lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the king dom and the power and the glory forever and ever, amen. good morning and welcome to "a.m. joy." first lady melania trump opened her husband's rally in florida with the lord's prayer and the crowd went wild.

but take a look at the trump supporters behind the first lady. see those signs? blacks for trump 2020.com. what seems like a group of african-american trump supporters offering the much-needed image of racial diversity and black support for trump. but is that what they really are? well, if you go to the blacks for trump 2020.com website, you will get redirected to a site called honestfact.com which is a very colorful conspiracy theory website. the group is allegedly linked to the violent cult founded by the late hulon mitchell. blacks for trump 2020 refer to a man named michael, a former member of the cult, and while other posts contain allusions to conspiracies, members of this have made it onto the riser. they're literally on the riser in this close proximity to the

first lady of the united states and the president. that suggests that something is very amiss in trump's advance work. no internet maybe, not using the google? rand trump world is also having trouble matching their narrative to reality. at that same rally donald trump ticked off a list of european countries hit by terrorists, including sweden, which according to trump endured a terrible incident two nights ago. who would believe this? actually no one should because nothing terrible happened in sweden. trump completely made that up. just like trump counselor kellyanne conway made up the bowling green massacre as justification for the travel ban and just like sean spicer falsely suggested atlanta was attacked by islamic terrorists. now, what do these lies have in common? well, they all blame muslims for terrorism and that kind of rhetoric is just one of the reasons that thousands of people are expected to gather today in new york's times square for a rally dubbed today i am a muslim too. it's a multi-faith, multi ethnic

show of solidarity in the wake of trump's immigration ban. joining me are russell simmons, chairman of the foundation for ethical understanding and daisy khan, and dean obadala, co-emcee of today's event. i'm a little starstruck being here with the great russell simmons. that you all for being here. russell, tell me why did you put this together? and you put it together rather quickly. >> it was imam shauncey's idea. we held i am muslim for a day 1, this is i am muslim for a day 2, so we've been doing this for many years, fighting islamophobia and anti-semitism. but especially islamophobia the last five or six years.

we do put them together and we have been working on this particular issue very hard, so we're coming out of a campaign, muslims are, speaking out. so what we find, what donald trump has done for us is create a moment where americans see the sameness in each other and we talk about religious leaders coming together and that's been our work. it's multiplied now. so we do have a day now where we can all come together with common interests and work together and see how we need each other. that's very special. so this should be a great rally and should be an educational -- a tool for many americans if they watch. >> yeah. daisy, you know, i opened this talking about the weird sort of conspiracy theer theorists who got on the riser behind the first lady but that is a part of the trump phenomenon. he seems to believe in them and his team seems to believe in

them. i want to play what donald trump said last night in melbourne, florida, about sweden and germany. take a listen to this conspiracy theory. >> you look at what's happening in germany, you look at what's happening last night in sweden, sweden, who would believe this, sweden? they took in large numbers, they're having problems like they never thought possible. >> okay. so they're not actually having problems like they ever thought possible, but the idea of demonizing muslims just for being there, just for being in sweden, being in germany, being in europe and now being in the united states, we laugh at it but it's actually not funny. >> since 9/11 we have been seen largely through the national security lens. and for some reason we cannot distinguish the people -- muslims, the people who are your neighbors, law-abiding citizens, from the terrorists who are a threat to all of humanity. we don't disagree with wanting

to vet the terrorists and make sure the terrorists don't come onto our shores but there is absolutely nothing. it does nothing by keeping innocent refugees out, students out, scientists out, people who are fleeing persecution. and i mean today it seems as though unity is a tough sell, but this rally is demonstrating that it's not. that we are actually -- i see myself in you. so when you go to the rally and you will see black and white and latino and ordinary people coming together of all religions, declaring for one day that i am a muslim too, it shows that i see myself in you, that you're not different from me and we're all americans. >> and you and i had this conversation that in a way, if you want to say donald trump has done some good, he's finally caused, even though russell said this is the second one, but you're actually seeing people come together and rally on behalf of their muslim friends and neighbors. >> it almost makes me happy he

won. almost, not really. today is going to be a beautiful day, 65 degrees, which shows mother nature is a muslim. people are going to come out. i think it's a beautiful event. we've seen the muslim ban, we also saw a protest in 30 cities. not just l.a. and new york, but nebraska with signs out there i am muslim too. which is so ironic. trump doesn't like muslims. he said muslims -- islam hates us and they were on 9/11 cheering in jersey, all these lies. yet these people are coming up to stand with our community. it's beautiful, it's heartening and almost makes me emotional because we feel alone. so this outpouring of support is great. it's going to be a great rally. >> vegan bacon. >> there you go. >> but it really is our work that we've been doing for 20 years. we've been working our butt off and now donald trump has inspired so many americans to

recognize the common threads that they have. this has been -- this is the beginning of the nucleus of a shift towards the better. always we get better. we see moments where we go backwards. now i see us really as a community coming together and it's going to result in some good work. >> i have to focus on just a second, as somebody who lived -- i moved back to new york in the late 1980s when there was incredible racial tension here in new york and it was interethnic, jewish people, italians, koreans, all at each other in the city. you're now seeing the opposite of that, obviously. new york showing itself at its best. as the one person here at this table who knows donald trump personally, is this who this guy is? this sort of anti-muslim -- it's not -- for those of us who have experienced us in new york, this isn't what we're used to. >> five or six years ago i took donald to the great mosque. he made some statements that were anti-islamic.

he went to the mosque and he went and he was very respectful. he got to hug the imam, went back to work and made a nice statement to the press. this is an ongoing problem, in other words. he might have made a statement then but he's back again. he needs more people to talk to. he's surrounded by some really scary -- the first thing that's going to happen now, and i wrote this a while ago. he will be impeached. he's doing all the heavy lifting for the right wing agenda. like his attacks on planned parenthood, his attacks on muslims, his obvious racial -- to bring one part of the party together, get rid of him. he's so friendly now about the guy he just fired. that guy could be holding evidence. something is going to happen. his relationship with russia. he's going to break a law and they're going to impeach him, his own party. and then when they impeach him,

they'll have the reins to the ship and have somebody who's rationale and even more thoughtful in hurting our agenda. that's a lot to say but i believe that. >> i think a lot of people are saying that because at the same time while he's there, he can do incredible damage in terms of whipping up almost a frenzied reaction not to something muslims are doing but just to the presence of muslims, particularly immigrants in the country. now you're seeing an outpouring of support, but what -- do you still have fear that there could actually be harm to the community based on what he's whipping up? >> yeah, there could be fear because we've seen hate crimes rise, not only in jewish communities but also in muslim communities. that is why we have to get ahead. i think this might be an opportune moment where we actually get to engage with ordinary americans to really tell them who we truly are. the reason why we're having this rally and have hundreds of organizations coming together and thousands of people because

we have built relationships of trust with one another. i can pick up the phone and call russell and pick up the phone and call a rabbi. this kind of engagement has not happened at the grassroots level in the heartland. this is what i want to do with my muslim community. i want to take us and walk into the heartland and talk to people face to face. we have an initiative we're launching called wise up in april and we're going to get out and meet people. >> dean, most people oppose the executive order, what we call the muslim ban, but anti-muslim hate groups are on the rise. i'll give you the last word on this, dean, because this is a community that is afraid. >> i think part of the problem is only 30%, 35% of americans know a muslim so we're defined by the donald trumps of the world who demonize our community for votes. so i think part of the thing is us getting out there, going out to the heartland, maybe doing free comedy shows, meeting our fellow americans one on one, answering their questions and also pushing back against donald trump. when he opens his mouth, it's fake news.

unfortunately, when he's demonizing us, there's a human consequence. we're going to start a rumor trump is a muslim, doesn't drink alcohol and has three wives. >> nobody has committed a terrorist act since 1985. but the toddlers without the gun locks, they killed a lot of people. if he wants to focus on the terrorists, it's the toddlers because without gun locks, they have killed how many people? oh, my god, so many. >> and a lot of people didn't think they knew a muslim. when those yemeni bodegas shut down, they realized how many there were because they couldn't get a cup of coffee. and that includes my husband. thank you very much. you guys have a great rally today. mother nature is on your side. so much more is coming up. like what on earth is going on in north korea? you really want to stay for that. you don't want to miss it.

south korea's government says that it is convinced that north korea orchestrated the bizarre death of kim jong-nam, the older half brother of kim jong-un. one north korean suspect is in custody and four others are still being sought. now, the elder kim died suddenly on monday after he was sprayed with possible poison at an airport in kuala lumpur, malaysia. this story takes an even more bizarre turn and we promise you this is not fake news. according to malaysian authorities, one of those arrested suspects is a 25-year-old indonesian woman who was duped into thinking she was part of a hidden camera-style comedy show prank when she sprayed the liquid in kim jong-nam's face. joining me is author of "how to

catch a russian spy." gordon chang, forbes columnist and author of "nuclear showdown, north korea takes on the world" and malcolm nance, author of "the plot to hack america." it's an authors roundtable here on "a.m. joy." thank you all for being here. jordan, wow, what a strange story. but it seems like sort of the strange you have to consider to be true in north korea or is it true? >> well, i think it certainly is true. and the important thing here is this shows instability in the regime. in february we've learned of three incidents. one of them is the purge of the minister of state security. that was the beginning of the month. when they fired off the intermediate range ballistic missile last sunday, the head of north korea's strategic rocket forces was not there, indicating instability at the top of the regime and now the killing of kim jong-nam which is heinous because in north korea bloodline is the legitimacy of the regime

so it's even worse than we would consider it here. >> are there other members of the family still alive that could succeed kim jong-un or has he gotten rid of them all? >> he has an older brother but he does not have much aptitude to be the dictator of north korea. he doesn't have that gene, which kim jong-un clearly did. kim jong-un has a half-sister who is the most competent of all of the kids, but she's skrujust going to be considered. i'm sure kim jong-un has not finished killing his relatives, especially kim jong-nam's son who is also antiregime. >> and i believe kim jong-nam was going to disney world on vacation. it's very strange to me. but to bring this back to what it means for the united states, this was a country labeled part of the axis of evil back in the day by george w. bush. what is the potential threat that north korea poses to the united states? >> look, they have been developing missiles and nuclear

technology for quite some time. as gordon and i were talking about, i think there's a real concern that these countries don't know what the united states is doing and they don't know how to communicate. they don't know, do they go aggressive, do they try to negotiate. there's a real unknown just like we don't know what the policy is, they don't know what the policy is. >> malcolm, it is strange that you do have this sort of parallel reality now where the things you hear coming out of the north korean government sound like they were written in a spy novel by maybe one of the three of you and similar to the united states. we have europeans not sure what to make of our government either. how do you have a posture versus north korea when our government seems to be in a little bit of a weird flux too? >> well, it's amazing because our government's flux is starting to really start to mirror that of north korea's in some ways, shapes and forms, but let's talk a little bit about north korean capacity and why they did this assassination. north korea has state-sponsored terrorism over many, many decades. they have always used

professional intelligence officers to go out and effect these acts. they had two intelligence officers put a bomb on an airplane that blew up over indonesia 25 years ago killing over 150 people. they would blow up the parliament inside indonesia and they would assassinate ex-patriots all the time. this is a very interesting variation where they actually use a ruse and a false flag operation. invariably in the old days, they would just go up and shoot that guy in the back of the head. so there is obviously -- this is a component of the regime's overall strategy related to their nuclear program. but by eliminating his half-brother, it gives the north korean people that constant belief that they're on the offensive against their enemies and of course the question is, is this masking some future step like an irbm or icbm missile launch. so while we're all watching his

dead brother, a missile goes into space. it would be very interesting to see. >> gordon, so you have -- your piece in "the daily beast" that came out thursday, as you just said, suggests that the north korean regime is unstable. you now have the north korean government trying to block a second autopsy on the dead half-brother of the north korean dictator. if the government there is unstable, what in theory -- let's say that government were to fall. what would take its place? >> that we don't know. but this instability and what it means to us is their threshold for risk is very low. we always assume they're not going to do something really horrific like launch a missile, but if kim jong-un thinks he's going to die anyway, then he might take the advice of his grandfather who said if you're going to go, take everybody with you, and that's why we have to be concerned about this instability in north korea because it can just not only go to south korea and the region, but it also can affect us. they have three missiles that can hit the lower 48 states right now, they just can't put a

nuke on them but that's only like three or four years before they'll be able to do that, which means they can reach out and touch us in a very tangible way. >> and that is frightening because there is this sort of rational actor theory of international diplomacy meaning that you don't believe the regime in iran is irrational so even if you don't like the regime, you don't like the way they treat their own people, you don't like that government, you assume they are rational actors and know if, for instance, they attacked israel, they would be nuked. but if north korea is not behaving as a rational actor and we've got this demilitarized zone between north and south korea, how does that wind up playing out? >> that's a good question. i think the big thing is where's china in this. the president has insulted china with rejecting the one china and coming back around. so in the past china has been sort of the -- has the ability to weigh in and settle things down in north korea. but you're right. gordon is right. this isn't a saddam hussein moment. if he believes that he is on the way out, he will do something that he would think is completely rational, which is

potentially not strike the u.s. but south korea and then what happens? >> and what is our obligation to south korea if he strikes south korea? >> we're going to reciprocate. the dangerous thing that's happening right now is this idea of tactical nuclear weapons. this idea of theater nukes which is this concept that means you can use low grade air drop nuclear weapons and not escalate to all-out nuclear war. it's what the north koreans are in fact developing. i think this is a terribly dangerous road everyone is going down. >> malcolm, including donald trump, who has reportedly asked advisers why can't we use nukes. >> oh, my god. and that's a scenario which has been a nightmare scenario for me for well over a year ever since donald trump started to advance. you know, north korea being a -- the kind of nation that will play right up to the threshold, right, and being unstable, they may factor in their calculations that if there is a situation within the regime where they

could possibly fall or have instability, they will precipitate a crisis in order to gain unity. the easiest thing that they could do, like naveed said, you don't want to shoot off an irbm or icbm but what you can do is do a surface detonation of one of your weapons systems above ground off the south korean or off the north korean coast to see what the united states will do. donald trump has threatened that he will not allow this to happen. then once it happens, you're essentially talking one foot from a state of war. north korea has more than enough ground warfare capacity to really push and devastate the city of seoul and most of northern south korea. we're talking about a situation where the instability of that regime could easily draw us into a regional war where the united states will have to put tens of thousands of soldiers' lives on the line. >> last word to you, gordon. this is frightening and

terrifying how close -- how much of a risk are we at of this kind of scenario playing out? >> it depends, but i think that right now we are pretty close to it. there have been instances over the last five years, like the sinking of the south korean frig ot that really did almost bring south korea and north korea to war. we have now rules of engagement that are much tougher to try to prevent the north koreans from these acts of violence because they have used violence to upset status quos that they found to be unacceptable. so this thing can spiral out of control, as we've been talking about. >> good gracious. thanks a lot for disturbing all of us. thank you guys very much. >> you're welcome. coming up, who will democrats choose to lead the dnc? as a matter of fact, does that even matter? we'll talk about it anyway. we'll have one of the candidates who will come on and make her case. but first, betsy devos trashes teachers in washington, d.c., after visiting their

school and now they're fighting back. stay with us. ♪ ♪ when you find something worth waiting for, we'll help you invest to protect it for the future. financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase, so you can.

last week newly minted education secretary betsy devos tried to polish her rocky record as a public schools opponent with a visit to jefferson middle school academy, a public school in washington, d.c. her appearance at the school made headlines after she was met by protesters who temporarily blocked her from going inside. after her tour, she appeared on the front steps of the school pronouncing her visit to jefferson really wonderful. but as "the washington post" reported on saturday, when she talked about jefferson to a conservative paper just a few days later, she was singing a very different tune. devos said of the school's teachers, i can tell the attitude is more of a receive mode. they're waiting to be told what they have to do and that's not going to bring success to an individual child. you have to have teachers who are empowered to facilitate great teaching. well, jefferson's teachers showed her just how empowered they are when the school's

twitter fired back promising to take her to school. the tweets that followed introduced some of the teachers that have proactively worked for the advancement of their students and concluded with this message. ja teachers are not in a receive mode, unless you mean we receive students at a second grade level and move them to an 8th grade level. that message from teachers at jefferson and public educators around the country is being sent to betsy devos loud and clear. so perhaps she's the one who should be in receive mode. ♪ why do so many businesses rely on the u.s. postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. ♪ that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority : you

what we have seen in these few short weeks is nothing less than carnage and chaos. every single day. >> this moment is our time to look at our strength on the our weaknesses as a democratic family. >> and our party has a lot of work to do, and there is no way that we can do it if we're not unified. >> it is everybodies job to make the american people know deep in their hearts that the democratic party is here to fight for them.

>> as the democratic party charts a course forward in the wake of its election losses, the first big decision they'll need to make is who will be the leader. on saturday the 447 voting members of the democratic national committee will choose from among now nine candidates in the running for chairman. there were ten candidates, but as nbc news confirmed, new hampshire democratic party chairman ray buckley has dropped out and endorsed minnesota congressman keith ellison. besides ellison the other front-runner is former labor secretary tom perez. now, on the issues, they and the other seven candidates are for the most part in agreement, but for many dnc voters, this vote also has become kind of a proxy for the change versus establishment fights of the 2016 election. joining me now are dnc chair candidate jamu green, lorna johnson and corin jean-pierre. this idea of deals being cut in the background where you have ray buckley dropping out,

supporting keith ellison. nbc news has reported that you've got former dnc chairs coming in to back the indiana -- the mayor of a city in indiana, i believe that's howard dean and some others have come forward to back him. what do you make of these behind-the-scenes wrangling and are you part of any deals? >> surprise, surprise, joy. insiders are endorsing the status quo. and there's a lot of talk in this race about transformation, but real transformation that's going to lead to winning results, it takes willingness, it takes radical honesty and strong change management. i haven't seen that from the other candidates. i'm not interested in cutting a deal for a job. i got into this race because we do have a unique opportunity right now to transform the party and that is why i'm the only candidate in the race that has said we need to retire the outdated super delegate concept. i'm the only candidate in the

race that has said we need to work to end caucuses -- i'm the only candidate in the race when one of our fellow candidates says we need to rein in women so men can catch up, i'm the only one saying in excuse me? >> we need to back up for a second. one of the candidates said we need to rein in women so people can catch up. can you tell us who said that? >> sam roman. >> said we need to rein in women. >> at the women's forum. >> you're also the only candidate, jamu, who is a black woman. that's pointedly, and i'm going to going to lauren as this, you too as an african-american woman running for treasurer as a black women, black women voted 94% for hillary clinton, 96% for barack obama, the highest turnout of any group are black women at 72% in 2012, so i have a theme going here. as a black woman, do you feel that you're in a unique position to lead the party when it comes to something like fund-raising? you're actually a fund-raiser for the party? >> absolutely.

i have been working for the democratic party for over 16 years and one of the top fund-raisers across the country for the past eight years. so that's one of the reasons i decided after the november 8 election that i would really try to do something significant for the party. i feel that our party infrastructure is broken at the moment and the state party and local leaders are not adequately funded. i feel that i have the ability to raise the money strictly for the state party fund and that's what i'm bringing to the table. i want to make sure that the state party is funded at every single level to be able to organize day in and day out, not only during the election years, but we should be able to make sure our bench is really built from bottom up. that's why i'm running for the dnc chair -- i'm sorry for the treasurer. >> that's all right too. corinne, it is interesting.

you do have representation of african-american women, caribbean american women, women of all of these backgrounds that do form the foundation of the party. why do you suppose that given those voting strengths, black women are not very well represented? right now the interim chair of the dnc is a black woman, donna brazile, but in general you don't see a lot of representation, you don't see a lot of state candidates that are black women. we have literally just one black woman senator. why do you suppose that is in a party that's so dependent on black women's votes? >> i think that's a really good question. first of all, it's great to see jamu running for dnc chair. just to be clear, moveon.org is supporting keith ellison, but it's great to see these two women actually getting involved in the process. i think this is the thing that the dnc democratic committee has to work on. they really do have to go back and build that grassroots movement. they really have to go back and work with state chairs and rebuild the party locally.

they really have to go back and make sure that we hold republicans accountable and that also means recruiting. one of the jobs that i've had to do in my different roles in the democratic politics is really trying to find the right people, recruiting everyone, and really making sure that we are represented in a diverse way. and so that's part of the job that the dnc is going to have to do is really recruiting key, smart intelligent people like we see on this panel running in key races. >> and what do you make of the argument that people might make that the democratic party is locked into what people call identity politics. they're locked into identity politics and they need to reach out and talk to particularly white voters. you spent many years on fox news as a contributor. would you have the skill set to reach outside of african-american voters, african-american women, black women, and talk to that wider

group of voters? >> look, i grew up in the red state of texas. i wear cowboy boots and sing country music. what we need to realize is the party -- classism, racism, all of these things are connected and we can communicate better about it but it takes somebody who actually understands strategic communications, it takes someone who is willing to say uncomfortable truths. that's not what we're seeing in the race so far. the patriarchy is somewhat stifling. but if we are really going to take advantage of this moment that the party has to transform itself, to be a welcoming home for the resistance that is not paying attention to the party at all and to do what karine said, to recruit the 10,000 plus women who have said they want to run for office since donald trump was elected, we need to be a

funnel and bring them in. but they're not going to come in if we don't reimagine and restructure our systems and processes, and that's the uncomfortable truth that unfortunately the other candidates in this race wendt willing to put on the table. >> lorna, the two pressing issues facing the democratic party is how to organize around the issues of immigration and health care. i know you work in the health care industry. talk a little bit about what you see on the ground that democrats may be missing that's happening both on the health care front and among immigrants. >> thank you for asking that, joy. yesterday, as a matter of fact, and friday i had so many calls in my office. you know, i run a health care valt in the inner city of east l.a. by bringing health care to low income communities. i had mothers not coming to the clinic on friday because they were afraid there was a raid in the community. we had mothers whose babies had a fever and they were afraid to come in. so this is becoming a real disaster. we're going to end up with people dying, we're going to end up with babies dying, we're going to end up with people in

the emergency room and all these kind of things going on, so it is important that we get together as a group. we must fight back. we must call our congress people. we must speak out and we must stand up and fight because this is a crazy time that we are in and it is affecting every single one of us. i am very concerned and very nervous about the whole situation, so i'm hoping that there will be some give at some point in all of this that's happening. it is very dangerous what is happening in our country today and it is a critical time. that's why i feel it's very important for me to be out there as a woman speaking and running, because i feel that i can effect some change by bringing the resources that the democratic party need to make sure that we rebuild our bench and stand up. i want to make sure there is transparency in our system to bring back trust into the party and to its leadership. i want to make sure that everybody gets involved in fund-raising, not just the state party finance or myself as the treasurer, but our party leaders

should become fund-raisers because we need the funds and we need the resources to rebuild our party, our infrastructure is broken and we have to rebuild it before we can invite people in. >> well, jamu green, good luck to you in your race for party chair. lorna johnson, good luck to you in your race for party treasurer. thank you for being here. karine jean-pierre will be back in our next hour. coming up in our next hour, more trump media bashing and an attack on voting rights that you just have to hear about. more "a.m. joy" after the break. what on earth are they fighting here? whatever it is... it's hunting. the great wall. rated pg-13.

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i just wanted to begin by mentioning that the nominee for secretary of the department of labor will be mr. alex acosta. he has a law degree from harvard law school, a great student, former clerk for justice samuel alito. and he has had a tremendous career. >> donald trump had glowing words for his new labor secretary nominee on thursday, but alex acosta could face some tough questions about his legal career during his confirmation hearings. particularly over a controversial plea deal he reached a decade ago with billionaire investor jeffrey epstein who was accused of sexual misconduct with dozens of underage girls. a 2002 profile in "new york" magazine describes epstein as an international money man known for socializing with many

wealthy people, including one donald j. trump. as the u.s. attorney for southern florida, acosta agreed not to file federal charges against epstein if he pleaded guilty to state charges of soliciting minors for prostitution. epstein eventually served just 13 months of an 18-month jail sentence. the deal sparked outrage and on going victims rights lawsuit against the federal government. in a letter published in "the daily beast" acosta wrote some may feel that the prosecution may have been tougher. evidence that has come to light may encourage that view. had this evidence been known, the outcome may have been different. joining me now is women rights attorney gloria allred. thank you for being here. >> thanks. >> i want to start by reading you a little bit from the judgment that mr. acosta reached in striking this plea deal, which again got jeffrey epstein out of federal sex crimes charges. he said our judgment in this case based on the evidence known at the time was that it was

better to have a billionaire serve time in jail, register as a sex offender and pay his victims' restitution than risk a trial with a reduced likelihood of success. is that a compelling argument from your point of view? >> well, i mean not according to the victims who -- or at least two of them, jane does, who filed a federal lawsuit and said that in fact they had not been consulted or not adequately consulted about the deal and that in fact that violated their rights as victims under the federal crime victims act. by the way, even the 13-month sentence that he supposedly served allowed him, joy, to get out some six days a week for some hours to go to his office, to do work. he pled to soliciting a minor for prostitution. a lot of people felt that he should have had to face stronger -- he should have had to face trial on an allegation

of having committed crimes against numerous minors, but in any event he pled to that and that's kind of a sweetheart deal, according to many newspapers, and in addition what kind of sentence is that? he didn't even have to go to federal prison. >> is the thinking, the belief here that the reason that jeffrey epstein, who again, these are crimes against children, little girls. these were minor children. i think if i'm not mistaken, one victim was 13. these are kids. was the thinking that he got this deal really because it was going to be difficult to prosecute him or was it because he was a wealthy investor? >> well, it's hard to look behind it. at one point mr. acosta, then the federal prosecutor, u.s. attorney, argued that the defense was being extremely aggressive. well, hello. this was a billionaire that was being prosecuted, jeffrey

epstein. of course he's going to have a lot of money to hire many, many well experienced and extremely aggressive criminal defense attorneys. if you're not ready for aggressive criminal defense attorneys with a high profile, famous, powerful, rich defendant, than maybe you're not ready to be u.s. attorney. >> one of the themes of today that keeps coming up with the trump campaign is there doesn't seem to be a robust vetting operation inside the white house. they make these decisions to bring people on board who have all of these interesting, easily googleable sort of difficult histories. in this case you have donald trump, let's read this quote from a 2002 interview in "new york" magazine on jeffrey epstein, a profile of him. this is what trump said about him back then. he said i've known jeff for 15 years, terrific guy, trump booms from a speakerphone. he's a lot of fun to be with. it's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as i do and many of them are on the younger side.

no doubt about it, jeffrey enjoys his social life. what do you make of a white house that invites the sort of resurgence of a story about his friendship with jeffrey epstein by nominating the guy who gave jeffrey epstein a sweetheart deal on sex crimes to be their new labor secretary? >> well, i think there are a lot of hard questions that should be asked about that, and does president trump still think that jeffrey epstein is a terrific guy who is a lot of fun to be with? i don't know. but i think also an extremely important point, joy, is the allegation by the victims that they weren't consulted and that they have even filed a lawsuit about that. it's been my experience representing many, many victims in criminal cases recently three victims of darren sharper and numerous other victims in criminal cases that often prosecutors will treat them as though they're just a footnote

or not -- they don't respect them enough to consult them about the ultimate deal. in the darren sharper case, one of our victims, and this was a state case, they didn't even tell her until the day before the sentencing that in fact he was going to be sentenced the next day. she was thousands of miles away and couldn't afford to come. so, you know, i think a lot of attention in these hearings needs to be given to whether or not the victims' rights were respected. >> sure. >> these were minors and these were serious allegations. >> and donald trump's own history with allegations made by women, it's a weird thing to invite. anyway, we have very little time left if you want to comment on the death of norma mccovey, i know you represented her at one point. >> i did. even though norma mccorvey, jane roe, was the person for whom this case was brought, roe v. wade which found that a woman has a constitutional right to choose legal abortion, this was

in 1973, u.s. supreme court, even though she was anti-choice at the end of her life, she has left a legacy that has helped to protect millions of women. >> gloria allred, i appreciate your time. >> thank you. coming up, trump calls them the enemy. i call them my panel. our panel of media experts, and they're next. ♪ hey, bud. you need some help? no, i'm good. come on, moe. i have to go. (vo) we always trusted our subaru impreza would be there for him someday. ok. that's it. (vo) we just didn't think someday would come so fast. see ya later, moe. (vo) introducing the all-new subaru impreza. the longest-lasting vehicle in its class. more than a car, it's a subaru. when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn't have that... you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™

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don't be so overly dramatic about it, chuck. you're saying it's a falsehood and they're giving, sean spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. two iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the master minds behind the bowling green massacre. most people didn't know that because it didn't get covered. go ivanka's stuff. i own some of it. i'm going to give a free commercial here. go buy it, everybody. you can buy it online. >> that makes no sense. last month the justice

department warned the white house that general flynn had misled them and that as a result he was vulnerable to blackmail and at that moment he still had the complete trust of the president? >> matt, i'm telling you what the president has said, which is that he's accepted general flynn's resignation and he wishes him well and that we're moving on. >> after a month of watching kellyanne conway ride the struggle bus through the series of interviews with the political press, some in the media have finally decided to just let her off. on wednesday msnbc's own mika brzezinski declared on air that "morning joe" is now a kelly free zone. >> she books herself on these shows. she tried to book herself on this show and i won't do it because i don't believe in fake news or information that is not true. every time i've ever seen her on television, something is askew, off, or incorrect. >> ouch. that comes after cnn banned

conway from its morning talk show just a few weeks ago. they are among the first in the media to give a decisive answer of how to handle the spokespeople of donald trump who seem to share his tendency of not tell the truth, which raises another question. will they be the last to draw the line when it comes to lies and which of the trump mouth pieces will be the next to cross it? joining me now are joan walsh, ishar ali and karine jean-pierre. i should welcome the enemies of the people. >> joan, kellyanne conway often says things that are untrue but are contradicted by donald trump. is it the case that she doesn't necessarily seem to know what donald trump is thinking or speak for him truly? >> can both things be true? i think she's been hung out to dry. we had several instances in the last couple of weeks where she said something, general flynn has his full confidence and an

hour later spicer says we're examining it. there was a second incident like that that i'm forgetting what it was, but it does seem like she's losing the factional war so she is a less reliable mouthpiece or source. yet reince priebus gets on tv and lies all the time. all of their spokes people lie all the time. to some extent mike pence, he's the vice president, but he lies too. so i do think there's an element of sexism right now. i do, i hate to say it, but where she's just -- she's really being savaged and she's being depicted as crazy in a way that i don't think is entirely fair. >> that happened on "saturday night live." she was lampooned as an insane person but joan makes a good point because whatever is said from the podium that sean spicer is saying, and he is the official spokesperson of the administration, you also have to take with a huge grain of salt because within hours that might turn out not to be true. >> that's right. the fact of the matter is the press secretary of the white house is real eat press secretary of the united states

of america because he's not only speaking to us, he's speaking to the world on behalf of the president of the united states. i cannot imagine being in a position working for somebody that you cannot say to the public the president misspoke. >> ever. >> or this was a mistake and he regrets it, ever. that puts them in a terrible position. that's why there's going to be so much turnover in this administration. >> it's interesting. let's go through some of the patterns that we're seeing and the way that the white house deals with the media. one of them is just to declare every news media outlet that doesn't give them positive and glowing and sort of suck-up type coverage just to be fake. donald trump tweeted this week the fake news, all caps, media new york times, nbc news, abc, cbs, cnn is not my enemy. it's the enemy of the american people. that is not funny, that's actually kind of chilling, karine. >> no, that's exactly right. look, joy, every bully needs an enemy, right? and donald trump, let's be clear, he is the bully in chief. but with what you just read,

joy, it is beyond the pale. it is unamerican what he just did by tweeting that. but the other thing too i really want to flag here is i think a lot of this is a smoke screen because he doesn't want to talk about the real issues, which is russia, which is his relationship with russia, people that work for him, their relationship with russia, so i want to be careful that we don't get caught up too much about this even though it's wrong and he's stepping over the line, but that we really kind of zero in, continue to zero in as the media has been doing on russia and the relationship with russia that he has and his people have. >> i think that's true and i think we do, and i think it's very important that we not take our eye off the main story, joan, but at the same time while it's a distraction, it's also a tactic to get his supporters to focus on hating us, on hating the media in a way that is at the moment benign but eventually

could actually be threatening. you had the pizza gate situation where somebody showed up with a gun to try to enforce one of donald trump's conspiracy theories. i want to play donald trump using the media essentially as a rallying cry to get his supporters animated. this is just doing this in melbourne, florida. take a listen. >> i also want to speak to you without the filter of the fake news. the dishonest media, which has published one false story after another with no sources, even though they pretend they have them. they make them up in many cases. thomas jefferson, andrew jackson and abraham lincoln and many of our greatest presidents fought with the media and called them out oftentimes on their lies. >> so i don't know who told him that. he must have gotten that, maybe he had a briefing with steve ban on to come up with this idea that jefferson, jackson and lincoln were doing what he's doing but what he's doing is a

particular performance that is designed to whip up a crowd against the media. >> yeah. and i have to give fox news credit today. chris wallace confronted reince priebus and reince priebus will not back down from this notion of enemy. will never back down from anything trump says. and, you know, chris wallace shoots back president obama whined about us, but he never called us the enemy of the people. so it also -- karine is right, every bully needs an enemy. he doesn't have hillary clinton anymore. >> well, he has her at his rally. >> he really got away with so much during the campaign because the media would go on one of his stories and then there would be e-mail, e-mail, she was mean to us or she fainted and his story would be on page 6. so he now has to create this narrative and also hopefully for him a distraction and so we're it. >> on this distraction, you do see emerging a pattern, and it's a pattern a lot of people are noticing. maggie haberman has tweeted

about this. joan, you've written and tweeted about this, and this is this pattern that emerged and the way that the white house handles its real plans, the things that it says it's going to do. this is because of the a.p. story that said there was an 11-page draft memo that said they were going to use the national guard to round up undocumented immigrants. wait for a draft memo to be leaked to the press, part two, refuse to comment when asked about the draft. part three, wait for the disputed stories -- wait to dispute the story's accuracy once the story is actually published and four, accuse the press of never having sought the comment. >> and not responding to e-mails. they don't reply to e-mails. if i text a white house staffer to gossip, you better believe they respond instantly. but when i e-mail about policy matters, sometimes things that may let them look good politically, they don't reply. one "new york times" reporter, a prominent reporter said she

rarely gets replies to her e-mails. i couldn't believe it. i thought is it just me? no, this is the way they handle pt media, is they just don't respond. >> karine, is that a way of getting a story out there in order to test the response from the media? is it a way of floating a policy? we know that white houses have leaked ideas to float them and see how the public reacts or is it just a way to set the press up to once again be bashed as fake news? >> i feel like it's the latter most definitely because that's what they like to do. it's the narrative of fake news. and the funny thing is, they're the ones putting out the fake news and fake stories as we saw with the voting fraud and so many other things. but back to the policy for a second, there was a story about the national security council staffer who didn't know what policies the president really wants to do, so what does he do, he reads -- the staffer reads the president's tweets and then tries to figure out what is the policy that the president wants

around national security. this is what's happening. it's just chaotic. we have seen a white house in its first month that has not only been chaotic but has been incompetent, the most incompetent, disastrous white house that we have seen in american politics. >> and you know, it shares, and i'll come to you on this, yashar, because we talk about this offline. it shares with a lot of authoritarian governments this mix of incompetence, ma lef lens but also making its supporters more and more devoted and more and more in the belief that the only real news is the news that comes from the leader. john mccain had some thoughts about this demonization and this is what he said to chuck todd on "meet the press daily." >> we need a free press. we must have, it's vital. if you want to preserve -- i'm very serious now. if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. without it, i'm afraid that we

would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. that's how dictators get started. >> and yashar, one of the ways that dictators operate and autocrats operate is telling you that what you see is not real, you don't see it. donald trump tweeting out don't believe the mainstream media, fake news media, the white house is running very well. i inherited a mess and am in the process of fixing it. the white house is running very well and demonstrably your eyes tell you it's not. >> and text messages from his staffers, sorry, mr. president, your own staff is ratting out on you all the time. the fact of the matter is here's what egregious about this. not only is he calling the press the enemy, he's doing a wholesale indictment of the press. i wouldn't accept it if he mentioned the white house press corps, it wouldn't be okay, but he's also talking about reporters that are embedded with troops, he's talking about reporters that are in mosul right now, he's talking about reporters that are in north

korea. and that's the sin to me, because those people are covering events, putting their lives at risk quite literally, and he's thrown them into the trash of the rest of the media, and that's not okay. >> and also equating and saying that i will retweet rush limbaugh and say rush limbaugh is equal to you or bring the guy to twinks for trump. he's saying this person and you are the same job. >> you glenn thrush are sitting next to twinks for trump. i'm all for broadening the voices but what they're doing is seeding it with people who support them. what sean spicer goes to a local reporter, every once in a while there's been a good question. i like it but then sometimes it's just, you know, you came to cleveland for the convention, sir, not to pick on the cleveland reporter. it can be very parochial and it's a way -- he can almost guarantee it's a way to stop getting questions about russia

and go to something that's completely unrelated. so i love diversity, i love democracy, i love more voices, but they're using these voices in particular ways. >> to the point where you have donald trump literally say in his press conference i'm looking for a friends lfriendly reporte >> yeah. he did. and he would comment on whichever reporter he would pick, if they were good or bad. i mean this is -- this is completely insane. and to what the panelists were saying, a lot of the first couple reporters he picked were conservative reporters. and so it is all about his own -- his own -- like how he feels. he's so thin-skinned and such a narcissist that he can't take any critique, he can't take any comments, and most presidents, right, the past couple of presidents have all complained about the press but they do not disrespect them the way donald trump has and calls them fake news and calls them the enemies. or the opposition.

it's just unbelievable. >> and no president likes the press, none of them. >> no. >> none of them like the press because the press is not there to be their stenographer or their public relations department. they all dislike the press but don't call the press the enemy. joan walsh will be back later in the show. up next, trump continues to claim that there is massive, massive voter fraud while his friends in the gop continue to push voter suppression efforts. stay with us. ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis

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why should americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive of being fake when you're providing information that's not accurate? >> i was given that information. i was -- actually i've seen that information around. >> one of donald trump's false claims about the election was exposed at his thursday press

conference just days after his policy advisor, stephen miller, doubled down on yet another one of those false claims about widespread voter fraud. we're still waiting to see what comes out of trump's proposed federal investigation into so-called voter fraud, which he recently said would be led by vice president mike pence. but that hasn't stopped states from taking their own action to limit voting rights. according to the latest numbers from the brennan center, as of february 1st, 21 states have introduced at least 46 bills to restrict access to voting. joining me now, senior contributing writer for the nation, ari berman and cheryl eiffle. thank you both for being here. ari, what are sort of these laws or sort of the general gist of these laws that are being passed? >> so we saw this year already we're seeing that, as you mentioned, there's 46 bills in 21 states to make it harder to vote. so things like strict voter i.d. laws, getting rid of same-day registration, cutting back on early voting, eliminating the

number of polling places, purging the voting rolls, and this is on top of the fact that we just came out of the 2016 election where the first presidential election without the voting rights act so we're putting restrictions on top of restrictions here. >> stephen miller, who has emerged as one of the policy leaders in the white house, a 30-something-year-old person who is known in high school for having complained that announcements were in spanish and is on record as being opposed to legal not just unlawful migration, this is what he had to say to george stephanopolous last sunday in justifying this idea that we need to have this war on voter fraud. >> you have provided absolutely no evidence. the president has made a statement -- >> the white house has provided enormous evidence with respect to voter fraud, with respect to people being registered in more than one state, dead people voting, noncitizens being registered to vote. george, it is a fact and you will not deny it that there are massive numbers of noncitizens

in this country who are registered to vote. that is a scandal. >> i'm sitting here holding the brennan center's report on noncitizens. noncitizens are not registered to vote, that's not true, but that kind of argument is what's being used to justify these restrictions. >> well, in your earlier segment, joy, you talked about the president asking people to ignore what they see. in the context of voter fraud, this is where the president and his advisers are saying even though you don't see it, it exists. you just heard a senior policy advisor to the president of the united states say something patently untrue, that the white house has produced significant evidence of voter fraud. you and i know the white house has produced no evidence of voter fraud and that's because the evidence of voter fraud is infinitesimal and has been studied over and over again by the brennan center and others who have demonstrated there is no such thing as widespread voter fraud. what there is, is voter suppression that has been found by federal courts, not liberal

federal courts, but by federal courts who have found in the case of the fourth circuit court of appeals that north carolina deliberately created voter suppression laws designed to discriminate against african-american and latino voters. in the case of texas, finding that texas' voter i.d. law which is believed to disenfranchise 600,000 inible voters -- so you have president trump, sean spicer, stephen miller, all advancing a patent untruth, a lie, that there is widespread voter fraud. that 3 to 5 million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election, not true. at the same time, entirely ignoring the reality of voter suppression, which is a real threat to our democracy. the deliberate effort to disenfranchise african-american and latino voters in states throughout this country. as ari pointed out, the fact that the administration is ignoring all of that has allowed states to double down and to

begin to think about building an increased voter suppression efforts on top of the voter suppression efforts we were already challenging and actually prevailing over in federal courts. the good news, joy, i do want to say this, it's important that there are many more efforts in states to actually expand voting rights and so you see that there are in 11 states bills to restore voting to ex-offenders and in other states efforts to expand early voting and to provide automatic registration. this is a battle in the states. but the president is overlaying it with this lie about voter fraud and this voter fraud investigation that he has threatened is something we need to be watching. i take him at his word that he's going to launch such an investigation. but i believe that investigation will unleash voter intimidation around this country. >> led by potentially the attorney general of the united states. we're accustomed to and i'm sure that you guys, you as a writer are accustomed to having the attorney general of the united states on the side of voting rights. now we face quite the opposite

situation. >> that's what's so dangerous. we have an administration with president obama that challenged things like voter i.d. laws, cuts to early voting, et cetera, in places like north carolina and texas. now it looks like the justice department will switch sides and back those that are doing the discriminating. we have an attorney general in jeff sessions that has a history of wrongfully prosecuting civil rights workers for voter fraud, who cheered the gutting of the voter rights act. when he was asked did 3 to 5 million vote illegally, instead of denouncing it, he said i don't know how many people voted illegally. so he is opening the door to voter supression. >> you now have alexander acosta, he too has a history of suppressing the right to vote. >> alexander acosta was assistant attorney general for civil rights under the bush administration when there was a rampa

rampant -- the ohio gop tried to purge 35,000 minority voters from the roles and the justice department under alex acosta backed that effort. there were deputies that said they want to jerry manneder all of the liberals out of the administration. yet another person now in the administration who has a bad record on voting rights. >> and ken blackwell, who was the secretary of state in ohio at the time, is now somebody who i believe is advising trump on things like hbcus. just to give the viewers just one more example of this, you had donald trump tell on february 10th tell boston magazine that massachusetts sabotaged kelly a yotte in new hampshire. republicans in new hampshire are disputing that. steve dupre, who is a former new hampshire republican state chairman, current national republican committeeperson saying there is no voter fraud in new hampshire, none, zip, nada, hundreds of lawyers, poll workers, watchers, press, no

buses from massachusetts rolled in. thomas rath, let me be unequivocal as possible. allegations of voter fraud in new hampshire are baseless, without any merit. it's shameful to spread these fantasies. fergus cullen, i will pay $1,000 to the first person proving even one out of state person took a bus from massachusetts in new hampshire polling place last election day. so when you have even republicans in the states now saying that this did not happen, is there a possibility that even though we have republicans running essentially the entire government, state and federal, that you might actually see republican secretaries of state actually stand up to this? >> well, see, this is the bait and switch. so you have the national association of secretaries of state that issued a statement saying that there is no voter fraud. we found no evidence. there is no evidence of voter fraud. you had 25 individual statements from secretaries of states around the country, most of them republican, denouncing the idea that the president advanced that there was massive voter fraud in

2016. you have all the statements that you just read from new hampshire. so you have republican leadership. mitch mcconnell saying no federal funds should go towards this voter fraud investigation. lindsey graham saying knock it off, mr. president. all of them saying this. what would be great is if those same republicans turned to the states that they are from and said and for that reason, we need to stop creating barriers to people being able to vote. we need to stop this march towards more and more restrictive voter i.d. we need to advance early voting. we need same-day registration. we need automatic registration. rather than simply denounce mr. trump's lie, and i'm glad that they're doing it, it would be great if they also turned to their states and denounced voter suppression efforts happening in their states. they're getting the best of both worlds this way. they're getting voter suppression efforts in their states that they believe benefit them and the people that likely support them and discriminate against minority voters and they get to call out the president's lie about massive voter fraud.

i'd like to see consistency there. >> ari, isn't that really the problem here, for republicans you've got two different incentives. they want to defend their own election and the integrity of their own election and quite frankly of donald trump's election in their states, but at the same time, voter suppression helps them because it supresses minorities who tend to vote democratic. >> and we're already seeing the impact of trump's lies about voter fraud. they claim that all of these people are illegally bussed to new hampshire from massachusetts. there's no evidence of that. but right now there are 40 bills in new hampshire -- 40 bills in one state alone trying to get rid of same-day registration, trying to make it that you have to pledge that you're going to live in the state for the indefinite future to be able to vote there which would disenfranchise college students, make it so you have to register your car and have an in-state driver's license if you want to vote. >> when you as a journalist interview republicans about these massive attempts to restrict the right and it's always of minorities and students and young people, how

do they justify it? >> it's always these unfounded claims, these lies about voter fraud. before trump said they were illegally bussed to new hampshire, chris sonunu made that claim. republicans won the governor's office, took back the new hampshire legislature. so did voter fraud if it happened then benefit them? it kind of raises the question. but you have the lies or the predicate for the policy that follows. and that's why we can't dismiss what trump is doing because once you lie about voter fraud, then you can point to those lies and say this is why we need to restrict the vote. >> i think that is the other point. if voter fraud is so rampant, then a government that has been won across the board by republicans, why aren't they questioning the legitimacy of that? >> you know, we are coming on the anniversary of bloody sunday next month when we're all going to head down to selma. we just passed the anniversary as ari berman pointed out of the

killing of jimmy lee jackson, the young civil rights worker, whose death really inspired the idea of the bloody sunday march. down in marion, alabama, perry county, the same place where jeff sessions prosecuted our clients in 1985 for voter fraud. so we're really in this moment where we should be looking at the watch these kinds of claims, this kind of insistence on the idea of voter fraud and the effort to suppress minorities from participating fully in the political process really threatens our democracy, really goes to the core of who we are. this is an existential moment, and i think it's incumbent upon republicans and democrats, but mostly incumbent upon average people to recognize and to wake up and to realize this is not ceremonial, it's not about crossing the bridge and laying a wreath. this is about continuing to fight for the democracy and continuing to fight for the rights of african-americans and latinos to be full citizens of this country. that's really what's at threat when this kind of stalking horse is put out there.

if this executive order happens calling for a nationwide voter investigation, people need to have their eyes open and what it will unleash on the country. >> as shameful as it is to have to talk about this in 2017 in the united states in a democracy, there are no two people that i would rather talk to about this weighty people than the two of you. thank you so much for the work you do. thank you for being here. up next, why the hand maid's tale is particularly relevant, especially if you live in oklahoma.

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margaret atwood's "the hand maid's tale" is experiencing a revival. the dystopian tale of a future where fertile women are property and required to bear children for high irstatus couples is now a best seller. this week news out of oklahoma showed just how disturbingly

relevant the hand maid's tale is. they approved an extreme anti-abortion bill that would require a woman to get written consent from her male partner in order to obtain an abortion. in an interview, the bill's sponsor, republican justin humphrey, described pregnant women as mere hosts for fetuses. adding that men being excluded from abortion decisions has led to, quote, one of the breakdowns of society. and that, quote, irresponsible women do not have a right to abort when, quote, you're the host and you invited that in, unquote. the abortion rights organization said in its statement that the house bill 1441 paints a picture of america where women are merely vessels for child birth and men have veto power over all of life's decisions. "the hand maid's tale" indeed except this isn't a fictional future, it's happening right now in trump's america. up next, conflicts of interest in the supreme court. stay with us. itors' rates alongside their direct rate to save you money.

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ahid the whirlwind of donald trump's first weeks in office, the wife of a sitting supreme court justice was eager to jump into the fray. virginia thomas is a long-time conservative activist. her husband is justice clarence thomas. she recently sent an e-mail to a conservative listserv asking for advice on how to organize support for trump's policies using mass text messaging. she said she wanted to push back against the left's resistance efforts who are trying to make america ungovernable. her husband may soon find himself ruling on some of trump's policies. trump's travel ban, which is being challenged in federal court would be the first to reach the high court so is there any chance that clarence thomas would recuse himself from that case. n ari melber joins us. >> great to be here. >> let's talk about this idea of recan you feel.

i see a lot of in my timeline saying virginia thomas is back out doing politics again, her husband should recuse himself from any case involving the things that she is active in. is that required? could he be made to recuse himself? >> it's a great question. if he were a lower court judge, there might be a real way to push it because there are mechanisms where lawyers and others can ask for that. there's a process that could be reviewed so recusal as some sort of teeth. the supreme court does what they want to do when they want to do it if they want to do it. we've seen where justice scalia had serious questions raised for a private hunting trip with dick cheney, a very valuable plane ride, all of that. any normal lower court judge would have to recuse and he said let me think about it, no. and that's the legal end of that. >> we haven't seen and i'm glad you brought up the late justice scalia and his friendship with dick cheney and the hunting trips, we haven't seen where a

supreme court justice's spouse has been as political active as virginia thomas. she was very active in the tea party, and yet clarence thomas felt perfectly free to rule on the affordable care act. are there ethics rules that bind these justices? >> i think there's a legitimate tension here because this came up a lot when people talked about hillary clinton's career versus bill clinton's career. on the one hand people, and often it's a female spouse because of the history that we have where it's a female spouse who maybe has had less opportunity or power and then as the life or career goes on gets to have more of a platform and people say, well, are you responsible for everything your husband did and the answer is of course not. on the flip side, judges are not politicians, the lines should be and are written more starkly than they would be for two people who ran for president and so the real question typically is whether something creates the conflict or the appearance of a conflict. and the courts have looked at that very narrowly, so often it's things that feel very

technical like whether someone's retirement fund has a small stake in something that isn't good but isn't as likely to swing a vote as living with someone who's there saying -- putting on the tea party hat and you're going, okay, but i'm totally neutral about this. i will also say this about justice thomas and i say this accurately but respectfully having read a lot of his opinions. he's not a routine, typical justice i think it's fair to say. he is very clear about what he believes and he has written many opinions, unlike, say, scalia, who had a very clear set of outcomes but wrote very carefully, angrily at times but legally carefully. justice thomas has written opinions where he said i know the law says this but i don't like it so it should go a different way. that's not legal reasoning, it's more candidly admitting that he has sometimes a view, whether you call that a political view, a moral view, that is very debatable. he obviously has strong beliefs. so there is not any indication that he is anyone who is at least concerned about the way politics might mingle in or

politics as beliefs. >> that was very carefully said. that's why you're a lawyer and i'm not. let's talk a little bit about donald trump's weird connection to the judiciary. he has been known to attack a judge here and there. now he's sort of expanded that to attack an entire circuit. let's listen to donald trump talking about the ninth circuit which ruled against him on the issue of his travel ban. >> i think that circuit is -- that circuit is in chaos and that circuit is, frankly, in turmoil. but we are appealing that and we are going further. we're issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country. >> should we be worried about the ninth circuit? are they in chaos and turmoil? >> they are not in any chaos or turmoil in any measurable way. we've seen this pattern with the president. it's more important now that he's dealing with the third branch. the ninth circuit does often because it has more democratic appointees differ with the supreme court that has

republican appointees and at one point the president was saying they get reversed a lot of the all of the circuits have nine out of ten cases never even reach the supreme court. if you only count the ones that go up there, it's not statistically surprising that a more republican-oriented supreme court has some disagreements with a democratic appointed court but the vast majority of their cases are not overturned, there's no evidence of chaos. if you ever see a guy trying to get in a fight who doesn't really want to be in the fight and he'll say i wish you would, hold me back, here i go, and you're like are you trying to get in this fight or not get in this fight? that is donald trump with these judges. he attacked judge curiel in anyone appropriate and racist ways. he said i never settle. then as soon as the election was over, he wrote a $25 million check which even for donald trump is a lot of money. and here he is again attacking the ninth circuit. what's happening as soon as tuesday? a new executive order that is trying to backtrack away from those negative rulings. so a lot of tough talk but at

the end, see you in court. at the end it's like hold me back. >> so hold my earrings and also hold me back, hold me back. >> hold me back. >> at 6:00 we're going to have what i call the ari melber experience. what have you got on the show tonight? >> thank you for asking. 6:00 p.m. eastern to 8:00 p.m. there's a saying in hip-hop in the street like sesame. we are going to be in the street because as you know there are a lot of protests going on. there are the things with the i am a muslim march, there's another profe festest for presi day tomorrow. we're talking to roger stone to get a republican perspective on this entire russia issue. >> are you taking suggestions on twitter? >> send me any ideas. we read them all. we have a segment where i answer e-mails and tweets we have a new segment called normal or not, where we break down what's going on and is it normal or not. >> or not. i have a feeling there's going to be a lot of not? i'm just -- i'm not trying to

prejudge. >> i would say watch. >> ari melber, my friend, and you can always count on some hip-hop references being dropped in there because it's ari melber. you know that all the readers will be watching. >> bring your readers out, 6:00 p.m. eastern. >> ari melber, thank you very much, my friend. coming up, a remarkable moment from "the tonight show" 49 years ago this month. more "a.m. joy" after the break. what on earth are they fighting here? whatever it is... it's hunting. the great wall. rated pg-13.

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it's february 1968. racial tensions plagued the country and riots are erupting in major cities. and harry belefonte was joined by martin luther king just two months before his assassination. >> i'm more concerned about the quality of my life than the quantity. in other words, that was doing something for the will of god than about longevity, ultimately it isn't how long you live but it's important how long you live. >> back with me is joan walsh.

the this is extraordinary. how did it come up that harry belafonte hosted the show? >> johnny carson asked him several times. and that he couldn't fill the chair. they really worked on them because of the time that it was a time of upheaval, the civil rights movement which brought the nation together suddenly coming apart around issues of violence. acce separatism. he got two concessions. he would not do a mondalogue an he got his choice of the guest list but he had to have it approved. and he did that. there's a funny story in the

piece about somebody at nbc, god bless them, who said you got dr. king but he's not going to talk about the civil rights stuff and mr. belafonte said, no, he's going to talk about opera. to nbc's credit, they kept their end of the deal. it was very controversial. ratings were great. there was a lot of criticism. newsweek wrote about it and described it as belafonte power. the writer was fair but very concerned with harry belafonte's politics and his opposition to the vietnam war. he brought high and low, black and white, pop culture, high culture, mary ann moore, we had a poet on "the tonight show." it was a fun thing, not all politics, but politics was woven in. >> it's interesting, because that echos the discomfort that people have today, this idea

that the way that you create racism is talking about racism. >> right. >> and so that erie, you know, sort of idea that he talked to king two months before he died, he also spoke with rfk, who was also assassinated. >> four months later. >> four months later. so let's listen to robert f. kennedy talking on "the tonight show" in '68. >> there is this great wealth that i talked about and yet great poverty. there are speeches made about treating everybody equally and yet we don't treat everybody equally. there are talks given, pronouncements made and laws written that everybody has an opportunity to have a job and have decent housing and yet 43% of the people that live in the city of new york and live in this city are living in dilapidated and run-down housing. >> these two martyrs to the cause of justice, both who are assassinated within months of this. what might the country have been

like had robert f. kennedy remained president? >> he could have still had a strong segment of working class whites. he could walk in all communities. you know, the interesting thing about this is, when i read about it in the beautiful memoir. i had no idea, 9 years old when it happened, no memory of it. i would ask people and no one remembered it. he's one of the few people, bob r bobby rivers. everything was possible and we still had such high hopes and we could have taken a different road. and the thing that is seeing the two full interviews, each about 27 minutes, showed me is that we were then grappling with the country unraveling. >> absolutely. >> it wasn't like they had a magic secret that died with them. we are still working it out. >> absolutely.

what an extraordinary piece. >> thank you. >> always appreciate it but this was extraordinary. that is our show for today. >> thank you. >> that's amazing. ur allergies. introducing flonase sensimist. more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one. and six is greater than one. break through your allergies. new flonase sensimist. ♪

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if you have diabetes and burning, shooting pain in your feet or hands... step on up and talk to your doctor today. good day, everyone. i'm alex witt. it's high noon precisely in the east, 9:00 out west. a campaign flashback denying a rocky start to his tenure and hitting his favorite target. >> they have their own agenda and their agenda is not your agenda. >> the president faces two big questions looking for an nsa chief. those details ahead. plus -- >> everything that he says about the president is colored by his own dispute that he has running