duty during that time. the 70th annual cannes film festival kicks off today, the first since the terror attack in nearby nice since last july. ishmael's ghost has been picked as the opening film. >> that does it for us on this wednesday. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. >> the senators i've spoken to on both sides of the aisle have been shaken by this constant stream of revelations, each one of them in and of itself dramatic and historic. and i think most senators are shaking their heads saying, is this going to end soon? i think we could do with a little less drama from the white house on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda. >> are you getting tired of this level of chaos from the white house? >> it would be noise to have a

drama-free weekend. >> no such luck. this morning, a major development in the controversy over president trump's firing of james comey. a memo from former fbi director claims the president asked him to drop an investigation into michael flynn the day after flynn was fired. the big question this morning, is this obstruction of justice among other things? the chaos continues. this feels like a defining moment. with us we have "new york times" reporter who broke this comey memo story, michael schmidt, senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, mark halperin. veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle and former democratic congressman harold ford, junior. also, joe ahead with new reporting on all of this. first let's lay it out for you. less than a week after president trump fired and then warned fbi director james comey about tapes of their conversations, there looks to be a paper trail inside

the bureau of investigation. multiple sources firsthand knowledge of all of this tell nbc news that comey wrote an internal memo saying trump asked him to drop an investigation into the former national security adviser michael flynn. comey wrote the memo which nbc news has not seen, on february 14th, the day after flynn resigned following reports that he misled vice president mike pence about discussing lifting sanctions with russia's ambassador. comey was in the oval office for a counterterrorism briefing along with attorney general sessions. chief of staff reince priebus advisers jared kushner and stephen bannon and deputy cia director gina haskell. trump asked comey to stay behind after the meeting broke up and they spoke alone. trump told comey that flynn had

done nothing wrong with president trump saying, quote, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go, he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go. the memo said comey did not say anything to trump about curtailing the investigation, replying only i agree he's a good guy. the white house responded by saying it is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation stating that while the president has repeatedly expressed his view that general flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked mr. comey or anyone else to end any investigation. so joe, i feel like this is a defining moment in the chaos that is this presidency. frame it out for us. >> it is. i hope you can let that go are going to be words that not only haunt donald trump and his dealings with james comey, but

also is something that his staff members have to be hoping can happen, that things can be led go. but they won't be able to because donald trump never allows them to be let go. it continues, the madness continues. improper guidance from the president of the united states to the director of the fbi to whom he already demanded a loyal loyalty three times. the fbi, of course, didn't let this go, nor can trump stay out of his way long enough for his friends or his enemy to let each one of these rising scandals go that seem cob mounting by the day. mika, what you had yesterday evening was extraordinary. one lie after another coming from the white house. one claim after another from the white house at night rebutted in the morning. we started having republicans

whisper about an independent counsel. you had democrats actually talk about the word impeachment out loud. this is taking on a life of its own. meanwhile, you look at what's happening inside the white house, mika. this is a white house torn asunder by infighting, intrigue, internal chaos and a president that is increasingly isolated, increasingly enraged and increasingly out of touch with the realities of what is required to run this office, or i will say any office in america. he is incapable apparently of doing it, mika. if this man that we are looking at right now were the ceo of any fortune 500 company, the board of directors would have fired

him weeks ago. >> and i think that's what we're beginning to hear rumblings of. over the past few weeks, the talk has been about the spicers or the conways or the bannons. those are just distractions. those are just weak links under the president. now the talk is about, quite frankly, the president himself not being able to be contained, proven to be potentially a threat to democracy and a threat to our national security. willie geist? >> i want to go to michael schmidt, the author of this piece that started this reporting that "the washington post" has confirmed, that nbc news has now confirmed. michael, people who cover jim comey, people who know him know he takes meticulous notes on all his meetings, he documents the things he does. was there something about this meeting he saw as exceptional, or was this just another case of him thinking he needed to put down in a paper trail in writing a meeting he had with if president, or did he think, boy,

this is really the beginning of something here? >> i think from very early on comey was very concerned about trump. obviously the dinner which preceded this was concerning to him because he was asked to pledge his allegiance, his loyalty. comey started keeping these memos. he has a memo for every phone call and for every meeting he had with the president and they're very, very detailed because comey thought the country and the fbi and the president were heading down this path, and comey had known in the past as his time as deputy attorney general that having these type of contemporaneous memos can really back up what you have. so these memos sit at the fbi. some are classified, some are unclassified like the one we wrote about yesterday, and they're very, very detailed accounts that comey associates believe bolster his account of what happened and what the president said. >> so michael, how do we square this with the testimony of the acting fbi director andrew

mccabe gave before congress last week where he said there's been no effort to impede our investigation, our work goes on in the russia investigation? how do you skbar that with what seems to be a pretty clear paper trail laid out by the former director? >> we don't know. we went to the fbi yesterday to talk to them about this, and they asked us to put them down for a no comment, but it's a fair question. it's why didn't mccabe talk more about this. it's a very, very sensitive issue of the president trying to influence an fbi investigation. when this happened with comey, he kept news of this in a very tight hold at the top of the fbi, and they wanted especially none of the agents working on the case to know that the president had said this because they didn't want them to be influenced at all by it. but it's a fair question that the fbi is going to have to answer which is why didn't mccabe talk about this when he went up to capitol hill last week. >> mike barnicle, of course, the

well-known saying about history. history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. james fallow has written a piece saying in some respects, while it's too easy to talk about watergate, in some respects what we're dealing with is far more significant than a third-rate burglary intended to get information to embarrass enemies, political enemies. in this case we have something that seems to be spiraling out of conol so much more quickly than did watergate or anything else of its kind. where are we right now? no hyperbole, no nothing, not being hyperbolic, but where are we right now? >> joe, i would think from michael's fine reporting in "the new york times" we're right at the edge of title 18 section 1503 of the united states code, which is obstruction of justice. we have director como's

contemporaneous notes, called 302s, the fbi is very familiar with them. director comey files them all the time. a lot of agents do, contemporaneous memos for the file. so i can't predict, i don't think anybody can predict where congress is going to go on this, especially the republican senate and the republican house. mark halperin, you might have a better idea of the direction or the intent or the feeling among republicans right now towards what the president has involved his party and other country in. >> i think as we wake up this morning, that's the biggest thing that's different about this controversy, we've somewhat become an newered to trump controversies. there's a sea change among republicans on capitol hill. many of them see this as nothing that can occur on a separate track while they work with the president on a legislative agenda. until director comey and the president have a showdown which i think is inevitable. right now comey has a lot of

high cards. i don't think republicans will move forward with the president. this showdown is going to occur. >> mark halperin, you've never been a fan of james comey, how he handled the hillary investigation, you said it in realtime all along. you've been extraordinarily critical of him. last night, though, you said people's position on comey in washington, d.c. just doesn't matter anymore. it's irrelevant whether you liked this guy in the past as republicans did at times and democrats did at times, or you despise this guy in the past. you say at this point of the story it's just irrelevant because of the president's actions. explain? >> comey has been criticized by hillary clinton and donald trump now. you can go to any member of congress and find them praising him or criticizing him. he's leveled an accusation now,

not formally, not on camera, not before congress, but clearly leveling an accusation before the president that's as grave an accusation that any fbi director can make against a president. it's been disputed by the white house. the credibility that comey retains is such now that, as i say, this will come to a head, and a lot of republicans say it must come to a head very soon, and comey will say what he says happened, and the president is going to say what he said happened. again, i can't -- you look at donald trump's short history on the national stage as a politician, i think what the current dynamics dwarf anything that's happened up until now, until this is resolved, i believe a lot of republicans are saying everything comes to a stop until this is resolved? >> jason chaffetz, of course, demanding the notes from the fbi found that to be fascinating. >> michael schmidt, i want to go back quickly, there was a lot of

clamoring last night about your story. was the memo read to you over the phone? was it described to you over the phone or did you ever get your eyes on this memo? do you know if all the other sources that have confirmed the existence of this memo have actually seen it or will we have to wait for it to be delivered to capitol hill? >> what we were trying to do, what we set out to do yesterday was simply write a story about the existence of these memos. i had learned that comey had written these and i thought it was pretty significant that comey had taken the time and effort because he was so concerned, to write the memos about every phone call and every meeting. it was on the course of that when i started pushing on doors and talking to folks and one of them said, look, i can read you part of one of the memos and describe to you parts of it. as we pointed out in the story, we had not seen the memos ourself. we felt comfortable with the source we were talking to and

the specificity of the information -- >> at what point one point of t said there were two sources that confirmed the existence of this memo. >> both of them talked to us about contents of the memo. as we said in the piece, one of them read specific parts of the memo, including the quote that comey uses, trump talking to him about what he should do with the flynn investigation. >> harold, we said the morning after comey was fired last week, one of the by products of the president's decision would be that james comey is now a free agent. you're going to hear his point of view in newspapers. maybe not directly from him right away. that's exactly what's happened here. i'm not sure the white house anticipated that very well, knowing he can say what he wants to say now. he's going to get this word out and he has with this memo in "the new york times." >> i agree with ever thing that's been said. you have to think when comey

heard the president threaten him with tapes, he went overdrive as well. you would think the president would have known some of the things he said to comey privately or with others in the room. there will be a number of questions that come from this. did comey share this with anyone other than fbi officials close to him. did he share it with sessions? it's been reported that sessions was in the oval office and the president asked him to leave and he had that conversation with comey. comey may be asked why didn't you present this early? all of this now, in light of what happened, preeb bar being fired, sally united states being fired. the president had this conversation with comey i think the day of or the day after or perhaps this memo was filed the day after flynn resigned. this was all happening realtime. you'll have to prove mens rea with this president, meaning did he intend to corrupt the process. the fact that flynn had resigned

sends a strong message that his mens rea may have risen to the level that he was trying to corrupt or obstruct this process. >> but if the president, as michael schmidt is reporting, which is highly credible, michael schmidt indicates the president asked the vice president, the attorney general and the chief of staff to leave the oval office. is that intent? >> that certainly would be an element that a jury would have to decide. there's not a lot of case law. a jury would have to make that determination. that would certainly be an element that he wanted to have this private conversation with him and not include the others. the seconds question would be why didn't comey say this earlier. he could say i wanted to see if there was any other effort to made to impede that. the question is going to have to answer the question, what were you trying to accomplish there? there's no such thing as an idiot standard in law. he can explain lunatic qualities

at times. he may get off on that front. the reality is, if he didn't n have a corrupting intent, i think one can make the argument he did because one of the elements there, it would be hard to get him on obstruction of justice. the key person to hear from on this is comey joe, would you agree with the legal analysis there? >> i would. so much has to do with state of mind. i heard all this chatter about impeachment last night and after the story broke. the important thing for people to realize is the impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanors, that's not a legal standard. it's the standard congress decides it is. with a house republican party up until last night was afraid of its own shadow, i think we're a long way from that, but, mika, we are entering a very dangerous territory, the "wall street journal" editorial page which has bent over backwards to be as

fair to this president as they could be, they have a headline in their main editorial that say loose lips sink presidencies. i want to read that and get your reaction. >> the state of the trump presidency has been perpetual turbulence. they go on to say, but presidencies can withstand only so much turbulence before they fall apart. millions of americans recognized mr. trump's flaws but decided he was a risk worth taking. they assumed or at least hoped that he'd rise to the occasion and demands of the job. if he cannot, he will betray their hopes as his presidency sinks before his eyes. loose lips sink presidencies, mika, from the "wall street journal" editorial page. what do you think? >> let me put out there the concept that that actually is happening before our eyes.

i'll talk about the chaos before the latest chaos. that is the one about the president divulging secrets to the russian foreign minister. we've been talking, as you know, for the past 48 hours to high-level people inside the white house, inside the trump family and at the top of the nsc. we literally in realtime, both you and me, had to curate the information they were throwing at us because we knew in realtime, we felt in our gut in realti realtime, the president was throwing these high-level officials, administration officials, national security council officials and members of his inner circle under the bus, because we know how he operates. it was very clear that this presidency and this white house which is built on lies was caving in on itself. so i want to hear from you, joe, i know you've been talking to a

lot of people, what the atmosphere is like in there? >> it is absolute chaos on the inside. everybody is afraid they're going to be fired. as "the new york times" reported last night and as my sources have been telling me, even jared kushner now is under fire from president trump. he is striking out and yelling at everybody, but there is -- there has been a warning that every competent member of the trump administration should take from their president, and that is i will send you out whether you are rod rosenstein and the deputy attorney general and you have one of the most stellar legal representations in washington, d.c., i will use you, i will throw you out, i will churn you up, i will spit you out, i will tarnish your reputation all to steal 12 hours of an alibi on cable news which is all they got out of that. the next morning it was obvious

that all of trump's defenders were actually caught up in his lie, that this was about the deputy attorney general. we heard it a thousand times. we heard it on our show. we heard it from the white house, from right wing media outlets. it was proven to be a lie the next morning. then you had the national security adviser, another man, general mcmaster, impeccable credentials, one of the best representations in washington, d.c. we celebrated when he was selected as national security adviser for good reason, and dina powell, his assistant, someone we know and have the greatest respect for as well. general mcmaster trotted out to say something about a story that left the impression that it was fundamentally untrue. his reputation chewed up and spit out, everybody still knows he's a great man and a great general, but he's been sullied by donald trump.

why? because donald trump wanted to steal 12 hours of cable news. he wanted an alibi for 12 hours. the truth came out. and then last night michael schmidt puts out this story along with "the new york times," a bombshell story. my god, mika, i can't believe the same cycle started again, attacking michael schmidt, attacking his sources, claiming the story wasn't true, claiming that they were making it up. they hadn't even seen the memo. it was soon confirmed by two, three, four other news sources. so mika, the message that i would politely like to send, not only to people that work inside the trump white house but also to conservative media outlets that continue to defend him, i've been doing this for 25

years. i have seen day trading politicians that would take anybo anybody, throw them out and spit them out. let's be bipartisan here. bill clinton did the same exact thing to women in his cabinet during the 1990s during his scandals, and humiliated them, had them go out, as maureen dowd wrote in a blistering op ed this past year, and he hid behind these women whose representations were sullied by lying and defending bill clinton. read about it in maureen dowd's column. it's not worth it. donald trump is not worth it. he will use you and spit you up, he will throw you out. look at the last 72 hours. don't go beyond last week. just look what's happened this week to the deputy attorney general, the national security adviser and a lot of conservatives that are trying to

be good foot soldiers for this lifelong democrat who discovered birtherism in 2011 and became a republican. it's not worth it. he's going to leave town at some point and you are going to be stuck with the reputation that you can either destroy over the next several months or you can make. it's your choice. >> sometimes a good foot soldier walks away. before we go to break, let's bring in bill karins on the other big story this morning, the deadly tornadoes across the plains and the midwest. bill? >> this news was breaking yesterday afternoon about the same exact time. we had numerous tornadoes reported. we had two fatalities with two separate tornadoes, one in wisconsin, the other in elk city, oklahoma. in all we had about 26 tornadoes that were reported yesterday throughout this region. and the damage spread all the way back up through iowa into southern portions of minnesota. for today, it's important to notice we're okay this morning.

this afternoon, 9 million people at risk. today's bullseye is going the center over iowa for des moines, aims, quad cities, eventually towards green bay and milwaukee. the tornado threat the greatest over iowa. tomorrow we do it all over again. this is going to be a classic outbreak, moderate risk already. this is going to be kansas, oklahoma and texas, including the dallas-ft. worth area, 26 million people at risk. this looks like one of our more serious tornado days where not only we get tornadoes, but the very strong tornadoes out there. the last thing, our mini heat wave begins in our nation's capital. 93 today and tomorrow new york city jumps into the 90s including our friends in boston. mika, the story today is the dangerous tornadoes yesterday and we'll do it again the next two afternoons. >> bill, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," congressman adam schiff and jim himes and senator angus king will be our guests.

lars thursday, former spokesman for the justice department tweeted this, matt miller, tweeted this, comey leaves a paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. stay tuned. matt joins us just ahead. stay tuned. then she came to louisiana as a slave. i became curious where in africa she was from. so i took the ancestry dna test to find out more about my african roots. the ancestry dna results were really specific. they told me all of these places in west africa. i feel really proud of my lineage, and i feel really proud of my ancestry. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story, get started for free at ancestry.com "how to win at business." step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly

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>> did you ever use the term "heads-up?" >> no, i absolutely did not use the term heads-up. plsks mcgahn got it. he knew it was serious and it was important. >> acting attorney general sally yates disputing the president's assessment of her warning to the white house over her warning of michael flynn. >> willie, she's tough. >> yeah. >> sally yates walks into your office, willie, are you going to mess around with her? are you going to poke her? they're picking on the wrong people. these are like kids that have walked into like a high school playground and are picking fights with people that are intellectually so superior to them, i don't understand the stupidity and the shortsightedness. why is donald trump -- why is sean spicer, why are they saying things they know sally yates is going to come behind and prove are lies? i don't get this day trading.

>> she doesn't make it personal either. she comes out and states exactly what happens, and she lays out the case and lets the facts speak for themselves. joining us now, nbc news national security analyst jeremy bash and former justice department spokesperson, now an msnbc justice and security analyst matthew miller. good morning, good to see you. >> hey, willie. >> matthew, we talked about the tweet going to break a few minutes ago that you posted where you said effectively stay tuned, director james comey keeps a paper trail of just about everything. do you suspect the memo was conveyed in some way to "the new york times" yesterday is the first of many that we'll hear about from comey? >> i think so. "the times" reported he had written a number of memos. if you look at his past, this is consistent with what he's done in prior administrations. he wrote memos like this in the bush administration.

if you look at the memo that came out last night and think about the inappropriate conduct it reveals, remember he also had this dinner with the president in late january where the president asked him to pledge a loyalty oath, apparently, asked him about the status of the investigation. i have to think there's a memo about that conversation and about other conversations. look, if i were in jim comey's shoes, you probably don't leak the worst memo first. the memo we saw last night may be the least damaging to the president. we've maybe seen more explicit ones to come. >> joe? >> matthew, you're just talking about past administrations. i think it's important for people that may not have a sense of history, and their sense of history with james comey only goes back to july 5th or 6th of last year. it's very important to talk about his work in past administrations and again remind everybody on both sides of the aisle what james comey did in one of the most dramatic moments

for any fbi official when he went to the attorney general ashcroft's bedside. >> you're right, joe. that's really the moment he built his reputation, and it's one of those moments people talk about at the department of justice, when you face this big test. when a president asks you to do something that's wrong, do you stand up to the president or do you kind of cave and buckle like rod rosenstein did last week. in that instance, the president wanted to continue with this surveillance program that the justice department had said was illegal under the way it had been drawn up. jim comey was the acting attorney general, john ashe croft was in the hospital. he wouldn't sign off on the program and white house officials, the chief of staff, the white house counsel went to the hospital room of john ashe croft to try to get him to sign off on this memo. there's this dramatic scene with

ashcroft half conscious said no, we won't do it. we won't sign off on it. muller took notes about it, comey kept notes about it. it didn't become public until years later when comey revealed it in this dramatic testimony before the senate judiciary committee, and it was explosive for the white house. >> if i could just add to joe's point, one interesting aspect of that episode is when comey in 2004 was summoned to the white house, he said i will not go to that meeting unless i have a witness. he asked ted olson, the solicitor general, to be his witness. he leaves an evidentiary trail when he believes there will be political pressure on law enforcement. >> jeremy, on the other front burner we have the case of the intelligence leaks. we have the case of, we're told israel, perhaps their intelligence sources compromised, perhaps another country in the middle east.

could you explain how difficult it is to obtain and use human intelligence on the ground within isis in that area? >> it's one of the toughest intelligence targets in the world because you have to basically run a human agent into the heart of the terrorist network. our allied intelligence services all around the world struggle at this, they work at this for months and years to develop these sources. when they finally come to us and say we've got some reporting from an asset on the ground, we treat that as the crown jewel, as if it was our own person's life on the line. so it's not a cavalier thing to disclose that to another nation or another country. now, it is true in the context of presidential discussions or foreign minister discussions, we share information all the time back and forth. what made this different was two things. one, it was the russians, the least trustworthy intelligence service on the planet. second, the israelis, or whoever it was, asked us not to share the information.

normally we go back and say may we share? they would have said no, not in this instance. >> como's memo said the president allegedly want to put pressure on journalists. the snork times reports alone in the oval office trump began his discussion with comey by condemning leaks to the news media saying mr. comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information. so michael schmidt, i'd like to sort of round things up here with you, with the story you broke. it seems like there are two career ending issues he for this president potentially. numb one, did he reveal classified information to the russian foreign minister and ambassador with reckless disregard that could be a problem, and the other to try and strong arm the fbi director to try to end the investigation into formal national security adviser flynn maybe trying to obstruct justice?

there are memos you know about -- know of the one memo that is really the big news this morning. might there be more? and when might we see any of these memos? >> well, so there's a memo for every phone call and every meeting that mr. trump had with mr. comey that mr. comey wrote. if we know anything about mr. comey, in the wake of him leaving, a lot of democrats didn't like him, a lot of republicans didn't like him, a lot of people at the justice department didn't like him. despite all the criticisms, we know he prides his independence and transparency. the idea we would probably see these memos i think is very high. i think we'll probably hear from comey at some point. this is a guy who is not afraid to lean forward on issues like this, if you just look at how he handled the clinton e-mail investigation, in that case he takes this extraordinary step of holding a press conference, in laying out details that an fbi director has never laid out about an investigation before.

he took a son of criticism for that. the idea that comey wouldn't lean in to testifying publicly now that he's out of office, my guess is we'll see him up on the hill pretty soon. >> matthew, a lot of people wondering this morning if that constitutes, what happened in the room between director comey and president trump constitutes obstruction of justice. harold laid out the case basically that there has to be some intent there. how do you prove intent in a room where there are two versions of the same story and one guy says -- the president says i hope you can let this go and the white house comes out moments later and says we never said that, we basically said general flynn is a good guy, but we never instructed him to end any investigation? how would you prove obstruction of justice? >> two things. one, you'd look at the credibility of each of the people in the room telling their version of the events. i think it's not a close call, the credibility jim comey has versus donald trump's credibility. the second thing, look at all the circumstances. why did the president ask the

vice president and attorney general to leave the room if he was proud of what he was about to say, thought it was appropriate, seems he would have been happy to say it in front of him. you connect the dots with what he did afterwards. the president asked jim comey to drop this investigation. jim comey not only doesn't drop it, he expands it. the department sends new subpoenas to flynn associates later. then what happens? the president fires comey. i think you'd connect all of that and say tried to stop the investigation, when it was clear he couldn't stop it, he fired the guy leading it. that looks a lot more -- looks like a pretty convincing case. >> look that way to you, jeremy? >> it looks obstructy. that's the adjective. i don't know if it fulfills the legal elements of the crime. at the end of the day, as joe and others pointed out, it's not a legal issue when you're talking about the president of the united states. >> the president also has to be curious now. if you're working for the president, one thing you should note to your point about an

hefdry trail, everyone should write memos after meeting with this president to protect yourself in the process. >> obviously director comey has done just that. jeremy and matthew, thanks so much. always good to see you. ahead we'll talk to independent senator angus king who is now openly floating the possibility of impeachment. "morning joe" is back in a moment. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job.

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"the washington post" is reporting that president trump revealed classified information to russian officials in the oval office last week. everybody is talking about these white house leaks. it's pretty shocking. luckily i think there's a solution. watch this. >> are you a man in your 70s? >> yes. >> are you dealing with an embarrassing problem? >> yes. >> are you unable to stop yourself from uncontrollable and messy leaks? >> yes. >> now there's depend for presidents, whether it's leaks about russia, the middle east or -- >> china. >> you don't have to fire anyone. get depends for presidents. stop your own leaks. >> my goodness. mika, yesterday we talked about the "wall street journal" did not run the story --

>> they were online. >> they were online, exactly. other people say their version of the papers had it. this morning our friends at the "wall street journal" have the screaming headline that trump asked comey to stop the probe. right below that they talk about how trump's agenda on capitol hill is now at risk because of that? >> i think to say the least. how did we get here? we'll go day by day through the timeline that's led to this incredible moment in history. >> mika, the timeline -- we're going to show what's happened over the month, but it's hard to imagine that sally yates' testimony was just a little over one week ago. >> oh, my gosh, i know. >> there could be entire books. i know halperin and heilemann, they write incredible books about campaigns. you could have an incredible book just about what happened

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all right. let's take a moment to go through some of the time line of what has unfolded in the past few months. it all may have begun when the acting head of the justice department sally yates informed white house council that michael flynn had misled the public and could be compromised by the russians, a warning that was relayed to the president in january. >> following the meeting, the white house counsel immediately informed the president and white house senior personnel, which he first came here, late on friday the 27th, yates and white house counsel met again to discuss certain issues that she had left unclear at the time.

>> on the night of january 27th, president trump had dinner with james comey where he reportedly asked for the fbi director's loyalty, and comey refused. three days later acting attorney general yates was fired for not defending the travel ban. hours after "the washington post" reported that yates warned the white house pout flynn, president trump fired the national security adviser. that was on february 13th. in the oval office on the following day, february 14th, trump asked comey about letting the flynn case go. according to the fbi director's memo. but through it all, comey continued to show his independence. on march 4th, trump tweeted, accusing president obama of wiretapping him. the next day, "the new york times" reported that comey pushed for the department of justice to publicly reject the accusations. later that week on march 8th, comey said he would serve his full term as director less than

two weeks before confirming the fbi's investigation spoke russia. >> you're stuck with me for about another 6 1/2 years. so i'd love to be invited back again. >> i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi, as part of our counter-intelligence mission, is investigating in the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government. >> that confirmation of the investigation came before the house intelligence committee on march 20th. on march 30th, general flynn asked for immunity to testify. on march 31st, president trump tweeted flynn was right to ask for immunity and that the investigation was a, quote, witch hunt. jump ahead to may 2nd when in a phone call russian president putin asked president trump to meet with sergey lavrov.

the next day, president trump was reportedly angered by comey, testifying he was uncomfortable with the idea that his actions swung the election. >> it makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had had some impact on the election. i could be wrong but we honestly made a decision in those two choices even in hindsight and this has been the world's most painful experience but i would make the same decision. >> the following week, monday may 8th, comey told the heads of the senate intelligence committee he asked for more resources in the russia probe from the justice department. the day after that, tuesday may 9th, president trump fired comey. less than 24 hours later, he met in the oval office with the russian foreign minister and the very ambassador whose conversation ensnared flynn and reportedly shared sensitive intelligence.

joe. >> willie, it's just an extraordinary time line, devastating. would certainly be devastating for any client in court. you have yates coming up and pushing, warning them. trump fires yates. then the next day he asks comey to drop the investigation. there's so much over the past month, it's really hard to key in on just one area but it's devastating the way these events line up. >> it's really important, i think, to look at it that way. mika just laid it out well over the last couple of months, mark halperin, which is to say there's so many stories so fast and so furious and one or two per day that are devastating to the white house. it's important to look at them on the spectrum of how they relate to each other, especially when you look at the memo that comey wrote, that we're learning about from michael schmitt reporting in the "new york times."

saying, look, we got rid of general flynn, now can we let this go. you have to connect the dots all together and not look at them in a vacuum. >> look what they have in common. they are lawyers, they are careful. they are fired by the president. they are not afraid of the president. that makes them both extremely dangerous. finally, donald trump rose in power because he understood how the the media works. comey and yates understand how the media work as well. >> what the president did understand is how washington works. how much more white house drama -- yes, joe? >> i was just going to say, mika, that's a great point. he may know how tabloids and new york city works. >> branding. >> he may know how to throw a little bit here and a little bit there to get on the front page of stories with people saying, best sex ever. he's in so over his head in washington, d.c. we have been warning him on this show nonstop that he's got to

get people that understand washington. it is a different game. it's not real estate in new york, and he's getting brutalized every day by his own mistakes, his own foibles. >> his own stupidity. how much more white house drama can republican lawmakers take? apparently senator graham has had enough saying response to news stories from now on is no comment. we'll be right back. you hear these stories all the time. am i going to pass away like my mom did? and so you know this is something that's important. losing my mom to heart disease and then being diagnosed myself.

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i will tell you this. i would not want to be sean spicer's stress ball today. i can only imagine -- i like to think about how sean spicer reacts when things like this happen and he knows he's going to have to go out there and talk about it. i imagine it went something like this. >> president trump revealed classified information regarding isis according to a report in the "washington post" wasn't exactly -- according to a quote from h.r. mcmaster -- >> don't worry, buddy. it will all be over soon. >> welcome back to "morning joe" on this wednesday may 17th. with us we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former congressman harold ford jr., senior analyst for nbc news

and msnbc. and joining the conversation former fbi special agent clint watts and law professor at george washington university jonathan turley. so this morning we are following the paper trail inside the federal bureau of investigation. multiple sources with firsthand knowledge tell nbc news that james comey wrote an internal memo saying the president asked him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser michael flynn. comey wrote the memo, which nbc news has not seen on february 14th, the day after flynn resigned, following reports he misled vice president mike pence about discussing lifting sanctions with russia's ambassador. comey was in the oval office for a counter-terrorism briefing along with attorney general sessions, chief of staff reince priebus, kushner, bannon and gina haspel.

trump asked comey to stay behind after the meeting was breaking up and they spoke alone. according to a source at the "new york times" he said flynn had done nothing wrong. trump saying, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, letting flynn go. he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go. the memo said comey did not say anything to trump about curtailing the investigation, e replying only, i agree he's a good guy. the white house responded by saying it is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation. stating while the president has repeatedly expressed his view that general flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked mr. comey or anyone else to end any investigation. skr joe, is it fair to say with your legal background and the guests we have that we are looking at potential of obstruction of

justice here. >> mika, always said on the campaign trail if people asked if i'm a lawyer, i say, yes, i am but not a good one. let's go to jonathan turley who was a good one. so they wouldn't judge me harsher on the campaign trail. of course it had the added benefit of being true. let's go, if you are setting up an obstruction of justice charge, and let's just say that instead of being president of the united states you're a private citizen and you insert these fact patterns -- this fact pattern in, we'll just walk through it. sally yates goes to the white house and warns the white house in no uncertain terms that she is very concerned about flynn, the national security adviser. she is then fired in short order by the white house. then flynn resigns.

the next day donald trump pushes everybody out of the room. he's never alone in the oval office. there's always 20 people wandering around. he kicks 20 people out. he keeps the fbi director in and then says i want you to drop this. will you drop this investigation. the fbi director refuses. donald trump then fires the fbi director. the white house spokesman goes out and says, yes, he was fired because we wanted to bring the russian investigation to an end. then the president himself in admission against his own interest tells lester holt, yes, i was thinking about the russian investigation when i fired the fbi director. i understand that obstruction of justice is a state of mind crime. you have to prove state of mind. that's pretty difficult at times. you line up enough of these

facts. you put it down on the calendar. there's a lot of prosecutors across america that would be very comfortable going in front of any federal judge trying to prove obstruction of justice under that fact pattern. would they not, professor? >> this isn't going to be real popular, but i don't think so. my family has been pressing me on this. it's sort of like going across-country with them and saying, are we there yet? are we there yet? everyone wants to reach that point. you say, i can still see our house. it's only been 150 days or so since the inauguration. the fact is, i don't think this makes out an obstruction case. there's a couple of reasons why. first, in terms of sally yates being fired, there's ample reason to fire her when she told the department to stand down. even those of us who criticized the immigration order said that, you know, in many ways she didn't leave much of a choice at that point for being fired. there's a reason to do that.

more importantly the obstruction of justice requires you act to obstruct or interfere usually with judicial or congressional proceeding, neither of which was pending at this time. you also tend to show it was done for a corrupt, or corruptly, to use the statutory term. this doesn't meet the usual definition of that. now, does that mean this can't be obstruction? of course not. it can be evidence of obstruction, but we're not there yet. you know, this is something that was wildly inappropriate for the president to ask the fbi director, if he did ask that. this is something worthy of investigation. all of the facts that you tied together, joe, are absolutely material, as you say. they can be the basis of an obstruction case. but i do think we need to understand that right now this is pretty thin soup for either a criminal or impeachment

proceeding. >> so what would -- again, as i said, this is why we have you on, because you're a good lawyer and can answer this stuff. so what would be sufficient to? what is the line donald trump would have to cross for you to say, okay, perhaps this evidence shows that he was trying to obstruct an investigation. >> first of all, the most natural pairing is if you could show there was a grand jury in the field when trump took inappropriate action or tried to obstruct or interfere. that would satisfy a judicial proceeding. i don't believe that was going on at this point. >> it seems to me you are telling us that if a president or a governor or an executive kills an investigation before a grand jury is impaneled, they are pretty much free to do whatever they want to do?

>> no. there's two reasons why that's not the case. first of all, if a president abuses his power, he actually can be subject to impeachment. the nixon articles of impeachment did include an obstruction count. i think there's distinguishing factors. it is analogous to this one. i don't believe we satisfy that standard either. you're going to have adam chiffon who was my opposing counsel in the last impeachment held in the united states senate, courteous trial. we were on either side of that case. i think adam would be the first to say this is a high standard to make. the second reason, in terms of obstructi obstruction, the law is drafted to be narrow. you don't want every statement a citizen makes to claim to be obstruction for a future proceeding. it gets too dangerously ambiguous. courts have tried to narrow this, to keep it confined. this was an early stage before

the grand jury. now, does that mean there's not other crimes? no. you can have false statements to federal investigators. you can have perjury. you can have lying to congress. as you know, joe, one of the things we see in this city is often it's not the original act but the response to the scandal that gets people into trouble. >> right. right. mark halperin, somebody wrote last night that the one maxim in washington, d.c., that is true, the one saying is it's not the crime, it's the cover-up that gets you in trouble. it's proven time and time again. let's see if that's the case here. mark, let's move from the legal to the political. republicans on capitol hill seem to be at a breaking point as far as their patience with donald trump goes, as they see his approval ratings sink into the 30s and see their own ballot tests against democrats going to

historic lows. and the news out of georgia and montana from internal polling, several conservative outlets reporting that actually democrats are now moving ahead in those races. obviously those races take on even more importance now if democrats are swept in these conservative areas. bad news for trump. >> take away the last three weeks of krrt, republican legislative agenda and political peril for 2018 would be considerable. there were lots of problems for the party trying to come together. add in controversies particularly what happened yesterday. we're basically now marking time until comey appears on television, whether it's in front of a committee, whether it's an interview, comey will presumably make the accusations and perhaps more acvaluations on television. until that moment occurs, i think republicans are more than holding their breath. they are contemplating a future where the legislative agenda is

completely overwhelmed by the challenges that they will face defending the president going forward. i think as i said earlier, this is different. the early reaction from republicans, including a lot of senior republicans, this is a different matter. look at the "wall street journal" front page you held up. the headline doesn't say comey charges. it's taken as an article of faith that comey is telling the truth by a lot of people in the media. the white house denial is not getting anything like equal treatment. that will be the case until comey speaks and the president comes back. that showdown, until that happens, everything is on hold as far as i can tell. >> clint watts, the point was raised a few minutes ago that this is perhaps the first of many memos we could see from former director comey. he kept a memo on every call, every meeting he had with president trump including this one where he said the president said, quote, i hope you can let this go, referring to the investigation into the trump campaign's ties to russia. i do want to ask you about a little bit of a contribution internally. last week acting director mccabe

said in open hearing there's been no effort to impede this investigation. how do competing viewpoints from what the acting director said and former director said in this memo, how do you square those two things? >> i think two components. investigative end, agents running the case on day to day basis, they are moving forward with techniques, trying to get evidence. i don't think that has been impeded. there's no evidence of that yet. at the higher level and what comey actually said, too, he was trying to protect the investigation from influence. so that influence comes about in terms of this. if the fbi does come up with evidence and they want to push with charges, they have to take that to the department of justice or u.s. attorney. that's where influence comes in. doj, if they are not wanting to pursue it can say i don't think this is enough to move forward with the case. or you could push for fbi director to say, hey, i don't think we need to pursue this investigation anymore and shut it down. there's really two components, the mechanics of the actual

investigation that's going on, which he alluded to and said there's been no obstruction essentially of that. on the influence side, which day to day agents may have no awareness of whatsoever, sounds like they didn't, you have a pretty strong track record of influence. >> do you agree, clint, in this memo, director comey saying the president did attempt to impede the investigation. >> i think he's saying it's influence. i also don't think this is the only memo. you've got a meticulous lawyer who has been in this game in d.c. for how many years. president trump has entered this game. he doesn't know the game he's playing. he doesn't know who he's playing with. so this is just going to stack up on him. comey has had a pattern, a very smart pattern to make sure he documents everything that goes on. how can we go if it becomes he said, he said, trump says this, comey says this. where is the documentation, where is the other evidence to support what president trump says. there's not going to be any. comey is going to have a stack

of it. >> clint, this blizzard of information we're getting in the "times" and "washington post," it's easy to understand why we do this but we sometimes gloss over the root of this investigation. it's a counter-intelligence investigation. could you explain what a priority that is within the fbi. >> when you look at the fbi at large, every year they go through a very deliberate process where they stack up what are the most important investigations. always at the top counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism and now more than ever cyber investigations of an international flavor. those are going to be pushed all the way to the top in terms of resources. the criminal ones are going to be important as well but will oftentimes push down, which you also heard from the trump team. this is where i think the obstruction case, if it comes to fruition will happen. the minions in between trump going and putting pressure on fbi, potentially witnesses to mask evidence, destroy evidence, not talk to investigators. that's the components of a

criminal case for obstruction. on the counter-intel case, that's going to continue to run forward. those stepptend to run two, thr four years. they tend to be a long run. the american public saying when are we going to see this. every time pushes a new variable in the investigations, it extends out counter-intelligence investigations. so i think this is really about how was russia influencing the u.s. and then you look at all the connects to the trump campaign, each one of those is an investigation in and of itself. >> you know, the bigger problem also for donald trump is you have harold ford, usually have white houses circling the wagons. if you worked for reagan, you worked for reagan 20 years. iran contracomes up, everybody pulls in. you worked for nixon, you worked for nixon 20 years. watergate comes up and people who have been with the guys since 1950s and '60s circle

around him. it's the same thing with bill clinton, late 1990s, friends of bill circled around him. everybody stood shoulder to shoulder, nobody broke. investigations harder to take. you have donald trump day trader, disloyal to everybody around him, fired two or three campaign managers, who switches out. he uses people this week in a way that sends a very clear message to everybody around him, if a criminal investigation is coming or an impeachment is coming or any type of serious investigation is coming, you better protect your self, because donald trump will not protect you. john heilemann makes it -- harold, john heilemann makes a great point, which is this morning -- which is that after comey was fired, everybody ran out, and they all have the alibi. of course they were proven to be liars. after trump revealed the most highly sensitive, classified

information to russia, you had the national security adviser run out and try to cover it up. and then this screaming story, perhaps the worst story of them all, that donald trump is pressuring the fbi director to drop the investigation. as heilemann points out this morning, nobody has gone out. nobody is on camera denying it. there is no name attached to a denial from the white house because they have seen what happens when other people do out and deny. they get caught in a lie. so this is a president who has isolated himself. >> you enumerated the points powerfully, joe. i think jonathan turley, his comments about whether or not this rises to the level or not. i think a number of questions, he raises a lot of legitimate points. two questions i have based on what you shared, how you laid it

out and what jonathan said would be one, to what extent, professor turley, does it not how the fbi director felt about what president trump said to him in that room. at a part of that we learned he shared this memo with other senior officials at the fbi. does that -- can we assume from that, i guess we'll have to hear an answer from him, he shared with deputy attorney general and attorney general and did they factor into any of their decision making? second, what if president obama had directed director comey during the e-mail server investigation to drop this. would that have been perceived, in your mind, as an obstruction of justice on his part? or do you compare the two and have the same answer, analysis. >> those are both great questions. i think taking the second one first. the e-mail matter presumably was connected to an ongoing grand jury investigation. we'd have to take a look at that whether it trips that wire or

not. in terms of the credibility question, i think that that is relevant. there is a report that he shared in contemporaneous way, what occurred with a couple of aides. he did not go to the justice department, which was a little curious, the extent to which he was concerned about this, it's odd to file it away like a to do list and not go to the justice department and say, look, this is wildly inappropriate. so that certainly does add the credibility. i'm assuming even -- >> trump, right? >> i'm assuming -- let's assume the facts are there. this crime of elements and elements aren't in place here. i think what we have to really do is see how this ties into the criminal code. last night everyone was saying, well, we've got obstruction, this is clearly a crime. those elements appear to be missing. it's not enough to say, look, it's credibility, he said, she said issue.

we don't believe anything trump has to say and comey has this impeccable reputation. at the end of the day, you say even if it's true, would this be obstruction? i'm afraid it would be hard to make that case. >> let's go up to capitol hill now where we go to house committee jim himes of connecticut. good to have you with us this morning. you and your democratic colleagues said jim comey needs to come and appear on capitol hill in a public hearing. do you believe based on the contents of that memo james comey wrote and now related to the "new york times" this morning that president trump obstructed justice in this case. >> remember, nobody up here so far has yet seen this memorandum. we also don't know how many other memorandums to file there may be. the first step, i think you had a full conversation about whether this crosses the threshold of obstruction. the first step for us here in congress, of course, is to get those facts, get those memos. fortunately we're seeing bipartisan interest in doing

that. you saw the comment by chairman of the oversight committee. obviously we democrats are interested in getting a look at these memos so we know exactly what we're dealing w only then can you make a judgment about exactly what happened. >> we've seen your colleagues, republican colleagues now be more critical even publicly of the president just in the last few days. hard to find a lot of republicans on tv, frankly, last night or this morning defending the president. do you sense a turning among your colleagues and republicans against the white house? >> there's a great deal of concern. i wouldn't necessary say a turning. you should interview some of my friends on the republican side of the aisle about that. you do see people stepping up. jason chaffetz did what he did yesterday but he's announced his retirement. we're a long way on capitol hill having a strong bipartisan consensus about exactly where this president is. i will tell you, however, we can talk about obstruction of justice a lot. one thing is for certain, president and republicans' legislative agenda is lying in

ruins on the floor of this building. it was tenuous when they got through their so-called health care bill in the house. you can still see teeth and blood on the floor here for what it cost to get them through the house. now things like tax reform, which is very, very difficult in the best of times, with that cloud, with this cloud hanging over this building, that legislative agenda is all but gone. >> congressman, it's pretty much undisputed that the oval office meeting between director comey and the president of the united states preceding that meeting, the attorney general is in the oval office, chief of staff is in the oval office, vice president was in the oval office. they were asked to leave. comey stayed with the president. would you, in your committee, be at all interested in asking the attorney general of the united states if after that closed-door meeting that occurred he said or asked jim comey anything about the meeting? >> well, of course we would be interested in asking the question. of course the answer from the white house would be that that's

an executive deliberation. the president and his advisers, there's no way they are giving us the answer, which, of course, makes this into something which is a closed room. jim comey and the president with two very different versions of what happened. what's interesting about that is, i think i can probably say this in a way that most people would agree with, regardless of party, i don't think anybody has ever alleged that jim comey has been dishonest about anything. obviously a lot of people on my side of the aisle very concerned about his disclosure of the clinton investigation but i don't think anybody has ever said jim comey is anything else other than enormously honest. i'm pretty sure there's nobody around here who would say that about the president. if it becomes a he said, she said, or he said, he said, which it could, that is a very bad dynamic for president trump. >> congressman, before i let you go. do you expect you'll have that memo in your hands pretty soon? >> i do. i do. i think we're going to see that memo and whatever other memos exist. yes, we're going to want to hear from jim comey. we're not even talking about the fact that apparently at a white

house dinner, the president asked jim comey, the director of the fbi, for a loyalty pledge. is this the united states or bolivia? we're going to want to get into things around this memo. >> jim himes, democrat in connecticut on the intel committee. always good to see you. thanks. >> thank you. >> clint watts, jonathan turley, thank you both as well. still to come, things get complicated with israel over everything from intel sharing to the wall. word the president spoke to benjamin netanyahu ahead of his trip. senator angus king joins us. sits on the intel committee and says we're getting closer to talks of impeachment. tomorrow we'll be joined by senator john mccain. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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joining us now from capitol hill, intelligence committee, independent senator angus king. thank you for being on the show. >> good morning. >> the word impeachment has been brought to the fore, and i have heard it come out of your mouth. on what grounds are you concerned that we might need to use that word? >> i'm not there yet. i think we've got a long way to go. we've got to slow down and take a deep breath, i think as everybody has said this morning, including your law professor, professor turley. we really need the facts. we need to see the memos. we don't know what the context was. we don't even have jim comey authenticating the memo. we have a memo that's attributed to him. we have the white house saying the conversation didn't occur. we need to see what, if any, evidence they have of that. there's a long way to go before we start talking about changing

the presidency or removing someone from office. the framers of the constitution were very careful. we don't have a no confidence vote like they do in many other countries. high crimes and misdemeanors is a very high bar. no president has been removed from office using that. it cannot be used to simply change somebody whose politics we don't like. that would be a real disservice to the constitution. so i want to focus on getting the facts of what happened in that conversation. it's very serious. if you're talking about the president of the united states, who is the boss of the executive branch talking to the head of the fbi, suggesting that an investigation, active investigation should be terminated, that's a pretty serious matter. it's one that we really have to get to the bottom of before we start talking about whatever else happens later. >> and i'm sure you'd agree with me, senator king, that when people do talk about impeachment already, and they don't slow down and take a deep breath, because a lot of people -- a lot

of respected people across the political spectrum have started using the word impeachment. doesn't that in the end just play spoke the narrative that donald trump and his supporters would want, which is media and political establishment is overreacting and hyperventilating and being too aggressive in charges against trump? >> i think that's right. i think the problem is when you talk about an impeachment or removal of a president, you're talking about nullifying an election. that's something, as i say, it's never happened. we've had two presidents impeached by the house. one resigned, one was acquitted in the senate. this is not something to be done lightly. it's not the way our system is supposed to work. i've done a lot of research years ago on the andrew johnson impeachment. that was a pivotal moment in our history because it was one party

trying to get rid of the president of another party fundamentally because they didn't like his politics that can't happen. we cannot allow that to happen. we've got to focus on whether there was some kind of crime committed. >> impeachment a couple days ago, again, talking about a legal standard. i said to him the exact thing. andrew johnson was impeached just because the democrats didn't like him, didn't like his policy. i think you're right. i think we do need to slow down. you're in a unique position. you've served as a democrat in the past but you're an independent from a state that was literally split right down the middle between donald trump and hillary clinton, the 2016 presidential race. what are you hearing not from your democratic constituents or your independent constituents, what are you hearing from your republican constituents?

>> i think as you characterized it, a lot of folks supported donald trump think there's some kind of democratic plot to kind of try to nullify the election and snatch away from what they won. i think one of the mistakes, and i can say this as an independent, the democrats have to listen to these folks. they have to understand that, you know, 60 plus million people voted for donald trump. whether or not the popular vote verse electoral vote, but the country is split down the middle. somebody has to start listening to the other side. otherwise, we're essentially two countries. that's why i think we have to take great care in this matter. we can't turn a blind eye to obstruction of justice, if that's what it turns out to be. but at the same time we can't use it as a pretense to try to reverse an election that many people didn't like the results of. >> well, i totally, senator,

understand that the story needs to play out for itself. if there are factions on any side, whether the media o left or right trying to move this along or overemphasize certain parts of it, it ends up becoming counter-productive. i was just talking to my dad, though. he says he's never seen anything like this in history, anything at all. and so i do ask you what your gut is to characterize what we've seen over the past week from the top down in this administration, from this president. >> well, it is disturbing, as you mentioned at the beginning, i'm on the intelligence committee. the intelligence that the president shared with the russian ambassador and foreign minister was the highest level of classification in our government. it's the kind of thing you don't even talk about having, let alone any of the details. that's very, very disturbing from a point of view of national security, because the country, and i can't confirm what country

it came from, but our country is going to stop sharing information with us that, in turn, will compromise national security. that was, i think, a very serious issue. on the other hand we don't know the details of what was shared in that meeting. the same thing goes with the meeting with director comey. that's why i think we've got to try to get to the bottom of this. if the white house has tapes, which the president suggested they did, now is the time we've got to see them. i think we're going to make every effort up here to get ahold of all the evidence we can on both of these matters because they are very serious. >> senator angus king, thank you very much. coming up, if the intelligence community is a china shop, david ignatius says president trump is a raging bull, wreaking havoc on already fragile relationships. nbc's andrea mitchell has the foreign policy implications of the president's intel sharing. that's still to come on "morning joe."

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all right. so joe, we just heard from senator angus king who says we've got to sort of not get

ahead of our skis. i talked to my dad, he said keep it on an even keel. where do we go from here? >> i think these are all great points. the news out of the white house has been shocking, but it is so critical that we remember how half of america is thinking right now, or at least maybe 40% or 38%, whatever that is. i'm really reminded of my father throughout watergate. my father stuck by richard nixon until the very end. i've told this story before. i was shock the morning he read the papers about nixon and the tapes right at the end. he said, you know, if this guy has done half of the stuff people claim he's done, he needs to get out of the white house. i was shocked. because my dad to do by nixon not for nixon's sake. but he thought nixon being driven from office would be a win for the liberal media, the bias media. a win for protesters who turned college campuses and conventions into war zones.

it would be a win for counter-culture left. it would be a win for all the people who went after richard nixon since alger hiss. so when i hear people talking about how this is all a conspiracy drummed up by george soros or the left wing media, i remember my dad and i understand why it's important to do what angus king said and get the shocking facts but always put everything into context and go step by step by step and keep words like impeachment off the screen. or if somebody brings it up, press them very hard. >> so up next, enough is enough. that's a quote from the top democrat on the house intel committee who is now calling on congress to subpoena comey's memos and any tapes that may exist. congressman adam schiff joins us next.

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i said it was the democrats that impeached andrew johnson. i was reminded it was actually the republicans who, of course, dominated everything after abraham lincoln was assassinated who resented andrew johnson's lenient reconstruction policies as you and i and jon meacham were just talking about in springfield, massachusetts back to commemorate, of course, shay's rebellion. >> jon meacham just texted you. he's our historical record. >> he's gotten to you. >> joining us ranking member of the house select committee on intelligence congressman adam schiff of california. good to see you this morning. >> good morning. >> you have asked for james comey, called for james comey to testify before your committee or somewhere before congress. have you formally asked him to appear now?

>> we have not. there are a lot of committees that have an equity here. certainly equity committee does. certainly judiciary committee, government reform committee. what i'm pleased to see there's bipartisan support now to get to the bottom of this. you have republican chairman chaffetz saying he wants the documents and is prepared to subpoena them. you have republican chairman like mccain and graham who have already extended senator graham an invitation to director comey to testify. so i think we can be confident if these documents exist congress will obtain them and that we will hear from director comey in fairly short order. i think that is certainly warranted by the circumstances, the allegations in the "new york times" story are very serious. i think if accurate require us to probe whether the president was involved in interfering or obstructing in any way. we need to get to the bottom. >> as ranking intel were you aware of existence held by director comey in regard to

russian investigation? >> no. this is the thing that continues to astonish me. not that i didn't know about these. but we had director comey come testify twice before our committee went in open session last month. another in closed session following that. who would have expected the need to bring him back to the congress so quickly. but of course that's been the course of the last 117 days. but no, i was not aware of either of the conversation you described or his aides have described, or that there was a memoriandum backing that up. >> congressman, before director comey, this was general flynn. what are the prospects of getting general flynn before the committee to publicly answer a question like what did you, general flynn, tell the president, president trump, about your conversations with the russian ambassador? >> well, you know, we could certainly subpoena general flynn to come in. has he made it quite clear

publicly that he would demand immunity in exchange for that. we would certainly need to explore with the yuz departmeju department all of their equities. now the importance of that grea ever. we're not going to want to take any steps to impede what the justice department may be looking at or deciding to do in terms of whether prosecution is warranted. we're also going to want to find out can we get the information we need in any other means. can we get it from those around general flynn, can we get it through other evidence. all those questions need to be answered before we would decide whether to go through the extraordinary step of providing immunity in exchange for testimony. >> adam, good morning. harold ford. we had professor turley on a little while ago and he reminded us the two of you before the senate several years ago as opposing counsel. he talked about the elements

needed for an obstruction of justice card and you would appreciate what would go into that. two questions, one, comment, i like your tone this morning and i hope democrats will adopt it and embrace it. we ought to stop talking about impeachment and let facts guide us. but two, what are those elements that would be in your mind you'd have to mark off or threshold you'd have to reach in order to move forward with an obstruction of justice charge. and two, what questions will you be asking in these hears or hope to ask to establish a fact pattern? >> well, i think there are questions that go to a legal standard which mostly revolve around what the president's intent was. was there a corrupt intent in the conversation he had with comey? was he essentially trying to make the investigation go away for illicit reasons, a fear maybe leading ultimately to the president. but then as a very practical question and that is in the context of, you know, potential removal from office, would the

country, would the congress, both democrats and republicans, view the conduct as so serious to be disqualifying? or would it be viewed as just a way to nullify the election by other means. i think that's the ultimate test i think as a practical matter that would have to be met to entertain any consequences that would flow from a congressional finding or belief that there was a criminal or corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation. so at the end of the day in terms of the questions i would want to ask, i'd like to know exactly what happened in those meetings between the director and the president. i'd like to see memoranda of any conversations they had particularly obviously about anything within the scope of the russia investigation, but if there were other conversations that the director had that concerned him about the ethics or the legality of what the president was suggesting. even if they involve other subjects, it may shed light on whether his intent here was to corruptly impede or interfere,

obstruct the investigation. >> mark halprin. >> quick question. if you could ask president trump one factual question this morning, what would it be? and second, how do you explain director comey alleging this conversation took place several weeks ago and yet stayed silent about it until now? >> well, you know, i'm not sure i could confine to single question, but i guess the question would be what did you say to director comey and why? the problem is of course time and time again we've seen we can't rely on the president's answers or representations made by his staff because they're contradicted within 24 hours of making the statement. but you're absolutely right, i think one of the important questions we'll need to ask director comey when he comes to testify is if you thought this was so concerning that you put it into a memoranda and discuss with your top aides the propriety of this, why didn't you bring it to the department of justice? now, maybe there's a good answer for that. he couldn't bring it to the

attorney general who had recused himself. the deputy attorney general may not have been confirmed yet so one question could be who do you bring it to at the department? but that's a fully appropriate question to ask the director. one thing to get back to the earlier point is obviously this whole prospect would be so wrenching to the country. it's not something that we should eagerly embrace in the absence of some very hard evidence. so we need to find out if that hard evidence exists i think before we lead to any conclusions. >> well said. congressman adam schiff ranking democrat of the house intel committee. congressman, thank you so much this morning. >> thank you. >> still ahead on "morning joe". >> he shares information in a way that is wholly appropriate. i should just make maybe the statement here that the president wasn't even aware, you know, of where this information came from. he wasn't briefed on the source or method of the information either. >> general h.r. mcmaster says

what the president told the russians in the oval office is, quote, wholly appropriate. and now he says he'll turn over the transcript of the lavrov meeting to the united states senate. plus, much more on james comey's paper trail. we'll bring in the reporter who broke the story of the former fbi director's bombshell memo in this morning's "new york times." "morning joe" back after this. david. what's going on? oh hey!

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the senators i've spoken to on both sides of the aisles have been shaken by this constant stream of revelations. each one of them in and of itself dramatic and historic. and i think most senators are shaking their heads saying is this going to end soon? >> i think we could do with a little less drama from the white house on a lot of things so that we can focus on our agenda. >> are you getting tired of this level of -- from the white house. >> it would be nice to have a drama-free week. >> no such luck. the drama continues. this morning a major development in the controversy over president trump's firing of james comey, a memo from the former fbi director claims the president asked him to drop an investigation into michael flynn the day after flynn was fired. the big question this morning, is this obstruction of justice.

among other things the chaos continues, but this feels like a defining moment. with us we have "new york times" reporter who broke this comey memo story, michael schmidt, senior analyst for msnbc mike halprin. former democratic congressman harold ford jr. and joe ahead with more on all of this. but first lay it out less than a week after president trump fired and then warned fbi director james comey about tapes of their conversations there looks to be a paper trail inside the bureau of investigation. multiple sources firsthand knowledge of all of this tell nbc news that comey wrote an internal memo saying trump asked him to drop an investigation into the former national security advisor michael flynn. comey wrote the memo, which nbc news has not seen, on february 14th, the day after flynn

resigned following reports that he misled vice president mike pence about discussing lifting sanctions with russia's ambassador. comey was in the oval office for a counterterrorism briefing along with attorney general sessions. chief of staff reince priebus, advisors, jared kushner and stephen bannon and deputy cia director gina haspel. trump asked comey to stay behind after the meeting was breaking up, and they spoke alone. according to a source who read the memo to the "new york times," trump told comey that flynn had done nothing wrong. with president trump saying, quote, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he's a good guy. i hope you can let this go. the memo said comey did not say anything to trump about curtailing the investigation, replying only, i agree he's a good guy. the white house responded by

saying it is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation stating that while the president has repeatedly expressed his view that general flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked mr. comey or anyone else to end any investigation. so, joe, i feel like this is a defining moment in the chaos that is this presidency. frame it out for us. >> well, you know, it is. i hope you can let that go are going to be words that not only haunt donald trump in his dealings with james comey, but also is something his staff members have to be hoping can happen, that things can be let go. but in this case they won't be able to because donald trump never allows them to be let go. it continues, the madness continues. improper guidance from the president of the united states to the director of the fbi to

whom he already demanded a loyalty of from whom three times. the fbi of course didn't let this go. nor can trump stay out of his way long enough for his friends or his enemies to let each one of these rising scandals go that keep seem to be mounting by the day. and, mika, what you had yesterday evening was extraordinary. one lie after another coming from the white house. one claim after another from the white house at night rebutted in the morning. and you started actually having republicans whisper about an independent counsel. you had democrats actually talk about the word impeachment outloud. i mean, this is taking on a life of its own. and meanwhile you look at what's happening inside the white house, mika, this is a white house by infighting, intrigue,

internal chaos and a president that's increasingly isolated, increasingly enraged and increasingly out of touch of the realities of what is required around this office in america he is incapable of doing it, mika. if this man we were looking at right now were the ceo of any fortune 500 company, the board of directors would have fired him weeks ago. >> and i think that's what we're beginning to hear rumblings of because, you know, over the past few weeks the talk has been about the spicers or the conways or the bannons. those are just distractions. those are just weak links under the president. now the talk is about, quite frankly, the president himself

not being able to be contained, proven to be -- >> right. >> -- potentially a threat to our democracy and a threat to our national security. willie geist. >> i want to go to michael schmidt who started this reporting that "the washington post" has now confirmed, that nbc news has now confirmed, michael, people who cover jim comey, people who know jim comey knows he takes meticulous notes on all his meetings, on all he sends e-mails to reporters, he documents the things he does. was there something about this meeting he saw as exceptional? or was this just another case him thinking he needed to put down in a paper trail in writing a meeting he had with the president or did he think, boy, this is really the beginning of something here? >> i think that from very early on comey was very concerned about trump. and obviously the dinner which proceeded this was concerning to him because he was asked to pledge his allegiance, his loyalty. comey in keeping these memos, he has a memo and phone call of

every meeting he had with the president and they're very, very detailed. because comey thought that the country and the fbi and the president were heading down this path. and comey had known in the past as his time as deputy attorney general that having these type of contemporaneous memos can really backup what you have. so these memos sit at the fbi, some are classified, some are unclassified like the one we wrote about yesterday. and they are very, very detailed accounts that comey associates believe bolster, you know, his accounts of what happened and what the president said. >> so, michael, how do we square this with the testimony of the acting fbi director andrew mccabe gave before congress last week where he said there's been no effort to impede our investigation. our work goes on in the russia investigation. how do you square that with what seems to be a pretty clear paper trail laid out by the former director? >> we don't know. we went into the fbi yesterday to talk to them about this and they asked us to put them down for no comment.

but it's a fair question. it's why didn't mccabe talk more about this? i mean, it's a very, very sensitive issue of the president trying to influence an fbi investigation. when comey -- this happened with comey, he kept news of this in a very tight hold at the top of the fbi. and they wanted especially none of the agents working on the case to know that the president had said this because they didn't want them to be influenced at all by it. but it's a fair question that the fbi's going to have to answer which is why didn't mccabe talk about this when he went to capitol hill last week. >> mike barnical, of course well known saying about history, history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. james fallow's already written a piece saying that in some respects, well, it's too early to talk about watergate. in some respects what we're dealing with here is far more significant than a third-rate burglary intended to get

information to embarrass enemies, political enemies. in this case we have something that seems to be spiraling out of control so much more quickly than did watergate or anything else of its kind. where are we right now? with no hyperbole, no nothing, we're not being hyperbolic, but where are we right now? >> well, joe, i would think from michael's fine reporting in "new york times," right at the edge of title 18 section 1503 of the united states code, which is obstruction of justice. and we have director comey's contemporaneous notes, they're called 302s, the fbi is very familiar with them, director comey files them all the time. a lot of agents do. they are contemporaneous memos for the file. so i can't predict, i don't think anybody can predict where congress is going to go on this, especially the republican senate and the republican house. and mark halprin, you might have

a better idea of the direction, the intent or feeling among republicans right now towards what the president has involved his party and our country in. >> i think as we wake up this morning that's like the biggest thing that's different about this controversy. we've some become inert to trump's controversies but there's a sea change amongst. until director comey and the president have a showdown, which i think is now inevitable. and right now comey has a lot of high cards. i don't think this town will move forward, and i don't think republicans will move forward with the president. >> mark halprin. you've never been a fan of james comey, how he handled the hillary investigation, you said it in realtime all along. you've been extraordinarily critical of him.

last night though you said people's position on comey in washington, d.c. just doesn't matter anymore. it's irrelevant whether you like this guy in the past as republicans did at times and democrats did at times, or you despised this guy in the past as you did at times. at this point of the story it's irrelevant because of the president's actions, explain. >> well, comey's been criticized by both hillary clinton and donald trump now and you can go to almost any member of congress and find them at times praising him or criticizing him. but he is leveled in accusation now not on camera, not before congress but he's clearly leveling accusations against the president that's about as grave an accusation as any fbi director could make against the president. that accusation has been disputed by the white house, but the credibility despite all the criticism on capitol hill is such now as i say this will come to a head and a lot of

republicans say this must come to a head very soon. and comey will say what he says happened and the president's going to have to say what he said happened. again, i can't -- look at short history on the national stage as a politician, i think what the current dynamics dwarf anything that's happened up until now. until this is resolved, i believe a lot of republicans are saying everything comes to a stop until this is resolved. >> still ahead on "morning joe". >> i think the real issue, and i think what i'd like to see really debated more is our national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality. and those releasing information to the press that could be used connected with other information available to make american citizens and others more vulnerable. >> with the trump administration preoccupied with leaks, we'll read from "the wall street journal" editorial entitled "loose lips sink presidencies." you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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♪ "the wall street journal" editorial page which bent over backwards to be as fair to this president as they could be. >> right. >> they have a headline in their main editorial that says loose lips sink presidencies. i want to read from that quickly and then get your reaction. the state of the trump's presidency has been in perpetual turbulence. they go onto say, but presidencies can withstand only so much turbulence before they fall apart. millions of americans recognized mr. trump's flaws but decided he was a risk worth taking. they assumed, or at least hoped that he'd rise to the occasion in demands of the job. if he cannot, he will betray their hopes as his presidency sinks before his eyes. loose lips sink presidencies,

mika, from "the wall street journal" editorial page. what do you think? >> well, let me put out there the concept that that actually is happening before our eyes. and i'll talk about the chaos before the latest chaos, and that is the one about the president divulging secrets to the russian foreign minister. we've been talking as you know for the past 48 hours to high level people inside the white house, inside the trump family and at the top of the nsc, and we literally in realtime both you and me had to curate the information they were throwing at us because we knew in realtime we felt in our gut in realtime that this president was throwing these high level officials, administration officials, national security council officials and members of his inner circle under the bus. because we know how he operates.

and it was very clear that this presidency and this white house, which was built on lies was caving in on itself. so i want to hear from you, joe, i know you've been talking to a lot of people what the atmosphere is like in there. >> well, it is absolute chaos on the inside. everybody is afraid they're going to be fired. as "new york times" reported last night and as my sources have been telling me even jared kushner now is under fire from president trump. he is striking out and yelling at everybody. but there has been a warning that every competent member of the trump administration should take from their president and that is, i will send you out whether you are rod rosenstein and the deputy attorney general and you have one of the most stellar legal reputations in washington, d.c., i will use you, i will throw you out, i will churn you up, i will spit

you out, i will tarnish your reputation all to steal 12 hours of an alibi on cable news. which is all they got out of that. the next morning it was obvious that all of trump's defenders were actually caught up in his lie. that this was about the deputy attorney general. we heard it a thousand times. we heard it on our show. we heard it from the white house. we heard it from right wing media outlets. it was proven to be a lie the next morning. and then you had the national security advisor, another man general mcmaster, impeccable, impeck b impeccable credentials, we celebrated when he was selected as national security advisor for good reason. and dina powell, his assistant, someone we know and have the greatest respect for as well. general mcmaster trotted out to say something about a story that left the impression that it was

fundamentally untrue. his reputation chewed up and spit out. everybody still knows he's a great man and a great general, but he's been sullied by donald trump. why? because donald trump wanted to steal 12 hours of cable news. he wanted an alibi for 12 hours. the truth came out. and then last night michael schmidt puts out this story along with the "new york times," a bombshell story. and my god, mika, i can't believe the same cycle started again. >> yep. >> attacking michael schmidt, attacking his sources, claiming the story wasn't true. claiming that they were making it up. they hadn't even seen the memo. it was soon confirmed by two, three, four other news sources. so, mika, the message that i would politely like to send not

only to people that work inside the trump white house but also to conservative media outlets that continue to defend him, i've been doing this for 25 years. i have seen day trading politicians that would take anybody in sight -- let's be bipartisan here. bill clinton did the same exact thing to women on his cabinet back in the 1990s during his scandals. and humiliated them. had them go out as maureen doud wrote in a blistering op-ed this year and he hid behind these women whose reputations were sullied by lying and defending bill clinton. read about it in maureen dowd's column. it's not worth it. donald trump is not worth it. he will use you and he will spit you up. he will throw you out. look at the last 72 hours.

don't go beyond last week, just look what's happened this week to the deputy attorney general, the national security advisor and a lot of conservatives that are trying to be good foot soldiers for this lifelong democrat who discovered birtherism in 2011 and became a republican. it's not worth it. >> still to come, we'll continue our discussion about the state of affairs at the white house, axios reports this morning a well-known republican operative who's worked to help the trump white house says, quote, a week ago we were talking about the agenda grinding to a halt, now the train is going down the hill backwards. "morning joe" is back after this.

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in just a few minutes we'll be joined by our political round table to talk about the potential legal fallout from reports the president pressured james comey to drop his investigation of michael flynn. but first, we want an update on what could be another dangerous day of weather. bill. >> thanks, willie. and yesterday with all the breaking political news

happening, at the same time we were dealing with numerous tornadoes in the middle of the country. in all there were 26 tornadoes that were reported from nebraska to wisconsin and all the way down through oklahoma and north texas. this is where we like to see them, unfortunately one of those big ones did make it through a populated area of oklahoma. this is elk city, oklahoma, one fatality, 25 injuries. and you can see the damage that was done. we also had another fatality in wisconsin. that was the first tornado fatality in wisconsin since 2011. so let's get into the news for today. 9 million people at risk of severe storms. this is the same storm system from yesterday. it's going to be a little bit weaker, but we still think there's a tornado threat des moines to fort dodge, quad cities, rochester, minnesota, and then wind damage threat through the overnight hours. this is a dangerous afternoon on thursday right in the heart of tornado alley, 26 million people at risk. and the difference with this is we have a chance of not just tornadoes but strong tornadoes. even a couple could be on the ground for a long period of

time. the area of red is at biggest risk between liberal, wisconsin, and oklahoma city down to wichita falls. that's the area of greatest concern. again, that's thursday afternoon. the other stories out there today with the weather, the heat -- mini heat wave over the east coast, washington, d.c. 93. at the same time there is snow covering the ground in monz la, montana as the nation is divided between the heat on the east coast and cold weather in the rockies. that's why we have all the severe weather in the middle of the nation over the next two days. summer like heat is breaking out this morning from new york city all the way down to washington, d.c. the warmest since last summer. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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welcome back to kwtd morning joe." national security advisor h.r. mcmaster has been the president's loyal messenger since the firing of james comey. but according to to glenn tlesh and maggie heyward-beyerman of "new york times," the president still openly laments having to

fire michael flynn and called mcmaster, quote, a pain for talking too much in meetings. fear leaving national security advisor alone because he's known to nudge the president back on track when he veers off course. andrea mitchell has more on the fallout from the president's intel sharing. >> reporter: as donald trump prepares for his first visit to israel as president, three u.s. officials tell nbc news it was israel who provided sensitive intelligence about isis, intelligence mr. trump shared with russia's foreign minister last week without israel's permission. in a statement israel's ambassador to the u.s. is trying to tamp down the uproar saying they have full confidence in their intelligence sharing relationship with the united states. for his part the president says he has no regrets. >> we had actually a great meeting with the foreign minister. >> reporter: but his team is struggling to deal with yet another self-inflicted wound, sending national security advisor h.r. mcmaster to try to stop the bleeding. >> that conversation was wholly

appropriate to the conversation and i think wholly appropriate with the expectations are of our intelligence partners. >> reporter: two intelligence sources tell nbc news they disagree and worry the president's conversation compromised a key source. and while what the president did is not illegal, some members of his own party are in disbelief. >> the handling of classified information is a critical thing. >> if it's accurate, it's very concerning. >> reporter: and this latest controversy is putting some foreign allies on edge. british officials say they are worried, but prime minister theresa may is deflecting. >> it's not up to me what president trump says to anybody that he's meeting and talking to. >> reporter: the germans are already unhappy about how mr. trump treated their leader, angela merkel, back in march. now they are furious about him sharing secrets with russia. for years intelligence sharing has been a powerful weapon in fighting terrorism. the fear now allies will not want to share intelligence because they do not trust the president of the united states to keep secrets. >> that's andrea mitchell reporting. a senior white house official

tells nbc news, president trump and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu spoke yesterday by phone, however an israeli official report tli telling the haaretz the conversation did not focus on that leaked intel. joining us now national correspondent for the atlantic, graham wood, written extensively on isis, also with us professor of history at yale university, timothy snyder, author of the new book. gentlemen, good morning. welcome. timothy, let me start with you and your book on tyranny. we were talking about so much of what we've seen over the last three or four months has been described as unprecedented and there's not a great sense of history in america or history in the world. you take a little bit longer view of things in this book. >> i try to imitate the founding fathers. when the founding fathers wrote the constitution, they were worried about the future of the republic, they looked back at examples of democracies and republics failing. when we can today look back at the 20th century, we also see most republicans and most democracies fail.

what history can do is spread our imagination so we can see how they fail and give us tools to try to help us. because a lot of the things that are happening to us are just the early stages of proscesses happened elsewhere. >> what do you see as a parallel of the last few centuries? is there a parallel in the world? >> of course there are all kinds of parallels and every day one sees a new one. for example with the firing of mr. comey there are a couple of things. first of all, the idea of loyalty. loyalty is a way you take a rule of law state like ours off the rails and transform it into something else. when the president asked the fbi director for loyalty, he's actually trying to change the character of the american government. hitler in 1934 began to demand precisely loyalty and it was from that moment forward that he was the leader and no longer just the chancellor of germany. or, for example, firing mr. comey by sending over a head of a private security detail. that's what happens in germany as well. the private security detail

eventually becomes the ss and they become more important than the police. it's a baby step forward to use the head of your private bodyguard to fire the fbi director, but it's a troubling indication of the way this man's mind works. >> joe's got a question for you. i just want to be clear because when you use the term nazis, all kind of alarm bells obviously go off. you're not comparing right now what you see in donald trump to adolf hitler or the nazis. >> it's important history gives us a sense of possibility. as you said earlier, americans tend to be trapped in our own history and we forget it very quickly. we're overwhelmed by daily events. what we need to remember is that we're not so much wiser and more capable than germans in the 1930s. things that happened to other people can also happen to us. the point is that not we're exactly the same, the point is we should be modest, we should be open to the possibility that things can go very wrong and we should try to learn. if we see a warning sign like loyalty or like a private bodyguard taking over functions of the state, we should learn from that rather than saying it

can't happen here. when you say it can't happen here, you're making it happen here. >> joe. >> well, yeah, professor, obviously we need to remain vigilant. and something that a lot of people have come on this show have suggested. we are though, i would think, a long way from germany the early 1930s. you look at the courts, which have pushed back on the president's executive orders. he's been extraordinarily frustrated by the courts. and not just judges on islands as the attorney general would say of a federal judge in hawaii, but also the supreme court striking down to the north carolina voter id law. i had a very conservative judge tell me we are all shoulder-to-shoulder against this president overstepping. congress actually pushed back on the president's own health care plan, eventually passing something, but he seems to be tied up there as well. while we need to remain vigilant, and i agree with you we must remain humble about the

possibility of it not ever being able to happen here that we're somehow beyond all of this, can't you look back at the last 120 days and say there are several parts of our system that have actually checked out quite well? >> i would agree with that but with a very important proviso. the system doesn't work like a machine. the system is us. so when americans say the institutions are going to protect us, my response is ask not what the institutions are going to do for you, ask what you can do for the institutions. so inso far as coverage, the press has helped, it's because people in these institutions have been aware of the lessons of the past and have tried to get out front. when people went to protest the muslim bans at the airports, it was because they understood the logic of politics like that and got out front. history is a way for us -- >> professor? >> yes, sir. >> would you also agree that the

one thing we have learned that is chilling is that so much of our constitutional republic, of our system of what madison and hamilton put together depends on having a chief executive, a president who operates in good faith, that perhaps it is too dependent on that fact when you have a president that can appoint an attorney general, can hire and fire an fbi director with absolutely no oversight? >> the main lesson that we have from 20th century history and the collapse of democracy in the overreach of executives is that it's important not to see moments like this as normal. and as you say, it's important not to imagine that executives will always behave normally. the chief lesson is you have to recognize moments when the actions of citizens matter more than other moments and that you only have a few months or a year

at the beginning to react fast. as you say, some of us have done that. you can't count on checks and balances to work on their own. they have to be pushed and nudged along. >> so, graham, let's talk about the meeting that the president had that there was so much controversy where he allegedly shared classified information with sergey lavrov and kislyak with the russian ambassador to the u.s. he said he was doing it because he was asking russia to step up its efforts in the fight against isis. what is the impact of all this sort of russian chaos around the white house on that effort? >> well, specifically with this piece of intel about an infiltrator that was allegedly in isis, we have known very little about what's gone on in the inner circle of isis in isis' core territory. it's been sort of a roach motel for a couple years where people have gone in and not come out. so to have this drawn up into the chaos and some of that kind of intel sharing exposed to the world means that very important

piece of cooperation in the anti-isis fight is now something that our allies can't trust us to be a fair partner in. that's a huge loss. >> talk about how difficult it is to get human intel within isis? >> yeah, the people who have come out of isis so far, they've been low level. they haven't been important. they haven't been in the planning circles of attacks like the one that is supposedly being hatched against airlines going to the united states. so to have someone who's actually there is a source of intelligence that is invaluable and perhaps even irreplaceable. >> can you talk about the impact on israel, one of our greatest allies? of course if this intel did come from them that the president would share it so loosely with somebody who does not share our interests around the world. what does that mean to that relationship with israel? >> i think it's not just israel but jordan. jordan has been very important in providing intelligence about isis. and within israel there are

political elements that are very sympathetic to trump. but now that there is also within the intelligence establishment of israel a knowledge that sharing is not necessarily a safe thing to do. so there will be rifts within israel about what kind of cooperation with the united states should go forward. >> professor, you know, there's a cable clock, there's a coastal clock that people operate under, but there's a country clock. and the country at large it seems there's a relative indifference because people are busy with their lives to what is going on in washington. how much of that do you think is geared or revolves around the fact that we no longer teach history and civics as well as we used to? >> i think that's tremendously important. i just got back from spending a week in ohio where i would say more and more people are actually concerned and the clocks are beginning to line up. what we don't have is a sense of the way the institutions are supposed to work.

we've lost that because of civics. and what we also don't have is the sense of what the possibilities are because we've lost history. after 1989 we said history was over, everything has to proceed towards world democracy. what we're seeing around the world instead is a rollback of democracy now. and some of the things that roll back democracy, like the fake news and attacks on truth, have reached us. we need to be able to learn from people abroad. we need to be able to learn from the past. the past actually gives us protocols for how we can react day-to-day so we can get our clocks aligned again. >> so, professor, what would reverse this course that you are clearly concerned about that we saw over the last four months? how can we change? how can the country react in a way that becomes constructive and stops it on this path? >> i think the key thing is what you say. that it's not all about mr. trump. it's about the country. rather than being overwhelmed by the bad news every day, we have to have daily actions, the very first one is understand what's happening is not normal. number two in the book is

support institutions, whether it's the press, whether it's the courts, whether it's labor union. number ten is very important, believe in truth. we have to try to figure out what's going on. we have to believe that there's a common set of facts which will allow us to act together regardless of our political views. without this it's very hard to resist the overwhelming spectacle of the day-to-day. >> we're looking at that list on the screen right now. graeme, i want to ask you about your piece in "the atlantic," it's about a well-known white supremacist you actually knew in high school. how different is the guy we've come to know today from the guy you knew in high school? >> i've known him since eighth grade, we were chemistry lab partners. i would not guess in eighth grade he would be the most prominent white supremacist of my generation. he's a completely different person. he was a b-student, he was 50th percentile student in every way, athletically, academically and otherwise. at some point along the way he actually perhaps learned too

much history, specifically german history, and became really e n really really enamerreed with it. >> how did he rise? why do we even know who this guy is? >> for a long time he was in montana running a website called alternativeright.com. now of course we all know the term alt-right. it wasn't a term he coined but definitely brought to popularity. for a long time he was cultivating a group of followers that eventually me tast sized and now inflicted on the consciousness of everyone in this country. >> it's a fascinating raead in "the atlantic." joe. >> professor, i wanted to just briefly bring up, you said something that reminded me of an article i read in "the new yorker" back in february that was talking about an intellectual i think a german

intellectual that fled nazi germany, came to new york and wrote a memoir about the rise of hitler. and, again, we're making absolutely no comparisons here though "the new yorker" article pulls quotes out of his memoir that are chilling. but this is how it's summed up at the end. the excruciating power lies in the pain of looking back and seeing there was a small window in which it was possible to act and then discovering how suddenly and ir revocablely that window can be slammed shut. i went back to that february article and looked it up while you were talking and you basically said the same thing. why is there a small window to act against these abuses before the door is slammed shut? and why is it so important that that vigilance is also focused so it never gets out of hand?

>> that's a wonderful question. because everything we know about the history of national socialism in germany and for that matter about awe authoritarian suggests swas right. if you accept yourself personally that what's happening is completely normal, that's then going to mean you've lost the opportunity yourself to act. you've started to drift. you've started to go along. you've started to adapt. that means that you're lost. in other words, if you don't follow number one, don't obey in advance, you can't follow two through 20. the second reason it's important if you don't resist in the beginning, resistance becomes hard. many of us protest now, but how many would protest if it were illegal or dangerous? so the entire essence of what we learned is in your question. you have to act fast both for psychological and for political reasons. this is one of the most important things that we've learned from history. >> the book is "on tyranny,"

professor timothy snyder. thanks so much for being here this morning. >> appreciate it. >> coming up next, have conservatives reached a tipping point when it comes to president trump? keep an eye on "morning joe." >> run away! run away! run away! david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ oh, it's actually... sfx: (short balloon squeal) it's ver... sfx: (balloon squeals) ok can we... sfx: (balloon squeals)

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with us now, let's bring in msnbc chief correspondent ari melber. also contribute be editor at the weekly standard and perhaps the greatest tweeter of our generation, john padora, and gih dordus. john, let's start with you. your new york post column says the best thing you can say about donald trump is that he's absolutely terrible, he stinks at the whole president thing. what should republicans be doing right now? what should americans be doing right now? >> look, the problem is whether or not you think trump is guilty of an impeachable offense or not or is doing unbelievably horrible things or not, the simple fact of the matter is the republican legislative agenda is

sitting there in tatters. he's got to get health care through in a month in order to get favor with the health care plan and get the tax cut done. where do republicans go in 2018 to tell people they did with their majority? and all of this is due to self-inflicted disasters trump is raining down on his own head. and so i don't know what republicans do -- >> yeah. i mean, that's the most remarkable thing, isn't it, that for the most part, these wounds are all self-inflicted. yes, the media -- as you say, the media is against him, and yes, the democrats want his scalp. true, true, check them off. but one scandal after another scandal is self-inflicted, and

the republicans own washington, they own congress and they own the courts, they own everything, and they're getting nothing done. >> can i quickly -- say you assume trump did what he did totally in innocence with comey. so a person with an instinct for self-preservation and a knowledge of how the world works would know that a guy who thinks his jobs might be on the chopping block was a successful bureaucrat who has been around the track a few times might be writing a memo to file about what goes on when he has conversations with the president. which means the president says x, y and z, he goes away, he then thinks about firing comey. what's the bad result from this? and maybe we go, you know, i said that thing to him about how maybe you should go easy on flynn. maybe i shouldn't fire him. like the fact that he doesn't know that is a sign of some kind of lack of emotional intelligence of a very high order. >> he also is asking other people to leave the room, so you have to factor why wouldn't you

want witnesses to what you're saying, unless there is a benign interpretation. >> asking people to leave the room means he's doing something he has to keep under wraps, under his hat. does he think comey is just going to walk away? >> you're saying you don't think it he should have asked people to leave? >> he's just handed comey a giant mallet to hit him over the head with, so don't fire the guy if you want to get health care through, is what i'm saying. aside from anything else. >> and like any good teenager, leave the door at least a foot open so there is no allegation of wrongdoing. >> we've had former fbi agents on this morning, former people who worked in the doj who said, i assure you, this is just the beginning of what james comey has and it's probably not the most damning thing he has

because you don't necessarily lead with that. what's the path as you watch it lay out in front of you? what happens next? >> i thought it was very useful to have the conversation earlier today about the technicalities of obstruction of justice and how do you make the case? i think we're having a one-sided conversation where there is kind of doing nothing or there is a full case ready to go to impeach the president. i want to impose a point 5 option in the middle of that which is honest, honorable people who work for the united states of america, not president trump, not a party but who are employed by the united states of america in the administration, in congress and elsewhere simply speaking truth. that is a good intermediate step to impeachment. if you have seen things that are not right, forget if they're impeachable, speak truth. >> that's what's happening, isn't it? it's on the front page of every newspaper this morning. >> i'm talking about courageous people who are courageous enough to go be war heroes, who are courageous enough to work in our intelligence services,

courageous enough to fight the slog of campaigns for dozens of years. i don't really see people thinking about what it means to be a courageous american in this moment when you have a president who we all know does not live up to any of their values. >> and mike barnacle, the onus is on the republican party right now just because of history. bob corker, others have started to complain about it yesterday, and i agree with ohn and the five points might be right, that we need an independent congress, we need an independent solution. >> we have a president who is ill-equipped to maintain that office and hold that office both politically and emotionally. it is now a process of seeking the truth among the media, the press, but among people. i would like to ask everyone

here, and start with you, joe, do any of you sense in listening in your everyday lives, can you hear people worried now about the foundations of this repub c republic? people just voted for him. >> i think with the public it starts with the questions you're asking. why does this guy keep shooting himself in the foot? that's where it begins. that's where it began with watergate. >> to be a cynic, it's nice to talk about truth. the simple fact is even raw politics says to you, you're a republican. you are heading into a place where you have no good choices. you attack your president, you bring him down, you're going to be screwed in 2018. you are don't attack him, you don't protect your own self, you're done in terms of history. this is what trump is doing to his own party. >> and ultimately this is a co-equal constitutional democracy. so the congress has to decide

what it wants to do with its leverage. it does have a role in the senate regarding the new fbi director, it has a role in the briefing tomorrow with the deputy attorney general about how important these inquiries are going to be. >> raw politics is never an excuse. this is a moment to be a patriotic, law-abiding, constitutional american. gentlemen, that does it for us this morning. tomorrow the show live in washington and we'll be joined by senator john mccain. stephanie rule makes up our coverage right now. good morning. i'm stephanie rule. we have breaking news. vladimir putin adding a new twist this morning saying he will provide president trump's meeting with the russians where classified information was allegedly shared. >> the last thing the president probably needs right now is for vladimir putin to be vouching for him. breaking new details on the comey memo. the former fbi director put in writing that president trump asked him to end the russia investigation. was it obstruction