"morning joe." it is friday, november 16th. joe, what a week of recounts, temper tantrums and political turbulence. >> what a week. look what's happening in florida. broward missed the deadline by two minutes. that didn't get counted. but they're going to a hand recount there. caseo in the state of georgia. maine, my goodness, maine, too, goes democratic. a lot of people didn't expect that. you know what i always say, as goes northeast harbor, so goes france. and so was the case in maine, too. jared golden squeaks out a win for the democrats in a district that went for donald trump by double digits. and you know how he did it? he focused in on the affordable care act. that bought democrats yet another seat. you look out at orange county, my gosh, as tom nichols said, congratulations, republicans, you just lost leggan county. it looks like it's going to be a complete wipeout. i remember when loretta sanchez beat bob doran back in the 1990s. it was a stunner, an absolute shock. look at how red orange counties was just two with years ago. now, mika, it is a sea of blue. a huge, huge crushing defeat for trump republicanism. we'll see if they try to change their tact over the next couple of years. and any swing districts. also, mika, california, some really, really devastating news. >> of course. we'll start there. there was a dramatic rise in the number of people unaccounteder for in northern california's camp fire. 631 people are now missing. many of them elderly. the sheriff says the jump is the result of officials going back to the records generated during the most intense time of the fire. the death toll has also climbed to 63. as 7 more bodieser were discovered. the fire has burned through 140,000 acres. officials say it's now 40% contained. public schools across the bay area will be closed today because of bad air quality. president trump is expected to visit california tomorrow. we will be following this story all morning long, but that -- that number of people unaccounted for is just staggering as well as what happened to the city of paradise. >> it's jumped so much. >> so along with joe, willie andmy, we have donnie deutsch, susan delpercio, john meachum, and nbc news national political reporter heidi prisbe had lla. >> willie, i think it's time for us to actually go to our pulitzer prize winning john meachum for archaic references. >> it's what he does. >> it's what he does best. but john meachum, we're going to try to keep it within the next 50 years. orange county, 1966, the birth of the reagan revolution, the birth -- well, really, of modern conservatism now. look at those congressional maps. it was still the orange county we grew up with over the past 50 years. now it is a complete sea of blue. trumpism, there has been a -- voters have passed judgment on trumpism. take a bow, republicans, you lost reagan country. >> and initially, of course, it was james k.bolk country. >> there it is. >> as you know. >> that's what i mean. >> so mark it down. my work is done. if the base of reaganism is now so blue, it is a sign of the extraordinary level of porlerzation, really. >> and you look and you see in 1966 the reason why ronald reagan did so well in orange county, the reason why republicans started sweeping orange county starting in 1966 watts you have this vast, sprawling suburb. it was suburbia. there was a reflexive move away from liberalism, from over the.top 1960s liberalism. they moved right and they started voting republican. and here we are, 50 years later, 52 years later suddenly those same suburbanites look at what republicanism has become under donald trump and, like suburban voters across america, what do they do? they go too much. too much. now they're moving back. >> for something like me who woke up to orange county, it was an article of conservatism, that is an astonishing map to look at, to have it all blue. there are suburbs across the south, too, starting to vote and you can't take them for granted. susan collin, the only republican in maine, is now the only republican from the northeast. it's happening in pockets around the country. >> and she's up in two with yea years. go deep boot heart of texas. look at the dallas suburbs. pete sessions wiped out by this wave again in the suburbs where suburban voters say we don't agree with donald trump. we voted republican our entire life. we're not following him any further wherever he's going. >> that's good. finally, at least. but you have to wonder, sometimes you think is he uneducated, does the president not understand history.? i almost think you have to try to lose this badly. >> you really do. >> let's go to the growing questions of what has inspired president trump's two days of public tirades . yesterday universities will some day study what highly conflicted and not senate approved bob mueller and his gang of democrats thugs have done to destroy people. stop right there. >> mika, do you know what university would be studying this if it had not already been shut down by the proper authorities? >> joe, it's too much of a hang curve. don't do the trump university things. >> you just did it for me, donnie. >> they would do it at trump university, donnie, but nowhere else. so mika, he goes on talking about crooked hillary, comey, e lepage -- >> he's getting the questions from mueller and freaking out. i know one cannot make that connection, but one can certainly surmise that at the time the questions from the mueller probe are coming into this white house. at the time, the democrats have control and the president is finally being educated of the fact that there is nothing he can do when he is compelled to hand over his tax returns and answer questions. >> kor . >> yeah. >> at the time the president finally realizes for the first time in his life he is cornered and there is nowhere to go and at the time that one might surmise his son is potentially on the list of those that might be indicted that this president is freaking out. >> the only reason you would surmise that is because there are reports that don jr. has told friends he may be indicted in the next couple of weeks. that freakout came a few weeks after the president claimed to know the inner workings of the mueller investigation saying they had no collusion which, of course, is ridiculous. they're going absolutely nuts, they're screaming and shouting at people, etcetera, etcetera. this reminds me of what john had he -- heilman said that everything donald trump tweeted out is confessional. >> it would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic, frankly. to have a president of the united states spinning out of control and focused only on himself and not on our country at this point is devastating. we have the g20 coming up, we have north korea testing missiles again. we have a lot of things going on and this president is strictly wrapped up in himself and he is spinning out of control. >> and so why is he doing that? mika mentioned it. just as the president's lawyer said they were preparing trump's final questions to bob mueller's written questions, the president spent more than four hours meeting with attorneys on monday and 90 minutes wednesday night. that's according to people familiar with the sessions who tell "the washington post" trump attorney rudy giuliani and others briefed on the questions tell the paper there are at least two dozen questions, all of which relate to activities and episodes from before president trump's election. quote, there are some that create more issues for us legally than others, giuliani said, adding that some were unnecessary, some were possible traps and we might consider some as irrelevant and more evidence that the special counsel appears to be the at the front of the president a's mind as displayed in the transcript of his interview with the daily caller. the president was asked about the appointment of matt kitaker. saying this whitaker is somebody that's very respected. i knew him only as he pertained, you know, as he was with jeff sessions. as far as i'm concerned, this is an investigation that should never have been brought. it should never have had had. it's something that should never have been brought. it's an illegal investigation. it's very interesting because when you talk about not senate confirmed, mueller is not senate confirmed. that answer being compared to the question about the firing of fbi director james comey. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. >> so, joe, go back to the daily caller interview. the president is asked about acting attorney general whitaker and talks almost immediately about the mueller investigation. >> he just walks into it. maybe for christmas this year, somebody can just get a stamp and just make it easier for him that says obstruction on it and just stamp it on his forehead. it's so obvious. you look at what he said the there. look at what he said, as you said to lester holt, what he told the russian foreign minister, what he told the russian ambassador of the united states about the firing of comey. he obstructs in the light of day. >> the absurd moves he makes will get heightened. we're seeing a different guy now. donald trump a few weeks ago are scary. now he's more like dr. evil where he comes on and instead of getting angry, you kind of almost chuckle. there's a patheticness to him that's starting to show that hasn't been there in the past. when you're a company and you're bankrupt, you still own the banks. in a strange way, he said, here, take the keys. so he's never not been in control. and we're going to see now a caged animal. and i think we're going to see behavior so much more abberant than anything we've seen. there's a great movie, the seduction of joe tana. he plays a congressman melvin douglas who at some point in the camera starts talking french in the congressional hearing. i think we're going to see something happen to donald trump on camera, some of the tweets go to a new level that even republicans are going to start to come out from under the rocks. >> i think so. and john meachum, we've had a discussion time and again, you and i, mika, talking about whether the institutions would hold. the institutions have held. most importantly voters went out and provided the ultimate matesonian check on donald trump's power with their vote last week. but it's happening everywhere. you look at a federal judge. we're going to be talking about the story in a minute. you look at a federal judge. this i guess it was yesterday in the d.c. circuit who was asked by the trump administration to deal a setback to the mueller investigation and throw out some charges. a federal judge appointed by donald trump refused and said they've done nothing wrong. maybe when you do the soul of america part two, maybe the soul of the institutions, they haven't been founding that. >> i do believe there's a resilience and a durability to the rule of rule of law and ultimately i think to the popular pressure. as you know better than anybody, congress is far more often a mirror rather than a molter. the caucus would at least be looking at things like the orange county results, looking at the results from the past week or two and saying, you know what? we hooked our wagon to this guy but we don't want to have that wagon go straight off the cliff with the entire trump organization speaking russian instead of french. >> not sure -- >> i just wonder, i just wonder, you know, remember all the people who have been with donald trump, you know, if you were with ronald reagan, if you were with nixon, you're with george w. bush, you were there because you believed to some extent in the person, as well. trump's official base, the people in washington, are hired hands. they're not true believers, it seems to me. and the congressional base lives in fear of him, but fear is not going to -- i think, if fear is what's driving them, fear of their voters ultimately is going to be more compelling than fear of trump himself. and we might, might, might beginning to see that. >> so here are the details of that story joe just mentioned. a federal judge is refusing to toss out the case by special counsel robert mueller against a russian business accused of helping to fund moscow's efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. the judge yesterday ruled against the firm. concord management and consulting. which had been seeking to have the indictment against it dismissed saying prosecutors made up a crime to score political points for the probe and to profits legitimacy. the company is accused of using an extensive social media campaign to influence the election. in her 31 page opinion, the judge who president trump appointed to the u.s. says they were trying to avoid foreign election and lobbying disclosure requirements, conquered his own by a russian businessman known as putin's which i have due to his close ties with the russian president. the judge said no. >> and willie, there's another great example, again, of federal judges, especially, from the very beginning have proven that whitaker is wrong, that the federal judiciary is an equal branch to the executive and to the legislative branches and it's proven time and time again whether they're republicans, democrats, whether they're appointed by donald trump or barack obama, you know what? they follow the law and they hold this president and others in check. >> and it's another reminder that this investigation is going to continue. the president can tweet, he can scream, mike pence can say in may, hey, it's time to to wrap it up. rudy giuliani can go on every talk show and talk about why this investigation has to end. they can file lawsuits. this investigation will continue until bob mueller has what he needs to make a case or to present a case that nothing happened, that the president had nothing to do with interference and the country can move on from it. but everything we see on twitter from the president, everything we saw yesterday, once again, is just is noise and it's noise that bob mueller is not listening to. >> well, the question, willie, is whether you can draw a direct line between the president's behavior and what he knows that the rest of us don't know. >> right. >> because like mika said, they've had those questions, they've had those questions for a while. why aren't they answering them? we also know that there may be other sealed indictments. what does the president and his team know about potential indictments against people in his administration and maybe even in his inner circle? and you can definitely draw a direct line between his tweets and his meetings with his lawyers. we know he had a 90-minute meeting wednesday with his lawyers. one thing we know for certain is this is indeed escalating. you hear from don jr. himself as well as folks like roger stone saying they may anesthetic themselves to be indicted. roger stone releasing those texts in order to try and buffer himself to say no, actually, randy credico was the guy who was the go-between with wikileaks. and the question now is when is mueller going to come forward with whatever his final determination is? certainly he didn't want to find himself in the same position that comey was in, being accused of dumping information right before an election. well, we're past that election now. >> yeah. all right. well, still ahead on "morning joe," we know george conway isn't afraid to speak out and he's not alone. kellyanne conway's husband is a group of conservative lawyers pushing back at the president's worst impulses. we'll talk to two of the members next on "morning joe." but first, bill carin wkarins w check on the forecast. >> the sleet came in about two hours later than expected and snow totals were higher than expected. a lot of people went to work thinking they could get home just fine and it was the opposite. it was a nightmare for millions and millions of people from central jersey through eastern pennsylvania, next in, southern new england, and it was one of those snows that compacted right down and it was extremely, extremely slick getting up and down any hills were a nightmare. people had five, six, seven-hour commutes home last night. it's better now. the snow totals, many areas in the new england areas were anywhere between 10 to 12 inches. new york city had 6 inches of snow. that was the snowiest new york city day in 136 years. this was exceptional. right now, still snowing in up state new york through the hudson valley through northern new england. by the time we get to noon today, it clears out quickly. it's breezy and sunny. all the sidewalks will rapidly improve as we go through the day. the rest of the forecast for the country looks okay. we'll try to get the airports back going again and catch up, especially, in areas of the northeast. over the weekend, not a lot of highlights. just another cold air mass coming down from the northern plains and a tiny bit of snow, but nothing compared to the big snowstorm. and the big cold outbreak. it snowed in houston this week. next in, we saw what happened yesterday. what a week the to remember. let's hope the remember of the winter doesn't look like what we just went through. unbelievable, mid november. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. right back. oh milk. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? 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>> there were so many reasons why this was necessary. >> try. >> right from the beginning, i was part of a group who signed a letter called originalists against trump. this guy has been running for president since the early 2000s, has switched parties for as long as he's been able to vote, essentially. i was concerned about, you know, his principals, whether or not he had any, and he soon proved to have very little. and what you've seen is him really corroding legal norms and the rule of law between talking about birth right citizenship which is clearly unconstitutional under the 14th amendment to his newest appointment of the acting attorney general, which needs senate confirmation. he has normalized ignoring legal norms and it's time for someone to speak up against it. >> i'm wondering, paul, if for you early on in the administration when the president questioned the legal authority of a republican appointed federal judge in washington state, if that wasn't when a lot of alarm bells went off for you. it certainly was for me when, you know, i think the first time at last in my lifetime i remember a president of the united states questioning the authority of a federal judge because he didn't like the outcome of the case. >> i think that's right. everybody has their own breaking point in this story. for some of us, it goes -- it's more recent. for me, it's gone back quite a while. the incident you referred to of federal -- of a president essentially saying that the independent judiciary should not be independent is truly a transgression of the separation of powers. the concepts of checks and balances that is at the core of our activity, likewise interference in criminal investigations, those sorts of things are beyond normal. they're beyond the bounds of what is normal political discourse and normal political disagreement. and they really strike at very fundamental values of american society. >> you know, marissa, i wonder, and i'm sure you've had -- you clerked for clarence thomas, i'm sure, like me you grew up with a lot of republican friends and a lot of republican family members who wonder why you didn't fall blindly in line for trump. >> i actually didn't. >> oh, really? >> i actually have democrats as parents. i just happened to read ein democracy rand when i was 12 and i was utterly corrupted. >> so your last two or three years have been easier than mine at family reunions. >> i love it. >> be that as it may, i wonder if you've noticed if you have conservative friends in washington that it's usually the lawyers that understand a little bit more, that when i start talking about the breaching of constitutional norms and i start talking about the president not respecting the power of the federal judiciary and i start talking about checks and balances, a lot of my friends eyes glaze over. it seems conservative lawyers that i talk to team to get it a bit more and understand why even if a guy is cutting taxes and appointing people to the supreme court, it's not enough if everybody is breaching constitutional norms. >> look at hill and say, well, look at all these judges. we're shaping the judiciary. let's sort of ignore it. his words have legal effect. when he tweets something, to me it's not enough to say, well, we have justice kavanaugh, we have justice gorsuch. when you start corroding constitutional norms over time and switching our over time, it's not okay. >> john meachum is going to likely ask you to -- what supreme court decision under the tyler administration had the most far-reaching impact on us today. >> i hope no one asks me that question. >> i thought we would throw a little edmund burke around because it's that kind of morning. >> ooh, burke. >> but i do have to what you just said that rings to true to ears for a layman, it is why 40% or so, 45% of the country has suspended, really, the whole jef fersonian capacity in public affairs. you pick a team and then you're for that team no matter what. you're actually arguing, it seems to me, that americans have a role to be umpires in politics and in life. you call balls and strike as you see them. >> a lot of people are in the administration. and at least in d.c., a lot of my friends. it's not in their interest to speak up against it. a lot of people are also, i think, afraid because the president has showed himself as capable, more than capable of tweeting against individuals and i think they just don't want to get on his bad side. >> paul, it's willie geist. one of the principal techniques of president trump, not just president trump but candidate trump and donald trump before that is to attack the source of information. so when a judge rules against him at trump university, he says that judge has mexican heritage and can't possibly be fair when considering this case. we talk a lot on this show about the institutions and whether or not they can stand up and hold against one man like donald trump. in your assessment of these first couple of years, have the institutions held, particularly in your area of the justice department? >> i would say the institutions have held, but they're under stress. one of my friends like to say the guardrails of democracy are buckling. they're still solid, but they are under great pressure. the career prosecutors at the department of justice, even the trump appointees, attorney general sessions and deputy attorney general rosenstein have been under tremendous pressure from the president to deviate from normal activity. and thank god for them, they've with stood the test so far. that's one of the reasons why the acting of attorney general whitaker is potentially problematic. it may signal a further buckling of that behavior that the department of justice is about doing justice, not about doing what's politically expedient. >> thank you both. we have much more ahead on the mueller probe, including a new filing from the special counsel's office. former trump campaign chair paul manafort has been meeting with robert mueller's team since september. now the special counsel wants a few more days before updating a judge on his cooperation. we'll talk about what that means for the russia probe straight ahead on "morning joe." ia probe ahead on "morning joe. ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. and a complimentary first month's payment. and butch.aura. and tank. and tiny. and this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace. laura can clean up a retriever that rolled in foxtails, but she's not much on "articles of organization." articles of what? 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(bob) the first call that we've made on the cellular system. facebook, chief executive mark zuckerberg is claiming ignorance on the heels of the "new york times" latest bombshell piece that zeroed in on executive's efforts to allegedly suppress data ahead of the elections. how do they never know? do they put him -- >> on a call with reporters yesterday, zuckerberg defended the social site and its executives innocence saying to suggest that we weren't interested in knowing the truth, or that we wanted to hide what we knew or that we wanted to prevent investigations is simply untrue. >> that's a lie of trumpian nature. that's incredible. >> i'm young and i'm sweet and i would never do this. >> that's all they ever tried to do. zuckerberg also has since cut ties with them. >> the report allegations that facebook worked with definers to spin anti semantic narratives against some of its critics like george soros. it claims that facebook's chief operating officer, cheryl sandberg, was the brains behind the decision to work with definers, although zuckerberg said she was, quote, also not involved. >> another lie. >> there's a strange thing at facebook that i have noticed. it may be true. some might say that they feel when they say something that makes it true. >> again, very -- >> and that's just not how it works. >> donnie, it really is and we've noticed this dealing with them almost trump-like -- >> being told what to believe. >> i guess they have been surrounded by people like donald trump that will just say yes to whatever they say. i mean, you look at cheryl sandberg yesterday, the "new york times" found one instance after another where she got angry whenever somebody tried to bring the truth to light. she got really angry with somebody in the management structure when they told board members the truth about the problems with the 2016 election. she got really angry when somebody had decided to go ahead and start investigating to see how much russia had infiltrated their network and was trying the to impact the 2016 election. achery time and again and my question yesterday was how was she still at facebook, first of all, and secondly, how does zuckerberg stay there? if he's going to put out statements that we all know are lies on their face? and had is what they have been doing. they've been covering up. they've been lying about the cover up. and then they've been lying about the news stories that bring up the cover up. they are lying. i mean, if you were an investor, why do you want to keep investing in a company with two people running it who just will not face up to their problems. >> joe, i think you've made an amazing analogy between trump and what that is unchecked power when you're wrapped in a cocoon. there are not people around you, there are not institutions around you, and you brought up something, also. cheryl sandberg, why is she in that job? she kind of makes the trains run on time kind of person. zuckerberg, when you're founding ceo and chairman, you're more in the think tank aspect of it. but she's the operator. and she's been very, very clever with her brand over the years and leaning in and clearly there's no leaning in here. and as a personal investor in facebook and the shares are down 20%, i want to know why she still has a job. the other irony is these new age companies like facebook, the companies of the people, the companies built on democracy and fairness and every man deserves -- you know, every person deserves access and all these things, the irony is they behave more reprehensible than some of the old guard fortune 50 companies. they are the ones acting like they are the men in the gray flannel suits. they are the man, so to speak. >> i think there's such a culture out there that is so insulated and so isolated they believe they're beyond reproach. again, no checks and no balances. but just think about what the "new york times" revealed yesterday. they use this old anti semantic trope when targeting conservative groups to turn them against facebook critic by trotting out the george soros conspiracy theories, which is absolutely beneath contempt. and any other ceo that did this or cfo would be fired that day for trotting out an anti semantic the trope like that and selling it to conservatives. on the other side of it, they go to the other side and want them to come out attacking anybody attacking facebook. ite one of the most cynical soleless things i've ever seen in corporate america. >> facebook clearly is playing in the political dark arts. it's amazing that george soros is a catch all boogeyman, whether it's in politics or business or anywhere else. you throw his name out and it implies something to a certain group of people. the question now, heidi, is congress ready to intervene at this point? based on what we've seen with the interference and now this big piece from the "new york times" front page yesterday, will congress step in? because these guys out there are the masters of the universe. they feel like they're untouchable and they have changed the world. and they have. but the one thing they may fear is if the united states government steps in and checks them in a way they haven't been checked before. >> so how do i be diplomatic about all this? y'all remember when zuckerberg came up to the hill and testified of and anticipation was that he was, you know, in for a whooping. and it just didn't happen because a lot of the members on that committee didn't understand even the bakes, it appeared, of how the technology worked to really give him an appropriate grilling. so we saw kind of a missed opportunity there. i think there are individual members who really understand this platform and understand there needs to be some kind of limits put in place. and eventually we will get there. and in the meantime, basically, facebook is -- continues to be in this kind of pr clean up mode meeting with journalists like myself and others to explain what they're doing wither their quote/unquote war rooms. but i will say that the challenge for congress is that the platforms continue to evolve. i mean, even if you get a handle on facebook, there is a lot of reporting to suggest that bad players are moving over to other platforms like reddit. and so it is a colossal problem. we don't have the answers yet. >> heidi, i'm just curious, when they talk to you, when their pr people talk to you, do they lie to you? do they say they didn't do this? because every time we have talked to people connected with facebook, and we haven't done it in about six months, but it's always -- they're always lying. they're always saying, oh, no, this didn't happen. oh, no, we didn't know about this until -- and then a newspaper article comes out a couple weeks later that proves they're lying. >> i would say that i didn't detect any lies in our meetings with them, but then again, they are not putting the people, joe, in the position of knowing who are interfacing with us, the media. they are people who are cut from the pr cloth and not into the inner mechanics of the institution. and i mean, their goal is basically to put the best possible face on what they're doing now going forward and continuing to try and push us to not focus so much on the damage that was wraught previously. nancy pelosi's rise to house speakership as the rhetoric against her is upped. we'll ask one person where he stands on the fight. "morning joe" is coming right back. on the fight. 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was in miami? it is. i hear they're having a great time. book at hilton.com and get the hilton price match guarantee. if you find a lower rate, we match it and give you 25% off that stay. . john, i'm sure you've been thinking over the past week about the election, obviously, and how exactly does it line up with what you wrote about in "the soul of america"? >> it helps the argument. good for the country, good for the argument, in that order. >> yes. >> 35 seats or so, six seats still out. that means it's in the 1966 zone, it's not '94, it's not 2010. but it is a moment, particularly when you look at the senate race and as you know one of the things, the historical marketplace does is it fails to give credit often to preventing bad things from happening. and the fact that the democrats did as well -- i mean the democrats did as well as they did in the senate side shows this. i think there's an ebb and flow in the american spirit, the american soul. it's not that we're all good or all bad. we struggle between light and dark. every era, every moment is defined by the extent to which we win 51% of the time. our better angels win out over our worst instincts. i think this vote two weeks ago and it continues to unfold, it should unfold, it's a bit of american impatience that we think recounts and trying to pull off these complicated elections should only take three hours. this is not democracy by amazon prime. these are complicated things. it's hard. my sense is that the country has said that we are nervous about the excesses of this wildly unconventional president. there's still 40% or so of the country that is for whatever reason willing to take a bet on him, take this flyer on him. but, you know, they were willing to take a flyer on joe mccarthy and a flyer, a lot of folks on george wallace and huey long and that didn't work out in the end. we saw a piece of that in the mid-term elections it won't here either. >> good starters doesn't finish well and in this case, listen, cherks a checks and balances, mika is good news whether you're a republican or democrat. >> still ahead president trump is unleashing new attacks on special counsel robert mueller. does he know something about the russia probe we don't? are those questions upsetting him? plus we'll talk to the british ambassador to the united states as the future of brexit hangs in the balance. that's ahead on "morning joe". ♪ ♪ ♪ the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ with one notable exception. ♪ what do you look for i want free access to research. yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. everything you want. one low price. td ameritrade. ♪ am i willing to pay the price for loving you?. you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that 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do anything to stop it. >> as to the ledge allocation, actually support it because i wrote it. i think it would be good for the country. we'll leave it up to mitch and the leadership how to take that vote if we take it. i do hope we take that vote. >> senator judiciary committee chairman chuck grassley and fellow committee member lindsey graham showing that even the president's staunchest defenders are thinking it might be a good idea to proterms special counsel robert mueller. welcome back to "morning joe". it's friday, november 16th. we have donny deutsch along with republican strategist and msnbc political analyst, and heidi przybyla and joining the conversation national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan joins us. >> willie geist, here you have chuck grassley who runs the judiciary committee, lindsey graham who has been donald trump's apologist in chief, both agreeing with jeff flake they need to pass ledge allocation, they would support ledge allocation to protect robert mueller and, of course, mitch mcconnell is refusing to do that. is mitch mcconnell going to be seen as the person who actually destroyed the supreme court selection process and who also refused to protect an independent investigation into vladimir putin's interference with american politics? >> his is the opinion that counts. he's the majority leader. he'll continue to be the majority leader through january when the new congress comes in. joe, he's never shown even a wink or nod or willingness whatsoever to entertain this idea of ledge allocation. the fair question to ask is why? when we have republicans like chuck grassley and lindsey graham saying we should put protection around robert mueller so he can complete his work. why is leader mcconnell, what is the defense of it and what would be the harm in protecting bob mueller? it's not a question he's answered sufficiently. >> it's also very interesting, susan collins now, obviously, made a very unpopular vote on kavanaugh. she's in a state that is blue. she's up for re-election in a couple of years. i just wonder whether she's going to go along with flake and for the issue and go along with the vote the protext the special counsel. jonathan swan, it to ask you about donald trump. one thing robert mueller is looking at is obstruction justice. donald trump always provides prosecutors gracious plenty whenever he speaks to conservative websites and let's his guard down. he did it again with daily caller. >> it's a patent with the president. he gets in his comfort zone. he feels that he's in friendly company. he is in friendly company. but there was a moment the other day when he was in the oval office with theetail daily call. the question was you seemed happen with matthew whitaker. trump says a couple of nice things about whittaker and then goes into a diatribe in which he calls the investigation illegal. if whittaker ever goes before the senate to be confirmed that will be brought up as evidence that trump views him as a political battering ram and associates him with the mueller investigation and i'm sure it's something that the mueller team is looking at. it's really remarkable. i checked the transcript very carefully. the reporters didn't mention mueller's name at all at any point. trump inserted it into the conversation. >> incredible lack of discipline which he's shown time and time again. as you pointed out before especially with conservative news outlets. donny deutsch, i want to get back to mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell and the republicans will be defending the same number of seats in 2020 that democrats had to defend this year. you just wonder why mitch mcconnell will not protect robert mueller, will not protect an independent investigation into vladimir putin's attempts to interfere with american elections and, by the way, trump's director of national intelligence, trump's fbi director, i mean everybody that donald trump has appointed in the intel community all say, his department of homeland security secretary all say this is a threat to democracy. so i'm just curious. why would mitch mcconnell not want to protect that investigation? >> i find it particularly ironic. yesterday mitch mcconnell wrote an op-ed, we have to be bipartisan. same guy in 2010 that said the republicans only objective is to make sure barack obama does not get re-elected. this is mr. bipartisan who brought us merritt garland or actually didn't bring us. to me the entire cast of trump characters, he, i believe, will go down in history as the most cowardly and i don't understand the logic. this is the same guy that would not bring a bill to the floor to protect our vote progress sees for $250 million. no we don't need any extra safe guards. this is a man that has not gotten the memo as far as the way we really pralt as a country. one other thing about watching grassley and lindsey graham. trump does not have the fear factor on his side. you see a shift. the fear now is he's running afraid. that was always his big tool. you're starting to see the fraying. lindsey graham and chuck grassley would not have spoken this way three weeks ago. built hey i'm not saying absolutely going to get in front of it and drive it through. seems okay to me. a real shift. people are not afraid of donald trump any more. and that was always his big club, fear. >> the question is, are they -- they may not be afraid of him and what he can do to them politically but are they afraid how he'll act if he's further cornered. joe makes a great point about the 2020 map. this is a political softball. of course you would put this ledge allocation through the senate, because it allows for bipartisanship, it covers some of the members who are running in 2020. but there is this other thing out there that just nags at me if maybe donald trump sees this go through who knows what he'll do? i think he's that unstable at this point. >> let's bring in the conversation new england member of the house judiciary committee democratic congressman ted lieu. he represents the state's 33rd district. congressman, welcome back. legality me ask you about what we've been talking about this morning which is what's happening in the state of california, particularly orange county right now which if we put up that map you can see it's about to go completely blue which would be a shock to people who viewed it as the cradle of conservatism in real estate began country. what's going on in your state right now? >> let me first say my heart goes out to the victims of wildfires including those in my district. i commend the first responders for their amazing job. specifically on your question i just want to say orange county is a new blue. what we saw was a sweep of southern california districts in favor of democrats. i'm the vice chair are of the democratic congressional campaign committee. we targeted all these districts in southern california. we moved our entire western region office to southern california. you saw the amazing successes. gil cisneros took a lead last night. six new members from california that are democrats. >> what's changing in orange county that the rest of the country can look at? >> it turns out the republican strategy of raising taxes on millions of californians and trying to sabotage their health care was not a winning strategy for the gop, but in addition, donald trump has made everything about him these last two years, a large part of this election was a rebuke of the president. it was a rejection of his divisive policies. i hope donald trump learns his lesson this election and changes course. that's what the overwhelming majority of american voters want. >> susan? >> congressman, as we look forward towards 2019, what investigations do you think will be the top priorities now? we've heard, will it be impeachment? what do you see going forward? >> my view of impeachment is that like the power to declare war it's one of the gravest responsibilities of congress. it should never be our first option. it has to be our last option. we'll see what the facts and evidence are from the robert mueller investigation and the first thing we have to do is to protect that investigation. but the president also needs to understand the train has threat station. it's too late to shut down this investigation. too many indictments. too much has been discovered. even if he could shut it down the democratic congress starting next year can continue the investigation. we get subpoena power. we can get documents. we'll find out any criminal behavior that happened during the campaign. >> congressman, first of all i wanted to ask you about nancy pelosi. obviously, there's a big, big battle brewing if you believe news reports coming out of the house. in my experience, i was going to ask why would democrats get rid of somebody who -- i mean nancy knows the house, she knows how to run the house, she knows how to keep a caucus together. this speakship, being speaker is not about ideology, it's about competence. if running against nancy pelosi, even conservative districts worked then dave brat would be coming back to congress. will democrats end up supporting nancy pelosi. >> you're exactly right. nancy pelosi is a leader we need during these challenging times. she was terrific as minority leader. she was amazing as a prior speaker. she will do a phenomenal job as our future speaker. on november 28th, nancy pelosi will get the overwhelming support of the house democratic caucus. we then send her to the floor june 3rd as our nominee and by january 3rd i'm confident she will get the votes she needs to become speaker of the house. >> all right. congressman, thank you so much for being with us. please note our thoughts and prayers are with everybody out in california right now, those forest fires. thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. donnie, the arrogance of members and i want to focus on something ted said. the arrogance of california republicans who thought they could vote for a tax cut that would actually hike taxes for california residents because as you know the tax bill doesn't allow you to deduct for state income taxes and in california they are just as outrageous as in new york state and connecticut. to vote to raise people's taxes and also to take away their health care plan, celebrating in the rose garden you're taking away people's health care. it shows time and time again that people get elected to congress and become arrogant and think they can get away with anything, they can follow donald trump over the cliff and now all of orange county is blue. >> i mention this on the show before. we talk about voters. coming from the ad world, you know, it's very easy to talk about consumers or purchasers. then you forget the consumers are actually your next door neighbor and your wife and your friend and your school teacher, and that is the mistake. people are not stupid at the end of the day. we left trump university earlier in the show. he did that scam for a little while and then wasn't. people at the end of the day, and i believe people, the better angels showed in the election. i think people are good. i think people have a certain horse sense whether they are educated or not educated. people are not stupid. they are not voters, they are people. that's what republicans forgot. >> a lot of people want to make the mid-terms about donald trump but they were also issue by issue. tom mcarthur in new jersey who lost his seat to andy kim, he voted for the tax bill. in the state of new jersey the taxes are already horrific and no longer can deduct their state and the local taxes. that was an issue. finding the right candidate and right issue is the real key to a lot of these races. as you cover the white house and you look where the president is right now, taking a step back from it, he's factoring in the mid-terms to this face we've seen him put on in the last couple of days but also factoring in the mueller investigation and as donnie points out we may be at a perilous point for the president of the united states right now. >> it's hard to overstate the cognitive dissid northwestern ce going on because while trump's team was in that republicans would lose the house and polls and forecast were pretty much spot on, the president was very resistant to that and really did believe it was fake news and that the polls were wrong, this would be a repeat of 2016. so on election night when he was at the white house, as the results rolled in he was guesting increasingly frustrated. and the public, you know, sunniness and cheeriness about results and declaration of total victory is quite different to the private view of what just happened. so, yes, i mean what you said is true. but really health care was such an animating issue and will be again, frankly, leading into 2020. they are very concerned about that. they are also quite concerned about the fact that democrats, the lay up for them is reclaiming the upper midwest. and, you know, we have conversation about texas and arizona and georgia. but really the path is actually quite straightforward. pennsylvania, michigan, these states that trump thought he had a stranglehold on, he simply doesn't. >> and heidi przybyla, it's the republicans who stood by this and knowing the impact of these tax cuts on health care, it's almost as if they were under a spell or something. it's not like they don't understand how this is going to end. this is where every step of the way we've been questioning like don't you know how this ends badly? and here we are results in congress get worse for republicans. >> you saw that even with the president himself, mika, when he started to peddle the idea of a real middle class tax cut. we remember the initial tax cut was billed as a tax cut for the middle class. it most certainly was not that. we've seen many analysis of how this was mainly a corporate tax cut. i haven't been able to get into my reporting before but this is a perfect opportunity to say during the 2016 campaign i reached out to a number of the top conservative institutions like the heritage foundation to say, okay, if president trump would want to do a tax cut how would this have to be structured to be effective because we just can't keep going back to the well and doing the same thing over again and they said to me, mika, even if this is a corporate tax cut it's got to be tightly tailored in order to get the kind of outcome that we want and not just the quote-unquote sugar high that some people and some analysts are now saying that this tax cut is amounting to, the benefits are petering off and it was not a tax cut aimed at the forgotten man that trump talked about on the campaign trail. >> it was not. heidi przybyla, thank you very much. heidi has new reporting on the unprecedented around the clock security for education secretary betsy devos. also how congressional democrats may look into the millions that has cost taxpayers. find that on msnbcnews.com. jonathan swan, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe" the white house looks for a roundabout way to ease pressure on saudi arabia over the assassination of "washington post" writer jamal khashoggi. and career officials at the justice department are furious. >> their plan is so grotesque, it actually, it is as you know, i'm not shocked by much any more coming out of the trump administration. in fact, he's actually becoming a parody of himself, but this plan is so grotesque it even shocks me. >> we'll explain that. plus tom brokaw joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back. ight back. insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement, we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ - mwith the best ofodi, the prespressure cooking andsps, air frying all in 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[ready forngs ] christmas? no, it's way too early to be annoyed by christmas. you just need some holiday spirit! that's it! this feud just went mobile. with xfinity xfi you get the best wifi experience at home. and with xfinity mobile, you get the best wireless coverage for your phone. ...you're about to find out! you don't even know where i live... hello! see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. nbc news has learned that president trump and his administration want to deport an american green cardholder to turkey in an effort to placate turkish leader recep tayyip erdogan over the murder of jamal khashoggi by saudi arabian officials. two senior u.s. officials briefed on the request tell nbc news that last month the administration asked federal law enforcement agencies to examine ways of removing turkish cleric from the u.s. including directives to the doj and fbi to re-open turkey's extradition case and requesting information about his legal status from the defendant homeland security. it's all reportedly part of an attempt to persuade erdogan to ease pressure on the saudi government. erdogan has accused the cleric who has a u.s. green card and has been living in pennsylvania since the '90s of being a terrorist who helped plan a 2016 coup attempt and wanted him extradited to turkey for years. the state department says there's no relation between the khashoggi situation and the cleric. this sounds really -- this sounds deep and dirty. >> beneath cop tempt. this were some people talking about actually kidnapping him and getting him back to turkey before donald trump came in, some people reportedly connected with donald trump and donald trump's campaign. but now they are actually talking about, again, deporting this man who is here, who escaped political retribution in turkey, and it's, again, beneath contempts. you actually have the saudis who are now going execute, they are going to execute five people to try to silence them because they have all the information about the fact that the young crown prince in saudi arabia actually planned the murder of khashoggi. and now to silence erdogan, we're now going to kick a refugee, a political refugee out of our country and feed them to the wolves in turkey? >> this is incredible. this is not who we are. >> it's despicable. let's hope there are people at the state department who will push back on this. it's ridiculous. let's bring in right now nbc news senior correspondent tom brokaw and also the director of domestic policy studies and stanford university and research fellow at the hoover institute. tom, i got to talk to you this morning about orange county. you know, you left wwusb in atlanta and moved out to california, southern california and you were covering a former hollywood star who launched his conservative revolution in orange county and here we are now, 52 years later, two years after donald trump's elected to the presidency and look at that map, reagan country is now a solid blue. what are your thoughts? >> my thoughts are that that is, in this election, which turned over a lot of the old rules, that is the most profound example of it. rock solid orange county now blue and it really is a reflection of what's going on not just in california but across the country. if you look at this new class, where they come from, what they represent, what their ideology really represents, we have muslims who are appearing there, and we have people who have not been involved in politics before. this to a greater degree than we've been willing to acsnlg a real transformation of american politics and it's not going to stop with this election. these people who are arriving in washington remind me of the hottest high school graduation you can imagine who are suddenly bumping up against the new rules in washington and are going be very impatient with that because that's not how they got there. they want change. and we're already seeing a manifestation in that how they are dealing with nancy pelosi running for re-election. latest reports are she probably will be re-elected but that's not the end of it. there's a revolt going on in the democratic party trying to reconfigure for the future and what the country wants and orange county is the perfect example of that. when you see drohrabacher after 15 terms get beat that's a big night. >> tom, also we can talk about orange county, we can talk about the suburbs breaking, but let's talk about women getting elected to congress. we've had a lot of years, we talked about the year of the woman. but this year really has proven to be the year of the woman. over 100 woman going to congress. what a remarkable change. still aren't enough women. there's not parity yet. my gosh, what a dramatic change. do you think that was all in reaction to donald trump's mi mysogny. >> identify been talking about this. at the end of the century, i think historians will say this was the century of women. not just in this country but around the world. they will begin to take their place in the long historical calendars that we always deal with as not just great new powers, but influencers and they will be taking jobs that they were cut-out of before and when i do that at the beginning of this century, audiences, women would erupt in applause and men would look at me where is that coming from. now it seems to me that the manifestation is there. that in fact it will be the century of women. this is just the beginning. it's not a one off. this is not just something that happened in this election year. it's going on in corporate america and scientific america, it's going on as well in the educational circles of america. so as the father of three daughters, i've watched this begin to happen. i think it's very, very heartening and it's a reality that people have to come to grips w-especially those in washington who are kind of watching. nancy pelosi is a woman. she rose through the ranks when a lot of women were not able to do that. but she's now facing a new reality about these women and others who are arriving in washington saying we're not going play by the old rules. we want to change. we want it now. >> so, lonnie, as you look at the results of the mid-term election, which keep continuing to come in. golden winning end maine leaving susan collins as the only congressional republican in new england. she's the only republican in congress right now from that part of the country. what lessons do you take? what did you see as the results came through? >> well, look remarkable polarization. it's true what you see in terms of orange county. that's just a microcosm of the discussion. what you see are these suburban areas where the president's rhetoric particularly on immigration was incredibly harmful. that sort of drives those parts of the country to the left and then you obviously got states like missouri and indiana which ended up not being nearly as close on the senate side moving to the right in part responding to that very same rhetoric. really the competitive of some of these districts is interesting, but i think this is really the first election that signals probably a larger restructuring, a larger re-orientation of the partisan map. for republicans it's deeply troubling. my home state of california i grew up in the 39th congressional district where gil cisneros appears to have taken the lead over young kim. the rhetoric on immigration, the rhetoric on the caravan, that's what i think will have turned this district, if it does end up going to the democrats. these changes that we're seeing now, you will recall, are cementing some of the gains democrats made in california that may be very difficult to turn around. >> just to follow up on that. i guess part of the issue will be, though, if these democrats go too far left, will they be open to a 2020 or 2022 challenge, and also where do republicans go to get more voters because that's the problem? the democrats keep expanding their footprint whereas republicans hope their people just keep showing up. >> in california the challenge goes way back to a guy who i first worked for in politic, governor pete wilson. >> so did i. >> we share that heritage. you understand how tough the immigration rhetoric on proposition 187 was when it came along in the mid-'90s, the way in which that changed the entire arc of history in california for the republican party. in terms of where the republican party gets more voters, i think it's when the republican party sees that new policy is needed in this regard. but in terms of the makeup of the electorate and what we're seeing in california again, these trends, we're just starting to see that this is happening as we go forward and what i worry about is that some of these things are cementing because it's not clear to me there's a way to turn this around in california in the short run. >> we're through the mid-term elections, effectively through mr. trump's first two years in january. there's some dispute in florida and georgia. your snapshot of washington right now. your snapshot of the country and where we are after two years under president trump. >> you know, i've been covering politics for a long time. i was in washington during the nixon years and i've been paying attention, started my political reporting career for nbc in california. this is the most transformative time i can remember. we always thought coming out of the anti-war movement we would have that kind of change and we did, briefly. this, i think is there for the long time. what you're seeing in america now is the reality of what kind of variety we have. whether they are immigrants or if they grew up here. they are smart. they got access to money. they have access to social media which is really important. so what i think is, what we've seen in the last week, it's the beginning of the election two years from now in the presidential election. i don't think donald trump has caught up to that yet. he was still playing by his old ego. but his ego took a hard hit in this election. no question about it. we're in for a rock and roll couple of years and i think the leadership of both parties are in for that, as a matter of fact. they got to adjust to what's going on and i'm not sure how it's going to turn out. but i do think it's going to reinvigorate the idea of democracy which i think is very, very important to us. >> and mika, as tom noted, the most diverse incoming class in the history of the united states congress. out of many, one. what a great message for america to send the world. tom brokaw thank you so much. lonnie, thank you as well. mika, the orange county of the east coast as willie and i like to count mount desert island maine too has gone democratic and willie and i, we're going to get maps, we'll get steve kornacki to dig into this but we're getting the final results from towns going democratic. bar harbor, mount desert, the swing district that willie worried about so much, southwest harbor went democratic. tremont, 460-282. willie, you wouldn't have said this in the past bust the democrats won 70% of the vote on mdi and as said before as goes northeast harbor so goes france. this is big news. >> we'll be right back on good morning bangor. >> so product of it. >> monica lewinsky is revisiting the scandal that put her and bill clinton in the spot lights. we'll talk to the director of the new documentary series the clinton affair along with new helpful hints on how you broil that lobster just right for thanksgiving. as good morning bank bagor conts on "morning joe". r continue on "morning joe" ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with $0 down, $0 due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. only at your lincoln dealer. and a complimentary first month's payment. you'll make my morning, buty the price ruin my day.ou? 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>> i lived through these events. honestly i'm embarrassed at how little i knew. we spent the last year diving into this. >> yeah. >> and so much, one of the big things i didn't know is how long the relationship went on. it was a two year affair. the relationship has been so misconstrued. and the thing that really kind of disturbed me is that when the story breaks there's a very long period of time monica lewinsky is not able to speak publicly, she's in legal jeopardy. really the media and public have a heyday and she's unable to speak and no one comes out the defend her and she's left out there on her own for many months. then we hear the trip tapes. so it's a very -- i can't imagine living through something like that. >> no. we have more from the docu series that i want to show as we move along here. let's show another clip right now. take a look. >> there was a point for me somewhere in this sort of first several hours where i would be hysterically crying and then just shut down. in the shut down period i remember looking out the window and thinking that the only way to fix this was to kill myself. was to jump out the window. and i just, i felt terrible. i was scared, and i just -- i was mortified and afraid what this was going to do to my family. and, you know, i still was in love with bill at the time. so i felt really responsible. >> it's incredible, blair. and i'm sort of trying to think back of the women in the white house at the time and why there wasn't more sympathy, even i think from hillary. is that going too far? it just seems like she was so young and to be put in this position. so scared. i mean i guess did you discover anything in your research where it seemed she was really culpable, responsible and completely the aggressor? >> she's been very honest and forthright about taking responsibility. this was an affair. and i don't think that -- it's totally understandable that hillary clinton would not want to come out in her defense. i think, monica the first thing she did when she was able to speak publicly was to apologize to hillary and chelsea and the thing i learned there are no heroes in this story and she's very clear she takes full responsibility for making some very bad choices. but it was a little surprising to me, especially on the heels -- you know we're only a few years away from the anita hill hearings, for example. there were not really any women coming to her defense to say maybe we need to kind of keep this in perspective and proportion. what she did was wrong, but perhaps she doesn't need to be vilified to this degree. >> blair, it to ask you about the title of this series. may seem like a small thing. for 20 years this episode in american history has been known as the lewinsky affair. you call at any time clinton affair. why was that significant to you? >> there's a really moving moment in the film when monica talks about effect it had on her family. one of the biggest things for me doing this series is meeting her and other people in the series. these are real humans. when you strip away the political lens you appreciate the devastating effect it had on them. i think she's been disproportionately saddled with the scandal. there were two people involved in this. i think it's about time to kind of maybe shift the focus and rebalance that and remind people that there was another person involved in this. >> there's such an irony here. in today's me too world obviously the men rightfully so that gets vilified. people forget the next 20 years from her, a number of years ago she reached out to me looking for employment. i sat down with her. i was so taken with how bright and engaging and interesting that i walked down to our ceo's office we have monica as our account director. we can't do that. how she had this scarlet letter. it just wasn't the embarrassment of the clinton affair, she couldn't work, she couldn't get jobs in corporate america. what a victim she was and you talk about a kid also. she was telling me a story when she was 22 they show up. we're taking your mother to jail if you don't come with us. the overwhelmingness and that she's still scarred. she can't let go of it because it's her identity at the same time but yet she needs to. did you feel this kind of trapped -- i'm damned if i do, damned if i don't kind of thing. >> i felt that with monica. i interviewed all of these women sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't. if you don't speak about it other people speak about the story. if they do speak they are accused of trying to get rich off of it. none of them have wanted to be famous off of it. so i think for monica, i know for many, many years it's been a struggle to find an actual job. and so i can't fathom that. >> using her platform more recently for the anti-bullying, she's done a lot of good with her name. you mentioned linda tripp's name. monica lewinsky talked about her decision to confide in linda tripp. >> for the last two weeks leading up to the election i didn't hear from him at all. i had naively invested in his promise and expected woe have won the election and within the first few days he would have called and okay, great, where do you want to work? that didn't happen. i had this nagging insecurity, maybe he just did all of these things these last six months because he was trying to keep me quiet during the election. how stupid am i that i believed this, that i bought this. i felt so deflated and so desperate and those were the conditions along with some other things that led to me confiding in linda tripp. >> so, bill and hillary clinton, did you hear from them on this? they were both questioned about it of late. bill clinton got quite defensive with an nbc reporter. and hillary clinton pushed back saying she was an adult and deflected on something else, as if that's it. she was an adult. her choice. i'm not sure. i feel like she was a child in the white house. with the president of the united states. can you give me a sense of the age range and i just, i would feel sympathy if i was in this situation, which i would hate to be. i'm sorry. i would be angry but i would fe sympathy for the 22-year-old, how old was she? >> she was 22 when the affair first started. turning 24, 25 during 1998 when this story broke. that's been an interesting debate i think with a plot of people i talk to. will youzy anne goldberg said in the field, she was a child. others say at two, she's an adult. for me i focus on the reaction the disproportionate reaction. he's the president of the united states, perhaps he should take some responsibility. it shouldn'tbull all be thrust on monica. she's the one that carried the burden on this. shouldn't he be also held accountable in the same way to the same degree as he was? >> she finally has a voice. thank you. >> thank you. the clinton affair premiers on sunday night on -- a&e. it looks amazing. coming up, john conway, what his wife thinks about the attacks on her boss. we are back in a moment. when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event. help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com. and got them back on track. what if numbers tell onat t. rowe pricey? our experts go beyond the numbers to examine investment opportunities firsthand. like e-commerce spurring cardboard demand. the pursuit of allergy-free peanuts. and mobile payment reaching new markets. this is strategic investing. because your investments deserve the full story. t.rowe price. invest with confidence. [ready forngs ] christmas? no, it's way too early to be annoyed by christmas. you just need some holiday spirit! that's it! this feud just went mobile. with xfinity xfi you get the best wifi experience at home. and with xfinity mobile, you get the best wireless coverage for your phone. ...you're about to find out! you don't even know where i live... hello! see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. special counsel robert mueller typically convenes his federal grand jury on fridays, like today. we have just learned he is delaying updates on two high ranking members on the president's 2016 campaign team. in a new filing, the special counsel's office asked for a delay in updating a judge about a former campaign chairman paul manafort's cooperation in the russia investigation, saying they will have more to report in ten days. a status report on manafort was due today. the mueller team said they will later submit a report that will be of greater i assistance in the court's management of this matter. this just days after the special counsel delayed the sentencing of manafort's deputy rick gates, citing his involvement in the probe. with attorneys from mueller and gates confirming in a wednesday filing that gates' quote continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations and accordingly the parties do not believe it is appropriate to commence the sentencing scene processed at this time. i guess they're being so helpful. still ahead, we have much more on the russia investigation including what the president let slip. that's raising even more questions about possible obstruction of justice. "morning joe" is coming right back. justice "morning joe" is coming right back ♪ ♪ ♪ the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ with one notable exception. ♪ that skills like teamwork, attention to detail, and customer service are critical to business success. like the ones we teach here, every day. discover card. and customer service are i justis this for real?match, yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover. so a and as if thatyour brwasn't bad enough,tals it. now your insurance won't replace it outright because of depreciation. if your insurance won't replace your car, what good is it? you'd be better off just taking your money and throwing it right into the harbor. i'm regret that. with new car replacement, if your brand-new car gets totaled, liberty mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it's 8:00 on the east coast. 35:00 a.m.-on-out west. along with joe, willie and me, we have donny deutsche with us and republican strategist and msnbc strategist susan del percio. historian and author of the history of marc, john meacham, an msnbc contributor and nbc news national reporter heidi pryzbilla. let's go to the questions over what has inspired president trump's two days of public tirades against special counsel robert mueller's probe into the 2016 election. yesterday trump tweeted, universities will some day study what highly conflicted and not senate approved bob mueller and his gang of democrat thugs have done to destroy people. stop right there. >> it's too easy. so, mika, do you know what university would be studying this? if it had not already been shut down by proper authorities? >> it's too much of a hangnail. don't do it. don't do the trump university thing. >> you just did it for me. that's why you are here. >> my gosh, donny. >> they would do it at trump university. but no where else. mika, he goes on talking about crooked hillary, comey -- >> he is getting the questions from mueller, freaking out, i know one cannot make that connection. but one can certainly surmise that at the time the questions from the mueller probe are coming into this white house at the time the democrats have control and the president is finally being educated of the fact that there is nothing he can do when he is compelled to hand over his tax returns and answer questions. at the time that the president finally realizes that the first time in his life he is cornered and there is nowhere to go. programs, at the time, one might surmise perhaps his son is potentially on the list of those who might be indicted that this president is freaking out. >> you may surmise. >> i'm surmiseing. >> there are reports that don jr. told friends he might be indicted in the next couple things. >> everything. >> that came after the president claimed to know the inner workings of the mueller investigation, saying they had no collusion, which, of course, is ridiculous. they've gone absolutely nuts. they are screaming and shouting at people, et cetera, et cetera. this remind me susan del percio of what john heilemann said is almost everything donald trump blurts out on his twitter feed is a projection or confessional. >> it is. it would be laughable if it wasn't so pathetic, frankly. and to have a president of the united states spinning out of control and focused only on himself and fought on our country at this point is devastating. we have the g-20 coming up. we have forth korea testing missiles again. we have a lot of things going on. this president is strictly wrapped up in himself and he is spinning out of control. >> and so why is he doing that? well, mika mentioned it, as they were preparing final questions, the special counsel submitted weeks ago. the president met e spent more than four hours with attorneys and 90 minutes wednesday night according to people familiar with sessions who tell washington post. trump attorney rudy guiliani and others briefed on the questions tell the paper there are at least two dozen questions, all of which relate to activitys and episodes from before president trump's election. quote, there are some that create more issues for us legally than others, guiliani said, adding that some were unnecessary. some were possible traps and we might consider some as irrelevant and more evidence that the special counsel appears to be at the front of the president's mind as displayed in the transcript of his wednesday interview with "the daily caller." he was asked about the acting of assigning whitaker. trump responded saying this. assigning whitaker trump responded saying this. that answer being compared to president trump's may 2017 response to a question about the firing of fbi director james comey. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. >> so, joe, go back to the "daily caller" interview the president is asked about acting attorney general whitaker and finds himself almost to the mueller investigation. >> he just walks, he just walks into it. why don't -- maybe for christmas this year, so somebody can get a stamp and make it a lot easier for him that says obstruction on it and stamp it on his forehead. because it's so obviously. you look at what he said there. you look at what he said like you said to lester holt, what he told the russian foreign minister the russian ambassador of the united states, about the firing of comey. i mean, this guy, donny, he obstructs in plain light. you don't have to be -- >> exactly. >> you don't have to be sperlock. like, he obstructs in the light of day. >> ha ha. >> the absurd moves you make will get heightened. we are seeing a different guy now. donald trump a few weeks ago was scary. you know, he was -- i say he was like bonnville and gold finger. now he's dr. evil. he comes on and doesn't get angle. you chuck him. there is a patheticness that hasn't been there in the past. donald trump has been in the word control. in the lowest part of his life. when are you a company and you are bankrupt, you own the banks, you say take the keys. so he's never not been in control and we're going to see now a cabled animal. i think we will see behavior so much more abhorrent to anything we've seen. if you just watch this man. there is a greater movie the seduction of joe tynan. with alan alda, at some point talks french at a hearing. i think we will see something in the coming weeks, some of the tweets go to a new level that even republicans are going to start to come out from under the rocks. >> yeah. i think so john meacham, we had a discussion time and again, you, i, mika, talking about whether the institutions would hold. they have held, most importantly, voters went out and provided the ultimate madisonian check on donald trump's power with their vote last week. but it's happening everywhere. you look at a federal judge. we will be talking about this story in a minute. you look at a federal judge this i guess it was yesterday in the d.c. circuit, who was asked by the trump administration to, the deal set back to the mueller investigation and throw out some charges. the federal judge appointed by donald trump refused and said they've done nothing wrong. i think again, maybe when you do the soul of america part 2, maybe in the soul of america's institutions, they have not been found wanting as of yet, have they? >> thigh haven't yet. that's why my money is on madison, not twitter. i might lose, unquestionable. i think there is a durability and also to ultimately the popular pressure. as you know better than anybody, congress is far more often a mirror of who we are rather than a molder. and my sense is that particularly with the new house of representatives and i would imagine a republican senate caucus, that we at least be looking at things like the orange county results, looking at the results from the past week or two. and saying, you know what, we hooked our wagon to this guy, but we don't have that wagon go straight off the cliff with the entire trump organization, speaking russian instead of france. >> not true. >> i just wonder, i just wonder. remember, of all the people that have been with donald trump. if you were with ronald reagan, if you were with nixon, if you were with george w. bush, you were there because you believed to some extent in the person as well. trump's official base, the people in washington, are hired hands. they're not true believers, it seems to me and the congressional base lives in fear of him, but fear is not going to i think if fear is what's driving them, fear of their voters ultimately is going to be more compelling than fear of trump, himself and we might, might, might be beginning to see that. >> mm-hmm. so here are the details of that story joe just mentioned. a federal judge is refusing to toss out the case by special counsel robert mueller against a russian business accused of helping to fund moscow's efforts to meddle in the 2016 election. the judge yesterday ruled against the firm, concord management and consulting, which had been seeking to have the indictment against it dismissed, saying prosecutors made up a crime to score political points for the probe and to prove its legitimacy. the company the accused of using an extensive social media campaign to influence the election. in her 31-page opinion, the judge who president trump appointed to the u.s. district court of d.c. last year rejected concord's claim. she says prosecutors properly charged the business with trying to obstruct the functions of the u.s. government by avoiding foreign election and lobbying disclosure requirements. concord is owned by a russian businessman known as putin's chef, due to his close ties with the russian president. the judge said no. >> and, willie, there is another great example again of a federal judges especially from the very beginning have proven that whitaker's wrong, that the federal judiciary is an equal branch to the executive and to the legislative branches and it's proven time and time again, whether they're republicans, democrats, whether they're appointed by donald trump or barack obama, you know what, they follow the law and they hold this president and others in check. >> and it's another reminder that this investigation is going to continue. the president can tweet, he can scream. mike pence can say in may it's trial to wrap it up. rudy guiliani can go on every sunday show and talk about why this investigation has to end. they can file lawsuits. this investigation will continue, heidi pryzbilla, until bob mueller decides what he has to make a case or to present a case that nothing happened, that the president had nothing to do with interference and the country can move on from it. but everything we see on twitter from the president. everything we saw yesterday, once again, just noise and it's noise that bob mueller is not listening to. >> reporter: well the question, willie, is whether you can draw a direct line between the president's behavior and what he knows that the rest of us don't know. >> right. >> reporter: like mika said, they've had those questions for a while, why aren't they answering them? we also know there may be other sealed indictments. what does the president and his team know about potential indictments against people in his administration and maybe even in his inner circle? and you can definitely draw a direct line between his tweets and his meetings with his lawyers, which we know he had a 90-minute meeting on wednesday with his lawyers. with one thing that we know for certain is that this is, indeed, is calculating. you hear from don jr., himself, as well as folks like roger stone saying they may expect themselves to be indicted. roger stone releasing those texts in order to try to buffer himself, to say that no, actually, randy creditco was the guy the go-between with wikileaks so es calculation on several fronts. the question is when is mueller going to come forward with whatever his final determination is. conce certainly, he didn't want to find himself in the same position comey was in, being accused of dumping things before an election. well, we're past that election now. still ahead on "morning joe," more and more concerned lawyers are speaking out about the president's blatant rule of law. they were organized by kellyanne conway's husband, george conway. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i am a family man. i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. a group of more than a dozen prominent lawyers are urging material fellow conservatives to speak out about what they call the trump administration's betrayal of the bed roc of legal norms. the group calls themselves checks and balances and two of their members join us now. senior associate king and spalding marissa mallock and assistant secretary for policy at the u.s. homeland security and former senior counsel for the ken starr investigation paul rosensweig. he is now a professorial lecture and law at the george washington university. good to have you both on board. marissa, i'll start with you. you're a conservative lawyers. why was this necessary? >> there are so many reasons why this is necessary. >> try. >> right from the beginning, i was a part of a group two signed a letter called originalists against trump. i was concerned, because this guy was running for president since early 2000s, switched parties for as long as he has been able to vote, essentially. i was really concerned about his principles, whether or not he had any. he soon proved to have very little and what you seen is him really corroding legal norms and the rule of law, between talking about birth right citizenship, which is clearly unconstitutional under the 14th amendment to the newest appointment of the acting attorney general. he has normalized ignoring legal norms and it's time for someone to speak up against it. >> i'm wondering, palm, if for you, early on in the administration, when the president questioned the legal authority of a republican appointed federal judge in washington state if that wasn't when a lot of alarm bells went off for you. it certainly was for me when, you know, i think the first time in my lifetime, i remembered a president of the united states actually questioning the authority of a federal judge because he didn't like the outcome of the case. >> i think that's right. everybody has their own breaking point in this story. for me it's gone back to a while, the first-hand you referred to, a president essentially saying that the independent should not be independent. the concept of checks and balances that is at the core of our group's activity. likewise, interference in criminal investigations, suggesting the department of justice should investigate your political opponent or not investigate your political allies, those sorts of things are beyond normal. they're beyond the bounds of what is normal political discourse. and normal political disagreement and they really strike at very fundamental values of american society. >> you know, marissa, i wonder, and i'm sure you have had, you clerked for clarence thomas, i'm sure, like me, you grew up with a lot of republican friends and a lot of republican family members who wonder why you didn't fall mind ply in line for trump. is there a separate -- >> i actually -- >> really in. >> i actually have democrats as parents. i just happened to read when i was 12 and utterly corrupted. >> my god i love it. >> so your last two or three years, at family reunions. be that as it may, i wonder if you've noticed let's say among your friends in washington, if you have conservative friends in washington, it's the lawyers that understand more. when i talk about the breaching of constitutional norms and i start talking about the president not respecting the power of the federal judiciary and madisonian checks and balances, a lot of my friends eyes glaze however. it seems conservatives lawyers, though, that i talk to seem to get it a bit more and understand why even if a guy is cutting taxes and appointing people to the supreme court that you may like, it's still not enough if somebody is breaching constitutional norms? >> i totally agree with that. what's a little concerning is i do think people look at him and say, well, look at all these judges, we're really shaping the judiciary. let's sort of ignore it. he's sort of blustering. his words have legal affect. when he tweets something, people respond. to me it's not enough to say we have justice kavanaugh, justice gorsuch. there is nothing to see here. there is plenty of things when you start corroding constitutional norms over time and switching our dialogue about it. all of a sudden we don't have a functioning democracy any more. and coming up on morning joe, we'll actually hear from george conway, himself. we'll explain that, plus, if you thought american politics were chaotic right now, just look at what's happening in the uk. the brexit deal is in crisis and so is the government there. the british ambassador to the united states joins us next to help us explain what exactly is going on. "morning joe" is back in a moment. joining us now the british ambassador to the united states. mr. ambassador, thank you for being on this morning. we will get to the turmoil surrounding brexit in just a moment. first we want to ask you about the recent reporting by the washington post about the phone call. president trump had last we'll be right back with british prime minister teresa may. sources tell the "post" that an board air force one last friday, trump lost his cool with the prime minister, who had called to congratulate him on the mid-terms. he reportedly berated may on iran, trade, brexit, among other topics. do you have any more information on that call and exactly how would you describe the special relationship? how it's doing between the u.s. and britain? >> well, good morning. i have seen the washington post reports. i have also seen a record of the prime minister's conversation with the president last week. i thought it was a very good discussion they had. it was substantive. they talked about british politics, about the american politics, about the outcome of the mid-terms. the prime minister briefed the president on where we were on brexit. he talked about middle east. it was exactly the kind of substance-heavy serious conversation that the prime minister and the president have regularly. i seen the two of them together quite a lot and they have a very good personal relationship. and when they get towing, they talk about the issues. we corner agree on absolutely everything. for example, the u.s. has withdrawn from the iran nuclear deal. we are still supporting it. so we cover issues where we have disagreements as well as very large areas where we agree. and it's very good that they have these kind of substance-heavy serious lengthy conversations regularly. so, i wouldn't quite accept here the washington post's account of it. >> sow think the washington post's account of it is incorrect? >> the tone was not what i am told, the tone. the tone report in the washington post was not the tone that i understood the conversation to have had. and as i say, i think it's a very good thing that the two leaders when they talk, and they talk regularly, every two or three weeks, cover all of the substance and they can talk openly about areas where we have some disagreements and try and resolve those as well as the many, many areas where we are exactly in the same case so i think it's a very good relationship between the two of them. and, you know, it's good that they can cover all of this stuff regularly. >> so let's talk about what's going on with brexit. yesterday, a multitude of prime minister teresa may's cabinet minsters resigned in protest of a fragile brexit deal struck between great britain and the eu. >> that includes the prime minister's main negotiator brexit secretary domenic raab. and the bbc reports that another cabinet minister michael gove rejected the offer tore the next brexit secretary reportedly because it would not let him make changes or renegotiate the deem. the deal neath neeeds passage f parliament. the britain pound plunged, following the news. what does the minister need to do, mr. ambassador to keep the government together. >>. >> you are right a couple cabinet minsters resigned yesterday. in our system, if you have a strong disagreement with a piece of government policy, that's the appropriate and honorable thing to do and have the greatest respect for the ministers who took that, those decisionles. i'd also point out, though, if you look at the air waves this morning, two strot supporters, have been out there saying that they support the deal the prime minister has done and cabinet overall supported it the day before the yesterday. so what you she will now do, having negotiated, i believe a very good, very strong deal, that is very much in british interests, and the deliverers what the british people asked for when they voted brexit. she will now have a summit with the european leaders in a couple of weeks to get their signoff on the deal and then she will take it to parliament for a vote in early december to get parliamentary approval for it. and my expectation is it will go through because, of course, it's a compromise, of course, whichever side of the argument you are on, whether you remain on leave, there are things in this cool you may not think are perfect but as a way forward that delivers what the british people have voted for, you are not going to do better than this, so this is a deal i hope and expect everyone will support, ultimately. >> ambassador, susan del percio here. you certainly have proved yourself to be the diplomat in how you handled that first question. but there are certain challenges, aren't there, with how the behavior of the u.s. has changed so much with so many of its allies. how do you and maybe some of your colleagues, what are the biggest challenges you have in dealing with the administration now? >> i don't quite agree with your characterization. >> it's perceived here. let's put it this way. it's perceived in the u.s. that this president has strained relationships with leaders abroad. >> yeah. the president has very good relations with my prime minister and government to government, we do a huge amount together. there is a lot of interaction a lot of cooperation at every level. it's still a relationship that feels exceptional and you know i think the future for it is very strong. as i've said, there are one of two issues where we disagree. there are between every british government and every u.s. administration, issues where we disagree. but there is such a strong dialogue between our leaders and between our senior minsters and between officials that we can find ways to move forward together even in areas where we have had some disagreements. so i feel very positive about the relationship. i think it's very strong and the, you know the prospects are very good. >> reporter: british ambassador to the united states, sir kim darroch, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you. up next a personality call, that's what kelly anne conway says has become of the republican party under trump, personality cult. we'll hear more next on "morning joe." l hear more next on "mornig joe. a once-in-five hundred year storm should happen every five hundred years, right? fact is, there have been twenty-six in the last decade. allstate is adapting. with drones to assess home damage sooner. and if a flying object damages your car, you can snap a photo and get your claim processed in hours, not days. plus, allstate can pay your claim in minutes. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? how's all your activity, anti-trump administration going down with kelly anne? >> i don't think she likes it. i told her i don't like the administration. it's even, if i had a nickel for everybody in washington that disagreed with their spouse about something that happens in that town, know i wouldn't be on this podcast, i'd be on a beach somewhere. the fact of the matter is we agree on policy things, all, ever, this is the one thing we really disagree about. >> do you guys thrash it about at home over dinner? >> no. no. it's really not necessary. >> one little thing they disagree about. that was outspoken critic of president trump, george conway, or mr. kellyanne conway as he refers to himself these days, off the president's initial naming of. that that an exclusive in-depth interview on the skull duggery podcast. joining us, the co-host, daniel collideman and chief investigative correspondent for yahoo news, michael isicoff. guys, it's great to have you back. dan, he doesn't hold back, clearly, we've seen that in his tweets and public statements. it doesn't seem to me he hedges much on his criticism. he doesn't say anything. >> his tweets when they started early in this administration were more subtle. then they got much more pointed. he didn't give any interviews until this one on skull duggery. i was struck. we didn't know how he was going to deal with it. i was struck at how clearly and unequivocally he went after the president to the point at one point i asked him. is the moupresident stable? long long pause, and said no comment. >> that long comment spoke volumes. he said he left the party largely because of trump and how the party has kind of dealt with him. and supported him. he said that if he had a choice now to chose again for either hillary clinton or donald trump, he doesn't know what he would do. he said originally he considered hillary clinton the greater or trump the lesser of two evils. he can't say that anymore. so pretty extraordinary. >> you mentioned, i want to get one more clip, susan. then you take it away. er you mentioned the turn for george conway when he decided to take on the president. here's his axe planation of that. >> is there a moment you found so appalling that you had to speak out? >> you know, somebody asked me that question the other day. i think it was just a whole -- i think the things that really bugged me the most were the tweets at sessions and the justice department. the fault that the president was, you know, was this recusal thing and i never heard a coherent explanation of why he shouldn't have recuse himself, and to the contrary, everybody that i have talked to who either is connected to the justice department or at the white house counsel's office, you know, nobody said that the recusal question was the plaque and white. >> you know, it's interesting. because george conway is more than just kellyanne conway's husband. he has had an established career. these are not things that are being done just to kind of create this image or this relationship wondering where they're going to go next? is this a carvel moment thing? can you go a little more on how you went into depth on some of these issues with george and really how he is capable of explaining and detail something. >> yeah. >> the differences? >> it's a good point. i want to go back to what joe said in the previous segment. he talked about how these conservative lawyers get these issues more than other people. they understand these sort of as conway put it, these timeless principles. the rule of law and sort of our constitutional values, transcend partisan politics. i think he is deeply offended by the way in which trump has in his view subverted the rule of law. now, what we saw in that clip was, what really, what was really the turning point was the way that trump attacked the justice department. by the way the justice department had almost came within a hair's breath of working for, but withdrew his name because of some of the things he saw trump doing, tweeting, saying, in terms of attacking the justice department. one last thing is conway has been consistent in these views. you know, some people remember, will remember that he was one of the lawyers who behind the scenes was going after bill clinton in the paula jones case and monica lewinsky for some of the same things. subverting the rule of law, lying about conduct, which he considered to be outrageous. mostly, it was the idea that he was lying under oath. he was claiming some kind of immunity. he was above the law. and so, you know, all these years later, he sees trump in a different context, doing some of the same things and he just couldn't tolerate it. >> in fact, george conway formed this group, checks and balances. we had two conservative lawyers talking about their protests thousand president violated constitutional norms and talked about the justice department. as you sat there, mike with george conway, what jumped out at you at him being most offended by the presidency? . >> i think what danny was saying the subversion of the rule of law. you know, early on in the interview, he seized on one of the president's tweets back if you remember right of the justice department had brought indictments against two republican congressmen, chris collins and duncan hunter and trump was, you know, saying, oh, right on the eve of the mid-terms, my attorney general is bringing indictments against two republican congressmens, way to go. you know, ag sessions. and conway says, i was appalled. i was appalled. the idea that the president of the united states would be talking about, you know, indictments, a legal process in crass political terms was so offensive to him that, you know, it clearly inspired him to do this, to set up, part of one of the reasons to set up this organization. but, you know, also, i just want to say, i mean, first of all, he is a -- i hope people have a chance to listen to the whole interview. it's really remarkable. he is a funny guy. he's zesty. he pulls no punches. you know, the -- his evolution is so striking. two short years ago, he tells us he wept with joy at the election of donald trump. mostly out of pride for his wife's role in pulling it off and getting him elected. he gives his wife full credit fosh for rescuing donald trump's candidacy, getting him on message and helping to win the election. and to go from where -- weeping joy and pride two years ago to from he is today, probably the most stinging critic of the -- of this presidency from the right is an amazing journey. >> you also asked conway on the podcast, whether president trump poses a threat to our long-term institutions. here's what george conway had to say about that. >> the tweets like the witch hunt tweets, like this morning's tweets, they're corrosive. and even if they don't actually have a legal effect and they're not executed with a order of any tort, they have a corrosive effect i think over the medium to long term into the perceptions of i think the public on what is, how the system operates. . >> dan, just going back to the school yard, did you ask him how he felt about being called mr. kellyanne conway? that's about that as low as can you go on a guy in. >> he claimed he called himself mr. kellyanne conway, i think two a little different meaning than the way president trump called him mr. kellyanne conway. there is no love lost there between him and donald trump. he did say that they've met a couple of times since trump was elected. but he also said that if he had to vote again and maybe he will have to in 2020, he'd rather go to some nice beach in australia than vote for donald trump. i mean, the kind of contempt he has for this president, you know, you will hear all throughout this pod cast. it's pretty striking. >> all right. the podcast is skull duggery, a must listen. guys, good to see you both. thanks. our next guest says there was a time when our country was more polarized than it is today. the good news, america survivinged. the bad news, it took a civil war. we'll discuss that next on "morning joe." vil war. we'll discuss that next on "morning joe." so she started making cakes to support us. the first account that we opened was with bank of america. since then, we have grown exponentially. to me, food is love. and i think food brings people together. everything in life is about giving back. you're only as good as what you leave behind, when you leave this world. ♪ means they won't hike your rates over one mistake. see, liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ five-year cancer survivor. being diagnosed with cancer made me rethink everything in my life. the things that became important to me were the relationships with people. we pulled together closer as a family. i had so many people at ctca helping me find a way to go through the treatments, to prepare me for anything i would've faced. cancer showed me what true living is all about. so i started helping at a school for special needs children. i think they do more for me than i do for them. the reality of cancer is not everybody survives. surviving for five years is a big deal. at ctca, they have a huge celebrate life event. that was amazing because the whole day was about all of the survivors. i'm not exactly sure what's ahead of me, but i'm excited about my future. visit cancercenter.com to schedule an appointment now. the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ with one notable exception. ♪ winning audience awards greeacross the country.ovie he's only the greatest piano player in the world. there's no better way to spend the holidays than with viggo mortensen and mahershala ali. that's a handsome suit. guys looks just like you. they're so good, you'll wish the movie would never end. where'd you learn how to play like that? 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[ laughter ] as america goes deeper into a divided political era, a new book looks at how another generation of leaders tried to hold the country together. joining us now, "new york times" best selling author, h.b. brans. the epic rivalry of henry clay, john calhoun and daniel webster, the second generation of american giants. phil, why did you choose to write about this era? >> because there's been an enormous amount written on the revolutionary war era and the civil war era. but the period in between is kind of like flyover country. congress was the initiator. that's the way the framers designed it. it's the most detailed. during this period, that's the way things ran. it was also a time when compromise was considered a political vi political virtue. i tell it through the lives of three great members of congress in the era, clay, calhoun and webster. >> so these rock stars of this generation, what was the approach to politics in this flyover section of the country, as you call it? are there any parallels you see erupting now? >> the era was when compromise was understood as the way to move things forward. what happened after they died, the spirit of compromise died with them. within ten years, the country was at civil war. there was a period in the 20th century was compromise was admirable. even the reagan administration. all the big pictures were passed with bipartisan majorities. since then, it's largely gone by the boards. i don't want to say exactly a civil war ahead but i do see alarming parallels. >> what were there achievements that compromise played into? >> there's one big controversy on the tariff. this is before president trump was elected, i thought, i'm going to have a hard time getting readers to engage in this. but the tariff was a big issue. the abiding issue was slavery. how does slavery fit into the promise that all men are created equal? the missouri compromise. the compromise of 1850 brought california in as a free state but had to give something to the south and it give the fugitive slave act. an example of a compromise that pleases nobody entirely but didn't displease nobody enough they would decide to just knock the table over. >> you said there was a vacuum which led up to the civil war. if we're going to say -- i don't want to say a vacuum period but a tenuous period. >> until recently, i thought there was no chance that our current time would look like the 1850s. because the most divisive issue was slavery. it was north against south. it's entirely possible it was a geographic separation of the union. until recently, our divide has been partisan, rather than sectional. as the red states get redder, it's not impossible to imagine oregon, california and washington deciding, you know, we had enough of this. support roe v. wade gets overturned and a move to prohib prohibit abortion, then there will parts of the country that say we can't live like this. >> his new book, "heirs of the founders," is out now. while president trump works on his wall, the gop leaders are working on avoiding a potential shutdown. committee chairman shelby told reporters that trump didn't say i'm going to keep the government open. shelby went on to say, quote, i think maybe trump agreed on avoiding a shutdown but wasn't entirely sure. president trump's staff has warned him that he may not get the $4 billion requested for the wall's construction. current government funding is set to expire on december 7 which could trigger a partial shutdown. susan. >> it's just so interesting, we just had a guest on talking about the importance of compromise and how it's the fabric of its history. now you have a president that only sees things as winning or losing. that's where i think a lot of us are. >> i want to watch over the next couple of weeks as donald trump is in the new frontier of being a loser and media meltdown moments. he's alone in the white house every night. he basically, pacine inpacing, richard nixon talking to the portraits. >> i'm expecting more deflections. it doesn't seem pose aebl any of his deflections will work. but you never know. president trump is expected to visit california tomorrow where there was a dramatic rise in the number of people unaccounted for in the camp four. it skyrocketed by more than 500 yesterday. of 631 people missing, many of them elderly. the death toll has also climbed to 63. seven more bodies were discovered. officials say it's now 40% contained. only 40%. public schools across the bay area will be closed today. i think there's a lot more to be learned about the impact of the either quality. we'll be following this. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, plugging the wikileak. court files reveal the information about julian assange. lashing out with some of his strongest language in months against the special counsel. in the state of california, a staggering number. over 600 people are still missing from the

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