Engaging in spying when theyre following fbi investigative policies and procedures . Well, thats not the term i would use. When it comes to the investigation into the trump campaign, the attorney general was quick to toss around terms like spying. The fbi director wasnt so cavali cavalier. No. I mean, it is so interesting. Were seeing every day, confirmation of things we already knew, but it is nice to get that confirmation. You know, willie, a couple days ago, when the 500 prosecutors said, yeah, he committed obstruction of justice, and wed like the president to be indicted. We knew that, but it sure was nice to hear it from 500 prosecutors, also republicans. Same thing with the fbi director yesterday. Yes, we knew barr was lying. We knew he wouldnt call it spying. He has an audience of one. If your job is to be joe mcarthurs lawyer, thats what youre going to do. He dispassionately shoots holes in the things that the president of the administration says. Fisa surveillance is not spying. That was bad. That was a bad moment for the president. Yeah. At least he had good breaking news later on. His good friends at the the New York Times, who hes greatly admired and wanted to be loved by him. They finally gave him love yesterday. Lots so. They gave me every newspaper here but the New York Times. Every one. I have the toronto star heastar here. I have the cleveland plain dealer. Im going through it all. Sacramento b is down there. Amazing investigation. It shows well, i have to say we can do the short version. Biggest loser. No one has lost as much money, right . You have won. You are the number one. We have to practice something. We have to get into this, especially because we have somebody who broke the story. We have to practice a couple things before we bring you on. Do you have the sound effects . Im sure when the New York Times sits there and writes something so when i say he lost 1 billion over the decade, and that was thats good. Hold on. No, no, no. You remember the price is right. That was perhaps the biggest loss by any individual over the entire decade. Thats a lot. Thats when you do it. Its all about timing, and you blew it. This is a serious news show. This has been a good rehearsal. What about wahwah. Alex, when do we go live . Five minutes. Were on. Live . Whats that. Were on, right now. You need to do it every year though, year by year. She would know. She broke the story. Listen, heres the deal, we deal in generalities around here, okay . We dont like specific numbers. Im not good there. Why dont we introduce. Lets go to the numbers. We want to go every year. We have Mike Barnicle here. We do. National security reporter for nbc news, Julia Ainsley. Senior writer at politico, jake sherman, msnbc political contributor. Also with us, Investigative Reporter for the New York Times,. Slow clap. Susan craig, who wrote the report thats pulling back the curtain on President Trumps finances, revealing his prior business struggles were far worse than previously thought. Staggering. This was the second biggest story of the day. Mike, what was the biggest story of the day . Liverpool. Liverpool coming back. Corinne edibincredible. Random highlights . I dont want to see them coming out. We want to see the thing . We want to see anyway, well get to this later on. We have with it Roger Bennett, who is going to be coming. One of the greatest comebacks in the history of european football. Yeah, not roger. Thats a sad, sad story. Thats not a great comeback. Anyway, were going to be talking about liverpool in a little bit. Very excited to have julia here, too. Really great to have you with us. Thanks for having me up here. It is great to be off my corner at the Justice Department, seeing my colleagues in person again. Once in a while, right . We have a get to get a lot to get to with you. Anybody that walks behind you with signs will be dragged off. Id love for my mother and second grade teacher who diagnosed me with a. D. D. To see me trying to read that with people heckling me behind. I overcame that. Thats long history of pain right there. No heckling. We can talk about it. Except from Mike Barnicle. Ferguson, the press secretary for clin new mexihill tweeted this math. To lose over 1 billion over ten years. Trump lost 11,416 per hour. Trump lost 274,000 every single day. Trump lost 8. 3 million every month. Trump lost 100 million every year for a decade. See . Thats how you do it. Somehow, that sound doesnt even match how bad those numbers are. The price is wrong, [ bleep ]. A little happy gilmorgilmor how do you lose that much monday . Documents show by the time his bestselling memoir this is the part i love by the time the art of the deal came out, and everybody said, i want to be like trump because i knew a lot of people that read that and said, i want to be like trump. They did. No, you didnt, unless you already wanted to be in deep financial trouble. By that time, he was losing tens of millions of dollars on bad business deals. The paper says the figures show that in 1985, trump reported losses of just over 46 million from his core businesses, mostly casinos, hotels, and retail space and apartment buildings. Those businesses continued to lose money every day for a total loss of 1. 7 billion over the nearly tenyear span. The times goes on to say that year after year after year, trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual american taxpayer, citing his results compared to information compiled by the irs on high income earnings. More than anybody, he lost more. In 1990 and 1991, his core business losses totaled more than 250 million each year. More than twice that of the nearest taxpayer in the irs information in the two years. Hes the biggest loser. The paper adds trump lost so much money that he avoided paying taxes for eight to ten years. The times says a lawyer for the president responded to the inquiries about the Tax Information by writing, it was demonstrably false, the papers statements about the president s finances from 30 years ago are inaccurate, citing no error. What i thought was interesting, they sort of had this rolling statement. The first when it first started, they were saying, well, you know weve been talking to them for a month or so. Depreciation and, you know, he is a powerful businessman. He can do this. As the story got closer, and you all moved in closer, then they finally gave up and said, fake news. Yeah. That the transcript we have was just not reliable. Now wow. The information you got this from, you also said in the piece that this is not only highly accurate information, but it is actually information that the government has used before in trying to project forward. Yeah. To guard against the idea that somebody may have typed in something wrong, we asked the source to provide us with several years of fred trumps Tax Information. Because of a previous information, we have years of fred trumps tax returns, matched dollar for dollar. On twitter, in between my 87 liverpool tweets, we were debating what was more powerful, your lead because i thought the lead was extraordinary that is, by the time his massive universe memoir the art of the deal hit bookstores, trump was already in deep financial distre distress, losing tens of millions of dollars. We went through all of that. Whether that was more powerful or whether it was more powerful at the end, when you all were saying donald trump was making excuses for his losses. This is such a terrible time. Everybody is losing money. Except. Except donald trump may have lost a ton of money, what, 53 well, actually, he lost 274 million . Core businesses did that year, yeah. That year. No, everybody wasnt losing. How did fred trump do . He did really well and would have done better but he took out money that year. Some of it to help his son. Fred trump he lost money to his father. Fred trump made about 54 million that year. Yeah. His only significant loss, it was a 15 Million Investment in one of donalds businesses. That didnt do so well, yeah. Yeah. So it seems that donald trump burst onto the scene, had a couple quick successes, and it wasnt the first wave of spending that got him, as much as it was you describe the second wave of acquisitions. One failure after another. I thought what was incredible when we saw the data, if there was one era in his life that you thought we would have done well, it would have been this. I wouldnt have predicted that every year would have had a loss. This is a guy who wrote a memoir about art of the deal in 1987 and lost tens of millions of dollars that year. If i could have picked a decade, having followed his finances, there would have been at least one or two years in here i would have thought he was doing well. He said 1990 was the year he hit the rocks. Now, we see that he was losing significant amounts of money. We now know through at least 1984, because weve got transparency into that thanks to the 85 return information weve now seen. Again, that was on the heels of what should have been his biggest successes, whether it was trump tower, whether it was the hyatt. Right. He built it in grand central. If those are your records, how do you get loans . Who would lend you money . Who would well, some of it was guaranteed by his father. Right. It was just i mean, in other areas, it was a different era at the time. He had assets. Properties. Some was guaranteed, certainly, by his father. His father gave him 415 million by 2019. I love that donald trump played corporate raider. Its great. The stocks would go up a little bit. After a while, wall street figured out faster than voters, this guy is full of it. Hes not going to buy any company. He did well on some of the trades. Ultimately, even those he lost money. He lost it. Once wall street figured out it was a bluff for three or four years. You point out in the piece, when he was on the forbes list in 1985, which was a breakout moment, he was listed as having 600 million. Most of that, you point out, was his fathers, his inheritance. It was a lot of the assets. It is interesting to read this. We were talking about before we came on the air, in the 1980s, most people around new york sort of knew this or succe suspected that he was a fraud. We didnt know the numbers, that he lost 1 billion over a decade. The losses are so huge. When you talk to his people, theyre like, depreciation. This is not depreciation. No. These are massive business losses. We had access to a data bank where we could see other results of highincome earnings. He was at the top of it for the worst losses year in and year out. It is not, like, oh, a lot of people who are in real estate have these type of results. This is really bad business. Mike, think about that. Lets top for one second, for people that havent real this story. Donald trump, for the better part of the decade, lost more money than perhaps any other american taxpayer. For nearly a tenyear period. For nearly a decade, lost more money. Its not like, oh, well, he might not have been the brilliant deal maker. He likes to win. You all had the great quote in this graph. I think it is on 14, of all his losses. Theres a quote there that says, the way that i judge success is, unfortunately, by money. Well, by that standard, lets see here, we want that, yes. Look at those dollars. That alarm is the bankruptcy alarm going off. Or i have to wake up my daughter. Wrap your arms around that fact, that he lost more money than any individual in america for over a decade. You could read any biography thats ever been written about donald trump. It wouldnt come close to a portrayal of him as an individual better than this Forensic Autopsy of his money, his lack of money. There is one element in here that jumped out at me, suzanne. It was the 52. 9 million windfall in interest. Jumped out at us, too. Tell us why. Well, every year, donald trump had pretty steady amount of Interest Income coming in. Itd be 8 million, 9 million, 10 million, going up and down. Interest youre getting from mortgages or bonds. In 1989, it went to 52. 9 million. We couldnt figure it out. It is interesting. This is a year where there are vagaries around Donald Trumps finances, and that year, the casino commissions were all over him in new jersey. We had a lot of transparency into how he was doing. There was a 1990 report that was written on his finances that was based on people who had seen his tax return. We can find no asset that would be throwing off that type of money. We did not have the schedules to understand what was behind that. We have the numbers but dont have where you have to itemize it. It goes, for us, the importance of seeing the modern tax returns, and not just the front pages, the 1040 we all fill out, but the schedules, where we can actually see where this money is coming from. It was just really frustrating. We spent months trying to sort out these numbers. Incredible. I want to get Julia Ainsley and jake sherman in here. Question for you both, and i know youre here to cover william barr and other things, and we have a lot to get to, but curious, what questions come to mind, based on what were seeing here, over the course of ten years, and such huge losses, especially from a president of the United States who now is, historically, someone who lost more money. I mean, hes broken a record here, one that maybe he doesnt want anyone to know he broke. What questions does it raise, in terms of what the tax returns that we have yet to see look like . Exactly. Im seeing this through the washington lens, the debate were having with the treasury secretary refusing to hand over current tax returns. This graph jumped out at me. Amazing reporting here. Overall, mr. Trump lost so much money, he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight out of the ten years. If you think about what voters care about, the narrative theyve seen behind trump, and the debate, the power that congress could have with that information, to say, we need to see more, i wondered what that meant to you, that he was able to avoid that. Was that maneuvering, or was it simply, he was at such a loss . When you have that big of losses, youre able to avoid tax. The two years he hit, he was paying the alternative minimum tax. One of it was because he had a big payout on a salary from a deal he did, so it triggered it. The years we saw, theyre not huge amounts of income tax he ended up paying. When you have the losses that big, you dont have to pay taxes. I need to correction. I said that the biggest loss had been of any taxpayer. As jack pointed out in hi emy e he was a tax filer. Not a payer. He was doing poor in business. He always says, im being audited. I cant show my tax returns. You can bet the principle reason he has fought so hard for so long to preclude anyone from seeing his taxes is he goes out to the country its embarrassing. And it helps him get elected, the system is rigged against you. The betting is that he has paid very few, if any, taxes over the last ten years. He has a treasury secretary who is protecting his tax returns at the moment. Yeah. Sue, i want to ask you about your reporting. We know whats coming. Im surprised we havent seen a tweet yet from the president. Hell say, this is fake news. They didnt get the actual tax returns, they got copies. We were up front, we dont have the tax returns. We have a copy of an irs document of his irs transcript. We were able to confirm it through a number of ways, including the individual who provided us that also provided us with fred trumps tax returns. We also were able to match the transcript that we have through actually a database thats kept by the irs. It is anonymous. Because we had the taxes in the first instance, the Tax Information, we were able to match it into the database. We also had a lot of information from the other investigation we did on fred trumps tax returns, and things matched. We spent time engineering it and going out for confirmation in other ways. How is this going to move the debate forward as it pertains to the democrats getting ahold of Donald Trumps tax returns . They have the statutory right. Some will say this was a constitutional crisis. That was corrected. This is not a constitutional crisis, when the chairman of the ways and Means Committee asks for your tax returns, and the Treasury Department doesnt give it. Thats a crime. How are they going to resolve that . Ill reverse a second. Last night, when this great, amazing story popped, the house was voting. The reaction almost to a person among republicans was, wait, didnt we know he was losing a lot of money during those years . People werent moved. Republicans, obviously, werent moved by this, which they should be, because this is stunning. They also were not moved by the fact we have an attorney general who committed perjury in the house of representatives and would have any of us thrown in jail. He nor the majority leader cares. In answering your more direct question, yes, the law is clear, that the treasury secretary has to hand over the individuals tax returns when the ways and Means Committee chairman asks for it. Not, as Steven Mnuchin says, if there is a legitimate legislative purpose. Now, this is almost definitely going to court and is going to be a massive battle between the administration and capitol hill for the foreseeable future. I think from the president s allies, what i keep hearing is, lets get past 2020. Republicans want to get past 2020 without these battles being resolved. It looks like, if it goes to court, if past is precedent, theyll get past 2020 without extracting the president s tax returns. I dont know why the Supreme Court wouldnt expedite it. Id think the court would handle it very quickly. Well see what happens. Lets bring in the New York Times reporter michael schmidt. Thank you so much for being with us. You know, the president had said to you sometime ago that talk about his personal finances, it was crossing line. Hes getting audited. That line has been crossed, of course, and now democrats have even more reason, do they not, to try to get ahold of his tax returns, to try to figure out whether saudi arabia, russia, oligarchs from the countries were actually floating his business because hed lost so much money. As we all knew in new york, no American Bank would ive talked to several people who were the ones who had to go over and tell donald trump, one, even in the middle of the president ial campaign, no, donald, we cant loan you money. You know that. Doesnt this just increase the democrats need for seeing those tax returns . Yeah. Yeah, youre right. The funny thing about the Mueller Report when it came out is it said that there was no underlying crime that they could show. I sort of understood from a legal perspective why they were saying that, but the president always feared the Mueller Investigation looking at his finances. He said to us in july of 2017 that if mueller looked at them, it was crossing a red line. Then in december of 2017, after there was a wrong report out there, that mueller subpoenaed his bank records, he wanted to get rid of mueller again. What was it about his finances that he was so afraid about mueller looking at . I guess maybe were learning about some of that today. At some point, people were pointing out overnight, they dont have a full picture. This is a small snapshot of it. We also dont know what mueller actually looked at on his finances. Did mueller have his taxes . Legal experts would say, yes, mueller probably did, and it wouldnt have been that hard for him to get them. How much of his money was really looked at . I wonder if mueller ever testifies, whether well get an answer to that. My guess is mueller will probably not be that helpful in answering that, because it was not something in his report. I cant imagine deviating from that. It is still this giant question that hangs over. How much did mueller look at the money . Suszannsuzanne, youve been at accessing documents. Whats the chances an organization like the New York Times gets their hands on the president s recent tax returns, say the last six years . I think as this continues to be talked about, i think there is going to be a break in this. We, so far, havent seen any of the modern tax returns, and thats kind of 2005 going forward. I mean, i have to think it is going to happen. I mean, maybe im an optimistic person, but i think, eventually, this is going to break. Suzanne craig, thank you so much. I know youve been working night and day. To come in for our sound effects. Come in the in the morning, put up with the sound effects, put up with liverpool, put up with it all. This is next time, we can talk hockey. Im canadian. Are you really . We shall do that. Canadiens fan . Im from calgary, so all the canadian teams are out though. Little things we learn. How is the Prime Minister doing . Hes having some trouble. Yeah . In what way . You know, where do we start on that . You know, it is interesting. You dont want to talk about him right now, do you . Thats okay. He likes to do pushups and stuff. Onearm pushups. I like to stay away from the politics when i can. Youre lucky, sticking to the numbers. Thank you. You brought us some staggering numbers. Extraordinary job. Suzanne craig, thank you very much. Still ahead on morning joe. And our country, needless to say, is doing fantastically well. Were setting records. Over 100 days of stock market wins, meaning the highest in history. Over 100 days weve had of stock market wins. He likes to win, and he won overnight with this news. That was President Trump on monday. On tuesday, a 473point plunge on wall street. You cant talk about the markets without talking about china. The conversation is straight ahead. As we go to break, what a rollout for mikas book earn it. She shot to 37 on amazons new releases. It tops the charts in books about job hunting, resume, and the media. Wonderful. Get your copy at know your value. Com. More importantly you have to earn it. It is for young women. Earn it. Oh, he didnt. Donald, youre watching. The art of the deal thing didnt work out. We should send him one. Well send it. Complimentary. We know things could be tight. Well send an autographed copy of mikas gold plated earn it. There you go. You can get back into the black. Well be right back. Well bk but allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. Giving you the power to actually lower your cost. Unfortunately, it cant do anything about that. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . Applebees bigger, bolder grill combos. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. With uncontrolled moderatetosevere eczema,n who got an awful skin condition. Or atopic dermatitis, you feel like youre itching all the time. And you never know how your skin will look. Because deep within your skin an overly sensitive immune system could be the cause. So help heal your skin from within, with dupixent. Dupixent is not a steroid, and it continuously treats your eczema even when you cant see it. At 16 weeks, nearly four times more patients taking dupixent saw clear or almost clear skin compared to those not taking it, and patients saw a significant reduction in itch. Do not use if you are allergic to dupixent. Serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, a severe reaction. 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Yet, on this central question, the special counsels finding is clear, case closed. Case closed. Well, you just wonder what mitch is getting out of this, to shame himself for history. I mean, mike, he knows thats a lie, first of all. He knows that the investigation proved what our Intel Community had said, and republicans had denied, and the president denied, that russia posed a threat to american democracy in 2016 and were going to try to do it again in 2020. Mitch mcconnell, by the ways, kids, if youre keeping score at home, on what a partisan he is and how little he cares about the protection of american democracy, mitch was one who, in 2016, when told the russians were trying to interfere with american democracy, trying to steal your election from you, Mitch Mcconnell told everybody that they couldnt go out and say anything about it or else he would attack them as partisans. Thats how much like he was warned by the Intel Community, the russians were trying to rig the American Election for president. He fought that. Now, were on the other end of it. What have we found out . That the intel communities were right. Donald trump believed putin, but the report shows the intel communities were right. The United States military was right. Putin was wrong. We also learned, mike, it wasnt case closed. What we learned was that Robert Mueller said, listen, i cant say that the president is not guilty. I cannot just wave my arm and say that he did not commit a crime. That is a question that is still open. It is a question that was answered by 500 former federal prosecutors, republicans and democrats alike, saying, yeah, yeah, he obstructed justice and would have been indicted. Joe, in the anales of hypocrisy, Mitch Mcconnell is in the hall of fame, and has been there for quite some time. Whatreferring to, and things last for two seconds and people remember nothing, but 12 essential members of congress, if there is such a thing, met in the capitol. Mitch mcconnell was one of them. They were given all of the intelligence. They were briefed on how russia had invaded, attacked our electoral system, and are still attacking. Attacking american democracy. Lets call it what it is. Yes. Russia had attacked american democracy. What did he do . What did mitch mcdconnell choose . The protection and security of the United States of america . Nope. Did he choose the republican partys candidate . Well, we know. Which is trump. And jake sherman, he is doing exactly what the president was hoping hed do. The president tweeting this morning, case closed, all caps, exclamation point with a link to the video of the majority leader making the case closed speech yesterday. So the president , obviously, jake, in the republican party, has exactly what he needs up there on the hill. He has people who will protect him, ultimately from impeachment, but also from things like getting the tax returns, from things like william barr being held in contempt, on and on and on. The president must be thrilled by what he sees out of republicans. Mitch mcconnell is definitely the tip of the spear, but i think we can say, without a doubt, that hes representing almost every single Senate Republican and most every house republican. Hes not taking a position, mcconnell is not, that is not supg po supported by the vast majority, if not all, of the house of representatives and the senate, republicans, that is. Were focusing in the media on capitol hill, a lot of contempt, impeachment, and thats appropriate. Remember, all of this stuff is going absolutely nowhere while republicans hold the senate. Its interesting gossip and interesting trivia to know that the house is going to hold people in contempt, but it has very little actual meaning because the senate is still republican and controlled by Mitch Mcconnell, who believes that its case closed. Julie, theres a growing list of controversies. Many people would say growing list of abuses. You could talk about don mcgahn not being allowed to testify. You could talk about not sending the unredacted report to congress, which is another outrage. You could talk about an attorney general who committed perjury when testifying before the house. The list goes on and on and on. How do democrats move this ball forward in the house of representatives . How does this shake out between the Judiciary Committee in the house and the white house . Today may be the tipping point. If they go forward with this vote on contempt. Weve seen brinkbrinkmanship fr both sides. The white house, executive branch using executive privilege, and the democrats using contempt of congress. Weve seen the counter offer from house dems to the offer by the Justice Department. Now, the Justice Department is threatening a wider blanket over executive privilege. That wont just matter with the version of the report democrats want to see. They also try to use executive privilege, as weve seen, to try to keep mueller from testifying. To try to keep don mcgahn from testifying. This is a broad stroke interpretation of this law. I think a lot of this investigation has sent us all to rudimentary law school, but exec fif impressi executive privilege isnt settled, when you talk about people who leave the administration, whether they can be reined in, and how far the president himself can go to protect this information. This administration, so far, is pushing that definition about as far as it can go. Thats what nancy pelosi was saying. Right. You know, the democrats are being pushed toward impeachment. Hes goading. Hes not complying on any level. Well, these are, michael, these are legal questions. Many of them are legal questions. Its going to be up to the courts to decide them. I find it hard to believe the d. C. Circuit and courts are going to wait until after 2020 to resolve these extraordinary important constitutional questions. Based on your reporting, any projections on where this battle between the white house and the Judiciary Committee and the house goes . I mean, at the very least, itll take months. I think on a more important level, whats gone on here is the democrats have failed time and time again here to build any real momentum coming out of the report. Barr sort of you know, the delay between his fourpage letter and the report coming out sort of dampened things. Barrs testimony has been the last thing that weve heard publicly on this in a major way. We still havent heard from mueller. Democrats have struggled to build momentum coming out of the report. They keep on being stymied by the white house on executive privilege or on the Justice Department refusing to hand things over. The question is, will they be able to get anything that helps build their argument . Will they be able to get a witness up there to testify in a way that can lay this out for folks and, you know, the democrats can try and make their argument . They have not been able to do that yet. It seems like an uphill battle. You wonder where henry waxman is today and what he would be doing if he was around. Julia, what happens if lets talk about what a contempt vote means as a practical matter. It is out of the Judiciary Committee. Nancy pelosi can schedule a full house vote on the question of contempt. If the attorney general is voted in contempt, then what . Is it a symbolic statement . Weve seen it drag on. The most recent example would be with eric holder and the fast and furious. They wanted to get more information on that. That went on to a point where we didnt see a settlement on that until after obama left office. There are Different Things they can do in contempt. One can be a civil settlement, which i think would make a lot of people upset in the end. A fine, thats not enough. It is hard we are past a point where congress has the power to arrest someone and haul them in front of congress. That hasnt been done since the 30s, to have that criminal justice power. So it is difficult to see where it goes. I think one answer is that it is a long haul, to see what happens after that. Michael, some more reporting overnight from you. Tell us why the mueller team were trying to keep comeys memos secret. So this is a transcript that came out from january of 2018. It was a closed door between the mueller team and a judge. The mueller team was trying to argue that the judge should keep comeys memos, those memos he wrote about all his interactions with trump, secret. What the mueller team said, this was one of muellers top deputy lawyers there, basically saying that if these memos came out, it would give witnesses, and at that time, the president was under investigation for obstruction of justice, it would give them a road map, essentially, to what they could testify to. In order to protect the investigation and stop witnesses from trying to get their testimony to line up with the detail, the accounts of comeys memos, these needed to be kept secret, needed to be confidential. What it is, its interesting that we get this sort of window into what was going on inside of the mueller team. This is january of 2018. Seven or eight months after they had been appointed. Theyre investigating the president. Theyre still calling in witnesses. Theyre trying to protect themselves. Protect witnesses from tailoring their stories to line up. It was just a rare sort of look at what the mueller team was saying. Acknowledging in court, it was in secret at the time, that the president was being investigated. So theres so many different story lines were following, Julia Ainsley. Of course, theres the issue of the secret clearances, jared and ivanka. Heres Something Interesting that john kelly said yesterday. Take a listen. Was it complicated to have the president s family in the government at the time . Theyre an influence that has to be dealt with. Today, if you were i dont mean by no means mean mrs. Trump. First lady is a wonderful person. Who is he talking about . Wow. Fantastic. Interesting on so many levels. First of all, weve had reporting at nbc news, my colleague carol lee talking about tension between john kelly and melania trump. I wonder if hes trying to smooth things over there. Many in and out of the white house talk about the force that is jared and ivanka trump. You know, from outside of the palace intrigue perspective, this matters because there are people who are close enough to the president because theyre related to him, that they can influence policy, they can influence who comes and who goes. Jared kushner had a big weighin on the firing of Kirstjen Nielsen and pushing for different immigration policies, just like steven miller. Those could be different. But when it comes down to a security clearance, the fact these people are able to use their influence and get information when, in any other situation, they should not have that access, i think thats what calls it into question. Julia, jake, michael, thank you, all. What a morning. Appreciate your reporting. Ahead, wall street ended yesterdays session deep in the red amid a trade deal standoff between the Trump Administration and china. Well bring in richard haas and cnbcs Brian Sullivan for that discussion. Morning joe will be back in a moment. Run with us. 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Never settle for 25 . Always go for 100. Bring out the bold™ this and even this. Hark, i deep clean messes like this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself. music throughout roughly 90 of stocks lost value during yesterdays massive market selloff on fears that the white house is about to intensify President Trumps trade war with china. While the chinese trade delegation is set to head to washington for talks on thursday and friday, yesterdays market meltdown is a sign that inves r investors dont believe the u. S. And china will find Common Ground to stave off another round of tariffs. The administration set a deadline for raising tariffs to 25 on 200 billion worth of chinese goods for friday. Trump, who once labeled himself as tariff man, has always recently threatened multiple times to impose a 25 tariff on an additional 2 235 billion. It would be subject to duty taxes from china. The president will often talk about getting the money from china when he imposes tariffs, calls himself tariff man. A tariff is a tax on you. He puts a tariff on products coming into the United States, going to walmart, going well, i mean, it is not just retail. Of course, farmers right now getting absolutely hammered. A lot of sectors getting hammered because of this. Lets bring in Brian Sullivan. Negative reaction yesterday from the street. What is the attitude on the street about Donald Trumps increased threats of additional tariffs against china, a country that many of those same people have been saying for years, china has taken advantage of the United States on trade deals . Well, they have. I mean, listen, the trade deficit, whatever you think about it, is large, a couple hundred billion dollars. We dont sell that much to them, but they sell a lot to us. I think the fear is this, that it is like brexit, right . British leaving the eu is that it is just going to continue on. Theres been this belief that were going to get some kind of a deal, a hard and fast moment, at which pen to paper, some handshakes, photographs are taken, and everybody walks away. There is a growing fear on the street that perhaps this will not end that way. Maybe this will kind of continue to stretch on. As you guys intimated in your intro there, were about 42. 5 hours away from the tariffs being inl plemplemented. 12 01 a. M. Eastern time, it goes from 5 to 25 on 200 bl 200 bi. Then the president has the option to raise tariffs on pretty much Everything Else that comes into the United States, about 550 billion in total product. The real fear, and what happened yesterday is the fear that this will just kind of go on, a slow drip, and we wont get a resolution any time soon. Thank you so much, brian. Thank you, brian. Great talking to you. Cnbcs Brian Sullivan. Richard, what is the attitude of the counsel when it comes to these tariffs, when it comes to china . You do have i was recounting yesterday with the sitting congressman, now 25 years ago, we were fighting mfn. China was guilty of intellectual property theft on a massive scale. That has continued. Theres been american corporations that have gone over and made sweetheart deals with china, transferring technology to china down the road. I mean, this is a problem. It is a growing problem. China is not our enemy, but theyre our main competitor. If not tariffs, what do we use to check the chinese . Look, china has been in the World Trade Organization for nearly 20 years. They have taken advantage of it. Trade imbalance is not quite as bad as everybody says. Probably 30 less because everything out of china is really produced elsewhere. Put that aside. The real question is will raising tariffs do something . The answer is the chinese will agree to buy more american goods. They may reduce some of their tariffs against the United States. Theyre not going to stop subsidizing the Large Enterprises simply to please us. Theyll say theyll stop stealing technology but theyll keep doing it. The question is whether well take a deal that wont solve the problem. There is no solving the problem. Theyre economic competitors. How do we stop them from stealing our technology . We can get them to stop requiring that we transfer it as a price of entry to the market, but we cant stop them stealing. Isnt that really again, for people who dont know, you can have a ceo of a big corporation. He or she wants to get to china, so they agree, well transfer Critical Technology to you if youll let us get into china. Hes thinking of profits over the next three, four, five years, not caring about whats in the best interest of the United States. Isnt that really more about a law that we pass here in the United States for corporations that are based in the United States than anything we impose on china . There is that issue. There is the question of chinese access to American Technology through investment here. Were beginning to shut that down. How do you maintain an economic relationship with a country thats competitive, that will at times steal your technology . We wont get a solution. The question is whether we can bound the loss of technology at the same time we compete with them, same time we maintain access to their market. Thats the trick. Thats what were up to. National correspondent for the atlantic magazine, graham wood. His book, the way of the strangers, encounters with the Islamic State is out in paperback. One year to the day after President Trump withdrew the United States from the landmark iran Nuclear Agreement, iranian president rouhani says hes sent letters to the remaining five signatories of the deal, saying tehran will keep its excess uranium rich oil and not sell it to other countries. In addition, hes giving the countries 60 days to help reach new terms for the deal and go through with promised purchases of iranian oil. Rouhani says after the 60 days, iran will scale back more compliance with the nuclear deal, includining an increase i the uraniumenrichment level. The breaking news this morning is president rouhani says were going to stop, right now, complying with two central parts of the agreement we have here, and start making this stuff again. Whats the impact of all this . Well, iran has known this was going to happen for quite some time now. The Trump Administration, john bolton, mike pompeo, theyve made it very clear that this deal is one they want out of. Theyre going to move out of. I was traveling with bolton in the caucuses a few months ago. The purpose of his being there was to tell allies of the United States, like georgia, armenia, you need to extricate yourself from economic tanglings with iran. It is moving a little closer toward direct confrontation with iran. Wanted out of the iran deal. You did it. What was the strategy behind it . Was there going to be a new deal . Did you want a confrontation . What was the plan . The strategy was to try to bring about the end of the Iranian Regime. What weve done is put tremendous economic pressure on iran. Weve told our allies and others, you have to choose. Either have economic relationship with us or have an economic relationship with iran. You cant have both. We put tremendous pressure on iran. Now, iran is beginning to push back. There was inevitable. The question is, now what . Theyre basically threatening in 60 days that theyre going to start breaking out of this agreement. Is that a red line for us, for the israelis, the saudis . This was inevitable in u. S. Policy when we turned up the heat on iran. We were going to bring about a confrontation with iran. Ifs iran is crossing a red line in our president s mind, what happens next . Thats the choice of the administration. Do you negotiate a different Nuclear Agreement . Do you consider using military force . That is going to be the issue. Weve essentially said were not going to live with the status quo. We got out of this Nuclear Agreement, which shelved the problem for another 12, 15 years. Weve brought it up to the present. The question is, the iranians have said, were simply not going to sit there and take sanction after sanction after sanction. You put pressure on us, were going to put pressure on you. We can attack with u. S. Forces in the region. We can do terrorism. We can break out of this nuclear game. We can break out of the nonproliferation commitment. Ball back in your court, mr. President , mr. Prime minister, mr. Saudi arabia. The immense groundwork went into the deal in the first place. There is no alternative that has been worked on in the back rooms that is going to we effectively have no deal alternative to the deal. What does that sound like . Like the Affordable Care act. Talking about repealing obamacare. No alternative. Talking about getting rid of the iranian deal after we basically, you know destruction. Have billions of dollars going their way. No alternative. Given what everyone knows about the Iranian Regime, were we better off and safer, was the region safer and more calm with the nuclear deal we had or now that it is jump ball . The deal we had, we had one thing we could probably bank on, which is a stalling of the development of Nuclear Weapons. The time when the iran regime would be able to have Nuclear Weapons in its hands was probably going to be later. That was kicked down the lane. Now, there is one thing that we dont have though with that deal, which is, any kind of guarantee that iran would not project its force elsewhere, like in syria. I mean, we see iran acting badly all over the region. Not a lot of control on that. Now, were going to see, of course, ratcheting up of iranian misbehavior in the region and no alternative to that. The deal shelled one area of iran and u. S. Competition. Iran continued to do what it was doing in lebanon, syria. Now, weve reopened everything. Thats where we are with iran. This is now going to dominate. Graham, really quickly, isis. Whats the state of it . With your paperback coming out that examines the mindset, the psychological makeup of members of isis, where are they right now . Wheres the organization right now . The territory of isis, of course, is such, up smaller. There are little villages where they might have power at night. What we have is the culture of isis, which is still out there. Remember, theres 45,000 children who were with isis and are in camps right now. These kids, you know, we grew up maybe worshipping superheros. They grew up worshipping their parents. We have this culture of terror that was built up around the regime. It inspires lots of people. Thank you so much. Well be following this developing story. Back in 1991, nbc nightly news did this review of Donald Trumps problematic financial position. Take a look. When you borrow as much money as donald trump did, nearly 2 billion, and the economy goes into a tail spin, and you cant pay the interest on your loans, the bankers move in. They have. Heres whats in the works. Donalds 100 million yacht goes to the Boston Safe Deposit and trust company. His half interest in the Grand Hyatt Hotel goes to bankers trust. His interest in Alexanders Department store goes to city core. His trump shuttle goes to northwest airlines. What donald trump gets is a chance to start over. He probably wont have to declare bankruptcy. On the boardwalk in atlantic city, he keeps his casinos. In new york, he keeps the plaza hot hotel, which he hopes to convert into condominiums. He keeps the old Pennsylvania Railroad yards. He wants to turn them into a real estate development. What he doesnt keep is ivana. She divorced him and got 14 million. If donald wasnt so badly in hawk, she might have gotten 2. 5 billion. Donald is trying to put a good face on all this. I wasnt free to wheel and deal during my divorce, he say. Now, im able to do what i do best. A lot of people think donald has had his day. That his game of monopoly is almost over. The man who was the darling of the 80s is seen in the 90s as a man in trouble, and he knows it. Im being put up there, says donald, with the kurbs. Particularly interesting this morning, as the New York Times is pulling back the curtain on President Trumps finances, revealing his prior business struggles were far worse than previously thought. The paper says it has obtained Tax Information on very thin ic from 1985 to 1994. By the time his bestselling memoir the art of the deal hit stores in 1987, trump was already in deep financial trouble. Deep. Losing tens of millions of dollars on bad business deals. The paper says the figures show in 1985, trump reported losses of just over 46 million from his core businesses. Mostly casinos, hotels, and retail space and apartment buildings. Those businesses continued to lose money every year for a total loss of 1. 7 billion over the nearly tenyear span. The times goes on to say that year after year, trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual american taxpayer, citing his results compare to information compiled by the irs on highincome earnings. Wait a second, mika. Are you saying hes the biggest loser. Of all the people that filed taxes in the United States of america over this decade, that donald trump lost more money than every other american . Yeah. I mean, back then, it is like 250 million people. Than anyone. He is special. I mean, 1 out of 250 million. He won that one. Wow. In 1990 and 91, his core business losses totaled more than 250 million. Im sure a lot of other people were losing then. More than twice that of the nearest taxpayer in the irs information for those two years. Oh. He lost twice as much as the biggest loser underneath him. As anyone. Twice as much. The paper adds that trump okay, thats bad. Lost so much money, he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the ten years they examined. He doesnt pay income taxes. Thats one way to get around taxes. You know, wait. This is all so confusing. I thought he was so successful. I read the art of the deal and wanted to get into real estate. As you know,investments. Thats why willie and i go to the dog track. Thats why i handle the checkbook. Long on the puppies. Whats so interesting is, and why this actually is news republicans go, oh, thats not right. Case closed. Case closed. This doesnt mean anything. It actually does. Willie, that nbc report from 1 91, the belief was then that donald trump was flying high in the 80s, then crashed when the economy went down in 90 91. They thinks went terribly wrong for him. What this New York Times report shows us is it was ualwas a scam. Even in the years leading up to the art of the deal, hed lost hundreds of millions of dollars. While he was losing money, his father was making money. In fact, his fathers only losses were investments in his son, and hed already given his son the equivalent in 2019, like 415 million to get him started. He lost all of that money. He lost all the 415 million and more. This is the Second Chapter in a story that began by the same group of reporters at the New York Times in october, when they wrote the piece about fred trump, Donald Trumps father who gave donald trump all the money he squandered over the years. This is the next chapter in a story that, again, does more than poke a hole. It deflates the entire narrative around donald trump, which is that he made himself into this magnate in new york city. Got on tv, wrote books about how to be a magnate. So rich. Got a tv show that was based upon the fact that he was great at business and he could teach you to be great at business. This is the wizard of oz. Eventually, it made him famous, in part, and put it into the white house. Before art of the deal, he was already losing hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. Wrote a book about how you could be a good deal maker. Now, we know, he was losing hundreds of millions of dollars. People that were reading that book, it was written by one of the least successful Business People in all of america. The president has responded this morning to the story. Good. Tweeting his response to the New York Times piece. Quote, Real Estate Developers in the 1980s and 90s, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive writeoffs and depreciation, theres the word, that would, if one was actively building, show losses in tax losses in almost all cases. Much was nonmonetary. Sometimes considered, quote, tax sheltered. Youd get it by building or even buying. You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes. Almost all Real Estate Developers did. Yeah. Often renegotiate with banks. It was sport, writes the president. It was sport. It was sport. Thats why losing money. Im glad we played the piece from nbc. Thats why he had to give up his 50 share in the hyatt, in midtown. Thats why he had to give away trump airlines. Thats why he had to give away his yacht. Thats why this wasnt sport. This guy was struggling to, i mean, do everything he could not to go bankrupt. At the end of that piece, the bitter irony, but he got to keep his casinos. Yes. Which completely wiped him out. How many bankruptcies did he file . A to be n of bankruptcies. This guy went from the frying pan directly into the fire. The closing line of his tweet, which is important, so he defends everything that he did. Yeah. He says, the very old information put out is a highly inaccurate, fake news hit job, which is exactly why i asked Suzanne Craig of the New York Times when she was here in the last hour, and i invite, if you werent up that early, watch it online, to her explain the reporting and the documents she had, how she authorized them and authenticated them, where she got them and why they are, in fact, correct, and not fake news. It is funny that he goes through and explains the documents. Right. At the end, says, but none of that is true. Theyre all fake. Again, his own statement contradicts itself. Not a surprise. Mike . This is an important story. It is a big story, one he can talk his way out of. Even with the enormous losses. One thing he gets to in part today in his tweets, reaction to the story, and it is something that will put a chill on all of his big rallies. It is this, he pays no taxes. No taxes. Hes gone around the country. Thats how partially he became president of the United States, the system is rigged. Elites are against you. The east coast, you know, blah, blah, blah. He pays no taxes. Try that out when youre at a big rally. Lets bring into the conversation professor of princeton university, eddie glad jr. , and former columnist, ron fournier, now the president of a detroitbased pr firm, now opening a new office in washington, d. C. I may ask, ron, for a job by the end of this interview. You got it. Ron, donald trump spends all of 2016 and beyond talking about how the system is rigged. We find out this morning that, first of all, hes the biggest loser when it comes to business. No individual over that decade lost as much money as he did. Now, donald trump has just, basically, politically indicted himself. Hes politically indicted himself by saying, no, no, no. I was just a scam artist. Even though youre paying 28 of your salary to the irs, i was going around with yachts, beauty queens, porn stars, playboy bunnies, flying my own 757, and i never had to pay any taxes. Right. How does that work . How does all of this work . We now know what weve known all along, his entire career was built on a lie, right . You would think this would backfire on him. This is a guy who has been going around the country for two years, talking about for four years, talking about the system being rigged. We have this report from the Mueller Investigation that clearly shows he was obstructing justice in plain sight. That he was rigging the system in this case. Heres a guy who has been rigging the system to benefit him for years. Hasnt affected him politically. He was elected president. Even after the Mueller Report, numbers havent changed. Living now in the heart of trump country, the reason he is so bullet proof with his base, i think theres three. One, hes promised and brought disruption. People who just want things shaken up. Even if it is not in a pretty way. Two, hes channelling these peoples grievances. Hes not doing it constructively, but hes channelling their grievances. The third, in this tribal society, people wearing the red jersey want to see the people in the blue jersey squirm. I dont think this will affect his standing amongst his core at all, even though, in a sane world, it should. You know, lets be really clear here, donald trump had said before the system was rigged and, yeah, i got some advantaging out of it, but im going to fix it when i become president. What he did, his major piece of legislation was a tax bill. Right. That actually rigged the system even more. The donald trump of the 80s and 90s that used the writeoffs could writeoff more money. Billionaires, people broke like donald trump, could writeoff more money while flying around on their jumbo jets, while on their yachts, their 200 foot yachts, and not pay taxes. Working class americans got hit with a tax bill every april 15th. Absolutely. You turn the swamp into a septic tank. Im an old country boy. Remember the septic tanks . Yeah, yeah. I wanted to add a fourth do they have septic tanks in princeton . I know they do in mississippi. In mississippi they do. Okay. I want to add a fourth to rons point. I watched gordon, dusty rose, you know, wrestling, right . Hold on a second. In mississippi, it was called rastling. I remember watching it with my great granddaddy. He knew it wasnt real, but he would complain about the bad guys, like the assassins, and hed just complain over and over again about, how could they break the rules . They need to suspend them. He knew it all was fake. Right. Here, we have evidence that donald trump is a fraud. Concrete evidence, once again, he is fraud. Doesnt matter. We all know its fake. Weve known its fake. Just like i used to root for dusty rose, the cajun, hey, it doesnt matter. The second point id want to make outside of that, just the entertainment of it all, the fiction of it all, not that he is owning it, but the entertainment of it all. The second is there was a nugget in the report. The windfall of 52. 9 million of Interest Income. That they couldnt account for. Beyond the fact it is evidence that is hardwired, fake fraud, is the fact that, is he leveraged . Can he be leveraged . Where he is he getting the money from . The 52. 9 million, the chair of the committee, those investing, oh, they have nuggets here. They have questions. By the way, i was a hulk hogan guy. Beat the commis. The question eddie gets to is what about the recent tax returns . This is, as i said, if you grew up and lived in new york in the 80s, people sort of knew this, suspected this, but we have the numbers now, and theyre bigger than we could have imagined. 1 billion over the course of a decade in losses. What about the last six years, to eddies point about being leveraged . Who has he done business with . Who has leverage over him . Has he lost money, owe money . We need to know these things. The president has a trez sasury secretary, as with other positions in washington, protecting him from the information being made republican. Can we recall trumps own boys, who they got their money from . The russians. Trumps sons said in interviews, we get most of our way, the lon hide the documents, which theyve been doing for four years, the more suspicious you get. Documents will come out eventually. It is inevitable. You, joe, mentioned the key date in terms of politics, in terms of his reelection campaign. It is, indeed, april 15th. A day every american approaches with either fear, anger, where am i going to get the money, why are we spending so much in taxes . April 15th to Donald J Trump is another spring day. Its a day he doesnt have to pay tax. Other americans do. You were talking about Trump Supporters. There is a disconnect from reality. I talked to good friends who have been Trump Supporters forever. Attorneys, professionals. You know, why did you vote for trump . All these years later, you know, theyll say, well, you know, i agree we needed to build the wall. Hes going to get tough on illegal immigration. I would say, well, you do know when barack obama left office, illegal border crosses were at a 50year low. We were playing tball the last time. Theyd say, well, i dont know. I didnt know that. Well, hes going to get tough on crime. Hes tough. You do know that crime is down at its lowest level, new york is for new york crime. They never had a reported year where crime was as low as it is now. Theres silence on the other side of the line. Then you just hear, i like how hes shaking up washington. I dont like nancy pelosi. Again, these are not these are not uneducated people. These are doctors. They are lawyers. They are accountants. They have suspended belief. We always try to paint it as some uneducated dupe. No, no, no. Theres very, very educated dupes who dont know the facts. Yeah. Voters dont know. Most voters dont make decisions on an intellectual level. Its in the gut. These people youre talking about, a lot of them voted for bill clinton because they wanted change and didnt get it. A lot voted for barack obama and wanted change and didnt get it. A lot of the same people voted for donald trump, especially in a state like michigan. They want change. They know the political system is really screwed up. Theyre looking for somebody to fix it. Theyre closing their mind off to any other form of reality, especially when a candidate comes along in times like this and channels grievances. Some of them, the worst instincts human beings can possibly have, hes channelling the grievances. I think the scheming gets worse a year from now, when it is a binary choice. When it is donald trump versus whoever the democrats put up. If democrats put up somebody who is way to the left, very extreme, who is really disconnected from the heartland, it is going to make that even easier for the people youre talking about, those intellectual dupes to make a choice for donald trump again. He could get reelected. Whats fascinating is, these people im talking about are, again, really smart people. Really educated people. Theres just this one area where they profess ignorance on stats from Donald Trumps own government. Theyre very good at what they do. Again, im sure there are a lot of people that can sit there and rationalize, yes, i know this, i know that, but im voting for him anyway because i got a tax cut. I like how he is tough on iran. Thats fine. If youre willing to accept the racist comments, willing to accept the bigoted comments, the xenophobia because taxes were lower, you live with that. I hear people professing ignorance. Richard, are we going to war with iran . Weve set in motion a dynamic where we could end up there. Weve had a strategy of basically trying to get them to so fundamentally change the policy, it is equivalent to regime change. It is not going to happen. We put more and more pain on them, economy will shrinking by 6 this year. Theyre not going to absorb that and do nothing. Now, for the first time, were seeing iran push back, thre threatening to break out of the constraints. Do we take that, or do we respond . I think whats happening with iran, what iran is doing in yemen, what iran is doing in syria, is this part of a bigger plan . Iran has been doing all these things. The Nuclear Agreement never dealt with those things. We decided not to push back against iran and syria. Were pushing back a little in yemen. Again, the question for ourselves is, what are we prepared to tolerate . Where are we prepared to push back . What are we prepared to do . What is bolton prepared to tolerate . What is trump prerapared to tolerate from iran . Rather than meet with the chancellor of germany, secretary of state went to iran. Were sending ships to the region. Were trying to give ourselves options. Ill be honest, joe, it is not thought through. I do not see a strategy. What we have done, it is like weve literally gone to the kitchen, weve turned up the heat, were hoping the other side would fold. Theyre not going to fold. The Iranian Regime is not that vulnerable. Now, theyve reacted. I do not believe we have a strategy yet for escalation. I dont believe we have an end game. I dont think weve defined success. Short of the regime falling, which isnt going to happen, i dont believe we understand what weve set in motion or where it is going. If this sounds similar, it is similar with china on trade. By the way, it is similar to venezuela. It is similar to north korea. In every situation, the administration articulates an ambitious set of goals but doesnt put in place policies that are connected to the goals. Either we have to climb down, or we have to escalate. Thats where were heading iran. Richard, ron, thank you both. Still ahead on morning joe by the way, willie, as you know, richards book change the grilling game. Forever. He says, for this mothers day rack of lamb. Do you recommend a certain glaze . Its in the book. Ill read it. That is, by the way, chapter 7 of world in disarray. Some of the best grilling tips. We have i have the apron. I use it when i cook. Still ahead on morning joe, the nra has long been among the most powerful lop bbi in the world. The gun groups finances are increasingly under the spotlight. We have new reporting on that from the new yorker. As we go to break, willie, you have a fun event planned tonight alongside your father. My dad and i will be at the barnes noble on broadway and 86th street on the Upper West Side in new york city to talk about his book, lake of the ozarks. Getting favorable reviews from Mike Barnicle, john meacham, and jason bateman. No way. Star of ozark on netflix. Well be there tonight at 7 00, Upper West Side. Join them there. Yesterday, joe and i sat down with the lady on the view to talk about politics and my new book, earn it. After just one day, it is doing quite well. It is a book for young women who are starting out. The first, second, and third jobs in their careers. I teamed up with morning joe producer daniela pierrebravo to lay out tips for young women getting ahead in the job force. Number one in job resumes, meeting kmuncationcommunication. I dont see it as number one in grilling. Perhaps someone might want to tell the president , potus, you can get a copy right now on know your value. Com. Tomorrow, ill be across the street on nbcs today to talk about it. Well be right back with much more on morning joe. What advice do you have for women at that point in their life . It is a tough time. Anybody starting out. What i found is no matter how many noes you get, closed doors, if you work hard and you continue to put yourself out there, in some shape or form, a yes will always follow. Money mat seem the same, but some give their clients cookie cutter portfolios. Fisher investments tailors portfolios to your goals and needs. Some only call when they have something to sell. Fisher calls regularly so you stay informed. 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Try skechers wide fit shoes. But i can tell you Liberty Mutual customized my theyre like a luxury ride for my feet. Car insurance so i only pay for what i need. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Cant see what it is yet. Re . What is that . Thats a blazer . Thats a chevy blazer . Aww, this is dope. This thing is beautiful. I love the lights. Oh man, its got a mean face on it. It looks like a piece of candy. Look at the interior. This is nice. This is my sexy mom car. I would feel like a cool dad. Its just really chic. I love this thing. Its gorgeous. I would pull up in this in a heartbeat. I want one of these. That is sharp. The allnew chevy blazer. Speaks for itself. I dont know who they got to design this but give them a cookie and a star. Joining us now, White House Correspondent for pbs news hour. Politics editor for the daily beast, sam stein. Staff writer for the trace, a nonprofit News Organization that focuses on gun violence in the United States, mike, out with a new report, copublished by the new yorker, on the internal financial dealings at the nra. What a report it is. Thanks for being with us. Mike, shocking. Just shocking, the mismanagement. Great we have you here on the same day as trump tax returns. You can call it fake news, it is all numbers. Right. It is all math. On paper. It is all on paper. Right. It is all in black and white. Its the same thing with your you know, because i heard you worked for a group thatviolence. I said, how slanted is this going to be . Halfway through, i said, oh, my god, this is all in black and white. The financial mismanagement inside the nra is staggering. The selfdealing. Right. It is just really sleazy. Right. Explain it. Tell us about it. It is a cultural thats marked by selfdealing, greed, secrecy, bloated payments, lavish pay packages to vendors, something thats been going on for, i dont know, a couple decades, basically since wayne la pierre rose to power in the nra in the early 90s. Who benefits off these deals . Who is making millions off these internal selfdealing episodes . Nras Senior Management and the vendors and contractors who are very close to them. Also, people who what tends to happen is folks who worked for the nra for a long time at a high level, when they stop working for the nra, they continue on, despite being retired, with lucrative contracts that are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Give us specifics on the selfdealing. It is hard to i guess we can pick one place to start without with mcqueen, the nras longtime Public Relations firm. Basically created wayne la pierre. All the messaging youre familiar with comes from ack Ackerman Mcqueen. They have a revolving door. 25 of employees are managed by former ackerman folks. Former ackerman folks work for the nra. Nra people work for ackerman. People who hold executive positions at the nra also have stakes in ackerman affiliated companies. How much money was ackerman make . 2017, the most full accounting we know of, that came to more than 40 million. They make more than 40 million. They also pushed nra tv. They kree create it, produce. They pay people youre familiar with, north, the nras president was getting paid some Million Dollars a year through ackerman. I was wondering, because i know a lot of nra members. I grew up with nra members. In fact, i grew up in mississippi and alabama, georgia and northwest florida. I was surrounded. In the pews of First Baptist churches, they were all nra members. Right. Then i see people coming on and threatening journalists. Right. One actually said to us, your time is running out. They turned over an hourglass. I sat there thinking why . I understand why lobbyists in d. C. Would do that, but what about all the people sitting in the pews . Do they want Death Threats against journalists . What your report showed was actually, this approach offended a lot of nra members. Theyre like, talk about guns. Dont threaten peoples lives. There is a people look at nra membership as a monolith, and it is not. There are members concerned with gun education, safety, training, hunting. Those are the people, em empirically, on paper, being neglected. Lets say it, gun rights. Right. They dont want what the nra tv has been delivering, for the most part, and making, what, 40 million a year doing it. Right. A lot of people getting rich off of something thats actually driving away members. Thats right. I dont think their primary concern is being at the vanguard of the culture wars. I think they care about gun rights, in as much as they want firearms to hunt, go to the range sometimes, but thats not really what they thats not what gun culture is about for them. Theyre not interested, necessarily, in carrying their handgun in public, being able to bring their handgun to a government building, a bar, wherever it is you can carry it now, on College Campuses. There has been a narrative that the nra may be losing some of its power because of what you report here, but also whats happening at the top of that organization and the disconnect with a lot of its membership. Is that an accurate and a fair narrative that the nra is perhaps not as powerful as it used to be . I think that is true. I think that the gun violence prevention groups on the other side have built up Fr Infrastructure thats not quite there but it is on pace to match what the nra has been building over a number of years. You say match, but they outspent the nra in 2018, right . Thats correct. Significantly. Very significantly. That was the other thing i was going to say actually, which is because the nra put itself in this dire financial state, with its spending, selfdealing, et cetera, it cant afford to spend on elections the way it was, especially how it did in 2016. If im a member of the nra, Ackerman Mcqueen gets 40 million a year. That was one year to account for. More than 40 million was paid. How much of my dues goes to them in. I guess it is hard to i dont have the exact but to be very clear, the nra is very bad at cultivating big money single donors. The vast majority of its revenue is coming from its small dues paying members. Theyre increasing dues because of the financial selfdealing and mismanagement . Theyve had to do it a couple years in a row after not having done it for some 20 years. Theyre reliant on that group. It is important for them to keep them involved and continue to buy their memberships and other products. Im going to go to sam, but ive always tried to explain this to people. You hear about the nra. The nra. Youre really talking about wayne la pierre, cox, and maybe one other people in washington, d. C. Youre talking about d. C. Lobbyists. Right. Then you take a poll of nra members, and youll see 60 , 70 of nra members support increased background checks. Right. Almost a majority, a ban on military style assault weapons. There is this massive disconnect between the three washington lobbyists w s who are getting r preaching gun rights, and the millions of members who are the nra. I think that is basically true. I think one of the issues, coming back to Ackerman Mcqueen, and to be clear, this is just the moment prominent example of the issues that the nra has. Theres a number of vendors and contractors and other arrangements beyond what Ackerman Mcqueen provides, but messaging forces the lobbyists into positions they might not otherwise take, which is interesting. Which is why nra lobbyists, the ones you dont know, frequently complain about the extreme messaging, that it doesnt really have there is no oversight, basically. It happens. It goes out into the world. People think dana lash is a lobbyist, which is interesting. Got paid 1 million. Right. By them to do that. Something near that, yeah. Close to 1 million. Affecting peoples lives. Ours. At least it looks like shes threatening peoples lives. Hourglass. Your time is running out. Ill take that as a threat. Get paid 1 million to threaten peoples lives. By the way, that not only hurts membership, that hurts them on capitol hill. Ive heard it specifically, that instead of worrying about gun culture, threatening journalists lives, not a good marketing move. Sam stein . Well, thoughts and prayers to the nra. Secondarily, i do agree with the general consensus here, which is that the group, essentially, has left its roots. We had someone at the recent convention in indianapolis doing some reporting, talking to people who drove four hours, five hours just to be there, and watch this drama unfold, as all of this spending was brought to the surface, and wonder what exactly the nra was doing. They want them to focus on gun rights. They feel theyve become a cultural institution. This started in the 90s and accelerated in the obama era, when the group was focused on the knockout game. As one example of what a cultural force it became, the nra in 2016 did a 2 Million Television advertisement on bengha benghazi. I get that benghazi was an important lelectoral issue, buti have problem figuring out what the tie is to gun rights. When you watch this happen, what is taking place is the nra essentially raises money by becoming an institution, a vanguard of the culture wars. It has all this money and spends it in insane ways. Now, it is coming back to bite them. It is. The nras newly elected president has decided to continue the tradition of washington lobbyists, gun lob lobbyi lobbyists, and say stupid things that hurt the groups members politically. Taken a hard line on the political debate in our backy d backyard. Longtime georgia resident meadows set the focus on flipping her home Congressional District from blue to woman. Democratic congresswoman from the 6th district, mcbath, won her victory in last years elections. She is an africanamerican who campaigned on gun violence reform in a majority white district after her son, jordan, was shot to death. In an interview, meadows said that it was wrong to say, quote, the reason mcbath won was because of her antigun stance. That didnt have anything to do with it. It was because she was a minority female. Wow. Congresswoman mcbath has since pushed back in a series of tweets laced with photos of her dead son. Mcbath wrote, i won the race because, after my son was senselessly murdered in 2012, i stood up to do something about it. In a statement to the washington post, meadows apologized to mcbath for her comments. Yeah. It just seems, again, these lobbyists in washington, d. C. Are all getting incredibly wealthy, running the nra into the ground, and sticking the bill to rank and file members. That sounds exactly what mikes reporting says. I will say very quickly, on the idea the nra president was talking about mcbath, saying she was only elected because she was a minority female, ive known mcbath for many years. Interviewed her several times. In the death of her son jordan, it was really something that changed, obviously changed her life, but really spurred her into action. She talked about her story on the campaign trail. She was someone who was very clear about her message, that guns needed to be really looked at, and gun issues needed to be looked at. I think just to say that that, the nra president , going into the cultural wars, that the organization has been known for, shes embracing this idea that the nra can go past guns and ask people, what do you want america to be . This this case, shes almost saying, if youre a minority female, youre getting something you dont deserve. Adding to this reporting by mike, it is breathtaking. It is. One of the things thats really important is the idea that there are people close to nra executives making money off of the organization. Theyre someones father, someones wife, someones significant other. Theyre all making money. It is not even just the executives, but theyre bringing in people close to them and saying, heres money from the nra, too. Yeah. You know, eddie, it is interesting. On social issues like gay marriage, abortion, gun rights, sometimes people act like those are static debates. Right. That they dont move. Samesex marriage began moving when the culture was starting to change. It was not just what we saw on tv. It was that more and more people were actually coming out and telling their friends that they had a significant other theyd like to marry. Culture changed radically, just like that. The same thing with abortion. A lot of americans have become more conservative on abortion, support limits at 20 weeks. Thats because 3d imagery. Thats because you can go into the womb and you can see at 20 weeks, you know i could see, as ive always said, i could see jacks profile at 20 weeks. You see the similarities between him now and how he was at 20 weeks. He was a premie, so we saw a lot of him actually while he was still in the womb. It is the same thing with guns. Right. You know, i changed my view on background checks. Wanted far more aggressive background checks. Military style assault weapons. A lot of other things. Not just after newtown. That was after virginia tech. It have a after aurora. It continued. Maybe it took me too long, but at that point, i said, this is a national epidemic. Im not alone. What im saying is theres a lot of people like many that might score 100 on nra scorecards back in the 1990s, who today are saying, yup, im glad heller was decided the way it was. Americans have a right to keep and bear arms, but there have to be limits. There is a growing crisis. Joe, youre right. Human beings are dynamic. We can take in information, and our views can change and evolve. Doesnt make us flipfloppers. It makes us thoughtful people. I want to say, in light of the backdrop to mikes reporting, its just what happened in colorado. Right. There is a child dead, 18yearold boy dead. Eight injuries. School traumatized. Community of children traumati traumatized. The outside influence. What about the young man in North Carolina that saved people in his classroom . Paexactly. Dead, today, forever. Outside influence of what seems to be corrupt people, who seem to be corrupt people. The outside influence on the culture. What sam said, how theyve leveraged in interesting sorts of ways the culture wars for their own financial gain, right . The backdrop of what theyre doing, how cynical and indid sidiosi insidious, is a culture where guns can do this damage. When we talk about the state of the nra, we need to understand the damage that has been done and is being done, and keep in mind what has happened at the s. T. E. M. School in colorado. My heart goes out to the parents of the child who died. Middle school. Unc charlotte. Exactly. We see this in hotbutton issues, where extremists get control and will make money. Profits. Here again, i want to keep underlining it, and tell me if im wrong, when we talk about the, quote, nra, that most people talk about, theyre not talking about the millions of members. Theyre talking about three lobbyists who have taken millions of peoples dollars, and they and their families have gotten incredibly rich, and theyve run this organization into the ground financially. Right. You use the word cynical and insidious, which is basically the perfect way to describe it. It is some of the people youve mentioned. It is a larger pool than that. Most of the nras executives. Someone was mentioning before, talking about one executive in particular who is giving payouts to his dad, to his former business partner, to other people who are related to him, others giving payouts to friends, family. I mean, theres an endless amount of benefits that seem to come along with being connected to a top nra official. The question you have to ask yourself, when were talking about these horrible incidents, what is this whole debate about . What is it all for . The worst possible answer is that it could be for selfenrichment. That is what it starts to feel like as you examine documents that were created by the nras own accountants specifically. This isnt like my opinion. It is not anonymous sources. This is paper created by the nras own accountants, saying here are all of these problems that have to do with our venues, contractors, executives, who are finding ways to pad their pockets. We dont understand it. We dont get how the cash flows. Were the ones who are supposed to know how the cash flows. Sam, people inside the nra are saying this. Theres something rotten in denmark. Right. There is a real problem here. Well, joe, to your point, people dont remember the early years of the obama administration, but he was incredibly, incredibly reluctant to do anything on guns for years and years. Really took to newtown for him to weigh in on the issue. Now, you see in the democratic party, virtually no one, with a few exceptions, having any hesitation whatsoever embracing gun reform laws. Thats because, in part, of the change in political dynamics, the cultural dynamics, but it is also a reaction to the nras decision to align itself so much with one political party, to get so in bed President Trump campaign, it made a historic expenditure for trumps election, that democrats no longer they used to feel like they had to at least feign interest in gun rights. They no longer feel that way. I think thats problematic for the institution itself in the long term. Sam stein. You actually had jack mertha, progun guy. John dzingel, progun guy. I mean, there were democrats that, again, proudly, when the position wasnt extreme, yeah, i can do that and go back to the constituencies. Bernie sanders. Plenty. Sam stein, thank you. Mike, well be reading the new reporting on the nra at new yorker. Com. Thank you very much for being on. Thanks for having me. Coming up, a stunning chart from the New York Times, detailing Donald Trumps financial losses over the course of is that a roller coaster . A decade. No, a roller coaster goes up and down. Exactly. Steve ratner knows a thing or two about charts and joins us ahead. A reallife story that sounds like the plot of a movie, and it might become one. Have you seen this . Incredible. New York Magazine is detailing how a grown man moved onto a College Campus and began manipulating a group of his daughters classmates. Unbelievable story. He shattered their lives. Next on morning joe. music throughout did you know comcast business goes beyond fast with a gigspeed network. Complete internet reliability. Advanced voice solutions. Wifi to keep everyone connected. Video monitoring. Thats huge. Did you guys know we did all this stuff . No. Im not even done yet. Wow. Business tv. Cloud apps and support. Comcast business goes beyond at t. Start with internet and voice for just 59. 90 a month. Its everything a Small Business owner needs. Comcast business. Beyond fast. So joining us now, freelance writer ezra marcus, and new York Magazine staff writer james d. Walsh. They collaborated on the new issue of new York Magazine entitled the stolen kids of Sarah Lawrence. What happened to the Bright College students who fell under the sway of a classmates father . Guys, explain this to me because i kept reading this and really quickly, for our viewers, a guy gets out of prison. A student says, hey, my dad is going to come live with us. He just got out of prison. Hes going to hang here for a while. Basically, im simplify it for everybody. He started his own cult and destroyed the lives of these like eight, nine kids. My question is, where were the administrators when a 50somethingyearolds former convict came to live in a dorm . Or maybe it was thats a great question. Was it in a dorm . It was in a dorm. Like oncampus . Yeah it was like a eight students were living in one dorm with like a living room and he was sleeping in the living room or in his daughters room. And parents complained. Multiple parents complained to the administration, and the administrator they complained to said nothing could be done. What . And this guy would go in and he would lie about his background. He lied about being a war hero. But then hed have these sessions, and he did, as you all describe very well, what every cult leader does. Cuts them off from the outside world. Divides them from the parents. Tells them fantastical tales about how they were molested or abused when they were children and how they cant trust their parents or family members anymore. Years before larry ray moved in to this dorm room, he was described by the fbi as a master manipulator. So it was sort of open season as far as having a captive audience on this small liberal arts campus. These children were, you know children . Young adults. No, no, no. Ive got four kids. They were children. They were children. Right. Yeah. And theyre openminded, theyre looking for guidance, and he saw an opportunity. He wedged himself between the family, these families and their children and the kids looked up to them. So, you know, with somebody with larrys background, he worked with the cia. He was an fbi informant. Its not hard to imagine how he was able to really put these kids under a spell. I have to go back to the genesis of the story. So a 55yearold man is released from prison and moves in to a womens dorm at Sarah Lawrence college. And that raises no red flags, even after parents begin to complain . The administration said, boy, we cant have that . That seems like day one you throw the guy out. It was a coed dorm. Okay. Well and basically what the is that better . What the administrator, the dean who the mother of one of the students she complained to him. He said, well, you know, parents have a right to visit their children on campus. Not to live with them. What did he go to jail for . It was a probation violation. He was convicted of securities fraud seven or eight years earlier, and then did a number of things to violate his probation. I cannot imagine that princeton or alabama, i mean any school, nyu Sarah Lawrence. Where my kids went to school. No no administration would allow this to happen. Would they . Would princeton . Im baffled. When i read this story, i was baffled. To my knowledge, given particularly the expansive nature of Student Services that this makes no sense to me at all. So two quick questions. How is Sarah Lawrence responding to this story now in realtime . And two, give us give us a sense of what the students, the young folk are doing now in the aftermath of this. Well, as far as the schools response, we went to them for comment, and we gave them a laundry list of things we were going to put in our story and they said we have no record himp living there and we cant comment on a students academic or personal records. When i reached out to the administrator in question who weve named in our story, he did not respond but he resigned quietly two weeks later. Draw your own conclusions about that. As far as what the schools response has been since, they sent an email to all students from the dean and it said, we are sure by now many of you have read the story in new York Magazine. We want to encourage you all to check your student handbook for rules regarding overnight guests. We just have to underline, this isnt just weird. It was abusive, right . Sexually in a physical way. He was abusive to these girls. These young women. And he continued to live in the dorm. And the kids now, where are they . Right. Well, a number have gotten away and have gone through extensive therapy and deprogramming, which by the way, we dont have time. We want you guys to come back. He moved them into the city and actually took locks off of all the doors, including bathrooms so he could walk in any time. No privacy at all. Some escaped. Some escaped. There are two women who continue to live with larry. And last week, their families went to try to stage some sort of rescue. Intervention. And it was unsuccessful from their standpoint. They did not create any separation. Their hope is that it was sort of an opportunity to say, hey, these kids now know that theres families out there who love them and, you know, theyll have an alternative. Girls, go home. Ezra and james, thank you. The piece is the cover story for new York Magazine. Its staggering. Well continue to follow. Back in 2012, donald trump tweeted, quote, half of americans dont pay income tax despite crippling government debt. Well, now the debt is soaring under President Trump while new reporting shows he didnt pay taxes for at least eight years. We talk to one of the authors of that New York Times investigation showing trump lost more than 1 billion over the course of a decade. Is that bad . Plus, democrats are Standing Firm on their subpoena demands to the Justice Department. The house Judiciary Committee is preparing to hold attorney general william barr in contempt of congress. The latest on that standoff is ahead. Morning joe is back in two minutes. Im a migraine sufferer and im an emt. When i get a migraine at work, its debilitating. If i call out with a migraine, thats one less ambulance to serve a community. I just dont want to let these people down. Excedrin migraine. Relief that works as hard as you do. Its how we care for our patients like job. His team at ctca treated his cancer and side effects. So job can stay strong for his family. Cancer Treatment Centers of america. Appointments available now. Cancer Treatment Centers of america. Cant see what it is yet. Re . What is that . Thats a blazer . Thats a chevy blazer . Aww, this is dope. This thing is beautiful. I love the lights. Oh man, its got a mean face on it. It looks like a piece of candy. Look at the interior. This is nice. This is my sexy mom car. I would feel like a cool dad. Its just really chic. I love this thing. Its gorgeous. I would pull up in this in a heartbeat. I want one of these. That is sharp. The allnew chevy blazer. Speaks for itself. I dont know who they got to design this but give them a cookie and a star. So youre not suggesting, though, that spying occurred . I dont well, i guess you could i think spying did occur, yes. I think spying did occur. Do you believe theyre engaging in spying when theyre following fbi investigative policies and procedures . Well, thats not the term i would use. When it comes to the investigation into the trump campaign, the attorney general was quick to toss around terms like spying. The fbi director wasnt quite so cavalier, though. Its so interesting that were seeing every day confirmation of things we already knew, but its nice to get that confirmation. Like, willie, a couple days ago when the 500 prosecutors said, oh, yeah, he committed obstruction of justice. If he wasnt the president , hed be indicted. We all knew that, but it would be nice to hear it from 500 prosecutors. A lot of republicans. Same thing with the fbi director yesterday. Yes, we knew barr was lying. We knew he wouldnt call that spying, but hes got an audience of one, and, i mean, if your whole job is to be Joe Mccarthys lawyer, then youre just going to lie as much as you can and thats exactly what barr did in his testimony. Director wray has a reputation for dispassionately shooting holes in things the president and the administration says. In this case saying plainly that fisa approved surveillance is not spying. That was bad. That was a bad moment for the president , but at least he had good breaking news later on. His good friends at the New York Times, who hes always greatly admired and wanted to be loved by them. Well, they finally gave him some love yesterday and oh, lotso. Every paper but the New York Times. Ive got the toronto star, the cleveland plain dealer. Right . Right . Im going through all of this. The Sacramento Bee is down there. The bee is amazing. Amazing investigation. And it shows that well, ive got to say well do the short version. Biggest loser. No one has lost as much money. Thats just a real, like you have won. You are the number one. Weve got to practice something. Oh, sorry. So were going to get into this. Especially since we have somebody that wrote the story. Broke it. We have to practice a couple of things before we bring you on. Do you have the sound effects because im sure when the New York Times sits there and writes something. So if i say that he lost a billion dollars over the decade and that was thats good. No, remember the price is right. And that was perhaps the biggest loss of an individual over the entire decade thats when you do it. Its all about timing, and you blew it. This is a serious news show. Its been a good rehearsal. When we do it live. Alex, when do we go live . Five minutes. Were on. Live . Whats that . Were on right now. You need to do it every year, though, not just oh, true. And she would she broke the story. Okay. Listen. Heres the deal. We deal in generalities around here, okay . We dont like specific numbers. Why dont we introduce them. Lets go to the numbers. We want to go every year. Weve got Mike Barnicle here. National security reporter for nbc news, Julia Ainsley, coauthor of the playbook jake sherman is here with us. An msnbc political contributor. Also with us, Investigative Reporter for the New York Times, Suzanne Craig who cowrote the stunning new report thats pulling back the curtain on President Trumps finances. Revealing his prior business struggles were far worse than previously thought. They are staggering. So this was the second biggest story of the day. Mike, what was the biggest story of the day . Liverpool. Liverpool coming back. Screaming at the top of his lungs. Randam highlights. Well get into this later on. We have with us Roger Bennett is going to be coming. And one of the greatest comebacks in the history of european football. Not roger. Thats a sad, sad story. Thats not a great comeback. But, anyway, well be talking about liverpool in a little bit. Very excited to have julie here, too. Yes, really great to have you. You came to the mother ship. Thanks for having me up here. Its great to be off my corner at the Justice Department and seeing my colleagues in person again once in a while. The dude behind you with the sign. We have some tough guys from albania. But who walks behind you with signs, theyll be dragged off. Id love for my mother and second grade teacher who diagnosed me with a. D. D. To see to see me trying to read that with people heckling me behind. I think that should thats long like history of pain right there. No heckling. We can talk. Except for barnacle. Lets launch into the big news. Jesse ferguson, former Deputy Press Secretary for Hillary Clinton tweeted this math. To lose over 1 billion over ten years, trump lost 11,416 per hour . Trump lost 274,000 every single day . Trump lost 8. 3 million every month. Trump lost 100 million every year for a decade. See, thats how you do it. How do you lose that much money . Tax information on trump from 85 to 94 and says the documents show by the time his bestselling memire this is the part i love. By the time art of the deal came out and people said, i want to be just like trump. I know a lot of people that read that and said they want to be just like trump. No, you didnt unless you already wanted to be in deep financial trouble. By that time, hes losing tens of millions of dollars on bad business deals. The paper says the figures show that in 1985, trump reported losses of just over 46 million from his core businesses. Mostly casinos, hotels and retail space and apartment buildings. Those businesses continued to lose money every day for a total loss of 1. 7 billion over the nearly tenyear span. The times goes on to say that year after year, trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual american taxpayer. Citing his results compared to information compiled by the irs on highincome earners. More than anybody, he lost more. In 1990 and 1991, his core business losses totaled more than 250 million each year, more than twice that of the nearest taxpayer in the irs information for the two years. Twice as much . The biggest loser. The paper adds trump lost so much money that he avoided paying taxes for eight to ten years. They examined the times says they responded by writing it was demonstrably false and that the papers statements about the president s actions from 30 years ago are highly inaccurate, cited no specific errors. What i thought was so interesting is they sort of had this rolling this rolling statement. The first, when it first started, they were saying to you all well not talking to them for a month. Depreciation and hes such a powerful businessman, he can do and as the story got closer and you all moved in closer, then they finally gave up and just said fake news. The transcript we have was just not reliable. Wow. Now the information you got this from, you also said in the piece that this is not only highly accurate information, but it is actually information that the government has used before in trying to project forward. And to guard against the idea that there may be somebody may have typed in something wrong, we asked the source to provide us with several years of fred trumps Tax Information because of a previous investigation we did, we have years of fred trumps tax returns, matched it dollar for dollar. Wow. So we were on twitter in between my 87 liverpool tweets, we were debating what was more powerful. Your lead because i thought the lead was extraordinary and that is by the time his master of the universe memoir trump the art of the deal hit bookstores, he was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars, and we already went through all of that. Whether that was more powerful or whether it was more powerful at the end when you all were saying donald trump was making excuses for his losses. And so this is such a terrible time. Everybody is losing money. Except except donald trump may have lost a ton of money, what, 53 well, actually, he lost 274 million . His core businesses did that year. That year. Everybody was no, everybody wasnt losing. How did fred trump do . He did really well and would have done even better but he took out money that year, some of it to help his son. So fred trump made about 54 million that year. His only significant loss it was a 15 Million Investment in one of donalds businesses. That didnt do so well. So it seems that donald trump burst onto the scene. Had a couple of quick successes. And it wasnt really much the first wave of spending that got him as much as you describe the second wave of acquisitions that just one failure after another. I thought what was incredible when we saw the data if there was one era in his life you thought he would have done well, it would have been this. I wouldnt have predicted that every year would have had a loss. This guy wrote a memoir about art of the deal and lost tens of millions of dollars that year. If i could have picked a decade having followed his finances there would have been one or two years in here i thought he was doing well prior to hes always said 1990 was the year he hit the rocks. Now we see he was losing significant amounts of money. And we now know through at least 1984, because weve got transparency into that thanks to the 85 returns. The return information weve now seen. And that was on the heels of what should have been his biggest successes, whether it was trump tower, whether it was the hyatt that he built in grand central. How do you get loans . Where who would lend you money . Who would well, some of it was guaranteed by his father. Right. And it was just in other areas, a different era at the time and he also had assets at the point he could get money against. Properties . Yeah, properties. But some of it was guaranteed certainly by his father. His father in 2019 dollars had gave him 415 million. Also, i love the part of this where donald trump played corporate raider. Im going to come in and the stocks would go up a little bit. And after a while, wall street figured out, this guy is just full of it. Hes not going to buy any company. Hes just trying to pass himself he did well on some of those trades but ultimately, even those were he lost some money. Once wall street figured out it was all a bluff it went on for three or four years. When he was on the forbes in 1985, they listed him as having 600 million. Most of that you point out was his fathers. The inheritance. It was still a lot of the assets. Its interesting to read this because were talking about before we came on the air in the 1980s, most people around new york sort of knew this or suspected this, that he was something of a fraud and that it was a charlotton in some sense but we didnt know the extent of it. He lost more than a billion dollars over a decade. Those losses are so huge. When you talk to his people theyre like, oh, depreciation. This is not depreciation. These are massive business losses. And we had access to data bank where we could see other results of highincome earners. He was at the top of it for like the worst losses year in and year out. Like this is not like, oh, a lot of people who are in real estate have these type of results. This is really bad business. Suzanne craig, thank you very much. Still ahead on morning joe, you cant get much further apart than Mitch Mcconnell and Elizabeth Warren right now. He says the whole russia thing is case closed, finished. While she says its time to impeach. Two moments from two powerful senators just ahead on morning joe. The matters. Ar. Introducing the allnew 2019 ford ranger, its the right gear. With a terrain Management System for. This. A bash plate for. That. An electronic locking Rear Differential for. Yeah. This. Heading to the supermarket . Get any truck. Heading out here . Get the ford ranger. The only adventure gear built ford tough. Noso lets promote ourke Summer Travel deal on choicehotels. Com like this surfs up. Earn a fiftydollar gift card when you stay just twice this summer. Or. Badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com hi, whats this Social Security alert . Its a free alert if we find your Social Security number on the dark web. Good, cuz im a little worried about my information getting out. Whys that . [bird speaking] my social is 8 7 5 dash okay, i see. [bird laughing] somebody thinks its hilarious. Free Social Security alerts from discover. Somebody thinks its hilarious. If you have moderate to Little Things can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not a cream. Its a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Ready to treat differently with a pill . Otezla. Show more of you. Plants capture co2. What if other kinds of plants captured it too . If these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. Carbon capture is Important Technology and experts agree. Thats why were working on ways to improve it. So plants. Can be a little more. Like plants. This is not about politics. This is about the constitution of the United States of america. We took an oath not to try to protect donald trump. We took an oath to protect the and serve the constitution of the United States of america. And the way we do that is we begin impeachment proceedings now against this president. Two years of exhaustive investigation, and nothing to establish the fanciful Conspiracy Theory that democratic politicians and tv talking heads had treated like a foregone conclusion. They told everyone there had been a conspiracy between russia and the trump campaign. Yet on this central question, the special counsels finding is clear. Case closed. Case closed. You just wonder what mitch is getting out of this to shame himself for history. Mike, he knows thats a lie. First of all, he knows that the investigation proved what our Intel Community had said and republicans have denied and the president denied that russia posed a threat to american democracy in 2016. And were going to try to do it again in 2020. Mitch mcconnell, by the way, kids, if youre just keeping score at home on what a partisan he is and how little he cares about the protection of american democracy. Mitch was one who in 2016, when told the russians were trying to interfere with american democracy and trying to steal your election from you, Mitch Mcconnell told everybody that they couldnt go out and say anything about it or else he would attack them as partisans. Thats how much like he was warned by the Intel Community. The russians were trying to rig the American Election for president. And he fought that. Now were on the other end of it, and what have we found out . That the intel communities were right. Donald trump believed putin, but the report shows the intel communities were right. The United States military was right. Putin was wrong. We also learned, mike, it wasnt case closed. What we learned was that Robert Mueller said, listen, i cant say that the president is not guilty. I cannot just wave my arm and say that he did not commit a crime. That is a question that is still open. And its a question that was answered by 500 former federal prosecutors, republicans and democrats alike saying, yeah, yeah, he obstructed justice and would have been indicted. Joe in the annals of hypocrisy, Mike Mcconnell has been there for quite some time. I understand in our culture today, everything lasts about ten seconds and people remember nothing, but in Early September 2016, 12 very essential members of congress, if there is such a thing, met in the capitol. Mitch mcconnell was one of them. And they were given all of the intelligence. They were briefed on how russia had invaded, attacked our electoral system and was still attacking it. Attacked american democracy. Lets just call it what it is. Russia had attacked american democracy. And what did he do . What did Mitch Mcconnell do . What did he choose . Did he choose the protection and security of the United States of america . Nope. Or the republican partys candidate . Well, i think we know. He chose trump. And jake sherman, hes doing exactly what he hoped the president would do. The president tweeting, case closed, exclamation point with a link to the video of him making the speech yesterday. In the republican party, it has exactly what he needs up there on the hill. He has people who will protect him ultimately from impeachment but also from things like getting the tax returns, from things like william barr being held in contempt. On and on and on or perhaps being impeached even. The president must be thrilled by what he sees out of republicans. Mitch mcconnell is definitely the tip of the spear here. I think we can say without a douc doubt that hes representing almost every single Senate Republican and house republican. Hes not taking a position, Mitch Mcconnell is not, thats not supported by the vast number, the vast majority if not all, elected members of the house of representatives and the senate. Republicans that is. And i will say, were focusing in the media and on capitol hill a lot on contempt and on impeachment and everything like that. And thats appropriate. But, remember, all of this stuff is going absolutely nowhere while republicans hold the senate. So its interesting its interesting gossip and interesting trivia to note the house is going to hold people in contempt. But it has very little actual meaning because the senate is still republican, controlled by Mitch Mcconnell who believes that the its case closed. Coming up on morning joe, donald trump isnt just running against 20some democrats. He also seems to be running against china. How his trade fight factors into the president ial election next on morning joe. Everyones got to listen to mom. When it comes to reducing the sugar in your familys diet, coke, dr pepper and pepsi hear you. Were working together to do just that. Bringing you more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all. 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No need for time off or special prep. It all starts here. You collect your sample, and cologuard uses the dna in your stool to find 92 of colon cancers. You can always count on me to know where to look. Oh, i found them i can do this test now ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. Covered by medicare and most major insurers. Listen to your mom, knuckleheads. Hand em over. Hand what over . Video games, whatever you got. Lets go. You can watch videos of people playing video games in the morning. Is that everything . I can see whos online. Im gonna sweep the sofa fort. Well, look what i found. Take control of your wifi with xfinity xfi. Lets roll now thats simple, easy, awesome. Xfinity xfi gives you the speed, coverage and control you need. Manage your wifi network from anywhere when you download the xfi app today. Roughly 90 of stocks lost value during yesterdays massive market selloff on fears the white house is about to intensify President Trumps trade war with china. While the chinese trade delegation is set to head to washington for talks on thursday and friday, yesterdays market meltdown is a sign that investors dont believe the u. S. And china will find Common Ground to stave off trumps latest threat of another round of tariffs. The Trump Administration has set a friday deadline for raising tariffs to 25 on 200 billion worth of chinese goods. Trump, who once labeled himself as tariff man has also recently threatened multiple times to impose a 25 tariff on an additional 235 billion worth of chinese goods, which would mean that essentially all goods imported from china would be subject to some sort of duty tax. Thats the important thing to remember here. The president will often talk about getting the money from china when he imposes tariffs. Calls himself tariff man. A tariff is a tax on you. So he puts a tariff on products coming into the United States, going to walmart, going its not just retail. Of course farmers right now getting absolutely hammered. A lot of sectors getting hammered because of this. Lets bring in cnbcs Brian Sullivan. Negative reaction yesterday from the street. What is the attitude on the street about Donald Trumps increased threats of additional tariffs against china . A country that many of those same people have been saying for years have take chinas taken advantage of the United States on trade deals. Well, they have. Listen, the trade deficit, whatever you think about it, is large. A couple hundred billion dollars. We dont sell that much to them but they sell a lot to us. The fear is this. Its like brexit. British leaving the eu. Its just going to continue on. Theres been this belief that were going to get some kind of a deal. A hard and fast moment in which pen to paper, some handshakes, photographs are taken and everybody walks away. Theres a growing fear on the street that perhaps this will not end that way. That maybe this will continue to stretch on. Now as you guys intimated in your intro there, were about 42 1 2 hours away from those tariffs being implemented. 12 01 a. M. Friday morning, eastern time. Those tariffs go from 10 to 5 on 200 billion and then the President Trump has the option to raise tariffs to 25 on, as you correctly noted, pretty much Everything Else that comes into the United States. About 550 billion in total product. So the real fear and what happened yesterday is the fear that this will just kind of go on, a slow drip and that we wont get a resolution any time soon. All right, thank you so much, brian. Coming up from collusion to obstruction to contempt, theres a new buzzword dominating the conversation on capitol hill. Well talk to msnbcs chief Legal Correspondent ari melber about the plan to hold trump mshl officials accountable. You can do this grab those command picture hanging strips and lets make it work theyre tool free and they hold strong. Or change your mind damage free. Like a pro. Command. Do. No harm. I felt i couldnt be at my best wifor my family. C, in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured and left those doubts behind. I faced reminders of my hep c every day. But in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. Even hanging with friends i worried about my hep c. But in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. Mavyret is the only 8week cure for all common types of hep c. Before starting mavyret your doctor will test if youve had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. Tell your doctor if youve had hepatitis b, a liver or kidney transplant, other liver problems, hiv1, or other medical conditions, and all medicines you take including herbal supplements. Dont take mavyret with atazanavir or rifampin, or if youve had certain liver problems. Common side effects include headache and tiredness. With hep c behind me, i feel free. Fearless. And theres no looking back, because i am cured. Talk to your doctor about mavyret. This and even this. Hark, i deep clean messes like this. But i dont have to clean this, because the selfcleaning brush roll removes hair, while i clean. [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans, now cleans itself. Cant see what it is yet. Re . What is that . Thats a blazer . Thats a chevy blazer . Aww, this is dope. This thing is beautiful. I love the lights. Oh man, its got a mean face on it. It looks like a piece of candy. Look at the interior. This is nice. This is my sexy mom car. I would feel like a cool dad. Its just really chic. I love this thing. Its gorgeous. I would pull up in this in a heartbeat. I want one of these. That is sharp. The allnew chevy blazer. Speaks for itself. I dont know who they got to design this but give them a cookie and a star. Great to have an expert on right now because theres a legal question that i have. Its a bit technical. Its what the hell is going on right now . House judiciary votes tomorrow to see if barr should be held in contempt because barr said im not going to come testify. They subpoenaed him and he said, subpoenashmena, im not coming. What happens if they told him in contempt . When normal people are held in contempt, they go to jail immediately, like in my cousin vinny where the lawyer, same lawyer. Very similar circumstances here. Very good, ari. Joining us now, msnbc chief Legal Correspondent and host of the beat on msnbc, ari melber and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner is with us. Princeton universitys eddie jr. Where they dont allow convicts to hang out in not that we know of. And White House Correspondent for pbs newshour yamish. Im still shocked, Sarah Lawrence allowed this convict were going to continue to follow that story. Two things happening right now. Board of trustees called the president. President called the head of communications. Theyre going to respond to that. They just have to. Donald trump is responding to the front page story. What can you tell us, not only about your reading of the story and what those numbers mean but also you are a new york finance guy and have been for most of these years that trump has been in new york in the business community. What any personal experiences that confirm what youre reading . Well, i have one personal experience involving his activities but maybe well come to that in a second. What we learned yesterday is that trump is, obviously, as we suspected, not the businessman we thought. He had massive, massive losses from all the projects were familiar with. The plaza hotel, and the famous casinos. So these losses, though, are divided into a couple of pieces. Theres money he actually lost, and theres also all the gimmicks, all the deductions, all the loopholes that the real estate guys get to take to minimize their income. Its really the greatest set of tax loopholes that exists today. And donald trump took every advantage of all of them. And then some. And the other thing about donald trump is that he was using a lot of other peoples money. And that created more tax losses he could use and it probably indirectly anyway helped fund his lifestyle. And, remember one other thing, joe. We knew before from david fahrenholts reporting from the reporting of what trump did trying to get wealth down to his kids. The family is guilty of tax evasion. And it goes back to your 500 u. S. Attorneys who say if he werent president , hed be indicted for obstruction. Donald trump, if he werent president , hed be indicted for tax evasion among other things. Are you surprised by the extent of the losses the times after comparing to other taxpayers said perhaps more than any other individual in the United States, he lost more money over that decade. It was a Staggering Amount of money. What we dont know yet is how much of the losses were actual cash losses he incurred . How much of the losses came from these loopholes and deductions . And theres also a crazy provision where if you have investors and they lose money you can sometimes take their losses and call them your losses to avoid paying taxes. For then years, donald trump, except for two years, did not pay any taxes because a combination of his being a terrible businessman and also using every tool in the book to avoid paying taxes. So, steve, i want to get your Smart Financial brain to take a crack at President Trumps defense of this story this morning. He writes in part, Real Estate Developers, more than 30 years ago, were entitled to massive writeoffs and depreciation which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. He goes on to say, you always wanted to show losses for tax purposes and often to renegotiate with banks. It was sport. What do you make of that defense . Well, first of all, hes basically acknowledging and bragging about the fact that real estate guys have this set of loopholes that allows them to play by a different set of rules. Americans believe that some wealthy people, and real estate guys at the top of the well, play by a different set of rules than the rest of americans. But secondly, the magnitude of the losses and the way some of them are categorized in the reporting by the New York Times in terms of which line they appear in your tax returns, theres absolutely no question that he lost a massive amount of real money. Some of it his. A lot of it belonged to other investors. But when you have an eastern shuttle that completely fails, a plaza hotel that you lose money on, when you have casinos that go bankrupt, you lose some of your you lose your own money. No question about that. In his defense, he acknowledges he was using all these loopholes, but his defense seemed to be, everybody was doing it back then. Is that fair to say . I think its fair to say everybody is still doing it today to the extent its legal. And there are more legal loopholes for real estate folks than for any other group of income earners im aware of. The question, which we cant answer, based on what we know is what donald trump is was he on the wrong side of legal or right side of legal . With respect to estate taxes, he was on the wrong side of legal. With respect to the foundation, he was on the wrong side of legal. Any other american would have been under severe examination by the irs for these practices. No question about that. Okay. So lets turn to ari melber. Ari, i ask you, what kinds of questions does this all raise, especially with this pressure, this pushback that those who are trying to get access to the president s tax returns and other questions and subpoenas, this pushback to this it seems to be explaining along with these tax returns something very interesting. What would that question be . One of the questions is basically, why did you feel the need to lie about your business, your work, your entire career for so long . And i think its fascinating. The reporting is really excellent. Steve gave us the full tax expert breakdown. And one of the lines was, when the New York Times says that over the period they have, and this is extensive material they have, he lost more than any other high net individual they could find in the country. My god. Like what so we have a ways and Means Committee now let that breathe. Trying to get tax returns. We have a Judiciary Committee trying to fight the white house to try to get the Mueller Report which taxpayers paid for. Weve got all of these battles going on. The White House Counsels Office fighting judiciary also about the testimony of don mcgahn. We have the white house trying to obstruct investigations that Elijah Cummings is trying to run to let the American People know whats going on. Where does all of this end . Well, as of now, the white house is basically saying were not going to play ball. Youll have to take us to court. Even then, we can slow walk this thing. There is some precedent for that. You think of eric holder and the fact he was held in contempt and it took a long while for that to move through the courts and he provided some documents republicans wanted but not all. The Trump White House is in a different place because there are so many things the president so many documents the president is withholding from congress. And add to that this idea, thus stunning reporting in the New York Times the president built his brand on this businessman who was so successful. Im thinking of all the interviews i did with people in pennsylvania, in las vegas, who said the first time i heard the trump name it was associated with money. And as a result, i believe he could be a leader for our country. We now know that he is likely one of the at least if the New York Times reporting is correct, hes one of the people who may have lost the most money in the country. But the thing that is going to be interesting here is the president might be able to weather this because, as his supporters have told me, when they touched down in cities like las vegas, in new york, in florida, they are still reminded the trump name, even if he doesnt own the building, the trump name still was on buildings. So people see him as a symbol of health, even as hes fighting all these things and refusing to release his tax returns. So i think its going to be a fight going forward, but i think the president in some ways isnt worried about it because he thinks his brand will withstand all of this. So who would lend him money . Republicans are trying to run out the clock and get things released after 2020, whether its the Mueller Report or tax returns, whatever it is. Wouldnt congress be able to file an emergency are petition or injunction or something . I dont know exactly what the proper legal approach would be, the proper procedure would be. But to the d. C. Circuit and then to the United States Supreme Court since theres so many constitutional questions that are hanging out there . I think were steaming ahead towards that. One of the Big Questions its easy to forget. Weve had a new congress only for coming on about fourplus months here. After two years of united government. So what we are seeing here if it feels like a lot of this is happening right now issue thats because it is, to your point, joe. The question was always going to be, what is the vehicle for Speaker Pelosi to take some of this stuff to court . And what were seeing this week, although the tax returns thing is hitting a fever pitch is it going to take two years . I dont think so, no. I cant predict for you. I cant say exactly what the docket will be, but i think the courts have an interest in taking these kinds of cases. Yamiche mentioned the last time the Congress Held a contmpempt case it was very different. What should scare bill barr is the doj lost that fight and had to fork over the material. It was a fiveyear battle. That one took a long time for a number of reasons. But i think here this contempt vote combined with the urgency of the Mueller Report and bob mueller coming in to testify in person creates more leverage and a court battle for them to lose. And so then you say, oh, mr. Barr put up a big fight in a way the democrats argued was much more as the kind of personal defender of the president than any other institutional thing in his late night Statement Last night. It was all in that direction. And then you lose in court and then have to turn over the material. And then this is the connective tissue. Not unlike the taxes that have been hidden, the question becomes, why did you hide allis . Is it worse to reveal it than whatever negative hit you took from looking secret . Thats not a constitutional question. Thats just breaking the law. The law. Which is what steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary is doing now. Theres a statute. Its clear. They are breaking the law. Thats probably what donald trump fears the most is the fact he probably more likely than not has not paid taxes for the good part of the last ten years. And so thats what he doesnt want out in the public. But since hes broken the law, how does one get him not to break the law . How does one get those tax returns . Steve rattner, youre famous for thinking the big thoughts, and everything weve been talking about here are the huge thoughts, as is the times story. Is that what rattner is famous for . And the deep thought. One thing that occurred and ari referenced it is this blanket no that the Trump Administration has pretty much articulated to congress. Were not going to respond to any subpoenas whatsoever. So basically, are we not talking about a moment that is fast arriving when a legal case either brought by the house of representatives or whatever against the Trump Administration in response to their negativity about responding to anything is eerk either going to change the nature of the presidency or change the nature of congress. Uhhuh. Well, look. First of all, i have always been of the school of thought that donald trump would never release his tax returns for at least two reasons. One, as you alluded a second ago, because he doesnt pay taxes. I suspect we find he almost never paid taxes. And the second, which you might have mentioned was briefly in the New York Times story. He gives nothing away. And so in the eyes of the public, this guy becomes a pretty low life character. So i think hes never going to return these. I think it becomes a battle between congress and the executive branch. And theres nobody better than donald trump at stalling for as long as possible. And i think thats whats going to happen, whether it gets resolved during this congress, before the president ial election, i dont know. Can i tell you one fun fact i have or fun anecdote about donald trump. Back in the 80s when companies were being green mailed, donald trump got in the business. I was representing one of the companies that was being green mailed by somebody else. Donald trump decided this was a fun thing to do. Lets green mail companies. So he sent out a bunch of letters to Different Companies saying, unless you do so and so, im going to launch a hostile bid for your help. Well, he got the letters in the wrong envelopes and my company got a letter for a Different Company and the other company got the letter for our company. So even mailing letters proved to be challenging for donald trump in the 1980s. Wow. Thats wonderful. Steve rattner, yamiche. Ari melber, well be watching you tonight on the beat. The story we should have led the show with. The loudest scream i ever heard. Liverpools comeback. Roger bennett, poetic as always, said the teams win over barcelona was a day that would have inspired ballads and tapestries. He joins us next along with a liverpool legend when we return. Limu emu doug what do all these people have in common, limu . [ paper rustling ] exactly, nothing. Theyre completely different people, thats why they need customized Car Insurance from Liberty Mutual. Theyll only pay for what they need [ gargling ] [ coins hitting the desk ] yes, and they could save a ton. Youve done it again, limu. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition for strength and energy whoohoo greattasting ensure. 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Devon that was the scene at anfield stadium last night following liverpools 40 win against barcelona, overturning a threegoal deficit that advances the redsed to Champions League final with a 43 aggregate victory. Joining us now nbc socks analyst and also with us legendary former liverpool goalkeeper, bruce gobbler. So, you know, i became a Liverpool Fan in 96. Look at that. Oh, my god. In 06 actually, right before the world cup. I always wand erld while i was watching horrible matches, ugliest football i have ever seen, i said what was it like when liverpool ruled europe . And last night i said oh, my god, as they were knocking around, beating up the best players in the world, i said this is what it was like, it was magic. Thats true. Its like trying to describe what it was like when i had hair. You can do it lets look at it. Barcelona led by lionel messi, michael jordan, tom brady stuffed into a body of a 56 argentinean. Riddled with injuries, 30 down. In the south, right in the net. At this point there was hope. Yes. In the final 45 barcelona had the worst lastsecond collapse. Its wolf blitzer in the situation room oh, my god this next one. Unbelievable. To do this with those injuries. Massive passion. What . Whoa oh, my god. What happened . Look at this, walks away. He has no sneaker. That was unbelievable. There will be a million liverpool babies. There will be no brexit. Its the most i have ever seen outside of Donald Trumps tax returns. A miracle, they destroyed lionel messi and barcelona. They will be sung for centuries about that night. The manager a giant carebear, he said before the game, so this is football. We will either win or we will fail beautifully. And ultimately that word still on point. Its hard to explain to americans how big that victory was. It was hard to tell the fans how big it was. When i came over here from liverpool to promote the game at Yankee Stadium on the 24th of july, i said yes, why not . Were three down. People said to me, can we do it . I said yes, of course we can. Look at 2005 istanbul. We had 45 minutes to get three goals. Turned it around. Couple years later to cardiff city, f. A. Cup. Got it down. Here we had 10 minutes and even without the saleh. Our two best players. To be put out to the side and we came back. We needed the goal before halftime, we got it. Yep. And its not the first time this season that barcelona and messier had met in the second leg. It happened against psg in the opening rounds. It could happen and it did. Roger, people are if they dont follow closely, when did things turn around . Actually i remember people mocking liverpool for paying 75 million for van dyke. You saw two weeks after that the backline. Of course, allison, the combination of allison and van dyke basically has made all of the difference in the world. Everybody talks about the guys up front. Those two guys made such an incredible difference. What they did, celebrity and incredible good looks that never hurts a team. More importantly this team was written off. They were run by oligarchs, fueled investments. They are run by the Boston Red Sox owners who cant compete financially. And theres an remarkable american story thats part of this. They took an owner heavy with the Boston Red Sox, taken it to world football, this leader thats like jim harbaugh at his best, the jim harbaugh we used to know, passion, belief, manager, infused it with incredible players, yes. But remarkable ultimately young people watching, the greatest human value is tenacity. Im a horrible person, i was for liverpools rivals but even i have to take my hat off to them. Tell us about liverpool and america. Liverpool and america, weve been to america many, many times. I just found out they came here in 1946 for a sevengame tour. And then again in 1953 and played against they played at Yankee Stadium and drew with man city and won on penalties. So theyve come over here to grow the brand. Im going to go back to the Boston Red Sox ownership. We have a home. Its not fenway stadium but its the same as fenway park. Its a home. They want to keep that place iconic for the rest of the time they own it. Roger bennett, bruce, thank you both. Tickets now for liverpool, they go on sale tomorrow. That does it for us this morning. Chris jansing picks up the coverage. This is yours. Joe and mika, thank you both very much. Hello, im Chris Jansing in for stephanie ruhle. This morning its happened again in america. Two students, one of them a girl, stands accused of opening firearm on their classmates in a colorado school, killing one and injuring eight others. Its been so, so hard. But i got to hold my babies last
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