it's a big week ahead for president trump. lewis. >> certainly a big week in washington thanks to kelly o'donnell for that report. >> that's a wrap for us on this monday i'm alex witt. "morning joe" starts now. >> you're going to see some very, very strong results very, very quickly. thank you very much. >> mr. trump with your tweet were you trying to tell the justice department to grant immunity to michael flynn? were you trying to do that? was that your intention, mr. president, sir? mr. president, was that your intention, mr. president? was that your intention, sir? >> thank you, guys. thank you, guys. >> it is another big week on tap for president trump. he's got critical meetings with leaders of china, jordan and egypt. >> what just happened there? >> he walked out of --

>> it's a signing. >> didn't want to do it. >> at the last minute he decided we're going to do this signing inside but he didn't tell anybody. >> i'm just saying i saw it, then i'm thinking, this reminds me of a show, my favorite show. >> let's watch this quickly. >> very, very quickly. thank you very much. >> mr. trump, are you trying to tell the justice department to grant immunity to michael flynn? were you trying to do that? was that your intention, mr. president? was that your intention, mr. president? was that your intention, sir? >> thank you, guys. >> they literally didn't have to edit a thing. >> that happened. >> it's like a metaphor for he

was supposed to sign but he didn't. he's supposed to behaving like a president but he's not. >> how many days in are we, donny? >> suddenly feels like year six. >> everybody goes how do you not -- how could you not have known -- listen, we've known this guy for 10, 11, 12 years. we had our misgivings about him. i think it's safe to say neither you nor i thought it would be this bad. >> definitely not. >> we were concerned, really, really concerned. never thought the guy we'd known for 10, 11, 12 years would be that much of a petulant brat that when somebody would ask him a question. >> leave his entire signing service. >> it hurts, like he takes a hammer every day. we didn't think he would get a hammer every day and pick it up and hit his hand. >> quite the opposite. the day after he got elected i came on your show, maybe whistling in the dark, said you know what, maybe his need to be loved, ego to be successful, pull the left side to the middle

and all the above, it's quite the opposite. i also think it's time, and i know in the post goldwater era there's the unwritten rule in the psychiatric community that nobody diagnoses from afar, but i don't think he's a well guy period. >> when you start doing things, mark halperin, that are against your best interest. during the campaign he did all these horrible things, right? but you could say they are horrible things but there's going to be a segment of his base that will actually vote for him because he's talking about the birther stuff or he's talking about this or he's talking about that. >> the walls. >> the wall. in that respect he would do these things that were offensive to all of us but wouldn't say, this is actually like him hitting himself on the hand with hammer. what he is doing now is not in his self-interest. that's when you start saying wait a second, how well is he? if he's doing these things that

any rational human being would know would hurt him politically. those things we did that a lot of us found repugnant before -- >> are effective. >> say, you know what, they offend me but unfortunately it's effective among some members in the primary. >> the glass half empty story is pretty intense. low approval rating, failure of the health care initiative, disarray in a lot of the government, a lot of tension, and no clear ability to move forward. glass half full, probably not half but the full part of the glass, last week five dates in five days, people are willing to give them a chance. they are not as impatient as washington. huge week, can he got gorsuch through? >> hold a second. hold a second. mitch mcconnell will get gorsuch through just like mitch mcconnell -- conservatives are going to see that as mitch mcconnell's accomplishment for good reason and not donald trump's. >> can he get through in the way he gets credit. what does he turn to now? what are the big issues the president wants to put before

the country? this week is wide open. is he going to talk about trade, health care, taxes. >> so great questions to start the show on. good morning, everyone. >> good segue. >> it's monday. >> how was everybody's weekend. >> mark halperin is here, donny deutsch is here as you saw. also with us in washington national reporter jonathan swann. good to have you on board. >> baseball started. baseball season started. >> all right. >> i'm concerned about the red sox. i wish barnicle was here but i would -- >> you know why barnicle is not here? >> of course. >> i'm heading out there with my boys. >> are you really? >> very excited about it. >> just like in connecticut, there as special buzzer i can't walk into fenway park. different reasons. >> wow, tries to get off the exit in new canaan. >> what happens? >> red lights but it's a long story. >> turn around. >> you cannot have that much

cologne combined with human growth hormones. >> high karate isn't really a cologne, it's an after shave. >> with that -- >> mika ready? >> okay. we're ready now. >> three, two, one. >> yes. we'll do this later. the president of the united states, the leader of the free world, the world's largest economy, the man who controls the world's largest nuclear arsenal. >> powerful man. >> he spent most of saturday morning tweeting about fox news. >> that's a shame. >> let that breathe for a second. think about that. think about the scope of that problem right there. >> can i ask you a question, when did it start? >> the tweeting? >> maybe -- >> it started saturday morning around 8:43. >> i always tell you -- >> i was playing your straight guy. >> i always tell you saturdays are going to be excited. 8:43 tweeted when will sleepy eyes chuck todd and nbc news

start talking about the obama surveillance scandal. >> can i stop you here? i never got that sleepy eyes chuck todd thing. do you make fun of chuck todd. >> his goatee. >> i'm used to his goatee now. >> his eyes are awake. >> who has really sleepy eyes? >> huckelberry hound. >> there's sleepy eyes. but not chuck todd. why are you saying sleepy eyes chuck todd. if you're going to insult somebody, make it work. >> like paul manafort. >> little chucky todd. >> little miller, tiny dictator. >> okay. about 20 minutes later adding same fake news media that said there's no path to victory to trump now pushing a phony russia

story, a total scam. >> and around noon he started tweeting parts of a column about health care writing, the failing "new york times" finally gets it, adding, o care is dead. good things will happen either with republicans or democrat. throughout the afternoon and into the evening he tweeted praise for fox news. quote, wow, fox news reporting big news. source, official behind unmasking is high up. known intel official is responsible. some unmasked. >> can i just ask, i thought the white house said you should never do any stories with sources, with unnamed sources. i'm confused. >> only when it benefits them and this very powerful leader of the free world tweeted all day. >> finally reading the treats. >> i read them trump speak. trump team spied on before

nominated. if this is true, does not get much bigger. would be sad for u.s. and around 6:21 p.m., the president tweeted, thanks for a fox segment about consumer confiden confidence. this is very small behavior that is so unbecoming it's hard to even describe. >> he's president of the united states and all he does is watch tv. >> he's like a little kid. >> all he does is watch tv. >> and comment on it. >> and comment on it. those two things. donny deutsch. >> all these two things people want him to do, all these condescending women's events he has all week, he just ruins them with his stupid tweets. >> why doesn't he watch "billions." that's good this season. >> a lot of people talk about he's 0 and a billionaire, he's not doing to change his behavior. his entire life, this is man who does not travel, this is a man

who does not read, a man not in electially curious. the only information he's gotten is like a 12-year-old eating cereal, he's not going to change now. >> spent all weekend watching fox news. we're not knocking fox news. >> i definitely wat judge piro now. >> oh, my gosh. >> 9:00 p.m. >> wow. >> obviously no self-control. again, this guy is literally bumping around the white house, wherever he goes, with nobody else around minding him. >> this gets to problems with scheduling. you hear when you talk to staff there's sort of a flat level of people competing for his time. donald trump just decides on a whim i don't want to do this or i do want to do that.

he's very impulsive. he changes very rapidly and the staff sort of scramble around to do that. he might say something in a meeting and they scramble out. we're going to change this because the president said that. it creates a very unstable working environment. they are all trying to adapt to it. >> amend disclosure form shows former national security adviser michael flynn did not originally disclose payments he received from russian-linked companies. in the new filing he names tv network rt and two other russia linked firms as sources of income. documents released by house oversight democrats last month showed rt paid flynn $45,000 to speak at its gala in 2015. an attorney for flynn said bundled together speaking fees and draft disclosure process ended because of his resignation. meanwhile the congressional committee said they are not at

the stage of granting former security adviser michael flynn immunity he offered. house tells nbc news the discussion with flynn's lawyer did not include immunity. sources close to the senate community saying immunity is not on the table at this time. >> it doesn't make sense, would not make sense for them, mika, to do that right now, because the fbi is conducting an investigation. if he's broken the law, then immunity from the senate gets in the way of that. >> a long way away from that. not clear what crimes might be being investigated. the committees have to decide if they want to bring him in and take the fifth. that's a big decision before them. it appears he won't testify right now. the broader issue, what are these two intelligence committees going to do? we don't know at this point what direction they are headed. senate made a big show, house more divided. what are they going to do next if they don't hear from flynn. >> white house press secretary

shawn spafr said he spoke with the president's about his friday tweets saying flynn should ask for immunity. >> the president is very clear he wants mike flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee. whatever it takes to do that he's supportive of. >> not trying to suggest to the fbi or justice department that it grant immunity. >> i think he was asking -- i'm not entirely sure of the process whether the congress does it or doj or both in this case. the point -- i get it. i understand. right. the bottom line -- >> not instructing his justice department -- >> instructing mike flynn to do everything he can to cooperate with committees he asked to look into this. >> the president tweeted yesterday, the real story turns out to be surveillance and leaking. find the leakers. >> so here we are. >> deep throat was the real story on watergate. i thought they missed it. >> it was. it wasn't actually the burglary of the dnc. >> history will tell that.

>> jonathan, this is their story and they are sticking to it nonstop. >> yeah. and the staff has absorbed this. it's the donald trump message of this is the real story. this is what's happened. of course that's what started this scramble to justify, rationalize, find the evidence which has got devin nunes in all that trouble. >> mark halperin. >> you look at the history of this, at least a distraction for them and he brings on a lot of it himself, the most famous tweet about president obama. the most constant tweets, keeps it alive in the media. it does -- it does, jonathan said, it's so hard for this white house staff trying to learn how to do their jobs under the media and legal pressure of these investigations. >> again, we talked about this before, how well the guy is off mentally. any sane, rational person would know if i keep bringing attention to something, then i'm

going to to keep churning up attention on something, and it is not going to be in my best interests. >> nothing to do with jobs and the economy, which is all he said he wants to focus on. >> it's got nothing to do with -- he's repeated this over and over and over again. it really is like picking the same scab over and over again. i'm sorry to say that, but that's what he's doing. his staff, like any sane, rational staff would be pulling their hair out right now saying, my god. instead, they keep making excuses for it. >> an article overtime weekend about election night. right after his triumph he was focused on a three-day old negative article they literally couldn't get him off of. that's what this is. i don't know what the disorder is. i'm not glib. regardless of what's wrongf he's been pricked in some area, there's an inability physiologically to move off of it, even if it's

self-destructive. >> he's president of the united states, and he starts lying about 3 million votes being illegally cast. he's obsessed on that from the day he's elected president of the united states in the most shocking political upset of our lifetimes. >> or maybe ever. >> probably ever. most people go, i'm good with that. you know, what i'm going to kind of just take that to the house and relax and golf and smile. then the day he's inaugurated, mika, he is now the 45th president of the united states. what does he do? he starts obsessing about crowd size and starts lying about crowd size. i'm sorry, that is not a healthy, normal, well functioning man. and he obsesses and he lies about crowd size for another three or four weeks. >> still does. >> until he starts lying about

barack obama. not healthy. something is deeply wrong with this man that he cannot show -- hell, he's not even a day trader, he's a minute trader. he keeps -- again, here is the critical thing. don't say, please, on twitter, stop being stupid. don't be stupid and say you should have known this was coming because of what he did with the birther stuff. i will say it again, donald trump cynically knew if he played the birther card that 45% of the republican party would be in support of him and say, hey, that's our guy. he's saying what nobody else will say. that was in his self-interest. it was offensive. it was a lie, and it was racist, but his political self-interest was cynically forwarded like a bigot in the south back in the 1940s would do that. in this case, mika, everything

he is doing just as offensive, but it is against his political interest. that's where you start saying, okay, wait a second. there's no rational reason he should be doing this every day, even if you think he's a cynical, horrible human being, this hurts him. >> right. >> joe, what you and i are dancing around here and going back to, yes, there was logic, but everything now points to certain disorders. my hair is not on fire, and i'm not a clinician. once again, doctors don't diagnose, he's not well in many ways. anybody who is behaving this way, if a school teacher, your friend was behaving this way, you'd be concerned. >> if any ceo behaved this way, they would have been fired by the board 60 days ago. >> that's what i wonder about the administration, this incredible foreign policy team.

>> we never get to talk about. >> the advisers are all too afraid to say anything, even members of the family. they just can't do it. they get in the room with him. they talk to people who have really good advice, talk to you sometimes, and you give really good advice, same stuff you say on the air, better, maybe even more clear, then they get in the room and they can't do it. they just can't do it. >> the question, mark halperin. >> they just can't do it. >> what are republicans doing on capitol hill in the house? the senate is standing up. what is jason chaffetz doing? what's paul ryan doing? we're going to have jason on today and see what he says. paul ryan, what's paul ryan doing? they know this is not sane, rational behavior? what are they doing and at what point do they start speaking out? >> they were willing to as they were in the campaign compartmentalize, look, we want republican president to move republican agenda, we're going to avoid dealing with this other

stuff. the point at which they intersect and he's not getting things done, can't move legislative agenda, that's what happened on health care in the short-term, then they are going to start talking about more aspects of his personality they don't get. >> jonathan swan, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," talk about "national enquirer's" connection to this. why the newspaper sold at every grocery store leveled broadside. oversight committee chairman jason chaffetz and chamber of judiciary richard blumenthal. over the weekend my dad spoke and was honored at the global leadership award. tell you what he says including a warning on presidential focusing on entertainment. bill karins with a check on more severe weather. >> we can't get to break.

active start to april, two fatalities in southern louisiana. in all 11 tornadoes reported, most in louisiana, a few in texas. this unfortunately was where a mother and young daughter were killed as the tornado went through southern louisiana yesterday morning. not much left there. as far as what they are dealing with now, we have a lot of flash flooding problems. interstate 20 across mississippi and jacksonville -- near jackson, mississippi, a lot of roads flooded, water going into homes, evacuations taking place as i speak. tornado watch, strong storms through new orleans later this afternoon. threat from mobile to tallahassee to atlanta, isolated tornadoes. 20 million people at risk. once again the deep south into the southeast. then if you have plans on tuesday, any travel plans from washington, d.c., to new york to boston, heavy rain coming in late tonight, early tomorrow morning at this time. heavy rain around hartford to albany headed for boston. a lot of airport delays possible on tuesday morning, areas around new york city especially with airports. a very active weather pattern,

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it is important that we cultivate the kind of relationship that has endured the last 20 years with china. if possible, if possible, as russia changes from a militant communist state to a corrupt capitalistic state, which is a major step forward for it, that would require patience and intelligence. and among others on this end, a president who doesn't use public appearances for entertainment

but is prepared to address the serious global problems that we now confront. >> that was a great -- that was a great night. dr. brzezinski being really honored at columbia university. i thought it started out really badly because mark, his son. >> ambassador brzezinski. >> ambassador brzezinski. the first thing he said was the low point of my father's life was when he was denied tenure at harvard. >> why is he doing that? >> this is not going well. fathers and sons in these type a famili families. he got up and had a great story talked about leaving there, coming tol columbia and realizig

he found his home and then offered at harvard. not in a million years, i found my home at columbia. very moving night. >> beautiful night. global leadership award from school of international public affairs and we thank you. >> watching that clip, you go, there's a guy who really knows what he's talking about. >> grown-up. >> where are those people, where are the jim babe ekers, people this white house. >> it was something. >> beautiful, just wonderful to see. >>. >> speaking of grownups. >> carl's jr. dropping racy and controversial television commercials for ones that put the focus on the food again. remember the commercials with the girls in bikinis eating the big burger? for 15 years cke restaurants ran ads featuring the likes of paris

hilton and kate upton and kim kardashian. in 2011 press release ceo related we believe in putting hot models in our commercials because ugly ones don't sell burgers. swear to god he said that. we target 100 guys and get young kids who want to be young, hungry guys. what a gross person. >> he was nominated to be president's secretary of labor, had to withdraw his name and be replaced next month by a new ceo. >> yes. >> now they are trying to get the pudzer era behind them. we saw this ad this weekend and thought it was great on so many levels. first of all, we're getting the kids out of here, the punks

exploiting women. it was great not only turning the page but also looked an awful lot like this is a message from americans, can we get grownups back in place. >> looked like this. >> you still talk to stacy? >> yeah. finally replied to my pm. >> where are you, babe? >> over next to the barn. >> i'm about to pet that cat. >> where is the cat. >> the tiger. >> go for junior. >> junior, i think your dad is here. >> what? >> tell him i'm in a meeting. >> daddy, you're back. yes. >> take that down. put that up. >> that was supposed to be fresh ingredient and that lady got in there and her clothes flew off and it was windy.

>> miss, would you please dis.that bull? who is this? >> this guy, i don't know him. >> shut up, junior. >> yes, sir. >> hello, friend. you know when i started this company it was about one thing, pioneering a new way of food. cut no corners food for you to eat with your mouth. walk with me. >> keep the bull? we're keeping the bull. >> then i passed it to the boy. he sowed his wild oats and got a little hoo hum -- distracted. >> yeah. things got real weird. >> that video was for charity. we actually raised a lot of money. >> i'm back doing what we do, what we've always done. take a little flash back with me.

we started out the way things started with meat and fire. we pioneered the char broiler. people in cars need to eat, so we made the drive-through a thing. made a girl, made a boy. well, we did things our own way. we brought your food straight to your table. we brought all natural beef to the burger. >> guess what, daddy? >> brought bacon to damn near everything. >> see this is what i've been talking about. food not boobs. >> shut up, junior. >> yes, sir. >> we're pioneers of the great american burger. the great american made from scratch biscuit. what great american thing will we think of next? that's a promise from carl

hardy, sr. >> but daddy, i just bought that car. >> buckle up, son. >> good kitty. you're a good kitty, ha ha. what? >> oh, gosh. >> so good. love it. >> donny, you've done this for a very long time. i saw that ad and it hit on just about every level. first of all carl's with a company, also with a country. people yearning for a grown up to come back in charge. shut up, this is how we do it. >> you sent me that over the weekend. you and i generally exchange cat memes over the weekend. >> hang in there. >> that's beyond brilliant marketing, a company that can make fun of themselves for what's going on but a metaphor

for what's going on. the kid silliness represents child-like manner, misogynist manner, burgers versus jobs. let's get back to business. i do think the parallel are stunning there. the irony of a company that used to be run by cabinet nominee. stunning advertising, stunning metaphor of what's going on in this country and what people are going to be longing for. >> that is what -- that's the bigger point out of this. how does this extend beyond carl's junior, hardee's. mika, you watch, over the next three or four years, as long as donald trump remains in the position he's in right now, there's going to be a longing for the restoration, for competence, for people who actually know what they are doing in their jobs. when that dad comes in. >> in three or four years? i think we're there now. >> we are. i think that is going to

drive -- tv shows we watch, the movies we watch. you know, the ads that we see on television right there. >> to that point. >> the irony of make america great again, people really do want to make america great again. >> not like that. >> what you're going to start to see are things about nice and good, the opposite. you're going to see -- you just saw what advertisers do, they will use a mirror where the world needs to go. we're going to have movies, tv shows about authenticity, human decency, yesteryear. >> i don't agree. >> you don't agree? >> i think we'll have more and more books and tv shows about apocalypse, catastrophe and failure and the country coming to a terrible end. >> nick, i couldn't disagree with you more. >> there are 500 channels. we can have both. >> what do you think, mark?

>> i think the trump phenomenon exploded, they are catching up to the implications of trump. that ad, you're right to identify it, the leading edge of how one strand of people are reacting. i don't think that's the only reaction. as nick said i think we're going to see a thousand flowers blooming as people adjust to the reality of this presidency. >> i think 65% of americans who may not be supporting him right n now, the overwhelming majority of americans see what's happening and there is going to be a strong reaction to it going the other way. whether you're a republican or democrat, this happens all the time. just like trump was a reaction to obama, we're going to see a pretty dramatic reaction to donald trump. i think we're going to like what

we see. >> obviously successful. we're so monumentally obsessed the new live action, what's more decent, real, a story where the good guy underdog wins at the end, the opposite. i think that's the first little window. the astounding success, that's where people want to go. >> coming up president trump tells financial times he's ready to tackle north korea alone. plus he weighs in on his twitter habit. let's just say he doesn't feel the least bit sorry. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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putin's intervention in the election was not about picking maybe one candidate or another but destabilizing american institutions. when you look at all the back and forth and charges and tweets that have been in the last few weeks, hasn't he already succeeded in doing that? >> none of my colleagues in other countries are talking

about d.c. chatter. what they are talking about is the fact they are relieved the united states is starting to lead again. >> the president's own u.n. ambassador isn't paying attention to his tweets but he still has no regrets about them telling the financial times, quote, i don't regret anything, because there's nothing you can do about it. you know, if you issue hundreds of tweets, every once in a while you have a clanker that's not so bad. "new york times" author joins us with her interview with the next on "morning joe."

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46 past the hour. joining us now the u.s. managing editor for financial times. good to have you back on the show. you guys have a big interview with president trump. >> we certainly do. we're

thrilled. >> the headle speaksor itself. if china is not going to solve north korea, we will. what else did the president say? >> well, he said a number of things. it's interesting north korea was actually top of his mind because there's been so much discussion about russia and middle east and iran. those are frankly side shows on the national state. north korea is critical. he talked quite a lot about trade as you would expect, saber-rattling on that front. talked about health care bill, talked about the fact he'd reach out to democrats if the republicans at the freedom caucus were not going to play along. we also asked him -- i asked him almost as a joke, there is anything about your tweeting that you regret? this is not a man who does regrets. he said absolutely not. if you're going to keep issuing tweets over the odd clinker, to create a new word there. he's convinced his style is basically not only did it win him the race last year but

essentially it's what enables him to reach out to people directly and to connect. >> in increase when he says that we will solve it, what exactly did he mean? >> well, we don't actually know. that's a crucial cliffhanger, actually. one of the things that's very important is national security council completed its review of north korea. they rushed it through to make sure of the crucial meeting. essentially given that north korea has been accelerating its preparation for being able to launch a missile at the west coast of america with nuclear warheads, there's recognition that something needs to happen brf mark. >> centerpiece is two-day summit with chinese president. is there a trump doctrine on china. by threat or association make china work with us more closely

on things. >> if you're going to be optimistic what's happening now is a lot of saber-rattling, preparing the way for a grand deal. there is talk about a grand bargain between u.s. and china which would involve trade and involve a sweeping deal to deal with the korean peninsula. >> what does china want in return for all the things the u.s. wants on trade in korea. >> essentially china would like to have trading with the u.s. it would also like to have recognition korean peninsula is influence, china's martial plan for the peninsula. there's talk about recognition for north korea by the u.s. there's a burge of ideas floating around the background. getting to that sunny land of some kind of deal for north korea is a long way away. so if you're being optimistic this is saber-rattling, laying down the marker, trump being aggressive before he then

strikes a deal. we've seen this tactic before. if you're pessimistic, this is a sign of a president who has come into office realized as per barack korea is the top security challenge right now, and he's basically lobbying quick ideas at the chinese to try to indicate he's not going to take it lying down, but he doesn't actually know what he's going to do. >> so what happens surprised you the most in your time with him? is there any chagrin? >> absolutely no chagrin. he absolutely thinks his tactics of tweeting, being unorthodoxed -- we called him imperialist in our piece. he doesn't think his tactics are not working one little bit. he actually thinks his tactics are working very well. we said in our piece we think there's a method in the madness but what looks like sheer craziness to the outside world, very often, actually does have a

strategy or instinctive strategy of sorts. there is no doubt this is not a man who is about to stop tweeting, and not about to stop shocking us all. >> goodness gracious. then there's health -- go ahead. i wanted to know if there was any regret at least of how health care went down. >> i think the recognition -- basically he essay deal maker. he put his deal on the table. said i'm going to walk away from it. >> he doesn't like to lose, he says. >> he doesn't like to lose. >> didn't he lose on this? >> we spent a bunch of time in the white house talking a range of people and they are stressing there's still a lot of negotiations going on. if the freedom caucus won't work with us, we'll go to the democrats, have a bipartisan deal instead. the fact that he's stressing that is that these negotiations are still under way. >> it was my idea to not hold a

vote on the health care bill. yeah, i don't like to lose. so i pulled it. that flies completely in the face of all other reporting, which was that he and steve bannon wanted to force a vote to have them lose and it was paul ryan who basically said, we just can't have a vote on the floor. so even in recounting something like that, he just -- apparently just makes things up. >> well, the line coming out right across the board consistently from everyone in the administration is that we did see pretty much the whole range of people in the administration. >> uh-huh. >> the line coming out very much is we didn't hold the vote because we want to leave the door open for negotiation. there's still negotiations going on. who knows. like many things this is a cliff hanger. >> do the south koreans have anything to worry about? would trump sell them down the river at a time of weakness to get a grand bargain? >> south koreans just lost their

leader in a scandal. that's one thing to worry about. if there's ever a bad time to have this crisis, it's now. >> at a time when their former leader is going to jail and there's chaos, do they have any fear of being sold down the river in some sort of grand bargain? >> if i was sitting in south korea right now, i would be terrified. frankly, if there is -- one of the things that is very important is that not only have the north koreans gotten very close to having this missile, but through 3 1/2 of the four stages they need to have this thing and the pattern of testing appears to have changed, with deployment not with testing, per se. taking out the north korean missiles would be extremely hard for the u.s. they've done it very cleverly. that point has been known for some time in the intelligence communities on both sides of the atlantic. so they actually have a big problem right now. if the u.s. was to suddenly try to attack north korea, the chances are that one of the

first things they would do is attack south korea and you would end up with an absolutely devastating brutal war in the korean peninsula. >> the bigger problem, if you're south koreans, the administration who believes that the world began on january 20th, 2017. and i'm serious. they don't care about any treaties. they don't care about nato. they don't care about any treaties with the south koreans. their bigger danger would be the trump administration saying i'll tell you what. we'll give you south decreea. we'll bring all the troops home. you take care of the nuclear deal in the north and we're fine. that's the problem that our allies have to worry about every single day. >> there is an entire department in the south korean foreign ministry these days dedicated to just monitoring trump's tweets. it gives an indication of how the whole game has changed internationally. others say if you want to be optimistic what you can say is the sheer gravity of the situation, the fact this is on the table means that maybe, just

maybe, we are seeing the beginnings of some grand deal, grand bargain. but, you know, that's hard to be optimistic these days. >> jillian, thank you very much. appreciate it. ahead this morning, we'll bring in nbc's lester holt, who is reporting from south korea this morning, about the major tensions on that peninsula. plus house oversight chairman jason chaffetz and senator richard blumenthal will be our guests. and critics say that president obama was being too isolating. is president trump making the same mistake? it's a total game-changer. so now the whole family can binge,... ...surf, shop, navigate, listen, game, stream and more. all without the hassle of worrying about overages... ...or running out of data. it's less than $40 per line per month with 4 lines.

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beautiful shot of washington, d.c. on this beautiful april morning. can you believe it's april? welcome to "morning joe." political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, mark halprin, and reporter for "the new york times," nicholas and donny deutsch is with us as well. hello, donnie. >> hello, mika. hello, newman. >> good to have you all on board this hour. top democrat on the house intelligence committee is calling for the white house to

show members of congress the documents that president trump says back up his allegations of wire tapping by president obama. congressman adam schiff saw the same files friday that devin nunes during that secret white house rendezvous. nunes then presented that information back to the trump administration. congressman schiff released a statement reading in part, this, nothing i could see today warranted a departmenture from the normal review procedures and these materials should now be provided to the full membership of both committees. schiff elaborated on his takeaway while republican senator lindsey graham suggested that the house investigation is simply off the rails. >> if these were produced either for or by the white house, then why all the cepterfuge? there's nothing ordinary about

the process at all. the answer may come from the president himself. you can say a lot of things about the president. one thing you cannot say is he's not subtle. and i think his tweets tell the story. and the story is, look over there at leaks. and look over there at anything the obama administration, we can claim, did wrong on its collection or anything else. but whatever you do, under no circumstances, look here, at me or at russia. i think that's really what's going on. >> nunes, the house, they're off in a ditch. i don't know -- ion't know where he -- who invited him to look at the evidence in the white house. all i can say is, why do you show it to the chairman of the intel committee if you got it yourself? so that never made sense to me. >> mark halprin, i'm with lindsey.

it's off the rails. what happened that this guy would go running, scampering off to the white house? no one will say who called him. i guess anybody -- anybody's guess is that it's bad that he went there. and he still is chairing the committee? this is still an investigation? it's impossible. is it? >> he keeps giving explanations and there's still so many unanswered questions and the white house is not repudiating him or questioning him. they're referring to him. the senate intelligence committee will step up, run an investigation and i think this chairman is going to have to decide whether he wants to even try to proceed, given that the democrats in the committee don't have the confidence in him anymore. >> there's a question about the republican leadership, mika. they have a responsibility to remove this man, if for no other reason, than because of the press conference he held when he first was talking about going to the white house. >> oh, my gosh. >> he lied. it's on videotape. he said i have information and i

don't know if the white house has the information or not, but i'm going to the white house because if they don't have the information, they need to get it. we then find out that actually he didn't have the information. he was lying to america, lying to members of the intel community who were watching, lying to members of his own committee. and then he went over to the white house. and was read in on some information. then came out and pretended that he -- so, i'm sorry, i don't know this guy. but if you're paul ryan, if you're kevin mccarthy, if you're running congress, the house of representatives, you hav to remove a man w lied to the press, who lied to the intel committee. >> who clearly is not up for the job. >> who lied to everybody. this is cut and dry. >> as chairman of the intelligence committee this is not some committee. it's the intelligence committee

at a time when russia tried to interfere with the american elections. >> look, if paul ryan wants the oversight function to have credibility in his house it has to be a change. right? he has destroyed the credibility of the investigation. and to pull back for a second, this entire episode, this whole thing starts with a tweet from donald trump to get people off of the russia stuff. it's amazing. it's like a month later, we're still talking about it all over the place. >> there's two tragedies here. number one, to your point, he lied, automatic. as we're seeing in this presidency, truth and lying are no longer the same binary situation. >> but, donnie, it should still matter. >> of course. >> to paul ryan. >> of course it should. >> when paul ryan and kevin mccarthy and my friends in the house need to understand is that there will come a day when donald trump is no longer in washed. >> where are you going to be? >> how many scars do you want politically for what they did

not do? it doesn't matter to donald trump. but does the truth still matter to paul ryan? >> the speaker, do you think he knows the facts here or he's just not engaging? >> the speaker? >> the speaker knows. >> paying attention. >> knows that his intel chairman lied. lied to the press, lied to the intel committee. by the way, this is not ambiguous. we can -- look through my twitter feed. i played it, alex. let's find the part where he out and out lies and says i don't know if the white house has this information or not. if the white house doesn't have this information, i need to go over there, to see if they do. because if they don't have it, i need to tell them that. at that point when he said that, paul ryan, he didn't know what the white house was going to tell him. it was theater. you have to remove him as your intel chair. it is one of the most important chairmanships you offer every

two years. there is -- mika, there can be no ambiguity here. >> i can't believe that one has to even say this. it's sort of -- that's a little bit, you know, a sign of where we're at right now. and some republicans better understand that this is not about right, left. this is not about all your policies that you want to push through. this is about actually your reputation. >> there's a virus in the white house. joe, we all have raised -- most of us have raised kids at this table. some of us are starting to raise kids. we say whatever you got in trouble for, i will forgive but one thing i cannot forgive is you lying about it. that's the baseline. more than anything else going on in this country, that's the one thing under siege. paul ryan's reputation, our reputation as a country, presidency. that is the one thing more than anything else that's

happening -- because that is our bedrock of who we are as human beings. >> bob costa, you obviously report from the hill an awful lot. there's such a big difference right now between how the republican senators are responding to trumpism and how members of the republican house are responding to trumpism. can you explain, perhaps, is it just the six-year terms versus the two-year terms that makes such a difference? why are we seeing such independence from the senate side and so little independence from the house side? >> there is a gap between how house republicans are looking at all of this. senate republicans are looking at it. senate republicans think senator warner, of virginia, the democrat, and senator burr have formed a partnership in the senate when it comes to intelligence, that has a more bipartisan core, veneer even that they think is more helpful

to this entire investigation. what's also notable is that inside the house -- i was there late last week -- there's not a push to get rid of chairman nunes. speaker ryan considers nunes to be a close, personal friend. they've worked on tax reform going back near aly decade. there is not a push to get him out even though there a many critics of the chairman in the media and the broader community. >> so do you hearny concern, even off the record, that nunes lied? he lied to the press. he lied to the intel committee. he lied to everyone about having information he was going to take to the white house when, in fact, he was just taking part in some mystery theater charade for donald trump. >> there's some private grumbles, to be sure. they're really taking their cue, as you've been saying yourself, joe, from the speaker. and the speaker has not broken with the chairman. and there's not this move

against nunes. the senators are unhappy with how nunes has handled this and they want burr to take the lead on numerous fronts. the white house, in this dynamic, is close with nunes and somehow has sideline d democrat in the senate as they try to take hold of this process. >> is it a loyalty to nunes or is it a fear of trump? >> people tend to forget about nunes, he's not just this random player who emerged on the house intelligence committee. top ally of speaker boehner, top ally of speaker ryan, major player inside the house gop. there's not a movement within the leadership to get rid of someone who has always been reliable. >> amended disclosure form shows former nna security adviser michaellynn did not originally disclose payments he received from russian-linked companies. he names kremlin sponsored tv

network rt and two other russian-linked firms as sources of income. documents released by house oversight committee democrats last month show rt paid flynn more than $45,000 to speak in 2015. an attorney for flynn says the initial draft form bundled together his speaking fees and the disclosure process ended because of his resignation. meanwhile, the congressional intelligence committee said they are not at the stage to consider granting flynn immunity. the house intelligence committee tells nbc news its discussion with flynn's lawyer did not include immunity. and sources close to the senate committee say immunity is not on the table at this time. he wants immunity. they won't give it. >> nick, what is this? first of all, not listing $45,000 that you get from rt. what's the significance? >> it's important. it doesn't matter if you resign. you still owe those forms.

so have you a duty to report all your income on there. if you leave it off, that means you're trying to hide it and trying to minimize, in flynn's case, his connection to the russians and to a russian propaganda network, which is what rt is. >> right. >> it's a bad thing. it can be a crime. we'll see if it goes that way here. >> the immunity part. >> how significant -- what seems to be flynn's biggest danger moving forward and why is he offering to testify if he gets an immunity granted? >> what we know about what mike flynn did, not just in terms of failing to put things on his disclosure form but in terms of his relationship with russia, presumably there's a lot more to know. sort of the same with chairman nunes. we know some things with you it's suggested there are more things to know. i think the guy has lawyered up in a way that suggests he feels vulnerable. you talk to some people in washington. this, they say, as the biggest

wild card right now on the ledger for the trump administration. michael flynn now feels like he has something to lose and he's going to try to protect himself. >> you know what's sad? what is the one word, one thing that donald trump ran on? jobs. we want to talk about job. >> he doesn't talk about job. >> that's the drantragedy of al this. >> he doesn't talk about job. >> that's my point. it's tragic for the american people. the very thing that he he ran on, was inarguable. look, i'm moving jobs. that word doesn't even exist -- >> he doesn't have message discipline. if you have message discipline, then when you're in politics, i don't care what you say. i know what i'm going to -- i would always say to my staff, what do we want the headline to be tomorrow? if we were moving into something big. that's where you start, with the headline. don't give me all the details. what's the headline you want tomorrow?

we're going to work backrom that and we'll get to that headline but that's where we t.star two, three, four days ahead. he never does this. >> once every eight days they remember they're supposed to be talking about job. >> right and they talk about access to capital and women running the economy. >> you want to distract? talk about jobs. the very thing that's going to help you is also going to distract. >> you have to stay on it. >> do something. >> don't talk about russia, talk about this, talk about that. jobs, jobs, jobs. bob mcdonald. all bob talked about was jobs. they said he was horrible because of his -- they said women should do whatever in his district. he kept talking about jobs. they attacked him -- kept talk taug about jobs. the year after barack obama gets elected he wins virginia by, what, 18, 19, 20, 21 points in what was supposed to be a blue state? because he stayed on jobs. that's something this guy can't do. >> i talked to scores of people

in five states last week and to a person they said he has to stop tweeting. even his most ardent supporters said he has to stop tweeting. even a lot of liberals said i like him for infrastructure spend iing, tax reform. there's a setup for him to have a broader coalition, but no one likes the tweets. >> i heard the same thing. i came on after he got elected two, three weeks and every single trump supporter i talked to still loves him. still loves him. doesn't care about the judges. doesn't care about the press. four, five weeks later, it's changed. a lot of people are saying i'm just not watching tv anymore. why can't he stop tweeting? i still support him. why can't the guy help himself? why? why? four weeks ago, it was like it's all the press' fault. now i'm starting to hear them all say the same thing. why does he have to tweet? i'm just not watching tv anymore. it's so depressing.

every time i think he's about to do such and such, he distracts. now they still support him. they would still vote for him against hillary clinton. that's not even a close call. >> right. >> but, mika, that just underlines what we say for a long time. this election was not about donald trump. it was all about hillary and bill clinton. all about america's reaction -- >> that, we saw coming. >> -- to hillary and bill clinton. this election was not about donald trump. >> yeah. >> he was a bit player. >> my brain went like 100 miles an hour when those access hollywood tapes came out i thought this is bad for hillary. everyone was like, this so bad for trump. no, i can believe it, number one. i've heard it before. it doesn't make it any better. but it's not a surprise. and, two, this will highlight exactly what the clintons don't want anyone to remember. and then you saw what happened at the debate. they brought all the women out.

>> the very thing that maureen dowd had been writing about through the campaign about bill clinton and -- >> sofrustrating. >> by the way, my pet rock could have gotten 45% against hillary clinton. maybe if my pet rock didn't make any gafs in the three debates, my pet rock could have beaten hillary clinton. >> to your point, donnie -- >> all about donald trump, though. >> exactly. >> all about him, his jobs record and accomplishment in office. if he keeps tweeting and can't get things done -- >> and this, mika, is why we say to my friend, since he was 22, paul ryan, there will come a day of reckoning for everything that donald trump has said and done. >> yeah. >> start planning for that day now. and people like devin nunes, who lie on tv, you've got to get rid of them.

everybody talks about 2006 being about iraq, being about this. people don't remember. there were a lot of little scandals that happened right before the election. and one scandal not so small for a father and his son was mark foley scandal and how that was handled was sort of the tipping point. do you remember? there's a tipping point where people were like -- it wasn't so much about mark. it was more like, wait a second. these republicans, they'reust protecting each other. >> yeah. >> so we're going to drive them out. >> very sad situation. >> and -- >> jobs. >> paul ryan. >> to your point, i was -- i keep hearing from people now. is he okay? >> yeah. >> is he okay? like dead serious, they look at me and say, is he okay? and i don't have a good answer. >> i have the answer. he's not. we all know that. we need to stop talking about

it. >> i will. right now. still ahead on "morning joe," president trump warns if china won't help solve the problem with north korea, the u.s. will go at it alone. lester holt joins us from seoul this morning. >> jason chaffetz and senator richard blumenthal. you're watching "morning joe." what powers the digital world? communication. like centurylink's broadband network that gives

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what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. oh, my gosh. okay. >> the u.s. is ready to solve the nuclear threat posed by north korea alone, if needed. lots of luck with that one, fellow. >> if china is not going to h p help -- when they host president

xi jinping at mar-a-lago adding china has great influence over north korea and china will either decide to help us with north korea or they won't. >> yeah. wow! >> lester holt file this had report from seoul. >> reporter: ready to fight. its fighter jets, a three-minute flight from the north korea border. >> jets are ready for combat mode. we train to it all the time. even on regular training missions we're training to those combat sets. >> reporter: also a rare peek inside the air operation center where operators are the first to detect the north's ballistic missile launches. their missiles already putting millions in the region at risk, including tens of thousands of american military personnel and u.s. civilians, like teacher steve and leah rigby, who live

in seoul. so, do the threats from north korea, do they rattle you or do you take them with a grain of salt? >> we've heard these threats so many times. it's spring. we're going to hear another threat that south korea will be turned into like a fire. we've heard it before and nothing has happened before. >> reporter: seoul is a modern metropolis of 10 million people. it hardly looks like a place under militant attack but shelters are plentiful. we sit well in range of north korean artillery. north korea's claim to be working on international missile and a smaller war head capable of reaching the u.s. >> rhetoric and growing capability. it appears to be going in a very reckless manner. >> reporter: secretary mattis will get no argument from this

high-ranking north korean diplomat who defected last year. >> i was asked, i always tell them that kim jong-un is a person who did not even hesitate to kill his uncle, even his half brother. so he is a man who can do anything. >> reporter: in addition to missile development, activities spotted on this commercial satellite photo suggests north korea may test another nuclear war head soon. >> think of this as two streams that are moving toward each other. you never want the streams to cross. when they do, the u.s. will be forced to make a decision, whether or not to do a preemptive strike. >> coming up, he is sai to h his hand in white house tal over middle east peace, chin mexico and, late last night, news that the president's senior adviser and son-in-law, jared kushner, travelled to iraq. we'll get the latest from the white house on that, next.

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one of president trump's

most loyal allies leveled the broadside against michael flynn last week. cover of "the national enquirer" declare aid world exclusive. trump catches russia's white house spy. insider shocking revelations about kremlin spies on u.s. soil that are backed up by top white house officials who claim that flynn was, in essence, the russian spy in trump's midst. president trump has cited "the national enquirer" in the past. for instance, in discredited stories linking ted cruz's father with the jfk assassination. he has legitimatized the news organization. advocating for david pecker to take over "time" magazine in 20 2013. and flynn knows trump is close

friends with "enquirer" owner, who effectively hammered past trump opponents. nervous. >> bob costa, people will joke about it, but would have his friend attack all his opponents, whether it was ted cruz or whether it was ben carson, talking about what a horrible surgeon he was. and you could always tell, it was trump's friend helping trump against the opponent at the time. and so last week, if you're general flynn and you're around trump and you're hearing him talk about the enquirer as much as he talks about the enquirer and knows the relevance it has to him, it should make general flynn nervous when "the national enquirer" starts calling him a russian spy. >> perhaps. >> yeah. >> you talk to donald trump a

lot. let me throw it out this way. you've talked to donald trump an awful lot. has he talked to you about the national enquirer and tried to push stories on you that the national enquirer was talking about? >> it's been some time since i have had a conversation with then candidate trump where he mentioned the national enquirer. look, when you look at the past, you are right, president trump has cited the national enquirer in the past. he is friends with its publisher and he has looked to some of its conspiracy theories as things worth exploring going back, as we know, to the jfk assassination i would caution -- i'm not sure there's some kind of conspiracy here to send a signal to flynn. i have no reporting on this particular angle. and this idea that flynn was a spy or that the white house is using "the national enquirer" -- i don't have any reporting on this.

>> no, i'm not saying he's a spy. of course he's not a spy. >> written about ex-national security advisers. this is nothing new for them. >> of course he's not a spy. i'm not saying that. what i'm saying is he is -- >> this is a turn on a post type thing. michael flynn, mo most "national enquirer" readers are much interested in writing about michael flynn unless somebody wants to send a message. >> yeah. >> it signals the next line of attack. "the national enquirer" attacks ted cruz when he's a risk to donald trump. donald trump takes that and goes. and when ben carson was the greatest threat to him and he was going around, talking about what a great surgeon he was, what did "the national enquirer" do? they printed a story say iing h

left a sponge in a baby's brain or child's brain and destroyed the child and donald trump took that out there. this is not about him being a spy. "the national enquirer" has telegraphed donald trump's attacks for the past 15 months. >> if you look, though, at what sean spicer, the vice president and others have said about flynn, they've actually been -- given what we know about flynn, relatively supportive. now that he has asked for immunity and now that they're beginning to learn what he did and maybe didn't tell them, he assess 's a threat to them. >> by the way that, happened at the same time. i think it happened at the same exact time. "the national enquirer" comes out and suddenly flynn goes i'm shopping a deal. >> it's a warning shot. >> you can read "the enquirer" for the directionality of the white house. it's not news necessarily but it's the thinking or the way they're going to go on a line of attack sometimes. >> joining us from the white house, nbc news national

correspondent, peter alexander. a diagram diplomatic week ahead as president trump welcomes several world leaders to the white house, including china's president. >> by the way, we can find out what hot spots along the mediterranean where peter alexander is going in "the national enquirer." they always sort of signal that. >> a map. >> i think they're talking about monaco next, right, peter? >> reporter: if only that were true, i will start leaking it in hopes it will come true. mar-a-lago, his property in florida, where he will host xi jinping of china. president assisi of egypt, meet with the egyptian head. series of high-profile meetings for this president on this week. what's also striking, we talk about foreign policy right now, reporting from nbc news that, jared kushner has now arrived in iraq. this is the president's son-in-law. ivanka trump's husband. we talked about his broad

portfolio before. he's not just an intimate member of the inner circle of the president as a relative, in fact, his son-in-law, but one of the most influential right now, expanding his position. there with the joint chiefs chairman general dunford right now. the lens support where america has been assisting, aiding iraqi forces versus isis in that region, specifically mosul. it speaks to the unique dynamic that exists right now where the secretary of state, rex tillerson, has yet to go to iraq yet already kushner has been there. he has taken on this unique role where he played a role in the conversations with mexico. he has been given the sort of vague assignment by his father-in-law to try to find peace in the middle east between the israelis and the palestinians. beyond that, he recently got put in charge of this new office of american innovation here at the white house. it really speaks to jared kushner's responsibilities. going forward, he is also

playing a role in this china meeting that is set to take place again friday in mar-a-lago. just a matter of days ago, tweeting about the issue and what many people are describing as the summit of the year so far. we'll put up some of those tweets from you a couple of days ago on thursday where he said specifically the meeting next week with china will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. american companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives. all this as the president looks for his first major victory with judge gorsuch. the white house also looking abroad for foreign policy situations as well. >> nbc's peter alexander. >> i need to ask you both a question. you have inside knowledge on this. peter is reporting, very accurately. >> always good. >> that jared kushner is the guy in charge of negotiating the middle east, iraq. rex tillerson, who has run a global, huge company for the last 30 years, is not.

i know jared kushner and ivanka. they lived in my building. lovely young people. he has been in his father's real estate business for ten years. i know my competency after working for my dad for ten years. does this person have any qualifications? lovely guy, i'm sure level headed. should i be frightened or feel better that jared kushner seems to be our de facto chief adviser, secretary of state, on and on and on? a lovely guy who has worked at a family real estate business for ten years. period. >> he is the de facto secretary of state. and i think that was always the plan. you're seeing this now, that he was always the de facto secretary of state. does he have experience to do this? >> no. >> no but neither does donald trump, or the people that donald trump has around him, who trust

him. is he more temperamentally balanced and in a better position to represent america in a way that will not embarrass us? yes, is hhe is. there's a great story, and it's a small story. but in the age of steve bannon and donald trump, it's a story that matters. i think it was a "time" story perhaps, maybe "washington post" where dunford, sat in the back row chair, immediately jumped up, was embarrassed he was back there went back to sit against the wall. he is defferential in a way steve bannon is not. >> no. >> if you have meetings with jared kushner, he listens. he doesn't talk that much. he absorbs it. again, is he james baker? no. >> the answer is no. >> is he steve bannon? no, he's not steve bannon. >> i agree with everything you said. so, having said that, should i

feel better or should i be frightened? >> compared to what? >> look -- >> having somebody in there who knows what the hell they're doing. yes, he's temperamentally sane, versus the president. got it. having said that, what has this guy done in his life ever? >> he has spent a lot of time trying to convince all of us that michael flynn was a great choice and so was rudy giuliani. >> thank you, your honor, no more questions. >> and he is a lovely guy and his wife is, too, but they get in the room with the president and they can't get through it. they can't cut it. they can't get him to listen. it's not a knock on them at all. i'm just saying there's nobody in the inner circle that can do anything to help this process along in a more productive way. there just isn't. so it's not about them. it's about trump. >> i will say with jared, i think it's too early to tell. i think we will know more in the future. i will just tell you again, based on the cast of characters

around there, i mean, the question is, nick, what are your choices? and at least from everything i've seen, if somebody needs to fly to iraq in the middle of the night right now, i sure as hell would rather it be jared kushner than most of the other people in the white house. >> well, it depends. if you want a secretary of state to be secretary of state, like rex tillerson, i would imagine it would be troublesome to have the son-in-law fly everywhere instead of the secretary of state. >> by the way, why is rex tillerson putting up with this? >> i don't know. it's a great question. >> it is. incredible foreign policy. >> why would any man or woman of any substance put up with this? i would have left after the first week. with all due respect, my wife told me i needed to do this to help america but mr. president -- >> you're not letting me help america. >> your management style -- >> it's hard to know how he conceives of his own job. the press can't come with him on these trips. he makes few of them. it's hard to know what his

tenure will look like. >> i think this whole thing is very discomforting. >> of course it is. still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest -- to donnie's question, i think the whole thing is not -- it does not bode well. >> the whole administration is discomforting. >> i'm not comfortable. >> something is off in a big way. our next guest calls hillary clinton's loss a huge wake-up call for feminism. tina brown joins us. the new piece in "the atlantic" says these are confusing times to be a republican. >> can i ask -- i'm sorry. i was thinking back to the top of the show. what cologne do you use? >> high karate for those kids at home, aftershave lotion in the '70s. and it was so strong that you had to use karate chops to keep women away. it was the '70s. >> go on youtube and look at the ads. >> do you wear cologne? >> i actually do not.

>> who wears cologne? >> it work. >> i get a headache. that's awful. >> man jewelry with cologne at the same time. >> i don't get fragrances. >> you would have -- it was always -- they kept it -- it was high karate and sex panther. >> eww and eww. and we leave you -- >> by the way, that's a reference to anchorman, in case -- >> we leave you with one of the president's tweets from just moments ago. quote, did hillary clinton ever apologize for receiving the answers to the debate? >> are you kidding me? >> just asking. swear to god. this guy is tweeting. >> leader of the world, has his fingers on the button and is tweeting about hillary. >> are you kidding me? >> hillary and the debate? nobody cares. nobody care. >> nobody on the planet care. >> there goes that hammer again. >> there's one person. >> mika, you can say it. >> i can? >> the amendment thing. >> oh, it's time for article 25.

25g9 amendme 25th amendment. people need to think about that. how long do they want this to last? how bad do they want things to get? >> we're in the middle of a crisis with north korea, who is going to have -- by the way, not being melodramatic. but they're going to have nuclear weapons that can reach seattle. >> in three years. >> and kill millions and millions of people. they're going to have weapons, very soon, most likely -- >> how bad do you want this to get? >> los angeles can kill 20 million people right now. we're in the midst of discussions about how to stop that and we have this guy tweeting nonsensical tweets about things that are irrelevant. i wonder at what point does somebody around him step in? >> and you're asking if we're comfortable that his 36-year-old son-in-law who is a real estate person is going to be the secretary of state. >> let me answer your question

now. >> no! >> let me answer your question. mika may disagree with me that. is the least of our problem. >> oh, totally. that's true. >> by the way, jared kushner is the least of our problems in this white house. >> that's fair. that's a good way of putting it. >> we can all agree on that. >> we're back in a moment. >> this guy right here is tweeting about debates right here, that were over -- i'll just say it again. it's like tom brady at the beginning of next season bitching about a call in the call in the super bowl when he came back and had the most unbelievable comeback in super bowl history. this guy right here, he ran the most shocking campaign in american history, pulled the most shocking upset in the history -- >> had the most unbelievable opportunity. >> and all he can do is look back. >> and tweet. >> while we're worried about seattle being obliterated by a nuclear attack. by the way, go seahawks.

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a lot of the selection was turned by you rise up and say i don't want to do it. seeing them nude is not uncommon. not as clear and women of the world summit. tina brown. and tina's latest piece in the "new york times" is titled after an historic march, what's next. for women and in it she writes in part, this. women, who took steady linear progress for granted are experiencing an unfamiliar and unsettling sensation. a scary feeling of real and present danger. meanwhile, daunting on millennials who thought a tweet was the same as showing up.

hillary clinton's ultimate loss in the lek electoral college is motivating women in a way her campaign never did. tina joins us now. it is so true. there is something really big happening. start where had the march. people are realizing it can't end there. >> so interesting. so many millennial women are showing up now at forums to see how they can learn to run for office. surge in women running for office. tripling and quadrupling. their forums are overwhelmed. young women seeing if they can see how to run for office. which is very good. this is practical. i'm not going to just talk about this. i'm going to figure out how i run for liberal counsel or anything out there to run for. unless we get more women doing that, it isn't going change. i do think there was a slap in the face for women. even if they didn't like hillary, they still felt, this

is incredible. because it was like the paradigm of the man who knows nothing getting the job. versus whatever you thought about the woman a highly qualified woman. super qualified. and she loses to a guy who literally, you know, his knowledge of world affairs is ten minutes watching cable news and out the door. it's incredible. >> he has been holding these events at the white house. there have been at least three that i've noticed. i think there have been more. where he has room full of women talking about access to capital and i think ivanka is -- well, i know for a fact ivanka is trying to set up a real arm of the white house that will focus on these issues. does that make a divs at all. >> you can't talk about empowering women and lifting women up and at the same time taking away their ability to go

to a clinic and have a mammogram. which is what happens if you defund planned parenthood. if you can't get yourself checked out at a local clinic which is what is going to happen to all the hard pressed women who use the planned parenthood facilities to get women's checks. this is going 20 end. >> except trump is not going to let them defund that. i mean, again, that's one of the gray -- this guy has so many opportunities to reach out to the other side that he has to work overtime to get in his way. like in the south carolina primary. he defended planned parenthood. it is the most shocking thing i've ever seen in my life. >> we see the reverses at every turn. every way. it's as if in his case, you know, a tweet is literally erases the brain cells once he's done it. he doesn't understand that you can join the dots. the interesting thing i think

rabbit this entire administration. all of these rich guys have just said stuff and it's unchallenged. they're all being fact checked to death. they are not used to that. that's what is wonderful about the press. fact checking everything to death. he does a tweet and has the entire intelligence community looking at it and saying no it didn't happen. it's not true. they're not used to this, these guy sgls no, they're used to what they're saying going. >> why is ivana trump so polarizing. >> everyone has said ivanka is going to be the liberal one that is going to have influence. we're waiting, when does that influence start. it's great and she's most impressive and poised woman. no question about it. when is it going to play into what is actually happening, you know, in washington. i think you know, we're all waiting. we're waiting. >> there's a paragraph in news story. ivana trump tried to adjust

this, tried to stop this. couldn't do it, right. >> perhaps she doesn't have any influence on her father. we keep telling her she does. maybe he is in fact employing her as a photo op. >> i think it's in the middle. i think the mild where time she has like everybody else has trouble getting through and sometimes she and jarred are ab jared are able to get through and have an impact. >> new administration, everyone is trying to figure out what their roles are. they have you neek roles. not in every day fighting for influence. they're doing other things as well. sometimes what they want happens, other times through chaos and coincidence, it doesn't happen. >> they're not like steve bannon, glued to the president. >> got pots and pans hanging from. so he never has to leave the white house. >> don't forget, washington inside is always really brutal. the tough times condoleeza rice

had with rumsfield acheney. >> on what basis is she polarizing. i'm not sure she is. there are some women who think she has more influence than she's exercising. that's a strong word. the contrast between with her and father and views and expectation for roles she would play versus is playing. and also a woman of her views of woman empowerment. also working white house for her dad. that's why it's controversial. >> we have to leave it there. thank you so much. >> women in the world this week we have nikki haley. love her. >> justin trudeau. >> good. he's a great feminist. we're happy to have him. >> still ahead.

chairman of house oversight committee doesn't appreciate the president calling the ties to russia a witch hunt. >> i was very critical of president obama before we had all the facts. i don't think donald trump should be weighing in at this point. >> while the president tweets the oversight committee waits for the white house to satisfy request for documents on michael flynn. congressman jason chafts joins us with more on the set. so tell us your big idea for getting

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are you trying to tell the justice department to grant immunity to michael flynn. were you trying to do that? was that your intention mr. president, was that your intention sir?

>> it is another big week on tap for president trump. he's got critical meetings with leaders of china, jordan and egypt. >> what just happened there. >> he walked out of a -- he didn't want to do it. >> at the last minute, he decided we're going to do this signing inside. he didn't tell anybody. >> i'm just saying i saw it and then i'm thinking, this reminds me of a show. >> yes, my favorite. >> she tweeted. let's watch this. >> very, very quickly. thank you very much. president today. going to tell the just department to grant immunity to michael flynn. were you trying to do that, is that your intention, mr. president. was that your intention. was that your intention?

they literally didn't have to edit a thing. >> it happened. behaving like a president. how many days in are we? 70 feels like year six. >> how do you not. how could you not have known he would have -- listen. we've known this guy for 10, 11, 12 years. we've had misgivings about him. neither you or i thought it would be this bad. >> definitely not. >> we were concerned. really, really concerned. never thought the guy we've known for 10, 11, 12 years would be that much of a petulant brat. when somebody asked him a question, move his entire. >> it's like he's getting a

hammer every day and just -- and we didn't think he would get a hammer every day and pick it up. >> actually quite the opposite. the day after he got elected i came on your show and i was wis lg in the darkwhitling in the s i know there's an unwritten rule in the psychiatric community nobody diagnoses from afar. i just don't think he's a well guy. period. >> when you start doing things that are against your own best interest, see. because during the campaign, he did all of these horrible things, right? but you could say they are horrible things, but there's going to be a segment of his base that will actually vote for him because he's talking about the birther stuff or he's talking about this or he's talking about that. >> the wall.

>> the wall. in that respect, he would do these things offensive to all of us, but you wouldn't say this is actually like him hitting himself on the hand with the hammer. what he's doing now is not in his self interest. that's when you start saying wait a second, how well is he. hurt him because those things he did a lot of us found repugnant before. >> you can say, know what, they offends me, but it's going to work among some members in the primary. >> the glass half empty story is pretty intense. low approval ratings. failure of health care initiative. disarray within a lot of government and a lot of tension. no clear ability to move forward. glass half full and probably not half, but full part of glass. patient as washington. huge week. can he get gorsuch through. a lot of foreign policy. >> hold on a second.

mitch mcconnell will get gorsuch through. conservatives are going to see that as his accomplishment for good reason and not donald trump's. >> can he get gorsuch through in a way he gets credit. what does he turn to now? what are the big issues the president wants to put before the country. this week is kind of wide open. is he going to talk about trade? he is going to talk about health care? taxes? >> great questions to start the show. good morning, everyone. >> it's monday. >> how is everybody's week? >>. >> have you on board. the president of the united states of the united states. the leader of the free world and largest economy. man who controls one of the largest nuclear arsenals. spent most of saturday morning tweeting about fox news. safety eyes chuck todd.

i never got that sleepy eyes chuck todd thing. did anybody -- do you look at chucked to and -- make fun of his goatee. >> i like it by now. >> if you want to go somewhere. >> they're awake. >> who has really sleepy eyes. >>why are you saying sleepy eye. if you're going to insult somebody, make it work. paul manafort. perfect. that was good. >> it is the same fake news media that says there's no path

to victory for trump. told scam. started tweeting parts of a column about health care writing the failing "new york times" fanlly getting it adding o care is dead. good things happen however with republicans or dems. and throughout the afternoon, and into the evening, he tweeted praise for fox news. quote, wow, fox news just reporting big news. source, official behind gun masking is high up. known intel official responsible. >> can i just ask because i thought the white house said you should never do any stories with sources. without named sources. i'm confused. >> only when it benefits them and this very powerful leader of the free world tweeted all day. >> finally a leader that tweets.

>> what's the word i want to use. >> trump team spied on before he was nominated. >> if this was true, does not get much bigger. would be sad for u.s. and around 6:21 p.m. the president tweeted, thanks for a fox segment about consumer confidence. this is very small behavior that is so unbecoming. it's hard to even describe. >> president of the united states, and all he does is watch tv. >> it's like a little kid. >> all he does is watch tv. >> and comment on it. >> and comment on it. those two things. donny deutsche. >> all of these good things. all these condescending women events he has all week, he ruining them with stupid tweets. >> why doesn't we watch billi billions. that's good this season. a lot of people talk about he's

70 and a billionaire. not going to change his behavior. this is a man who does not read. not intellectually curious. the entire life, he is not going to change now. by the way, we have talked on the set. >> spent all weekend watching fox news. which again we're not knocking fox news. >> i definitely watch judge pirro now. >> 9:00 p.m. >> obviously. >> it's amazing. >> no self control. and, again, this guy literally is just bumping around the white house or wherever he goes with nobody else around minding him. >> well, and this gets to problems with scheduling. you hear when you talk to staff that there's sort of flat level of people competing for his time. and, you know, donald trump just decides on a women, i don't want

to do this or i do want to do that. he's very impulsive. changes rapidly. staff stamable around to deal with it. he might say something in a meeting and they scramble around and have to change it. creates a very unstable working environment. all just trying to adapt to it. >> jonathan, thank you very much. still ahead, the chairman of the house oversight committee calls michael flynn's request mysterious. congressman joins us onset. later talk to senator richard blumenthal to vote against the president supreme court nominee. first, bill karens with a check on the forecast. >> still in the himiddle of the severe weather outbreak. continued on sunday. louisiana hit hardest yesterday. tornados reported. unfortunately had the fatality of a mother and young daughter.

trailer toppled over. big tornados that was in the distance there for a while. very scary times in louisiana. that was all yesterday. here's where we stand now. in all, 11 tornados reported. 77 large hail. all through texas, louisiana, mississippi. this is current radar. this pink box that just popped up. brand new tornado watch. includes panama city, pensecola. montgomery, alabama southward. not in it. still in severe thunderstorm watch. plowing through the southeast. this will include atlanta later in the day. even areas of all of south carolina could have the pablt of a strong thunderstorm. can have a tornado in it. all heading late tonight and early tomorrow morning. a lot of travel delays. that will not be severe. a lot of problems at the airports especially watching the tornado along the gulf coast. cherry blossom looking gorgeous.

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amended disclosure for michael flynn did not disclose payments he received from russian linked companies. in the new filing names kremlin sponsored network rt and two other firms as sourcings of income. documents released by house oversight committee democrats last month show rt paid flynn more than 45,$00 $45,000 to sp n anniversary gala. speaking fees and draft disz closure process ended because of resignation. meanwhile, congressional intelligence committee said they are not at the stage to consider granting former national security adviser michael flynn

immunit immunity. he offered. house intelligence committee tells nbc news discussion with flynn's lawyer did not include immunity. sources close to senate committee saying immunity is not on the table at this time. >> it doesn't make sense. would not make sense for them to do that right now anyway because if the fbi is conducting investigation, if he's broken the law, then immunity from the senate gets in the way of that. >> a long wawa from that. not sure what crimes may be being investigated, but the committee has to decide. want to bring him in and take the fifth. that's a big decision before them because it appears he won't testify with that immunity right now. the broader issue is what are the two intelligence committees going to do. we don't know at this point what direction they're headed. the senate have that big show bipartisanship that has committees more divided. what are they going to do next if they don't hear from flynn. white house press ser take sean spicer says he spoke with the president about his friday

tweet saying flynn should ask for immunity. >> the president is very clear he wants mike flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee and whatever it takes to do that, he is supportive of. >> he was not trying to suggest to the fbi or justice department that it grant immunity. >> i'm not entirely sure the process whether the congress does it or doj or both in this case. the point that -- i get it. right. i understand. right, but the bottom line is -- no, what he is instructing mike flynn to do everything he can to cooperate with the committees he's asked to look into this. >> the president tweeted yesterday the real story turns out to be surveillance and leaking. find the leakers. >> so here with are. >> steve throat was the real story on watergate. >> it was. it wasn't actually the burglary. history will tell that. >> this is story and they're sticking to it.

nonstop. >> yes. and the staff is absorbed. it's the donald trump message of this is the real story. this is what's happened. and, of course, that's what started the scramble to justify rationalize and find the evidence which has got devin nunes in all that trouble. >> mark. >> i mean, you look at the mistery of this. at least a distraction for them. he brings a lot of it on himself from the most famous tweet about president obama, but the constant tweets picking and continuing to pick a fight keeps it alive in the media. it does, jonathan said, it's so hard for white house staff trying to learn how to do the jobs under the media and legal pressure of investigations. >> how well the guy is off right now metaling. any sane rational person would know if i keep bringing attention to something, then i'm going to keep churning up attention on something.

and it is not going to be in my best interest. >> nothing to do with jobs in the economy. which is all he says he wants to be focused on. >> it's got nothing to do with drk he's repeated this over and over and over gep. it's like picking the same scab over and other again. i'm sorry to say that. that's what he's doing. his staffer like any sane rational staff would be pulling their hair out right now saying oh, my god. instead they just keep making excuses for him. >> fixing on three day old negative article. they literally couldn't get him off of. that's what this is. i don't know what the order is. i'm not being glib. regardless of what's going on. if he's been pricked in a certain area, there's an inability physiologically for him to move off of it. >> coming up. new commercial from carl's jr.

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put the focus on the girls in byky knees and the burger. >> for 15 years parent company cke restaurants has run ads features the likes of paris hilton and kate upton and kim kardashian. in 2011 press release, stated we believe in putting hot models in our commercial because ugly ones don't sell burgers. i swear to god he said that. we target hungry guys and we get young kids that want to be young hungry guys. >> what happened. what a gross person. >> how did that end up. he was nominated to be the president secretary of labor. >> what a gross person for saying that. >> replaced next month by a new

ceo so now they're trying to get the pud ser error behind them. we saw this ad this weekend. and thought, it was great on so many levels. first of all. saying, okay, we're getting the kids, out of her. the punks that are trying to exploit women. it was great. not only for the company saying we're turning the page, but also it looked an awful lot like this was a message to americans who were saying, can we get people back in charge of the entire country. >> the millennials, you guys are, you know. >> watch this. >> you still talk to stacey? >> yeah. finally replied to my dm. >> where are you? right here next to the bar. >> shoot the tiger. >> who go for junior. >> junior, i think your dad is

here. >> what? tell him i'm in a meeting. you're back. refreshing ingredient than that lady got in there and her clothes flew off. it was windy. >> please dismount that bull. who is this? this guy, i don't know him. >> shut up, junior. >> yes, sir. >> hello, friend. you know when i started this company, it was about one thing. get the bull. we're keeping the bull. >> i passed it to the boy. well, he got a little -- who

hung. who hung. distracted. >> yes things got real weird. i think it was the charity. do what we do. what we've always done. take it back with me. started out how all great things started. meat and fire. we pioneered the board. and people and cars were made so we made the drive through thing. and met a girl. made a boy. and, well, we did things our own way. we brought you food straight to your table. brought all natural beef to the burger. and brought bacon to dam near

everything. see this is what i've been talking about. food. not booze. >> yes, sir. we're pioneers of the great american burger. great american made from scratch biscuit. made american. what you think of next. just bought that car. >> buckle up, son. oh, my god. so good. >> donny. you have done this for a very long time. i saw that. loved it on just about every

level. karls with the company, but also with the country, people yes , honoring -- you've got to see this. this is your insight. i couldn't agree more. a metaphor for what's going on in the country. that kidding and silliness represents the child like manner of distracted on the the white house versus burgers or jobs. let's get back to business. and i do think the power is stunning there. the irony of the company that used to be run by a cabinet nominee. starting advertising stunning metaphor of what's going on in the country. >> president trump calls the russia investigation a witch hundredth. the top republican on the oversight committee disagrees. talk to congressman jason straight ahead on morning joe.

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. nunes, the house, they're off in a ditch. i don't know where or who invited him to look at the evidence in the white house. all i can say is why do you show it to the chairman of the intel committee if you've got it yourself? so that never made sense to me. >> that is vexing. >> vexing is a word of the morning. >> chairman on house committee and government reform congressman jason from utah. good to have you this morning. tell us about flynn, asking for immunity. will you guys give it to him. from whale first of all. open active investigation. by the fbi.

dealing with that our committee is looking to what we do for the white house. payment that he received from these types of payment. what you're concerned about and what. you're coming out of the white house saying as a former military officer, you're required bid law if you're going to take payments directly from these countries you have to not only seek, but get permission from the secretary of state from the secretary of defense. it appears as if he didn't do that. we're prepared then for later in the week as early as tuesday to

send a letter for final determination to the gao. it's not a criminal referral. it's a referral to the gao. and then the penalty most likely at least based on precedent would be to have to repay all of that money that he did take. >> are we talking about a great deal of money. >> depends on perspective. tens of thousands of dollars. yeah. >> are you saying there's not -- there's not a crime attached to that type of. >> it's not a statute. there is a statute that says you have to seek this permission and begranted this permission. that's true for all military office officers. even if they left work at the pentagon. still on call, so to speak. >> is it a crime not to report. >> it's a violation of the statute. that's what we found out. maybe there's a letter out there. we think someone would have produced it by now. >> i want to ask you about your colleague chairman nunes and

what he's done. i know house members are reluctant to criticize other house members. can you explain his actions and defend his actions and not telling the truth about the investigati information and where he got it. >> he said he was sorry about that. i think he did make a mistake. he said as much. what we're focused on is the underlying facts and now adam sch schiff has gone over and looked at information as well. the rest of the committee should look at this. i think much more concerned about the underlying facts and questions about process when you say he made a mistake, what was his mistake. >> should have done it with a democrat intel as well. i went up to white house last week with the democrats and we looked at the got a briefing in the situation room, classified about mar-a-lago and situation. didn't read a thing about it. >> let's talk about the underlying question. what is his concern. what is the concern you have

about what went on with the president apparently is concerned about. >> if you're looking. i mean, again, it's another committee. we're each gore towiing to do t different way. if he's seeking facts. need to go find the facts. if they happen to be in the old executive office building, have a look at them. you need to also do it with democrats. following breaking news out of russia. reports of one, possibly two explosions at train stations in saint petersburg. according to reports, an explosive device was set off in train car at a station. reports ten people have been killed and several others have been hurt. continue to follow and bring you the details as they develop again. this is in saint petersburg russia. >> speaking of russia, the president of the united states has called your investigation and other congressional investigations, quote, a witch hundred

hunt. how do you respond to the president. >> i don't see it that way. i don't think it's a witch hunt. if the president thinks tlgs information we should have, we're happy to receive it. there's a swirl out there that we need to get to the bottom of. >> wait, what is the question that you and your constituents would like to know? the number one question if you could get one answer from the white house, what would it be. >> we want to get all the information. i don't know where exactly the conclusion is, but what is all the information? i mean, who else is involved. now, the senate and the house intelligence committees are going to lead out on that. we play more of supportive role. in the case of general flynn, we're going to be looking at obviously the payments that was taken. >> i want to go back to general flynn. you called it mysterious. my history of watching law and order and csi and all the shows i like to watch when someone is asking for immunitimmunity, sug they've done something really wrong. have really good information about people more power for

them. that word doesn't get uttered. is that a safe assumption. >> position that general flynn took last year. the position that then candidate trump took. it does beg the question, okay, what are you trading for. i was highly critical of president obama and the department of justice. when they gave five people, five people immunity on the e-mail investigation and we got nothing for it. so you don't just give immunity to hand it out like candy. the fbi made that mistake in the past and i don't think they should do it again. >> what does it say about the president's judgment that three or four months ago he thought he should be national security adviser. >> i'm glad he got him out of there very quickly. came in and figured out he wasn't telling the truth. at least best i could tell and dismissed him. a mistake in retrospect. i'm glad he got rid of him fairly swiftly. >> i'm going the change topics really fast. last week you were quoted on a

great profile in the atlantic monthly saying trump is already rich. you're not worried about him enriching himself in the presidency. i want to clarify that more. a rich person can't be corrupt or is not in danger of trying to enrich themselves at all. shouldn't be a worry. is that your review for the oversight of the trump white house. >> you can't summarize everything in one sentence. we're going to keep a watchful eye. my job is not a cheerleader for the president. hold them accountable. of course you're always going to look at it. now it's the trump administration. so there's two million plus people work ting there and alwa somebody doing something stupid. >> let me ask you something, you talk about all the people working there. for is always somebody doing something stupid. especially when i'm around. are you concerned about the

number of appointments that trump has made or the lack of appointments for these agencies whether it's state or across the government. >> i think what you're going to see long-term is a lot of them that they're not going to fill because they have no intention of funding those types of things. particularly in the department of education. that whole process of all these thousands of appointments that need to go through the process and senate confirmation process, it's a huge story, but i know there are a lot of agencies where they're not going to put in specific people because they just don't believe that function should even be there. >> congressman, jason. thank you so much. >> quote of the morning. up next, the battle to confirm supreme court nominee neil gorsuch steamrolls to showdown this week. richard blumenthal joins us next.

plus, are we witnessing the end of europe. next guest takes a sobering look at how anti-semitism populist nationalism, dictators and dem kb gogs are shattering europe's post cold war order and what can be done about it. continue to follow breaking news out of russia, one possibly two deadly train explosions in st. petersburg. reports ten people have been killed. others hurt. we'll be right back with much more. remember here at ally, nothing stops us from doing right by our customers.

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filibuster neil gorsuch. do you have the votes to change the rules. >> what i can tell you is neil gorsuch will be confirmed this week. how that happens depends on democratic friends. how many of them are willing to never happened before in the whole history of the country. >> highly, highly unlikely he'll felt 60. when a nominee doesn't get 60 votes, you shouldn't change the rules. change the nominee. let's sit down and come together. republican friends are acting like a cat on top of tree and have to jump off with all the damage that entails. come back off the tree. sit down and work with us and we will produce a mainstream nominee. >> actually, i think that was the wrong illustration.

they are the people with the bulldozer at the bottom of the tree trying to figure out if the cat is coming down on their own. >> chuck's eyes are not sleepy. he's adorable. >> dreamy. almost has dreamy eyes. chuck todd. >> i was talking about schumer. i think schumer is dreamy. >> trump calls him sleepy eyes and tweets about him. he has nothing else to do, just nothing. then he goes golfing. >> you know who else is dreamy. please help me with awkward segue. >> very dreamy. >> certainly is. >> sorry about that senator. only segue we had at the time. you heard the comments. you heard, are the democrats going to force the republicans to fill -- to go nuclear with the option here? >> what i sense, joe, is an increasing determination on the part of my democratic colleagues. there's been a palpable shift

since the beginning of those hearings because neil gorsuch was so evasive. i put to him very clear opportunities to confirm that he agrees with brown versus board of education on desegregation. griswold versus connecticut. right to use continue septemberives. roe v. wade. >> are you saying he didn't confirm these were the law of the land. >> he refused to say he greed with them. unlike many predecessors. robert, kennedy, they responded they thought those decisions were correctly decided. so, i think that we're left with the inescapable conclusion that he agrees with the trump litmus

test that he would automatically overturn roe v. wade. strike down gun prevention with conservative groups that screened and suggested his name like the heritage foundation skprks that he would not be a neutral caller of balls and strikes, that in fact he's an al colite of the hard right groups and has a record of antipathy as well as privacy. >> nick has a question. >> senator, seems at this point you haven't got the votes to stop him from becoming supreme court justice gorsuch. so what's the end game here with all the fighting over the filibuster and senate rules? and what do democrats hope to accomplish if they can't stop him from joining the court? >> first there is a significance to principle and conviction. and to seeking to fight against a nominee who would overturn a

strikedown many of these protections that are embodied in rules keeping our water clean, workers safe, consumers with rights, financial markets abuses stopped, but also i think that a lot of my republican colleagues are having misgivings about such a destructive act. neil gorsuch came across as awe shucks, i just follow the law. but they know and understand the reasons that we oppose him. and i think they have reservations about embarking on a course that could change forever the rules and practices of the united states. and the shoe may some day be on the other foot. a supreme court nominee ought to be approved by a razor thin majority. >> senator, in order to preserve the ability to -- in order to preserve the 60 votes required, would you be willing to strike a deal vote for cloture on gorsuch but the maintain throughout

donald trump presidency? >> i believe that neil gorsuch should be declined, should be disapproved as a nominee. i will vote no on neil gorsuch. >> right. but would you accept that deal? >> i would not accept a deal that preserves the 60-vote threshold at the cost of having on the court someone who refuses to say whether he agrees with core constitutional resets. protecting privacy, equality under the law and protections for workers and consumers and clean air and water. i think we need to fight on this nominee because as bland and nonthreatening as he may be, he will be a swing vote. >> all right. >> and he will help to sway others. >> senator richard blumen that will -- blumenthal, thank you so much. >> turning overseas, huge shakeups in europe from brexit to the rise of nationalism. those changes along with the power struggle between russia, china and the u.s. triggered

this morning from former national security advisor over the weekend. >> i'm convinced the next 20 years will decide that in fact beyond the next two decades there will be an international system capable of maintaining peace and stability and cooperation. >> that was my dad at columbia getting the global leadership award. joining us now, author jamie kirchick. >> jamie, nick would like to congratulate you on the timing which he says. >> is perfect. >> may be the greatest timing for a book. >> amazing. this is a well-timed book. you've been following what's been happening. and tell us a little bit about what you see happening over the course of the trump presidency and in europe and how he can contribute to or negate -- >> well, it's really unfortunate. if you look at the two main

institutions post war europe, it's been the eu integration and nato and two donald trump seems not openly apathetic but we've had all supporting european integration coming together more politically in nato and this for the first time questioning article 5 saying one attack on one member is an attack at all. it's really not good. >> do you see brexit as a part of this process? >> yeah. britain, they weren't one of the founding members only been in it since 1975, that's 40 years and it's coming at the worst time when the west needs to be rising against these authoritarian powers. >> so i've got friends from the north of england who are labor, members of the labor party. loathe margaret thatcher. loved nothing more than to disparage margaret thatcher's memory in front of me because

they know it gets such a rise out of me. and yet even they said we're voting brexit. we're voting for brexit. because we ought to be able to control as a country our borders. and we ought to be able to control immigration. we have sat here, we have patiently watched one wave after another wave and we've been liberal about it. but at some point we need to control our country. >> right. >> most of the integration in the uk comes from non-eu countries, like india and pakistan. if they wanted to limit immigration, there are ways they could have done it domestically without leaving the eu. the eu immigration they were concerned about was mostly from poland and czech republic. >> romania. >> and those places. so i have to say those people work very hard. it's similar to mexicans in this country. they actually contribute more to the society in terms of what they're paying in forms of taxes than what they take out. >> where does it say you had torres in london opposing

brexit. you had a lot of people that were laborites in the north -- >> it became sort of a city and a country vote. and you had, you know, london was overwhelmingly staying in the union. and then scotland and then basically the rest of england was against it. it's similar obviously to the city. >> very similar. >> so what happens next, jamie? in europe and with trump? >> well, there's two major elections coming up. there's france later this month with marine le pen obviy. and th there's germany in the fall. and i think you're going to see the russians do a very active information campaign in favor of their candidate saying both countries, similar to what we saw in this country and maybe hacking and leaking and disinformation. the german parliament was hacked in the summer of 2015. they haven't really released that information yet but it's sort of hanging like a cloud

over germany. i was just there last week and they are expecting something might happen. don't forget angela merkel is really the only one holding this all together right now. she's the toughest one on sanctions against the russians. and they are going to try their darnedest to unseat her, i think. >> if you look at the members european union with a few exceptions, their economies have not done great. >> no. >> heavy cost for social welfare programs and not a lot of vibrancy s. there a potential spark in that? a solution for that turning around. >> a lot of people blame the euro and i actually think it's a problem with national governments. i think the reason why france has high youth unemployment or greece has the problems it has, it's not because of the euros, it's bad decisions being made by national governments to not deregulate their economies, not to make it easier to fire people because that makes it easier to hire people. but yes, they're getting older, the populations. >> is any member countries moving more towards new solutions to try to revive their

economy sns. >> germany has a very strong economy. poland i think is actually the one country that didn't go into recession during the last eight years. so there's definitely models. and you've looked at the baltic states, the three little baltic states, they were in a tough spot too and they turned around really fast, took them just two years. so there's definitely hope. >> all right. amidst a lot of despair. james, thank you so much. the book is "the end of europe, dictators, demagogues and the coming dark age." thank you very much. >> thank you. also, we continue as we close out the show this morning to follow the breaking news out of russia. reports of one, possibly two deadly explosions at train stations in st. petersburg. this is video just in to us. according to reports an explosive device was set off at a train car at the station. at least ten people have been killed. several others wounded. again, this is in st.

petersburg, one possibly two explosions. russian president vladimir putin who was in st. petersburg earlier this morning says officials are looking at all potential causes for the blasts including terrorism. all train stations in the city have reportedly now been closed in the wake of this incident. we'll be following that. stay with msnbc all day for the latest on that breaking news. that does it for us this morning. stephanie picks up the coverage right now. thanks so much. good morning. i'm stephanie rule, much to cover. we have breaking news this morning. multiple explosions rocking two russian train stations leaving at least ten people dead. the big question now, is it terrorism? we are live in russia with the latest. and a senate showdown here, a key vote on supreme court nominee neil gorsuch one hour from now sending him to the full senate where democrats vow to filibuster. >> it's highly, highly unlikely that he'll get 60. >> and republicans threaten to

go nuclear. >> neil gorsuch should be confirmed this week. how that happens really depends on our democratic friends. >> and a surprise visit, jared kushner in iraq with the chairman of the joint chiefs kicking off a huge week for president trump's foreign policy. as trump threatens unilateral action on north korea if china does not help. we're going to begin this morning with that breaking news from russia. reports of at least one major explosion in the metro system in the city of st. petersburg. it is very, very chaotic and a fluid situation. right now there are reports of multiple deaths and injuries. and the russian president, vladimir putin saying they are considering all causes including terrorism. nbc's carlo is live monitoring latest developments. carlo, what exactly, and i know it's fluid, do you believe happened? >> good morning, stephanie, as you said theti