this deal wasnt going to be done. Which is fine. But the president started shouting the vulgarities. Which tom cotton, a guy ive always known, liked and respected. Tom cotton first said he didnt hear it. Then lied. Yeah. David purdue, first said he didnt hear it and then went on to the sunday shows, and lied. Holding on to the thinnest of semantical difference. Whether it was house or whole. Of all the things that have happened over this period, the notion that theres someone in that white house, someone in the president s orbit, someone in the senators orbits who thinks that somehow the turn from shole to shouse somehow makes it better. And if wow, well if you call them craphouse countries that makes it less racist, less problematic. No one believes that. Who would think it makes it better . I tweeted yesterday morning it was so obvious, listening to the dhs secretary, listening to tom cotton. Listening to david pardue, it was so obvious they were lying. Holding on to a legalistic semantic argument to lie about dick durbin saying no, the president never said anything like that. When in fact they may have heard it as house instead of hole. A distinction without a difference. While they absolutely assassinate dick durbins character. Meanwhile the white house didnt deny it initially. The white house never denied that he used the initial term. They were proud of it. And purdue said i dont remember what he said. Whats more troubling is when you read through bob costa partnering the report in the Washington Post is that a president at 10 15 in the morning can say come on over, lets talk about this maybe we have a deal. And at noon would say absolutely not. Because a couple of people got to him and said its bad for your base. Its bad for the 30 of people who elected you, so blow up the deal. Not only did the white house not deny it initially, the president of the United States according to Eric Ericsson and several others, the president of the United States was calling around people, bragging that he had used the language. Thursday night. Bragging that he had called them. Whether you want to say shole or shouse. He was bragging while tom cotton, the dhs secretary, and david pardue were getting ready to lie. Lie let me say again, lie. Lie. They were lying to their constituents, they were lying to the American People. They were lying to the press. All to cover up the fact that the president of the United States is a bigot. So why would why would tom cotton do that . As mika is about to get into, its a great piece of reporting first of all. Secondly it unmasks something that weve been talking about, that people have been thinking about. For nearly a year now. Since january 20th of last year. You have a president of the United States who needs to be propped up and steered toward positions that he just has no idea about the elements of the position. In this case, itS Immigration. But as you have to be propped up by fellow conservatives who then lie about it. What occurred. And take it to where they want him to go. Just deduce for us why tom cotton would do that . Well i had heard that he was in line to have a cabinet agency. C. I. A. Possibly go over to the c. I. A. So c. I. A. Person will lie for the president about his profanity. Thats fantastic. That will be good for america. Its very interesting that one georgia senator reacted so differently than another republican senator from georgia. I think Johnny Isaacson came out early on. Very strong. In a way that shows that Johnny Isaacson gives a damn about america more than he wants to suck up. I just wonder if purdue has also gone through his starbucks collection. Whether hes sending up people that are getting paid by the federal government, by getting paid by taxpayers, to go out and buy lots of starbursts and taking out the pink and the red. Is that it in. I thought that was someone else. Theyre lying so badly. Its like if youre going to lie, you know at least lie in a kind of semi credible clever way. This is so transparent. These people are bad liars. And the thing is, what are they lying about . Martin luther king jr. Weekend . About a bigoted president. So the Washington Post initially broke the story of that contentious Oval Office Meeting last thursday. It is now back with even more details on what transpired. The post reports that President Trump and senator durbin first spoke by phone thursday morning and according to white house officials, and congressional aides, the president quote expressed pleasure with durbins outline of a bipartisan immigration pact and praised the highranking illinoiss democrats efforts. Theres long been a suspicion among people in the house and the senate, heidi, and people in Donald Trumps family and mika and i heard this from day one he wants to do a daca deal. He wants to do an immigration deal. So just so people dont think that dick durbin and Lindsey Grahams are fools for believing that this guy would actually want to talk to him about it, hes talked behind the scenes about doing this for some time, hasnt he . Absolutely. I was listening at a Christian Science monitor breakfast next to mark short several months ago, when he told us all that the president wanted a daca deal and there was an expectation at that point that he might do whats called a clean deal with no strings attached. This is the evolution weve seen. Another thing in this report that jumped out was the role not just of Steven Miller, because we all know where Steven Miller stands on immigration, but that john kelly also who is really guiding this president , thought that this would be bad for his base. Which i think does not bode well Going Forward for some kind of a deal. Given that john kelly was thought to be potentially a moderating force in this white house. And then secondly, you know, talking about Martin Luther king jr. Day and the president fighting back charges of racism. Theres new reporting in here, also that it didnt just you know focus on his feelings about african nations and haiti. But that he was also dismissing the Congressional Black Caucus. And this reporting it says that he didnt care what the Congressional Black Caucus things and he was kind of dismissing them. I feel that democrats and many republicans with a spine who actually believe that this president is lying and perhaps acting in a way that is bad for this country, should not show up for the state of the union. And some were speaking about that. Give him a small crowd. After learning that senator Lindsey Graham was on board. Trump invited the lawmakers for a noon visit at the oval office. That according to people familiar with the call, upon their arrival, the senators found trump quote far from ready to finalize the agreement. He was fired up and surrounded by shardline conservatives, including senator tom cotton, who according to a person with knowledge of the meeting, seem confident that the president was now aligned with them. Trump informed those present that he wasnt interested in the terms of the bipartisan deal that durbin and graham had been putting together. The meeting was short, tense and often dominated by loud crosstalk and swearing. According to both republicans and democrats. The post also reports that attendee who is were alarmed by the racial undertones of trumps remarks, were further disturbed when the topic of the Congressional Black Caucus came up. Durbin told trump that members of the cbc were more likely to agree to a deal if certain countries were included, according to people familiar with the meeting. But trump was curt and dismissive and told those present he he was not making immigration policy to cater to the cbc. Nor did he particularly care about that blocs demands, youve got to be joking one adviser said, describing trumps reaction. Citing white house advisers, the post also reports that white house chief of staff john kelly was in the room, and was largely stonefaced, giving, not giving any visible reaction when trump said those words. The foul language. Or when he said haitians should not be part of any deal. Gene, two things to pick apart here. One, the president s first of all, the racial undertones of the entire meeting. And how rude and disrespectful the president was about the Congressional Black Caucus. Just the mere mention of them. You dont have to go along with everything. But just being rude and dismissive. And secondly of course, john kelly here, a guy who is by reporting not just this morning, but reporting that weve heard for the past month or so, he is a hardliner on immigration. Yeah. And he is staring the president to remain a hardliner on immigration. Thats exactly right. I would not call these racial undertones. These are tones, these are blaring tones. And the idea that he would say about even the notion of doing something that the Congressional Black Caucus might like, youve got to be joking. It tells you again, a lot as if we didnt already know, about where donald trump stands. And it is, its ugly. Its bigoted. Its racist. Its awful. But why should we be surprised . Why should we be surprised . This is the description of what life is like inside the white house every day. Its, whoever gets to him last and convinces him of their point of view, you know immediately before the decision, that person gets to carry the day. And so this is a president who can say in his little tv show last week ill sign anything, i have such respect for the people in this room, whatever they bring me, ill sign. So they go away, they come back with a bill and immediately they get blindsided. Just an amazing way. This plays into you know, fitness versus what kind of a person he is and what it really stands for. Neither of which have anybody impressed at this point. But joe, weve been following Lindsey Graham over the past few weeks, playing golf with him and sucking up to him. We could have told him, i remember speaking directly to camera about a year ago to paul ryan, saying what are you doing . A year and a half ago. Saying what are you doing . You will get nothing back from this. At what point are these republicans going to understand that they are going to get nothing but humiliated. Nothing but lied to. I mean how many times do they walk into that white house, Kevin Mccarthy standing next to the president at maralago while hes claiming hes the least racist on earth or whatever. I was so embarrassed for him. How stupid are they . Im sorry, thats a terrible thing to say, but truly if theyre not stupid, theyre nefarious. What does it take for them to get . Theyre going to get nothing back. I think you have to separate Kevin Mccarthy from Lindsey Graham in this respect help us out. Kevin mccarthy, i was disappointed to see him standing next to the president after i would walk away. Made racist comments that day. And stand by the president while the president repeated spoonfed lies that, that the two senators said in defense of him and then stand by him when he said, i am not a racist. Thats remaining silent in the face of some pretty bad actions. And so knowing kevin im really disappointed. Lindsey graham, though, is Still Believes that a deal on immigration can be hammered out. And his told people close to him that hes not going to come out blasting the president. He made sure that we all knew, that what the president said was wrong. That it was racist. He let, he let people know that, that he chastened the president in that room. Good for him. And he has, hes swiped at cotton and perdue, by saying, my memory hasnt changed. And is still trying to get a deal on immigration. You thank god for small mercies these days. I thank god that Lindsey Graham spoke the truth about that meeting, willie. But going back to what mike said earlier, this is a president who is completely ignorant of policy. One second he has his reality tv show, the opening episode of season two, saying of trump, the reality president saying yes, ill do a deal with anybody. Then they have to go to him like hes some bumbling fool. To say no, mr. President , you dont want to do this. And he says, no i dont want to do this. White house officials, including Steven Miller, feared graham and durbin would try to trick trump into signing a bill that was damaging to him and would hurt him with his political base. Hes like grandpa on the simpsons. Grand pa on the simpsons is a lot sharper than this. They say lets bring in the reinforcements, get mccarthy in here, bob goodlatt and thats not a president with conviction, thats a president who dont know what he believes and has turned to people around him. I would also say now if im a democrat, on daca on this whole bill, thiS Immigration bill, its pretty easy, unless theres daca reform in there, unless the daca kids stay, 800,000 people, theres no deal and if you shut down the government, its on you. If youre a democrat, and you do anything to help this president who is racist and republicans, who have attacked dick durbin, questioned his integrity, questioned his honesty, if you are a democrat and do anything to help the government, help republicans, keep the government open, without attaching a clean daca bill to it, then you dont deserve to be in the majority this year. At the end of this year. Because youre too weak. Democrats have to go after them. They were attacked. The president was racist. It is remarks, in hes now attacked the Congressional Black Caucus and said theyre jokes, they called dick durbin a liar. You make them pay for that. And while youre making them pay for that, you also do whats good for america, and you get a deal for the d. R. E. A. M. Ers, or you dont give republicans a single vote. Own congress, if they cant keep the government open, the voters will blame the republicans, not the democrats. They dont know when theyre playing from a position of sheer strength with which is what they are now. Theyre playing up against the president , you described a situation that the democrats are in opposed to the weakened republicans. Because of the president. But what weve been talking about here today, is something thats both consistent, its historical. And its been out there for 30 or 40 years. You can come to new york all of you republican senators, republican members of the house, come to new york, talk to anybody in the business community. Anybody in the Financial Services community. And they will tell you youre dealing with a person, a president of the United States who is totally 100 unreliable in any deal you talk about. Unreliable. Thats a fine word to use. Well leave it there. Or not. Heres the thing, interesting thing about this. None of this should surprise us, right . We spent last week after the Michael Wolff book talking about whether the president is mentally fit to be president. The notion that he could be pushed around and set up and tricked is not that surprising if you consider what we think about his mental state. The second thing is you made the point that he knows nothing about policy. Not surprising. The question is what does he know about politics . Does he know anything about politics. The point you made, a Government Shutdown will rebound to the benefit of democrats and detriment to republicans. The president i think on the basis of the way hes talked about politics for the last year since hes been in office and the way hes talking about it in this context when is etrying to blame durbin, i think he believes theres some way that a Government Shutdown could actually hurt the democrats and he could win that fight. Well see over the course of the week but democrats are not just in a position of strength because of the broad politics here, because the president seems to be laboring under this illusion, that if he sends a bunch of mean tweets to dick durbin that somehow if the government shuts down, he can blame it on the democrats, which is not going to work. The republicans, let me remind democrats in the house and the senate, and i dont know if you know this or not, but i did a lot of Research Last night, mika said god, when are you going to stop. I was poring through, i had the microfiche. There was this background music and i was swiping past and then i went to my typewriter and i was typing and printing it out. A couple of telegrams, so i was stalking stuff up. Do you know what i figured out democrats last night is unbelievable . Republicans have a majority in the house. And they have a majority in the senate. And they have the president of the United States. So if they cant keep the government open, its their fault. Its a eureka moment. Unbelievable. I shot up and i said, oh my god republicans have the majority. Republicans, you need to be better parents. If the government shuts down i have no idea where that came from. The president is a child and running after him and sucking up to him at mara laga is not going to help you. I dont know if you are interested in going in there and seeing the spiral staircase and the gold and the mirrors on the wall. Its not worth it you need to parent him. Dont show up. Tell him youre not going to show up until he shapes up. To finish what i was saying democrats, republicans own washington, d. C. , you should not give them a single vote in keeping the government running. Thats their job. This is their government, this is their congress. This is their presidency. The American People said they wanted republicans to run washington, d. C. Let them run washington, d. C. Dont give them a single vote unless they give you a clean bill on d. R. E. A. M. Ers. If you do, let me say again, you are too weak and too spineless and too stupid when it comes to politics and too cowardly to be given control of congress in 2018. Listen to the people in the streets. Listen to the people that, that knock on doors. That are going to be making phone calls for you in 2018. Dont do a deal with this guy. No daca, no deal. Still ahead on morning joe, the wall street journal has new reporting about a another Early Warning to the Trump Administration about the company they keep. Why counterintelligence officials were keeping a close eye on a friend of Jared Kushner, who spent a lot of time going back and forth to washington to hang out with jivanka and tomorrows show, republican senator jeff flake on the president s use of stalinonesque terms. But first bill karins. Snow and ice for so many. About a third of the u. S. Population dealing with snow and ice the next two days. Were waking up to two inches snow in memphis. Western kentucky, four inches and now freezing rain in san antonio. We start to talk about the deep south here, they dont have ways of treating this. So the roads are treacherous this morning. A ton of School Delays and cancellations through the region. Theres the freezing rain over san antonio, heading for Corpus Christi and houston. Late they are afternoon, new orleans is going to get a coating of ice and maybe some snowflakes, too. And through mobile and pensacola going to get a little snow and isolator today. Look at the temperatures, 24 in dallas, 8 in oklahoma city, this is why we have the problems in the south. All the cold air moving in the snowstorm is not a big snow amounts, just because they dont have any way of treating it. One inch or less for much of louisiana, mississippi, alabama. Tomorrow morning, watch out from charlotte to raleigh, with two to four inches possible. And then the storm, we get a little more intense by the time we get to the northeast. Tomorrow could be a snow day from the catskills through centeral new england. Tomorrow morning, new york city, snowflakes will be flying. Liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. Yeah, my dad says our insurance doesnt have that. What . you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. 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 mika is being honored as 2018s first recipient of the pret teenageous matrix award by new york women. Every year since 1970, the organization recognizes outstanding women in advertising, books, broadcasting, film and newspapers. Past recipients include barbara walters, oprah winfrey. Its a Nonprofit Association aimed at empowering women at all stages of their career. Each year the group awards 15 to 20 scholarships to High School Seniors and College Graduate students to further their professional goals. The prestigious event will be taking place monday april 23rd. This is a big deal. Its a great honor. And you certainly deserve it i do want to go back, though, to ann finnucan. She likes to be called around bank of america, mrs. Mike barnic barnicle. Thats the one thing i do not think. Mike was so proud. Mika was so she asked, ann asked mika to introduce her. It was wonderful. Mika went on and on talking about how in awe she was of ann innacua for good reason. I am. Talking about im so much in awe of her that i was nervous about coming here and doing this and i guess she made the point one time too many, mike, because as you remember at the end of mikas introduction, ann came up and shook her hand and said, if it was going to be that hard for you, that line tells you everything you need to know about ann finnucan. That was an honor. I consider ann a friend and a mentor. Congratulations, thats really, that is a big deal. Its a huge honor and i think the event this year is more important than ever. So i invite this table of men to the matrix award. Well be there. Heidi, will you come . I was waiting for my invitation. Youre there. Coming up, pressure intensifies on republican lawmakers to embrace or denounce the president S Immigration views well read from genes column next on morning joe. [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. And i heard that my cousins so, wifes sisters husband was a lawyer, so i called him. But he never called me back if your cousins wifes sisters husband isnt a lawyer, call legalzoom and well connect you with an attorney. Legalzoom. Where life meets legal. Hesumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. Lets go to sumatra. Wheres sumatra . Good question. This is win. And thats wins goat, adi. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. Making the coffee erupt with flavor. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. That erupts with even more flavor. Which helps provide for wins family. And adi the goats family too. Because his kids eat a lot. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Packed with goodness. Gene, you ask in your new column, republicans, do you want a racebased immigration system, too . You write in part this, President Trumps intent could not be more explicit. He wantS Immigration policies that admit white people, and shut the door to black and brown people. That is pure racism. And the Republican Party, which traces its heritage to the Abraham Lincoln era, must decide whether to go along. Silly me the gop seems to have made its choice. Judging by the weasely response from most of the republicans who were in the oval office on thursday when trump made vile and nakedly racist remarks. They deserve to be enshrined in a hall of shame. Theres nothing inherently racist about the free market conservatism that republicans cherish and advocate. But there is everything racist about the white ethnocentric theory of identity that trump champions with remarkable frankness. So many republicans got no problem talking about a meritbased immigration system. One of the few positives out of last weeks encounter at the white house on thursday was, we found out that a lot of immigrants from african nations have higher educational degrees and more College Graduates than americans. Yeah. They do. Yes, they do. African immigrants are quite a bit better educated than nativeborn americans on average. And until recently, actually, african immigrants were the best educated cohort of regional cohort of immigrants of all. And now theyre you know, theyre about like other groups, much better educated than americans. We know now very clearly what President Trump means when he talks about a meritbased system. You know lets have more white people preferably nordic, and forget those black people. You know, keep them, take them out. He said of the haitians and we know whey said about, about african nations. And so is this what the party of lincoln wants . Is this what the party of lincoln believes . Is it what tom cotton means when he talks about a meritbased immigration system . Is this what Jeff Sessions has been arguing this point for a long time . What he means . Is this what john kelly means, and what he supports . Lets just get it all out in the open. Because i think it all came out in the open in that meeting and i think we now know very clearly whats being talked about. So heidi, beyond being bad policy, beyond being something that will separate families if this continues, the elimination of daca, do republicans consider at all the visual, the politics, the optics of this . Where you do have somebody, a father perhaps being taken away from his children, a father being taken away from his wife and sent back to the country of origin, do they worry about that at all . It depends on which republicans youre talking to if youre talking to a tom cotton or a bob goodlatt, theyre thrilled they have the president on their side. If you talk to a jeff flake, a john mccain, a Lindsey Graham, theres significant concern. You look at some of the states where there are these demographic ticking time bombs like texas, there are a lost people drawing parallels to this. And prop 87 in california, which really helped turn california from a purple state to solidly blue state. Longterm, i think there are a lot of republicans who are concerned because there are many Core Principles also that the Republican Party is built on. And one of them that they have championed is what, family values. And here you have vivid images of families being torn apart just an average father who has lived in this country, has children, you know pays his taxes, is by all accounts a net contributor to our society. Being ripped away from his family. Theres a political, democratic aspect and also just the human aspect. Youre going to have if daca is eliminated. Youre going to have these images time and time again. Happening across the country. And republicans and President Trump will be responsible for it. Mike, you can see the story of the man in america for 30 years, i think. Here, this is a story that i found people, conservatives, liberals, evangelicals everybody, shocked by this. An undocumented mexican immigrant who has called the United States his home for 30 years. Deported yesterday. The emotional scene unfolded at a security gate in the detroit Metropolitan Airport as jorge garcia, accompanied by two immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents, said goodbye to his wife and two teenaged children. The Detroit Free Press reports that 39yearold garcia was brought to the u. S. By a Family Member when he was ten years old. Though he was facing an order of removal, since 2009, he received stays to remain in the u. S. Under the Obama Administration. However, due to the Trump AdministrationS Immigration crackdown, garcia was ordered to return to mexico last november. Garcia, who has his supporters, says he has no criminal record, pays his taxes every year. Too old to qualify to stay in the u. S. Under daca, which only applies to undocumented immigrants brought to the u. S. Born after june 15th, 1981. Two teenaged children. Here for 30 years. Brought here when he was ten years old. Thats not the United States of america. That is not the United States of america. I wonder if they like those images out there to frighten people . In addition to that, what we just saw, what you just told us about, you wonder, houmd of these United States senators, especially people like tom cotton, how many United States members of the congress, house of representatives, how many of them have ever been to a citizenship ceremony . And watch people literally in tears, of joy, becoming United States citizens . Make the cheap point here, which is that i would take any panel of recent african or mexican immigrants, put them in a room and give them a civics test against the president of the United States. And i know which side i would be betting on in that battle. The more important thing here is the politics of this. Reince priebus, back at the beginning of the 2016 cycle when he was at the rnc did this report that said the Republican Party is on a path to irrelevance if it cant get right with the rising sectors of the american electorate. Donald trump comes along and threw cold water in the face of Reince Priebus and everybody else who believed that and managed to eke out, by not losing the popular, winning a narrow majority of the electoral college. Saying we dont need brown voters, key with get by with an aging white party if republicans dont see that Reince Priebus was right four years earlier and in the long run these images, this posture that the Republican Party has is alienating itself with the just, mathematically speaking, the rising parts of the american electorate basic simple demographics. The trump 2016 victory relying on white, rural older voters is an anomaly. Not a new path for the Republican Party. Youre not going to be a National Party if you have everybody of color alienated from your party Going Forward. These kinds of stories in the micro, and the macro, are going to shut the government down over daca. All of this is just further cementing the notion among most nonwhite americans that the Republican Party, not just doesnt care about them, but is actively hostile towards them. That is a path for political irrelevance for the Republican Party in the medium term, not the long term soon. I want to pick up on the no daca, no deal that we talked about. Last block. The time to do this is now. And the time to do this is now, because the president of the United States called together senators. And started spewing out racist comments. The focus dont do this three months from now. Do it now when the focus is now. On the president of the United States, making bigoted comments, because he wants to keep out people who are not white. Who are not from norway. Who may be highly educated, but may be brown or black. Now is the time for democrats to stand up and have a spine. You know, mika, weve been talking about how the Democratic Party has missed so many opportunities in the past. This is an opportunity they cannot pass up. Let me say it from a former republican shut the government down in a second, and i would pound, pound democrats if they were in this position. If i were in congress and in their position now, every day i would take to the floor, everybody would take to the floor, we would talk about the president s racist comments for 24 hours a day. We would flood the cable news channels. Talk about it 24 hours a day. We would make this an issue of morality. We would show those images. We would show images of other Family Members being dragged away from from their children. We wouldnt be talking about mexicans streaming across the border illegally. We would be talking about 40yearold people that were being ripped out of the arms of their teenaged children. This is mr. Trumps america. This is paul ryans america. This is Mitch Mcconnells america. No, were not going along with this. No daca, no deal. No humanity, no deal. We will not be compliant, Kevin Mccarthy, may spend tax dollars separating candies out that mr. Trump likes, he can waste taxpayers dollars, he can be compliant in this cruel and immoral age. We will not. Thats a win. Thats not only a win for this Government Shutdown debate, thats a win for 2018. Theyve got to show spine. It would be a win for america. Coming up, you may have noticed House Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy at the president s side more and more lately. Hanging out at maralago, separating starburst colors for him. Some are calling him President Trumps candy man, even his candy crush. Do you want that on you, kevin . Do you really understand . I my names dustin. Hey, dustin. Grab a seat. Woman okay. Moderator nice to meet you. Have you ever had car trouble in a place like this . roaring of truck yes and it was like the worst experience of my life. Seven lanes of traffic and i was in the second lane. 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Amid the political turmoil within the gop, one republican lawmaker is using candy to sweeten his relationship with the white house. Oh, lord. According to Washington Post, House Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy gifted President Trump a jar of handselected pinkandred starbursts after observing trumps preference for those two flavors on Board Air Force one in october. Bob costa and josh dawsy writes mccarthys overture underscores mccarthys role as trumps friend and fixer. It has led to eye rolling among democrats and skeptical republicans. Mccarthy said he made sure his name was on the candy jar noting the president appreciates small gestures and remembers everything. What i will say is he got the flavors right. The red is the best. He did but the idea of having Staff Members separate a bulk of star bursts on the desk of the congressmans office and we go inside the tense meeting about immigration inside the white house. Plus, how loyal is steve bannon feeling to the president . The former chief white house strategist set to appear before the House Intelligence Committee today. Well set the stage for that meeting. And Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnson says the Trump Administrations effect on america is worse than you think. He joins us ahead to explain that. Morning joe is coming right back. I thought i was managing my moderate to severe Crohns Disease. Then i realized something was missing. Me. My symptoms were keeping me from being there. So, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of Crohns Disease after trying other medications. And the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. 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President , working with republicans and democrats, to get this done. Its not going to be done on twitter by tweeting. Its going to be done by talking and understanding. Hear hear. When it comes to the president s racially tinged language republican senator Lindsey Graham is standing by his story, the truth, telling the post and cuourier my memor has not evolved, its a far cry from the everchanging positions of his republican colleagues. And as we said last hour, the New York Times reporting Even White House officials are admitting that in their conversations with tom cotton and david purdue they heard the president say the vulgarities and the only question is whether they heard him say hole at the end of the vulgarity or house at the end of the vulgarity. Its a distinction without a difference. We have heard this white house come out strongly in the wake of other controversies and deny things. They just didnt do it here. If they had a leg to stand on they would have come out and they didnt do it. Its interesting to hear Lindsey Graham whos told person after person who he heard in the room was in fact the language as characterized in the Washington Post speak to the president of the United States through tv and through the Washington Post and say clean it up, i know what i heard, clean it up. If you want to get anything done, if you want to get a deal done on immigration, this is not the way to go about it. He doesnt apologize, this president , he doesnt apologize even when hes done something that is deeply offensive. Hes done the opposite. Doubled down. In my opinion, hes wheres the moderating force . The white house is having trouble handling this because the president called conservatives on thursday after the meeting bragging about what he had said. Bragging about what he had said. Well, the white house is having trouble handling this because its its horrible. It involves the truth. They have a problem handing the truth. Lindsey graham, we just listened to him, gets to something we were talking about last hour. Lindsey graham is one of the few republicans who recognizes that demography, political demography is destiny and youve got to be a more inclusive party. Hes trying to do that with his support for daca and an immigration bill but hes alone. Practically. And lindsey, mika, is the guy that more than anybody else has tried. In vain. Hes gone golfing, hes acted as his travel agent, he did all the things he thought he needed to do to move the president and now hes left where everybody else is left, which is, you know, hes other members of congress, hes talking to a camera to try to influence the president because nothing else works. And hes talking very slowly. Its been a very disturb iing couple of weeks where the conversation has resolvininvolv around the president s fitness and whether it was house or hole, we need to look at the totality of this. This is disturbing, this is not normal, this is not okay, we are not going in the right direction in the country with this man as our president. Hes a danger and im sorry but thats actually very important to point out because we get distracted by their distractions pushed out by this press office. Theres nothing good about how this white house operates. They operate on lies, on bullying and theres a lot of weak, compliant republicans that have made this combination danger rouse for our count dangerous for our country. I think part of the thing, to your point about being clear about it, part of the reason why this episode is so disturbing and paradigmatic is because it involves two things we wouldnt say in combination about any president ever, which is like the president s a racist and the president s a liar and the lies and the racism coming together in this one story is illustrative of two of the things that most decent people find most troubling about him. But this brings the story, brings these two elements that have been consistent throughout his life and his candidacy and presidency, it brings two of the most disturbing elements about him and the apparatus built around him together into one single story. Theres just ann er rner redeem quality about him and a system around him to prop up the lies he tells. And those two things just seems like its so sickening. What always troubled me was that there were a lot of nevertrumpers, there were a lot of people in the republican establishment that couldnt stand trump but moved towards trump when he was going to win and but when they were criticizing him, you know, ive said a thousand times, early december 2015, he talked about the muslim ban, i said cant vote for him. Said it on this air. Judge curiel, you can do down the list of all these racist things he did. I said on david duke and the kkk, on the sunday before super tuesday when he denied that he knew who david duke even was and couldnt say anything bad about the kkk, i said it was disqualifying. Republicans and a lot of conservative thought leaders opposing donald trump at that time but have now found a way to get along with donald trump were never focusing on the racist elements of it. I find it very i find it very quaint that some of these people will now be critical of mika and me saying, oh, you enabled we didnt enable donald trump. We pounded him over putin and we pounded him over these racial things. Theyre the ones enabling him now. So many of them are enabling him now. And they were never offended by his racist outbursts. Now we brought Mark Leibovich along from the New York Times, hes going to be defending all things trump this morning. Thank you for being with us. He came to washington to disrupt and hes disrupting. So we praise him. Whats interesting about these last few days you can step back, you can be saddened, you can be troubled and everything. No one gets smarter during a debate like this. No one gets better during a debate like this and the fact of the matter is you have to and you can think take the process perspective on this is oh, the white house has to move on, they have to clean up this story. Were, what, five, six days from this story . Who cares at this point . The fact is while you have the house versus hole debate, while you drag down serious conservatives like tom cotton and david purdue and whoever else wants to get involved in this, you have people like this gentleman in detroit being deported back to out of the country and you see these real lives being affected. And for donald trump, who is a life long democrat, who switched to the Republican Party, he thinks that all evangelicals that supported him and all conservatives cheer. No, they dont. You had one of the top people in the Southern Baptist church yesterday condemning that scene. And you have so many evangelicals who dont go around just talking about life issues and dont just go talking about family issues they also focus, evangelicals, over the past ten, 15 years, have started talking about back in the bush era they were focused on aids in africa, which is one of the reasons why bush moved the way he did. These scenes are offensive to a pretty large component of his base which could explain, gene robinson, why Donald Trumps Approval Rating in the state of georgia in the deep, deep south the former home of Lester Maddox is 37 right now. There are a lot of evangelicals that say all right, you know what . We got gorsuch, yeah, but you dont get me anymore. Enough is enough. Its a its extraordinary and i you know, my gut tells me that, you know, those polls are sort of underestimating the revulsion that some people that many people feel toward the president and the sense that he is so unfit to hold this office on a variety of grounds. We talked earlier about the political imperative for democrats to hold tough on this issue and i agree with that but theres a moral imperative as well. Its just doing the right thing sometimes is what you have to do and you have to stand up to this sort of behavior and i think the Democratic Base will settle for nothing less but its the right thing to do. Julie pace is the Washington Bureau chief for the associated press, she joins us as well. Good morning. How does the white house thing this is going over the last week . We have read the reporting that Stephen Miller and others brought in that meeting with dick durbin and others to bolster the president and to remind him of what his base would want, you have the president reportedly talking to people saying how is this playing, this shole country story and being reassured the people who support him love it. Whats the genuine feeling inside the west wing about not only how those comments are going but the progress about getting an immigration deal. Nobody in the white house is going to admit this publicly today but they know its not going well right now. But you have to explore this through the different factions in the white house. We were told on the day of that meeting that it was Stephen Miller and others who were frantically calling over to capitol hill to try to get people like tom cotton into this meeting because they thought that trump would bend on immigration to people like Lindsey Graham and dick durbin so you have this one faction of the white house that urgently is trying to get him to take a tougher position, to not agree to a bipartisan deal that frankly could probably pass easily in both the house and senate if leadership were to put it on the floor. Then you have this other faction of the white house which is watching everything they tried to do at the end of last year on tax reform. The one legislative vic their the president had get completely overshadowed by this controversy and its worth emphasizing the white house didnt push back on this. The white house tried to defend the policy that apparently trump was trying to endorse in making these comments and only when they realized they could get a couple of republicans cotton and purdue to help them try to change the narrative of what happened in there have they started to move away but this was a white house that was on board largely with what the president said, that i just wish it hadnt continued into this week because we are a couple day away from from a shutdown. As julie just outlined, this process, daca, the Government Shutdown, potential Government Shutdown, were on a time clock now, were looking at a time clock and i wonder if you picked up anything having to do with the following legislative processes, getting to a vote, getting the bill passed, whatever it is, requires some personal relationships among senators and among members of congress. We just showed a clip a few moments ago of Lindsey Graham who seemed saddened talking about what happened last week in the white house and his role and now he sits alongside david purdue from georgia who outright lied on national television. And i dont know what the relationship between those two men are, but relationships are important so what impact if any does that have on this potential shutdown . Well, each one of these instances just increases the ill will and its not just the relationship between these two but the attacks on senator durbin. You had two senators calling durbin a liar when all of the indications coming out of that room were to the contrary so it absolutely going into this makeorbreak week where we have until the end of the week to prevent a Government Shutdown doesnt help the situation and what you have here according to democratic leadership sources who i talked to, they believe the narrative has shifted here. If there was any indication prior to last week that the democrats would take some of the blame for a Government Shutdown, that evaporated when you have the president taking what julie said essentially a deal that could probably pass easily. You had the six senators agreeing to this bipartisan deal where the president did get a lot of what he was asking for in terms of ending this visa lottery, addressing the chain migration issue and throwing money at Border Security and doing in the a way where hes throwing out rhetoric that many consider racist. Democrats are just going to point according to what they told me back to the president s own comments a month or two ago where he said, you know what, maybe we just need a good Government Shutdown to get my wall funding money. And theres your quote maybe we just need a good Government Shutdown from the president of the United States. So we all talk about the corrosive effect that donald trump has had on washington, how he tweets, how he gets his message out, how he fights political opponents and members of the media yet you see its now infected actually sitting republican senators and how they act towards others where they will go out and lie in a press conference about something that the white house, that the Washington Press corps, that even donald trump conceded. So two republicans called dick durbin and Lindsey Graham a liar. On sundays shows and in press conferences. Thats new ground when theyre lying and they know theyre going to be caught lying. But its effectively kind of an expression of something, a dynamic thats been going on for about 11 months now which is whenever Something Like this happens there is always a spell of media reports about how well, oh, the base is still with him. They like he talks tough and frankly but every time republicans are called upon to defend what they know privately to be the indefensible, part of that base dies. I dont care if the numbers shrink and it does somewhat slowly but steadily, but the soul of what is considered to be the trump part of the Republican Party does burn many, many calories of soul whenever Something Like this happens. You would think. And thats not sustainable. Heres the question we just talked about this thing of trump seems to think he can win a Government Shutdown and you asked when republicans are going to get with the program so for a lot of the first year we said hey, how low do trumps numbers go before republicans abandon him . Apparently they wont abandon him. Were going to get to november and have a midterm election. What happens to the Republican Party if they wake up on the day after the midterms and theyve lost the house and senate . Do they at that point when theyve had an actual electoral repudiation thats cost them control of the legislative branch at that point do they finally say we will no longer defend the indefensible and abandon trump or is there some political fantasy, delusion, rationale in their heads that keeps them on team trump . I think the political odds makers say the house is almost certainly going to go. Nothing is certain but the odds are probably democratic takeover of the house of representatives around the senate is up for grabs so you can wake up in midnovember with both houses having shifted in control. Its an uphill battle in the senate. But if the senate shifts, thats an earthquake. Ive seen nothing from Republican Leaders or republican members to suggest they wont continue to be cowards. Well, there is new reporting from the Washington Post that provides more context into why the immigration talks have been so difficult. Citing more than a dozen white house officials, capitol hill aides and lawmakers, the paper reports trumps pingponging from deal making to feuding from elation to fury has come to define the contentiouS Immigration talks between the white house and congress, perplexing members of both parties as they navigate the president s vulgarities, his combativeness and his willingness to suddenly change his position. Julie pace, this does not apply to just this issue. This is the way the president operates, why is it taking so long to understand that they will get nothing out of any relationship with him. Thats the fascinating question. This is how this president operates, he doesnt have party loyalty. He also doesnt have a lot of personal loyalty to people. Like a sixyearold mind. That goes back decades if you have spent time with the president or researched his history in business. Hes not someone who is particularly loyal. Hes not an ideologue so he doesnt have these deeprooted beliefs in republican orthodoxy so its surprising that republicans are if they are at all starting to realize that now. Its also curious to me, you know, tom cotton, its a fairly obvious calculation, he wills someone who has been close to this white house who has felt like hes got a voice on National Security, he believes he could be in line for Something Like cia director. David purdue is a bit more of a question for me. Lindsey graham is trying to do this straddle where he thinks he can be a positive influence on the president , push the president toward policy positions that he thinks would be best for the country but he feels like in his own conscience he cant back up this white house narrative. Joe, back to the clip that we showed earlier, fellow 30 years being shipped back to mexico, his family around him at the detroit airport in tears, hes being taken from the family. Hileman just talking about november, not for the first time, weve been talking about it, is it going to be a wipeout in the house . Will they lose the senate as well . Youre a former republican. What about the now . What about the just the plain difference between right and wrong . Standing up and looking at that fellow from detroit saying this is wrong, this is not the United States of america. Where are they . And this is not a republican or democratic issue. Where are they is a great question. Again, willie, you know, Russell Moore with the Southern Baptist church, my denomination growing up, came out and says this is not america and so many others are saying or thinking this is not conservatism. This is the cartoon, the dark Cartoon Version of conservatism that a life long democrat would think this is the way hes supposed to act when he switches to the Republican Party and won the primary through birtherism and just overt racism. If you look at that video out of detroit you wonder and you ask republicans is that the hill you want to die on . Is that what youre fighting . Is that why you were elected to zmong congress . Is that scene making America Great again . There are ways to talk about improving our immigration system and Border Security but is this what you want to go down . Is this scene right here what you want to be remembered for . There are a lot of congressmen and senators who say yes. I mean, the d. R. E. A. M. Er issue is a nonstarter to them and they wont do it and President Trump time and again i continue to be astounded, to marks point, that he seems satisfied that if something plays well with the base, thats good enough. This great deal deal maker and negotiator has shown no interest in expanding. Hes calling his friends and asking how does the shole comment play . And they say it plays great with your base and thats good enough for him. Hes doing immeasurable damage to this country that we wont see right here and now in the moment where we discuss house versus hole but it is there and i wish republicans would wake up and look. Do you really want on your resume when youre running for president do you want it to be that you lied for President Trump . I dont think it will wear well. I dont know, maybe its just me. Is it going to wear well . Its not going to wear well. And you and you lied to cover up his racism, too. Great cause to lie for. Lie to cover up his racism when the white house itself was not pushing back as julie said early on. And you mow this down. It talks about there is this churn. You are a member of the senate, you work for an administration, you lead the administration, you go into the media or you go into lobbying and its just this churning circle of life in washington. What we have seen so far with this administration is and i dont know what sean spicer is doing right now but a lot of people expected sean spicer to be a part of that cycle. Its not working that way for many people in washington and this is what tom cotton and others dont, i guess, understand. The trump era will end. One way or the other. Either in 20, 24 or before that. Lets hope its before that. It reminds me of what Warren Buffett says when you have i think he said after 2008 where the tide goes out and you see whos clothed and you see whos naked and its ugly. You talk about a churn and i think what is driving a lot of this is the notion especially with elected republicans right now of selfperpetuation. Its the idea that look, this is the one thing we think we have to do to keep coming back to get reelected and by the way, no one is starving in washington. The swamp is alive and well. Sean spicer, im sure, is fine. I guess im sort of gratified there has been some sort of price he has paid how he what he did in office. Or didnt do. Or didnt do in office. But i do think that, look, to johns point, i mean, if theyre waiting for the midterm, if there needs to be some electoral toll exacted on the Republican Party what is unclear to me is what theyre fighting for now a you said. This is its not like theres a tax reform bill thats a victory theyre willing to get. Just remember one point really quickly. Eight Republican House chairmen are retiring this year. House republican chairmen. How Many Committee chairs dont you see what hes doing . Theyre hopping off the hamster wheel. Theyre the ones saying im going to jump off this churn. This is going to destroy me if i say here. Im spot federating star bursts. Julie pace, Eugene Robinson, Mark Leibovich, thank you very much, all of you. Still ahead, making sense of the trump era. The economist asked is it really this bad . A new book says its worse than you think. Author and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston joins us next on morning joe. Advisor. We plan for everything from retirement to college savings. Giving us the ability to add on for an important member of our family. Welcome home mom. With the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. You or joints. Something for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve. Lets go to sumatra. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. Which helps provide for wins family. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Youre more than just a bathroom disease. 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To tweet, lord knows when hes on a phone he can throw a fit you know, hes had a light snack and six big macs while hes watching three tvs hes turned the white house into a total [ bleep ] hole [ cheers and applause ] oh, ive seen fire and ive seen fury i just wish robemueller would frigging hurry and this time ill be the one who calls putin cause in 2020 oprah, oprahs gonna win [ laughter ] hes so good at those. James taylor, man. That sounds like him. Old school james taylor. Fallon. President trump threatened a lawsuit over fire and fury. Hows that going . He has many lawsuits, he loves to sue. He loves to talk about suing. He likes to threaten lawsuits. He likes to threaten it and make people all scared. Will our next guest get the same treatment . Gosh, you hope so. Joining us now, Pulitzer Prize winning Investigative Reporter David Cay Johnston. His new book is entitled its even worse than you think, what the Trump Administration is doing to america. I completely agree with you. And he write this is about the Trump White House a single factor defines Donald Trumps presidency, making it unlike the 44 administrations before, be they great, middle or corrupt. The president s past all shared a trump miait missing in the tr presidency, what they had in common was caring about america and its people. We can look back and applaud or be appalled by the conduct. Viewed in the context of its times, the last 44 president s pursued policies they believed would make for a better america tomorrow. The Trump Presidency is about trump. Period. Full stop. And its hurting america. A lot of people are recognizing that now in their rearview mirror. Regardless of what you thought abbarack oba about Barack Obamas policy. I was the first person to write a critical piece about him when he took office. But you knew he loved america. Wasnt sure he was ready to be president. But you could tell everything he did he did to make america better. You can say the same thing about george w. Bush. Did he make mistakes . He sure did. I criticized him harshly but i never once doubted that he didnt do what was best for america. Ill even go back to richard nixon. Lets test your theory out. Nixon believed what he was doing he was doing in the best interest of america in fighting communism. And no one ever doubted Richard Nixons patriotism. On the other hand, if you dont question whether donald trump has divided loyalties, i this i youre not thinking carefully about who donald trump is and what he himself has said. How is he making it worse . Theyre systematically trying to destroy the federal government. Theyve loosed what i call political termites into the structure. Just as termites get into your home, most ambassadorships are empty and that means that in saudi arabia and jordan and a lot of other countries that are important to our National Security theres no u. S. Ambassador at the table and where big business deals are made theres no u. S. Ambassador who is there. In the interior department they have been shutting down people from doing their jobs. Theres one guy there particular i read about in the book named joel clement who was a senior executive. Hes now a clerk issuing royalty checks because he wont quit. Theyre forcing people out. And we have a Huge Investment in having competent people to run the things we need in our government. Thats not an argument that we need to fix and continually restructure and look at our government but what theyre doing is doing terrible damage. Were putting workers lives at safety. Theyve stopped posting worker death on the internet. Theyre not testing bus drivers and Truck Drivers for sleep apnea. People are going to die because they blocked the Obama Administration rule on sleep apnea. So theres a ill allude to it, were going to cover it later. Theres a story about Jared Kushner being warned about his relationship with wendy deng and whether or not that was counter to american interests on a number of levels. Well leave that there. I know of some reporters have have been trying to get freedom of foia requests in. They want to find out about her travels in washington and other places and they cant get them. Donald has spent his entire life thumbing his nose at the law. You have a chapter called go foia yourself. Yes. Donald trump has spent his whole life thumbing his nose at the law. In my previous book i pointed out how he spent years entangled with an International Drug trafficker and theres no explanation for why he would do what he did although everything he did makes sense if he was in business with this drug trafficker. Donald trump has had two sooifl civil trials for tax fraud. Hes been found by a judge to have engaged in a conspiracy to cheat workers out of their pay. The man spent his entire life being a con artist and he runs the white house the same way and he doesnt know anything. The single most important thing is donald trump will tell you im smart, im like a smart person. No, hes not. He wasnt smart when i met him in 1988 and hes appallingly ignorant. He doesnt know a sunni from a shia and why it matters. And were also discovering he might not be good and those are two important aspects. Mike. But what we do know, david, is because he went to military school donald loves, loves, loves, the military and loves loves loves our veterans and so therefore he must have really plunged forward with greater vigor with veterans programs than barack obama ever did. No . No. No. And indeed there are surveys now of our officer corps that show that they dont trust him and theyre troubled by him and thats something americans need to Pay Attention to. Remember that during the Campaign Donald not only promised he was going to get us into war im really good at war he said. But he said of course im going use nuclear weapons. That should really trouble us and theyve now loosened up, according to the guardian newspaper, theres an effort to loosen up the controls on Tactical Nuclear weapons, not the ones that take out a whole city but a much smaller location. Veterans benefits, though . Whats he done . Hes proposed radical cuts in veterans benefits. Donald hasnt done this, its the people hes put in but some veterans who are getting about 35,000 a year because theyre disabled and im the son of a disabled veteran so i Pay Attention to this they would be cut to as little as 13,000. I mean, this is just appalling whats being proposed. So youve covered donald trump and followed him since 1988, 30 years or so. He blurbed inadvertently, the back of your book, called you a weird dude who has been following me for 25 years. Knowing what you know about him and having watched the way hes operated, are you surprised he hasnt been better that the job . And by that i mean a better negotiator . Somebody who wants a deal at the end of the day . Somebody who could bring democrats and republicans in and say lets get the best deal . Weve been talking about the immigration deal where he was playing to the base, where he told dick durbin, come over, lets talk about thiS Immigration deal and it just evaporated when people got to him and said no, this isnt playing well with the people who voted you in. Donald hasnt surprised me with anything hes done. Hes unqualified, hes never done a day of public service. Hes not well informed, hes not very smart, hes not a strategic thinker. There are law professors who use trump as an example. Hes not a cooperative negotiator. Thats where you reach out to the other side. Hes a competitive negotiator and during his Business Life donald would go in and he would rip you off and youd be i didnt get paid, my business is going to fail. This happened to hundreds of Small Businesses who either shrunk or went out of business. Now hes in a position where he doesnt get to pick whos the dictator in north korea and he doesnt know how to go back to the table and deal with people again and again. Hes dismissing people. Heidi has a question in washington. David, congrats on the book. Thank you. You have a portion in there, a chapter titled kleptocracy where you say the president set the tone almost from the beginning of his presidency about his expectations when during the inaugural parade he got out almost strategically in front of Trump International hotel as if to highlight it. Can you speak about that section of the book and the questions raised by trumps business interests and what may be happening, for example, with the patents that ivanka is getting from china and all the ways in which the trump family may be personally profiting . Well, donald is all about money and about himself, the glorification of the superior to the rest of us and he should not have the washington trump hotel. The contract says no federal employee can be involved in the deal. Hes our employee. And he shouldnt be involved in that deal. Nobody reported on national tv during the inauguration ceremonies that he made it a point of stopping in front of the hotel. I was stunned by this. If you want to do business with the Trump Administration, the best way to signal that is you do what the government in kuwait did you hold your party there. You have dinner there. You go meet trump appointees who are there to show you are supporting donald trump. And since hes taken office, the chinese have given all sorts of additional intellectual Property Rights to ivanka. We have three references to emoluments in our constitution. The best known is foreign, but theres a domestic clause also that says hes not supposed to make any money from the federal government or the states and yet look at all the money being spent at Trump Properties where he spends a third of his time by law enforcement, security, other government officials. This is absolutely in violation of the constitution and yet its not being enforced. People cant keep up. And going back, what you said about donald is all about money you call him donald. Youve been following him around, he says, you have all these great blurbs from the washington monthly, the oregonian, Laurence Tribe and then you have i know the reporter is a weird dude whos been following me for 25 years so obviously he hasnt done so well. Hes been following me in a negative fashion for 25 years. Always a hit and im president so he hasnt done a very good job. Donald trump. It reminds me of fire and fury when Michael Wolff confirmed what we knew. This guy didnt expect to be president of the United States. He was doing this to make money, even now hes about making money. Hes about making money not about america. Hes about making money now and when he gets out of office. Donald was surprised he was going to win. On election day his staff went to the politics reporters and said gee, sorry how we treated you, donald demanded we do that. Because they have careers in the future so he was surprised about doing this. On the other hand, donald does really believe he is superior to the rest of us and that of course he should be president. Just remember, donald when he doesnt know things, he just makes it up. Hes done it his whole life. He just makes it up. The new book is its even worse than you think, what the Trump Administration is doing to america. David cay johnston, thank you very much. Come back, appreciate it. David is a weird dude. He is one weird dude. A Pulitzer Prize winning Investigative Reporter. And a weird dude. What does following donald trump for 25 years do to you . Makes you a weird dude. Up next, well be talking about that Jared Kushner story. He received a warning about being susceptible to foreign interests, including one that apparently he has been flying around a lot with him and ivanka over the past year. Well be right back. Okay folks lets team up to get the lady of the house back on her feet. And help her feel more strength and energy in just two weeks yaaay the complete balanced nutrition of great tasting ensure with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. Ensure. Always be you. Theres an extraordinary story on many levels. Its kind of disturbing. Counterintelligence officials alex, im getting there reportedly warned President Trumps Senior Adviser and soninlaw Jared Kushner over this is incredible. Over his close friendship with wendi deng murdoch, thats according to the wall street journal citing people familiar with the matter saying the warning came early last year. Is that that dinner i went to . I dont know. At her house . And they were doing womens empowerment. Swear to god. Youve had a lot of reporters trying to get information about how much they have traveled. A lot of foia requests and so far so the journal says officials told kushner that murdoch, a prominent chinese american businesswoman, could be using her ties with him and his wife ivanka to further the interests of the chinese government. The paper ads that counterintelligence officials dont provide kushner with details about their assessment of murdoch, the former wife of newscorp executive Rupert Murdoch who has it right there on the front page the journal that says the warning to kushner was part of an effort by National Security officials to raise his awareness about the need to be careful in his interactions with people given his new role in the government. Neither murdoch, kushner, or trump have been accused of any wrongdoing. So yeah . You want more . Go ahead. This is interesting. Among u. S. Officials, reported concerns was a proposed garden in washington, d. C. I love this part. Funded by the chinese government. A 100 million garden, mind you, and of course thats important. Kind of like mikes garden. And also it mike has gardens, right . With a surveillance tower. With a 70foot surveillance tower. So they were concerned it was a National Security risk, mika because there was a tall tower. Because of the 70 foot tall tower. And it was on one of the highest patches of ground in washington, d. C. Officials were worried it could be used for surveillance. And who says the intelligence agencies have lost a step . My god, theyre right on that. Good instinct there. Joining us now from washington, former Justice Department spokesperson, now an msnbc justice and security analyst matthew miller. Matthew, lets say off the top, there is no doubt that Jared Kushner and ivanka certainly had to be friends with wh Wendi Murdoch long before donald trump was president because, you know, they were from manhattan and certainly well, you would guess, i would know. They move in small circles. Is this much ado about nothing or is this a real concern that they were warned and apparently from what we hear from reporters they continue to fly around and travel around a good bit. I think thats the key question, joe. Look, one of the things that happens here i should say im very interested in how this relationship came to the attention to u. S. Intelligence officials when they gave jared that warning. It is routine when you enter the government and get a security clearance that intelligence officials come and kind of try to scare you to death about the ways you need to be careful and you can be compromised and what i really want to know, did they know to warn him about this relationship with Wendi Murdoch because he listed a relationship with her on his security as youre required to do . Ivankas instagram showed a picture of her and wendi in croatia. So it was not like they were trying to hide the relationship. There was a big dinner. Im sure theyve been friends for some time. The reason i ask whether he disclosed the relationship on his security clearance application is because we know he was not exactly forthright about all his relationships with foreign nationals when he filed that form. Thats one of the reasons it was thrown back to him and he had to come back and do several amendments so im curious whether he disclosed this relationship or whether they were looking at his social media feed, looking at her social media feed finding pictures. Obviously they had some other separate reason to worry about her and they raised those concerns with him. I wonder now how much whether hes listened to that advice or not or whether hes continued, as you say, to kind of fly around the country, fly around the world with her. Matthew, its willie. Big week in terms of russia and the white house. The House Intelligence Committee today you have steve bannon testifying later in the week, Corey Lewandowski voluntarily appearing and reported that hope hicks, the White House Communications director, will appear there as well. Whats the significance of those three appearances and what are you looking for . So i think for these appearances Corey Lewandowski is probably the most important because he was the Campaign Manager at the time of two key events where the russian intermediaries reached out to the trump campaign. That outreach to George Papadopoulos in april and of course the trump tower meeting in june. Corey lewandowski was in charge of the campaign during both of those meetings. We know papadopoulos was trying to brief him about his interactions with the russians. We dont know whether he told them about the offer for stolen dirt so i think thats a key thing to find out. I dont know what steve bannon is going to say in these meetings. Hes said a lot in the book about the road to the president going through Money Laundering at Deutsche Bank by Jared Kushner. He said he had to assume that with Natalia Veselnitskaya at that june 2016 meeting its not clear whether that was steve bannon blustering and settling scores with his rivals or whether he has information. Thats what theyll want to find out in this meeting today. Matthew mill, thank you so much. We appreciate it. Still ahead, eight months before donald trump was elected, david frum says the preconditions for an autocracy were already surfacing in the United States. Remember that article . So where are we nearly a year into the Trump Presidency . David frum joins us on set to discuss that this morning. one is the only number that youll ever need staying ahead isnt about waiting for a chance. Its about the one bold choice you make, that moves you forward. the one and only Cadillac Escalade. Come in now for this exceptional offer on the Cadillac Escalade. Get this lowmileage lease on this 2018 Cadillac Escalade from around 879 per month. Visit your local cadillac dealer. From around 879 per month. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve. Lets go to sumatra. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. Which helps provide for wins family. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. They appear out of nowhere. My secret visitors. Hallucinations and delusions. The unknown parts of living with parkinsons. What plots they unfold, but only in my mind. Over 50 of people with parkinsons will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. If your loved one is experiencing these symptoms, talk to your parkinsons specialist. There are Treatment Options that can help. My visitors should be the ones i want to see. Replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says, you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong insurance company. With new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. Liberty mutual insurance. We know life can be hectic. Thats why, at xfinity, weve been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. Now, with instant text and email updates, youll always be up to date. You can easily add premium channels, so you dont miss your favorite show. And with just a single word, find all the answers youre looking for because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. Download the xfinity my account app or go online today. During a trip on air force one, trump and mccarthy bonded while eating star burst candies. Mccarthy noticed trump only ate the cherry and strawberry flavors. Mccarthy put his name on the jar, which was delivered to the president. Oh, so trump likes some colors more than others just like hiS Immigration policy. There. Up next im just curious, willie, if you did that, would you flag i would deny the hell out of it. But he bragged about it. I know, he did. He personalized the jar which was a nice extra touch. I dont know who would brag about doing that. Its painful. Its kind of painful. For what . How can one respect him ever again . Well, i kind of like the flavors he chose, though. Good flavors. But still no, come on, dude. What is going on in your head . What are the republicans who stand by him getting out of the deal . You know what hes getting . A lump of coal. Maybe its true. Just figured this out because im really slow. But maybe its true that paul ryan is thinking about leaving in 2018 and he wants to get trumps blessing to be the next speaker of the house. Bingo. Okay. Good argument. Did any of you guys see the post yet . Yes. I tried calling you. I saw three movies. Okay. We have to stop talking. Well stop at the top of the hour. Up next, the Washington Post as in the post takes us inside the tense, vulgar white house meeting on immigration. Well go through their new reporting plus why senators tom cotton and david purdue appear to be covering for the president. Why would they do that . Silly, sill le men. Be right back. So, that goal youve been saving for, you can do it. We can do this . 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Using drones and robots offshore so engineers can stop potential problems before they start. Because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. Take 5, guys. Tired of your bladder always cutting into your day . You may have overactive bladder, or oab. Thats it we really need to get with the program and see the doctor. Take charge and ask your doctor about Myrbetriq Mirabegron for oab symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage. Its the first and only oab treatment in its class. Myrbetriq may cause serious allergic reactions. If you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, or difficulty breathing, stop taking myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away. Myrbetriq may increase blood pressure. Tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or have a weak urine stream. Myrbetriq may affect or be affected by other medications. Before taking myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. Common side effects include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms, urinary tract infection, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness and headache. Okay, time to do this dont let your bladder always take the lead. Ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you. And visit myrbetriq. Com to learn more. My positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with. I am very much reliant on the people in this room. I know most of the people on both sides have a lot of respect for the people on both sides. I dont think the democrats want to make a deal. I think they talked about daca, but they dont want to help the daca people. So what happened in those 72 hours . According to the Washington Post, the white house was so worried that the president could be tricked into signing something his base wouldnt like that they rushed in conservatives to crash a bipartisan meeting. The president started cursing about haiti and africa and now blames dicky durbin for blowing daca. Are we going to argue about what curse it was, what word was attached to the curse, or are we going to believe who senators who stepped out and lied for the president . That is how we begin this tuesday morning, january 16th. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to morning joe. With us, we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnacle. Hes legendary. Yeah. National analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilman. Theres john. White house reporter for usa today and incoming Nbc News National Political reporter heidi frisbella. Heidi, welcome aboard. I Vice President had a chance to say it myself. Thank you. Did we give her a flourishing welcome . We did. Was it good enough . Not for you. You probably want to do it again. Not good enough for heidi. What would be good enough for heidi . Champagne corks popping. We also have Eugene Robinson with us. Okay. President donald trump is now blaming senator dick durbin for blowing a possible immigration deal and raising the risk of a Government Shutdown. First of all no, its everybody in washington, d. C. , john heilman were going to have a hard time getting through the scripts this morning because theres a lie coming from the white house at every turn. From white house drchbders almo defenders, almost had every moment of this script. Everybody knows how this went down now. Even the white house aides are admitting, the vulgarity was used. Tom cotton heard the vulgarity. They lied on sunday morning. Yeah. They lied to the American People. They lied to their constituent necessary georgia and arkansas. They lied to cover the president s racist remarks. Yeah. We know a that. Yeah. We also know that trump tells durbin and Lindsey Graham to come over to the white house. Yeah. That sounds like a great deal, lets talk about it. John kelly stops him before they come over. Mr. President , this is bad for your agenda. This is bad for your politics. Bad for the base. Bad for your base. Because we want to keep you at 31 . My god win actually lose pay if you get over 40 , mr. President. So we have to keep you at 32 , 33 . So they come over and they are blindsided by a bunch of hard liners. And liars, by the way. And liars. Hard line liars. Hard line liars who then, with a very angry president , were basically saying, this deal wasnt going to be done, which is fine. But the president started shouting the vulgarities, which i will say again, tom cotton, a guy ive always known, ive always liked, ive always respected. Tom cotton first said he didnt hear it, then lied. David purdue first said he didnt hear it and then went on sunday morning talk shows and lied. Holding on to the thinnest of differences. Whether it was house or whole. The funniest thing, of all the things that happened in this period, the notion that theres someone in that white house, someone in the president s orbits who thinks that somehow turning it from shole to shouse somehow makes it better. As if like, wow, oh, yes, you called them crack house countries, that makes it less racist, less problematic nobody believes it. Nobody believes you said it, but who would say that . Who do you think would make it better . That somehow is a better context. Thats the thing. I said it on the show, i tweeted it yesterday morning. It was so obvious listening to the dhs secretary, listening to tom cotton, it was so obvious that they were lying. That they were holding on to a legalistic semantic argument to lie about dirk durbin saying, oh, no, the president never said anything like that when, in fact, they may have heard it as house instead of hole. A distinction without a difference. While they absolutely assassinate dick durbins character. Meanwhile, the white house didnt deny it initially. The white house never denied that he used the term. He was proudz of it. Whats more troubling to me, too, is when you read through bob costa, parker and joshs reporting which mika is about to get into in the Washington Post is that a president could say at 10 30 in the morning, come on over, lets talk about this. Maybe we have a deal. And at noon can say absolutely not because a couple of people got to him and said this is bad for your base. Mr. Art of the deal, mr. Negotiator was swayed by a couple of people saying this is bad for the 30 of the people who elected you, so blow up the deal. Not only did the white house not deny it initially. The president of the United States, according to Eric Ericsson and several others, the president of the United States was calling around people bragging that he had used thursday might. The language. Thursday night. Bragging that he had called them whether you want to say shole or shouse. He was blaging. Yes. While tom cotton and david perdue were getting ready to lie. They were lying to their constituents. They were lying to the American People. They were lying to the press all to cover up the fact that the president of the United States is a bigot. So why would cotton do that . As mika is about to get into, its a great piece of reporting, first of all. Secondly, it unmasks something that weve been talking about that people have been thinking about for nearly a year now, since january 20th of last year. You have a president of the United States who needs to be propped up and steered toward positions that he has no ideas about the elements of the position. In this case, itS Immigration. But hes going to be propped up by fellow conservatives who then lie about what occurred and take it to where they want him to go. And just dedecember for us why tom cotton would do that. Well, i had heard that he was in line to have a cabinet agency, possibly go over to the cia. Cia. Really . So cia person will then be lying for the president about his profanity. Thats fantastic. That will be good for america. Its very interesting that one georgia senator reacted so differently than another republican senator from georgia. I think Johnny Isaacson came out very early on in a way that shows you that Johnny Isaacson really gives a about america more than he wants to suck up to donald trump. I wonder i just wonder if pardue has gone through his starbucks collection, whether hes sending out people that are getting paid by the federal government, by getting paid by taxpayers to go out and buy lots of starbursts and taking out the pink and the red. I thought that was someone else. The thing is, theyre lying and theyre lying so badly. Yeah. Its like, if youre going to lie, you know, at least lie in a kind of semi credible clever way. This is just so transparent. Stupid. It goes back to the quote about the clintons. Unusually good liars. These people are bad liars. And the thing is, what are they lying about. . What are they lying about on rt main luther king jr. Weekend . The racism of the president. The post reports that President Trump and senator durbin first spoke by phone thursday morning, and according the to white house officials and congression congressional aides, the president expressed pleasure with durbins outline of a bipartisan immigration pact and praised the high ranking democrats efforts. So lets stop there. Heidi, there has long been a suspicion among people in the house and the senate and people in Donald Trumps family that and mika and i heard this from day one. He wants to do a daca deal. He wants to do an immigration deal. So just so people dont think that dick durbin and Lindsey Graham are fools for believing that this guy would actually want to talk to him about it, hes talked behind the scenes about doing this for some time, hasnt he . Absolutely. I was sitting at a Christian Science monitor breakfast right next to mark shore several months ago when he told us all that the president wanted a daca deal and there was an expectation at that point that he might even do a clean deal with no strings attached. And this is now the evolution that weve seen. And i think, guys, another thing in this report that jumped out at me was the role not just of Steven Miller, because we know where Steven Miller stands on immigration, but that john kelly, who is really guiding this president , thought this would be bad for his base, which i think does not bode well Going Forward for some kind of a deal given that john kelly was thought to be potentially a moderating force in this white house. And then secondly, you know, talking about Martin Luther king day and the president fighting back charges of racism, theres new reporting in here also that it didnt just, you know, focus on his feelings about african nations and haiti, but that he was also dismissing the Congressional Black Caucus. In this reporting, it said that i didnt care what the Congressional Black Caucus thinks and that he was kind of dismissing them. And were going to pick it up right there after a short break. More on that angle heidi just mentioned. And how Lindsey Graham stands in stark contrast to the shape shifting stories of his republican colleagues and thats had putting it very nicely. Could call it something else. But first, here is bill karins with a check on the bill is a shape shifter. He is a shapeshifter, but i dont think he wants to talk about that on the air. He gets in trouble with you. I know. Anyhow, another storm approaching the northeast, bill . Yeah. A big storm in terms of number of people its going to impact. But were not going to be shoveling feet of snow. The biggest problems is the snow and ice in the south and tomorrow this time, snowstorm in the northeast. So its not often you get 103 Million People under Winter Weather advisories, 1 in 3 americans, but from san antonio up to boston. The worst of it is icing right now, freezing rain from san antonio now moving through louisiana. Temperatures tumbling 28 now. Snow. Houston is starting to go below freezing. This is all going to ice up later today. Even later this afternoon. New orleans is going to see icy weather. Even the panhandle of florida a little bit. Tomorrow we talk about significant snows in areas of southern new england. 4 to 6 inches of snow. D. C. , philly and new york, less for you, maybe only 1 to 2 inches. Travel concerns this morning through the southern half of the country and the northeast tomorrow. Top of the rock, new york city. This time tomorrow, probably wont be able to see much because it will be snowing. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Heres the story of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. Lets go to sumatra. Wheres sumatra . Good question. This is win. And thats wins goat, adi. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. Making the coffee erupt with flavor. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. That erupts with even more flavor. Which helps provide for wins family. And adi the goats family too. Because his kids eat a lot. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Packed with goodness. Today, youre recognizing two promotions. Hey kids im home. What do you want for dinner . Hers to manager, and yours to grownup. With blue apron, any night is a chance to see what cooking can do. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. The immigration approach yidyied racism. According to people familiar with the call, upon their arrival, the senators found trump, quote, far from ready to finalize the agreement. He was fired up and surrounded by hard line conservatives, including senator tom cotton, who according to a person with knowledge of the meeting seemed confident that the president was now aligned with them. Trump informed those present that he wasnt interested in the terms of the bipartisan deal, that durbin and graham had been putting together. The meeting was short, tense, and often dominated by loud cross talk and swearing. According to both republicans and democrats. The post reports that attendees who were alarmed by the racial undertones of trumps remarks were further disturbed when the topic of the Congressional Black Caucus were brought up. Trump was curt and dismissive and told those present he was not making immigration policy to cater to the cbc nor did he particularly care about that blocs demands. Youve got to be joking an adviser said when describing trumps reaction. Citing white house advisers, the white house chief of staff john kelly was in the room and was largely stone faced, giving not giving any visible reaction when trump said those words, the foul language, or when he said haitians should not be part of any deal. Two things to pick apart here. One, the president s the president s well, first of all, the racial undertones of the entire meeting and how rude and disrespectful the president was about the Congressional Black Caucus, just the mere mention of them. You dont have to go along with everything, but just being rude and dismissive. And secondly, of course, john kelly here. A guy who is, by reporting not just this morning, but reporting that weve heard for the past month or so, he is a hard liner on immigration. Yes. And he is steering the president to remain a hard liner on immigration. Thats exactly right. First of all, you know, i would not call these racial undertones. These are tones. These are loud, blaring tones. Yeah. You know, throughout. And the idea that he would say about even the notion of doing something thats the black caucus might like, youve got to be joking, it tells you, again, as if we didnt already know about where donald trump stands. And it is its ugly. Its bigoted. Its racist. Its awful. But why should we be surprised . Thats this is the description of what life is like inside the white house every day. Whoever gets to him last and convinces him of their point of view, you know, immediately before the decision, that person gets to carry the day. And so this is a president who can say in his little tv show last week, ill sign anything. I have such respect for the people in this room, whatever they bring me, ill sign. So they go away, they come back with a bill and immediately they get blindsided. Its amazing. This is extraordinary. Fitness versus what kind of a person he is and what he really stands for. Had neither which have anybody impressed at this point. Coming up on morning joe, republicans are pushing Immigration Reform based on a merit system. Does it help if you look like someone who might originate from norway . Jean robinson tackles that in his new column next on morning joe. [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ click, keyboard clacking ] good questions lead to good answers. Our advisors can help you find both. Talk to one today and see why were bullish on the future. Yours. You can now join angies list for free. That means everyone has access to our real reviews that we actually verify. And we can also verify that what goes down doesnt always come back up. [ splash ] [ toilet flushes ] so if you need a great plumber, find one at angies list. Join today for free. Because your home is where our heart is. Join today for free. We know that when youre spending time with the grandkids every minute counts. And you dont have time for a cracked windshield. Thats why we show you exactly when well be there. Saving you time, so you can keep saving the world. Kids safelite repair, safelite replace all right, gene, you ask in your new column, do you want a racebased immigration system, too . President trump wantS Immigration policies that admit white people and shut the door to black and brown people. That is pure racism. And the Republican Party, which traces its heritage to the Abraham Lincoln era must decide whether to go along. Silly me, the gop seems to have made its choice judging by the weasely response from most of the people in the oval office on thursday when trump made vial and racist remarks. They deserve to be enshrined in a hall of fame. There is nothing inherently racist about the free market system the republicans cherish and advocate. But there is everything racist about the white ethnocentric theory of american identity that trump champions with remarkable frankness. That is what the immigration battle is really about about. So many republicans talk about a meritbased immigration system. One of the few positives out of last weeks encounter at the white house on thursday was we found out that a lot of immigrants from african nations actually have a higher educational degrees and more College Graduates than americans. Yeah, they do. Yes. African immigrants are quite a bit better educated than native born americans on average. Until recently, actually, african immigrants were the best educated regional cohort of immigrants of all. And mow theyre you know, theyre about like other groups, but much better educated than americans. And we know mow very clearly what president tux means when he talks about a meritbased system. You know, lets have more white people, preferably nordic and forget those black people. You know, keep them, take them out, he said, of the haitians and we know what he said about african nations. And so is the what the party of lincoln wants . Is this what the party of lincoln believes . Is this what tom cotton means when he believes in a meritbased immigration system . Is this what Jeff Sessions has been arguing this point for a long time, what he means is this, what john kelly means and what he supports. Lets just get it all out in the open because i think it all came out in the open in that meeting. And i think we now know very clearly what is being talked about. Coming up on morning joe, its pretty clear that President Trump is changing american politics and perhaps even democracy. One of the Big Questions around that, can the country change them back . David frum tackles that in his new book and he joins the conversation straight ahead on morning joe. Liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. Hold on dad. Liberty did what . Yeah, Liberty Mutual 24hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. My dad says our insurance doesnt have that. Dont worry i know what a lug wrench is, dad. Is this a lug wrench . Maybe . You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Bps natural gas teams use smart App Technology to share data from any well instantly. So they can analyze trends and stop potential problems in their tracks. Because safety is never being satisfied and always working to be better. Ive got to tell you something its not going to be easy. Quicksilver earns you unlimited 1. 5 cash back on every purchase, everywhere. Actually, thats super easy. My bad. States wliek these and their terrorism allies threatening the people of the world. David frum is a speech writer for president george w. Bush and now a Senior Editor at the atlantic while he still identifies as a republican, david has garnered a liberal antitrump following with his reporting of Donald Trumps presidency. His new book, trumpocracy, the corruption of the american the public is out today. In it, david writes about trumps rise to power. Quote, donald trump did not create the vulnerabilities, he exploited. They awaited him. The arrogance of party lead weshs the incidensularity of th wealthy. Those and more were the resources trump used to his way to power. David, good morning. Its good to see you. Thank you. So when you use the temporary trumpocracy, its a temporary about corruption. What do you mean specifically . Well, weve had this explosive best seller from Michael Wolff about Donald Trumps personality. Trumpocracy is about power, its about rule. Im not interested in Donald Trumps personality. There are aberrant personalities all over this country. The american political system was designed to keep aberrant personalities away from power. That system failed. The constitutional system, the party system, this book is a study of trumps power, not his personality. So he was duly elected, he exploited vulnerabilities in the system. He talked to people who felt like they hadnt been heard in a long time. You dont deny that hes there legally, hes there for all the reasons that we recycle in our system. He. He was is lawfully. Duly is a stronger word. There are questions of legitimacy because of the associations with a foreign power. One of the things i do through trumpocracy, i cant get into the heads of any of the people around trump, but i can show you the timelines of when things happen. The access Hollywood Tape break about 4 00 in the afternoon on october 7th. Within 45 minutes, the second wikileaks trove is dumped. This is something that had been advertised for a week. The trump people knew it was coming. They got very anxious that it wasnt there on the wednesday when they thought it would be there. It showed up within 45 minutes. Trump campaign is the sloppiest campaign ever, the most careless, most incompetent, yet within minutes they have identified the most powerful elements of that podesta campaign. They had to find two emails out of thousands. How did that do that so fast . Let me ask you, 1994 when i was running for office, i bought dead right and it really i thought it fit the times for the Republican Party. The conservative movement within the thank you. Republican party. But you here we are all these years later and we go from dead right to trumpocracy. What happened with the conservative movement from 1994 when you wrote that book and i first got into congress to today where im no while no longer a republican you still identify yourself as a republican. The ideals that propelled us a generation ago were put into effect and they did a lot of good. Deregulating oil. Gas, deregulating trucking, those ideas we stood for in the 1970s, cutting taxes from 70 marginal rate. Those ideas all worked. The problem is a lot of people in the 2000s, those things that worked when taxes were 70 in the 1970s will work exactly the same way a generation later when conditions are completely different. Thats what made donald trump possible was the country changed and the Republican Party did not. And in the gap between where the country was and where the Republican Party was, where paul ryan was and even where republican primary voters was, thats where donald trump walked. In the book, you write about the future of the Republican Party and in part you write this whatever trumps personal fate, his Republican Party seems headed for electoral trouble or worse. Yet it will require more than republican congressional defeat necessary 2018 to half trumpocracy. Indeed, such defeats may well perversely strengthen President Trump. The more isolated trump becomes within the american political system as as a whole, the more he will dominate whatever remains of the conservative portion of that system. He will devour his party from within. Can you expand upon that. We see this every day. We chronicled this. The Republican Party in 2018 is already more loyal to him than it was in 2017 and way more loyal than it was in 2016. So pass the tax cut takes the house, the senate and the president s signature. So stop the democrats from repealing the tax cut takes only the president s signature. So when that becomes the only republican resource, as it does, the Republican Party will that much more desperately have to protect him. As he looks guiltier in these various investigations, as the risk that he will fail increases, the party will become more hysterically loyal to him, not less. Theyre like a one of those old ship when he is a sailor gets his foot caught in the rope, the rope but if trump were to leave, mike pence would be president who lines up completely with paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, Kevin Mccarthy. Maybe he likes different colored candies than donald trump, but mccarthy will figure that out. Thats political arithmetic. Then theres political math. If donald trump is exposed and disgraced, the coming disaster will be bigger than mike pence can stand against. Republicans have theyre in a bad trap. You cant uniquely remove donald trump from the picture and make everybody forget how complicit the rest of the party was not only this in voting for his measures, but in covering up for the russian scandal and other measures. So the question is why is the Republican Party that way, conservatives in the Republican Party, a formerly proud and noble tradition. How is it that today, right now, conservative republican senators, conservative house members will stand up and lie for the president of the United States who is neither conservative nor liberal . To conceal his racism, which is all the more because their backs are to the wall. Look, in 2015, the republican primary voter base was signaling as frantic as it could was what we want is more health care coverage, lesS Immigration, and no more bushes. The party said got it, what youre getting is less health care, more immigration and one more bush. The voters threw up the cards on the table and said no. Donald trump began his career by beating the Republican Party, by bending fox news to his will. He made fox news his creature instead of as usual fox news making republican candidates their creature. They are now all terrified of a voting base that republican politicians themselves do not understand and a voting base that wants things the republicans dont intend to give them, dont know how to give them. So i want to sketch a scenario. I asked joe about this earlier today. And i had this for two years or a year ive been saying when will trumps poll numbers drop so low, republicans start to abandon him. Youre sketching out a very counterintuitive thesis. Lets forecast. We get to november and here is a plausible scenario. Democrats retake control of the house, they narrowly by a hair retake control of the senate. Now were in impeachment country, subpoena country, theyve lost control of the legislative branch and theyre head hadded towards 2020. I know you say had they will panic and their backs will be against the wall. What is the electoral logic that causes the Republican Party having been dealt that kind of a blow to rally around trump headed into 2020. Im going pick up on something mika said in the setup to this discussion, which is even in the scenario where things are as bad as you say, republicans still control the majority of the stakes. They have a lot of power to reduce the ability of people to vote. And the electoral math is different from the national and pop the lar math. And one of the big themes of this book and this is something thats hard for me because this is a new way of thinking. I am from the conservative side. But as you watch what happened just between 2010 and 2016, to make it more difficult to vote, you know, conservative parties become pessimistic about their democratic chances. They dont give up on their conservatives. Youre saying the Republican Party becomes increasingly authoritarian and adopts widespread Voter Suppression measures. Thats already im saying more so. More vicious about that. They become more selfaware of what theyre doing. That has been the republican strategy until now. When you look at the 2016 result, why did Hillary Clinton lose . At the most basic level, she lost because black americans didnt come out to vote foreher in the numbers they had in 2012. Okay been thats no mystery. Obviously black voters will be more enthusiastic about barack obama than Hillary Clinton. John kerry got more black votes than Hillary Clinton did. I think we paid too little attention to how the votes are cast. Rather than the motives and the polls that show them. So i think we will see the party talking more you already hear it and i chronicled this. There is a greater there is a turn away. Why is greg gianforde still in congress . This is someone who laid violent hands on a reporter, the Republican Party got him to sign a fundraising letter the very next day after the assault based on the popularity he gained by violently attacking a reporter. The new book is trumpocracy. And you can rooet read an excerp the t on our website. David frum, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Up next, it is the single most read piece on the New York Times right now. We are joined by columnist barry weis with a brand new piece. One is the only number that youll ever need staying ahead isnt about waiting for a chance. Its about the one bold choice you make, that moves you forward. the one and only Cadillac Escalade. Come in now for this exceptional offer on the Cadillac Escalade. Get this lowmileage lease on this 2018 Cadillac Escalade from around 879 per month. Visit your local cadillac dealer. From around 879 per month. The markets change. At t. Rowe price. Our disciplined approach remains. Global markets may be uncertain. But you can feel confident in our investment experience around the world. Call us or your advisor. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. Jimmys gotten used to his whole yup, hes gone noseblind. Odors. He thinks it smells fine, but his mom smells this. Luckily theres febreze fabric refresher for all the things you cant wash. It finds odors trapped in fabrics and washes them away as it dries. And try pluggable febreze to continuously eliminate odors for up to 45 days of freshness. Pluggable febreze and fabric refresher. Two more ways to breathe happy. Honey. Can we do this tomorrow . Can we do this tomorrow . If you have Heart Failure symptoms, your risk of hospitalization could increase, making tomorrow uncertain. But entresto is a medicine that was proven, in the largest Heart Failure study ever, to help more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading Heart Failure medicine. Women who are pregnant must not take entresto. 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He added that he the continues to support antisexual assault and harassing movements like me too. And times up. Joining me now, barry. Her new column, aziz im sorry for not being a mind reader. Also with us, heather mcgee. Good to have you both on board. Thanks. So youve gotten a lot of response from a lot of people and what are they saying . I just think its telling that the piece went up last night at 7 00 and i think it was number one by 9 00 or 10 00 last night. I dont think the reason for that is i wrote such a brilliant piece, frankly. I think the reason for that is people are thirsty for anything that cuts against the orthodoxy that were seeing around this subject. The number of emails that ive gotten from people and im not talking about everyday people without platforms. Very prominent people that have a public platform that are saying to me, i think what you wrote is brilliant. I think what you wrote is common sense, but im too scared to share it on social media because im scared im going to be torn apart and be accused of being a victim shamer or an apologist. Im going to go be honest, i thought twice it was a really great piece and i was too scared to share it, which i think is going to become a hashtag. Barry wright, what i learned from the expose of aziz published this weekend was the worst thing that has happened to the me too Movement Since it began and transforms what ought to be a movement for womens empowerment into an emblem for female helplessness. It is worth carefully studying graces story. Encoded in it are new yet deeply retrograde idea hes about what constitutes consent, and what constitutes sexual violence. Ansari sounds like he was aggressive and selfish and oclock obnoxious that night. But the solution to these problems does not begin with women torching men for fail to go understand their nonverbal cues. Its for women to be more verbal. Its to say, this is what turns me on. Its to say, i dont like that. And yes, times it means turn me off. The single most distressing thing to me about graces story that the only person with any agency in the story seems to be azi you didnt ansari. This is a useful term for what grace experienced on his night with mr. Ansari. Its called bad sex. It sucks. What do you mean . What i mean is she is the one being acted upon. At any moment i know ill get crushed for saying this. Yes, hes a celebrity. Yes, he has more money. But he has no power over you, your future, your job, anything. She could get up and leave. And having been in similar situations myself, as has every breathing woman on the planet that i know, its a hard thing to do. So im not blaming her for doing it. Im not blaming her for a bad night of bad sex. The problem is to group this story in with what were talking about the as me too is extremely problematic. So it would have been more representative of the me too movement if she got up to leave and he said im going deny you a job. The problem is were bleed, out the meaning of what assault is and in a way its stripping actual assault of its power you. Heather, what do you think . So i think the me too movement has a lot more work to do. Workplaces are phenomenally unequal. Pay disparity is incredibly real. Particularly outside of the industries that get all the spotlight, domestic workers, farm washingers, wait staff, hotel workers, factory floors, fast food, right . Done yet. There hasnt been policy change. There hasnt been a sense that women can have collective bargaining to change their conditions of their lives. And so it is so important that we keep our eye on the ball. I also think, as a millennial woman, that there is a way in which our sex culture, which is what you wrote in your piece, barry, has been broken. I think frankly its been broken by some of the same forces that have broken our economy. The comodification of people. The fact you can swipe left or right over faces as if they were just products. Images. Exactly, the pornography which shows some variation of violence against women from the perspective of men. That has shaped what men like aczarry think is sexy and also i do think and i think this can be corrected by us, by women but i do think that some women have gotten the message that their voice is not what counts. And i think this story is an example of that. But theres so much work to be done in the broader society. I agree with so much of what you said. I think in the reaction to this story, meaning to even be able to say out loud get up and leave, to be accused of by suggesting that, right . We would tell anyone dont walk down a dark alley at night. Dont walk in the middle of hims square with 100 dollar bills taped to your body. Similarly, we should be able to in a very common sensical way say to women dont get naked in someone elses apartment on a first date if you dont want to have sex with him. I actually think thats not the line i would draw about this. Theres a lot of things you can do while naked which come short of having sex and you can always withdraw consent. You can always withdraw consent. Would you say if we go on a first date and were naked in an apartme apartment, that chances are youre going to expect i think its a reasonable thing to expect the other persons thinking we might have sex tonight . Absolutely. Its also reasonable to be able to withdraw consent. If you read the piece, she talks about that, and actually spells out her inability to communicate. Like i guess i dont i guess what she could have and should have done and this does not change what he is responsible for, but she never says, hey, this is what i i want to get to know you. I was really interested in dating you and having a longterm relationship. I was so excited in dating a comedian named aziz asczarry tht i took a picture of our dinner. Is that where why do women feel like they cant say that . Why cant you say im dating men because i want to get married and i want to have a good courtship . What im trying to say in my piece is the feminist answer to the broken culture is not to say to women youre all victims, you are all victims of sexual assault. Its to say women, be bolder and speak up and dont be afraid. Right. Barry, you brought up something, you talked about this retrograde view of women, as victims. Smelling salts and fainti ining couches. This is a recurring theme, if you look at it, some of the concerns from feminists like yourself about this movement, whether its in the new yorker or whether its in, you know, other newspapers. That the victimization of women who are unable to stand up and say no, dont, stop. So talk about that. When youre talking about this is actually a step back for femininism. If it goes too far. I dont think me too is a step back for femininism. Im talking about this article and this sort of line of argument. Right. I think we are all grappling with as a result of the me too movement which i deeply am in supportive, you know, as a result of that, were talking about the things that are sort of underpinning it, which is what you spoke to, a broken sexual culture. I agree that this is a symptom of it. I think conflating the two is incredibly dangerous. And i think that whats happening is that were talking about women as if they like i wrote in the piece, that they have no agency at all. I think theres a scary sort of insidious line of reasoning that im seeing happening among feminists my age, which is to say, you know, were everything is harassment and assault, rather than saying no, we can stand up for ourselves. Somehow saying that is the whats a mazing is saying to women speak up for yourselves is being framed as somehow backward and retrograde and i think its the exact opposite. Its very complicated. For me, i really i spent a long time thinking about this. I think the solution is teaching women to develop their voices. Requiring that companies have a code of conduct in their office. Requiring that Companies Hire men because they are good people. And hire women because they are good people. As well as talented. That they have good morals. And i think that should be a part of why you hire a man or a woman. Equal pay. Leveling the playing field. Retaining female talent so women are in power. This will solve the problem on a lot of levels. These conversations that have people clashing against each other and then too scared to share. Very bad for women ultimately. Its just a process. As you also talk about all the time, more women in management. Getting more women in management and media companies. At universities. Well, the movie industry, actually, the studio heads. Theyve gotten that part right. But they need more people running the board. So do women. Youve got to change the culture. Right, but is that going to happen if were painting women as victorian housewives . And bringing men down with the stroke of a pen. Theres a question of what is worthy of publication in these stories as well. Whether its fair or not, aziz as asari has his name added. What story is necessary to assassinate someones character . Thanks, babe. Lets talk about babe, the website. Heather mcgee, thank you as well. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage in three minutes. My ancestry dna results are that i am 26 nigerian. I am just trying to learn as much as i can about my culture. I put the gele on my head and i looked into the mirror and i was trying not to cry. Because its a hat, but its like the most important hat ive ever owned. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. Hesumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. Lets go to sumatra. Wheres sumatra . Good question. This is win. And thats wins goat, adi. The coffee here is amazing. Because the volcanic soil is amazing. Making the coffee erupt with flavor. So we give farmers like win more plants. To grow more delicious coffee. That erupts with even more flavor. Which helps provide for wins family. And adi the goats family too. Because his kids eat a lot. All, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain Coffee Roasters. Packed with goodness. Hi there, im stephanie ruhle. This morning, weve got a lot to cover. Starting with clues in the inner circle. Hope hicks, one of the president s closest confidants, will meet with the in house committee. And just moments ago, steve bannon himself arrived on the hill for questioning. The countdown to the shutdown. We are just four days away from a possible Government Shutdown and both parties are at a standstill. Instead fighting over the president s word choice while trump goes after a key democrat blaming him for lack of agreement. Its not going to be done on twitter. And overbooked. A new report details just how much lobbying groups and foreign governments are spending, guess where, trump hotels. This is the most coveted piece of real estate in washington, d. C. It certainly has been in the last 365 days. We begin of course with the russia investigation. Revived on capitol hill. Steve ba