mar-a-lago. and turning the celebration over to the super bowl lii. >> get ready. >> now it's time for "morning joe." >> the great tom brady had completed ten in a row. now second and goal. toss to white! he's in! patriots win the super bowl! brady has his fifth! >> absolutely unbelievable. it was a night of so many first's. >> what happened? >> nothing good. i'm an atlanta falcons fan and i have been since they came there in 1966. a 51-year curse going to 52 years. we have willie geist on the phone. i'm a red sox fan, as you know.

i suffered through that for a while. i suffered through bucky dent and buckner and you name it, through 2003. last night, though, that was unlike anything. i mean, biggest comeback in super bowl history had been ten points and it had never been -- never been an overtime game. and, last night, without a doubt, forever locked and sealed up, the legacy of tom brady as the greatest super bowl quarterback in nfl history. >> there's no question now. there may not have been any question before the game, but there is no question now. that simply shouldn't have happened last night. it couldn't have happened last night. it was 28-3. that game, by all intents and purposes, is over. and then slowly, but surely, you -- i've seen that before michael jordan is down 20 points and you think to yourself, just don't even give him an opening. put these guys away now.

you're watching brady get a little more fired up and a little more fired up and you're watching the throws look a little bit easier. he was totally off balance and didn't look like tom brady the first two and a half, almost three quarters. then he starts chipping away at you and gets back there and looks like the old tom brady. comes down and end the game on a 31-0 run! >> 31-0. you said the previous comeback was ten points, the biggest of all time in a super bowl. march down the field. the falcons are going to have some play calls that they will probably look back on and regret. all they needed to do at one point late in the fourth is kick a field goal and make it a two-score game and then out of reach. if they run and get a little bit closer and get a first down but at least kick the field goal. they didn't. they took a sack and didn't score. atlanta fans are certainly going to be talking about on sports talk radio. some of the plays that the patriots made, the edelman catch now goes down as the greatest catch in super bowl history. how did he come down with that

ball? >> we just showed it. there is absolutely no reason that guy should have caught that pass. we are just showing is right now. you replayed it five, six, seven times and it reminded you a lot of the giants catch several years back. i will say, willie, just growing up in atlanta and following the falcons for as long as i have, and knowing that this team is cursed. you know? started in 1966 only one six or seven games the starting decade and two or three winning seasons in the next decade and no winning team until the late 1990s. you're exactly right. the key drive was when they had a chance for a field goal. en got sacked. then had a hold penalty. at that point, you knew the wheels were going to start to come off and sure enough, they did. but, again, congratulations to the patriots and tom brady who is -- you put him right there with joe montana as the

greatest, not only super bowl quarterback of all time, but just the greatest quarterback of all time. >> yeah. now he's got five super bowls, montana and terry bradshaw had four. if that is your sticking point that maybe montana somehow had the edge, it's almost impossible. i guess there is a case to be made for montana but, boy, five super bowl titles? and to win it in that way the way brady did? it felt like he wasn't having a good game. you looked up and he still had 400 yards passing and ended with 466 which is a monster number, of course, in a super bowl game. and -- >> willie, not only -- >> you could see the famous way the patriots looked like they got their swagger back and you saw the killer michael jordan thing in brady's eye in the fourth quarter. the atlanta falcons looked completely stunned. tidal waves of matt ryan on the sideline as the i don't think so marched down the field and

scored again. once they went to overtime you had a feeling the patriots was not losing that game. >> no way at all. it was a done deal despite the fact that brady was pounded all night. took hit after hit after hit. even in the third quarter he was still being chased. fourth quarter brady's offensive line started holding for him. the defensive, obviously, exhausted and brady had some time to get back there. you could see it in his eyes. he picked out his receivers and he just marched down the field with ruthless efficiency. all right. willie geist, thank you so much for calling in from tibet. please tell our friend that i say hello. >> i will. they still have that warrant out for you here, joe. >> oh! well, we will talk about that later, willie. we will talk about that later. it was supposed to be a peaceful excursion but it didn't end up that way. another wonderful moment, mika, was 41. 41 and barbara bush going on the

field at the beginning and jon meacham, an extraordinary man, an extraordinary story and remind he move of that old nixon bumper sticker, nixon now more than ever. when you see this guy coming on the field, you wanted to say, 41, now more than ever. jon meacham, now more than ever. >> i don't know where he went. >> he was in the icu a week ago, which is remarkable. i think joe buck said there is no tougher man in the stadium tonight than george h.w. bush. 92 years old. mrs. bush is 91. you uld tell when he came out, you know, he is always about just getting on with it. he was basically saying, where is coin and wanted to press forward. there is a great image from his college years. he went to war at 18 and came back and went through yale in

three years. he was the captain of the baseball team at yale. played first base. not a bat hitter. used to say, all field, no hit but i think he had a .270 average and an image of him receiving babe ruth's manuscript of his memoir at yale. so this is a guy who played in the first two college world series, met babe ruth, and embodies, i think, and particularly when you take the whole night, the political content of the commercials as subtweeting, i think people were calling it. a great image of american unity, i think. >> you had the whole night including the hw moment and also the halftime show, including the interview with president trump and trump talking about putin causing serious questions across the globe which we will get to because that was part of the event as well. >> i thought you were going to talk about lady gaga at halftime. lady gaga said, this is my

little room and i own it. it was! >> unbelievable. >> it was unbelievable. >> along with jon meacham, political annist and author of "game change" mike halpern and in florida, alex cost dianos. good to see you all on board so much. so much what happened over the weekend. you tried to write a column and you uldn't you had thisdeand then something would happen. >> i was going to write a column on friday the internal process at the trump white house, wednesday through friday had chaned dramatically and was going to write a column explaining they had put a system of checks and balances in place and was going to put it out on saturday. then saturday morning, he tweeted about a federal judge, big no-no. so i did that column. and then i was going to go back to the process column and talk

about the improvements inside the white house. very positive column. particularly when you give most americans a reason to hope. and then he talked about vladimir putin and preached moral equivalency between putin's russia and america and its people and its leaders. my column had to be pushed back another day. >> believe it or not -- >> hopefully, i'll get to the positive. >> yes, hopefully. >> -- column soon enough. i noticed another thing this weekend, mika. this steve bannon thing just keeps coming up. people are saying president steve bannon. we saw it on "time" magazine last week. what staffer have you ever known that is in the job for a week and a half and he is on the cover of "time" magazine? mika, people and i have been coming up and we have been repeating and over again.

no, donald trump is the final decider. oh, no, it's bannon, bannon. tell us about bannon, tell us about bannon. we always tell them the same thing. it's not about steve bannon. it's about donald trump, but the media doesn't believe that. and now even staff members are saying that bannon -- well, bannon even told "the times" today, it was said that bannon was rushing to his allies saying take because of the chaos in the west wing, that he and miller only had a brief window to get his agenda through. and so he has rushed into this power vacuum. then "saturday night live" each picked up on it and made fun of the relationship where steve bannon is president of the united states and donald trump works for him. i think people have this backwards. but here is the clip. >> send in steve bannon. ♪

>> hello, donald. i have arrived. >> hi, steve. you look rested. tired and cranky and i feel like i could just freak out on somebody. >> then maybe you should call australia. >> no refuges. america first. australia sucks and prepare to go to war. steve, i think that was bad. was that bad? >> no. it went just according to plan. >> whose plan? >> your plan? >> no. your plan. >> okay, good. >> okay, donald. >> that's enough fun for tonight. can i have my desk back? >> yes, of course, mr. mr. president i'll go sit at my desk. >> wow! >> this is again, when we say donald trump is the desired in chief, he is the desired in

chief. but that not the story. look at this "time" magazine cover. again, it's astounding that this soon into a new administration, i don't know. maybe bannon is calling all of the shots. i still don't think he is. but i think trump is the guy that calls the shots. but this is a theme that i guess needs to be investigated. i've always told people you're obsessing. mika, you're obsessing over the wrong story. that is not the story. the story is trump and how trump makes decisions. >> yes. i think when you speak with him and if you give him all of the information, he can be reasoned with, but maybe it's the last person in the room who is reasoning with him. and that might be bannon. president trump -- then this is all of the chaos over the weekend, given the immigration whatever you want to call it. says he has instructed homeland security to check people coming into the u.s., quote, very carefully, after a federal

appeals court declined to immediately reinstate the executive order on immigration. the travel restrictions affecting people from seven countries have been on hold ever since friday night when with seattle federal judge james robart halted the order and bringing against states of washington and minnesota. the judge wrote that the executive order, quote, adversely affects the states' residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations, and freedom to travel. the state compartment complied with the judge's ruling reversing visa cancellations and the homeland security department suspended all actions relating to the order. they asked the courts lift the order immediately and arguing that congress gave the president, and not the courts, the authority to control who comes into the country. the appeals court declined in a

quick ruling. instead, demanding a more legal brief from both sides. this morning, lawyers from washington state and minnesota have told a federal appellate court that there is a risk of, quote, unleashing chaos again. if the ruling were reversed in effect, lifting the ban. the appeals court ruling is unlikely to settle the issue because whichever side loses could then make an appeal to the supreme court. on our show on friday, joe made this observation about trump's twitter habits. >> you go back and look. saturday mornings are usually the most chaotic times for that twitter feed. i think it's because jared, it's the sabbath and jared is not around. i don't know exactly why it is. but saturday mornings, i think john lewis tweets go o on saturday mornings and other very destructive tweets go out on saturday mornings. >> and then like clock work, trump got into some twitter trouble on sad morning.

maybe he doesn't see it as trouble but the president tweeting about the federal judge ruling at 7:59 a.m. on saturday morning, he said, quote, when a country is sno longer able to say who can and who cannot, come in and out, especially for reasons of safety and security -- big trouble. seven minutes late, he tweets, interesting that certain middle eastern countries agree with the ban and know that certain people are allowed in. it's death and destruction. six minutes after that at 8:12 a.m., the opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country is ridiculous and will be overturned. joe, that one especially powerful because it sort of questioned the judge's legitimacy. it might have been sort of said sarcastically but who knows. >> it does question the judge's

legitimacy. you don't want -- mark halpern, i always look back to the two presidents that were pushed farthest to the wall by the courts, bill clinton and richard nixon. clinton fought everybody. no holds barred to save his presidency. but when the supreme court of the united stes stripped him, disbarred him, he kept relatively quiet. he didhe same thing with arkansas supreme court. nixon quietly complied when with in u.s. v nixon in the final days of his presidency, they demanded he turned over the tapes. it's because they understand there are bright lines of authority around them and you don't cross the courts. this was very disturbing tweet to question the legitimacy of the judge. it's one thing to play the refs like obama did which i thought and i said was disgraceful during the state of the union

address several years back and one thing to play the refs, but quite another to question their legitimacy. >> it's unethical to his interest because judges are going to protect their coequal branch and be inclined -- more inclined to rule against them. the statement he made about the judge and the statement he made about putin both have echoes from the campaign and both are amongst, i think, the worst things he did in the campaign. he cannot question legitimacy as president. the coequal branch of the judiciary. charles johnson told peter baker, "the new york times" colleague, this was inappropriate and indecent and unpresidential. his comments to bill o'reilly amongst the most unfortunate things he had to say. both are hard to defend and we saw over the weekend not defended by most republicans, except the vice president and the chief of staff. >> the vice president put in a

terrible position defending something that was absolutely indefensible. jon meacham, it is remarkable, the system of checks and balances that mad son and hamilton gave us. it's worked since 1789 and it's worked, in large part, because of checks and balances that they so brilliantly wove together in this document. and the world is not going to come to an end because of a tweet. but if that is the beginning of a political strategy of trying to question the legitimacy of the federal judiciary, that is a dead end, both politically and also constitutionally. we could ask the ghost of fdr what happens when you are seen as interfering too much in the federal judiciary. >> right. the nixon example you just made is great. there is a third week of july,

1974, nixon knew if the tapes went over, that was it. he still did it. trump has this remarkably shermanan-esque view of political combat, right? just total war. whoever happens to be in his sights at a given moment. john lewis a couple of weeks ago. it was the judge of mexican descent as mark eluded during the federal campaign and this judge today. lord knows who it's going to be in an hour. what exacerbates and makes that total war fare even more corrosive for him is whenever someone questions his legitimacy or the legitimacy of something he is doing. and i think given the presidents are full of this, that that is the give and take of the constitutional system, it's only going to get worse. >> that is the real concern.

mika, of course, circling back to the question we had at the to of the show, a lot of people ask me was sthat donald just shooting off the for the purpose of his head or is that part of a steve bannon play? people, everywhere, trying to credit bannon with trump's outreach to the unions. everywhere we go, that is brilliant, that is bannon. i wonder if now people are going to say this the attack of the courts, that is a question. is that part of a bigger steve bannon plan? or was that donald trump just tweeting out something he felt like tweeting out on saturday morning? >> the attack on the courts and, nick, the attack on the press which i think "saturday night live's" melissa mccarthy. >> oh, my lord. >> the sean spicer bit she did, which we will show coming up because we need to show a longer portion of that, was incredible. you see all of these sort of walls being put up or even fights being started with major

factions of the process or people who cover the process. and confusion about who is in charge. >> i see a problem here for this white house. you know, the policy process in a white house with a communications process in a white house is there for a reason and it's not some washington nicety. it's there to actually amplify the power of the president and his policy and his message. what happens in this white house is the president wakes up. he's in a bad mood. he tweets something. his entire team, the entire government spends the next day or two days defending it and he locks his entire government into defending an yum pulse. >> one of the hardest things to watch was vice president pence defending, which we will have in the next block, because there is just not enough time in one block to do every huge headline that is opened over the weekend, the putin remarks. i mean, it was an impossible sort of word acrobatics. >> i think we will probably see

the vice president in the same place over and over again for the next couple of years of defending things he evidently does not agree with. >> right. or defending things that aren't true. joe? >> and especially for cold war hard-liner, much more difficult to defend moral equivalency between vladimir putin and the united states of america. which, by the way, for the record, has fed and freed more people than any country in the history of this globe. the ussr that vladimir putin mourns for killed over 50 million of their own people and enslaved an entire continent until we helped liberate it, along with our allies. alex, so there is an interesting dynamic going on here. i've yet to talk to a republican congressman or senator on capitol hill that is not worried about the unevenness, a polite way to say, of these first two with weeks. yet, i'm looking and i'm sure you've seen it, too.

very interesting developments in the polling. the polling goes anywhere from quinnipiac at 36%, which is really an out lier. every poll i've seen has it from 40% to 45%. this is what is interestin those are the calls, the voice polls. when you actually start doing the automated calls, which were more accurate this year, where people don't have to tell a live person that they support what donald trump is doing, that's more in the 44 to 49% rain. for those who think chaos reigns supreme right now. i'm not sure he wouldn't be at 47%. >> i think that may be exactly right. this may be -- this administration may be like the atlanta falcons last night, you

know, who had 400 electoral votes and there is no path to victory for the patriots. i think it may be the same thing in this administration. substantively, what donald trump is doing is well-supported. >> right. >> but the instability, the uncertainty of it all, which, of course, is what he was elected to bring to washington, is also scaring folks. there is a difference between having a little 20-foot boat and turning the wheel sharply and having the thousand-foot ship of state and yanking that right and left. and you upset quite a few folks that way. donald trump, i think, and many republicans still believe and want to hang with him, even during this tough start, because they think he can be a hugely successful president and it's because the country was headed in the wrong direction. if he just stops washington from doing half the stuff it was doing to help america, he'll succeed if he strengthens america and the world, he'll

succeed, but if the one man who can stop him is probably donald trump. >> alex, you know, again, the process inside of the white house is moving gashforward in productive way and they are getting a system in place that actually looks like it will be organized. but it's donald trump's own word. it's his own tweets. it's not the policies. the policies are remarkably popular in michigan and ohio and wisconsin and pennsylvania. the states he has to win. but you look at this weekend, he tweets out attacks to a federal judge. you just can't do that. like, even a lowly congressman knows, you can't do that. i knew that. everybody in government. you can't do that. and then the vladimir putin statement. both of them so remarkably unnecessary and they cover up what should have been a great ending to his week on wednesday, thursday, and friday starting with the selection of his judge. he should have just coasted through the weekend with on good

news. >>e should have. i think as this administration goes forward and gets its feet on the ground, you will see, i think, more success, emphasis on success. donald trump likes to win. donald trump is a deal-maker. he likes to see a successful conclusion of that. so, you know, if he had explained on russia that china is the new russia, that russia is a weak power, fueled by petrocurrency when oil is at, you know, 50 bucks a barrel, that russia is not building islands in the south china seas to dominate trade routes, that russia is not militarizing space. that's china. if he had explained we need a new arrangement and sometimes even with our adversaries, it would have been more successful. >> still ahead on "morning joe,"

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. begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me for how you have treated meese these last two weeks! and that apology is not accepted. because it's not here to be your buddy. i'm here to swallow gum and take your names. all right. so if nobody has any questions. >> i want to ask about the travel ban on muslims. the travel ban is not a ban which makes it not a ban.

>> you just called it ban. >> i'm using your words. you said ban. >> the president tweeted and i quote, if the ban were announced with a one-week notice. >> yeah, exactly. you just said that. he's quoting you. it's your words! he is using your words when you use the words and he uses them back, it's circular using of the word and that is from you. okay, we will do a couple of questions. >> yeah, i'm also concerned about steve bannon. a lot of people are saying he is the one behind this muslim ban? >> yeah. all right. you guys! you guys still aren't getting it. you need some props? my words too big and i have to show new pictures? great. okay, here we go. when it comes to these decisions, the constitution gives our president lots of power and steve bannon is the key adviser! okay? and our president will not be

deterred! it is advice against radical moose-lambs! >> i like when she goes like that. my new girl crush, melissa mccarthy. she is amazing! >> she is amazing. >> i think sean spicer was laughing along with that as well. that was incredible stuff. >> so many incredible messages in there. >> no, no, it's funny stuff. i'm sure he was laughing. it's been a rough, rough week. >> yes. weekend. it hasn't even started. it's been rough. coming up, donald trump talks directly with the head of nato, an alliance he routinely called obsolete. we will talked to the retired admiral james stavridis.

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do you respect putin? >> i do. >> do you? why? >> i respect a lot of people but that doesn't mean i'm going to get along with him. he is a leader of his country.

i say it's better to get along with russia than not. and if russia helps us in the fight against isis, which is a major fight, and islamic terrorism all over the world. >> right. >> major fight, that is a good thing. will i get along with him? i have no idea. it's very possible i won't. >> putin is a killer. >> there are a lot of killers. we got a lot of killers. you think our country is so innocent? do you think our country is so innocent? >> i don't know of any government leaders that are killing in america. >> well, take a look what we have done, too. we made a lot of mistakes. i bet against the war in iraq since the beginning. >> mistakes are different than -- >> a lot of mistakes, okay? but a lot of people were killed so a lot of killers around. believe me. >> at this point you're asking why. you have to ask why that is there a why to this. >> don't double down on him. >> that was an argument that candidate trump made on "morning joe" back in december of 2015. listen to this. >> do you like vladimir putin's comments about you? >> sure. when people call you brilliant, it's always good.

especially when the person head up russia. yeah. >> well, i mean, also a person that kills journalists, political opponents and invades countries and that would be a concern, would it not? >> he is running his country and is at least is a leader, unlike what we have in this country. >> but, again, he kills journalists that don't agree with him. >> well, i think our country does plenty of killing also, joe. so, you know? >> what do you mean by that? >> a lot of killing going on in the world going. a lot of killing going on and a lot of stupidity and that is the way it is, but you didn't ask me the question. you asked me a different question, so that's fine. >> i'm confused. so, i mean, you, obviously, condemn vladimir putin killing journalist and political opponents, right? >> oh, sure. absolutely. >> let's -- >> mika. >> what?

>> even at that time, i was asking myself what was going on. i asked myself during this campaign, what is going on. and when you have a president of the united states preaching moral equivalency with a leader who said the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the soviet union. the soviet union that he work as a kgb agent in and soviet union that killed 50 million of its own people and killed almost ten times as many people as adolf hitler killed and there were no trials because they didn't lose the war. but you just have to wonder how any president can say that about our country that i will say, again, it bears repeating. we have fed and we have freed more people on this planet than any other country in human history. how do you compare a country

whose leader assassinates journalists, a country's leader who assassinates political rivals. we saw one found dead in the street across from the kremlin a year ago, who jails economic rivals, who has an authoritarian regime has put everybody on notice. he has plundered his country. many people estimate that putin is worth $200 thbillion he has stolen from the russian people but this continues and it was disturbing enough a year ago. it is baffling now as president of the united states that he is still doing this. >> i think the options, too, explain this are getting slimmer. let's bring in former nato supreme allied commander, now the dean of the fletcher school of law and diplomacy retired four-star navy admiral james

stavridis and chief national security analyst for nbc news. admiral, what are the options here in terms of a proper or at least a safe explanation for this? ba because it seems there is repetitive equivocating which to me leads to only one conclusion. >> yeah. i've got to say i'm with senator mccain on this one. he was responding in an interview once to president bush's comment that he looked into vladimir putin's eyes and he saw his soul. he was someone he could work with. senator mccain was asked, you've met with putin, you've looked into his eyes, what did you see? and mccain said, i saw three letters -- kgb. i don't think this one is a tough call. the question really is not about how to deal with putin, it's about how to deal with russia. here, we need to confront where we must. syria, assad, ukraine, crimea

and cyberhacking and find zones we can cooperate. counterterrorism and counterpiracy and potentially the arctic and maybe trade space in arms control. there are some zones of cooperation. we don't want to stumble backward. we need to look that putin is channeling kgb. >> mark halpern, we are not looking at him with clear eyes. the president of the united states is, i think, confusing the country and the world about what exactly he stands for and what our relationship is with him. >> as joe said, he is putting his vice president, who is no friend of the soviet union or of russia in a very tough position. >> oh, my goodness. that was tough. >> admiral a story in "the wall street journal" suggests what this may be about is an attempt by this administration to do what the obama administration failed to do which is separate russia from iran. is that a realistic goal and

what are the up sides and down side of trying to get that done? >> i think there are positives of trying to separate the two, but to me that is a little bit of a too neat and explanation, too small ball to explain a really big geo political position. yeah, we should try and pull iran away from looush and we should try and find zones of cooperation with russia as i mentioned. potentially one is on containing iran. but, at the moment, that does not appear to be going very well, given the iranian/russian lash-up in support of assad. >> joe? >> alex, i want to bring you in here. obviously, you know very well the nature of the old soviet union and the nature of kgb agents and the hard bloodied history. what would you i have the president or the president's advisers on this front the next time he is asked about vladimir

putin so he doesn't compare us to a regime that murdered 50 million of their own people? >> well, i would point out that not that long ago when vladimir putin was saying that he was going to renew and rebuild russia's nuclear arsenal, there was a donald trump who stood up and said you want an arms race? you got one. we are not going to let russia become ascendent in nuclear weapons again and it world for ronald reagan and, ultimately, it broke the old soviet union and it ended the cold war. that donald trump, i think, is coexist, along with the same donald trump who is, frankly, to left of john mccain and lindsey graham on intervention and occupation. we have a president who on the one hand, he is criticized for on "saturday night live" for

risking the world, takiing to war. on the other hand, the donald trump campaign was very dler he thought america was overextended in the world. and i think he can find better ways to express that thought than to say, you know, barack obama killed a lot of people with drones, we are the moral equivalent of the soviet union. >> i just, again, nick, i have to ask. this is a man who can call arnold schwarzenegger a ratings loser and he can call chuck schumer a clown and a cry baby. but he can't say, no, i don't respect a leader who does a, b, ac. we have to have some sort of relationship in the future and that remains to be seen. of course, i don't respect a leader who, dot, dot, dot. there is a why here that is disturbing. >> he agrees with putin on jailing journalists. >> or possibly a relationship there on a business level. >> admiral, i was wondering nato has been the iraq for american foreign policy a long time.

can it survive a trump presidency and will it survive a trump presidency? >> it absolutely will and that was what i wanted to add to the conversation. something we can do to confront putin is strengthen nato. here is an organization with 3 million men and women under arms almost all of them volunteers. 28,000 combat aircraft and 800 ocean going defense. this is a very powerful organization. instead of denigrating it and calling it obsolete, we ought to be building it. and i think that light will go on for the trump administration, even in my own conversation with mr. trump in trump tower in december, he seemed to indicate that he did understand that part of nato. perhaps this whole name calling of nato obsolete is a negotiatpositi to get the europeans to spend more on defense, which they should. but i think and i hope that light will go on and i think nato can be a big part of the

solution here. >> well -- >> i want to follow up, mika, on what nick said. if donald trump keeps being asked to criticize vladimir putin for assassinating journalists and donald trump refuses to criticize vladimir putin for assassinating journalists and say, well, we do it too, in a sense, does that suggest he thinks it's okay to assassinate journalists? >> look, i -- >> does that suggest he thinks it's okay to jail political opponents, to assassinate political opponents? if you don't condemn, after being repeatedly asked to condemn these actions, at some point you go back to the he who does not deny admits story. >> right. >> and it suggested he does. i suggest somebody at the white house get him to write a statement, a very strong statement letting the world know that he condemns the assassination of journalists and political rivals, because he

suggests in the two interviews with o'reilly and us that he does not. >> the options are fewer. here are the explanations. by the way, check out "the wall street journal" editorial board if you want to learn about poisoning political opponent, if you're in russia. but the options are fewer. i mean, there's some sort of business ties. that's where you would equivocate if you don't want to get caught, i guess, in some bad web. or as you pointed out, joe, he agrees with this or, thirdly, he doesn't understand, which are all bad options. >> there is literally -- >> all bad option and no good option here. >> literally no one in the u.s. government and no prominent person in academia who agrees with this. he is by himself on this position. >> where is the negotiating tool that the admiral was talking about when you say nato is obsolete and you might be able to translate into some sort of negotiating tool. i don't see what the negotiating power of i respect putin is for

donald trump. >> yeah. >> except for perhaps he is being held to it. against his will. >> all right. what dove next? admiral james stavridis, thank you very much. "morning joe" is going to be right back. >> what you have in this new esident is someone who is willing to, and is, in fact, engaging the world, including russia. >> by american to russia yes or no? >> i believe the ideals that america has stood for throughout our history represent the highest ideals of human kind. >> couldn't you just say yes to that question? >> i think it's important, john, that american ideals are superior to countries all across the world.

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episode! >> that'tr! >> he let's not go that far. >> she's not everybody's favorite, but she was a halftime show worthy of the game, which is quite something because the most amazing game ever. >> red and blue coming together after all this. it was nice. >> we expect to hear from patriots head coach bill belichick and super bowl mvp tom brady this morning as they hold a news conference after what many are calling the greatest super bowl comeback ever! ahead, we will bring in mike rupica live from houston and all eyes on the ninth circuit court of appeals whether it weighs to reinstate trump's travel ban. two top democrats weigh in. representative maxine waters and adam schiff and former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul that the u.s. government is morally equivalent to putin's

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so we sent that sample i doff to ancestry. i was from ethnically. my ancestry dna results are that i am 26% nigerian. i am just trying to learn as much as i can about my culture. i put the gele on my head and i looked into the mirror and i was trying not to cry. because it's a hat, but it's like the most important i've ever owned. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. . thank you to all of our fans, everybody back in boston, new england. we love you. you've been with us all year! we are bringing this sucker home! >> there you go. welcome back to "morning joe." it's monday, february 6th. still with us on set we have political analyst and co-author of "game change" mark halpern and from "the new york times"

writer nicholas confess ore and also elise jordan. joe, i remember starting to work on a book when it was clear the falcons had this. it was over, right? it was over! >> it was over. it was over when the falcons went up 28-3. but then, suddenly, you saw 28-9. the falcons had a shot. they were in field goal position but then they followed that up with a sack, they followed it up with a holding penalty. suddenly, they had to punt the ball and you just knew if you were from atlanta, georgia, if you were born in atlanta like me and had been following teams like the falcons, the braves, the hawks for 30, 40 years, you knew that the wheels were going to come off. and, sure enough, let's bring in

mike lupica who is down in houston. mike, i'm sure you remember back in the 1980s, the unkindest of cut but "sports illustrated" had a picture of atlanta fulton county stadium on it and the title was "loserville usa." here we are 51 years later and in all of its major sports, atlanta has only one title and, last night, my brother and my son and we were all calling each other, thrilled that we were going to be able to double our championship output. not so fast. >> it turned out to be the greatest game of football ever played by the greatest football player of all time. but, joe, you know? sports, every hero requires a villain and so in atlanta today, they are looking at this as the greatest collapse of all time. i believe when you add it all up, because of the suspension for brady, because he missed the first four games, because his team ran the last 31 points of

this game, this is as famous a game of sports as we have ever had in this country and i can't imagine that anything will ever beat this. >> mike, people will be talking about this for a very long time, too. the past, i guess 20 years. i've loved telling the story to groups, to younger kids talking about the importance of confidence and knowing that you could do whatever you wanted to do if you fought hard enough and you had the skills to do it. i always tell the story, i believe the 1988 super bowl, 1989 super bowl when joe montana was pushed up against the end zone. he had 95 yard to go. he was going up against the bengals and he had a minute to score a touchdown. he looked behind him and he looked up in the stands and he said, oh, man! it's john candy! and the rest of his team kind of started laughing going, wait. if he is not nervous, i'm not

nervous! they marched down and theyon the super bowl. and tt has been the story to talk about great endings. this tops that one. this tops all of them. and the thing is as a falcon fan, right? it was sad to know that we were going up against a football assassin, that he was going to do those 20s and outs and hit them with ruthless efficiency and he did. >> i knew we were going to lose before they flipped the coin at halftime -- in overtime. >> joe, here -- a friend of mine once said the beauty of sports that is that you can't rent tonight's game. there is no script. 28-3, obviously, the game is over. but brady is the greatest player of all time. and i'll tell you something else about this game and people in new england won't want to hear this today. the falcons were also victimized by the dumbest single rule in professional sports, the biggest industry we have in sports comes down to a coin flip. it finally happened to them in the super bowl and the mvp of

the season never got to touch the ball again. it is the most ash trary capricious rule in sports if the game seven in the world series would was over once the cubs scored. they got to change it. it's not fair. >> no doubt about it. at least maybe a reason to change it in the playoffs. thank you, mike lupica. trump has instructed homeland security to check people coming into the u.s., quote, jaevercarefully after a l paels court declined to reinstate his executive order on immigration. the travel restrictions affecting people from seven countries have been on hold ever since friday night when seattle federal judge james robart halted the order. he was ruling on a lawsuit brought by the states of washington and minnesota. robart wrote the executive

order, quote, adversely affects the states' residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel. the state department complied with judge robart's ruling reversing visa cancellations. the department of homeland security suspended all actions related to the order. just after midnight on saturday, the department of justice filed an appeal asking that the courts lift the order immediately, arguing that congress gave the president, and not the courts, the authority to control who comes into the country. the appeals court declined in a quick ruling. instead, demanding a more legal brief from both sides. this morning, lawyers from washington state and minnesota have told a federal appellate court that there is a risk of, quote, unleashing chaos again. if the ruling were reversed in effect, lifting the ban. joe, i'm going to ask you if -- here we go. donald trump tweeting this morning.

any negative polls or fake news. just like the cnn, abc, nbc polls in the election. sorry. people want border security and extreme vetting. >> okay. so your question is what? >> will the ban last? >> well, it's hard to say. obviously, very concerned about the so-called judge comment. but if you want to just look at the actual facts before us and before these judges, the legal standards is very high for judges to overturn. the president of the united states. and supreme courts have always shown remarkable deference. the greatest deference to presidents on issues of border security and issues of national security. on the merits, i can't really predict how a 4-4 court is going to go. but i suspect ultimately, after they get it out of the ninth circumstance, which is the most

liberal circuit, and it goes to the supreme court of the united states, i'm not so sure trump won't win that 5-3, only because a remarkable difference has always been shown and will be shown to a president on securing the borders. the judge listed a lot of items that, obviously, are items of concern, but by legal standard, they probably won't rise up to the authority that the president has to have the deference to make these sort of decisions. >> joining us in washington is founder and executive director of the james madison project. attorney general mark zade who specializes in national security law. mark, how would you characterize this confrontation or whatever you would call it, with the judicial branch and, ultimately, with this ban? >> i'd say still developing and whether we actually go to a constitutional crisis, we will see. we have never seen anything like this, certainly not in our

lifetimes. if we look back in history, and history is going to very much guide us, back in 1832, where andrew jackson had an altercation or confrontation with supreme court with justice marshall and reportedly told the judge justice marshall made his decision and now he can enforce it and, obviously, how does supreme court enforce its decision standing itself? the same thing in the civil war with abraham lincoln when with he suspended habeas corpus and the justice obtataney said you t do that but he did. are we there? we are not quite there but when you see these tweets you're discussing so far, you don't know what the next one is going to be. >> i can tell you what the next one is. i call my own shots. largely based on an accumulation of data and everyone knows it. some fake news media in order to marginalize lies. >> and what if the next tweet

says, let's say the ninth circuit uphold the suspension? we don't have to talk about whether we get to a substantive ban as joe was saying. there is a great deal of deference in national security and the congress has given some authority, obviously, as well, that increases the president's authority. but let's say this ban stays in place, at least for the next few weeks. and the president tweets out that he's not goingo follow. he is directing his departments not to follow what this panel of judges has said. okay. what then? how is the congress going to react? because it has to go to the congress to do something. i don't think we are going to have an uprising revolt here in the united states any time soon. is the republican congress going to act? and, you know, obviously, we are not quite there yet. >> not seeing a result, nick, but we are seeing protests. >> that's right. >> and backlash. >> a big topic, mark, is the policy process in this white house and the drafting of these

orders. i'm curious if you read these court rulings, is there a version, a tailored version of this order from the beginning which could have avoided some of the problems he is having now in the courts with it being overbroad and chaotic? >> i think absolutely. i mean, part of what is going on right now and probably why the ban will be at least temporarily upheld is that there's no urgency for this. and you've had 97 tech companies file a brief and now numerous former secretaries and cia deputy directors and directors saying, look, there is no different threat right now that didn't exist, you know, a month ago, three months ago. there is a threat, of course. but why are you rushing to implement something when you could have set this up properly? you could have given advice to homeland security and customs border protection how to enforce all of this. and you didn't.

why is this in such chaos in this raining down of fire towards everybody without any understanding or fire to put it out? joe, i want to mention something you said. you rightly are concerned about, you know, putin and the killing of journalists. i dot think we ar going to see journalists killed heren the united states any time soon but how about prosecuted under the espionage act for disclosing classified information? we had some in the obama administration very concerned about that. and, you know, few people remember that in the pentagon papers case in 1971 which was a civil jungs cases that four of the nine justices made it fairly clear that if the government had sought to prosecute criminally "the new york times," their decisions might very well have been different. the espionage act which is a hundred years old this year, makes it very clear on its face that if the government wanted to prosecute either of you for

disclosing reading on air classified information that has been leaked to you, that it could. and what are you going to do then? >> it is going to be a fascinating four years and, obviously, you're exactly right. the past eight years have been deeply troubling to a lot of journalists who have seen the obama administration move more in this direction than any administration before it. let us hope that does not continue over the next four years. mika, the very interesting on what the president just tweeted. he's exactly right, which is steve bannon is not president, who i don't know if it's steve bannon, but i don't know who is pushing out this theme. but as we have always said, i mean, you look at this "time" magazine cover and it's, again, it's just absolutely preposterous that this theme is being pushed, because as you and i have always said, for better or for worse, the guy on the cover of "time" magazine is not

the guy who is in power there, despite the fact everybody, the media wants you to think he's the guy in power there. the guy in power there, as we always say, for better or for worse, is donald trump. the last person in the room. >> media is not wanting to put that out there. the media is getting that and reporting on it. legitimate media are getting word that steve bannon is the last guy in the room in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings. this is not my reporting. i don't feel that way from what i've seen. >> joe, this is a narrative that is easy to push, too, when you have executive orders that are so chaotic and incompetent. seemingly if achieving -- if an executive who -- exactly, he doesn't know what is in the executive orders that he is passing when it seems like the president is disconnected from his policy and he has an all

knowing adviser with a very strong ideology cal bid. >> you can do a little bit of math. >> it reminds me of the karl rove narrative. >> go ahead, joe. >> no. it is like the karl rove narrative. nick, we will get to you. there was that karl rove narrative that rove ran the white house and then the narrative that cheney ran the white house and then the narrative that colin powell was going to run the white house. but at the end of the day, it was always george w. bush running the white house. but mika is exactly right. the media is not making this story up. they are being fed this story from people inside the white house. mr. bannon has rushed into the power vacuum telling allies he and miller only have a brief window in which to push their agenda. that is being pushed, i don't know if it's miller, i don't know if it's bannon, but you look at the stories that keep coming out and, again, the stories swirling from inside the

white house is that steve bannon is the brains behind the operation. he is the person that has been pushing the union strategy. he's the person who has been pushing all of the other strategies. he certainly did, though, elise is right, he certainly did push, loon along with steven miller the executive order that was rushed that was chaotic, that still nick, is causing chaos in that white house. >> that's right. look, joe. look. he is doing what he said he would do the order attributed to bannon are straight from the trump campaign platform. straight from the message. the whole idea that it's bannon's influence is kind of ridiculous in that sense. he said he wanted to do a ban. he did a ban. now the implementation perhaps is amateurist but it seems to -- >> what is actually more disconcerting is the reporting that steve bannon inserted

himself at the national security council principal committee meeting without donald trump knowing. that is a power grab that a fireable defense if it is, indeed, true. that kind of power is being usurped under the president's nose. >> on to the implementation being amateurish, that is the team. that is the team planning it out and strategizing and maybe perhaps talking to people who have a little tiny bit more experience than them in the issues of law and foreign policy which clearly, clearly unequivocally was not done and donald trump knows how hard it is to get on the cover of "time" magazine. he was actually insulted, rightfully so, that he wasn't a year earlier. he should have been. and it's tough to get on the cover of "time" magazine. you have to be a real story and a story behind the story to get

on the on cover of "time" magazine. >> how did steve bannon get on the cover of "time" magazine? >> i think there is reporting he is the one that is truly in order. >> "time" magazine put him on the cover. that's how. >> but there is more than that. you have to be the story. >> you have to think about the executive order that bans green card holders from seven nations around the world and causing utter kay os and affecting a hundred thousand people. yeah, you're going to be on the cover of "time" magazine for the chaos you caused. >> the uncertainty of roles in any new white house that someone has aggressive and as smart as bannon who has put himself in physical proximity of the president is able to get so much done and is getting so much attention. my question is where the white house counsel? >> where is it? >> i've not seen his name in a single article i've read. he is responsible for making this stuff write and bannon just

wants results. >> something missing here. joe, your piece which we will look at after the break crystallizes the vacuum in key areas of law and judgment. we will be right back. >> send in steve bannon. ♪ >> hello, donald. i have arrived. >> hi, steve. you look rested. tired and cranky and i feel like i could just freak out on somebody. >> then maybe you should call australia. >> no refuges. america first. australia sucks and prepare to go to war. steve, i think that was bad. was that bad? >> no. it went just according to plan. >> whose plan? your plan? >> no. your plan. >> okay, good. >> okay, donald. >> that's enough fun for tonight. can i have my desk back? >> yes, of course, mr. president

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does anybody have any questions? >> yeah. "the wall street journal." are you okay? >> i will put you in the corner with cnn! >> okay. "saturday night live" was amazing. let's bring in the president and the ceo of the aspen institute best selling author walter isaacson. walter, i want to read a part of joe's piece which really made waves. it's the most read on "the washington post" website right now each, and was within moments of it coming out yesterday. it's called "trump's reckless shot at a federal judge." by joe scarborough.

drs his intechment battle president bill clinton and his wife lashed out to senators and newspaper editors and congressmen and senators and talk show hosts. when the supreme court disbarred bill clinton from practicing law before that court, the president was more measured. the clinton the lawyer knew even during his darkest political days that fighting the judiciary was a battle the president should avoid. president richard nixon recognized that truth as well even in the final days of his presidency. the these presidents recognize the bright constitutional boundaries that limited their power even during existential political crises. this weekend trump took a reckless and unnecessary shot at a federal judge on the basis of a temporary ruling. it is yet another unforced error from an president who keeps stepping on his own good headlines while stirring deep unrest among political friends and foreign allies. walter, this morning, he

continues on twitter. he doesn't seem to pull back on some key things. putin doubles down. and now the law, the judiciary questioning the legitimacy >> this is one thing that could really blow him up if he takes on the judiciary and americans and congress says, wait a minute, we have a separation of powers. you were talking about the "time" magazine cover. now i worked for "time" magazine for many, many years. i remember when we put people on a cover, sometimes it caused a controversy. rudy giuliani, when i was editor of "time" i put bill bratton on the cover and giuliani's days were numbered. likewise putting the brains behind ronald reagan on the cover, that ended up being down ronald reagan. you have checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press and, at a certain point, you have to maneuver, not just try to barrel over

everything like the judiciary and the press. >> joe, jump in. >> i was just going to say to walter, walter, it's a lot easier for people to understand why it's dangerous for donald trump to compare vladimir putin's russia to america. for people who weren't lawyers or haven't studied government their whole life, explain why taking on the judiciary is, one, it's a bridge too far. and we can even go back to the judge curiel case. donald trump was up five points when he curiel and then after that he was losing by five points. americans are deeply uncomfortable with this, aren't they? >> absolutely. one of the things about america is a certain deference to the judiciary. i remember bush v gore and it

was very confusing and, finally, it comes down from supreme court bush v gore, and the next day, there is no rioting in the streets. al gore is conceding. it's ingrained into us that we have a rule of law. we watched the super bowl last night. you might not have agreed with certain calls, but at a certain point, you know, the calls are made and that is what the judiciary has to do. if you're not going to play by those rules, that's when everybody feels, well, this is a dangerous place we are at. >> mika, you covered around the clock while i was in congress. you covered bush v gore and there was this buildup, wasn't there? and there were all of these people saying, oh, this will set back the judiciary a decade. and, yet, they made the ruling and while people were angry with the ruling, both sides, in effect, respected it and immediately moved forward. >> and i'd say, actually, these were really tough times, the

people who lost out in that battle for the white house could not have felt more gypped and more deeply hurt by the situation and, yet, they respected the law, they respected the process, and it was peaceful, and it happened because we are built on this incredible foundation to chip away like this. obviously, questions the legitimacy of the judiciary, nick, but it also, it feels -- it feels almost antagonistic on every level, this president is just punching every system or every process that happens. even covering the white house has now become this, you know, horrific media that, you know, is feeding the base, but creating kind of a dangerous president. walter, jump in, then nick. >> no. in i must say you were talking about why people say steve bannon has such influence. everything you've talked about is sort of part of the steve

bannon -- >> ban none-esque. >> when you say who is having influence, understandably. a guy who wants to blow up the globalist order and blow up the order of a nation that is open, that sort of thing. that is a very strongly held ideological view that steve bannon has been quite up front about. when you see it very much being implemented, you have to say, okay, this is a guy who, you know, is actually calling the shot there. obviously, trump is making the decision but it's not reince priebus in his here to do some of these things. >> this is a strategy that might have worked for steve bannon who he was at the helm of brigheitb. this does not work as a strategy for a white house. >> if you look at the people -- >> it doesn't work as a strategy for donald trump either. i mean, this is where it's going to end up being a problem is

when president trump says, okay, this is not actually working for me at the moment. >> mark? >> as misguided as this is to his own interests because the judiciary tends to stick together it gets in the way of hi legislative agenda. paul ryan and mitch mcconnell don't like this and more we talk about this, the tax plan and dealing with the affordable care act and as dealing with regulation this puts him at odds with everyone in the government and it puts him at odds with the russia thing with almost -- >> oh, my gosh. the republican party is sitting here defending, you know, this putin talk. how are they supposed to defend that? they can't and what you're seeing is many are not. but in place of talking about issues that they want to get to. nick? >> look. the presidents come and go. these judges serve for life. and trump is going to get sued constantly in his four or eight

years as president all over the place. if he is going to go after judges every time, you know, as mark suggests, eventually the judges will say this is a guy who does not respect us and we have a problem it and will actually hurt him in the courts. >> walter isaacson, thank you very much. great to have you. coming up as the work to fill out the trump administration goes on o one high profile nominee just withdrew his name because of his business entanglements. we are back in a moment. this is the silverado special edition. this is one gorgeous truck. oh, did i say there's only one special edition? because, actually there's 5. aaaahh!! ooohh!! uh! holy mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. which one's your favorite? come home with me! it's truck month! find your tag for an average total value over $11,000

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billionaire investor and owner of the florida panthers team vincent viola has withdrawn as president trump's nominee for secretary of the army. two government officials tell "the new york times" that viola made the decision to drop out due to concerns it would be too difficult to untangle himself from his business ties. in a statement, viola said i am deeply honored to have been considered for this post and appreciate the confidence president trump showed in me. i offer my continued support for president trump and his administration. viola graduated from west point in 1977. he is the first of president trump's nominees to drop out before consideration. the pentagon has released a statement in response to the news saying, in part, secretary

mattis is disappointed but understands and respects mr. viola's decision. the secretary will recommend to the president another candidate soon. mark halpern? >> do you know how many millionaires and billionaires he has nominated and picked for jobs and amazing only one said so far he is not able to diseng ta -- disentangle. >> kristen welker, what is on the president's schedule today? >> good morning. president trump is going to have his first major visit with u.s. troops here at central command headquarters today. he is going to get briefed by top defense officials and then he is going to deliver a speech. this all comes as he is digging in on one of his more controversial assertions that millions of votes were illegal, costing him the popular vote in the 2016 race. he hasn't provided a whole lot of details about an investigation that he has said he is going to call for. he hasn't provided any facts to

back up his assertions. he was pressed on all of this during a pre-super bowl interview with fox news yesterday. take a look. >> you say, for example, that there are 3 million illegal aliens who voted and you d have the data to back it up. some people are going to say that is irresponsible for a president to say that. >> many people come out and said i was right. >> i know but you have to have data to back that up. >> it doesn't have to do with the vote but that is the end resulted. look. we can be babies but take a look at the registration. have you illegals and dead people and you have this. it's really a bad situation. it's really bad. >> election fraud does occur. there is no evidence that it occurred in such a significant number that would have changed the presidential election and i don't think we ought to spend any federal money investigating that. i think the states can take a look at this issue. many of them have tried to

tighten their voter rolls and purge people who are dead and otherwise not eligible to vote. >> reporter: so this is yet another issue in which you are seeing some republicans distance themselves from president trump's comments. now, president trump did announce that he is appointing vice president mike pence to look into this. the white house had said the president was going to sign an executive order, actually launching an investigation. that has yet to happen. so far, no time line for when he is going to sign that executive order. back to you. >> nbc's chrkristen welker than you. the president updated the timing on how obamacare might be repealed and replaced last knight. >> can americans in 2017 expect a new health care plan rolled out by the trump admistration? this year? >> in the process and maybe it will take until sometime into

next year, but we certainly in the process. very complicated. obamacare is a disaster. you have to remember, obamacare doesn't work. so we are putting in a wonderful plan. it's statutorily takes a while to get. we are going to be putting it in fairly soon. i think that, yes, i would like to say by the end of the year. at least the rudiments but we should have something in the year or the following year. >> so within the following year. a wonderful plan. does anyone have what are republicans working on there as a replacement? >> i thought they would be under much pressure under their base to get rid of the affordable act to have a vote. about the timetable it took president obama to pass the affordable care act. if they can get away with this politically and gives them more time to build consensus with republicans and time for ftax reform. if they pull off the delay politically it's a big win for the republicans who would rather work on tax reform and unites

them and they may get democratic support rather than the divisive order of health care. >> push off the repeal and the replace? >> he knows a huge disruption in care for 22 million americans would be a political disaster so get the plan right. i think that is the way to think about going about it and have soun well-thought out policy. it implemented and not have, you know, just like what we saw with the executive order, just a shoddy half-hearted throw into the wind bureaucratic nightmare. >> you can't take away health care without a replacement. >> it's hard to do and i think the delay actually reflects the problem they are facing right now in an actual plan to replace it. how do you get that kind of coverage? and keep the protections for prior conditions. how do you pay for it?

you can't do all of those things in an easy or cheap way and no free lunch in this. i think they have to come to terms with either campaigning openly to reduce coverage and not pay for it, or keep a lot of the coverage and find a way to pay for it. that's it. pretty simple. >> sometime next year. reality is setting in. so they have to think it out. up next, president trump campaigned hard against wall street, but on friday, he signed an executive order to scale back some of the financial regulation legislation dodd-frank. we will bring in the top become on the financial services committee. back in a moment.

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president trump signed orders on friday starting the government down the path of loosening regulations on banks and lenders imposed by the obama administration. the president deferred implementation of a rule to require financial advisers to act in the best interests of their clients, which the finance

industry says makes it harder for advisers to take low income investors. at the heart of trump's orders, paring back the dodd-frank regulations created in 2010 which the president commented on at his policy forum with business leaders. joining us from capitol hill ranking member of the house financial services committee, congresswoman maxine waters. very good to have you on board. i feel very worried for lower middle class americans, middle class americans, people trying to get loans. i feel like we are going to have a revisit of big banks taking over and running over folks. am i overstating it? >> well, no, you're not overstating it at all. we spent an awful lot of time with creating dodd-frank reform and we have spent an awful lot of time trying to implement it. we have had to fight back over 40 attempts by the republicans

to undermine or destroy the dodd-frank reforms. and, here, you have this new president who ran against wall street, who claimed that hillary was a puppet of wall street, and claimed that he was going to drain the swamp. guess what he has done? he has brought wall street right into the white house. in fact, jerry cohen who is head of his economic council is coming right from wall street with 285 million dollar package that he left with and he has been working for goldman sachs for 25 years. and, also, bannon is from wall street. and so he absolutely misled the american public one more time. he ed he said he was going to clean up wall street. well, no. wall street is now in the white house rolling by dodd-frank. i want to tell you, dodd-frank was the answer, the reform that

we needed based on the recession that was caused about wall street which lehman brothers failed and it caused all of the other banks to be, you know, in trouble. and so what happened during that period of time? we lost over 880,000 jobs. in addition to that, they foreclosed on 9.9 million homes and 13 trillion in wealth that was lost because of this unfortunate recession that we found ourselves in as a result of what had happened on wall street. >> but i hear you completely. i really to. what are your options legislatively? i know you're holding a news conference with nancy pelosi today. are there any areas in which you guys can gain some headway in this topic? but cut a deal? any options here? >> well, here is what we know we

are confronted with. they have the majority in the house and in the senate and they have the white house. our challenge is to educate the public. our challenge is to say to those people who voted for him, i know you thought you you were gettin something different. you didn't know that you were going to be in a position where wall street was going to come back with all these exotic products and all these fraudulent operations and predatory lending and you being in a position where you may lose your home and your communities may be devastated because of the actions that they are going to take. they are greedy. it's about the money. they want to get rid of dodd-frank so that they can increase their profits. be dam the average person and what happened in 2008. we have to educate the public, fight and push back as hard as we can and hope we can get the average person on main street to understand what is about to happen if they allow these

republicans and this president to do what they are trying to do. >> mark halperin? >> congresswoman, they say the reason they want to do it is dodd-frank has limited consumer choice. do you see ways dodd-frank limited the ability of financial institutions to offer products consumers would want? >> no. as a matter of fact, they have fake argument. what they will tell you is we are harmful to the community banks and they don't have choice. well, it's all about the big banks who hold the community banks hostage. we have done a lot to relate to all the concerns that the community banks may have. i know that they had concerns about the auditors coming in, about the privacy statements they have to send out that cost money. we have dealt with all of that. the big banks are behind this trying to make people believe that somehow dodd-frank is

harmful. it is not. as a matter of fact, the business lending is up over 40%. the banks are about 11% profit making. there's no harm. certainly, there's choice. what they have to do is they have to be responsible in knowing how to deal with vetting their clients and their customers. they must have the ability to repay. that's what there's a lot of pushback on, the ability to repay is extremely important. congresswoman maxine waters thank you for being on the show. great to see you. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> mark, this is a difficult issue, even when the democrats had more power. elizabeth warren was given the task of setting up the consumer financial protection bureau. this is the concept she was swept into office. the republicans nudged her into running that, i believe that's how it went, then she ran for senate -- >> oops. >> and won.

>> and won. >> good for her. this is going to be, if her fears are realized, extremely tough on main street america. >> if you look at the business side, every financial person i talked to, unlike the affordable care act where they adapted to it, almost everybody in financial services says this is a drain on us. this is a barrier to us doing our jobs. i think this is where we bring back steve bannon again. if they care, as the congresswoman suggested about protecting consumers, the power of wall street, they need to be hands on. if they are going to change it, it shouldn't be what the big banks want, it should be consumer focused. call the banks bluff. explain how this isn't just about profit. >> exactly. >> this is the kind of executive order that republicans on the hill can really get behind. >> oh, yeah. >> this is very good. >> they are donors. >> exactly. so, in terms of having an easy

move that is politically a win/win, for trump, this is smart. i support this. these regulations are too much. it's not -- it's become self-defeating to have just so much cumbersome regulation, i support it. >> having said that, we don't want to see what we have seen in the past, when everything melted down and we had people losing their homes and given loans they could not affords. i understand there's two sides to the story, but we had a crisis. a lot of people were crushed. it was not the 1%. >> they think banks aren't making enough money. >> please. >> banks are under assault. banks aren't taking enough risk with deposits. a big part of dodd-frank, it's a sprawling legislation, but it was to stop the risk taking. if they want to roll it back, it's a bad idea.

but, i think this is the price donald trump is paying for the cooperation of allies on the hill. this and judge gorsuch are two pieces of what they get out of the bargain with donald trump. he is not a republican, hees typical wall street. still ahead this morning, the trump administration in a full fledged court battle over the president's executive order on immigration. if that wasn't a big enough story for the weekend, president trump puts russia on the same moral ground as the united states, again. as we go to break, by the way, it was the easiest ask from bill o'reilly who seemed like his face, if you watch in the interview, we'll show it to you, he's saying i'm trying to help you. i'm trying to help you say the right thing. i cannot give it to you on a more simple platter. help yourself, don't say that. >> you want to condemn a murderer. >> this is why the putin comments are so weird to me.

donald trump is so consistent. >> there's a why here and it is not a good answer when we ultimately find it out. and we will. as we go to break, here is the owner of the new england patriots bob kraft speaking of president putin. >> a famous story of you going to russia in 2005 and showing vladimir putin your super bowl ring and he walked off with it. i have several questions, one, did he ever give it back? >> no. >> two, did you have a replacement ring made for the ring that president putin ob skonded with? >> yes, but i was willing to have one made with his name on it. maybe we'll have the new president bring it to him when he connects with him. maybe if we win sunday, i could trade the new one with him, have one made up in good spirit of friendship. >> president trump could be the courier. >> right, we'll have him do that.

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with every click...call...punch... and paycheck... you've earned your medicare. it was a deal that was made ng ago, a aarp believes it should be honored. thankfully, president trump does too. "i am going to protect and save your social security and your medicare. you made a deal a long time ago." now, it's congress' turn. tell them to protect medicare. welcome back to "morning joe." itis mondays, february 6th, 8:00 a.m. on the east coast and 5:00 a.m. out west. political analyst and co-author of "game change" mark halperin is with us. nicholas and his torn jon meacham. so much happened over the weekend. you kept trying to write a

column, joe, and you couldn't. you had this idea, then something would happen. >> i was going to write a column on friday about how the internal process of the trump white house certainly over wednesday, thursday and friday changed dramatically and was going write a column explaining the system of checks and balances in place and was going to put it out on saturday. then saturday morning, he tweeted about a federal judge, big no-no. so, i did that column. then i was going to go back to the process column and talk about the improvements inside the white house, very positive column, would give most americans a reason to hope. then he talked about vladimir putin and preached moral equivalency between putin's russia and america and its people and its leaders. my column had to be pushed back another day.

hopefully i'll get to the positive column soon enough but, you know, i noticed another thing this weekend, mika. this steve bannon thing just keeps coming up. people are saying president steve bannon. we saw it on "time" magazine last week. what staffer have you ever known that is in the job for a week and a half and he's on the cover of "time" magazine and, you know, mika, people and i have been coming up and repeating over and over again, donald trump is the final decider. oh, no, it's bannon, it's bannon. tell us about bannon. we tell them the same thing, it's not about steve bannon, it's about donald trump. the media doesn't believe that. now, even staff members are saying that bannon is. well, bannon told the times today, or it was said that bannon was rushing to his allies

saying that because of the chaos in the west wing that he and miller only had a brief window to get his agenda through. so, he's rushed into this power vacuum. then "saturday night live" picked up on it and made fun of the relationship where steve bannon's president of the united states and donald trump works for him. i just, i think people have this backwards, but here is the clip. >> send in steve bannon. ♪ >> hello, donald. i have arrived. >> you look rested, tired and cranky. i feel like i could freak out on somebody. >> maybe you should call australia. >> australia sucks, prepare to go to war. steve, i think that was bad. was that bad?

>> no. it went just according to plan. >> who's plan? >> your plan. >> okay, good. >> okay, donald, that's enough fun for tonight. can i have my desk back? >> yes, mr. president, i'll go sit at my desk. >> ooh. wow. >> mika, this is, again, when we say donald trump is the decider in chief, he's the decider in chief. that is not the story. look at this "time" magazine cover. it's astounding this soon into a new administration, i don't know. i mean, maybe bannon is calling all the shots. i still don't think he is, but, i think trump is the guy that calls the shots, but this is a

theme that i guess needs to be investigated. i always told people you are obsessing. i say you are obsessing over the wrong story, that's not the story. the story is trump and how trump makes decisions. >> yes, i think when you speak with him and give him all the information, he can be reasoned with, but maybe it's the last person in the room who is reasoning with him and that might be bannon. president trump and this is all the chaos over the weekend given the immigration whatever you want to call it, says he's instructed homeland security to check people coming into the u.s., quote, very carefully after they declined to reinstate the executive order on immigration. the travel restrictions affe affecting people from seven countries have been on hold since friday night when seattle federal judge halted the order that george w. bush appointee was ruling on a lawsuit brought by the states of washington and minnesota. he wrote in the seven-page

ruling the executive order, quote, adversely affects the states residents in areas of employment, education, business, family relations and freedom to travel. the state department complied with the ruling reversing visa cancellations. and the department of homeland security suspended all actions related to the order. just after midnight saturday, the department of justice filed an appeal asking they lift the order immediately arguing congress gave the president, not the courts, the authority to control who come sboos the country. the appeals court declined in a quick ruling, demanding a more legal brief from both sides. this morning, lawyers from washington state and minnesota have told the federal appellate court there's a risk of unleashing chaos again. if the ruling were reversed, lifting the ban, the appeals court ruling is unlikely to settle the issue. whatever side loses could make an appeal to the supreme court.

on the show on friday, joe made this observation about trump's twitter habits. >> go back and look. saturday mornings are the most chaotic times for that twitter feed. i think it's because jared is the sabbath and jared is not around. i don't know exactly why it is but saturday mornings, i think john lewis tweets go out saturday morning and very destructive tweets go out saturday mornings. then, like clock work, trump got into twitter trouble saturday morning. maybe he doesn't see it as trouble, but the president tweeting about the federal judge, ruling at 7:59 a.m. on saturday morning, he said, quote, when a country is no longer able to say who can and cannot come in and out especially for reasons of safety and security big trouble. seven minutes later, he tweets, interesting that certain middle

east country agree with the ban. they know if certain people are allowed in, it's death and destruction. six minutes after that, at 8:12 a.m., the opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law enfor enforcement away from the country is ridiculous and will be overturned. joe, that one, especially powerful because it sort of questioned the judges legitimacy. might have been said sarcastically, but who knows? >> it does question the judge's legitimacy. you don't want -- mark halperin, i look back to the two presidents pushed farthest to the wall fwi courts, bill clinton and richard nixon. clinton fought everybody, no holds barred to save his presidency. with the supreme court of the united states stripped him of disbarred him, he kept

relatively quiet. he did the same thing with the arkansas supreme court. nixon quietly complied in the final days of his presidency. they demanded he turn over the tapes. it's because they understand there are bright lines of authority around them. you don't cross the courts. this was -- this was very disturbing tweet to question the legitimacy of the judge. it's one thing to play the refs like obama did which i said was disgraceful during the state of the union address years back. it's one thing to play them, it's another to question their legitimacy. >> judges are going to protect their branch and be inclined to rule against him. look, the statement he made about the judge and the statement he made about putin, that goes from the campaign. both are amongst, i think, the worst things he did in the campaign.

you cannot question legitimacy as president, the branch of the judiciary. ronald reagan's solicitor general told baker, "the new york tes" colleague, this is inappropriate, decent and unpresidential. those ar three good ways to describe it. his comments to bill o'reilly about putin, amongst the most unfortunate things he could say, they are hard to defend and as you saw over the weekend, not defended by most republicans, except the vice president and the chief of staff. >> well, the vice president put in a terrible position, defending something that was absolutely indefensible. jon meacham, it is remarkable, checks and balances that madison and hamilton gave us. it's worked since 1789 and worked in large part because the checks and balances they so brilliantly wove together in

this document. the world is not going to come to an end because of a tweet. if that is the beginning of a political strategy of trying to question the legitimacy of the federal judiciary, that is a dead end both politically and also constitutionally. we could have the ghost of fdr what happens when you are seen as interfering too much in the federal judiciary. >> right. the nixon example you made is great. the third week of july, 1974, nixon knew if the tapes went over that was it and he still did it. you know, trump has this remarkably sher manesque few of political combat. it's total war. whoever happens to be in his sights at a given moment. it was john lewis a couple weeks ago. it was the judge of mexican

decent as mark alluded to during the campaign. it's this federal judge, a george w. bush appointee today. lord knows who it's going to be in an hour. what exasperates and makes that more corrosive for him is when ever someone questions his legitimacy or theegitimacy of something he's doing. i think given that presidencies are full of is, that's the give and take of the constitutional system, it's only going to get worse. >> yeah. that is the real concern. mika, of course circling back to the question we had at the top of the show, a lot of people ask me, is that donald just shooting off the top of his head or was that steve bannon? is that part of the steve bannon play? people are trying to credit bannon with trump's outreach to the unions. everywhere we go, oh, that's brilliant. that's bannon. i wonder if people are going to say this court, the attack of

the courts may be -- that's a question. is that part of a bigger steve bannon plan or was that donald trump just tweeting out something that he felt like tweeting out on saturday morning? >> the attack on the courts and nick, the attack on the press which i think "saturday night live" melissa mccarthy. the sean spicer bit she did, we'll show coming up. we need to show a longer portion of that. it was incredible. you see all these, sort of walls being put up or fights being started with major factions of the process or people who cover the process. confusion about who is in charge. >> i see a problem here for this white house. the policy process in the white house or the communications process in the white house is there for a reason. it's not some washington nicety. it's there to actually amply fie the power of the president and his policy and message. what happens in this white house

is the president wakes up, he's in a bad mood, tweets something. the entire team and the entire government spend the next day or two defending it. he locks the entire government into defending an impulse. >> one of the hardest things to watch is vice president pence defending the boot remarks. it was an impossible word acrobatics. >> yeah. i think we'll probably see a vice president in the same place over and over again the next couple years of defending things he does not agree with. >> right. or defending thing that is aren't true. coming up, adam schiff joins us for a strong message for the president. the so-called judge was confirmed by the so-called senate. read the so-called constitution. first, sean spicer gets the "snl" treatment. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me. for you you have treated me these last two weeks. that apology is not accepted. i'm not here to be your buddy. i'm here to swallow gum and i'm here to take names. okay, if nobody has any questions -- >> i want to ask about the travel ban on muslims. >> the travel ban is not a ban, which makes it not a ban. >> you just called it a ban. >> because i'm using your words. you said ban. you said ban, i'm saying it back to you. >> the president tweeted, and i quote, if it wer announced with a one week notice. >> exactly, you just said that. he's quoting you. it's your words. he's using your words when you use the words and you use them

back, it's circular using of the word and that's from you. okay, we'll do a couple questions. >> i'm also concerned about steve bannon. a lot of people are saying he is behind the muslim ban. >> all right, you guys still aren't getting it. you need some props? my words too big? i have to show you in pictures? great, here we go. when it comes to these decisions, the constitution gives our president lots of power and steve bannon is the key adviser. okay? and our president will not be det deterred. in his fight against radical mooslambs. >> that's my new girl crush,

melissa mccarthy. she's amazing. >> she is amazing. great on "snl." what do we guess, i think sean spicer was laughing hard along with that as well. that was hilarious. >> so many incredible messages in there. >> no, no, no, it's funny stuff. i'm sure he was laughing. it's been a rough, rough week. >> yes. weekend. hasn't even started. it's been rough. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> i have people, friends of mine that have businesses, can't borrow money. the banks won't let them borrow because of the rules and regulations in dodd-frank. >> a look at the stock change. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. your insurance company won't replace

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today, we will be watching a system with a chance for severe weather. we bring in bill karins. >> an active week ahead. we start with overnight snow in seattle. we picked up 3-6 inches of snow. a messy morning commute. rain in los angeles. an additional two to three feet of snow in the see area nevada. now for the dangerous stuff. potential for more severe

weather. 5 million people at risk to evansville, up to indianapolis and st. louis, the i-70 corridor in between. that's late tonight and tomorrow morning. it's not today, it's after dark. i don't think we'll get many tornadoes tonight. tomorrow, a better threat of isolated tornadoes. a warm system, it will feel like a spring day. louisville and columbus. today's forecast, we are not looking at another too miserable, a lot of rain in the city. high elevation snow continues. i want to show you pictures of last night. after midnight, we got a video in of a meteorite in northwestern portions of illinois. this is a big, huge flair captured on the dashcam. no reports of it found. it may have burned up in the atmosphere. what scene. it was seen from indiana to iowa. the only other thing i think you need to know about if you have travel plans throughout this week, that's going to be not so

much tuesday. tuesday minor airport delays. the forecast for the model shows accumulation in d.c., philly and boston on thursday morning. keep that in mind if you have travel plans at the airports or on the roads thursday morning. everyone watched the super bowl. some of the commercials got political. we'll analyze those coming up on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." mark halperin and nick is back with us. joining the conversation, we have founder of tina brown live media and women of the world summit, tina brown. good to have you back. nothing going on to talk about, but glad to have you in anyway. peggy noonan writes in trump's

washington, nothing feels stable. the president and his advisers are confusing boldness with aggressi aggression. they need to make breakthroughs and instead cause breakdowns. the circuits are leaving them singed. people don't respect you when you create chaos. carefulness is a vir which you, not a vice. the handling of the executive order on immigration allow what is left to show its might. you should never let your enemy know its own strength, they discovered it in the women's march and know it more deeply now. it was after the demonstrations that democratic senators started boycotting the confirmation hearings. they now have their own tea party to push them around. that was the risk, wasn't it? >> yeah. >> the democrats were left flailing after the election. >> they were. what we are seeing is wt i nd interesting. duringhe campaign, trump really created a whole new brand

of anti-political correctness. when everybody screamed when he said something hor endus like the judge or the gold star father, actually, it worked for him. it kept on telling people, i am happy to be politically uncorrect. i will continue to double down on that. i'm not changing. now we have him as a president. this philosophy is creating utter chaos. he doesn't understand that now the great pivot we have heard about has to happen or he is going to deflate himself. his own business life, philosophy is i'll do what i like, sue me. i'll do what i like, sue me. you can't do that when you are president. you can be muted by the constitution. >> there's an interesting tactic that is useful to him and he does it in the world of television. he does it when he's creating and producing television. he leaves people guessing.

what i see right now, mark halperin, correct me if i'm wrong, but everybody is nervous around him to the point they are not sure of their own standing, let alone the fact that he's the president of the united states, the flattery he must be getting, instead of reality, could be over the top to the point of destructive. he has no sense of what, potentially, the bad outcome might be. this executive order was not thought out. >> everybody has to have chaos and competition and rivalry. this is exasperated by the fact that not everybody is there. there's a lot of unfilled jobs. you have a lot of unexperienced people. >> how about a team to help you execute? >> you have a president who thrives on this and likes to help people compete. it's a moving target. when tillerson is up and running, i think they are going to demand more influence. they are going to have a huge

fight on the economic front with cohen in the white house. if trump doesn't adjudicate, it's going to be chaos. the clock is ticking on the legislative agenda. he can't have chaos if he's going to get anything done. >> nick, then back to tina here. you do see his team trying to translate everything from pence saying, you know, what exactly the russia thing was to his team sort of just catching the wave of this immigration ban and saying the media needs to shut up or saying it's this or that. this could have been thought out. the immigration ban could have been an executive order that didn't use the word ban and executed the same exact thing. >> it's true. his team always seems to be playing catch up to his tweets. it's one thing that everyone is spanning out on the sunday shows to advance the agenda and the talking points, but what we see more and more often is a clean

up and defense. he didn't mean that. he meant that. it's okay tt h said that. as mark points out, it squanders the energy and good will they would have on the hill in the early days. it gets harder and harder as you are president, not easier and easier. >> over the weekend, spent a lot of time on the phone with democratic leaders as well as those who are standing up for causes that democrats are very close to. the sense of mission that they are getting as a result of what has happened is leaving no room for a deal to be made on any level. there's just going to be fighting from here on out, if there isn't more order to what's going on. >> i think it's going to be a big mistake if democrats choose to -- i was just in macomb

county, michigan with british groups. something that struck me are a lot of hillary clinton supporters we spoke to, really they think trump should be allowed to go ahead with the supreme court nominee. they think most of his appointments should get through. if they prevent trump from doing anything and from looking like he had a semblance of agenda, they are going to come across as obstructionist. >> i get that. i have to say, this administration and some republicans are making it easy for democrats to look like heroes. you know, they may not be that effective at obstructing but they are going to develop a data base and following. if you are planned parenthood, fine, don't give us the funding. we will take this and run with it. >> how long pence is going to be able to keep playing as someone

falling behind a circus elephant playing clean up. >> i used to call it pencing, but i was told to stop. >> it's going to get old for him. >> it's bad. >> there's a new class being invented, lawyers and whistleblowers. the lawyers are turning into the -- it's a great chore us that is a hamilton-type chorus. you are right about not blocking gorsuch, a good nomination. it's unwise to waste that powder on a good appointment. what's happening with the insulting of judgesakes it a far more dficult hearing for gorsuch. it's his lack of discipline. >> look at corporations, too. we talked about the super bowl earlier. now to many of the ads, which had political undertones, you saw a lot of them. the building supply company, 84 lumber had an immigration theme

ad showing a spanish speaking mother and daughter on the journey. fox rejected the original version that included images of the border wall. an edited version aired before halftime directing viewers to watch the entire ad online. budweiser had an immigration themed ad titled "born the hard way". it tells the story of the founder immigrating to america from germany in the 1800s. budweiser said it was not intended to be a political statement. airbnb says they accept people with different backgrounds. no matter who you are, where you come from, who you love and who you worship, we all belong. coca-cola brought back an ad from 2014. people singing a multiling yule version of "america the beautiful." audi did this. they advocated for equal pay for

women in its ad, featuring a father and daughter. >> despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets. or maybe i'll be able to tell her something different. >> so, tina, this is what i'm talking about. what's happening right now, the feeling that we are getti from this administration backed up by actually what they are doing. i guess it makes even more of a calling for organizations like the one you built, women of the world, know your value, the one i built. there are people in this country feeling completely left out and threatened by the things they are seeing, by bannon's history and what is being carriy eied o

that seems bannonesque. >> when you look at trump's cabinet, it looks like 1975. it's all those old white guys, it really is except a handful of women. >> i'm tired of hearing how great trump is at promoting women, then very few at the top of the white house and across the board in government, how is he staffing the government? >> it's the policies. i know equal pay as legislation is not something he agrees with. but, then again, where is the presence of women? where's the influence of women at the table? it's just not -- >> respect, which we saw none of during the campaign. the woman's march was an exhalelation. women were held back. many of them, 56% of white women did vote for trump. there was a huge amount of women that felt mortified and disrespe disrespected.

>> i get that. i think there are women who voted for trump. i think it's the policies we need to look for, the presence we need to look for. it's a little hypercritical. a lot of those women would not have mar mped against other presidents who were, what's the word? what's the word i'm looking for? i'm not going to get caught in a trap here. disrespected women. he got a freeass from women in the administration. it was the strangest thing i ve er seen. policy and presence. i really -- you know, his, whatever pageants and all that. whatever. i'm not interested in hearing about his interests if it involves anything inappropriate. none of that was proven. we have a president where it was. the policies and the presence, we need. we are not seeing it. it's another problem that is going to swell up for this administration. let's go to business before the bell. sarah, what are you watching for this morning? >> we are watching the direction of stocks, mika, after a very strong week on wall street.

the nasdaq index is set to open at another record high. the dow climbing last week fueled in part by better jobs report on friday. also the indication from the white house through an executive order they are going to deregulate the financial sector, roll back dodd-frank financial regulation. we have a lot of earnings on tap we'll be watching, disney, coca-cola, general motors and kellogg. they have earnings to watch. that is what are the ceos saying on expectations or policy changes? so far, it's been a lot of wait and see on tax policy, rolling back regulation. so, the commentary will be interesting. one stock in focus today, a retail name, tiffany, abruptly saying that it's ceo is departing less than two years on the job. this is becoming a theme in retail right now. there's so much struggle right now with stores, decline in

traffic and sales. there's a lot of turnover in the executive suite. this came a few hours, the announcement before the first super bowl ad, which featured lady gaga as the pitch woman. we are going to watch this space. last week, ralph lauren said its ceo is departing less than two years on the job as well. there's a void that needs to be filled in terms of leadership as amazon dominates retail. we have been talking tech leaders and president trump. now, they have banned together to file a legal brief that supports the challenge in the ninth circuit of appeals in san francisco for the immigration order. some of the big gis on that, apple, microsoft and alphabet, google parent. >> amazing times. sarah, thank you very much. >> thank you. still ahead, as president trump makes a moral equivalent between putin's russia and the

united states, the wall street journal offers a story of a prominent opponent of the russian government, who last year slipped into a coma after suffering multiple organ failures. he survived. now it's happened to him again. he fights for his life in moscow hospital. we are going to bring in the former u.s. ambassador to rush is shah who suggests president trump try google searches before praising the russian leader. keep it here on "morning joe." er hands off me. do it again. thereou go... i can do whatever you want. except keep your eyes on the road. now would be a good time to have new car replacement. so get allstate and be better protected from mayhem, like me. it's good to be in good hands.

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in a moment, we are going bring in former ambassador to russia the ranking member. congressman adam schiff. first, a look back at the ground we have covered on this busy monday morning. >> last night forever locked and sealed the legacy of tom brady as the greatest super bowl quarterback in nfl history. >> there's no tougher man in the stadium tonight than george h.w. bush. >> this steve bannon thing keeps coming up. now staff members are saying bannon is calling all the shots. >> the reporting that steve bannon inserted himself at the national security council. >> it's a fireable offense. >> declined to reinstate the executive order on immigration. joe made this observation about trump's twitter habits. >> saturday mornings are the most chaotic times for the twitter feed.

>> cannot question legitimacy as president of the judiciary branch. >> we'll see. trump has this remarkably shermanesque view of political combat. >> he locks the entire government into defending an impulse. >> when you have the president of the united states preaching moral equivalency with the soviet union that killed over 50 million. >> we need to look with clear eyes at vladimir putin. >> express the thought and say barack obama killed a lot of people with drones. >> i don't see what the negotiating power of respect putin is. >>ou have this new president who ran against wall street and guess what he's done? he brought wall street right into the white house. >> that was just today. joining us now, professor of political science and director of international studies, former ambassador of russia. in washington, adam schiff of

california. good to have you both. let's first play president trump because i want you to watch the host who is interviewing him here because i watch his face in this interview and i feel like he's saying, with his face, i'm trying to help you. when he gets the wrong answer, he says i'm trying to help you. here is bill o'reilly and donald trump. >> do you respect putin? >> i do. >> why? >> i respect a lot of people, but that doesn't mean i'm going to get along with him. he's a leader of his country. i say it's better to get along with russia than not. if they help us in the fight against isis, a major fight and islamic terrorism all over the world, that's a good thing. will i get along with him, i have no idea. >> he's a killer. putin is a killer. >> we have a lot of killers. you think our country is so innocent? do you think our country is so

intent? >> i don't know of government leader that is are killers. >> take a look at what we have done, too. we made a lot of mistakes. >> mistakes are different than -- >> a lot of mistakes, baa lot of people were killed. a lot of killers around, believe me. >> can't help him. can't help him. ambassador, i think he can't help him because to quote president donald trump, there is something going on. what a the options? >> well, of course, it's deeply disturbing what he said. impe imperically, there's no moral equivalency between the way we fight, our soldiers fight and russia. aleppo is a crime against humanity. we don't poison opposition leaders. >> check. >> we don't assassinate them as has happened in russia two years

ago. but, you know -- >> don't assassinate journalists in elevators, mothers of three. >> i have to assume that maybe president trump doesn't know all that history. i want to remind your viewers, he said exactly the same thing on your show. >> right. >> december, 2015. when he said it then, i thought maybe he made a mistake, they didn't think about the consequences of that gross, moral equivalency. but, when offered a chance to correct the record, he doubled down. he must truly believe it. >> adam schiff, i'll go to you and let you both respond to this. he's been saying this since december 2015. he hasn't minced words, he hasn't adjusted, he hasn't edited. i think we can now go with this. unlike vice president pence who tried to translate this, i'm going to show it to you. it's with all due respect. i think vice president pence does a great job trying to

manage his situation. it's laughable trying to explain this as anything else but what it is. what are the options as to why, congressman schiff? >> i'm sure the ambassador is right, he doesn't know the history or precisely what putin does. i think even if he did know, it wouldn't matter. you have either with him or against him. vladimir putin has been with him, he's been with him in the election with the russian interference and saying nice things about him. now, donald trump has a better relationship with russia. it's almost as if there's nothing putin can do to get donald trump to admit error, which is concerning to me since we have escalation of violence by the russians in ukraine. can we expect donald trump to call out putin on this and admit his new russia policy is a failure? i think the russians can get

away with anything right now and that concerns me tremendously, more than, you know, the indefensible statement he made. >> nikki haley called it out, called out putin, which is good to see. from the president down, you are not getting a change. you know, since december 2015, am gabassador rksz donald trumps seen the reaction he's gotten to this around the world, most of it negative. he is doing fine pleasing his base. he doesn't need this. there's got to be a why. what are the options? >> well, again, i just want to underscore something very important you just said. for the same of argument, assume maybe it could be true, right? as a commander in chief, you don't say it anyway. you mentioned my twitter feed before the break. on my feed, lots of veterans weighed in saying they don't appreciate being compared as

killers. even the word killer shouldn't be used. as to the why, i think there's a strategy, if i say nice things about putin, he's going to help me in the war against isis, for instance. i dealt with vladimir putin. it's not going to get to the objectives you seek. flattery is not a tool that works with vladimir putin. you know, i'm predicting that eventually president trump will learn that lesson. >> ambassador, to follow up on that, do you think this is not dealing with vladimir putin from position of strength? this constant flattery? >> yes. that's a very good point, which is to say, i, too, think the united states of america, the white house, president trump, shoul should work with vladimir putin when it's in the national interest when it serves a

security or national interest. so far, trump's policy toward russia is to get along, be nice to them. that's not a policy. why do i care if we get along with russia? only if it serves our national interest. i think he's getting mixed up the objectives of a policy versus the means. the objective should be about america's security oreck nomic interest. the means should be through engagement. >> congressman, i know you don't like the president's immigration policy as a matter of policy, but as a matter of law, what makes you think the courts should and will, ultimately strike down this executive order? >> the president has a lot of discretion in the field of immigration and the field of national security. what the court is going to look at here is, is this impermissible ban on a religious group? i think statements like those that giuliani made, the fact that the president also talked about it as a muslim ban and

favoring christians, i think that the court is going to look at these things to find out what is the true intent here. is this, as giuliani said a muslim ban masking as a ban from certain countries? i think they are going to be heavily predisposed. i think that's one of the biggest problems we are going to face with this ban. just going to mention to your point earlier, mika, about questioning the legitimacy of this judge. in part, this is, you know, again, a failure of the president to understand our constitutional separation of powers. it's also a part of that broader phenomena where if you say something critical or do something critical, if you a a judge, you are illegitimate. if polls don't reflect well, they are fake. if it's a news story, it's lies. this president cannot accept anything that doesn't go his way and has a scorched earth policy

about it which is dangerous for a commander in chief. >> thank you. tina, final thoughts? people dance a little bit around the why here. i'm going to say it. it feels like there is something. >> absolutely. >> that is damaging. >> i believe trump's affinity as it plays out with putin is not simply the strong man's club. he admires putin for all the wrong reasons. there's something more here. it's the only place he's been consistent. the only place throughout the campaign he's shown absolute refusal to take any other view of putin. there's something going on here, as you say. i believe it's financial. let's see how it plays out. >> hard to tell. nick, i think it's -- we have to be careful not -- there is a why here that nobody wants to touch. at this point, we can't say it's lack of knowledge. we can't say the teams asking

him, you know, not or egging this on. i don't think the team is comfortable with this. >> it could be, you know, how he feels, which is more troubling of all, i think. >> wow. okay. on that note, that does z it for us this morning. thank you all. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage now. >> thanks so much, mika. good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle. breaking overnight, courtroom showdown. two states filing new griefs saying the travel ban will unleash chaos. the deadline for the white house hours away. under fire. president trump refusing to criticize vladimir putin. instead, criticizing the united states. >> you think our country's so innocent? >> yep, you heard me right. members of his own party hitting back. >> i don't know what the presidents trying to do with statements like he all