More including several big developments in the russia probe. Why the names Julian Assange and donald trump jr. Are back in the headlines. Plus, the president says his gut tells him more b than anyones brain. And republicans hold on to that last Undecided Senate seat while House Democrats are prepping a fullcourt press this january. Welcome to morning joe on this wednesday, november 28th. Im willie geist alongside heidi prisbella, mike barnacle, eddie gloud jr. And rick tyler. How are we doing this morning . Good. Ready to go . Yes. Weve got a lot to get to. Sort of okay. Its a slow roll for barnacle. Probably about 7 30 hes ready to go. Lets start with the new in the Mueller Probe in just a moment. But first, republican senator cindy hydesmith is the projected win he ner of mississippis runoff. Hydesmith won yesterdays election with 54 of the vote to become the first woman elected to congress from mississippi. She will serve out the remaining two years of Thad Cochrans turn with the seat returning to the ballot in 2020. Hydesmith was appointed to replace cochran earlier this year after he resigned. Republicans now will hold a 53 47 majority in the senate in january. That is a net gain for republicans of two seats. So lets go right to the big board where we find steve kornacki. Steve, how did cindy hydesmith do it . You can see that nine hours ago i was sitting here and thinking, things are looking surprisingly interesting in mississippi. Steve, we dont have your mike at the moment. So well get you a microphone which is always important when making television and well get right back to you in just a second. Eddie, let me talk to you. Mississippi native. Weve been talking about this for many months. It was always a long shot. It was always an uphill climb for mike espy. What do you think was the difference in this race . The spread was about 8 to 10 it turned out to be points. He was at home for thanksgiving and family members were canvassing and there were mixed results. Obviously, cindy hydesmith won the coast. We knew he had to have a large turnout among africanamerican voters and we knew there had to be a depressed turnout among republicans. What we saw is trumps presence in mississippi helped the turnout, particularly in rural areas of mississippi. But i think this is really important to say this, that espy ran a campaign to suggest the future of mississippi, that the coalition he built suggests that mississippi along with georgia, along with texas, along with florida, that the south is changing. And its changing in a way that suggests that the country broadly is changing. But lets put it this way, too, willie. 52 of mississippians are poor. 59 of mississippis children. I didnt say black people. I said 59 of mississippis children are poor. What we need to do is look at what cindy hydesmiths policies are with regard to health care, with regard to living wage. We need to understand what she represents. This is the last i think the the last breath of the inheritors of the plantation class that exploited mississippi for generations. Im beginning to see something here. Maybe thats me being hopeful, but i think something is happening. Dont you think the expectations were a little built up based on the alabama race where you had a uniquely flawed candidate in roy moore that you cannot transfer what happened in alabama to mississippi and you cannot win simply by ginning up the africanamerican base. The third factor has to be the crossover votes, the suburban educated voters and that block really wasnt there. Well, true. I think some people were comparing it to alabama. But i think folks knew that he had a hard road ahead of him, that this was a long shot. But given the demographics of the state, they are the majority. Thats not right or left. Thats just right or wrong. Steve, pick it up for us. Interesting thing. You Start Talking about those suburban voters there. We saw some of these National Stories we talk about all the time start to play themselves out in mississippi last night. I was starting to say, thats why it got interesting early in the night and political gravity reasserted itself. Desoto county, hydesmith wins it 59 41. But check this out. That was a 10point jump from mike espy from what Hillary Clinton did and a 10point jump from what barack obama was able to do in 2012 and 2012 was about as good as its gotten now for a democrat in mississippi. So we start to look at that and say, look, if espy is starting to overperform there in mississippi, thats a new piece of it from democrat. Add in strong support from black voters and third you would need hydesmith for the republican vote there in the rural areas. You would need that to be down a little bit. You would need her number to be dented a little bit. Thats the thing that didnt happen for democrats in mississippi, particularly in the northeast part of the state. Hidesmith was getting big turnout. She had getting much higher support than mitt romney got in 2012. She was getting very close to the donald trump level. This is that other National Dynamic we talk about all the time in the trump era. That is predominantly rural white voters. So the democratic growth in the suburbs, residual republican strength in the rural areas, what it adds up to in mississippi for democrats is there are some pockets. We say outside memphis, Madison County is another one. There was a jump here. Espy got 46 , lit clinton got 41. So there were some suburbs in mississippi that could get espy closer than a democrat normally does. They just ran out. Not enough suburbs in mississippi for them. Steve kornacki, thanks very much. Rick tyler, given what happened in the house where there was a wave, 40 seats at this point, what happened on the state level, the Senate Republicans picked up a couple of seats, 53 47 is the margin. Now that we have the midterms in the books, what are your broad thoughts . It was a wipeout for republicans. The senate map was like winning the lottery. So the senate map was very good for the republicans. But let me say this about cindy hydesmith. I would like to share eddies optimism, but im not sure i do. Cindy hydesmith was a terrible candidate. She was very gaffe prone. Shes policy bereft. She wouldnt debate anybody. She doesnt really know anything. And shes part of the red game in the south, which is they retire their senators so the governors can appoint, which is what happened to cindy hydesmith, what happened to roger wicker, and they get the same class of people that are part of the establishment and she was put there by the governor and she was supported by Mitch Mcconnell and thats the kind of candidate that they would pick. I think its horribly disconcerting. But if you play the long game, if you Pay Attention to how espy campaigned, f Democratic Party pays attention to what you did in mississippi, talking about health care and education, not just among poor people, but among working people. Thats a theme that the democrats can make huge inroads. Were going to come back to mississippi. Weve got breaking news according to Paul Manafort and mueller. Manaforts attorney has been briefing the president s lawyers with his meetings about the special counsels teams. Manaforts attorney repeatedly briefed the president s attorneys with meetings with muellers team. According to the report, Rudy Giuliani, one of the president s personal lawyers, acknowledged the arrangement on tuesday and defensed it as a source of valuable insight into the special counsels inquiry and where it was headed. Giuliani said in one example that manaforts lawyer told him prosecutors hammered away as whether the president knew about the infamous june 2016 trump tower meeting. Quote, he wants manafort to incriminate trump mr. Giuliani declared of mr. Mueller. This news comes one day after we learned the special counsel wants to scrap manaforts plea deal, claiming the former Trump Campaign chairman repeatedly lied to investigators, a claim manafort denies. Lets bring in Anna Scheckter with new reporting on the probe and she interviewed jerome corsi yesterday. Well get to that in a moment. But first, this development about manaforts tourneys basically briefing him and filling them in on what mueller was after. Well, i think this speaks directly to what weve known for a long time, which is that a pardon was really what manafort was looking for. And this just bolsters that. Its just clear that that was the plan from day one and it continued even after those plea negotiations began. So manafort had to know that mueller was going to find out one way or another, right . That he was going to go back and his attorneys were talking to the president s attorneys. Is that all he was going for was the pardon because he knows hes been incriminated in some way and so now his only way out of this thing was to help President Trump . It certainly appears that way, that that is what he was going for. Its pretty astounding to a guy who agreed to a plea deal, to do the opposite and work with the president s side. Its fairley common in cases where you are several defendants on a joint indictment that their lawyers communicate with one another. Its highly unusual for someone who has cut a plea deal and separated themselves from other defendants to continue cooperating like that. The interesting question, anna, i think not only to me but to others, is how close to they come to witness tampering in this case . I he mean, its kind of extraordinary. Thats a great question, but weve seen Rudy Giuliani do these bizarre things and he continues to say, well, there was nothing illegal about it. So that argument keeps coming up and yet here is another example of that. Anna, is the pardon really the end game here . I just feel like theres Something Else missing. Because if you read a lot of the coverage around this, manafort faces all kinds of crimes from which trump cannot protect hill, like Money Laundering and financial crimes, that theres something missing here in terms of why manafort would take this risk of lying to the special prosecutor. You dont lie to mueller because you get caught. So what is it, do you think, that is missing here in the big picture . Mr. Manafort is in a world of hurt. He is in hot water. And prosecutors can throw so much probably throw so much more at him. Theyve already thrown so much at him. So its unclear what his strategy is. Hes a dispratt person desp person at this point. He could be going for anything, but it does seem that currying faf with President Trump is his. Top priority at this point. Were getting new details about what roger stone associate, corsi, knew about the Wikileaks Dumps. Nbc news has object stained information. Included in that document are emails from c orsi to stone sem to go anticipate the email dump. Corsi writes, word is friend in embassy plans two more jumps, referring to Julian Assange, adding one shortly after im back. Second in october. Impact planned to be very damaging. He also wrote time to let more than john podesta to be sxloexp. Corsi scrubbed his computer between mid january and early march of last year deleting all email correspondence that predated october 11th, 2016, including the messages with stone about wikileaks. Corsi said he guested about the podesta email dump and just happened the to be right. I believe these Podesta Emails would destroy hillary. Why did i think they were coming out in october . Because i said to myself, if i had these emails, im use them as the october surprise. But you didnt know that at the time, did you . This is speculation. Well, you didnt exactly write to him that it would be no, i did, though, explain that to hill. Theres some phone conversations i had with him. So he essentially told stone exactly what was going to happen . Yes. What i told the special are prosecutor was i thought i was giving roger a cover story. In other words, i was allowing him to have an alternative explanation for why he said podesta is going to be in the barrel based on my research on podesta. So you were telling him that he could use this story even if it wasnt true . Absolutely. The Court Papers Show mueller sent corsi a draft plea agreement. It stipulated the special counsel would request a sentence of probation if he agreed to plead guilty of lying to investigators. C a corsi says he rejected the deal. Anna, i want to take a quick step back and explain who jerome corsi is. Hes an author, a conspiracy theorist, and why hes significant on to this russia story. Thats right. He created this myth that president barack obama was not born in the United States and he maintains that to this day. Hes written 20 books on other conspiracy theories. He goes after democrats. He considers himself an opposition researchers, an investigative journalist and democrats are his target. And it seems to me he just cannot help himself with the conspiracy theory. Even speaking with him yesterday. He was telling me that he didnt think that the russians were actually behind the dnc email hacks, despite multiple intelligence agencies saying so. So what is his relationship, then, to wikileaks . Why would he be a conduit . Jerm ro jerome corsi was in an inner circle with roger stone and to the left characters that were interested to find out exactly what assange had. Corsi told me yesterday he would have been happy to get on a plane and meet with assange. How does he explain those emails . Those are very explicit and specific. He says he read the july 22nd email dump, the first dnc email dump, noticed that there were very few john Podesta Emails in that load of emails and deduced that the october surprise was going to be John Podestas emails i can see a lot of skepticism on faces around this table. I looked at him and i said well, prosecutors, were extremely skeptical, as well. He told me they were essentially laughing at him. Jeanie said so youre telling me youre on a plane with your wife for your 25th anniversary and god just told you that this is what happened . And he said yes. From the emails, hes ordering corsi here. Lets just read this one from july 25th. He says get to, air quotes, with assange at Ecuadoran Embassy in london and get the pending wicky he leaks emails. Thats stone to corsi. Stone to corsi. Word is very damaging. None of this was public information. In materials of the definition of collusion, it was weeks later that these wikileaks emails were sent out in a very coordinated, highly effective fashion just within hours of the access hollywood tapes and that then, again, just to remind people who are old enough to remember, the president used wikileaks to maximum effect within the final closing weeks of the campaign. So what is the remaining question here about collusion . Simply what the president knew because we have a preclear idea here from the emails of what was going on with everyone around him. Theres the burden of proof of showing that members of the Trump Campaign actually knew about it. Corsi told me he assumed that stone would have passed that information on. He doesnt think thats illegal. He would have hoped he passed that information on. Stone, of course, says he had no advanced knowledge of exactly what wikileaks was going to do, that he did learn things from Randy Credico, that he did not collude in any way and his lawyers told me hes not worried about this part of it. Theres a couple of things to take from annas interview with corsi. First of all, the baseline on corsi is he is a guy who believes the moon landing was staged, that it was faked, okay. . The second thing is, hes been around for years, as anna alluded to. Was he behind info wars . He was the Washington Bureau chief of info wars. And off of this interview, you could indict him as soon as the lights went off on the interview. Thats how limited the guy really is. The guy is totally irrational. But the important point is, he, roger stone and others are the kinds of people around donald trump. Thats the most important point, i think. Great point. I think thats an important point. Lets not forget. These are con men and but drifters. I dont think corsi is irrational. I dont know him, but my sense of him is he pedals in an industry and when you pedal in conspiracy, you write things that lend people to believe in conspiracy. I dont know whether he connected with assange or not. My idea is probably he didnt. But in a way, they hit the jackpot, although this one is they also turned up the death card here. And it just happens to match because you if you read the emails, its all of that conspiracy language. It isnt specific. It talks about dumps, you know, email dumps and these are going to be damaging, but it doesnt really say what hes dumping. No one really knows. Then it comes out. All the language is that conspiracy language. Its hysterically funny if youre not prone to conspiracy theories like the president is. So i dont know how do you interview Something Like this, these people that none of them can tell the truth how do you know what to believe . Thats a great question. Ive spent a long time with jerry corsi over the past month talking to him multiple times. And i have to say what is astonishing to me is that the court papers back up what hes been telling me all along in terms of what specific prosecutors were doing with his lawyer, the negotiations, the timing of the plea negotiations. So there has been that grain of truth throughout. So it was fantastic to get these court documents, which is really usual and we can see exactly the governments case, what they were laying out against him. And what theyre getting him on, what theyre trying to get him to plead to is that in his first meeting in september with investigators, that he lied to them. He said he didnt remember any of these emails. Once they presented him a week later with the binder of emails, they said ston