Nato supreme allied commander, james defree tus joins us, he is chief International Security and diplomacy analyst for nbc news and msnbc, really important day to have you on along with columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post david ignati ignatius, and u. S. National editor at the Financial Times ed luce joining us from washington. Basically if you blink, you might miss it. Look at yesterday, House Democrats announced this was the big story we thought, articles of impeachment against the president. Shortly after 9 00 a. M. , after we went off the air, an hour later they were announcing a bipartisan trade deal at noon. Attorney general william barr was back at it putting politics above the fbi. Next, it was the Trump Administration giving russia a bull horn to lie about its meddling in american democracy. The president spun his own stories later that leader in pennsylvania including false claims about the progress of his border wall. In reality, a federal judge was busy blocking his attempt to fund the project with money slated for the military. Also last night, the president attacked Elizabeth Warren in jarri jarring terms. I did that heavy, heavy pocahontas deal. I gave her credit. They were like just little embers, and then she rose. She rose, and she became strong, but then she opened that fresh mouth of hers and it stopped. It stopped. All right, but wait, theres more, joe. Theres a new poll out of iowa this morning, take a look at this, joe biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg are in a statistical tie, biden with 23 points, sanders up nine points since october now at 22 . Buttigieg is at 18. Elizabeth warren was tied for first place two months ago, and this poll she is now in fourth place, down 11 points at 12 . Also notable, a ninepoint gain for Amy Klobuchar has her hitting double digits for the first time at 10 . Joe, your pick . What story strikes you this morning . I mean, theres so many stories, i think the attorney general of the United States literally tearing a page from roy cohns play book, and just blatantly lying, attacking an Inspector General for the doj. Its just what he did during the discrimination case when donald trump and his father were found guilty of discriminating against minoritie minorities, and it was roy cohn who went out and said outrageous things attacking, get this, attacking the doj and the fbi and accusing them of being spies, accusing them of being undercover agents. He literally, he literally is parroting. Youve got republicans parroting Vladimir Putin, you literally have william barr parroting one of the most despicable of the 20th century in american politics. The man who made mccarthyism possible, hes parroting roy cohn, so donald trump has found his roy cohcohn. Lets go to attorney general William Barrs exclusive interview with nbc news despite the findings of the Justice Departments Inspector General report. He still claims that the fbi may have operated out of bad faith when it investigated the Trump Campaign in twuk2016. Speaking with nbcs Pete Williams, barr essentially dismissed the i. G. s conclusion that there was no evidence of political bias when the fbi launched its russia probe, arguing that his hand picked prosecutor john durham will have the final say. Barr also stood by his assertion that the Trump Campaign was spied on. I think our nation was turned on its head for three years. I think based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by an irresponsible press, and i think that there were gross abuses of fisa and inexplicable behavior that isnt tolerable in the fbi. In one area i do disagree with the i. G. , and that was whether there was sufficient predication to open a fullblown Counter Intelligence investigation specifically using the techniques that they did to collect intelligence about the Trump Campaign. The score statement in my opinion by the i. G. Is that these irregularitieirregulariti misstatements, these omissions were not satisfactorily explained, and i think that leaves open the possibility to infer bad faith. Do you still stand by your statement that the campaign was spied upon . Oh, clearly spied upon. I mean, thats what electronic surveillance is. I think wiring people up to go in and talk to people and make recordings of their conversations is spying. I think going through peoples emails, which they did as a result of the fisa warrant, they went through everything. I dont know where to begin, willie, but so here is let me find this really quickly. Its not going to work for me, so im very challenged this Morning Technology wise. But again, you heard him talking about them being spied on. The fbi, again, this is the language that roy cohn used attacking the d o, j and the fbi back in the 1970s when the federal government caught donald trump and his father discriminating against minorities, and hes doing the same thing. But hes the attorney general of the United States. He talked about a bogus narrative for three years, a bogus narrative, and he blamed it on an irresponsible press. Willie, i just we dont have to i dont have to remind you of the fact that the president of the United StatesFirst National security adviser found guilty of a felony. The president s Campaign Manager found guilty of a felony and will probably spend the rest of his life in jail. The president s longtime lawyer and fixer found guilty. He was in the middle of that illegal hush money scheme that violated fec laws. The president s assistant Campaign Manager found guilty, and the same with a man that he claimed was one of his top Foreign Policy advisers found guilty. We can go through the numbers. They are absolutely astounding, the number of people connected to donald trump who were found guilty of a federal crime spending time in jail and turned states evidence against other people in the administration. And of course roger stone, found guilty. You just willie, hes talking he continues his war on the department of justice. This was the work of the department of justice, not the deep state. These were federal judges. These were federal judges that found these men guilty, and yet hes talking about how hes blaming all of this on, quote, an irresponsible press. Hes projecting when he talks about inexplicable behavior that is intolerable. He actually should direct that back at the man who hes working for, donald trump. And speaking of projecting, how about calling this a bad faith investigation. Again, hes talking about a deep state conspiracy. He is effectively as the attorney general of the United States echoing Donald Trumps claims that this was all a deep state conspiracy despite all the convictions you laid out, despite all the good faith investigations by the men and women of our intelligence services, the men and women of the fbi, he on the very day that the i. G. Report came out from his own Justice Department, he sat down with Pete Williams to do a breathtaking interview where he undermined every piece of that i. G. Report, again, from his own Justice Department, and David Ignatius if thats not bad faith, i dont know what is. He knows better than to say a fisa approved Surveillance Program is spying. He knows better than all of this, but again, he views his first job now as defending the president of the United States. Like you and joe, i felt that attorney general barr really crossed a line in his comments yesterday for all his partisanship, seeming partisanship before, this was different, and the reason it was different was that he was attacking not enemies in congress, not even really the press, he was attacking his own Justice DepartmentInspector Generals report, and publicly disagreeing with it, and making wild allegations of bad faith, not supported, against the people who lead our nations key Law Enforcement investigative agency. It was an extraordinary thing for an attorney general to do. That job in our government is different, asknd if people can rely on the attorney general to back up the orderly process in which the Department Investigates its own, thats what the Inspector General does, something is really broken. Hes now going to turn to his hand picked prosecutor durham, whos already come out with his own statement rewbutting the inspector ve Inspector Generals report. My fear is we are now heading into conflicting legal narratives of what happened. Were already in danger of becoming a country with two versions of whats going on in our politics. That seems now to be embedded at the Justice Department itself, and its really dangerous. You know, it is really dangerous and mika, you and i for the past three years have had a debate on whether americas institutions will be sufficient to check donald trump in a way where well be strong or Even Stronger from this challenge on the other side, and ive always said, our institution will check him, madisonian democracy will check him. Im not a big believer of going in and talking about constitutional conventions or changing this part of the government or that part of the government. I will say three years in that the one area where our system obviously needs to be checked has to do with the appointing of an attorney general, and i was saying this before barr became the attorney general, i think there has to be a higher forgive the pun, a higher bar to becoming attorney general of the United States. Maybe its a twothirds vote in the senate to select and remove somebody. We just cant have any prosecest having an attorney general who will protect them from criminal actions that theyve taken. Were no better than some, you know, Banana Republic right now, and was and thats exactly what donald trump and william barr are moving us towards. There has to be a higher threshold for somebody becoming attorney general of the United States. That is the one area of reform that i think a lot of people are going to be looking at when donald trump leaves office. So lets look at the conflicting legal narratives that David Ignatius brought up and what we are moving toward, which is what youre moving toward, joe, but admiral, 20,000 feet, what does it look like . No order of importance here, the white house and the president reportedly devaluing the truth, alternative facts in the ukraine scandal, alternative facts to what was laid out in these hearings with multiple witnesses servants under oath telling americans what happened. Two, foreign leaders laughing at the president on the world stage, mocking him, laughing out loud. Three, what we just saw yesterday, the attorney general and the president of the United States undermining, repeatedly undermining our intel agencies, our intel servants, people who work for america. What does this look like to you . You know, im going to denver tomorrow, and im going to give a commencement speech at metropolitan state university, which is kind of a 20,000 student enterprise where 65 of the students are the first in their family to go to college. What im going to talk about is the federalist papers versus the novel the lord of the flies. This is really a collision between order and rule of law and increasing anarchy, which we see evidenced with this piece that you just mentioned, but also, mika, you know, david said a moment ago the attorney generals special position. Ill give you two others, secretary of defense and the head of the cia. Those three positions are so central to these institutions, and when we have to worry about whether an Inspector General is going to be overridden in one of those three positions, you start to feel that needle moving from the federalist papers toward the isla isla island in the lord of the flies. Take a look at this, this is the president last night calling the fbi scum. The fbi also sent multiple undercover human spies to surveil and record People Associated with our campaign. Look how theyve hurt people. Theyve destroyed the lives of people that were great people, that are still great people. Their lives have been destroyed by scum. Okay . By scum. An fbi lawyer forged, took a fema email, forged an email used as evidence, an act which is now the subject of a criminal referral. Okay . What they did is so unbelievable. Oh, i look forward i dont know. I dont know. Keep away. I look forward to bill durhams report. Thats the one i look forward to. See, and there you go, ed luce, weve now had two i. G. Reports that have shown that there was no bias in this in the investigation beginning. The facts have been laid beare and yet you have donald trump going and calling fbi agents scum. Calling fbi agents scum, and thats bad enough, even more disheartening you have people cheering the description of the president of the United States calling the fbi agents, quote, scum. This is something no president has ever done unless its a president of russia or some other enemy of the United States of america. No, it isnt. Its unprecedented in this country. It should be sort of mentioned that monday is u. N. Genocide day, and the u. N. Secretary general issued a statement saying that the holocaust didnt begin in the gas chambers. It began years before with hate speech. Now, im not suggesting for a moment americas going to end up with genocide, but the dehumanizing language that the president has used, initially it was mostly about muslims and Illegal Immigrants and the media, is now spreading into political opponents, people who work for the federal government including in the fbi, and really anybody who gets in his way, and words are not just words. They make the climate more permissive, and as i say, they dehumanize the people whom the words are targeted at. And calling the fbi scum the day after the Inspector General clears the agency of political bias in beginning its investigation of the Campaign Says that there was no link between the steele dossier and the fbis decision, only learned several weeks later about the existence of the steele dossier and the fbis decision to start that, having within minutes the president and the attorney general and people across washington describe that report as the opposite of what it found. Its just its a new level of mendacity of lying that i think is going to have consequences. Its getting worse. Well, its disinformation, and yeah, maybe we dent want ono compare it to nazi germany in 1933, but maybe we do compare it to russia, to Vladimir Putins regime now, to orbans regime in hungary now, to other autocratic regimes who use language in a way to savage their opponents, to dehumanize their opponents, and most importantly, and this is the key in autocracieautocra democracies that move to autocracies, the key is the attacking of the press, the attacks of an independent judiciary, and the attacking of the intel agencies. You know, willie, theres a reason why assad is now parroting donald trump and talking about fake news. Theres a reason why other dictators across the planet when they get caught in Human Rights Violations parrot donald trump and talk about fake news, why erdogan is doing the same thing. Theyre all reading from the same play book, and of course we have a madisonian democracy that i still believe keeps us strong and will protect us as a nation, but every day donald trump and the attorney general of the United States now and so many of Donald Trumps supporters are doing everything they can to make true Donald Trumps vision of the constitution, that article ii gives the president of the United States unlimited power. And as you say, the president of the United States cant do it alone. Hes got a lot of help from his attorney general. Hes got help from his secretary of state. Hes got help up and down the line creating this narrative around him that his campaign in russia did not work together, that russia did not somehow put its thumb on the scale and help him get elected president. And you know whos enjoying this was Sergey Lavrov yesterday as he stood next to mike pompeo and said before the cameras this is a bogus idea, the idea that russia interfered in the election, its nonsense, despite what all the intel agencies have said. Despite what the Mueller Report has said.