>> okay. it seems to be a theme, really. >> not exact will the what the almond brothers had in mind when they wrote the song. wow. >> welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 4th. along with joe, willie and me, we have mike barnacle, former aide to george w. bush white house elise jordan, a fellow tt brennen center for just and an mz nbc legal analyst daniel goldman is with us and pulitzer prize winning columnest and editor at "the washington post" and msnbc eugene robinson. good to have you all. >> so, willie, you know what we call that when mike barnacle does that, right? >> he leaves his jacket. >> we call that tuesday. >> by the way, one of the many life lessons we've learned from barnacle is go to costco, buy a cheap blue blazer and when you go to an event or party you want to leave, you leave the vest on the chair to people think you're still there and you walk out and go home. >> it's called the irish good-bye. >> and, mike, you do it so well. you put it -- i mean, you must buy these things for $15 at costco. >> 22 bucks, yep. >> i get the blue blazer at the wedding now. okay. so we could be soon getting new insight into the special counsel's probe of possible ties between the trump campaign and russia. at some point today, robert mueller's team is expected to make a public sentencing memo about former national security adviser michael flynn. remember him? with an additional sentencing memo for friday for 2016 campaign chair paul manafort detailing his lies. some parts of the memo could be redacted. michael isacoff the fact that mueller is making these public suggests he may not have a need to keep the secrecy for his case in order to bring the documents. multiple sources tell isacoff that they are tying up loose ends in their investigationing providing the clearest clues yet that the long running probe may be coming to its climax, potentially, in the next few weeks. isacoff reports that mueller's office talked to congressional investigators yesterday as part of an ongoing discussion about whether new subpoenas for testimony by house and senate committees might interfere with the house investigation. the response was reportedly that it would not, at least in matters related to alleged obstruction by the russia investigation itself. >> daniel goldman, we have two investigations going on. we have the investigation into obstruction. we have the investigation into the acts that are generally termed under collusion. it seems to me that if you sort through everything that was said yesterday, people are saying that his entire investigation is coming to an end is missing the bigger point. i think he tipped his hand in the response to congress saying, yes, as it pertains to obstruction, you can ask whatever questions you want you without any concerns. we're good. because we're basically saying they're wrapping that up. but collusion, i mean, that's a completely different story. i think that -- that little party is just taking off. i mean, they haven't even brought in roger stone yet. we have a long way to go on the collusion case, don't we? >> i think you are right. the obstruction investigation is a much smaller, more narrowly tailored investigation that probably was more or less wrapped up over the summer. the only thing outstanding for that one is whether or not they will interview donald trump. the collusion does seem to be ramping up in some respects and i do think that with these sentencing mem ran dumb that we're going to get this week, and that also includes michael cohen's on friday. so we're going to have three significant court filings this week that may reveal more information about the collusion investigation than we have seen to this point. but i do agree with you, joe, whatever loose ends they're wrapping up, which can take weeks, is probably related to the collusion investigation and perhaps, you know, a broader kind of bribery investigation now that we've learned about the connection to the trump organization's own public dealings. >> so president trump lashed out at michael cohen yesterday demanding he be given a stiff sentence for his crimes. michael cohen asks just for no prison time. you mean he can do all the terrible unrelated to trump things having to do with fraud, big loans, taxis, etcetera, and not serve a long prison term? he makes up stories to get his wife and father-in-law who has money off scott free. he lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence, the president saying of michael cohen. cohen's lawyers asked a judge to give him no sentence time. the memo stated cohen was in close contact with trump and his legal team when he prepared a statement for congress to land a deal to build a trump tower in moscow. at the same time, president trump is praising his former long time associate roger stone over his refusal to testify against him to the special counsel, raising questions over the legality of the president's tweets. the president tweeting i will never testify against trump. this statement was recently made by roger stone, essentially stating that he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about president trump. nice to know some people still have guts, says the president, likely allude to go his tweet slamming michael cohenen over his guilty pleas. that tweet immediately raised the specter of potential witness tampering. lawyer george conway who is the husband of white house counselor kellyanne conway responded to the president by tweeting citations to federal obstruction of justice statues. >> wow. i find that incredible. >> adding this is genuinely looking like witness tampering. doj at least with a nonfake ag prosecutes cases like this all the time. the fact it's done out in the open is no defense. trump is genuinely melting down and no good lawyer can help him under these circumstances. and the vice chairman of the senate intel committee mark warner wrote this is serious. the president of the united states should not be using his platform to influence witnesses in a federal investigation involving his campaign. in a bid to defend his client, the president's lawyer rudy giuliani claimed trump's tweet did not amount to obstruction of justice because the president is only encouraging someone not to lie. daniel, as you said a few moments ago, that statement from rudy giuliani echos that of what you've seen as a prosecutor. >> t the only defense to witness tampering. i'm not telling them to lie. i'm simply telling them to tell the truth. we don't have to go much further than paulen manafort to understand how witness tampering works. you may remember in june paul manafort was charged with witness tampering based on text messages. his defense and what they said is he was reminding them of what they did so that they would tell the truth. so the fact that rudy giuliani admitted that donald trump's tweet was encouraging something is an indication, whether it's to lie or not to lie. in this case, he says it's not to lie, but he's encouraging him to do something gets you very, very close to witness tampering. >> gene robinson, yesterday we saw full are respect for the presidency as president bush's casket arrived in the rotunda. it's hard to balance what we saw yesterday and what i think many, many, many peel felt during the course of the past couple of days and will feel again tomorrow with what we're talking about here today. the president of the united states may be witness tampering involved in obstruction of justice. >> right. which of these things is not like the others. you know, which of these.presidents is not like the others. it is an extraordinary contrast. the president did visit president bush's casket lying in state at the capital last night. and it was -- that was a brief visit. but one would have to say it was proper. it was respectful. and perhaps the way things should be. but with that sort of the exception to the rule, you notice that president trump wasn't, in fact, absent from the earlier events of the day and that was a -- i think an enormous relief to the nation because the idea that a president who so little respects the rule of law and tradition and the continuum of the presidency from washington to lincoln to roosevelt to trump, it just doesn't -- it's jarring. >> yeah. >> and i assume we will see it will beer jarring again tomorrow, perhaps, at the funeral. >> we shall see. president trump's son and executive vice president at the trump organization eric trump fired back at george conway's criticism tweeting, of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect george conway shows toward his wife, her career, place of work and everything she has fought so hard to achieve might top them all. kellyanne conway is a great person and frankly his actions are horrible. in response, george conway retweeted authored resa aslan who wrote, wait, did i miss something.? did george conway pay to have money with a porn star right after his wife gave birth? yeah. it's really, at this point at least, jordan, i don't know -- i don't know where they get -- and i mean this monot to be anythin more than i'm absolutely intrigued by this, where they get their confidence that they could lash out at george conway for stepping up for what he believes in given what this president is accused of doing and what he has already admitted or has proven he has done especially with porn stars and playboy bunnies while his wife was pregnant. >> yeah. i don't think that eric trump wants to get into a baths tle o whits with george conway or a debate about the law in any way. >> it's amazing. they do it. >> and quite frankly, kellyanne conway can defend herself. it is so insulting that the men of trump world think that they are better advocates for kellyanne conway than she is for her own self. she has consistently shown that she can weave her way around any battle and she does not need a man like eric trump defending her. >> no. i think she's good. >> well, you know, what's so insulting, willie, is that when with women are always -- it's always suggested that women are intor subordinate to men. eric trump is basically suggesting that mr. conway should be subordinate, his status as a conservative thinker, a legal thinker should somehow be put on hold because of what's going on inside the white house. there are two independent adult people. each should be able to pursue their careers in the way they want. >> well, it's also so telling that the trumps and eric trump in this case view any criticism of president trump, even when it's fact-based and well informed as it is with george conway as a personal attack and that he's going after his wife in some way. it is the most fascinating dynamic in washington. wouldn't you love to be at the dinner table every night with the conways listening to george and kellyanne talk about what's happening. but this is not about a marriage and i think kellyanne would probably resent eric trump stepping in and speaking up for her. but this is the way the trumps view the world. if you come with any kit simple of the president of the united states, you have to intervene and i agree with elise, that kellyanne can probably handle this herself. >> yeah, she can handle it herself. >> she doesn't want to be treated like a fabrege egg. that would be important to her. she is a strong woman and does not need to be treated like an egg. >> hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore. >> don't let your head be attacked by men. >> anyway, of all the things that happen in politics, as donald trump has gotten involved in politics. for eric trump to say this may be the worst thing yet -- >> where has eric ben been? >> yeah. wake up and smell the cat food, brother. there's a lot worse than that. if you don't believe me, wait a couple of days and follow your father. you really should follow your father on twitter. >> someone explain where this is going, too. >> could somebody teach eric to follow his father on twitter and maybe he won't make statements like that. mike barnacle, there's no doubt, you, like so many of us, have always been a great admirer of george h.w. bush and for some unknown reason he also, and the family liked you very much. you spent some time talking baseball with the old man. i think even for us who loved george h.w. bush and admired george h.w. bush so much, still, this week is so gratifying and somewhat unexpected. i don't think even with the passing of ronald reagan the man who shadowed george h.w. bush stood in for eight plus years, i don't think anybody has ever seen an ex president admired the way that this -- this ex president has been admired over the past receivable days in quite some time. >> i agree, joe. we are living right now through truly turbulent times in terms of history and in terms of every day dealings because of what we have in the white house. and i think everyone knows that. and the reare minder of what we weren't were and what we might still be comes with the death of president george h.w. bush. i felt very strongly, one thread in this entire weekend, and i think i'll continue to feel it for quite some time about george h.w. bush and it is the fact that 18 years of age, he volunteered and enlisted in the united states navy. and flew a small bomber off the deck of an aircraft carrier. we are now engaged still in a 17-year-long war where less than 1% of the people in this country have a stake in that war in terms of people serving and families left behind and this fellow's life was one of time of service. it was filled with flaws. he made mistakes when he was president. we could list them if we needed to. but the bigty, the honest they, clash, the respect he had for others around him and others that he did not know, he had a life that was rooted at its origin serving in the united states military. and i can't let that go. >> and gene robinson, for good reason. this was a man who, when he made that decision at 18 to volunteer to go to war, and it was itching for the opportunity to defend his country, he wasn't an immigrant kid out of brooklyn seeing this as a way out. he left andover to do it before he went to yale. a member of the northeast ruling class back when there was one on the east coast. and he left when he was 18 to serve his country and he continued doing it every day of his life until this week. >> yeah. a hero of the second world war in which we were attacked and people volunteered to join the youngest -- the youngest navy flyer, shot down at 20. just extraordinary. when i think of him, i think also of the way he personally carried himself. his personal integrity and his personal relationships. i'm sorry, but you have to sort of contrast it to what we see today. if you say something bad about president trump, you are immediately the worst person and we must try to destroy you. when she was diagnosed with cancer, george h.w. bush could not have been more gracious, more helpful offing any sort of assistance he could provide writing eloquent letters of support and encouragement to someone, you know, with whom he foughter for years. and it gives you a sense of the big character of the man and the contrast with the small character we see today. >> maureen is going to join us tomorrow, maureen dowd. maureen was a woman, as is ann and many other people in the press that went after george h.w. bush every day. i saw some of my conservative friends come out yesterday saying how hypocritical. bush hated the media and the media hated bush. yeah. it was like ronald reagan and tip o'neill had a deal that they fought like hell every day. and then at 6:00, they put it to the side. because they could do that, willie. and this morning, a dowd quote that i read yesterday from her column, a note that george h.w. bush sent to her after the work that she did loathing the "new york times" for such a lock, long time. george h.w. bush says this, i reserve the right to whine, to noe not read, to use profanity. but if you ever get ready hurt or if you have are really down and need a shoulder to cry on or just need a friend, give me a call. i will be there for you. i'll not let you down. that is the whole point. you can have a contentious relationship with people professionally and still save your humanity to the way george h.w. bush did for people who may go after you in the daytime. it's an example we all have to follow. >> that's an incredible exchange that maureen published in her column the other day, the back and forth that they wrote to each other. she wrote a lot of tough columns about george h.w. bush was. his responsible was i don't really know why, but i like you and went on to say later, i'm here if you ever need me. it's incredible. .contrast that with enemy of the people and all the other things we've heard recently. i was talking to with someone who worked for the bushes the other day and her sadness was first and foremost about the loss of this man, george h.w. bush, but also about this kind of man, the kind of man you just described who lived a life of service, came from privilege, saw the bombing of pearl harbor and said i want in the fight. and just to end this segment on a more hopeful note, there is a young generation of people who watched planes fly into the building a couple miles from here and said i want to be in the fight and they've given their lives to military service, too. it does show the kind of character and the kind of person who just wants to serve and put the country ahead of themselves. and we do have a new generation of those people and a lot of them were elected a couple of weeks ago. so we'll see what that looks like going forward. >> and a lot of them are women. daniel goldman, thank you very, very much. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump announces a deal with china. but his own administration admits it's not quite a done deal. the latest on the costly trade battle and is he getting played? straight ahead. but first, here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. good morning, mika. everybody is talking about this winter storm for next weekend. the storm is now off the coast of california. so we have a long way to go to get this across the country. everywhere east of the rockies, it's cold, it's chilly. so let's fast forward to saturday morning. the storm makes its way over texas. the blue is snow, north texas, oklahoma, could have snow in the ozarks. we may get know into areas of tennessee and kentucky as we go into saturday and sunday. and it's not until sunday afternoon that we finally get this mess to the east coast. rain south of about the north carolina/south carolina border. we have the potential at least for a snowstorm in areas of north carolina and virginia and this is a long way out. we're not going to get snow amounts yet. but this is the potential for snow here in the western half or virginia mountains of west virginia. it does not go into d.c. north wards into new york. it looks like we're going to keep this storm off the coast. still have four or five days to see if that changes. so far, so good in d.c. and new york city looks to be dry for all your travel, but chilly on this tuesday morning. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. to most, he's phil mickelson, pro golfer. to me, he's, well, dad. so when his joint pain from psoriatic arthritis got really bad, it scared me. and what could that pain mean? joint pain could mean joint damage. enbrel helps relieve joint pain, helps stop irreversible joint damage and helps skin get clearer. enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders and allergic reactions have occurred. tell your doctor if you've been some place where fungal infections are common, or if you're prone to infections, 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retail store today. cia director gene haspel sparked jout rage among senators after missing a briefing by the secretary of defense last week. we are hold haspel will now tell the chairman and ranking members of the senate armed services and foreign relations committees what she knows about the murder and about u.s. support for the saudi-led war in yes, ma'men. unsatisfied from what they le learned from secretaries pompeo and mattis last week, they are looking for more support. >> so at least lack of transparency, obviously, the new craze among republicans. they want comey to come to the hill. now you have haspel coming to the had i hill to talk about the murder of khashoggi and the yemen war, but she's only going to speak to a few senators instead of the committees and that was her appointment that she didn't show up for before. we guess at the white house's behest. what should we make about all of this? >> i still think that it's going to be interesting what her portrayal and her defense of the cia's assessment of this murder and how it contrasted with secretary pompeo who only recently departed the cia himself and his presentation and the fact pattern behind this. you have to wonder how they are able to get away with hack of oversight and not having gina haspel present and now with the select few of the groups. so, joe, there's plenty of evidence and those senators here today. i will repeat what senator durbin said on this show just a few days ago last week when he quoted secretary of of state mike pompeo when they said where is gina haspel? senator durban said ask the white house. so is we've heard otherwise privy to the intelligence saying there is no doubt in their mind that the crown prince ordered the killing. >> the president suggested the cia did not reach a conclusion. or certainly had evidence that amounted to a smoking gun. great reporting by "the wall street journal" this week showed just that. >> this is close to certain as they get. that's the best of the best. he did it as far as i can tell and i can tell pretty far, given that they have these intercepts and who knows what other means of telling what happens. so the administration needs to come clean on this and stop trying to hide what is inevitably coming out, that this could not have happened without mohammed bin salman's approval and direction. and that's how it happened and there should be consequences. >> there is much debate over gina haspel when she was selected to head the cia. a lot of people, like mike hayden who remains in other prayers, so many professionals on both sides of the aisle said gina haspel, it is critical to have her in there because she would not be trump's cia director, she would be america's cia director. we see if that is the case today. >> yes, we do. >> i am strongly confident that she will tell them the information the cia has. >> i am absolutely confident. i think she wasn't there because they knew she would speak the truth and i'm waiting for it. still ahead, president trump lays out the details of his trade deelts wial with china, b description doesn't completely match that of the white house or china for that matter. with my bladder leakage, the products i've tried just didn't fit right. they were too loose. it's getting in the way of our camping trips. but with a range of sizes, depend fit-flex is made for me. with a range of sizes for all body types, depend fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. ♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. from capital one.nd i switched to the spark cash card i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet? president trump tweeted several details of what he is calling a trade deal. >> i love what he calls deals, by the way. >> can his people explain to him that on the world stage, there is a 70/30, with 80/20 percent that he is getting played at all times? anyhow, quote, china has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into china from the u.s. currently, the tariff is 40%. they intend to start purchasing agriculture product immediately. we make the finest and cleanest product in the world and that is what china wants. farmers. i love you. but the trade truce agreement does not exist on paper. nor was there a joint statement released after the meeting. is this, like, a magic marker problem? >> i don't know. >> and beijing's statement had notable differences from the one that washington put out. the president's economic team had difficulty explaining the details and expectations with trump's top economic adviser larry kudlow telling reporters it was not necessary lay trade deal. he went on, let me call it these early commitments by china. i can't call it an agreement yet. >> and counsel on foreign relations president richard haas, while willie will tell you barbecuing up an incredible rack of ribs said, quote, there is a pattern to the foreign policy of donald trump. we have seen it in north korea, nafta and now china. he creates a sense of crisis. he compromises. and both claims he accomplished more than he really did and deserves credit for having diffused the crisis that he largely created. >> okay. >> and, willie -- >> and then he starts tweeting. >> you can talk about north korea. a crisis that he didn't cause in that case, but a crisis that he claimed to fix by rushing over meeting kim jong-un, saying that he loved him, saying we don't have to were about nouk here weapons any more. he's diffused the crisis. and then we find on out, no, they're really developing it and just as quickly as they were before they met did donald trump. now it's the same thing with the china deal. i love farmers. great. glad he loves farmers, but -- >> i love chocolate. >> i do, too, but it doesn't mean the farmers are going to get any relief here according to larry kudlow because there is no deal. >> elise, if you look at this, ask his own advisers, larry kudlow, as mika just pointed out, he said there's no specific agreement that he's aware of in place. peter navarro said, well, the idea certainly came up. in other words, we don't have the deal yet. and you had ford motor company clearly blind-sided didn't know what the president is talking about saying we look forward to finding out more. >> this administration has long had a problem giving specific bes the policy. you look at how they have tried to enact sweeping changes like the executive order on immigration from muslim -- the muslim ban. and what a disaster that was to north yeah climbing complete denuke loorzation of t denuke larzation of the pa anyone el peninsula. and then you have this with china. it's all headline talk. he's messaging, but he doesn't have any substance to back up the messaging. and you look at how his policies are affecting farmers and they're requiring a $16 billion subsidy to be bailed out because of his uncertainty policy. >> gene, when it comes to trump are's policies, it's easy for us to lose ourselves in the tweets and the misdirection that comes out of the white house. multiple times each and every day. but with regard to china, he's now playing in the major leagues and the chinese are very serious about their country, their future, the power they have and the power they continually want to attain. at the inception of the trump presidency, he practically gave away the pacific rim by getting out of tpp, the trans-pacific trade act. and now we have this. deal or no deal, nobody knows what's going on. "the wall street journal" reports that bob blitzeiger, a tough, tough pro tariff guy, is going to head up the negotiations. so i don't know about you, but this does not feel good. >> no, it doesn't feel good to me. first of all, here is an extraordinary thing. president trump, the american president meets with the chinese president and we have to have more confidence in the chinese read out of that meeting than in the american read out of that meeting, right? we think that what the chinese say is probably more accurate than what the president of the united states says about the meeting and what was agreed and what was not agreed. that's an extraordinary thing. and the second thing is that as you pointed out, mike, in china, they still have a system. they still have a process for making policy, for planning, for looking ahead. they have goals. they have a sort of systemic way of trying to achieve those goals. some of them are animical to us. but they have a systemic way of going about what they want. and we have utter chaos right now. we don't have a policy process. we don't have anything that's vetted through agencies the way it used to be. and properly scrubbed. so we don't know what the president went in there to -- really went in there to ask for or what he got, what it means. we're flying blind here. so no, it doesn't feel good. >> doesn't feel good at all. >> willie, just saw some breaking news. it appears -- and we haven't covered it the past few days, but the riots in france across france and paris have just been absolutely shocking to a lot of residents there. and the french government has just announced that they are going to pull back on the fuel tax that triggered those riots. but my gosh, quite a few days. >> yeah. >> -- of rioting there. >> this is the worst rioting we've seen in paris since the 1960s. it's over tax hikes and fuel prices. a short time ago, french president emmanuel macron announced he would now suspend that fuel tax while they sort this out and hopefully get some calm in the streets. but just astounding pictures. i think there have been three deaths, 263 people injured, many more arrested. police out, obviously, in their riot gear, flames all over that city. but this is -- from what i've heard and what i've read from people there, this is about as bad as it's been in a couple of generations in the city of paris and i think the president of france trying to quell that a little bit with that announcement this morning. still ahead, there's this nothing from "the washington post" this morning. according to a former administration official, the bush family contacted the white house this past summer to say president trump would be women at the former president's funeral and assured the focus would be on bush's life and not on any disagreements he may have with the sitting president of the united states. more "morning joe" in just a minute. this is not a bed. it's proven quality sleep. the new sleep number 360 smart bed, from $999... intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts on each side to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. it can even warm your feet to help you fall asleep faster. how smart is that? smarter sleep. to help you shed those sugar cookies, get a running start on the holidays, and take it all in with the patience of a saint. don't miss the last chance to save up to $500 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. ends monday. with much of the washington focused on the final farewell of george h.w. bush, lawmakers are trying to buy more time to prevent a government shutdown. the funding deadline is this friday, but leaders have introduced a two week funding bill hoping to delay a fight over the president's proposed border wall. the measure would keep the government running through december 21st. president trump has already said he's open to the short term funding extension. "the washington post" robert costa joins us now with more on this and, rocket, what are you hearing? >> what we're hearing most members want to avoid a political shutdown. mitch mcconnell knows a lot of his members in the senate want to work criminal justice reform this month so there's an idea because of president bush's funeral and two week stop gap that's going to be the solution here they can find some kind of border agreement in the coming weeks. that would give the president at least a fig leaf for what he wants with regard to funding the wall. >> few democrats, more than a few democrats were upset when chuck schumer actually talked about funding part of the wall and negotiating with donald trump on wall funding. do you think that's where the democratic senate my go next year? >> if you think about the democrats in the senate, a lot want to run for president. chuck schumer has to deal with that whole dynamic all of 2019. he size opportunity talking to people close to him, they say on infrastructure, prescription drugs, maybe even on immigration, this is a senator in chuck schumer who maybe wants to make a deal. so does house democratic leader nancy pelosi the incoming speaker. >> there are two completely different factions right now in the united states senate. those who are running for president. they will move left because that's where, not only the energy in the primaries are, that's where the money is. then chuck schumer who actually sees democrats with as many opportunities coming up in 2020 as republicans had in 2018. the senate map is laid out pretty well for the democrats. but it's going require that they can start winning seats in red states. and that's going to require the democratic party coming more to the center on immigration, nor the center on some other issues if they are going to win in some of those red states. well like states like missouri where claire mccaskill lost, states like tennessee where democrats had a shot but still ended up loeg. m mika, that dynamic democrats who are running for president pulling the party to the left and chuck schumer and democrats want to take over the senate in 2020 and have a say in supreme court nomination fights, they will want to try to pull the party to the center. that's something we'll be seeing all of 2019 and 2020. >> also fascinating is nancy pelosi's role in all of this. i think she's up for the job, for sure. >> oh, my gosh. she certainly is. >> coming up -- i'm not confident about a lot of things. did donald trump commit witness tampering with his recent tweets. probably. that's just my opinion. miscellaneous new details are expected today in the special counsel investigation into michael flynn. >> by the way, not just your opinion and george conway's opinion. "morning joe" is coming right back. h™ wash and lotion made with real cotton and enhances your gentle touch a new soft a new touch a new gentle new johnson's cottontouch™ (baby cooing) choose gentle you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! every road in the world is now an information superhighway. (phone ringing) and the car has become an accessory to the smartphone. ride hailing, car sharing, carpooling... mobility services are proliferating. and there's a new generation who don't seem to want to own cars in the first place. it all means massive disruption to the car industry, cities, businesses and investors. i'm martyn briggs for bank of america merrill lynch. we really pride ourselvesglass, on making it easy cities, businesses and investors. to get your windshield fixed. with safelite, you can see exactly when we'll be there. saving you time for what you love most. >> kids: whoa! >> kids vo: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ new johnson's cottontouch™ a wholwash and lotionre for newborns is born made with real cotton and enhances your gentle touch a new soft a new touch a new gentle new johnson's cottontouch™ (baby cooing) choose gentle a live look at capitol hill this morning as former president george h.w. bush lies in state. beautiful, beautiful, beautiful symbolic site. what really touched me, joe, was the picture that we saw yesterday of his service dog lying by his casket before it was put out in state. just doing his final duties for the former president. >> a moving service actually yesterday in the rotunda. representatives from both parties, from past administrations, a moving moment where nancy pelosi and george w. bush hugged and the spirit of bush 41 showed america that you can disagree with each other, at times strongly, and still love and care for each other. george w. bush when he was president of the united states knew that he had no more of a political foe than nancy pelosi, a tough speaker, and yet whenever there were meetings where she was supposed to attend, he would playfully call her number three and they would both laugh about it. and george w. bush would refuse to start any meeting until she walked in, affording her the respect that he believed she deserved. again, that's a message of not only how washington has worked in the past, but has worked for the better part of 240 years. even, again, even when people fought like hell. we talked about tip o'neill and ronald reagan all the time. chris matthews quoted tip o'neill's son saying the only thing my dad hated more than ronald reagan as governing fofl was guesting nothing done for the american people. reagan and o'neill worked past that. much as if you talk to bill clinton and newt gingrich now, even with impeachment, those two men continued working together for the good of their country, even toughest of political times. this is not a zero sum game. you can disagree somebody. you can fight them harbor. you can try to kill their political ideas and still treat them with great respect. that the end of the day, mika, may be the lasting legacy of george h.w. bush, the humanity not just towards political opponents, but towards opponents in the news media. >> it's a portrait of his character that everybody is feeling as they enter the rotunda and reflect on his legacy, which his legacy is so rich in service and that alone is incredible to consider when you look at his life. but reagan and tip o'neill they built in their relationship into their day having those drinks every night at 6:00. they knew they needed to do that. with george h.w. bush empathy and duty was ingrained in his character from the loss of his daughter to loss of his buddies in war. he had this duty and had this tremendous empathy that stayed with him throughout his life and let others to be drawn to the beauty of this character especially now when we look back on his life. >> and, willie, you talked last hour about something i think very important and that is a large number of military veterans following in the foot steps of president bush, those who served us in war first and then came home and served us in peace. when you were fighting in world war ii with your buddies, or iraq, or afghanistan, and you saw that there were no democrats or republicans in fox holes or on missions that we were all one, we were americans, makes it a lot harder, doesn't it, when you're in the capitol, when people are freaking out about striking a bipartisan deal and what someone might say on twitter about them, makes it a lot harder to worry about that, huh? because you've seen, you've seen the worst of war and seen the best of american commaraderie and willing to get those deals done. >> it's the camouflage wave. what happened a couple of weeks ago where you have veterans, democrats and republicans. we had many of them come on this show and they don't jump right to partisan politics. many didn't want to talk about president trump and his tweets. they want to talk about working together to get things done. obviously that's easier said than done and once you get to washington you have to face the reality there's. but those men and women do come to washington with a much different mindset than i want to grab power, i want to seize power, i want to hold on to power for dear life. their lives have been about service and their lives have been about getting things done. it's the be all, end all, it's not the only thing that matters, military service, but certainly helps and i'm glad to see we've come back to the idea of having people like george h.w. bush who put service and country before politics in positions of power in this country. >> and humanity before politics. along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnacle. former aide to the george w. bush white house, elise jordan. editor of the "washington post," eugene robinson. political reporter for "the washington post" and moderator of washington week on pbs, robert costa. and white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lameer is with us. >> jonathan lameer, was suggesting that nick sabin be fired in the third or fourth quarter of last week's game but then he said at least he gets to hold on for another week. >> he celebrated with a new hair cut, i don't know if you notice. he has an entirely new look. >> there's a lot of good hair on this show. >> oh, so cute. i like it. >> bob costa, we showed a picture of nancy pelosi earlier and was talking about her relationship with george h.w. bush. a tough, tough speaker from 2006 to 2010. most neutral observers would say one of the most effective, one of the most powerful, one of the most disciplined speakers in recent modern american political history. how does she stand? any concerns going in to the floor vote or does it seem like the democrats and i will just say it, are the democrats going to do the smart thing, are they going to do the wise thing and vote nancy pelosi as their next speaker? >> talking to house democrats, they believe she is going to win the floor vote in january for speaker of the house. she has the political control of her conference. the question is, joe, can she lower the amount of people who are opposed to her at this moment. can she make even a subtle guarantee to them she will only serve as one year or two year in the speakship. she's reluctant to do that. she's telling her allies why should i make any promise, i have the support, i'll be the person dealing with president trump. but there are a lot of tensions within this house democratic ranks. not only those who want to push for impeachment soon with president trump early next year but the moderates who say we just had enough with leader pelosi. that will be clouding her speakship next year if she's the dominant force in democratic politics. >> over the past quarter century, jonathan lameer, democrats have only controlled the house of representatives for four years. they've had a miserable record. they have one of the best opportunities they've ever had to actually keep control for a while. it seems to me that they would want nancy pelosi there helping them win re-election two years from now but more importantly as someone who is tough and someone who knows donald trump, that would seem to be the standoff as you have suggested, the standoff trump and pelosi that they would want. they would want this woman in the room negotiating with donald trump. >> that's right. as bob just said there will be a balancing act on the democrats side trying to make that decision how much to work with the president versus how much to stop him. from the white house perspective, my colleagues and i wrote in recent days, the president himself has sort of looked at nancy pelosi as also perhaps the person he wants in that job. it's remarkable how he almost openly campaigned for her on twitter suggesting she deserves the speakership and it's a mix of two things. on one hand he does respect her. he told people around him he thinks she's tough. he feels he can deal with her. we remember that short-lived chuck and nancy scenario last year where they did make a couple of agreements. more than that he sees her as a very useful foil. he can make her in this next year before there's an obvious front-runner in the presidential race the face of the democratic party. we know how unpopular she is among republicans. they use her image to fundraise for their candidates. he can use her. he told one confidant he noticed on the rally stage, mention of her name would drop some of the loudest boos of the night. that's how the president works best. he likes to have that enemy. he feels with pelosi he can do a little bit of both. he can work with her at time but also use her as somebody to attack at other times. >> gene, running against nancy pelosi worked so well for house republicans. they lost 40 seats. the greatest loss by house republicans running against nancy pelosi, the greatest loss they endured since watergate and if you just look at the raw vote totals, the greatest mid-term loss of all time by either political party, running against nancy pelosi actually damaged the republican party because the republicans -- democrats actually did better in terms of vote totals in 2018 than the tea party did in 2010. running against nancy pelosi, can you throw that in the dust bin of history. that does not work any more. >> well it sure didn't work this time. i mean it really didn't. and as has been mentioned she's the best fundraiser in the party. she will have the party ready to keep the majority in 2020. you know, i'll just say democrats would be crazy to reject nancy pelosi as their leader just because they think republicans are going to demonize her because guess what? they are going to demonize whoever the democratic leader is. so it's not like there's going to be somebody and republicans will choose somebody else and the republicans will say okay that one is okay. really pretty good. it's never going to happen. so there's always going to be criticism from the other side. democrats need to make the decision who is best to lead the caucus. and i have yet to hear a name of somebody who can do what nancy pelosi does. you can't beat somebody with nobody. i think she will be the next speaker. >> there is nobody that can do what nancy pelosi does on the democratic side, at least not now. mike barnacle, a lot of people are talking about nancy pelosi's ideology. again, the results of 2018 have forever blown out of the water the suggestion that running against nancy pelosi is a smart political idea. but there's something more than that. i'll quote, actually my k lly m dukakis here. when you're speaker of the house, this is where the dukakis phrase comes in, it's about competence and not ideology. ideology does not get you to 218 votes when there's only 175 people in your caucus that to vote for a particular bill. it takes somebody that was born into this sort of political trading, like nancy pelosi, and, again, there's nobody else in that caucus that comes close to being able to put the votes together, to put the coalitions together, like the affordable care act that nancy pelosi can do. >> that's right. that's who she is when it comes to counting votes and pulling enough votes together to get herself elected as speaker. she knows her numbers. robert costa, let me ask you in terms of ideology. now trump and every other republican makes a big deal about nancy pelosi, san francisco, ultraliberal. but what's the threat level to her on her left among all the progressives who have been newly elected to the house, who are there for the first until and who regard waving at donald trump as something wrong, taking a phone call from him as something bad. what's the threat level there to her? >> it's significant, mike, but not necessarily empowered. the committee chairman who will really control the tone and scope of all the investigations, jerry nadlr lrcnadler, adam sch are allies of pelosi. she has to keep an eye on alexandria occasio-cortez and this social media savvy group of younger democrats who find their political capital, their power outside of washington. >> all right. there are a number of developments in the mueller investigation. president trump is lashing out at his former attorney and fixer michael cohen and demanding that he be given a stiff sentence for his admitted crimes. the president tweeted yesterday michael cohen asks judge for no prison time. you mean he can do all of the terrible unrelated to trump things having to do with fraud, big loans, taxies, et cetera, and not serve a long prison term? he makes up stories to get a great and already reduced deal for himself and get his wife and father-in-law who has the money off scott free? he lied for this outcome and should, in my opinion, serve a full and complete sentence. >> wow. >> that should tell everybody what they need to know about trump and loyalty and those oaths. >> that's quite a change. >> idiot who took an oath take a look at that story. >> of course, you have rudy giuliani and donald trump praising cohen not too long ago. jonathan lameer, you have the president of the united states attacking his former long time lawyer -- >> long time lawyer. his guy. he told us he was his guy. >> you have him praising roger stone talking like a mob boss saying hey, you know, he at least one person is tough enough to not rat me out. of course that had george conway and others referring to witness tampering, quite a few people talking about witness tampering after the president tweeted yesterday, i'll never testify against trump, this statement was recently made by roger stone essentially stating he wouldn't be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about president trump. nice to know that some people still have guts. so, anyway, onthan lameer, a lot going on inside the white house. the president, and i say this with all the respect that is due to him, sounding like a mob boss when he makes those statements. and conservatives, even conservatives that have defended president trump legally and i can name a few, but i won't, saying this is not helpful. andy mccartney said this is not helpful, mr. president. you need to stop doing this. what is the temperature inside the white house and what are we seeing when we see the president going all over the place right now over mueller. >> seemed the president was engaging in light witness tampering there on twitter. we saw this before where you prioritize this idea of loyalty. we know how loyalty works with him. remember over the summer when michael cohen first pled guilty the president went after him but praised paul manafort who at the time was not engaging in any sort of deal with prosecutors and now, of course, has run afoul of bob mueller and the cooperative agreement they had there. the temperature inside the white house, it's rising. people close to the president say this is of great concern. he's very angry -- he cannot shake the shadow of mueller investigation. there's a sense of people around him that what cohen knows poses a real threat to his presidency. that he's been talking to bob mueller and his team for dozens of hours. he, of course, worked for the president for more than a decade and he is privy to a lot of things that went on not just during the campaign but during the inner workings of the trump oh,. we saw it again last week which led the president to go out to the south lawn and lie to the american people by suggesting everyone knew i was having these deals with russia. that i was talking about this trump tower project in moscow when, of course, a careful record search of his records suggest and his tweets he did no such thing. i talked to a former senior campaign adviser later that night, the president never said this. this of not something he talked publicly in the halls of the office either. again, it's showing him rattled by this increasing legal pressure, by the cohen plea deal and we know there will be a number of other things we learn about this probe in the coming days with the unveiling of these sentencing agreements. >> the president was tweeting about roger stone, michael cohen and the special counsel. the president tweeting bob mueller who is a much different man than people think and his out of control band of angry democrats don't want the truth, they only want lies. the truth very bad for their mission. we'll await details on what the president is saying about bob mueller and some secret life he think he has. joe made the mob boss analogy. here's this, having prosecuted mob bosses it's unfair to compare them to trump. mob bosses are far smarter and way more savvy and discreet than trump. they don't tamper out in the open. the other layer is that the president has the power to pardon these people. the mob bosses can't pardon the witnesses they tamper with. he has that context is important. he's sending a signal to these people, hold the line, stay the course and there may be something at the end of the rainbow. >> donald trump isn't hiding at all what his motivation is, it's to protect himself and himself alone. that's what he cares about. that's why he's willing to go and signaled to any extreme that it takes from text himself. you make an interesting point about out in the open, about how donald trump is doing this in the public sphere. i think that so much of this, we know the story already. you look at the blockbuster story last week about the trump tower, russia. buzz feed reported that in detail a couple of months ago. so many of these stories because there have been so many instances of blatant corruption and conflict of interest that it's hard to keep it separated but that's why i'm interested in the coming indictments and how robert mueller will make his case. >> joe, what do you always say? >> about what? >> washington. >> you know what i say about washington. >> you say it right now. >> you want notice say it again? >> yeah. >> i'll say it again. washington always win. >> it's important you say that because donald trump has gone his whole life doing deviant or potentially corrupt or potentially slightly illegal things, all his life, and he's been able to do it all in plain sight. you can't do it in washington. because washington always wins. >> there are rules. mike, we've talked about this on this show a lot. there are rules in washington just like there are rules in physics. those rules may bend in washington once in a while but they do not break at the end of the day. washington does always win. i remember when i was marched into my congressional office, rachel campbell who was my chief of staff at 24, marched me into my office, it was the first time i had been in washington and she walked me up to mary reed, god rest her soul and said joe scar borou scarborough. you do everything that mary reed tells you and you'll never be in the newspaper. do you understand me? i just stood there, yes. yet, when mary reed told me to do certain things, die them. i stayed out of newspapers. what donald trump doesn't understand that the b.s. that he got away with in new york city, the scamming of contractors, the refusal to pay, the refusal to be held to any sort of basic code of ethics in business, he thought that was transferrable to washington, d.c. his son-in-law thought that was transferrable to washington, d.c. it is not transferrable. washington has a set laws. they have a set rules. you live by them or your political bones get reduced to dust. i've said that about other presidents before this one. so this is not personal to donald trump. he doesn't listen. washington is going to win. they always do. >> joe, with regard to donald trump, and your past experience which is legitimate and says a lot about washington and how washington still works and did work, donald trump has never had a mary reed or anyone else in his life who would tell him what to do. and he fell for the big hook, line and sinker deal, new york when he was in new york. when he was doing all the things he did in new york, avenues tabloid king but it was a carnival side show. he never got the fact that they were making fun of him while they were displaying him publicly and making him a globally famous name. bob costa, now it's another deal. it's a new day, different town, different set of problems. this week there will be three sentencing memos clear visibly . he'll be fuming that all the focus what a great man george h.w. bush was dominating the headlines. i'm not asking you to shrink imout right here on tv but what is your latest assessment according to your reporting of the president's mood, his daily mood and what impact this increasing heat from robert mueller is bringing down on him and most of the white house? >> to respectfully counter joe's his premise of washington always works, based on my reporting i'm not so sure about that at this moment. he's shattered every norm in american politics and yet he still has power over his own party and this is a party, the republicans, who don't take any action on protecting robert mueller with legislation. this is a president who still has the ability to get rid of the special counsel investigation and has that fragile ability and fragileness of the whole special counsel before him every day, threatening with tweet after tweet. you may think washington always works. washington right now controlled by republicans for another month they are not trying to protect robert mueller and this is a president who continues to attack the special counsel. i don't have any belief as a reporter somehow this town as they say will be there as the president maybe grows more agitated about what's happening. >> bob, i didn't say washington always works. because it doesn't always works. >> wins. >> i said washington always wins. madis madisonian democracy is very much alive. >> we know him, joe. look at him. >> yeah. >> there's a lot more going on in his head than we know just like there's a lot more going with nuller probe than we know. something is going on with him. his behavior. his demeanor. everything is changed. it's clear to me, i'll just say my assessment from knowing him for quite a long time he's deeply troubled either how much trouble he's in or someone in his family is in. that's all he cares about. or his financial future. something is going on. he's deeply troubled and behaving very differently than the person we knew. >> again, the point about washington always winning is that madisonian democracy has been strong for 240 years. there has been checks and balances. of course we have low points in this history. but as we always hear on this show, the arc of civilization is always moving upward and the greatest check and balances we said before the election was the voting booth, and every two years americans get to go out and they get to check leaders if they have overreached. when i say washington always wins, i guess i should say the constitution always wins at the end of the day because voters, whether it was women, whether it was muslim-americans, black americans, college educated republicans in the suburbs, those who were offended by the actions of the last two years had that check on the president and the results were historic. washington always wins. >> robert costa thank you very much. still ahead on morning joe the democratic national committee sounds like a united front but there are a bunch of kpeefting views on where the party should be heading right now. it's chairman, tom perez lays out his vision next on "morning joe". for each job exxonmobil creates, many more are created in the community. because energy touches so many industries, it supports 10 million u.s. jobs. but when i started seeing i knew aboutthings,emors. i didn't know what was happening... so i kept it in. he started believing things that weren't true. i knew something was wrong... but i didn't say a word. during the course of their disease around 50% of people with parkinson's may experience hallucinations or delusions. but now, doctors are prescribing nuplazid. the only fda approved medicine... proven to significantly reduce hallucinations and delusions related to parkinson's. don't take nuplazid if you are allergic to its ingredients. nuplazid can increase the risk of death in elderly people with dementia-related psychosis and is not for treating symptoms unrelated to parkinson's disease. nuplazid can cause changes in heart rhythm and should not be taken if you have certain abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. tell your doctor about any changes in medicines you're taking. the most common side effects are swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. we spoke up and it made all the difference. ask your parkinson's specialist about nuplazid. i am a techie dad.n. 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. you know before we get to our next guest, joe, the line, washington always wins. i didn't get that from the past few moves you talking about trump. although he's certainly taken the conversation to a new level dealing with crimes and things like that. but you said it throughout the entire obama administration. you talked about it as it pertains to coming to washington and thinking you know something that other people don't. you always said washington always wins. >> every president that walks through the gates for the first time on january 20th, every administration that walks through there thinks that they are the smartest people, they crack the code and nobody that's ever walked through that gate before them are smarter than them, pretty soon they figure out what every president figures out. donald trump hasn't figured it out yet. that there are rules. in the obama administration, loathed the fact there were republicans there who were trying to wipe them out politically every day. and just like tip o'neill and ronald reagan, you have to figure out how to make that system work. >> it's too bad donald trump didn't understand that because literally what you are watching before your eyes when you see him on television every day, in my opinion s-a man who finally in 74 years of his life, finally being held accountable for his actions and he does not know what to do and i think that's what we see when we watch his behavior and his strange lurc hrhlurches away from people. so speaking of washington always winning today marks one month since the democrats have washed over the house of representatives, but what should they be doing with their new majority? joining us now chairman of the democratic national committee tom perez joins us. good to have you on the show this morning. >> good morning. thank you for your tributes to president bush. my first job in federal service was as a career prosecutor in 1989 when he was president of the united states and i was honored to work there. >> thank you for your kind words as head of the democratic party about president bush. it certainly means a lot. >> he signed the americans with the disabilities act. he signed the fair housing act. he understood politics were not a zero sum game. if americans with disabilities succeed, america succeeds. he opened up housing for everybody. when leaders put country above themselves and understand the office, it's far better, far greater than themselves. that's what leadership is about. >> one thing that hasn't been mentioned, tom, and this is something that republicans and democrats did together over the course of the 1990s, we were facing what we then thought was a deficit problem, a debt problem, and george h.w. bush made a deal with democrats that cost him his presidency a few years later. bill clinton made a deal with his own party, democrats that actually cost him the house and senate majority. got people like me elected who ran against actually that tax increase. but you take those two actions there, two very politically unpopular actions, and you have the reason with republicans and democrats making tough choices throughout the '90s, reason why we balanced the budget for the first time in a generation and balanced it four years in a row for the first time since the 1920s. a century ago. that was the work of republicans and democrats alike. >> and i worked for ted kennedy, as you know. ted kennedy i think was one of the charter members of what i call the accomplishment swing of the democratic party. he wanted to get things done. he understood idealism and pragmatism wasn't mutually exclusive. he had great respect for the institution of the presidency. which is why he would work with george herbert walker bush and later with george b. bush. that didn't mean they didn't disagree but understood it was bigger than any one individual in washington, d.c., and when we say these tributes to president george herbert walker bush we remember that. the fair housing act was a dicey proposition for congressman george herbert walker bush. he did it. he understood it was the right thing to do for the nation and that's why we pay tribute to that. we hunger for the likes of people like george herbert walker bush who did put country over party every day and he was a former chairman of the republican national committee. i should point out as well. >> right. so, tom, let's talk about what happened in the election. we had you on before. there was a lot of criticism in the press, a lot of hispanics had not been reached, there were concerns that the turn out may not be as good as it needed to be. here we are afterwards, and the democrats did better than almost anybody could have guessed. they smashed the watergate record for popular vote in mid-terms. this was as good a result in the house of representatives as democrats could have dreamed of. first of all, congratulations on your extraordinary work to help make that happen. secondly, though, could you tell us how it happened? talk about hispanics. we know that the virginia gubernatorial race last year, a lot of it had to do with women coming out to vote. in alabama the senate race had to do with, in the black belt of alabama, a lot of black voters coming out in record numbers. what was this election about? what moved that tide in your direction so strongly? >> i think last year virginia and new jersey taught us we could win again. alabama taught us we could win every where. the key to 2018 was organizing early and organizing every where. because that's exactly what happened this year. i really tip my cap to ben. worked tirelessly. leader pelosi worked tirelessly. we talk a lot about congress, joe and mika, but i'm equally excited about what happened in state legislature, in state governments. our partners across the eco system, that was a big difference this year. all too frequently democrats have gone it alone. in this cycle there was a unity of purpose. we were organizing every where. you talk about latino voters and latino decisions which was very remarkable looked at it before and after. latinos did come out in force. they came out in force because we led with our values. we're fighting for opportunity for everyone. we're fighting to make sure that you're protected from getting your health care taken away because you have a pre-existing condition. we're fighting the lower the cost of prescription drugs. we'll fight for infrastructure bill that will put people to work. you know, nancy pelosi has always been like ted kennedy a leading person in the accomplishment swing of the democratic party. she knows how to get things done. i think the american people were sick and tired of leaders in washington, the culture of corruption that had just overtaken washington and across the country in states, the last time democrats won, flipped seven gubernatorial seats in one cycle was something like 40 years ago. that's a big deal. and that is going to enable us in the next redistricting cycle to level the playing field. and that's so critically important. so we won in a nutshell we organized early, we organized every where. we feel good candidates who were good listeners who fought for the issues that people cared about. they tried to put nancy pelosi on the ballot and as you correctly pointed out that was an absolutely abysmal strategy. that really didn't work too well. >> willy is here and has a question for you. >> good to see you. we had rahm emanuel on the show, mayor of chicago. he talked about what happened on election day. he talked about some independent voters particularly in the suburbs and mayor rahm emanuel's point was preacher to the choir relentlessly is not the way to win in 2020. what lessons do you take from the victories you had, the substantial victories you had a couple of weeks ago as you look forward to 2020. what should be the approach in running against donald trump? >> leading with our values. what i find to be remarkable about donald trump is that unlike barack obama, i remember 2010 because i was working the administration, i think his words were we got shellacked. he approached the aftermath with a healthy and important and indispensable do was humility. here what we see from the republicans is just doubling down one what they were doing before the election, the politics of fear, the politics of division. and so moving forward i think what we have to do is continue to be good listeners. continue to deliver on the promises that we made. lowering the cost of prescription drugs. fighting to make sure we protect people that have diabetes from losing their health care coverage. passing an infrastructure bill that actually puts people to work, that fixes roads and bridges, that helps us make a down payment on our commitment combat climate change, that helps dreamers. in 2013 we passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill. that seems like a lifetime ago. we'll keep trying. i keep our dreamers are every bit american as my three u.s. born kids. i think it's an economic imperative and a moral imperative. that's what we're going to do. i'm confident we can get things done under the leadership of soon to me speaker pelosi. >> dnc chairman tom perez thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> plea sure to be with you. >> still ahead, there's one congressional race still up in the air thanks to allegations of voter fraud and questions surrounding absentee ballots. those questions are still ahead on "morning joe". a whole new way to care for newborns is born new johnson's cottontouch™ wash and lotion made with real cotton and enhances your gentle touch a new soft a new touch a new gentle new johnson's cottontouch™ (baby cooing) choose gentle ♪ 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. discover.o.omplimentary first month's payment. i like your card, but i'm absolutely not paying an annual fee. discover has no annual fees. really? yeah. we just don't believe in them. oh nice. you would not believe how long i've been rehearsing that. no annual fee on any card. only from discover. ♪ applebee's bigger bolder grill combos are back. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood. the results of a north carolina congressional race are locked in a standstill after accusations of election fraud. the state's board of elections voted friday not to certify the initial results of the district 9 race between republican mark harris and the democrat over quote claims of irregularities and fraudulent activities involving absentee ballots. election night results shows harris a slight advantage over the democrat but there were red flags about rural baladen county where the results showed harris racked up a winning margin of more than 1500 votes, more than any other republican in the county. data also shows that their absentee ballot return rate at more than 7%, which is the highest in the district and absentee ballot witness told a local news station that an electioneer who worked for harris' campaign paid her up to $100 to illegally collect and hand in ballots. the station found the same few people signing as witnesses for absentee voters which is very rare. the state's election board will hold an evidentiary hearing before december 21st to sort out the voting irregularities. jonathan lameer, if the tables were turned and this was the democrats being accused of this would trump be tweeting this morning? >> yeah. this is an amusing thought exercise, mika. we saw what the president did in recent weeks with the vote totals in florida and the count there, that he was alleging voter theft with no evidence. day after day on twitter suggesting the senate race, the governor race, again, also a little bit in georgia, that democrats were trying to steal them from republicans. if this is a similar situation here of questionable absentee ballots suggested improperly they collected absentee ballots if this was a democratic candidate benefiting from this i suspect we would hear from the president suggesting that the democrats are trying to steal. in this case with republicans benefiting, silence. >> yep. of course. up next an exclusive look at the historic new class of women set to take power in washington next month. we're back in three minutes. - [narrator] the typical vacuum head has its limitations, so shark invented duo clean. while deep cleaning carpets, the added soft brush roll picks up large particles, gives floors a polished look, and fearlessly devours piles. duo clean technology, corded and cord-free. this is moving day with the best andin-home wifi experiencees. and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. we, the people. >> we, the people. >> we the people of the united states. >> in order to form a more perfect union. >> establish justice. >> ensure doumestic tranquility >> and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. >> for the united states of america. >> okay. i have chills. that is an exclusive first look at a new feature from elle magazine showcasing almost all of the record 36 non-incumbent women newly elected. elle exclusively photographed the congresswomen during their orientation week in washington and recorded them reciting the preamble to the u.s. constitution. joining us now the executive director of elle emma rosenblum. obviously these women are the inspiration for this effort, but where did you get the idea? this is powerful. >> thanks. >> what did you learn from them during the process? >> so we've been tracking these elections for months and we're hoping and kind of thinking that a pink wave would come. then when it did, we immediately started contacting the press offices and sag we need to photograph all of these women together showing their solidarity and we want to speak to all of them about the experience of being elected. we were able to get 27 of the 36 of them in separate groups during their orientation week. then we filmed them saying the preamble to the constitution. what we learned was that they are so excited to bring a new face to washington and that even before they've been sworn in, they are thinking about the issues that are important to them and important to women specifically. a lot of them come from backgrounds that are not traditional politicians and they are inspiring our readers already to get more involved in politics in a way that we've never seen before. >> all the women you ended up photographing were democrats. >> yes. >> because there is a new republican congresswoman but she wasn't available. >> that's right. >> it also illustrated the disparity between what the democratic party is doing in terms of promoting and pushing women candidates and then republicans seem to be lagging there. >> yeah. her name is carol miller and we didn't photograph her for scheduling reasons. it is the democratic party that we're seeing. it's not just women, it's the youngest women ever elected, the first muslim woman elected, there's bisexual women. it runs the gamut and it is changing the face of washington already. >> what's incredible is the contrast between the republican party and the democratic party just in terms of you've taken photographs of most of the women. the photograph of the democratic party in the house of representatives, men and women, is actually the face of america. and the republican party is the face of people who foreclosed on my house, you know, 25 years ago. the contrast is incredible. >> if anything, you have donald trump campaigning against an incumbent republican congresswoman like mia love and pushing republican women out of the party. then you have what i think is a real social achievement in terms of american progress that so many women were elected to congress this year. >> check out the full piece at elle.com. this is a topic we discuss at length in the know your value community. we've got a lot of original contin content. our website and all of our social media platforms. still ahead, new signs that parts of the russia probe could be nearing an end. with that, comes new attacks from trump. he's slamming a former ally who flipped and praising another who didn't. the question now is whether he cl crossed a legal line. ♪ what would you like the power to do? ♪ listening to people answer that question, is how we find out what matters most to them. for a business, it's the power to grow. for an entrepreneur, it's the power to innovate. and for a family, it's the power to own a home. we stand with the ones who day in and day out put in the hard work to make things happen. for themselves, for their communities, and for the world we all share. we want to fuel their drive. and celebrate their accomplishments. that is what we're here for. and above all else, it's really what people want from us. the power to make a difference. ♪ i am brian moynihan. and i work for bank of america. ♪ ok look, if you're not the lead dog, the scenery never changes. that's why this is the view for every other full-size pickup. and this year, it's déjà vu all over again 'cuz only the ford f-150 with its high strength, military-grade aluminum alloy body gives you best-in-class torque, best-in-class payload... and you got it, baby... best-in-class towing. still leading the pack. this is the big dog! this is the ford f-150. it doesn't just raise the bar, pal. it is the bar. be right back. with moderate to severe crohn's disease, i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? i hope so. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. be there for you, and them. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. thank you very much. ♪ ♪ lord i was born a rambling man ♪ ♪ trying to make a living and doing the best i can ♪ ♪ when it's time for leaving, i hope you'll understand that i was born a rambling man ♪ ♪ my father was a gambler down in georgia ♪ ♪ he wound up on the wrong end of a gun ♪ ♪ i was born in a back seat of a greyhound bus rolling down highway 41 ♪ okay. it seems to be a theme really. >> wow. >> just walks away. welcome to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 4th. along with joe, willie and me, we have mike barnicle, former aide to george w. bush white house and state department elise jordan, former state attorney for southern district of new york daniel goldman is with us, and pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of the "washington post" eugene robinson. >> willie, you know, we call that when mike barnicle does that, right? >> uh-oh. he leaves his jacket. >> well -- >> we call that tuesday. >> for the young people watching at home, one of the many life lessons i've learned from mike barnicle is go to costco and buy a cheap blue blazer. when you go to a party, leaf ve the blazer on the back of the chair and you walk out and go home. >> it's irish good-bye. you do its so well. you must buy these things for $15 at costco. >> 22 bucks. >> i get the blue blazer at the wedding now. okay. we could soon be getting new insight into the special counsel's probe of possible ties between the trump campaign and russia. at some point today, robert mueller's team is expected to make a public sentencing memo about former national security advisor michael flynn with an additional sentencing memo by friday for 2016 trump campaign chair paul manafort detailing his alleged crimes and lies. some parts of the memos could be redacted. according to new reporting by chief investigative correspondent for yahoo, mthe fact that mueller is planning to make these memos public suggests he may no longer feel the need to withhold information about his case in order to bring additional indictments. he could be near the close. multiple sources close to the matter say that mueller's prosecutors have told defense lawyers in recent weeks that they are tying up loose nenends their investigation, providing the clearest indication yet that the long running probe may be coming to its climax potentially in the next few weeks. mueller's office talked to congressional investigators yesterday as part of an ongoing discussion about whether new subpoenas for testimony by house and senate committees might interfere with the special counsel's investigation. the response was reportedly that it would not, at least in matters related to alleged obstruction by the white house -- >> let's stop right there. we have two investigations going. we have the investigation into obstruction. we have the investigation into the acts that are generally termed under collusion. if you sort through everything that was said yesterday, people that are saying that his entire investigation is coming to an end is missing the bigger point. i think he tipped his hand in the response to congress, saying yes, as it pertains to obstruction, you can ask whatever questions you want without any concerns. we're good because we're basically wrapping that up. but collusion, that's a completely different story. i think that little party is just taking off. they haven't even brought in roger stone yet. we've got a long way to go in the collusion case, don't question? >> i think you are right. the obstruction investigation is a much smaller, more narrowly tailored investigation that probably was more or less wrapped up over the summer. the only thing outstanding for that one is whether or not they will interview donald trump. the collusion does seem to be ramping up in some respects and i do think that with these sentencing memorandum that we're going to get this week, and that also include michael cohen's on friday. so we're going to have three significant court filings this week that may reveal a lot more information about the collusion investigation than we have seen to this point. but i do agree with you. whatever lose ends they're wrapping up, which can take weeks, is probably related to the collusion investigation and perhaps a broader kind of bribery investigation now that we've learned about the connection to the trump organization's own business dealings. >> so president trump made some potentially significant public comments yesterday, lashing out at his former attorney and fixer michael cohen, demanding he be given a stiff sentence for his admitted crimes. the president tweeted, michael cohen asked judge for no prison time. you mean he can do all the terrible unrelated to trump things having to do with fraud and not serve a long prison term? he makes up stories to get a great and already reduced deal for himself and get his wife and father-in-law, who has money, off scot-free. he lied for this outcome and should in my opinion serve a full and complete sentence, the president saying of michael cohen. in a court filing on friday,cohen's lawyers asked a judge to give him no prison time when he's sentenced next week. the memo stated cohen was in close and regular contact with white house and trump's lael team when he prepared a statement for congress that falsely down played trump's effort to land a deal to build a tower in moscow. trump is praising his former long time associate roger stone over his refusal to testify against him to the special counsel, raising questions over the legality of the president's tweets. the president tweeting, i will never testify against trump. this statement was made by roger stone, he will not be forced by a rogue and out of control prosecutor to make up lies and stories about president trump. nice to know that some people still have guts. likely alluding to his tweet slamming michael cohen over his guilty pleas. that tweet raised the specter of potential witness tampering. lawyer george conway, the husband of white house counselor kellyanne conway responded to the president by tweeting citations to federal obstruction of justice statutes. doj prosecutes cases like this all the time. trump is genuinely melt douing . the vice chairman of the senate intel committee mark warner wrote, this is serious, the president of the united states should not be using his platform to influence potential witnesses in a federal investigation involving his campaign. in a bid to defend his client, the president's lawyer rudy giuliani claimed trump's tweet did not amount to obstruction of justice because the president is only encouraging someone not to lie. daniel, as you said a few minutes ago before we came on the air, that statement from rudy giuliani echoes one you've heard from every person you've seen tamper with a witness as a prosecutor. >> it is the only defense to witness tampering. i'm not telling them to lie. i'm just simply telling them to tell the truth. we don't have to go much further than paul manafort to understand how witness tampering works. you may remember in june that paul manafort was charged with witness tampering based on some text messages. and his defense and what they said in their court filing is, he was just simply reminding them of what they did so they would tell the truth. the fact that rudy giuliani admitted that donald trump's tweet was encouraging something is an indication, whether it's to lie or not to lie -- in this case, he says it's not to lie. but he's encouraging him to do something. gets you very, very close to witness tampering. >> yesterday we saw a full display of democracy and respect for the office of the presidency in washington, d.c. as president bush's casket arrived in the rotunda. it's hard to balance what we saw yesterday and i think many, many, many people felt during the course of the past couple of days and will feel again tomorrow with what we're talking about here today, the president of the united states may be witness tampering, involved in obstruction of justice. >> right. which of these presidents is not like the others? it is an extraordinary contrast. i will say one thing. the president did visit president bush's casket lying in state at the capitol last night and that was a brief visit, but one would have to say it was proper, it was respectful. perhaps the way things should be. but with that sort of the exception to the rule, you notice that president trump wasn't, in fact, absent from the earlier events of the day. and that was, i think, an enormous relief to the nation, because the idea that a president who so little respects the rule of law and tradition and the continuum of the presidency from washington to lincoln to roosevelt to trump, it just doesn't -- it's jarring. >> yeah. >> and i assume we will see it will be jarring again tomorrow perhaps at the funeral. still ahead, there is more to george conway's criticism of the president's conduct. we'll show you his retweelt of pointed message following something eric trump had to say online. we are still looking at a very cold weather pattern nap's going to change with this storm off the west coast. this isn't a big huge storm like last week. we're not going to see too many problems with mudslides. but we will see rainfall in southern california today and tomorrow. it's not until we get to friday that this turns into a much bigger storm. this is going to be a southern storm. it's going to track across texas and right through the southeast. this is a pretty good rain event, some areas getting 3 inches of rain. it's just cold enough for the northern edge of this to mix in with some snow and ice. we're going to get some southern snow out of this. this is our european commutpute model. i'm not giving snowfall amounts but on a light to heavy scale, the blue will show you where the possibility of accumulating snow is. by the time we get through saturday, sunday into monday, this mess makes its way through the east. it doesn't look at this point that it's going to go up the east coast. fr all the mountain areas of the central appalachians get a chance to see some significant snow out of this. tomorrow is a quiet day for airport or road travel across the country. we could use a little break from all the rain and snow wea've ha over the last couple of weeks. next ten days snow free in new york city. ( ♪ ) what do you get the person that loves to tailgate? (click, beeps) ( ♪ ) how about a new tailgate? ring in the holidays with great deals across the buick lineup. use your avenir cash allowance to get over $6,200 below msrp on this 2019 enclave avenir. discover card. to get over $6,200 below msrp 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. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. welcome back to "morning joe." we've been talking about george conway's suggestion that president trump tampered with a witness when he praised roger stone for vowing never to testify against the president. well, president trump's son and executive vice president trump organization eric trump fired back at george conway's criticism, tweeting, of all the ugliness in politics, the utter disrespect george conway shows toward his wife, her career, place of work and everything she has fought so hard to achieve might top them all. kellyanne conway is a great person and frankly his actions are horrible. in response, george conway retweeted an author who wrote, wait, did i miss something, did george conway pay money to have sex with a porn star right after his wife gave birth? yeah. at this point, elise jordan, i don't know where they get -- and i mean this not to be anything more than i'm just absolutely intrigued by this, where they get their confidence that they could lash out at george conway for stepping up for what he believes in given what this president is accused of doing and what he has done with porn stars and playboy bunnies while his wife was pregnant. >> i don't think eric trump wants to get into a battle of wits with george conway or a debate about the law. also quite frankly, kellyanne conway can defend herself. it is so insulting that the men of trump world think that they are better advocates for kellyanne conway than she is for herself. and she has consistently shown that she can weave her way around any battle and she does not need a man like eric trump defending her. >> no. i think she's good. >> what's so insulting is that when women are always -- it's always suggested that women are subordinate to men if you have two people that are in careers. this is exactly what eric trump is suggesting of george conway, that he should basically be subordinate, that his beliefs, things that he's fought for his entire life, his status as a conservative thinker should somehow be put on hold because of what's going on inside the white house. there are two independent adult people. each should be able to pursue their careers the way they want. >> it's also so telling that the trumps and eric trump in this case view any criticism of president trump, even when it's fact based and well informed as it is in the case of george conway when he talks about the law, as a personal attack of some kind and that he's going after his wife in some way. it is the most fascinating dynamic in washington right now. wouldn't you love to be at the dinner table with the conways? this is not about a marriage. and i think kellyann would probably resent eric trump stepping up for her. if you come with any criticism of the president of the united states, it is a personal attack and you have to intervene on behalf of president trump. but i agree that kellyanne conway can probably handle this herself. coming up, we'll see if better late than never is good enough on capitol hill. cia director gina haspel is expected to brief senators on the murder of jamal kashoggi days after she was a no show for that highly charged intel briefing. what it means for u.s. relations with saudi arabia next on "morning joe." over 100 years ago, we were talking about the model t. now here we are talking about winning the most jd power iqs and appeal awards. talking about driver-assist technology talking about cars that talk and listen. talking about the highest customer loyalty in the country. but that's enough talking. seriously. that was a lot of talking. back to building that was a lot of talking. is time you make for yourself. aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion improves skin hydration in just 1 day. and for twice the moisture, try the body wash, too. aveeno® naturally beautiful results® i can't say it's the highlight dadof fatherhood.... but i'd rather be here with my little man than not be here because of migraine. i have three words for migraine... "i am here." aimovig, a preventive treatment for migraine in adults, reduces the number of monthly migraine days. for some, that number can be cut in half or more. the most common side effects are pain, redness or swelling at the injection site and constipation. talk to your doctor about aimovig. and be there more. cia director gina haspel is expected to brief senators on the murder of "washington post" columnist jamal kashoggi today. she sparked outrage among senators after missing a briefing by the secretaries of defense and state last week. we are told haspel will now tell the chairman and ranking members of the senate armed services and foreign relations committees what she knows about the murder and about u.s. support for the saudi-led war in yemen. unsatisfied by what they learned last week, senators advanced legislation to pull support for the war. more votes on that measure are expected in the coming days. >> elise, lack of transparency obviously the new craze among republicans. they want comey to come to the hill but they're terrified of him being able to testify in public and are banning him from doing that. now you have gina haspel coming to the hill to talk about the murder of kashoggi and the yemen war but only going to be speaking to a few select senators instead of the committees, which that was her appointment that she didn't show up for before. we guess at the white house's behest. what should we make of all this? >> i still think it's going to be interesting what her portrayal and her defense of the cia's assessment of this murder and how it contrasted with secretary pompeo, who only recently departed the cia himself and in his presentation of the fact pattern behind this. you have to wonder how they are able to get away with such lack of congressional oversight and continuing to delay this, you know, not having gina haspel present at the first debrief on this and then now just with the verdict few of the group. >> so you also have the "wall street journal" report of the last couple of days that has cia intercept between the crown prince that show him in contact 11 times with the man who led the operation to murder kashoggi. i would just repeat what senator durbin said on this show a few days ago last week when he quoted secretary of state mike pompeo in that all senators briefing when they said, hey, where's gina haspel. senator durbin who was in the room quoted pompeo as saying ask the white house, as if to say the white house didn't want gina haspel to be here. we've heard bob corker and others say there's no doubt in their mind that the crown prince ordered the killing, yet pompeo, defense secretary mattis and the president of the united states have all down played that connection. >> she didn't show up at the same time the president was suggesting the cia had not reached any conclusion when in fact they did reach a conclusion or certainly had evidence that amounted to a smoking gun. great reporting by the "wall street journal" showed that mbs was the heard and sot and soul operation. >> he did it as far as they can tell and they can tell pretty far given that they have these intercepts and who knows what other means. so the administration just needs to come clean. they need to come clean on this and stop trying to hide what is inevitably coming out, that this could not have happened without mohammed bin salman's approval and direction. and that's how it happened and there should be consequences. >> so there was much debate over gina haspel when she was selected to head the cia. a lot of people like mike hayden who remains in our prayers. >> absolutely. >> so many other professionals on both sides of the aisle said gina haspel is critical to have her in there, because she would not be trump's cia director, she would be america's cia director. we' if th esee if that's the ca. i'm strongly confident she will tell them the information she has. >> i'm absolutely confident. i think she wasn't there because they knew she would speak the truth and i'm waiting for it. coming up, we've talked about eric trump this morni ing but his brother is also in the headlines. why a potential faulty memory defense by don junior might not save him from the russia probe. ♪ ignition sequence starts. 10... 9... guidance is internal. 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... ♪ -we have the power -to make a difference, right now. we have the power to make sure everyone has clean water. to provide access to education for all. -to rid the world of aids, -once and for all. we have the power. to choose to include. to create clean energy. to raise capital. and be fearless entrepreneurs. to understand different perspectives. we stand behind all our partners working to make a difference. what would you like the power to do? we stand behind all our partners working to make a difference. ♪ ♪ this holiday season, families near you need your help. visit redcross.org now to donate. brushing only reaches 25% of your mouth. listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™ welcome back to "morning joe." this morning we've been talking about a number of developments in the mueller probe. and we now bring in two more experts on the matter. msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber and natasha bertrand. ari, let's start with you. the list of potential crimes, can we add at this point witness tampering? should we check that off? >> i think what you can check off is that the way the president is speaking looks a lot like witness tampering. we don't know whether as a careful prosecutor bob mueller is interested in going after a president of the united states for that kind of thing. second whether or not it's technically tampering, as you and others have been discussing, when a person is innocent and there is some sort of legal proceeding, they don't usually say to their friends please don't talk about me. they just say please testify about me truthfully. it is a giant, flapping, terrible, ominous, sad red flag if you care about america, whatever your politics, that the sitting president of the united states is not sounding like an innocent person saying, please tell the truth, but rather saying what guilty people say which is please don't talk. >> so much is happening in plain sight. it's hard to keep track. do the president's tweets -- it appears he almost seems to threaten and speak to people through his press conferences and his tweets. >> i think that is the clear implication of many of the things that he's conveyed. sometimes we use the word tweet and it almost sounds like it's minimizing it. the president uses modern technology. he obviously used it effectively on the campaign trail. but put the technology aside. it is the substance, it is the intent, it is what prosecutors look at when they look at potentially criminal intent that's so concerning. all of this comes just about two weeks after and away from one of the biggest reports of the trump era that i think sometimes gets lost because so many things are happening, which is the "new york times" busts the president for what would be an illegal order for asking the doj to investigate james comey and hillary clinton. you could do the thought experiment. if barack obama were busted by the "new york times" for ordering an investigation into john mccain, i don't think it would be a one day or one week story. i think there would be congressional committees dealing with it for years. there's so much that adds to what is the intent of this person and is it illicit or criminal. >> i'm struck by his demeanor. it appears to me that something has been disclosed to him that's deeply disturbing. that's the feeling i'm getting from watching his gheedemeanor. donald trump jr. under new skrut scrutiny. >> we know that donald trump jr. has been telling his friends and associates in recent weeks and months that he does expect to be indicted by mueller for lying to congress. and we don't know what exactly he thinks that he will be caught lying about. one of the questions obviously that's taken on more urgency in the last week or so since michael cohen pleaded guilty is the question of whether he was completely honest about being only peripherally aware of the trump tower moscow deal that michael cohen did tell prosecutors that they were pursuing up until june of 2016. but i think the more urgent question is whether or not he was being completely honest with congress when he said that he does not recall ever telling his father about the trump tower meeting with russians in june of 2016. he has said repeatedly he's kind of claimed a faulty memory in that sense. but as we've seen throughout history, that is not necessarily something that could make him get away with a potential perjury charge especially if prosecutors are able to prove he was not being honest when he said he did not remember. one of the things democrats are looking at and they hope to potentially subpoena when they take control of congress in january is who those blocked calls were that donald trump made before and after the trump tour me tower meeting. he made three calls to a blocked number and it's been speculated that it was his father. we saw scooter libby in 2006 during his trial he tried to say that he had a faulty memory and did not remember details. we saw how that worked for him. several top nixon white house aides also served prison time partially for perjury charges after they said they did not remember details about watergate. >> the volume of lies being uttered in and around the president of the united states would be hard to catalog there are so many. but you mentioned the president's tweet earlier yesterday i believe it was, basically don't talk, you know to a potential witness before a grand jury, don't talk. this week we are going to have at least two, maybe three sentencing memos come up in federal court. we in the media like to think we know more than we do know. we really don't know much at all about what bob mueller has, but the sentencing memos could open up a whole new avenue of the president being even more rattled than he has appeared to be. >> acting like we know more than we do, that's sort of our thing, mike. that's like our thing. i think it's fair to say and viewers who follow this closely have seen that when you run a careful prosecution and you don't leak, you'll always be way ahead of everyone else, ahead of witnesses and potential targets and ahead of the media. what's key about the sentencing memos is more detail than you'd normally get from the prosecution side, meaning what you need to prove bad things about people, because now you have a kwon rating witnee coop proving good things about themselves. this week we know that michael cohen is not only cooperating with mueller. we knew that a little bit. but that he's also talked to the new york state attorney general's office and other things that he's doing. with flynn even's very interested to find out will we get that kind of extra stuff or not. and we don't know yet. the sentencing memos just give you a different incentive for information that otherwise would not become public at this juncture while the probe is still open. >> question for natasha. there's a suggestion here that the president seems concerned, that he seems more unhinged than usual about this, that perhaps he's even getting a heads-up. we've seen time and time get he gets upset about something and a day or two later something from the russia probe becomes public. what sort of insight and visibility is whittaker giving trump? >> we don't know at this point. there's not been any reporting that i've done to suggest that he is actively briefing trump on all details of the mueller investigation. it seems more likely that trump's legal team is being briefed by lawyers surrounding the team and involved in it than it is that matt whittaker would go so far as to breach those norms. rod rosenstein is overseeing the investigation itself. matt whittaker ultimately is the decider of what will be allowed to move forward with the mueller investigation, but it's not clear that he's playing that extremely hands on role at this moment. i think he would face a lot of pushback in the justice department if it were discovered he was briefing trump's legal team on this. i think the fact that the sentencing memo about michael flynn is due to come out today would be really troubling and problematic for the president, because there's a big question about the michael flynn episode that kind of hangs in the balance, which is this gop operaty name opera operative who was looking for hillary clinton's stolen e-mails appeared to have been communicating with russian hackers in 2016 to try to find those e-mails. he has said he was in touch with flynn as part of that project. i'd be watching whether any details are released about that interaction and whether and what trump knew about it. >> the "new york times" is reporting that as late as mid may 2017, four months into the trump administration, the president's former campaign chair paul manafort flew to ecuador and met with the country's president offering his services to secure foreign investment, but three people familiar with the talk said the conversation turned to handing over wikileaks founder julian assange to u.s. authorities. ecuador granted assange asylum at their london embassy in 2012, protecting him from extradition to sweden on allegations he sexually abused women, which assange denies. the times' sources say manafort offered to broker a deal. manafort's spokesman tells the times it was all the idea of ecuador's president and manafort made no promises. the talks ended just days later soon after the appointment of special counsel robert mueller. the report says there is no evidence that manafort was working with or each briefing president trump or other administration officials on discussions about the matter. manafort, wikileaks and assange have all denied a recent guardian report that manafort visited assange in london in 2013, 2015 and 2016. what do we make of all this? >> well, as they say in the business, whoomp there it is. paul manafort, who's now a convicted felon, was at the time a soon to be convicted felon. this all broke off apparently right around the time that the special counsel probe intensified because they knew it wasn't just going to be controlled by trump officials. so you ha i mean, ecuador obviously at a high level can talk to the united states without mr. manafort. i think what's striking about this story is that it picks up on this other open question which is how much was paul manafort involved in what would be an international election conspiracy because he might have tried to form the direct links tos a sau assange to get the e-. that's not verified at this point. nbc news hasn't been able to verify the guardian story that allege that he went there earlier. that's the big question. it could be a whole lot of nothing if there snor maybe paus always doing these types of meetings because he does have a lot of experience in international lobbying and back channelling and he was brokering. i think this is another tantalizing piece of this story, because on the spectrum, it moves closer to a key person being involved in an international election conspiracy rather than farther away from it. >> by this point the ecuadorans are just wanting to get julian assange out of their embassy. he's been there for six years and there's been no forward movement whatsoever. i would think it's out of the scope of imagination that they would have seen paul manafort as someone who could cut through the u.s. bureaucracy and start to get something moved. also paul manafort could probably be rewarded with some contract. he was working with the chinese trying to persuade the ecuadorians. >> this is the longest house guest ever. in a moment we're going to get to the economic impact of president trump's so-called deal with china, which we're not sure if it's a deal, on a pause in the trade war. first, these tweets from the president putting great weight on his personal relationship with the chinese leader. quote, president xi and i have a very strong and personal relationship. he and i are the only two people that can bring about massive and very positive change, on trade and far beyond. between our two great nations, a solution for north korea is a great thing for china and all. i am certain that at some time in the future president xi and i together with president putin of russia will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable arms race. the u.s. spent $716 billion this year. crazy. elise jordan -- natasha, what's the first thing that comes to your mind as i read that tweet? is it the last word, crazy? >> it's just kind of more evidence that the president thinks that he, china and russia are going to save the world, which yes, is pretty crazy. it just shows even more that the president has this affinity for strong men and authoritarian leaders and he wants to align himself with them rather than with our traditional allies. i think when we saw trump go to the g20 summit last week, it was very clear that he felt kind of isolated as usual. and i think that was a moment that the chinese and russian leaders felt like they could kind of move in and exmiddleweight thexploit that, especially given trump's penchant for flattery and being susceptible to these withdraw from its more traditional alliances, china and russia are going to try to exploit that. >> i don't know, just the way you read that tweet, and i saw him mentioning putin in such a special way, you just can't help to wonder exactly what putin has. i'm at the point where there's no question in my mind that he's got something on trump. i've been hearing from sources around the globe that the tapes are real, which sounds just beyond disgusting. >> it's too early. it's too early. >> i'm sorry. there's something. >> nothing in that tweet is rooted in reality. i just can't -- it's mind blowing that donald trump talks about wanting to stop the arms race when he won't stop the $110 billion in arms he's selling to the saudis to kill innocent yem men yemenis. he needs to look at home if he wants to talk about ending the arm race. >> well, he can't. n natr natracha, thank you. up next, investors aren't the only one skeptical of the so-called trade truce with china. white house aides are too. not long ago, ronda started here. and then, more jobs began to appear. what started with one job spread all around. because each job in energy creates many more in this town. discover.o. i like your card, but i'm absolutely not paying an annual fee. discover has no annual fees. really? yeah. we just don't believe in them. oh nice. you would not believe how long i've 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close. yes, but also all... night through its entirety. come on, all... the time from sunset to sunrise. right. but you can trade... from, from... from darkness to light. ♪ you're not gonna say it are you? the excitement over a possible trade truce between the u.s. and china has now turned to worry. the markets here in the u.s. are set to open in negative territory this morning after yesterday's strong gains. for more, let's bring in cnbc's brian sullivan. the positive sentiments we saw yesterday, they didn't hang around that long. why? >> no, they didn't. we're talking about a pause. nothing has been settled yet. that's the reality. you know d.c. well enough to know it's very hard to figure out anything. the color of wallpaper in 90 days, much less hammer out some kind of global trade deal between china and the u.s. and possibly with europe as well. the market realized that. we didn't fix it. what we got was a deal to pause to make a deal. now of course we have that i guess march 1st deadline. the markets said that can has been kicked but we haven't solved the problem of the can. >> so i still think when i'm looking at pictures of this dinner that trump is getting played terribly. because at this point, he's -- on the world stage, basically to not make any sense. having said that, let's move to opec and get news on that. >> oil's been a big story. i know you have covered the riots in france, and that is loosely related. in the '70s, opec was everything. now it's about a third. the united states has taken some of that oil power. big meeting in vienna. the russians are coming in. they've got a side deal with the saudis. they've kind of created a mini opec, where the russians and the saudis together to sort of counter our thing. i know you are covering these terrible riots, the yellow vests. it's roughly 20 cents per u.s. gallon. roughly increased in diesel tax. you know in europe, gas is already expensive. people rely on it. they're sick of it. they're protesting against the proposed tax levy, which would have gone into effect january 1st. these riots are bad. there's more than 100 gas stationings that have no gas because the yellow vests have blocking the gas stations. >> i want to go to jonathan lamere and then mike barnicle for final thoughts. of course everything is a little bit slowed down and people are hopefully taking a moment to recognize the legacy of h.w. bush. we're looking at government shutdown, a couple of different tracks. >> that's right. it looks like it has been delays, decision on that, because of this pause. we have saw certainly it started yesterday in a very bipartisan fashion. president trump made a visit there yesterday. he will be invited to the funeral. the bush family end kiindicated wanted to set aside the previous difficulties in respect to coming together for the nation. the pause will not last long. there's a lot to do in terms of the government shutdown in the coming days and of course we're going to learn robert mueller is not pausing. we'll see the details in terms of flynn, manafort. >> all this will be happening, mike barnicle, as the nation gets ready to say good-bye to former president george h.w. bush funeral tomorrow. what are we expecting? what is the symbolism as we look at this moment in history? >> this is an american moment. it's not a tweet. it's not a text. it's not sky writing that's going to disappear in the clouds. this is about one man, george herbert weak of walker bush who at 18 years of age began serving his country. it's about a man who valued and knew the meaning of the office he held. who had loyalty to the country and to the office far above himself. a man who made mistakes. at the end of the day, his life and his personality is him, himself, was decent, courageous and tremendous character. i would hope the country remembers that long after we remember what is happening on an ongoing basis around washington today. >> yes. mike barnicle, thank you so much. i think it should serve really as a way to make us remember what we're made of. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, making the case. a court memo due any moment now. the first of three coming this week on former trump associates which could reveal key details of robert mueller's investigation. outrage in wisconsin and michigan as lame duck republicans attempt to strip power from elected officials before democrats actually take control. meanwhile, one race in north carolina goes from an apparent