to make history once again. the company will conduct its latest rocket launch. this tim tirst sge of the launch will involve a rocket booster from a previous effort. >> i'm alex witt alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. >> mark and i work hand in hand on this. contrary to maybe popular belief, we're partners to see that this is completed and that we've got a product at the end of the day that we can have bipartisanship in supporting. >> any circumstance in which you wouldn't share with mr. warner your sources? >> he usually knows my sources before i do. >> let me assure you, i've also got his cell phone and he hears from me more than he sometimes likes. >> that's a bipartisan oversight committee and how it's supposed to work. it's also the right thing to do.

most lrntly, that's what americans want their members of congress ain the house and senae to do. the senate is doing it right now. unfortunately the house intel committee is not. we'll be talking about that and a lot more. the republican and democratic intel committee in the senate in a share of unity today. we're going to be having three senators including angus king, james langford and susan collins. they, too, are going to talk about how the senate is going to work across party lines and cooperate on this russia investigation. welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 30th. mika, course, for those of you who watched yesterday, is out this morning, attending the funeral of one of her very dear, closest friends. with us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. senior political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post," sam stein, executive producers and

co-hosts of "the circus" john heilemann and mark halperin. and also we have contributor to "time" magazine, msnbc political analyst and former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, alleys jordan. we would be remiss also to not talk about -- talk about john heilemann and john, the passing of your father last week. our thoughts and prayers certainly have been with you. had the opportunity to meet him. a wonderful, wonderful man. i know how difficult that had to be for you and your family. i hope you guys are getting through this time all right. >> appreciate it, joe. thank you very much. >> let's begin with breaking news on the president's travel ban executive order. the trump administration was hoping a federal judge would narrow the ruling that blocked the travel ban. instead, the judge this morning extended it.

that was a temporary restraining order, and it's now a preliminary injunction, meaning the president's order is going to remain on hold until the lawsuit is resolved. the president called the judge's march 15th ruling against the travel ban, quote, an unprecedented judicial over reach. mark halperin, listen, whether you like the president's travel ban or not or the executive order, whatever you want to call it, whether you like the president or not, it's hard to find a lot of judicial scholars that do not identify themselves as progressives as not believing that this is going to be reversed when it eventually gets to the supreme court. the question is whether this thing is ever going to get to the supreme court or whether it's always going to bounce around in the ninth circuit, either on lower court level or with the ninth circuit itself. >> you and i have agreed long

enough about whether this thing would eventually be upheld. the current development shows a couple things, one is we're in a different face of the trump administration. we're talking about this as the lead story. there's not the hysteria and widespread news dominance of this decision as compared to just a cple weeks ago. so there is a le bit of a settling in and normal see. the other thing is it shows that the president continues to fight a multifront war on all his major initiatives. as we say, any one just judge anywhere in the country can throw this thing into a complete stop. the administration is going to have to adapt to that. it shows once again the importance of figuring out the legislative piece of this, not trying to f go earn through executive orders which can be stopped in their tracks by one judge. >> we've always heard over the past 20, 25 years how much power, mike barnicle, the executive branch has by just signing and issuing executive orders. we've seen now with two

administrations, we've seen opponents of those executive orders forum shop. if you're a democrat and don't like what donald trump and another republican does, just go to the west coast and you can find a single judge that can initial an order like this and stop the order from being enforced across the land. just like with barack obama, they can go down to texas, find a single judge down there that would stop then president obama's executive orders. it seems to me this is something the supreme court is going to have to take a bigger look at. i promise you, i know a lot of people don't want to hear this, right now they are producing bad law out of the west coast with this revised travel ban. this goes against precedent. it will become the law of the land, but right now you have one judge being able to stop it, just like one judge was able to stop barack obama's actions in texas. >> judge, forum shopping has

been going on through several administrations, not just this one. i think what differentiates this one is initially this began with a couple of guys who ostensibly work pour the white house, work for president donald j. trump, sat down the weekend after the election and outlined a tough immigration policy. that got this thing thrown off the tracks, followed by the constant refrain of russia, the constant tweets that get the president in hot water. what circulates through all of this is the competence of the white house staff, joe. >> that certainly was the truth with the first executive order. the revised executive order actually was an interagency order. they jumped through all the hoops, passed it by all the lawyers. again, i think the second one eventually will become law of the land. we'll just have to see. let's move on to another story that i think a lot of pple will be fascinated by. we have another snapshot of the

president's approval problems this morning. the gallup tracking poll has ticked down another point to 35%. disapproval stands at 59%. nick kohn of "the new york times" tweeted yesterday means 35% means he's essentially down to his core fans. meanwhile the nbc news survey monkey poll just released online this morning as the president's approval rating at 42% with a 56% disapproval rating. john heilemann, you really can see a stripping away, if you look at nick kohn's numbers, a stripping away of all of those people that gave trump the benefit of the doubt after he was elected president and also the anti hillary forces that were just voting against hillary. his approval rating always was 32, 33, 34, 35%, even down the

home stretch. that's where he is right now. >> joe, this is the consequence of a couple of things. one is the president came in and for better or worse, it's turning out worse right now, he's catered almost exclusively to his base in terms of what he's trying to do. he didn't come in and try to do a big -- make big expansive moves to try to bring democrats in or even challenge democrats given things they would find hard not to support. first you start by catering only to your base and doing things that only really appeal to your fans. then you lose a couple big fights, like the health care thing falls apart. at that point, the people who would maybe have been brought into your coalition don't have any reason to come to you and the people who are soft supporters of you see you as not being able to effectuate the kind of change they want to see. you're back to his core support. it's a squandered, however many days, 65, 70 days in, squauchbterred his time.

>> john heilemann, what's so confounding to a lot of people, rich lowry had a great op ed in politico that we'll get to in a moment. rich lowry said trumpism hasn't failed, trumpism has president been tried, and what lowery points out and underlines is he's gone hard right. he's gone to the hard right republican base that ran against him, that he ran against and elise, ryan came up with his own platform for republicans to run on which is against trumpism. trump gets electednd immediately embraces ryanism and losing because of it. ryanism, i'll even say it, scarboroughism in its purest form, that's a 36, 37%

proposition with americans. >> i would say he embraced ryanism in the face of the health care bill. it's been a breitbartian tone against the media, against his enemies, a harsh tone of calling out everyone who is anti and not trying to bring anyone into the process. for a lot of trump supporters who get frustrated with all the antics constantly and the constant distractions and the tweets and everything that's just not building a better america, but is him nurturing his own petty grievances. i think even his big supporters can be very frustrated from his governing tone so far. >> sam stein, that's actually what rich lowry was the most frustrated with, talking about the breitbartian tone, he said it's ryan republicanism. it's rigid orthodox republican.

with fiery tweets. so he has the worst of both worlds. lowery is a very conservative guy and very well-respected editor of "t national review." even rich ryan is saying he's cutting benefits for millions and millions of americans in exchange for a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich. that's not going to appeal to donald trump's voters in wisconsin. >> first of all, i like the idea of putting "ism" at the end of everything. here is some steinism for you. i think all this is right and all this is related to why trump is polling at 37%. he's doing policies, advocating policies like a health care bill that virtually no one wants. when you lean into a policy that polls that poorly, naturally it will drag you down, too. i think what we are not really

emphasizing enough is that trump is responsible for this. trump is responsible for this. he embraced an agenda that wasn't what he ran on to the disappointment of some people and he sends out bizarre tweets all the time that creates the controversy that constantly surrounds him. i don't think he would be polling at 35% if he hadn't stirred up a controversy about wiretapping trump tower, if he wasn't constantly badgering the media, even he wasn't calling chuck schumer the head clown. all these things are cumulative and all affect trump. no one thinks he's acting presidential and henceforth you have 34% approval. that's steinism for you. >> that's good steinism. i'll write that down. the fact is americans want their president to be presidential. they don't want them to look like a reality tv host. >> correct. >> there's no doubt the tweets have cost him an awful lot in the ratings. mark halperin, though, this

is -- what we have found anecdotally are that donald trump's core supporters, that 35%, 36%, 38%, they're still with him. they're still blaming the media. they're still blaming whomever, they would love to invite vladimir putin over for spring break. there's nothing that these republicans have been offended by, what donald trump did. a lot of them have the hammer and sickle flag flying over their country clubs in a sign of solidarity with the russians. they're still patient and you have proof of that, don't you, because you've been doing focus groups, and a lot of the trump supporters are saying give the guy more time. it's too early yet to say good-bye. >> i'm for the circus and going to five states in the district of columbia in five days to try to get a sense of how people are feeling about what's going on.

we start out monday night in newspaper at the instituted of politics talking to a group. fascinating to put side by side very strong trump supporters with very strong people that don't like the president and to listen to what they had to say. >> i voted for him. i was not a supporter basically until the end, i'm still not sure if i'm completely on board with him. but the past 12 years the establishment politics has really taken root and i don't think it's necessarily where the rhetoric has been effective in delivering that change, but i believe he still is tha agent of change and i'm supportive of that >> when you're the president of the united states and you start attacking fundamental american values such as immigration, the idea of us welcoming people from different places who just want a better life because there's some pretty awful places out in the world and we offer a beacon of hope. the statue of liberty means thing.

>> you don't think the president feels that way. >> when you start -- i'll call it a muslim ban that we're changing our ideals and fundamentals. >> the people who said you're upset, raise your hand if you feel you're the most upset about it. you say you may be the most upset? >> yes, i'm a lifelong conservative republican, you might say national review, "wall street journal." >> voted in the primary consistently. >> voted. >> who did you vote for? >> jeb bush. >> you're the one. >> if you could give the president one piece of advice, what would you say? >> slow down. shake the hands of foreign dignitaries when they come to your office. >> act presidential. >> i wish you would focus more on reforming politics rather than policy. he ran on shaking things up. i wish he would focus on that. >> what do you think the story is so far of donald trump's

polipol presidency. >> i think he's getting an education. >> i'm surprised the republicans made the same mistake the democrats made seven years ago in rushing the health care bill and not working with the other side. >> there seems to be a disconnect when you take the business mindset to washington. when you start acting like authoritarian bully saying you'll lose re-election if you don't vote for my bill, that's not a way to get things done in washington, not a way to get things down in the house and senate. >> you live here? >> yes. >> you probably occasionally run into people who are not excited but upset. >> maybe. >> what do you say to those people or how would you try to address them so they're less concerned than they currently are? >> feels like how the republicans felt about the obama administration coming in. it's supposed to feel uncomfortable and it does feel uncomfortable. >> their behavior is exactly why hillary clinton lost.

i think they should keep that in mind. >> never been a billionaire new york businessman elected president before. it's unprecedented. i think both parties are scrambling to figure out what to do. >> one word to describe the president. >> impulsive. >> trigger happy. >> huge. >> winner. >> different. >> bombastic. >> bold. >> dedicated. >> reformer. >> non-traditional. >> rash. >> interesting. >> rambunctious. >> misguided. >> change. >> rushed. >> dynamic. >> inconsistent. >> intelligent. >> immature. >> unsettling. >> circus. >> unpredictable. >> spectacular. >> so, joe, those are some of the voices. as always, new hampshire voters pretty smart and pretty engaged. as you heard, the supporters recognize trump is not perfect, he's made some mistakes but

think he deserves more time. the thing that struck me about that group and a lot of people i talked to, people in the country are paying close attention. they're not as hysterical as the left and the right, they're pretty calm about what's going on, even the detractors. they just want to see progress. >> thank you. absolutely fascinating. john heilemann, mark is exactly right. they're not as hysterical as they've been, as sometimes we may be in the media or people may be in washington. i think we've had some pretty good reasons to be concerned and upset regarding enemies of the people and questioning judicial authority, but most americans are being patient. that being said, john, things are moving so rapidly that three weeks ago i would have told you that all of trump's voters still supported him. that's not the case anymore.

you're starting to see some more, some more of the professionals, some more people with advanced degrees thatoted for him, some business people starting to fall off. >> i think there are a cple of things that are true. one is that obviously a lot of ordinary voters are not obsessively at tuned to politics in the way that we are. so they're not monitoring this in that way. they have more important things to do with their time than be as obsessed with politics than us. the other thing that's true is the bases of the parties, and this matters in terms of what's going to happen in the midterm elections, the bases of the parties are intuned. clearly the case, the liberal progressive base is much more fired up. we're starting to see test cases for that. if i'm a republican right now looking at re-election or a senator running for re-election in 2018, i'm getting a little nervous.

not just because trump's approval rating is going down, but the energy on the left. >> look at the race to replace tom price in georgia where you're seeing a huge amount of fund-raisers from democrats. look at the state races in virginia, i talked with terry mcauliffe, they have basically filled the slate now with people dying to run for office. this is not a normal feature of virginia elections. it suggests there's a huge enthusiasm swing going on in the democratic party. >> joe, the focus group, mark's focus group is truly reflective of what you hear in the country with people saying, hey, pump the brakes, the guy hasn't been president for 70 days. they're not as worried as we get talking about these issues like russia and things like that, the house and senate investigations. it all leads to the fundamental question beneath donald trump, basically a non-ideological guy, basically a democrat before he assumes office as president of

the united states. how did he manage to sit there and allow people like steve bannon to strip him of his identity? >> that is the mystery of the first two months, how we allowed people like steve bannon to strip him of his identity, how he allowed other people to have him pick members of his cabinet that are far to the right of where donald trump's voters sat. again, one of the most fascinating numbers this week, one of five of his voters in wisconsin, michigan, ohio and pennsylvania, i believe it is, voted for barack obama. that is why he is president of the united states right now. and there is an operating theory inside this white house, and they have told me this, that you begin with your hard core conservative base, and you grow out from there. that may be what karl rove and

george w. bush decided they were going to do going up to the 2004 presidential race. that is not trumpi. that is not the trump vote r. as long as they keep mangling their message and they keep focusing on the wrong group of voters, he's going to stay in the high 30s and low 40s. a lot ahead on "morning joe." three members of the senate intel committee with us. they're going to show us how members of intel committees should work together, republican james langford and independent angus king will join us for a joint interview talking about how that committee is doing things right. also senator susan collins who compares the house russian probe to a bad mystery naval. plus the senate's second ranking democrat, senator dick durbin. plus a segment that we call "why

we love john mccain." we'll explain that and give you a tweet of the day from mr. mccain straight ahead. first, here is bill karins -- >> i've never had that segment joe. >> he's got the forecast and potential for severe weather. >> severe weather and a snowstorm to talk about for northern new england, just mistery. for the severe weather, we looked oulucked out, a tornado warning for the downtown portion of the city. we did get wind damage, bel air apartment complex, maybe a week ef-1 tornado went through. today's forecast calls for severe weather all through tennessee valley, ohio valley, southeast. 48 million people at risk. if we get tornadoes today, most likely areas northern mississippi, tennessee, maybe even southern kentucky. now let's talk about the mystery part. the snow in portions of northern great lakes today. then we'll take the snow and move it a little further to the east tonight. and then friday it's a

snowstorm, interior sections of new england. that will lt thrgh saturday morning. d.c., philadelphia, n york, hartford southward, all rain. northern n england gets the snow. the mountains getting a foot. boston about two inches. hartford nothing. if you're in northern new england, i apologize, you finally melted most of it off, now you'll be shoveling it once again as we go into saturday. that's the way it is this time of year. this is the way march goes. new york city, if you have friday air travel plans, it is going to pour throughout much of the day. keep that in mind, significant delays. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. knowing where you stand. it's never been easier. except when it comes to your retirement plan. but at fidelity, we're making retirement planning clearer. and it all starts with getting your fidelity retirement score. in 60 seconds, you'll know where you stand.

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set for a new segment -- actually we did it in the early part of "morning joe" history, you have to go back to '03 and

'04. it's the segment we called then and we're still calling "why we love john mccain." thank you very much. to set it up, we take you back to what he said to msnbc's greta van susteren last week. >> the point is that china is the one that can -- the only one that can control kim jong-un, this crazy fat kid that's running north korea. >> so those comments apparently didn't set well with the north korean dictator. north korea immediately responded calling them blast fem mouse and saying they hurt the dignity of the country and adding they are little short of a declaration of war. well, john mccain doesn't want to start world war iii.

in a tweet mccain responded by simply saying this. what did they want me to call him? a crazy skinny kid? that is, mike barnicle, the john mccain we've always known and loved. >> that's why he's always been a candidate for the nobel peace prize, speaking frankly to the world. we love john mccain. in an odd way, in a predict way actually, i think he is in the midst of his finest hours as a public servant. he is taking on the trump administration whenever he perceives them as going in the wrong direction. he's speaking out and he is being john mccain. >> i think john mccain, for all the extraordinary work he's done for this country in both war and peace, in uniform and in a suit on capitol hill, i think right

now john mccain is serving his country as well or better than he ever has. i think you're exactly right. people may look backt thisnd say that what we've seen a what we are going to see may be john mccain's finest hour. you can tell what u.n. ambassador nikki haley is thinking about these days. >> you feeling comfortable about weekend? >> ah. yes. i think it's so important -- this weekend is so important -- i'm assuming you're talking about president xi? >> no. >> what are you talking about? >> the gamecocks. >> oh, that i'm very comfortable about. >> you know, you don't have a whole lot of time to think about college basketball when you've got america's diplomacy to talk about. council on foreign relations

richard has' manages to worry about two things at once. he breaks down his interview with ambassador haley and also, of course, his final four bracket. "morning joe" is coming right back. whoa, this thing is crazy. i just had to push one button to join. it's like i'm in the office with you, even though i'm here. it's almost like the virtual reality

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so wha do you talk about

with russia, other than having the nversaon, what could conceivably come of it? >> i think that's the whole point of the presidency of the security council that i want to have. what you're looking at is we have to talk about human rights. russia doesn't have to agree with me on human rights, but russia needs to hear it, just like every other country needs to hear it. and what we need to talk about is, you can't say that human rights shouldn't be discussed in the security council, not when you're looking at chemical weapons being used in syria, not when you're looking at abuses in north korea. if russia doesn't agree, that's fine. i still think it needs to be an issue we talk about at the security council. >> that was ambassador nikki haley and president of the council on foreign relations richard haass talking about the role in investigating human rights abuses. richard joins us now, also the author of his new book "a world in disarray, american foreign policy, the crisis of the old

order" which is doing very well, by the way. also with us, nbc news national security analyst jeremy vash, former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense. richard, we begin with you. what were your takeaways from the u.n. ambassador. >> she's got an agenda hard to make progress on. one is un reform. probably the only thing more difficult is congressional committee reform. it's hard to see howar tha goes. the u.n. is basically a large international spoil system. there's that. and i think there's what she wants to do in areas of human rights. as i suggested, in russia right now, we've got people coming out in the streets getting hammered. it's hard to see the russians, even if they hear a conversation on human rights, i don't see the ball moving there whatsoever, joe. i think it raises a bigger question for american foreign policy, to what extent do we have the luxury or necessity of pushing human rights at a time we have to worry about what russia is doing in the middle

east or ukraine or what we want to do with north korea. next week in mar-a-lago, xi jinping cracking down on human rights. that can't be our priority. we've got to get chinese help on nrk. it's not obvious why we want to make this a priority for the united states at this moment. >> richard, do you see much difference between nikki haley and donald trump? certainly earlier in her confirmation hearings, whether she was talking about russia or nato, there did seem to be a good bit of difference on policy, just like you saw with james mattis and donald trump. >> what did you gather yesterday? how aligned is she with the president she serves shh. >> pretty aligned. this was a public event, in some ways the first real moment we're seeing for a cabinet level official in the national security space meeting the press. rex tillerson has obviously avoided. h.r. mcmaster is inside the situation room. she came out and was very much

towing the administration line. she's in there with a very awkward position. here she is, the u.s. envoy to the multilateral institution at a time her administration is walking away from multi-lateralism, whether it's the transpacific partnership trade ement, questioni allies, going after the eu or essentially adopting policies inconsistent with the paris climate pact. she's in an ebbs trord narrowly difficult position. when in doubt, what she did was she sided with her boss. >> jeremy, in her boss's constant turmoil with regard to investigations, specifically the one alive on the front page about russia, the intelligence community, do you think the trump administration, the people around the president understand, truly understand how vital intelligence is and the operatives of our intelligence community are? >> i'm not sure they came into office understanding it. they are probably understanding it in bits and bites.

they've got to really incorporate intelligence and much more into security decision making. i'm told mike pompeo is playing a big role in the morning intelligence briefings for the president, going down to the white house and participating. different cia directors have done it in different ways. george tenant used to do it when i was at the cia. leon panetta was not in the oval office every morning with president obama. it's god to have face time with the pos and hear. but it also takes about half his day to prepare for the briefing and undertake the tasks coming out of that briefing. so there's some fraught between the intelligence commutity and white house i'm hearing, but it's not there yet. the president's horrible in front of the memorial wall on day one when he talked about himself, not the people on the wall behind him and comparing them no nazi germany and

everything about the fbi conducting surveillance on him. that's a lot of cleanup on aisle 8. >> back to nikki haley, something that's fascinated me about her is her insistence on talking about human rights which i think is a good thing. i think america should be engaged. it should be part of our public posture and a priority for our country. it seems completely out of line with the trump administration which has been pretty much a zero sum game when it comes to transactional relations. >> again, the contrast between the push on human rights rhetorically at the u.n. and what we're doing in the middle east is the united states essentially dropping all the limits on un arms supplies for the saudis given the human rights abuses in yemen. we'll probably move in that direction with egypt. i'm not saying what we're doing is wrong. the danger for nikki haley, she essentially is talking about

human rights while the administration is busy doing a foreign policy that diminishes human rights. i'm not saying she's wrong, theye ong, but the inconsistencis a real problem for her. >> mar halperin, i want to go back to the voters you talked to in new hampshire in your focus group. it seems like all the things we're talking about this morning are really seen as details and not a lot of focus on north korea, the specifics of that, maybe not even a lot of the specifics on russia. one issue you said still is a bright red dividing line is immigration. that still is an issue that matters and divides trump supporters and trump opponents. tell us about that. >> both in new hampshire and the other states i've traveled to, it comes up again and again on both sides. i talked to fifth graders in washington, d.c., and they were very impassioned about what the president has done on immigration and mostly opposed to it. a lot of his supporters bring it up. we all know immigration is a

very complicated issue, emotional issue, economic issue. when i've asked about russia and allegations about russia being investigated. when i've asked about other national security issues, much less interested than there is in immigration. it's fascinating because it extends not just in places like the southwest where you think immigration would be a big deal, but as we've learned over the years, even in new hampshire, even in virginia, that's an issue that comes up again and again on both sides. >> richard we did hear members of the focus group going back and talking about the president's temperament. one of them even saying, when mark asked what advice do you have for the president, it was, when there's a foreign dig tear in the oval office or in the white house, you shake their hand. how is donald trump playing, if you were to hold a private focus group with angela merkel and theresa may and the leaders of europe and the rest of t world, how would that sound?

>> probably include the president of mexico and the prime minister of australia in that focus group. it wouldn't sound so hot. it's part of a larger issue beyond the diplomatic awkward moments, particularly the lack of the handshake with merkel, is the fact that donald trump essentially, his entire default option, entire body language is to challenge or reject what is hand been decades of american foreign policy. every foreign leader meeting with them is essentially uncertain, for allies in particular, they've made the strategic choice to cast their lot with us. suddenly you get the feeling you have somebody in the oval office who doesn't -- he doesn't embrace the history, doesn't embrace his inheritance. rather it's almost like a groundhog day approach where he's questioning from the get-go why are we doing this for allies and why don't we change our policy here and let's revisit

nafta or this or that trade agreement. for foreign leaders this is an extraordinarily difficult time. they're not quite sure what to make of us and they're uncomfortable but not in a good way uncomfortable, not in a way that gives us leverage, in a way they're thinking they've got to diversify their portfolio and don't want this kind of reliance on the united states. >> jeremy, it's one of the things i've been the most fascinated by and flummoxed by, and that is most people in the white house, most people surrounding the president and the president himself believe that this world began anew on january 20th, 2017, and there is no treaty, there is no alliance, there is no history between our country and other countries, either good or ill that actually matters at all. they actually feel like the world began the day they walked

through the white house, and they are ignoring centuries of american tradition. >> it's a great point, joe. there are many dangers of america first. one danger is, of course, we cut off our ability to work with allies and partners, and they are a force multiplier for us in a variety of challenges. but another fundamental problem with us, and you just hit on it, if you don't learn the lessons of history as we all know, you're doomed to repeat them. >> that's right. all right. jeremy bash, greatly appreciate it. >> richard haass, we always love having you on. congratulations on the book. by the way, we're monitoring a news conference in turkey where secretary of state rex tillerson is visiting with a key ally. still ahead on "morning joe," you don't have to be a pulitzer prize winner to get this one right. >> famous american women 1200. >> this historian wrote the

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>> this isn't a function of poll numbers or the russia controversy or any other melodrama of the past three months, but something more fundamental. no office holder in washington seems to understand president donald trump's populism or have a cogent theory of how to effect it in practice including the president himself. house speaker paul ryan isn't a

populist and doesn't want to be a populist. he spent his adult life the product of the ryan/trump partnership on health care was a bill bizarrely at odds with a national election republicans had just won on the strength of working class voters. maybe ryan doesn't get the new political reality created by trump's victory. as the president's boosters like to say. but what excuse does the president himself have for evidently not getting it either? the range of possible outcomes of the trump presidency is still wide. unexpectedly, one of them is that his most die-hard populist supporters will eventually be able to say that trumpism, like socialism, hasn't failed. it's just never been tried. mark, he does talk about how donald trump's first major piece of legislation that went before congress cut benefits for

working class voters and turned around and gave $800 billion tax cut to the top 1%. that's exactly what donald trump and bernie sandersampaigned against, but that's the bill that paul ryan and the house gave trump. >> remember when i asked the president at the press conference, what are your bottom line core principles on health care. he basically said i'll tell you after we make a deal. as he goes forward on tax reform in particular, the current trump tax plan, current house tax plan is not a populist plan. it gives a lot of benefits to the wealthy. the president is going to have to do something here if he wants to try trumpism that he has rarely done, be introspective and say what do i believe in? if he does that, there are possibilities for tax reform,

infrastructure and maybe even regulatory reform. he has to think fundamentally, what does he believe in, what does he want to get done even as republicans, who aren't populist, dominate the congress. >> the most resounding thing is that all donald trump wanted to get done with health care, and told people close to him this, he wanted to get a bill signed. he didn't care what the bill was. he just wanted a bill signed. so he adopted a bill that was about as counter to the hopes and the wishes the people who had voted for him in wisconsin, michigan, ohio and pennsylvania and it went up in flames. and he actually is very fortunate politically that it did. mark halpern, thanks so much. greatly appreciate it. still ahead, breaking down the late-night decision from a federal judge extending the block on president trump's travel ban. plus -- >> we'll answer anything about the senate intelligence committee's investigation. we will not take questions on the house intelligence committee.

we would refer those to the house intelligence committee. >> we've got the leaders of the senate intel committee wanting no part of what's happening with the house probe of russia, if that's what you want to call it. and we'll talk to three members of that senate committee. democrats, als susan collins will be here, james lankford and independence angus king. plus the number two democrat dick durbin will be here. republicans, democrats, independents all together when "morning joe" returns. ♪ ♪ ♪ everyone deserves attention, whether you've saved a lot or just a little.

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he really rolled up his sleeves. so, actually, he's up to speed on the issue. he knows the circumstances. what i worry about, nora, is that if we don't do this, then he'll just go work with democrats to try and change obamacare, and that's not going to -- that's hardly a conservative thing. thiss a can-do president, who is busess guy, who wants to get things ne. and i know that he wants to get things done with a republican congress. but if this republican congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, i worry we'll push the president into working with democrats. >> that was speaker paul ryan in a new interview after the white house threatened to start looking to democrats to make deals. we've got a lot to unpack there. welcome back to "morning joe." it's thursday, march 10th.

mika is off this morning, of course, attending the funeral of her close friend. with us, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, co-host of the circus on show time, john heilman. contributor to time magazine and former aide to george w. bush white house and state departments elise jordan. "new york times" columnist and presidential historian doris kearns-goodwin. and from the huffington post sam steinam. in the gallup tracking poll it's down yet another point to 35%. his disapproval stands at 65%. he has basically boiled down his support to his core fans, noting that his ga favorability was around the same ran during the

general election. meanwhile, a new msnbc news/survey monkey online poll just released has the president's job approval rating at 42% but with 56% disapproving. those disapproval numbers extraordinari extraordinarily high, doris kearns-goodwin, for a president this early in his administration. we could talk about a lot of things. i could ask you about all the ways donald trump is doing things differently than his predecessors. let's follow up on the rich lawrie column from last hour. can you think of a president that has actually misread his mandate -- though a small mandate -- as much as donald trump has? winning as a populist, having one in five obama supporters vote for him yet coming out with a hard-right agenda that takes benefits away from those working class voters and gives a

trillion dollar tax cut to the richest americans? >> it is astonishing to me when you think about the fact that he won in the possibility of a new coalition of working democrats and republicans and had he gone forward with the infrastructure plan for the working democrats, the people he promised that would get jobs and dignity back, perhaps done corporate tax reform for traditional republicans. had he gotten both those republican and democrats could have voted object both side of those and then you have a foundation to go forward. instead to have taken himself into the parts of his coalition that had things they were angry about, whether it was the muslim ban or the wall -- instead of the positive things he was going for. i don't know where he goes from here without that foundation behind him. and the honeymoon. we never mentioned a honeymoon. it was a very quick one if there was one. >> there was no honeymoon. george bush said some words

about the inaugural address that seemed insulting to everybody. that came out last night. i can't repeat george w. bush's words here, but they make me love him more every day. he said something along the lines -- mike barnicle, i hear you laughing -- he said now that was some weird -- and i'll just say stuff. come on. mike, listen, we were very critical of this man, especially in the second term. but you've got to love george wncht bush just a little bit more every day for saying what everybody was thinking. this is a guy, donald trump, that is so interested in turning over the tables in the temple that he has forgot, he has to figure out how to rebuild it and reorder it. it's just not happening right now. >> it's interesting. donald trump has done at least one thing. he has brought out the best in john mccain and george w. bush, along with other people lurking in the sidelines and shadows to

come out against donald trump if he continues on the path that he has been. i was interested in the lowery piece you were reading last hour, joe. we fly at about 35,000 feet when discussing trump instead of walking along the sidewalk and thinking about trump. he's not a populist. he's trump. he has no ideology. he's not a democrat. he's not a republican. he's donald trump. and for some reason or other, as we discussed last hour, he has allowed himself -- trump has allowed himself to be shackled to some right-wing fan atical ideology that introduced this p preposterous health bill. we all like paul ryan as an divial. that bill was total social dynamite, blowing up people's lives. >> it's hard to -- >> sorry. he's -- >> okay. elise, we'll go to you. >> sorry, joe. just so aggressive. little over caffeinated this

morning. i think your point, though, is dead on because there's just not substance there. this whole campaign has been about donald trump, the personality. now he has to get into office and actually do the hard work of governing. he needs to have some core beliefs. there are very few things donald trump says he actually believes in. you know, cutting -- ending free trade. he wants to be more protectionist. that might be one adamant belief that he has. but, otherwise, we don't really know. >> frank bruni, though, he did win as a populist. he sounded an awful lot, in some respects, like bernie sanders. some sanders' voters actually liked trump and vice versa. we didn't understand any of that. just like the one in five obama supporters supposedly voted for him in the industrial midwest. yet he comes out -- i just -- we have to underline this fact

again. he comes out with a domestic cabinet that's not just conservative. i'm conservative. go, team. but they are rigidly conservative. they are the most conservative of the lot. and then he comes out with a health care bill that would have put, as one unbelievably conservative senator told me -- one of the most conservative senators said had we passed that health care bill we would have lost the house in '18 and the senate in '20. you take benefits away from working class voters and give them all to the top 1% in tax cuts. who thinks that's a good idea, frank? >> you mentioned the cabinet and you also forgot to mention it's the richest cabinet we've ever had. how is that true to populism? how is that true to what donald trump was saying in opposition to wall street? i think mike makes a great point. he emerged or evolved to become a populist candidate as that was

where he was finding traction. it was never a cohered philosophy and he never put flesh on those bones, as you're seeing now. he has policies and proposals to who has his ear and how strong they're arguing not any framework he developed in a considered way over time. >> let's get back to that rich lowery column. he writes the president's energies were taken up trying to placate the the conservative house freedom caucus. the supposed affinity between trump and the freedom caucus is one of the great ideological misunderstandings of our time. just because trump and the conservative caucus are both anti-establishment doesn't mean they have anything else in common. trump is more naturally an ally of the moderate tuesday group. his path not taken in january would have be to give an eye opening unifying inaugural address with less carnage and more kumbaya.

immediately invite chuck schumer to the white house and tell him we're not leaving this building until we agree on an infrastructure package. take the resulting big spending proposal and tear the gop leadership to defy him. now that the initial health care bill has gone down, there's loose talk from the white house of whoo'ing democrats, but a lot has transpired in the course of the past few months that make this is much harder. there it is. >> just because a lot of elites don't like the freedom caucus and don't understand the freedom caucus and don't like donald trump and don't understand donald trump doesn't mean these two entities, political entities, have anythingn common other than they like to blow things up. they have nothing in common. rich lowry is right. donald trump and his ideology is closer to the tuesday group, the republican moderates. you know why? because he has been a democrat his entire life. >> right. >> he gave money to chuck

schumer in 2010. this guy is not a conservative. he can't play one on tv. why is he trying? >> i have no idea. look, here is the thing that's befuddling to me. all this is too complicated for my simple brain. if you're a president who won election with a narrow electoral college margin and you lost the popular vote and you had a bitterly contested campaign, the first thing you do, if you were being rational, is you would say, i've got to get in and start to build my support. i've got to widen this out. i'm going to need these people who are against me. george w. bush wrote a book about him. when he won in 2000 in the supreme court, overturning the popular vote, first thing he did when he got into office was go up to ted kennedy and say let's do education reform, try to get a big unifying thing because to bring the country together because i know i'm politically weak. it's not just that donald trump doesn't understand his own

populism but he didn't understand how politically weak he was coming in, and that if he was going to get anything done he couldn't do it with 36% of the country behind him. >> you said you wanted it simpler before, simpler tan that. i don't think he has taken control of the agenda in any way. he is not putting his stamp on either the cabinet or the congress or the bills that are coming out. a bully pulpit is what he kept talking about during the campaign, but he has lost control of the bully pulpit. in part, because he tweets and that changes the oxygen from what he was supposed to be saying. the russia thing has taken up a lot of room. i'm not sure that he has even gotten ahold -- i don't know that people know what he really cares about. that's what mike said at the very beginning. because we haven't seen the stamp of donald trump. he has been so roaming around all the place. if they could stop him -- i've said 100 times if they could stop him tweeting, give him a fake tweet account when he's mad and like fdr, terrible things he would say in speeches and get

rid of the anger. that anger has to be taken out and go somewhere or it's going to blow up the presidency. >> sam stein, the president has also figured out that erasing barack obama's legacy is proving to be a lot more difficult than he expected. you've actually written a new article about that in the huffington post. >> yeah. one of the things that's missing from this conversation is just an acknowledgement of the fact that a lot of what donald trump promised on the campaign trail was never going to happen. it was bound to reality. the idea that he would give health insurance to everyone, which was a promise he made, was mefr going to be compatible not only with the republican congress but in reality. obamacare struggled to do that already. the idea that he would build the wall and mexico would pay for it, it was obviously a joke. it was never going to happen. we're seeing that reflected in what's happening. the muslim ban, he was going to try it. the realities of the law and the government was going to make that far more complex than he led his supporters to believe.

donald trump is finding it's one thing to campaign. it's quite another to govern. and all the promises he made on the trail are going to have -- he's going to have a difficult time finding traction. he can align himself with the freedom caucus, with the tuesday group. he could reach out to democrats but government works very slowly. it's very frustrating. you need to have experts in there. you need to have a full understanding and intricate understanding of the legislation. he has demonstrated none of that. until he does, i think he will remain frustrated, basically. >> frank bruni, it's one thing if you say i'm going to ge everybody health care and you give it your best shot and end up, let's say, 80% short. you know, you make your goal -- reach 80% of your goal. he had a cbo scoring that showed that 24 million americans were going to be kicked off the insurance rolls. >> that's right. >> yet he plowed forward. we are all talking about the most dumbfounding thing about donald trump. for me it's that quote that i

heard from inside the white house where trump just said basically give me a bill to sign. i want to look presidential. i want a bill to sign. i don't care what it is. we said when it was happening and he started embracing this house bill, which was a complete opposite of everything he claimed he was going to be. >> you go back in time, joe, and see him go saying over and over again, we have a great plan and it's going to cover everybody for less money. the political defeat that we sometimes take our eye off what you're talking about, which is what a wretched bill this was, and how it reflected none of his promises, none of his supposed priorities. i go back to the fact that i don't think he has thought these things through. there's no point in this campaign or this presidency where he thought how do i translate what i've said into policy and what is my ideology?

there's no coherence there. >> i know you're extremely reticent to give your opinion. l >> i am. >> what about this, donald trump, by nature, might truly be ill-equipped to operate as president. consider who he is and what he has done. he became famous on national television to the applause of millions of people by saying "you're fired." and then he runs for president. and whenever he would get in trouble on the stump in front of these huge crowds, he would go to "i'm going to build a wall." huge applause. but now he's entombed in the white house. he can't get out. biggest moments of his presidency thus far might have been that cockamamie press conference he had in february and these rallies he goes to still continually every couple of weeks to really infuse himself with blood and breath.

what about that? >> the problem seems to be this. donald trump, his entire life, has had an operating theory. and that is -- and it's on the first page. you don't have to read deeply into "the art of the deal." it is on the first page of the book that he talks about all the time. "art of the deal." on the first page donald trump says, i don't plan ahead. i show up at work. i sit down at my desk. and i wait for things to happen. and what he has found is what we all have warned him about on television, what i had warned him about privately, and that is, doris, that washington, d.c. is not a place where you just show up to work. if you attack the intel community, they will, over time, bit by bit, dismember you politically with one leak here,

one leak there. if you attack the press constantly, the press will win in the end. you either -- by the way, i said this to people in the obama administration when they're saying we don't do theater. we don't do this. oh, you know, the president is so far above this. he's so far above that. it's like changing the laws of physics. you don't go to m.i.t. and change the laws of physics. you don't go to the white house and change the laws of washington. >> that's right. you think about the whole routine of what the campaign was about. anti-political. it was as if politicians had lost any kind of mojo. so we chose a nonpolitician. that's a problem in the world of washington. some of the qualities that a politician has of wanting other people to get along with them, reaching out and making them come your way -- the supreme court justice told my young husband when he was about to go work for john kenned only

good presidents are the ones that really love it. they love to schmooze, go up on the hill, they love to plan. my husband told that to john kennedy and he said you tell him i'm going to have a hell of a time. i'm going to love this presidency. i can't imagine donald trump liking any single minute of what is happening right now. >> i think donald trump likes one thing, applause. he has one overriding consistent ideology, which is to hear applause. the crisis for him right now is that he's not hearing much of it. >> yeah. doris kearns-goodwin, as always, thank you so much for being with us of the frank bruni and elise jordan, thank you as well. two top allies of governor chris christie are sentenced to federal prison on the same day that the governor visits the white house. we'll talk about that, and strange timing. first, senator dick durbin will join us live. we'll talk about whether the senate is about to change

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xfinity watchathon week starts april 3. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. hey, with us now from capitol hill, member of the senate judiciary committee, democratic whip dick durbin of illinois. and on the set, biana goldriga. in celebration of the chicago cubs starting the baseball season, 2017 baseball season against the cardinals sunday night, let's be positive. very positive today. yesterday it was great to see our friends, chairman burr and also mark warner, ranking member mark warner actually standing together and acting like two grown-ups that run an intel

committee should act. do you think that those two gentlemen together can conduct a fair hearing of the russia investigation? >> yes, i do. and what a breath of fresh air, to have our republican chairman and the democratic ranking member, mark warner and richard burr, come together at a joint press conference. what a contrast with the house intelligence committee. they're taking this issue seriously. they're setting up a professional investigation. i still have misgivings, because so much will be done behind closed doors but they deserve an opportunity to prove that they can have a professional, bipartisan investigation. >> let's widen that out a little bit before we get to, obviously, what the tough fight will be with judge gorsuch and let's talk about president trump inviting democrats over and saying hey, maybe health care has taught us i need to move

beyond my hard core base and maybe i need to work with democrats. is there too much water under the bridge? can you work, for instance, on an infrastructure bill? >> that's what we all point to. you remember this from your own service in the house. this was the most bipartisan bill we considered. a financing and revenue source we can agree on, let's do something significant for this nation and its economy and do it together as democrats and republicans. when it comes to our health care system, what happened in the house of representatives last friday, i think, gives us pause because we realize that many republicans just want repeal. if they will take repeal off the table, democrats will slide the chairs up to the table. let's talk about making a great health care system in america that really reaches out and covers more people with reliable and affordable insurance. that's something america wants us to do together.

>> senator durbin, health insurance, the supreme court, the russia investigation, people watch the united states senate, they watch the united states congress. and in the back of their minds, they keep wondering, who is going to make the first move here? who is going to take a step toward the other party? is there a pragmatic wing of the democratic party that would be willing or able or capable of saying, look, i'll throw you a vote. who will take the first step to approach the republicans? >> this has a history. merrick garland, president obama. the trump list of the supreme court. it has a deep history. on so many other issues, that step has been made. i've sat down with lindsey graham on the issue of

immigration, particularly when it comes to dreamers and daca. we put together a bipartisan bill, announced it, introduced it. we call it the bridge act. we think it's a bipartisan step forward, which the white house can embrace. when it comes to issues of health care, yes, we are sitting down and talking to senate republicans who have taken repeal off the table, as to whether or not there's some common ground. it may not be as public as some of the things but i do believe the efforts are under way. >> what's your read early on? is it the white house staff that's the obstacle? is it the president who is the obstacler is it within the senate itself? >> most of the white house operation, including the president, are new to this job. they don't have the seasoned veterans of capitol hill who understand how these things work.

but they're learning. >> senator burr, senator warner. people were very impressed with the way they handled themselves in a bipartisan fashion, acting like adults, grown-ups in the room. i'm sure you have faith in the committee. i'm curious whether you think that needs to be supplemented wan independent prosecutor or counsel as members of the senate in both parties seem to think. >> yes, i do. obviously, we did call for the attorney general to recuse himself, not to be involved in this russian investigation. he stepped aside. now the question is whether or not there will be a special prosecutor other than mr. rosenstein, if he ultimately is approved. i think that's the right thing to do. we're talking about an overall investigation by congress but also whether there will be any prosecution for criminal activity. we're early in the investigation. the fbi is committed to it. but a special prosecutor would give that effort credibility. >> senator, there's an article

in the new york times that stood out to me and it questioned whether there was a personal animous between e president and chicago. he had been using chicago in the spike in crime, as we know, on the stump throughout the campaign, questioning what is going on there. obviously, we know that is where his predecessor had been from. we do know there's a crime problem in the city as well. as somebody who represents the city as a senator, feels like it's something to be taken personally and do you think it's time to invite the president to chicago and start addressing some of the issues and start anew? >> i take it personally. i do represent chicago. it's a heartbreaking situation with the gun violence. the president, as candidate and as president, continues to return to this and to poke at us and say what are you going to do about it? maybe i'll send in the feds. we don't need another tweet. we need a helping hand. we need a president who is willing to work with our police department to make it more professional, a president who is willing to work with the city to address the deep poverty in some of these neighborhoods. that is what we're looking for.

so i hope that the president, this administration will go beyond the tweets and do something significant. >> senator durbin, speaking of significant, opening night, are you going to be there? are your cubbies going to be able to beat claire mcca is. kill's cardinals? >> i can't think of a better opening game, better possibility, cards and cubs. they're playing in st. louis. i have to vote the next morning in judiciary on judge gorsuch. i'll be watching it on television along with a lot of other fans. >> very good. what a great way, mike barnicle, to start the season cardinals, world champion cubs sunday night. man, this is a season, mike -- i'm not exactly sure why but more people excited about the start of this baseball season than i can remember in a very long time. >> senator durbin, if you're not doing anything in the last week in april, we've got the cubs in boston at fenway park. >> great match-up in a great

park. the only other baseball park that rivals wrigley in terms of its cathedral status. >> you mean wrigley rivals fenway. >> greatly appreciate it, and appreciate your positive words about where democrats and republicans can work together. still ahead while chris christie was making his debut as head of the president's new drug commission, the aides were being sentenced for their roles in bridgegate. plus, rejecting calls to end their investigation into russia. >> the investigation is going to go on. it has to go on. the only question is, how credible will it be? >> democrats on our committee, we're going to continue to follow all leads, receive evidence and hear from any relevant witnesses. the question right now, though, is will there be an asterisk around our investigation or can we go back to one that's credible, independent and making

progress? >> and can senators avoid the pitfalls that have obviously marked the house? we'll be talking to an guchlt s king, independent, james lankford, and susan collins. more "morning joe" straight ahead. i mean wish i had time to take care of my portfolio, but.. well, what are you doing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios. the automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life.

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two form er political appointees of chris christie have been sentenced for their roles in the bridgegate scandal. stephanie gosk joins us now with more. good morning. a lot going on here. interesting timing yesterday for the governor showing up at the white house. >> it certainly was, joe. you can't imagine that it couldn't have been coordinated in some way, you know. this is the scandal that some say cost new jersey governor chris christie his real shot at the white house. now two of his former allies, including once deputy chief of staff, has been sentenced to prison time for their role in bridgegate. the ruling came down the same way, as you say, governor christie sat alongside the president, taking the lead of the new white house commission

on addiction. >> mr. president, thank you for your confidence in all of us. >> governor chris christie, front and center in washington wednesday, meeting with president trump and taking the lead on a new commission to battle opioid addiction. >> how are you feeling? >> reporter: a stark difference to the scene at the new jersey federal courthouse where his former allies were being sentenced in the bridgegate scandal. asked about the conviction here wednesday before the sentencing. >> in your opinion, do they need to serve some time? >> the judge will do what the judge believes is appropriate, matt. >> reporter: christie's former deputy chief of staff bridgetanne kelly. >> i will not allow myself to be the scapegoat in this case and look very much forward to the appeal. >> reporter: bill baroni, former transportation official, is appealing his sentence as well, 24 months in prison with 500 hours of community service. both took part in the scheme to

shut down the george washington bridge, they say, in opposition of mayor lee, who did not support governor christie. >> shutting those lanes down, putting people in harm's way. >> reporter: he has denied any involvement or knowledge of the lane shutdown. once the head of trump's transition team, christie was removed and was never given a permanent role in the administration. >> if the chief of staff position were to become available, do you want in? >> i've made it really clear to the president that it's my desire to finish my time as governor of new jersey. >> baroni and kelly were not taken into custody after the sentencing. both will have to report back to court in the fall pending their appeals. they could have been sentenced to nearly four years in prison but were given considerably less than that, joe. >> so, stephanie, what's the status of chris christie right now? it was obvious donald trump was never going to appoint him to

any significant position in the white house so long as he could possibly face a trial and arrest. is chris christie legally in the clear now for bridgegate? >> well, i think given the evidence that the prosecution has right now, is he. certainly the allegation was made over the course of the trial that he knew what was going on. he has vehemently denied that, by the way. something would have to come up. the hit he took on his reputation because of that, with this being drudged up again and again, it doesn't go away. >> doesn't sound like bridget anklecy ready to go away either, ready to go quietly into the dark night. >> definitely not. >> stephanie, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. >> you're welcome. coming up next on "morning joe" -- >> do you know if president trump is under investigation himself for ties to russia? >> i have no knowledge of that. i do not believe that that's the

case. >> senator james lankford and angus king are both on the intel committee. we'll be talking to them about whether it will come down to their committee and not the one in the house to actually get to the bottom of what russia's role was in our election and whether there was any collusion with the trump white house. we'll ask them next. various: (shouting) heigh! ho! ( ♪ )

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here at the store, we offer internet, tv, phone, customer service, home security. every situation is a little different. it could be about billing, simple questions like changing the phone number. sometimes, they want to upgrade, downgrade, but at the end of the day, you want to take care of the customer. one of the great things about comcast, there's always room to move up. of course, it depends on you, how hard you work. ♪ well, the house intelligence committee remains in a deep freeze. ranking democratic member adam schiff tweeted sally yates is willing to testify. white house says they want her to testify. public wants to hear from her. former cia director brennan and ex-dia director clapper. what's the holdup? moments later the committee's republican chairman, devin nunes

claimed its the democrats who are actually holding up the proceedings. >> beginning to figure out who is actually serious about doing an investigation. it appears like the democrats are not too serious about this investigation. we have no idea who they even want to interview. as far as i know they've done very little to even look through the documents that the agencies have provided. >> working with mr. schiff? >> we're always concerned about this. at the end of the day we're going to do the investigation th o without them. >> some people say when you're looking for conspiracy theories in washington, d.c. sometimes it's just easier to explain it away by pure, good, old-fashioned, 100% grade a incompetence and stupidity. that just may be what we have here, with congressman nunes. >> well, look, i think this is one of these things where they

can both be true. the incompetence and stupidity seems to be on display by the chairman of the house intelligence committee, for sure. but there's a lot of things that aren't explained about his behavior last week and there are these large questions still looming. sean spicer was asked whether he could tell the press who it was in the white house that cleared congressman nunes into the white house where he apparently received this classified material that he referred to at the heart of the controversy last week. it is not hard to find out in the white house computer system who cleared someone in. sean spicer said it hadn't been done yet. it takes about 120 seconds for someone to look that up. and there is a lot of circumstantial reason for suspicion around congressman nunes' behavior, in addition to the fact that many people -- and i say this not myself. when you talk to lawmakers, congressman nunes, whether it's

a conspiracy or whether he's just not up to the job needs to either recuse himself or step down as chairman of that committee. it's an important question and we can ask it now to my sense that this is also the case from our next couple of guests we'll bring in from capitol hill, members of the senate intelligence committee, angus king of maine and james lankford of oklahoma. i'll start with you, senator lankford. what's your assessment of what's going on, on the house side, your counterparts of the house intelligence committee? >> obviously not cooperating together. i've not had any conversations with devin nunes or any house members to know the palace intrigue that's going on over there. we're staying focused on doing our task. we have a task to do. we're going to do it. >> let me ask you, senator king, you're a sophisticated consumer of news. you watch television, read the newspaper. you see what's been unfolding over there. is it your sense -- i've heard this from tons of republicans on the senate side that the house

committee is now essentially discredited itself to the point where it really is just down to the senate and you fellows there, and ladies on your committee, to get this done. >> well, i think we feel that responsibility. and that's why we're really working at making this a nonpartisan investigation. we have our first major hearing on this in a few hours. and we're going to try to do it and avoid some of the infighting that you've seen on the other side. i don't really want to comment on that. but we're -- you know, you're seeing an independent and republican standing here. you saw our chair and ranking member yesterday. it's not going to be easy. i mean, i don't want to pretend that there aren't going to be some conflicts. this is a difficult issue and has partisan overtones. most of our members realize it's too important to fall into that. >> hi, guys, senator sam stein here. i have two questions for either one of you.

what is the reasonable timeframe for this investigation to conclude? obviously it's hanging over the white house, the administration. lot of unanswered questions. two, for each of you, what is the one question that you want answered, that you haven't seen answered yet with respect to this investigation? >> whoever wants to take that. >> i'll start with the timeframe. it's very hard to say. there's a mountain of material to plow through. thousands of pages of documents. both of us have been to langley to go through the documents ourselves. there's a lot more to go. six months. it may be longer. i think that's a reasonable target, given the volume and the complexity of the investigation. remember, this is about the russian hacking, whether there were connections with the trump campaign and importantly what the russians were trying to do with state election systems. so that's going to take a while. i think realistically, six to eight months, hopefully, will be -- >> to you, senator lankford,

what's the one element or question you feel hasn't been appropriately answered that you want to get an answer to? >> obviously we need to get connections, whether there was any connection with the trump campaign and collusion with russian officials. there's no question that russians were trying to destabilize, the same thing they do across eastern europe and europe itself. they do what they call active measures, trying to basically tear down democracies. we know that. we need to find out if there's any connection to have good, hard evidence. this will take a while, as angus was mentioning as well. we are definitely going where the facts load and the commitment from both sides of the aisle, wherever the facts go, that's where we go on this. we have got to be able to pull politics away from this. >> i'm monitoring the conference where vladimir putin is speaking right now. one thing that he said is that he wants a friendly relationship with the u.s. knowing what we now know, what you just stated, that russia did try to influence our election,

do you think that we can have a friendly relationship or should have a friendly relationship with russia? and a second question, i know for a fact that vladimir put anc has turned partisan. how do you feel about that and should this be a partisan issue? >> no. vladimir putin is always pleased when anybody is fighting in the united states. it's his goal to rip apart our democracy. i have no beef with the russian people and i hope we can have a good relationship with russia and the russian people. as long as vladimir putin is influencing the nation and trying to interfere with every democracy, it's difficult to trust the russian leadership and develop a good relationship with the russian people, which we hope for in the days ahead. >> senator king, are you confident that the american people will have confidence in the senate intelligence

committee investigation as opposed to a special prosecutor? >> i think that's an important question and the answer is yes, if we do it right. that's one of the reasons i'm pushing for as many open hearings as possible because if we go behind closed doors for six months and come out with a report one way or the other i don't think people are going to buy it. i think people have to see the evidence we see and see the witnesses we see. it can't be all in public because there are sensitive intelligence questions involved, but i certainly -- a big part of the -- there are two functions. one is to lay these issues to rest and let the american people understand what happened, but let's also talk about the future. this isn't a one off. the russians are doing this everywhere they've been doing it in eastern europe for 10 or 15 years. they're going to be back in 2018, 2020, 2024. a big is of what we're doing is

how do we defend and prepare ourselves against this new form of aggressions. >> the russians are doing it in france. we've got to be able to confront it. >> senators, just for our viewers can you explain the difference between what's happening in the house and the senate and specifically just for other lawmakers and legislative bodies across america that may be facing some partisan challenges, what is your intel committee doing differently, what are you guys doing right? do you talk to each other every day? are you on the phone saying we can't let happen in the senate what's happening in the house? how are you getting it right? >> we'll let time tell how we get it right. we have to continue to work together. we're talking about it openly. we've had multiple meetings behind closed doors to make sure

everyone's keeping informed. the chairman and vice chairman are doing a good job sharing information and going to briefings together so one doesn't have more information than the other and there's a lot of conversation about where we're going and who do we call up as witnesses and what are staff doing. the more we can talk to each other the more we can establish trust. there is no such thing as a nonpartisan investigation. there are teams when people say let's do an independent investigation separate from politics. you can't find ten people in this town that have no political connections. it's important we get it right and talk it out and settle this. >> senator king, i ask you the same thing. why are you running this differently than the house? why are you corporating? >> we knew this was going to be the challenge and we went

through phone calls and meetinginmeetings and a discussion of the dangers of letting this fall into a partisan dispute. some members have been key to that. marco rubio keeps saying this could happen to us. putin is neither a republican or democrat. this year he favored the republican candidate. four years from now it could be the opposite. he could be blackening the name of a republican or democrat candidate. the reality is sinking in this goes beyond what happened in 2016. one of the things that really worries me that hasn't gotten much attention was the russians were poking around in stoke election systems, voting machines, registration lists. that's something that really we've got to focus on because what if -- just imagine where would we be if we learned they had changed a couple of hundred

thousand votes in michigan and wisconsin. we'd have a true constitutional crisis. all the evidence is it didn't work, but they weren't doing it for fun. they were probing and testing and part of what our study has come out with has to be how do we prevent and help the states to defend themselves. >> you're right. marco rubio's exactly right. what vladimir putin did to the democrats in '16, he can do to the republicans in 2018 and 2020. this impacts everybody. thank you so much for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. keep up the great work. we're going to be talk to another one of your colleagues, senator susan collins. at the top of the hour new polls have the president's trend lines going in the wrong direction and

a revealing conversation with voters in new hampshire. they're not panicking yet. yet. john mccain unplugged, his comments about north korea's leader ruffles feathers. they're talking about how his words could start a war. house intel committee chairman devin nunes drawing backlash from his own party. we'll be back with more "morning joe" after this. >> good old senator mccain. we can count on him to criticize his own team. he's pretty good at that, i have to say. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ sfx: engine revving

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kevin trusted advice for life. kevin, how's your mom? life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. mark and i work hand in hand on this and contrary to popular belief, we're partners to see that this is completed and that we've got a product at the end of the day that we can have bipartisanship in supporting. >> any circumstance with which you wouldn't share one of your sources. >> he usually knows my sources before i do. >> i've also got his cell phone. he hears from me sometimes more than he'd like. >> that's a bipartisan oversight committee and how it's supposed to work. it's also the right thing to do and most importantly that's what

americans want their members of congress and the house and the senate to do. the senate's doing it right now, but the house intel committee is not. the share of unity today and welcome to "morning joe". it's thursday march 30th. we have veteran columnist mike barnacle and white house correspondent sam stein. the executive producers of the show time circu and political analyst and add to the george

bush white house, but we would be remiss not to talk about john. the passing of your father last week, our thoughts and prayers certainly have been with you and had an opportunity to meet him. a wonderful, wonderful man. i know how difficult that had to be for you and your family. i hope you guys are getting through this time all right. >> appreciate it, joe. thank you very much. let's begin with the breaking news on the president's executive order on the travel ban. a federal judge was hoping to narrow the ruling on the travel ban, but instead this morning the judge extended it. it's now a preliminary injunction. the president's order is going to remain on hold until the lawsuit is resolved. the president called the judge's march 15th ruling against the revised travel ban an

unprecedented judicial overreach. mark, whether you like the president's travel ban or not or the executive order, whatever you want to call it, whether you like the president or not, it's hard to find a lot of judicial scholars that do not identify themselves as progressives as not believing this is going to be reversed when it eventually gets to the supreme court. the question is whether this thing is ever going to get to the supreme court or whether it's always going to bounce around in the ninth circuit or the lower court level. >> we have agreed about whether this thing eventually would be upheld. the current develop shows a couple of things. we're in a different phase now with the trump administration. there's not the his yeah and

widespread news dominance. there is a little bit of a settling in. it shows that the president continues to fight a war on all his major initiatives. as we say any one judge anywhere in the country can throw this thing into a complete stop. the administration's going to stre have to adapt to that. >> we've always heard over the past 25 years how much power the executive branch has by signing and issuing executive orders, but we've seen that with two on administrations. we've seen opponents of those executive orders forum shop. if you're a democrat and you don't like what a republican does go to the west coast and you can find a single judge that can issue an order like this and stop the law from being enforced across the land just like with barack obama they can go down to

texas and find a single judge down there that wld stop the then president obama's executive order. thiss something the supreme court is going to have to take a bigger look at. i know people don't want to hear this, right now they are producing bad law out on the west coast with this revised travel ban. this goes against precedent. it will become the law of the land, but right now you have one judge being able to stop it. just like one judge was able to stop barack obama's actions in texas. >> forum shopping has been going on through several administrations. i think what differentiates this one is that a couple of guys that work for donald trump sat down and outlined a tough immigration policy.

that got this thing thrown off the tracks followed by the con sta constant refrain of russia and the constant tweets that get the president in trouble. what surfaces is the competence of the white house staff. >> that was the truth with the first executive order, the revised executive order actually was an interagency order. they jumped through the hoops and passed it by the lawyers. i think the second one will become the law of the land. let's move on to another story that i think a lot of people are going to be fascinated by. we have another snapshot of the president's approval problems this morning. the gallup poll has ticked down to 59%. it made "the new york times" tweeted and said that it means his essentially down to his core

fans. noting his rating was usually in this range during the election. the survey monkey poll released this morning has the president's approval rating at 42% with a 56% disapproval rating. you can see a stripping away, if you look at the numbers, a stripping away of all those people that gave trump the benefit of the doubt after he was elected president and also the anti-hillary forces that were just voting against hillary. his approval rating always was 32%, 34%, 35%, even down the home stretch. that's where he is right now. >> this is the consequence of a couple of things. one of them is that the president came in and for better or worse -- and it's turning out worse right now, he's catering almost exclusively to his base. he didn't come in and try to

make big moves that would bring democrats in or challenge democrats given things they would find hard not to support. first you start by catering to your base and you lose a couple of big fights like the health care thing falls apart. at that point the people who would maybe have been brought into your coalition and the people who are soft supporters of you see as not able to effectuate the change they want to see. you're back to his core support. it's a squandered this time. >> what's so confounding to a lot of people, rich foundry had a great ope ed in politico, but he said trumpism hasn't failed. trumpism hasn't been tried. what he points out and

underlines is that he's gone hard right. he has gone to the hard right republican base that ran against him, that he ran against and that paul ryan deliberately ran against. ryan came up with his own platform for house republicans to run on, which was against trumpism. trump gets elected and he embraces ryanism and he's losing. ryanism, i'll say it scar borrowism in its purist form, that's a 35%, 37% proposition with americans. >> he embraced ryanism, but it's been a breitbartism tone, a harsh tone calling out everyone

who is anti. trump supporters get tired of the tweets and everything that is not building a better america. i think his big supporters can be very frustrated with his governing tone so far. >> sam stein, that's what rich wry was the most frustrated with, talking about the breitbartan tone, he said it's ryan republicanism. it's rigid orthodox republicanism with fiery tweets. he has the worst of both worlds. he passes -- lowry is a respected editor of the national review, but rich was saying this guy's first big bill he's

cutting benefits for millions and millions of americans in exchange for a trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich. that's not going to appeal to donald trump's voters in wisconsin. >> i like the idea of putting ism at the end of everything. i think all this is right, but we have -- all this is related to why trump's polling at 35%. he's doing policies. he's advocating policies like a health care bill that virtually no one wants. when you lean into a policy that polls poorly, it will drag you down too. trump is responsible for this. trump is responsible for this. he's embracing an agenda that wasn't what he ran on to the disappointment of some people and he sends out bizarre tweets that create this controversy that surrounds him. i don't think he would be

polling at 35% if he hadn't stirred up a controversy about wire tapping trump tower, if he wasn't constantly badgering the media and calling chuck schumer the head clone. all of these things are cumulative and they effect trump. hence you have 35% approval rating. still ahead, new hampshire gave donald trump his first primary win. a new focus group about how new hampshires are seeing his pressy so far. later senator susan collins will join us live completing main delegation day here. here is a check on the forecast and another day of possible severe weather. tell us about it. >> a lot of bad news. yesterday we had some good news. we lucked out and the storms were not as bad as forecasted. no one is complaining. we had some damage around the houston area with one tornado. it was more like tree damage and

car ports. it wasn't expensive damage to structures, b structures. louisiana has thunderstorms and lightening. not severe, but it will cause travel delays. in the great lakes cold air mixing with snow. the warm air makes it to minneapolis and st. louis. if we get tornados today watch out tennessee. i mentioned the snow in the northern portions of the great lakes and then tomorrow this moves into d.c., heavy rain and this is snow. the mountain areas will get a foot of snow through saturday. it could be one of the best ski weekends here at the end of march. we have a big storm in the lgd of the rockies. a lot of wind there. if you're traveling on the east coast, today is fine.

tomorrow heavy rain and travel delays. we'll be right back. liberty mutual stood with us

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before the break we were da talking about the president's low numbers. you've been talking to folks around the country. tell us about it. >> i've gone to five states in five days to get a sense of how people are feeling about what's going on. we started out monday night in new hampshire talking to a group. fascinating to put side-by-side strong trump supporters and people who don't like the president and listen to what they had to say. >> i was not a supporter until the end. i'm still not sure if i'm completely on board with him, but the past 12 years the establishment politics have taken root.

i don't think the rhetoric has been effective in delivering change, but i believe he still is that agent of change. i'm supportive of that. >> when you're the president of the united states and you start attacking fundamental american values such as immigration, the idea of us welcoming people from different places who just want a better life because there are some pretty awful places out in the world and we offer a beacon of hope -- >> you don't think the president feels that way. >> i'm going to call it the muslim ban. this signals we are changing our fundamentals. >> of the people upset by the trump presidt, raise your hand if you're confident you're the most upset person about it. sir, you think you may be the most up yet. >> yes and i'm a life long conservative republican. >> you vote consecutively? >> yes. >> who did you vote for.

>> jeb bush. if you could give the president one piece of advice, what would you give him. >> slow down. >> shake the hands of foreign dignita dignitaries. >> i wish he would run more on what he ran on. >> what do you think the story is so far of donald trump's presidency. >> i think he's getting a heck of an education. >> are you pleased at the rate of which he's learning. >> no, but i'm a very harsh critic. >> i'm surprised that the republicans made the same mistake that the democrats made seven years ago rush a health care bill and not working with the other side. >> there seems to be a disconnect when you take the mentality of the new york mindset to washington. that's not a way to get things done in washington or gain influence in the house and

senate. >> you live here. >> yes. >> you occasionally run into people in new hampshire that are upset about his election, is that right? >> maybe. >> what do you say to those people or how would you try to address them so there's less concern. >> it feels the same way as the republicans felt about the obama administration coming in. change, different. it's supposed to feel uncomfortable and it does feel uncomfortable and that's good. >> their behavior is why hillary clinton lost. >> they've never had a billionaire new york businessman elected as president before. it's unprecedented. both parties are scrambling to figure out what to do. >> one word to describe the president. >> chaotic. >> trigger happy. >> unique. >> huge. >> winner. >> different. >> bomb bastic. >> bold. >> dedicated. >> reformer. >> nontraditional.

>> rash. >> change. >> rushed. >> dynamic. >> inconsistent. >> intelligence. >> thoughtful. >> interesting. >> transfer. >> immature. >> unsettling. >> circus. >> spectacular. >> those are some of the voices, but as always new hampshire voters are pretty smart and engaged. the supporters recognize he's not perfect. the president has made mistakes, but they think he deserves more time. the thing that struck me about that group and the people i've talked to, people in the country are paying close history. they're not as his ster cal on the left or right. they want to see progress. coming up, john mccain doing what john mccain does best. we'll explain it when we come back on "morning joe". what if technology

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it's time for a new segment. we did it in the early part of

"morning joe" history. we're bringing it back now. it is of course a segment that we called then and we're still calling, why we love john mccain. thank you very much. to set it up we take you back to what he said to greta last week. >> the point is that china is the one -- the only one that can control kim jong-un, that crazy fat kid running north korea. >> those comments apparently didn't sit well with the north korean dictator. north korea media said they hurt the dignity of the country and adding they are little short of a declaration of war. john mccain, he doesn't want to

start war so in a tweet mccain responded by simply saying this. what do they want me to call him? a crazy skinny kid? that is the john mccain that we've always known and love. >> i think that's why he's been a candidate for the noble peace prize speaking frankly to the world. we love john mccain. in an odd way in a predictable way actually, i think he is in the midst of his finest hours as a public servieanservant. he's taking on the trump administration when he perceives him going in the wrong direction. he is speaking out and being john mccain. >> i think john mccain for all the extraordinary work he's done for this country in both war and peace and uniform and in a suit on capitol hill, i think right now john mccain is serving his

country as well or better than he ever has. you're right. people may look back at this and actually say that what we've seen and what we are going to see may be john mccain's finest hour. coming up on "morning joe," how ronald reagan overcame defeat and in the process helped define his presidency. plus, senator susan collins is going to join us from the capital. you're watching "morning joe." stick around. we'll be back. what powers the digital world. communication.

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another republican president eisenhower, instituted a great program, the building of the highway system. time has come for a new program of national rebuilding.

>> welcome back to "morning joe." that was president trump in his first address to congress pledging to do what it takes to rebuild this nation's infrastructure. the new issue of time magazine is a message from the country to washington. dear washington, we need to rebuild. can you get your act together? times editor and chief nancy gibbs is with us now. have you received a response? >> not yet. it's been out for 15 minutes so we're waiting to hear. this really is the test. if there's anything that everyone agrees on 79% of people listening to that commitment to invest more in infrastructure agree, including 72% of people who did not support president trump. this is not a matter of whether to do this. it's a real test of can they come together on this issue where there is such broad agreement and still a real fight over how you would go about doing it. >> the freedom caucus, wouldn't

they fight the expenditures. >> yeah, they're gonna fight. >> we have the answer. >> there's a faction in the house and senate that don't want to spend this money. the theory, and sam you follow this stuff in detail so you probably have a view about it, there are two big questions it seems to me about infrtructure. one ihink is a big historical question we'll be asking for years and it is why did the administration, given trump's passion for it, bannon's passion for it, why did they not put infrastructure first ahead of health care, a thing that could have gotten democratic support. the second is, is there a way for them by making it the way they want to try to make it which is a private/public partnership is that part of the solution to republican concerns about spending? >> okay. so the answer to your questions are that precisely because there

is disputes over how to pay for it and structure it, you have disputes in the first place. when chuck schumer says i want a $1 trillion bill, he's talking about he wants hard cash. mitch mcconnell says no. my question for you is let's say in a theoretical world without partisan differences we did find $1 trillion. one, is that enough? two, would we be spending that on revamping old infrastructure versus what maybe we should be doing, which is building totally new infrastructure? >> those are the right questions. whether we do it and do it smart. you have a problem you're not going to be a global company if your bridges are falling down. $1 trillion is not enough to fix

the problems. $1 trillion is not enough. the white house would argue the reason you don't need to have this all be government spending is if you deconstruct the add administrative state and it took less then ten years to do the project you would release this private money to be invested and more than $1 trillion will be available for infrastructure projects if they go about a change in regulation and the approval process. that's partly where the freedom caucus can sign on to a big deregulatory move. chuck schumer and theemocra are not going to hold hands. what is the private incenti foupdating our nation's water infrastructure? >> it's more likely if you can put a toll on the road and monetize that. >> charge people for use of water. >> i think some part is going to be driven by technology and some part will be driven by public investment and some will be driven by changes in approvals and regulations, but this is

meant to be the big bipartisan plan. it's actually a pretty conservative approach that the white house is talking about. it's maybe $200 billion of new money. where is that going to come from? >> that's no problem. >> any money they can save, they're going to want for tax cuts. they didn't get the money they wanted from health care reform. they don't have the money to do this. >> right now joining us from capitol hill we have a woman, a united states senator susan collins of maine. she's sitting on billions of dollars in washington. she represents a state where one of her constituents steven king could not have drawn up a more intriguing set of circumstances than what you senator collins and other members of the intelligence committee are dealing with in this investigation. we had two of your colleagues on earlier and let me ask you a similar question that we asked senator king and langford and it

is this. are you confident that at the conclusion of your investigation that the american public will have confidence in your findings as opposed to the findings that they might have confidence in from a select committee or a special prosecutor? >> i am. if you look at the way the senator intelligence committee has proceeded, there has been an excellent relationship between the chairman richard byrd and the vice chairman mark warner. they've worked together to make sure that the committee members are involved. this has been a nonpartisan investigation, not just a bipartisan investigation. at the end of our work, i believe that the american public will know what happened, will be on alert for additional russian efforts to sew the seeds of doubt about our democracy and will be able to except our

findings and recommendations. >> senator, what's the secret sauce in the senate with your committee and your investigation as opposed to what we've been seeing out of the house of representatives? is it collegiality? what is it? >> it's all of the above. many of us have forged personal relationships with democrats with whom we work on our committees and we've learned the simple truth if you want to get things done in the senate, it usually requires 60 votes. that means that one party alone given the current numbers cannot successfully push through its initiatives. that's one of the big differences. i also think it's simply easier in a body of 100 people for us to get to know one another and to work together.

>> joe? >> i'm wondering, senator, who are some of the people you would like to get before the committee to get answers? general flynn? paul manafort? roger stone? would they be at the top of the list? >> they would certainly be on my list. we're starting with interviewing intelligence experts to lay a foundation and to make sure that we have the information that we need to conduct extensive and intensive interviews of some of the individuals that you have just mentioned. we're going to follow the evidence wherever that may lead. i'm absolutely confident of that. and we're going to ask the kinds of tough probing questions that need to be asked, not only for the sake of our democracy, but to assure the american people that we've gotten to the bottom

of this. >> senator, it's beyond -- go ahead, joe. sorry. >> i'm sorry. i just wanted to ask one other quick follow up question. you talked about getting to the bottom of it, senator. when james comey was before the house intel committee, chairman nunes told him he wanted him to hurry up because there was a black cloud over the administration. can you assure the people of maine, can you assure the people of america that you all will take your time, that it will be thorough and you will not leave any stone unturned and that there is no false deadline here? >> i absolutely can make that assurance. you cannot put an artificial deadline on an investigation this significant, this complex and this important to our democracy. we're also going to look at russian disinformation efforts that are taking place even as we speak in western europe.

our country is not alone. russia is not only not our friend, it is seeking to destabilize western democracies. >> senator, on sunday with he saw tens of thousands of russians take to the street in protest of corruption, protests that surprised the russian government. the next day we found out that jared kushner, during the transition, had met with a russian ceo of a bank that had been sanctioned by the united states. he really embodies a lot of the corruption that the russians were protesting. do you think that's okay that he met with that ceo? is that normal during a transition? >> it is normal during a transition that there is a point person who handles the flood of requests from foreign governments to meet with members of the incoming administration. so that really is not unusual, but certainly that will be an

issue that we will question mr. kushner about. the russian protests over the weekend yielded appalling pictures of picture being carted away and who knows under the putin regime whether they'll see those individuals again. he is an authoritarian thug. i can't imagine anyone speaking well of him or viewing the russians under his leadership as other than wanting to destabilize our government. you know, there's an interesting fact that a lot of people don't know and that is in the unclassified an an next it was revealed that russia today that most people believe is controlled by the russian government was involved in the occupied wall street incident.

so they were equal opportunity offenders. they'll work with the far left and right, anything they can do to sew the seeds of mistrust and doubt about the legitimacy of the american government and our institutions. >> all right. senator susan collins, we can't thank you enough for being with us and most importantly thank you for your service to this country and speaking truth to power. we greatly appreciate it. >> thank you. one other interesting nugget to this story, in a new report from news week anonymous sources are contending that the fbi director james comey tried to go public as early as the summer of 2016 with information on russia's campaign to influence the u.s. presidential election, but that the obama administration officials blocked him from doing so. the sources tell news week that during a white house situation room meeting in june or july,

director comey pitched the idea of writing an op ed about russia's efforts and secretary of state john kerry and attorney general loretta lynch and national security adviser susan rice were there and those in the meeting allegedly preferred to make a jnt statement from multiple agencies instead. a department of justice spokesman declined to comment for the report, but sam stein, obviously there was a concern with james comey and the administration that they get this information about russia out and though it may seem maddening to many now, you have heard time and again that barack obama was -- i think a lot of democrats would say hyper sensitive to the -- doing anything that would leave an impression that he was trying to

tip the scales of the election, something that certainly is admirable on his part, but also something that obviously is probably causing some frustrations in democratic and some republican corners. >> a few points. i saw the report and i reached out to some former obama officials. they threw cold water on this noting in a multiple statement to agencies attesting to russia's interference that the fbi was not a signatory on that statement. there is frustration from the democrats that the president in september and october as evidence was accumulating of russia's interference didn't speak out more forcefully and point the finger more forcefully. he did issue these warnings, but a lot of this was clouded under the assumption that hillary clinton was going to win and you didn't need to rock this diplomatic boat if in the end it

wouldn't make a difference. of course now looking back that was stupid. that was a bad assumption. >> it might have made a difference. >> i want to point something out this morning. i think it's very telling. we've had republicans on this show over the past three hours that in the senate at have shown extraordinarily different sides than some of the house republicans. have not only shown an independence, but in the case of susan collins, republican senator from maine, saying of vladimir putin he is an autocratic thug. i can't imagine anyone speaking well of him. mike, earlier in the show senator langford from oklahoma, a very pro-trump state, said vladimir putin was a thug trying to relationship apart

democracies across the globe. we're seeing republicans in the senate start to really stand up and be counted and stepping into a void that's been left there by some house republicans. >> there's no doubt about it, joe. the senate intelligence committee so far -- yesterday with senator warren and the republican chair -- they were adults. there's adult supervision on this committee, but i think it's something larger than that. i think in the united states senate given the freedom that comes with a six year term and given the co leejalty. >> i think it is the case after the blow up around the house intelligence committee last week, you saw senator mccain and others talking about the need for a select committee, a 9/11-style committee. i think there's some degree

where the senate intelligence committee is saying no, we have the resources to do this. we are not only going to do it seriously, but don't try to get on our turf. we can get doing this investigation for some number of weeks. we know where our witnesses are, professional staff who are already looking at thousands of pages of evidence, so it's not only are they speaking truth to power but also asserting their institutional prerogative to be able to get this done. >> they certainly are. and mitch mcconnell, even a month ago, before people were quite as outspoken, was sending signals to the trump white house and to donald trump himself, we are our own separate and equal branch. we will do what we want to do when we want to do it. a lot of the republican senators stepping up now and showing that. let's go right now to cnbc's sarah eisen live from the new york stock exchange, for business before the bell. sarah, what are we watching this morning? >> no deal, joe, between the kushner family real estate business and china's insurance

powerhouse insurance. the kushner real estate firm has said the talks have ended. we don't know why it was originally reported by president "new york post." providing, investing about $2.5 billion into 666 fifth avenue owned by the kushner family not far from your set at 30 rock and st. patrick's cathedral. jared kushner is no longer the ceo. he divested from a lot of these properties, including this one, but still, democratic lawmakers have raised the possible conflict of interest issues with this. we don't know if that's why it fell apart. north carolina lawmakers and the governor have reached a deal to repeal that controversial bathroom bill, h b2 that went into effect, and it comes just after we are learning how costly this is going to be for the state of north carolina. the associated press just released an analysis this week

saying it's going to cost the state 3.7 -- more than that, billion dollars, over the next 12 years. that will go to a vote this morning. we've been covering the business angle, so many businesses, events, concerts, nba all-star games have pulled out of the state and now will face a repeal. two more votes left to get that fully through. back to you guys. >> thanks so much. cnbc, sarah eisen, we appreciate it. coming up a lot of people try to compare donald trump to ronald reagan including donald trump. but there's one big difference. donald trump won the first time he ran for president. why the four years between reagan's first loss and his eventual win were crucial to his inauguration into office. that's straight ahead with craig shirley, when "morning joe" returns. i mean wish i had time to take care of my portfolio, but.. well, what are you doing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice.

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♪ everyone deserves attention, whether you've saved a lot or just a little. at pnc investments, we believe you're more than just a number. so we provide personal financial advice for every retirement investor. what will be the basis for this new republican party? to what set of values and inciples can our candidates appeal? where can americans want to know where we stand look for guidance? >> that was ronald reagan in 1977, just a few months after his bruising defeat for the republican presidential nomination. three years later, he won the white house in a landslide, historic victory. what happened in those intervening years that ushered in the new era of american conservatism? let's bring in right now presidential historian craig shirley, he's the author of the

new biography "reagan rising the decisive years 1976 to 1980." craig for all of us who have long admired ronald reagan and looked to him as our political example, there's actually, in a strange way, something more exhilarating and legendary about 19 1976 than 1908. talk about that campaign and what followed. >> of course reagan did the unprecedented thing of challenging an incumbent president for the nomination of his own party. that hadn't happened since 1912 when roosevelt came out of retirement to challenge taft. they went through 30 primaries and caucuses and it was a seasaw battle. ford zoomed ahead and reagan came back. met in kansas city in august of 1976 not knowing who the nominee of the party was going to be. the first time since chicago, 1952 when the republicans didn't know if they were going to nominate taft or eisenhower.

after a bruising three-day convention battle mostly over 150 uncommitted delegates, ford emerged as the victor. he only won by 67 delegate votes. but ford knows he's still the nominee of a badly divided party. at the last minute he brings reagan down to give an impromptu speech to the convention hall and to the millions of people watching on all three networks. reagan does so, and the seeds of the 1980 campaign, joe, really were in that speech reagan gave at the arena in kansas city. ford goes on to lose. reagan is ubiquitous, giving speeches, doing radio commentary, newspaper columns, testifying before congress, going on "the tonight show" with johnny carson and every place he goes, sky cabs, housewives, cops, firefighters, all implore him, say governor, you have to run one more time. and i'm convinced that him being out on the road and hearing the

outpouring of the american people, convinced him and mrs. reagan to try it one more time in 1980. >> craig, jon meacham in his forward to your very fine book quotes the governor quoting one of his favorite poems after he loses the nomination on his way back to california, and i'll lay me down and bleed a while, although i am wounded i am not slain, i shall rise and fight again, a guy that age, what was the drive for the presidency at that age? >> well, that's a great question, you know, because we think about age differently now, two generations later, than we did then. you know, 65, which reagan was in august, was considered to be very, very old for a presidential candidate or very, very old for a politician, so that was one of the major headwinds he had to battle for the 1980 nomination because he was going to be 69 and age became a big issue, so much so, of course, we all know george

the primaries and bush, to in exacerbate the age problem of reagan, was jogging everywhere, photographed jogging in his sleep for heavens sake, jogging in boston and new hampshire in the frigid new hampshire, george bush was in shorts, makes one question the sanity, but this age was such a big issue, so reagan had to react to it which was basically overcampaign to prove that he was up to the presidency. but it showed up in polling data, it showed up in reporters' questions, it showed up in town hall meetings, everyplace. >> craig shirley, we've only scratched the surface here. if you can, come back to talk more about your book later this week. "reagan rising the decisive years 1976 to 1980." now tomorrow on "morning joe," of course, much more but for now, craig melvin picks up the coverage. craig? >> joe, thank you. craig melvin in