"morning joe" starts right now. good morning. it's wednesday, september 27th. welcome to ""morning joe." "yesterday was a tough day. >> it was a tough day. >> if you're mitch mcconnell. >> isn't it a tough day if you are mitch mcconnell. >> or a member of the washington establishment overall. gop senators pulled the latest plug to repole and replace obamacare. >> if you are keeping score at home, children, number one, they dropped the measure to undue the health care law. >> naming at their promise to repeal and replace. thank god. >> a big loss there. >> the steve bannon outsider candidate defeated the mcconnell backed establishment candidate in the alabama runoff. >> roy moore, that will be a lot of fun for mitch and the rest of the republicans in washington. and the cramer of the foreign relations committee, senator bob corker of tennessee will not be seeking a third term

next year. there was an announcement yesterday. >> there goes the neighborhood. >> well. we're going to break down what all of this means for mcconnell, the republican party and president trump. with us on set we have ms nbc political analyst school of public policy, former democratic congre congressman harold ford jr.. >> this seems like the tennessee mafia. . >> and because he's smart. and he reads them. senior politics reporter at the usa today, heidi brinide heidi joins us. >> what a sad day. >> we will go through the details. roy moore coming up to washington, d.c., you know, there is reason donald trump didn't support that guy. he will do exactly what he wants

to do and in the age of political free agency is about to get aamped up to such a degr good luck, mitch mcconnell and republicans. >> roy moore had a lot working against him in terms of trump, mitch mcconnell. all that money pumped into that race by establishment republicans and he won by what ten points? so it was not close. that's a huge sweeping defeat for the establishment for the president who delete all his tweets now in support of luther strange. >> really? >> they're not going to have to defend roy moore through this election and a lot of the things he said, if he wins, which will se expected to do, he will be a thorn in their side to say the least in washington. >> if you remember todd aiken and how radical everybody said todd aiken was, you know, roy, judge roy moore, got kicked out

of the state of alabama. he makes him look like dwight eisenhowers brother maury, this guy who said sexual conduct should be illegal. 9/11 was god pupishing perverseness. and personal belief, he had that barack obama was fought born here. referred to reds and yellows. said muslims should not sit in congress. because, after all, you don't pass a religious test in the united states. oh, wait, we do. there are no religious tests. i think they got rid of that back in what, 1789? >> 1787. >> 1787. i said '89. then what was the last one?

we don't want to miss that one. these are greatest hits and ilam is contrary to the u.s. constitution, something else that would come as a great shock to those, john meacham, who actually drafted the u.s. constitution. >> well, facts are stubborn things. >> yes, they are. >> you know, it's a really interesting moment when the republican voters of the state of alabama think that donald trump's candidate is not conservative enough. i think we should think about that for a minute. >> yeah. >> and you know the clever thing to say here would be that roy moore is doing a spin-off of the trump show. but moore represents at least a cultural force you mentioned todd aiken. i remember on election night 2012, you said that we would try to figure out how the rate candidate had done. you can't remember which one it was. which was not a good sign for your former party.

>> that's a sign for the fw op. >> yeah. so it's -- i think it goes booing to this idea that i believe in fervently. >> yes. >> which is we are living through the political equivalent of climate change. it's just extreme weather. i wouldn't be stunned to see some sort of left wing, more populist kind of chaotic moment at the first opportunity. >> i think that is coming as well. why don't we go through? >> here's what happened, former alabama supreme court -- >> by the way, can we show john meacham. you see that blue book over meacham's shoulder, that's where we placed the microphone, went to see how it bounces off the wall. we've stuck it there. >> i want to get to my piece? it's an ambience thing. he's in this big study hall.

>> do you want me to get pipe out now or wait? >> if you can get it out now. don't smoke it. do that thing. >> masterpiece theater. >> a former alabama justice roy moore defeated appointed for luther strange by nearly ten points. strange had the backing of president trump and mitch mcconnell and during the six-week runoff board alone, australian him and his supporting groups spent $4.7 on tv ads. roy moore and aligned groups spent $1 million. mcconnell's spent more since spring, boosting strain him. mcconnell congratulates moore in a statement last night quote he ran a spirited campaign centered around a dissatisfaction with the progress made in washington. i share that frustration and i believe that enacting the agenda

the american people voted for last to have requires us all to work together. president trump tweeted his congratulations to moore and said luther strange started way back and ran a good race, roy, win in november. but since the general election is on december 12th, trump tweeted with the correct month and delete the other 2003. oh my god the president wanted to delete three other tweets supporting luther strange. >> this is interesting about this whole roy moore thing, harold. >> yeah. >> so for anybody that doesn't know judge roy moore, our former judge roy moore and future senator most likely roy moore, it would be a terrible mistake for anybody to say that roy moore decided to sort of surround himself in trump-ism. because judge roy moore is judge roy moore, the same guy like 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

he hasn't changed. >> right. >> it's one of these strange situations, maybe that's why he did so well. he was trump-like, you know, 30 years before trump was trump-like. he was trump-like while trump was giving money and parties and swanky parties to chuck schumer and writing $100,000 checks to the democratic national committee to help nancy pelosi become speaker of the house. that's what donald trump was doing. judge roy moore has been judge roy moore for 20, 30 years. he's been the same guy maybe that's why he won so well last night. he did so well last fight despite some of his -- >> how about john meacham, the climate change analogy, metaphor, you can call eight bulkannization, republicans are certainly seeing it now. in some ways you can point to being an outsider.

he ran a lot like trump ran, he was the outsider. trump was an outsider running against the traditional orthodoxy of the party. roy moore did that and grabbed some of the things in the early 2000s with democrats. it will be interesting to see. you are pushing both parties, it comes to a place where it's very difficult to govern. i would ask john the question. you talked about this being an interesting moment. what parallels do we have in recent or that matter distant times where you find the country at a place where it looks as if the establishments in both parties, the republicans are dealing with it in a more pronounced way after this race and it looks as if some others are probably fought going to run. we had maria cantwell on this show. we said if roy moore one you will see defections or republicans not going to run. doesn't this force president trump to seek common ground more with democrats if he's interested in advancing any agenda in the congress?

>> yeah. well, analogies are tricky in this case. i think in terms of the two parties facing a case where the center of each party, if you will, has a problem with their wings. this is 1948 in many ways, where you had the democrats break up into dixie-krats and the more centr centrist truman people. you had four candidates in 1948 at a moment when we look back on the post-war era as this time of wonderful consensus. in 1948, you had, you know, we come out of a global depression, we come out of a global war, suddenly we were back in a nuclear standoff with the soviet union, which is an existential crisis that created great anxiety. have you the domestic social forces of race and equality. so i think that's as close as it

gets. but you know, joe's talked a lot about 1964, too, the difference is you had with the fringe movement, moving to the center. you had a consistent etiology with conservative republicanism. i don't think you have that with trump. >> heidi in his concession speech last night, luther australian him said, we're dealing with a political scene i never seen with, the political scenes are very hard to first half gait. this blows wide opened the question of what 2018 will look like? right away we think of tennessee, if bob corker steps aside, what kind of republican candidates come into that race? what may become the next senator there? donald trump is still popular in alabama. people were quick to say, including roy moore, there was not a repudiation of donald trump. in some ways it's an endorsement to go up against the establishment and take it down.

>> i think this was in many ways a much more embarrassing defeat for mitch mcconnell than donald trump. from roy moore's statement, he actually said make america great again. this was not about donald trump. what this is about is some of these grass roots group i met with willie about a week or two ago, they said we're going for a high profile scalping. we want to send a message to these corporatists in congress to mitch mcconnell to paul ryan, that we're disappointed. we're eight months in, what we've gotten is daca deals, no wall, no obamacare replacement and in the mid-terms, this is going to be a message now to all of those inspiring tea party folks, or all those aspiring, you know, conservative potential challengers that they can get off the lines now and potentially challenge some of these establishment figures and for sure you will see a brawl and a colorful race and primary

races in places like tennessee. >> well, there may be more signs of a political reshuffling. this time in new hampshire. first time a democratic victory won a tight victory in the seat of the house of representatives. it happened in a district where republicans have a 2-to-1 advantage in registrations. president trump won that district by 23 percentage points in november, heidi, so adding to the climate, there's even on the very local level, a lot happening. >> yeah, and particularly, in some of these house districts as well, i think these moderate republicans, you are seeing folks like charlie dent, some of the members of congress who tried in vain, mika, who actually were on the side linest trying to cut bipartisan deals at the tuesday meetings or pod rat group meetings to try to get something done, maybe on spending or maybe on immigration

and it's i think very depressing, you will see potentially two things. first, more people hanging up their hats. more retirements, and then challengers, you know, potentially messy primary challenges. we should point out this is not going to be limited to just the republican party. we are seeing this also on the left with democrats, with folks like dianne feinstein and nancy pelosi of all people getting booed for even talking to republicans. >> yeah, i mean, things really do seem to be blowing up on both sides. you're having a poll to the extremes on both sides and you have a lot of free agents that are out there right now that have more power than party leaders. one guy who's a free agent now is somebody who we said would be more powerful outside the white house than inside the white house and that was steve bannon, who went down to alabama last night to take a victory lap.

watch. >> last night we talked about starting a revolution with judge moore's victory. well, senator corker stepped down today, he is not going to run for re-election. and you will see in state after state after state, people that follow the model of judge moore that do not need to raise money from the elites, from the crony capitalists, from the fat cats in washington, d.c., new york city, silicon valley. >> heidi, that makes everybody's life in washington, d.c. much more interesting this morning. >> yep. >> how the u.s. that imfact republican party the split in the republican party? >> you think about it, joe, it's not just steve bannon. it was the fact that this, it wasn't just humiliating for mitch mcconnell, because he put himself on the line. it was the entire artillery of

the traditional republican party that came out for luther strange, including groups like the chamber of commerce, including for example the nra. he was badly outspent like willie mentioned at the beginning by about $10 million and yet in the face of all of that, the republicans decided to go with a guy like roy moore, who, by the way, when he gets here, he will make rand paul look like a yes man and it's not just the statements that he's made in the past, but he had said that he is coming to washington to get rid of mitch mcconnell. >> and rand paul? >> so he will be a loyal soldier in the bannon army. >> he'll be on the show this morning. >> the thing about bannon, bannon army. it's amazing this rag tag group of people doing so well. >> yeah. >> and led by a guy that you know, no moneyly think he has some big money. >> he has some -- what's that? >> wait minute.

this. i think there is some money involved here. >> what about gold man saches. >> alex told me he worksed a goldman sachs. that's when they didn't have money, hollywood producer, he probably didn't make any money off oh "seinfeld." and he's bank rolled, of course, by billionaire robert mercer. so john meacham, we must be careful as every morning we are here on "morning joe." . >> always. >> the mistake, i've seen eight zillion times, people always overread the results of the night before and what works in alabama does not even work in georgia or virginia, let alone new hampshire or wisconsin or you can go across the country and this is again because donald trump is a political neophyte

and has not been following politics closely through the years, chances are good. this will chart him to most extreme right wing position humanly possible. because that's where the breeze is blowing this week. but -- >> right. >> a warning sign for all republicans, they could be nominating a lot of people outside of alabama that can get tru thumped in next year's elections. >> well, the general numbers in alabama will be fascinating in my state here and harold knows this in his bones. it will be a really interesting question in the race to succeed bob corker is the race as everyone says off the top of their heads really all in the republican primary or could a state like this actually elect a moderate pro-business democrat? it's an interesting question.

you are right. i think we all try to look for, i think of it as the harris-wofford-dig thornbu harris-wofford-dick thornburg moment in a special election in '91 where wofford wins in pennsylvania with james carval working for him, talking about health care. it was seen as a moment, a crack in the reagan-bush dynasty and set up clinton. that's kind of the one can you point to in many ways. republicans have held on to a lot of these special elections. i think any time we tried to generalize from a particular to go to your point, i think we have to remind ourselves, donald trump is president. >> right. >> so, therefore, any rational model is fundamentally broken. >> it's fun to listen to viewers. you can hear them typing, when john meacham speaks racing to wiki pedia.

it's a fun game we play. >> i was in school in pennsylvania. i remember. >> does wofford have a walk-on role? >> thank you, harold. >> bob roberts? >> no, gorvitol the rule of harris, bob roberts. i think he played that type character. >> okay. way to obscure. >> that's true. >> not for people that watch this show, it's not way to obscure, mika. i push back. >> you obviously do have to be careful extrapolateing any given race. but you had people watching last night. chris mcdaniels, state senator in mississippi, he came out. he's a bannon guy. he came out and said this increases the likelihood i will primary roger wicker, i think if that happened in alabama, it can happen here in mississippi. denny tarcanian says this looks good against dean heller. it froze open the mid-terms next

year to a lot of people that think they have a shot. >> i agree. this is one of the few times after up with of these races, to john's point, it's spot on. but you had bannon stand on that stage and basically invite these opposition candidates across the country. make clear, i will be there, whatever army i can muster, which is a room there. the most interesting thing is he didn't try to create a fishure in donald trump. he made clear roy moore was going to pursue the donald trump agenda, saying even if donald trump has forgotten what his agenda, i haven't. we will find candidates that will be fire brands. mitch optically today being a big loser. in a lot of ways, donald trump has to make a decision, is he the bannon candidate, because bannon took credit for electing him, or is he this candidate starting two years ago running

as someone as an outsider in washington trying to get this done. >> the problem is he does make that decision. i changes daily. you look at the fact he worked with democrats a couple of weeks ago. you saw his poll numbers go up for three weeks in a row. then he started getting skittish and nervous. so he decided he was going to pick a fight with the nba players, nfl players with racial undertones or overtones, so so sort of throw red meat at the base. smith said this is the reddest of red meat for trump's base. so now everything that he gained over the past three weeks will be lost as he moves back to that very comfortable snug steve bannon 33%. and that's the thing, mika, these candidates, they're 33% candidates. i always say, my brand of conservatism. i've never had an illusion about it.

it's 37, 38%. it's all it is, you got to compromise. >> when have you people that love your hair, you look at 43. >> i hate my hair. i into toad get a haircut. the worst thing about my hair, i got a haircut yesterday. it grows. i have to get it today. you should have seen it the day before. >> teen wolf over here. >> it is, it won't go down. it just won't go down. >> okay. all right. >> it's time to go to break now. >> my point, other than my hair. >> i loo tick hair. >> oh my god. don't go there. >> we get a clip going to the brick of george clooney? >> weren't we going to have -- six-and-a-half minutes -- >> i like that movie. but it's roy moore outside of alabama, georgia, mississippi, roy moore is a 31% proposition, at best. at best.

>> you think southern states, sec states producing roy moors on the republican side? >> every southern state is different. >> i agree. >> you know tennessee is a unique state. it usually gets more moderate republicans, even though they're conservative, better than anybody else. >> i have good perspective on that. >> mississippi is different tan georgia, south carolina is different. everybody sort of clumps it altogether, but every one of those states is different. i don't know that it's going to be as easy to knock off roger wicker as it was to knock off luther strange. again, a lot of people in alabama looked at how luther strange got that. see. wait a second. >> i didn't like it. >> that spells that sort of insider dealing we want no part of. that roger was a great guy a. clean guy. showers twice a day. no, i mean, he is very clean, doesn't have any scandal around him.

>> right. >> and they know in mississippi, i don't think it will be as easy there, but your point is well taken. >> still ahead on ""morning joe,"" we will talk to senator rand paul on the latest republican health care bill in the senate. also with us, congressman elijah coupl cummings is investigating jared kushner's use of his e-mail. congressman adam schiff joins the conversation with few developments in the russia investigation. first, let's bring in bill karins with a look at the latest conditions in puerto rico. bill. >> good morning. it was exactly one week from right now that maria made landfall in puerto rico. so now seven days later, here's where we stand. 44% of the island still does not have running water. about 90% is still without power. and of the 69 mills 11 are operational, mostly -- hospitals only 11 are working, on

generators. we are starting to hear stories the relief effort is making its way into san juan the biggest airport, biggest port. there are a lot of towns sitting there waiting to see their first representative of the government of puerto rico or from fema. so san juan, people heading in there helping them. it's so broad and so huge of a situation that even though the rest of the country is still very much struggling and waiting for beginnings of help. so yesterday, how painful was this? it was 108 heat inthe exin san juan. today about 97, 96 in san juan. it will stay out through the the rest of the east coast. maria is about to leave finally. only a little problems on the outer banks. today's story will be the heat up the east coast. enjoy it. as we go through tomorrow, it cools offer dramatically into the 70s. we will continue to give you updates from that dire situation in puerto rico. i don't know if we've seen the

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we are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option, but if we take that option, it will be devastating, ki tell you that, devastating for north korea. that's called the military option. if we have to take it, we will he's acting very badly. he's saying things that should never, ever be said and we're replying to those things, but it's a reply. it's not an original step. but it's a reply. north korea is a situation that should have been handled 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 yeerths, ten years ago and five years ago and it could have been handled much more easily. you had various administrations, many administrations, which left me a mess but i'll fix the mess. >> whether it's three months or six months or 18 months, it is

soon and we ought to conduct ourselves as though it is just a matter of time and a matter of a very short time before north korea has that capability. >> joining us now, former nato supreme -- >> you know, it's very interesting. so the north koreans, mika are trying to physical out what the president is saying. we just want to let the north cre koreans know, we don't know what the president is saying. what is he say something. >> it's ha ready to say. >> what was he saying? >> it was about him. we heard the word me. >> me, i. >> a common denominator. >> he's the homer simpson of presidents. >> i really wish. >> yeah. >> jack is watching the simpson's now, we should not insult homer. >> i'm sorry. with his tweets. >> now the dean of the fletcher school of law. >> good god!

>> at tufts university and the man who wishes he never showed up on the set of "morning joe" this morning, retired navy admiral and chief international security and diplomacy analyst at ms nbc. admiral, few were chairman of the joint chiefs right now what would you be telling the president? >> first of all, i would tell him to quit acting like a hurricane. >> what if he said, that's who i am. i have to do it. >> i would tell him -- >> he would probably say take it or leave it, general. i know, i'm telling you what donald trump would say, calling you a general. >> i have been called worse. >> that's funny. >> did you like that? >> i filed it off of the top of my hairy head, anyway, admiral, you go to the president. >> yes. >> would you keep reminding him every day what his hurricane-like antics are doing? >> i would. you know, think about it, we have been hit by three hurricanes in 60 days, they're

explosive, they're unpredictable. they're delivering chaos into the system. the job of the leadish is to bring order out of chaos, fought inject more into it. what i would be telling the president, look, let's do three things here, up our games in cyber, where we have some real options to play. >> what's our strongest play in sieber? >> it is to use our offensive cyber capably, but use it sparringly so that the north koreans begin to be unsure about their capably, two benefits. one is that it weakens kim jong-un's decision cycle. >> right. >> to tuesday weapon and, secondly, it undermines his arms stea sales, which are a real source of cash to him, cyber, first option, second, missile defense, increase ourable there. ballistic missile is simple, missile goes up, boost phase, comes down terminal phase, we're good at the terminal phase. >> how good are we at that?

you know there was the big battle in the 1980s. >> star worse. >> fbi was reduced to star wars by it's critics, how is sdi developed? >> it's middleing. we have probably 60% chance of shooting the big ballistic missiles coming into the country. where we're very good is in the cruise phase if it gets to that and comes down with the the eaegis airborne system. we need to be better at the third phase the third thing we need to be better sat maritime interd interdicti interdiction, stopping trade going in and out. we need new ideas, kim jong-un keeps coming ahead of us in the decision cycle. >> admiral, the diplomatic cycle is to lean hard on china so china will lean hard on north korea. last week the sanctions by the banks viewed by most people as a

big step. few can, put donald trump's rhetoric aside, if you can entirely, that's an important piece of it. is his administration doing well or at least making progress? >> i think nikki haley at the united nations right here in new york is doing a pretty good job marshalling probably the greatest effect we will get out of the diplomatic community. so i would say yes. i think using targets sanctions the same way we use precision-guided bomb to influence chinese behavior is a part of this. . in the end, willie, all roads to north korea will be through beijing. >> i think the cyber security, we may think who he may be selling to. is that a real concern? if so, who do you think he may be selling to? what steps are we doing to prevent that? >> the usual collector of bad actors, iran, hezbollah, north korean arms flow generally in the middle east. so we ought to be cutting that off.

it's a source of real hard cash for the koreans. >> and we had heard the chine es were actually talking about cutting the flow of oil that, in fact, they have reduced that. how significant would that be? >> that would be the best thing that could happen. because it has both a pragmatic effect within north korea, really slows the gears of their military. >> what are the assurances that we need to give the chinese to say if you do this for us. >> yes. >> this is what we are going to do to make your life better. >> yes, very simple. we are going to allow kim jong-un to continue in power to run his distoppian kingdom, but we're not going to seek to overthrow him or unify the korean peninsula that's what the chinese fear. we should be reassuring them of. that secondly the second ancillary benefit, joe, is that the chinese don't have to deal with waves of refugees in the wake of the u.s. military strike, which would absolutely

-- >> wouldn't it be good if he were back there? >> it would be helpful. thank you very much. still ahead this morning, new polling shows millennials overwhelmingly disapprove the way president trump is handling his job. democrats shouldn't celebrate just yet. we will break down those new numbers coming up on ""morning joe." "

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overwhelmingly disapprove th . a new poll shows the younger voters have an unfavorable view of the president. a new poll at the university of chicago shows 64% of millennials disapprove of the president's job in office. 21% approve. he does best among white americans 18 to 34, among them his support tops out at 20%. when it comes to parties, millennials are split. 40% have a favorable view of the party. 42% have an unfavorable opinion. on the republican party, nearly 66% disapprove of the gop, 66% approve and while democrats do extremely well among

african-americans, asian americans and la dinos, they are upsidedown among white millennials, 55% of them say that the democratic party does not care about people like them. that's fascinating. let's bring in columnist at the washington examiner kristen folk anderson and "new york times" reporter, good to have you on board, kristen, let's go right to the last number that we talked about there. white millennial democrats. what does it say especially given the ewill exwe just experienced? >> well, look, bad numbers for both political parties, especially the republicans. these are not surprising numbers. but what they really underscore is a lot of the challenge that's facing the political parties is not just about age, it's also about race. it's about the growing diversity of the generation the fact that white millennials view the republican party and democratic party having the same level of

they care about me. that's probably shocking to some democrats to hear that. who would assume that millennials, and from white and from communities of color gravitated to the republican party. these numbers are bleak all around and show this is a generation that looks at politics an says this is disgusting and want nothing to do with it and i frankly don't blame them you have have been warning republicans for some time about losing the millennial vote, only, well, the better way to put it is three out of four millennials do not associate with the republican party. >> that's right. in a way, it's been almost ten years that i have been warning people about this you all have been so kind to let me on your show to talk about this time and again. it seems like republicans are so satisfied with the fact that hey they won the white house. they ran up the numbers in some places with older voters, and that's been a strategy that at least short-to-medium term worked for them. so nobody is thinking long term and realizes that they are

losing. this isn't just about by the way the youngest voters, kids on college campuses. these are people in their 30s. republicans trend line among 30-year-old, 30 to 39 voters has gone down for the last decade-and-a-half. so we're not just losing the youngest. this is a much bigger problem that is going to bite us long term. >> losing an entire generation. guys, put up the background the demographics, the background, you know, obviously, republicans for 30 years have been getting 8% of the vote and under performing among hispanics. the canary in the coal mine are asian americans who used to vote republicans. you didn't have to go back many elections where that number was more of a split number. it now seems that donald trump's strategy, the republican party's strategy, of being u.s. against the quote others is having

horrific consequences across the board when you know demographic group like asian americans that used to be loyal to republicans now breaking away fast. 78% disapprove of republicans. >> i think what this survey shows is that in some ways the republican party is really in a catch-22. have you this autopsy that was famous after they lost when mitt romney -- they essentially said we have to diversify our base. we have to do better. we have to explain to them the republican party is not just for white people it's for all people. they have all these programs, they have all this outreach t. issue then you have a candidate like donald trump who completely ignored that autopsy, completely went for his base, completely focused in, talking in terms to almost all white crowds telling them he was going to be the one to make america great again, he was going to be the one who understood their culture, their

heritage and now you see that millennials are saying look you guys can celebrate donald trump all you want. can you have a couple maib maybe one more, two more election cycles, but at some point, millennials will be the dominant population and when that happens, republicans are going to be in a little trouble. i think what's interesting here, though, fen e when you look at democrats and democrats oofbl are saying that they are the counter to donald trump. mill len yams say you have to do better than that. you can't say you don't like donald trump. you have to offer something. have you too care about us. right now as you said, white millennials are saying i don't even if i don't like donald trump, i don't know if the party cares about me. >> few look at these, 33% of the mill yenials say neither party cares about me, they're just frustrated with the whole process. they think it stinks. as look out over the horizon, over the generations to come,

what does that portend, if they don't trust political parties, that a lane for third party politics? does it proceed up the system down the road? >> still, i'm always skeptical of the idea of third party politics, in part because it is structurally constitutionally so challenging in our country to see folks getting there. i definitely can see a what i that the parties become radically redefined, they have to mean different things and stand for different things. certainly the republican party of today stands for very different things than the republican party of 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. these parties are always evolving. i think what you will see is millennials disliking both of their options, perhaps trying to remake the parties into something that reflects their views a little more. but that will require those young people to try to run for office and take on leadership roles in their own parties f. they are disaffected from those parties, from that political

system, do they take that step? do they put up with the grief that comes from running from office? do they take the effort and throw up their hands and walk away? i don't think we know the answer on that yet. >> this is harold ford, do you think looking at last night's results, roy moore winning obviously against luther strange, can we extrapolate from that sore it too early that democrats may face an insurgent set of candidates that might appeal the millennials? they participated in a republican primary down in alabama? how should we rec same or try to digest to understand the more win in these numbers here, what that may mean for democrats next year? >> i think when people start actually learning who roy moore is, what he is say anything 2017 about homosexuality, about where he thinks barack obama was born, in some ways, we will see millennials energized by roy moore by that idea they have to go to the polls and put people in officer that will counter

him. i think what we see when we think of someone as a reporter who covered bernie sanders, we are seeing candidates primeing people, pushing this agenda that is getting more millennials out. in my reporting onmillenials ou. his campaign and his advisers did not set out to say okay, we're going to have a whole bunch of rallies and all those young people there. bernie sanders told me these young people started showing up because they like this message and it was before seen as fringe, before seen as someone who had no realistic actual ideas that could work. now you're seeing them saying we don't want chuck and nancy anywhere near the white house. it tells me that we are already starting to see candidates that are look at bernie sanders and say we're going to go do those same messages and that will bring out young people. >> thank you so much, both of you. still ahead, what are the chances that michael flynn and paul manafort will be indicted as a result of the russian

investigation? top member of the senate judiciary committee puts it at 99%. that's high. >> pretty good odds. >> that means that there's really -- a good chance they'll be indicted. things are kind of closing in. >> solid. >> on the whole russia thing. that's ahead on "morning joe." in the future, a nation's technology will determine its power. in its economy, in medicine, in science and in national security. one company designs and builds

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the most powerful, famous journalist in america. >> kind of amazing. >> a front page -- >> she is. >> usa today. >> on the president. >> on the president's strategy. heidi, go. >> both health care and tax reform. what they're saying is that he's way more engaged in this, in the specifics of selling tax reform. the difference here is that they kind of actually have a plan. the folks i had talked to that

have been in this monday dinner with the president say he's way more engaged in corporate tax reform. what's the problem with that? they want to sell this as a middle-class tax cut. they're talking about cutting rates for everybody, but by definition when you cut rates for that top bracket, they're going to get a bigger take home. plus we're talking about the state tax, which has always been a politically sensitive topic. and they want democrats on board this time. that's the big difference as well. you see the president taking to the road with folks like heidi heitkamp. those people will bail unless it really is a middle-class tax cut. >> heidi, thank you. >> who knew what changing beats does. >> come back, please, despite them. >> right here. did you write the larry david story, too? >> curb is back.

heidi, thank you. >> major implications on capitol hill. kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life. kevin, how's your mom? life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you.

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good? good. thanks, mitch. >> i don't get it. which is why -- i love it. which is why i love it. >> welcome back to "morning joe." >> it's the off-quoted scene from tootsie, bill murray saying i want people to go out of the theater after they see my plays and ask, what just happened? >> sort of how they feel when they watch this show. >> every day. >> with us we have pulitzer prize winning john meachum, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. >> all tennessee today. >> all tennessee all the time. >> former white house press secretary to president obama and now msnbc analyst josh earnest. very earnest. >> jackson, tennessee's, own nick connoisseur. >> yeah, yeah and kasie hunt. kasie, live in d.c. this

morning. all right. so former alabama state supreme court justice roy moore defeated appointed senator luther strange by nearly ten points. strange had the backing of president trump and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. during the six-week runoff period alone, strange and his supporting groups spent $4.7 million on tv ads. roy moore and aligned groups spent $1 million. mcconnell's groups spent millions more since the spring attacking his components. mcconnell said in a statement last name he ran a spirited campai campaign. i share that frustration and believe that enacting the agenda requires us all to work together. president trump tweeted his congratulations to moore and

said luther strange started way back and ran a good race. >> let me ask you something. >> didn't he tweet something and then he took it down? doh! and then he took it down. >> let me get your takeaway from this race other than there aren't enough folks in mountainbrook to elect luther strange. what's your takeaway from the race? >> trumpism is no longer just about trump. trump has unleashed a force in his own party and in politics that he, alone, can't necessarily control, that other people can harness and lay claim to. the other is that trump has managed to convince his own party that, indeed, mitch mcconnell was the problem and the mcconnell is the reason he's faltering on his aendwra. you can't find something that luther strange was against that the president wanted to do. you can't findny daylight between strange and the president and yet supporters of roy moore sold him as the guy who would be the true faith candidate in the race, which

makes no sense on policy grounds but makes a lot of sense on anger grounds and rage grounds, i think. >> at moore's victory party, former white house chief strategist steve bannon declared the night a win for trump. >> i want to thank all the good folks in alabama for supporting president trump by supporting roy moore. who's sovereign, the people or the money? alabama answered today, the people. >> very interesting. i actually should -- actually, i will go back to you, nick, on this. that is the obe wan kanobe theory. you strike me down, you only make me stronger. >> we have supporters of the president. his former aides who are claiming that they represent the president's real interests and that the president's own endorsement of one candidate

should be ignored. bannon said i'll be stronger outside of the white house, more influential. in this race, he was. it can't have helped that strange was appointed. he hadn't yet formed his own connection to those voters and it can't have helped that mcconnell spent millions of dollars trying to stop moore. >> and people thought it was less than above board the way he got appointed to his position. >> we talked about how this election happened, its implications going forward. we didn't talk about who roy moore is and what he stands for. >> who is roy moore? >> no stranger to controversy. launching questionable comments on everything from 9/11 to birtherism. a few of his positions. >> do you think that homosexuality or homosexual conduct should be illegal today? that's a yes or no question. >> homosexual conduct should be illegal. >> now we have blacks and whites

fighting, reds and yellows fighting. you must worship this way. >> he has wondered whether gay people should go out and have children. donald trump gets a lot of the credit because he was the most prominent face of birtherism. roy moore was there from the beginning and puved it up until recently during this campaign that president obama was not born in the united states. >> also said muslims should not sit in congress. you go down that list of roy moore's greatest hits, it is remarkable that a judge who claims to know the constitution -- chief justice would be so ignorant about actually the constitution of the united states of america. this should be good news for

democrats. but democrats are searching themselves. >> democrats are soul searching themselves. plenty of evidence indicated this is a much bigger problem on the republican side of the aisle. much has been made 25 democratic senate candidate rups this year. republican senate candidates are facing dangerous primaries, rick heller in nevada, jeff flake in arizona. bob corker got out because he was concerned about the prospect of a primary from his right. we're not seeing that same kind of trend on the left from democrats. what this is is a cautionary tale for democrats, which is that what happened in alabama is just the next step in the republican establishment willing to feed their base a bunch of trash like you hear from roy moore on a regular basis. >> are they going to be fighting to elect him against the democrat in the general election? i think they probably are.

and their willingness to tolerate that kind of rhetoric that willie just showed is at the core of the problems of the republican party and we need to make sure as democrats that we continue to put forward a proactive agenda focused on substance, our voters so we don't fall -- >> i look forward to the democrats doing that at some point. s so, kasie hunt, mitch mcconnell has to be thinking, well, he has to be thinking do i want roy moore to win or to lose? people get angry with me when i said -- >> i'm not going to say anything here, joe. i'm just going to shake my head. >> bill and hillary clinton did not vote for barack obama when the voting booth was closed. people got angry with me. do we really think that mitch mcconnell would not be pleased with a moderate democrat in that

building behind you than judge roy moore? >> it's tricky because his majority is so thin. in theory, roy moore should be somebody he's interested in. his statement last night went farther than i expected it to, in trying to send a message to the outside groups that they should actually get on board with roy moore. i've been hearing beforehand that if moore won this primary there was no way, no how that republican -- the national republican senate orrial committee were going to lift a finger, quite frankly, to help him win the general election. same time, look, you've watched him attempt to do things with this narrow majority that he has. it hasn't gone well. and i don't think it's likely that a moderate democrat -- quite frankly, if the democrat in alabama won, it's unlikely they would be a moderate democrat. you should keep an eye on his fund-raising and on the democratic committee. they're thinking about playing in the race. i think they're going to watch it very closely. so, it's a no-win situation for

mitch mcconnell. and i think it underscores -- bob corker's retirement is an important piece of this, too. there are so many republicans who, you know, quite frankly came to washington to serve. and i think there is a bigger trend going on here, frankly, in the centers of both parties. they're miserable in washington. they're getting nothing done. every day they feel like they're getting beaten up. there's nowhere really to go. i would respectfully disagree with josh earnest. perhaps we're not focusing on how acute things could get for democrats but dianne feinstein is going to have real trouble in california and i'm not sure that her folks or people around her, or she recognizes that quite yet. having covered bernie sanders' campaign, the anger is there on the democratic side, too. >> josh?

>> look, i don't disagree with the fact that we have to figure out a way to make sure we're putting forward a proactive agenda so that we are in a position where we are putting forward actual ideas of substance, standing up for what we believe in as a party, much the way that president obama did. but this is the thing. the republican party, for too long, was willing to tolerate roy moore and his birtherism. that's what led to donald trump's election as president. they don't have an agenda that they can pass and control united states congress even though they control it. >> it's a good point. you can keep talking about the republican party. you actually have a chunk of democrats who think that dianne feinstein and nancy pelosi are sellouts and too conservative. >> it's not about ideas either. >> that's got problem. >> started both my answers acknowledging democrats have problems and we need to make sure we address them. i'm not disagreeing with you on

that point. my point is that it's not nearly as pernicious on the democrat side as it is on the republican side. it could be, if we fail to recognize this is a potential problem. >> to josh's point, i think consistent with the way i approach -- moore versus mcconnell as you get into these primary races, do you have roy moore traveling to nevada, to mississippi? do you have roy moore traveling to states, arizona, where you have these tough primaries and it's mcconnell versus moore? you have to flip the other side to our party. bernie sanders, elizabeth -- >> is this the second -- >> baptist preacher would say second point. i know that's where you get -- >> first, i would get an amen in between. >> amen, brother. >> two, you find bernie sanders -- does do bernie sanders and camilla harris do the same? do they resist that and say they have to do it for 2020?

>> amen. >> thank you. three, democrats better plan the alabama race. fools not to plan it. not because you think you can win or can't win but because you have to lay out an economic message. give that democrat an opportunity not to win with craziness but lay out a message we can win nationally. with our greatest deficit and greatest absence in our arsenal -- because we have a lot of excitement and enthusiasenth. we've seen polling this morning. you've shown polling before where people can say that's where democrats stand for. >> amen. >> you said it best, joe brzezinski scarborough earlier. does he become the moderate progressive, let's get something done? put aside how you think of those definitions. problem solver like he did with democrats in oval office or does he go the roy moore route like steve bannon suggested that, this will be the donald trump

candidate? that decision will decide what direction we head as a party. we have a year or more to deal with roy moore in the senate. >> joining us now, ranking member on committee and oversight reform, our friend elijah cummings of maryland. very good to have you this morning. >> good morning. >> kasie brought up a point that while all this is happening and it seems like democrats can figure out how to get out of their problems, and they have a lot of work to do, republicans are digging in the dirt and we're electing certain types of candidates. and then we have puerto rico. >> yeah. >> it seems to me at some point somebody could be talking about that, doing more about that, including hillary clinton. >> i agree. >> who is extremely critical of president trump. bring your book tour to puerto rico. that would be impressive. >> the response has been anemic.

back when we had katrina, i said to the world in a news conference, god would not be pleased with our response. >> no. >> to katrina. god certainly wouldn't be pleased with this response. and i'm saying to president trump, you need to quadruple your efforts and have a coordinated department of defense response to this. it's estimated we need at least about 50,000 troops there, even after haiti we had 20,000. so, there's a lot -- >> think about that. >> it seems as if -- you're talking about 3.4 million american citizens. mr. president, we can do better than this. >> yes. >> i know you said everything is going well and i'm hoping that you're listening. they are not going well. all you have to do is listen to some of the local officials down there. they will tell you that people are literally dying. hospitals do not have energy to run generators.

food, water. these are american citizens. treat them as american citizens, just like we treated people in florida and texas. >> congressman, it's willie geist. good to see you up and looking healththy morning. >> i am so happy to be seen. >> how are you feeling, sir? >> i feel real good. >> good. i want to ask you, to get your take on the news overnight we've been talking about. it's the race in alabama where judge roy moore won. what does it tell you? does it tell you something about alabama or does it tell you something about where national politics and the mid term races are headed that a guy like roy moore with all the positions and beliefs we just laid out was able to win that race? >> basically what happens happened is that donald trump, our president, has laid out the foundation for the roy moores to emerge, to be able to win races like this. in other words although president trump was for mr.

strange, the fact is that roy moore probably is more akin to donald trump than strange. and so i think basically the climate has been set. and on a slight detour from that subject let me say this to joe and mika. i listened to you all very carefully as you talked about the president with regard to his comments concerning john mccain. the negative comments that he gave, that the president gave. i applaud you all for raising this issue. a man who gave his blood, sweat and tears. and lying now in the eve of his life. and yet still we have a president who goes around, beating him up. that, to me, is unconscionable. people want to raise concerns about patriotism and honoring the flag, how about somebody who

basically laid over five years, confined, as a prisoner of war, beaten, tortured. and yet and still he -- the president said that he has no -- basically no respect for a soldier who gets caught. come on now. we're better than that. >> much better than that. elijah cummings, thank you so much. >> thank you, elijah. >> he looks good, doesn't he? >> certainly does. >> looking good. would love to have you back in the next day or two to talk about the russian investigation that, really, in a real sense -- >> jared's e-mails. >> -- with a letter way back in the fall. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you all. >> john meachum, let me turn to you. we've been talking about the problems with the republican party, in bringing up some problems. again, certainly not as pronounced with the democratic party. at the same time, you do have people going after dianne feinstein and nancy pelosi for

even sitting down with the president and actually getting a deal on terms that are favorable to the democratic party. you know, it seems to me that historians, 50 years from now, are going to look back to this time period and say why didn't they understand that john meachum's term, 150-year duopoly was coming to an end? it seems so obvious if you just look at some of the tea leaves. both parties are blowing apart. >> they don't make any coherent sense internally. i think there's unquestionably intellectual and cultural space for a hawkish foreign policy, social libertarian and growth oriented movement in american politics. that's where a lot of people e are. one of the ironies of this era is that both establishments, basically, are in witness

protection. right? and yet you have this remarkable moment where here we are, ten months, nine months into the most unconventional presidential term in american history. and what's really different substantively? the tone is different. i think the culture is coarser, all of that. but think about it for a second. affordable health care act, josh's old chief's signature achievement, is standing. tax reform may or may not happen. it's a fascinating question about the distance between trump's disdruption and the actual content of the disruptive nature of american policy and life. i think that's an odd tension. i think one that we shouldn't lose track of.

i think he wants us to lose track of, frankly. >> i agree. he does. >> this is a great point, mika. this is why we have a guy like john meacham on. >> bishop john meacham. >> i don't know if you know it or not but he won the pulitzer prize. >> what? took selfies. >> yes, there are photographs. what a great point that we sit here every day talking about disruption. we talk about all the norms that have been blown up or thrown out the window. yet, despite what he says, he has accomplished less as a president, if you look at significant bills passing, than any president in my lifetime. it's not even a close call. >> in this period of time. >> it's unbelievable. >> in this period of time, which means that american democracy

has held serve, which means that despite all the bluster, despite all the tweets, despite all the insults, despite the abhorrent behavior, despite -- >> despite the lack of humanity. >> -- despite the lack of humanity, fighting a war hero who is fighting for his life. despite everything, he has been held in check by the courts, congress, by the constitution of the united states that roy moore apparently has yet to read. it's pretty significant, isn't it, josh? >> it definitely is. and i think his lack of success and the more agitated that his base gets about that lack of success, in some ways, actually may hasten the destruction of the duopoly that john meacham was just talking about. the candidate he was describing is a lot like the french president that was elected

earlier this summer, somebody who broke the system there, ran as an independent. and staked out some common ground and, you know, every country is different. obviously there's problems with ballot access in this country. >> the only time, mika, that donald trump has achieved something with congress is when he got out of his 33% hole and actually worked with the other side. roy moore can attack dianne feinstein and somebody far left. all you're doing is shoving your party further to the sides and making bipartisan ship the only way to pass a bill in washington. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll talk to senator rand paul who joined two other republicans in bringing down the latest health care bill. plus twitter is toying with the idea of allowing longer tweets. congressman adam schiff is

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about faces from donald trump himself. >> bill clinton was a great president. hillary clinton is a great woman and a good woman. i'm very pro choice. because i'm going to be working for you. i'm not going to have time to go play golf. >> universal health care. >> i'm going to take care of everybody. i don't care if it costs me voters not. >> it seems that the economy does better under the democrats than the republicans.

i would never lie. >> you can definitely say you would not lie. >> i would absolutely not lie. >> i'll produce my tax returns, absolutely. >> still waiting for those. joining us now, tom brokaw. good morning. good to see you. >> good morning. >> your take on what we saw in alabama last night? >> last week i had little time with steve bannon. this is what he wanted to have happen. he wanted to send a message to the president, he said and approved to him that he has abandoned the base. the fatal error for the president the last month or so has been that meeting with chuck schumer and nancy pelosi, he said. that ran completely against the grain of the base in the state of alabama and that we're going to get moore in. so, they moved, in effect, his entire operation down there to get the campaign. about a year ago, moore showed up. he is a hugely popular figure in the right down there. it was a rock star coming into

the room where he was. >> he has been for a long time. he was a rock star on the right in alabama back when donald trump was saying all those kind things about democrats and being pro choice and pro gun control, et cetera. roy moore, they've known him for a long time there. >> let's stand back for a moment. what we have now is a president who say campaign junkie. he can't stop going to rallyies. that's his definition of what he ought to be doing. it's not about governing. the rallying that he started the war on the nfl players who were protesting. that dominated the news cycle over the next two days. we're close to a war with north korea. the number one domestic issue for this country as well as the republican party is health care reform. it went down for the last time after eight years of saying we can change that. we'll get it done immediately. it's this kind of disconnect between the president of the country, leader of the party and the man who will change the way we do business in this country and then the reality of him going to one rally after

another, because somehow it's kind of a cheap rush for him. it has a nutritional value of a box of cheetos, quite frankly. >> his fight with the nfl started at a rally to support luther strange, but turned to a rally about the nfl. donald trump is the abbie hoffman of the right. along came a group of provocoteurs like abbie hoffman, jerry rubin and the rest of the counterculture to upend the protestant establishment. they never attracted majority support for their antics but they didn't have to. trump is wickedly good at sticking his thumb in the eye of the educated elites. he doesn't have to build a new culture or even attract a

majority. he just has to tear down the old one. that's exactly what he's doing. david goes on, it's quite possible after four years of this, trump will have effectively destroyed the prevailing culture. what do you think, tom? >> there are some people on the right who want to destroy the prevailing culture in this country. that's the way that he ran, quite honestly. but at the same time, for all the promises he made during the campaign, none of them are coming true. not one of them is coming true, to be grammatically correct. and when i go out and talk to people in the west and the trump voters, they say we're still with him. we think it's your fault, talking about us. but then they'll say, i wish he would just shut up for a while. that he has this running couch thing where he has to talk about who he is, how great he is. he gets something back from that, i guess, but it's not good for the country. and the fact is, i don't know how this ends up. because, as we know on the republican side of the hill,

they're holding their heads at this point. and we've got corker who is not going to run again. i'm sure that this president had something to do with that. that he didn't want to be in the office when he had that as the leader of his party and the chief executive of the united states. this is a crisis point for this country. i was reading the other day the transcripts of john f. kennedy during the cuban missile crisis. we forget that kennedy had a very good recording system. you had an opportunity to see how he made his decisions. he pulled in everybody and it was kept very quiet. he had the leaders on the hill, senators, republicans, as well as democrats, he had national security help. he brought in the smartest people we had outside of government. how are we going to deal with this? he took it a step at a time but it was all done very, very quietly. wasn't calling nikita kruschev rocket man.

it was the best moment for john f. kennedy, in my judgment, during his three years in office. and it's out there. >> harold, some have begun to argue -- we're always talking about when american consensus died. but some are beginning to go ten years, 20 years, 25 years. it didn't start with donald trump. i read some people saying that american consensus died november 22nd, 1963 along with john f. kennedy. and david brooks talking about abbie hoffman, tom knowing about the disruption that started in earnest soon after his death. we have had 50 years now of disruption in this country. >> and it's probably not going to stop. roy moore is a continuation of it. i would argue the whole notion of the country's birth was about disruption. the whole notion was about us

challenging gst and always distrusting government. we found ourselves in one of those moments. it's interesting to hear mr. brokaw talk about all of this. have you to wonder -- i know we're going to break. you have to wonder as we listen to those folks who say they're for him, wish he could be quiet, are they indicating they could be for something else within their own party, outside of the party? the worry for the system, i think, is what joe has articulated throughout the show today, which is do we embrace a way to get things done or do we continue to pursue a path of just massive disruption that doesn't produce much changes to the architecture? >> what i find when i'm out there talking to trump supporters that they say after they defend him, why can't we find a way to work together? they go apolitical at that point. they want the system to work. it works in their communities and their states, by and large. we have this theory that we're becoming a country of what i

call nation states, the state of washington has its own policy. they make things worse. for all the chaos in california politics, san francisco, los angeles, are making things work by talking to each other. texas is certainly an example of that. florida is an example of that. but at the national level, we've got the unending campaign and self gratification that comes with all of that. and at some point, we're going to pay a terrible price for it. and this is not republican or democratic issue. it's a national issue for all of us, about what our expectations are. >> to tom's point we talked about the polling last week that showed even trump supporters didn't hold it against him that he worked with trts. only 8% didn't like the fact that they were working together because they were getting something done. roger stone was happy to answer congressional questions yesterday. that is, until the topic turned to wikileaks. we'll talk to the ranking

democrat adam schiff about that. we come into this world needing others. ♪ then we are told it's braver to go it alone. ♪ but there is another way to live. ♪ a way that sees the only path to fulfillment- is through others. ♪

a top member of the senate

judiciary committee says he is 99% sure there will be criminal charges from the russia investigation. senator richard blumenthal of connecticut tells politico that michael flynn and paul manafort are most likely to be indicted. the irs is sharing information with special counsel robert mueller about key trump campaign officials. scouring documents that date back a decade for potential tax crimes. joining us now ranking member of the house, adam schiff.

after he leaves the campaign, acknowledges being in contact with the president and during all of this, he's also in touch with russian intelligence. that is through a nonpublic channel and also with wikileaks. at times he said publicly he was in direct communication with julian assange, other times he said through an intermediary. obviously we want to know about those communications. they're taking place at a time when russians are using those two outlets as a way of dumping their stolen documents. mr. stone wasn't willing to answer questions about that intermediary. we'll have to subpoena him unless he changes his mind and decides that, as he promised, he would answer every question. obviously we want to know whether that intermediary was in contact with other people in the trump campaign since wikileaks, obviously, was doing the work of russian propaganda operation. >> so, congressman, wasn't roger

stone also the one that predicted that john podesta was about to come under an intense spotlight right before the russians started leaking his documents through wikileaks? >> yes. he was the one who said john podesta's time in the barrel would come before podesta even knew he had been hacked and then later on, in october, said basically the payload was coming and that's when the podesta e-mails started to be dumped. he has his own explanation for that. i will leave it to him to explain. nonetheless it is a cause of great interest to our committee. >> kasie? >> congressman schiff, nice to see you. your counterpart on the senate side has been focused on the role, particularly of facebook, in this investigation. are you happy with how forthcoming facebook, specifically, has been?

have they given you everything you needed in sn and do you feel like you need to see mark zuckerberg, their top ceo, testify in public about this? >> we are deeply interested in the whole use of social media by the russians, including what they're doing on the facebook platform. i've had a number of conversations with mark zuckerberg as well as their technology officers and others at facebook. we are getting information from facebook. i have concerns about how long it took facebook to realize russians were advertising on their platform as recently as july. they didn't think that was going on. and, most of particular interest is the question of whether the targeting of these advertisements or the targeting of how they were pushing out negative news or organizing rallies was somehow coordinated with the campaign. was it too sophisticated not to have used the data analytics of the campaign? these are key questions. there is bipartisan interest in

having these social media companies, not just facebook, but twitter, too, come and testify in open session before our committee. i would like to see us, frankly, have the ability to display these for the public. you really need to see them, i'm convinced, to recognize how the kremlin sought to accentuate those divisions that tom brokaw was just talking about, and drive american against american. being forearmed here is being forewarned. and as the russians may very well do this again, showing this, exposing it to public light is the best way to combat it. >> congressman, nick confessore. in the ads you've seen, is trump ever mentioned? more swrenl about issues? do we have any real evidence of operational coordination or intervention in the election sense? >> we are going to be getting the ads immediately, this week

or next. at this point we've had the ads briefed to us. and my understanding is that, yes, in some cases these ads mentioned candidates by name. and even when they don't mention the candidates by name, it's clear that they are attempting to exploit issues that are an advantage to one campaign because they're promoting an anti-immigrant message or anti-muslim message, messages that dovetail nicely with what the trump campaign was trying to push. and the question is, what was the level of sophistication and the targeting of this? on that issue, we don't know enough yet. after all it was only recently disclose bid facebook that they were doing advertising on the platform. the other thing i want to say, we only know about potentially a small portion of the russian use of social media. this advertising that facebook has identify ied only goes to money flowing out of russia this they could identify expenditures

coming to russia by way of third countries, eastern europe where the caucuses are not part, as i understand, of that sample. so, this could be just a small piece of the advertising. the advertising only a small piece of the broader russian presence on facebook and facebook only being a small piece of the social media presence overall of the russians. >> congressman, quickly, do you agree with senator blumenthal's assessment of the inindictment of manafort and flynn? >> if you believe mr. stone, and there's a very big if there. he has said publicly he spoke with mr. manafort, who confirmed that he had been told he would be indicted. i don't have this coming from the special counsel. that's not the kind of coordination. although we are coordinating in terms of special counsel telling us their plans on charges. >> congressman adam schiff, thank you very much.

>> thank you. >> still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting says head of the epa is sending $25,000 in a shield proof booth to shield his conversations. >> really? >> we can only imagine what the design might look like. >> i know what it looks like. >> just a minute, chief. isn't this top security? >> yeah. >> well, shouldn't we activate the cone of silence? >> the cone of silence? >> yes. >> all right, max. hodgkin's? >> yes, sir? >> activate the cone of silence. >> the cone of silence? ♪

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should have a lightning bolt. would you buy that? >> i have no comment. >> no? you should. you should have a lot of comment. a string of top headlines for the trump administration in the last 24 hours, beginning with the acting head of the drug enforcement administration stepping down. career prosecutor chuck rosenberg, a former top aide to james comey, is leaving. as the "new york times" reports, law officials said he had become convinced that president trump had little respect for the law. politico reported that -- >> that was quite a pause. >> well, does anyone think he does? >> you can just weed it with the -- >> you seem kind of obsessed about making breaks. >> politico reported that price used a funded jet to go to

georgia to have lunch. ryan zinke said in a speech that only about one-third of interior employees are not loyal to president trump. >> did he take a poll? >> was he riding a straw horse when he took a poll? >> did he ride a horse through the commisary and ask, are you loyal to donald trump? scott pruitt spent $25,000 to build a phone booth. can i ask you, josh, how expensive was your phone booth at the white house? >> i can confirm i did not have a phone booth at the white house. >> what? the russians are listening. >> the russians are listening. they can even hear this show. that's how unsecure lines are these days. >> a spokesperson said the agency needed an updated

compartment called the skiff. anonymous employees said the agency has long maintained a skiff. >> drain the swamp? this is the swamp. we're getting back to the days of, what, the $450 toilets in the pentagon? >> build a levee so we can put more water in the swamp. >> pruitt thinks he's running the nfc, he's running the epa. >> what is his deal? >> is he afraid otters are going to listen in on his conversation to see if he helps the protected species? are the otters bothered? >> it's to pay back the people

leaking his ways. >> are they just going to let him piss away money because they're republicans? >> i have to say, i think lisa murkowski of alaska has been sufficiently ticked off by comments that ryan zinke has made to her or the way the administration has treated her -- i'm sorry, we're talking about the epa as well. >> we're talking about everything. >> i don't think so, no. certainly hhs secretary tom price taking these private flights, that's indefensible, i think, for a lot of these members if you stick a microphone in their face and ask them about it. this is yet another pile on the pile. >> i think there's more flights and more abuse we're going to find out about. this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. >> just the tip of the iceberg as the kids say in washington. the otters are listening, so are the russians. it was a good day for mitch

mcconnell. other signs of political reshuffling as well. plus, what are president trump's military options in north korea? we'll ask our four-star retired navy admiral about that. and senator rand paul says he has a solution to finding peace on the korean peninsula as well. he'll be our guest on "morning joe." marie callender knows that a homemade turkey dinner can make anyone slow down and pull up a seat to the table. that's why she takes the time to season her turkey to perfection, and make stuffing from scratch.

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it's wednesday, september 27, and welcome to "morning joe." yesterday was a tough day. >> it was a tough day. >> if you're mitch mcconnell. >> was it a tough day if you're mitch mcconnell? >> or a member of the gop establishment overall. they pulled the plug on the latest attempt to repeal and replace obamacare. >> if you're keeping score at home, children, number one, republicans dropped the measure to undo the health care law. this is number one -- >> failing at their promise to repeal and replace, thank god. >> big loss there. >> steve bannon, outsider candidate, backed roy moore in the runoff. >> senator bob corker of tennessee will not be seeking a third term next year. >> there goes the neighborhood. >> we're going to break down what all of this means for

mcconnell, the republican party and president trump. with this said, we have nbc political analyst, professor of the michigan school of public policy, former democratic congressman harold ford jr. and historian john meacham joins us from the library. >> this is like the tennessee mafia. >> because he's smart, he's surrounded by books. and he reads them. >> and heidi joins us as well. >> boy, what a bad day, willie, for the republican establishment. we're going to go through all the details, but, you know, roy moore coming up to washington, d.c. there is a reason donald trump didn't support that guy. roy moore is going to do exactly what he wants to do and in the age of political free agency,

it's going to get amped up to such a degree, that good luck. mitch mcconnell and the rest of the republicans more upset than anything. >> mitch mcconnell, all that money that had been pumped into that race by establishment republicans, and he won by almost ten points. it was not close. that's a huge sweeping defeat for the establishment, for the president who deleted all his tweets now in support of luther strange. >> really. >> they're not going to like having to defend roy moore through this election in december, all the things that he said. and if he wins, which he's expected to do, he's going to be a thorn in their side to say the least in washington. >> remember todd aiken and how radical everybody said todd aiken was. you know, judge roy moore twice kicked out of the court system in the state of alabama. judge roy moore really makes todd aiken look like dwight

eisenhower's boring younger brother maury. this is a guy that said homosexual conduct should be illegal. that actually was sort of resolved by the supreme court decades ago. 9/11 was god punishing p perverseness. and personal belief that he had that barack obama was not born here. referred to reds and yellows. said muslims should not sit in congress, because after all, we don't have a religious test in the united states. wait, we do. there are no religious tests. i think they got rid of that back in, what, 1789? >> 1787. >> you say '87, i say '89. and islam is contrary to the u.s. constitution.

something else that would come as a great shock to those, john meacham, who actually drafted the u.s. constitution. >> well, facts are stubborn things. you know, it's a really interesting moment when the republican voters of the state of alabama think donald trump's candidate is not conservative enough. we should think about that for a minute. the clever thing to say here would be that roy moore is doing a spinoff of the trump show, but moore represents at least a cultural force. you mentioned todd aiken. i remember on election night 2012, you said -- we were trying to figure out how the rape candidate had done and you couldn't remember which one it was, which was not a good sign for your former party. >> bad sign for the gop. >> yeah. so it's -- i think it goes back

to this idea that i believe in fervently that we're living through the political climate change. i wouldn't mind seeing the west wing's most chaotic moment at the first opportunity. >> i think that is coming as well. why don't we go through the results. by the way, can we show john meacham for a second? for all the audiophiles out there, see that blue book over his right shoulder? that's where we placed the microphone. >> i recognize that book. >> we set the microphone there. it's an ambience thing. he's like in this big study hall. >> dillon did that with one of his later albums. >> would you like me to get the

pipe out now? >> get the pipe out but don't smoke it, just tap it. >> just as roy moore defeated senator luther strange by more than 10 points, strange had the backing of president trump and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, and during the sixth running week alone, they spent $4.7 million on tv ads. roy moore spent 1 million. after attacking his opponents, moore congratulated strange in a statement last night, quote, he ran a spirited campaign centered around a dissatisfaction with the progress made in washington. i share that frustration and

believe that enacting the agenda the american people voted for last november requires us all to work together. since the election was on december 12, trump defeated his tweet. >> this is interesting, though, about this whole roy moore thing. harold, for anybody that doesn't know judge roy moore, and future senator, most likely, roy moore, it would be a terrible mistake for anybody to say that roy moore decided to sort of surround himself in trumpism. because judge roy moore was the same guy 20 years ago, 30 years ago. he hasn't changed. it's one of these strange situations and maybe this is why he did so well.

he was trumplike, you know, 30 years before trump was trumplike. he was trumplike while trump was still giving money and swanky parties to chuck schumer and writing $100,000 checks to the democratic national committee to help nancy pelosi become speaker of the house. that's what donald trump was doing. not judge roy moore because judge roy moore has been the same guy for 20 years. he's been the same guy and maybe that's why he won so well last night, did so well last night despite some of his comments. >> i thought, john meacham, the climate change analogy metaphor is a good one. you could call it a bulkinization in politics and the parties are certainly seeing it now. in terms of being an outsider, he ran a lot like trump ran in the presidency. he was an outsider. trump ran as an outsider with some of the traditional orthodox

of the republican party. moore did that and certainly grabbed some of the things that happened in the early 2000s with democrats. it will be interesting to see because you're pushing both parties into a place where it's very difficult to govern. i would ask john a question. you talked about this being an interesting moment. what parallels do we have in recent times, or for that matter, distant times where you find the country in a place where it looks as if the establishments in both parties -- the republicans are dealing with it in a more pronounced way after this race and it looks as though some others probably aren't going to run. we had maria cantwell on this show that said if roy moore ran, you would see others not willing to run. do you know if he's interested in pursuing or advancing anyplace in the congress? >> analogies are tricky in this

case. i think in terms of the two parties facing a case where the center of each party, if you will, has a problem with their wings. this is 1948 in many ways. you had the democrats break up into dixiecrats and the more centrist truman people. you had henry wallace breaking away from there, so you had four candidates in 1948 at a moment when we look back on the post-war era as a time of wonderful consensus. in 1948 we come out of a global depression, we come out of a global war and suddenly we were back in a nuclear standoff with the soviet union, which was the existential crisis that created great anxiety. you had the domestic social 40s -- 4forces of race and equalit. i think that's as close as it

gets. joe talked about 1964, too. the differences you had with the fringe movement, you had a consistent idealogy with conservative republicanism, and i don't think you have that with trump. >> heidi, in his concession speech last night, luther strange said, we're dealing with a political environment i've never had any experience with. the political seas, the political wins are something i haven't worked with. what kind of republican candidate may become the next senator there? donald trump is still very popular in alabama, and people were quick to say that last night. this is not a repudiation of donald trump. in some ways he seemed to go up to the establishment and take it

down. >> he actually said make america great again and that this is not about donald trump. what this is about is some of these grassroots groups who, willie, i met with about a week or two ago, and they said, this is what we're doing. we're going for a high-profile scalping. we want to send a message to these corporatists, to congress, to paul ryan that we're disappointed. we're eight months in. what we've gotten is daca deals, no wall, no obamacare replacement. in the midterms, this is going to be a message now to all of those inspiring tea party folks or all those aspiring conservative potential challengers that they can get off the lines now and potentially challenge some of these establishment figures. and for sure you're going to see a brawl and a colorful race in primary races in places like tennessee. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll talk with senator rand

paul who helped bring down his party's health care bill. plus, from the intel committee, congressman eric swalwell joins the conversation and says you can't complete the russia investigation without seeing the president's taxes first. >> i think bob mueller has already seen them. >> i think they're looking at taxes and everything. but first, let's go to bill carrons. >> you have a lot of stuff to look through. >> especially when you're being audited. >> here's bill carrons with the dire situation in puerto rico. >> every day we look at what's going on in the ground. it's been one week today when maria made landfall. there are reports of maybe 10% of people are back up. diesel generators are keeping a few of the hospitals up and running. other hospitals remain closed, and that's one of the biggest challenges right now is getting

enough diesel to the island for the big, huge generators to keep them going, to keep some of the critical hospitals and level 1 places, we call them, up and running. there are patients on life support and these hospitals are running out of diesel, said the mayors. that's kind of crazy to think of. right now, heat index today is near 96. yesterday the heat index was 108. how punishing is that, day after day, to have heat and humidity like that without power and in some cases without running water and in some cases basic food. temperatures are up there near 90 degrees. the canyon fire in california has really grown pretty big. it's about 15% containment right now. this one caused about a thousand evacuations. this is a reminder we're near our fire season right now in california and today we're going to be near 90 degrees. the offshore winds continue so the firefighters have their hands full with that blaze, and if any new ones form in southern california, it will be

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a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. we are totally prepared for the second option, not a preferred option, but if we take that option, it will be devastating, i can tell you that. devastating for north korea. that's called the military option. if we have to take it, we will. he's acting very badly. he's saying things that should never, ever be said, and we're replying to those things, but it's a reply. it's not an original statement, it's a reply. >> it's very interesting. so the north koreans right now are trying to figure out exactly what the president is saying, and we just wanted to let the north koreans know, there are

many times we don't even know what the president is saying. what was he saying? >> it's hard to say. it was about him. we heard the word "me." >> it's a common denominator. >> he's the homer simpson of presidents. >> i really wish -- because, you know, jack is actually watching the simpsons right now. i wish you would not insult homer simpson. >> i'm sorry, that's what it seems like. he tweets and then pulls them back. >> the man who wishes he had never showed up on the set of "morning joe" this morning. he's the chief international diplomacy analyst for msnbc. admiral, if you were chairman of the joint chiefs right now, what would you be telling the t president? >> first of all, i would tell him to quit acting like a

hurricane. >> and what if he said, that's who i am, you have to accept it. actually, he would say, take it or leave it, general. he would call you general, not admiral. did you like that? that was off the top of my hairy head. so you go to the president, and would you keep reminding him every day what his hurricane-like ant i cics are d? >> i would. weav we've been hit by three hurricanes in three weeks and his job is to bring order out of chaos, not inject more into it. i would be telling the president, look, let's do three things here. let's up our game in cyber where we have some real option to see play. >> what's our strongest play in cyber? >> it's to use our opulence in

cyber security but use them sparingly so the russians become unsure about their capability. two elements. one of them is it weakens kim jong-un's decision cycle to use the weapons, and secondly, it undermines his arms sales which is a source of cash for him. so cyber, first thing. up our defense. boost phase, missile comes down, terminal phase. we're pretty good at the terminal phase. we need to get better at the boost phase. >> there was the big battle back in the 1980s about sbi which was reduced to "star wars" by its critics. how has sdi developed? >> it's middling. we have probably a 60% chance of shooting the big ballistic missiles coming into the country. where we're very good is in the

cruise phase as it gets to that and comes down with the egis seaborn system. we need to be better at that boost phase. then the third thing we need to be doing a much better job at is mariti maritime, stopping trade going in and out of north korea. these are ideas that need to be on the table, and what we need are new ideas because kim jong-un keeps coming ahead of us in the decision cycle. >> so the diplomatic argument is we need to lean harder on china so china will lean on north korea. last week the chinese banks was looked on as a good step. on that diplomatic side, is his administration doing well or at least making progress? >> i think nikki haley at the united nations right here in new york is doing a good job martially probably the greatest effect we'll get out of the diplomatic community, so i would say yes. and i think using targeted

sanctions the same way we use a precision-guided bomb to influence chinese behavior is part of this. in the end, willie, all roads to pyongyang are going to lead through beijing. >> admiral, thank you very much. speaking of beijing's role in the north korean crisis, senator rand paul is willing to move chinese troops to the south korean border to keep the peace. but would the u.s. really be willing to give up that type of leverage? senator paul explains his proposal next on "morning joe." knowing where you stand has never been easier.

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welcome back to "morning joe." beautiful saturday night in washington. joining us now, republican senator rand paul of kentucky. good to see you today. i want to ask you first, if i could, about health care. the conventional wisdom seems to be that health care reform, at least out of this republican-led senate, is dead for now after the postponement of a vote on graham-cassidy. do you believe there is still hope to repeal and replace obamacare? >> i think there is going to be big news from the white house in

the next week or two of something they can do on their own. this is something i've been advocating for six months. it's bigger than graham-cassidy, it's bigger than any reform we've talked about to date but hasn't gotten any attention. i believe president trump can legalize on his own the ability of individuals to join a group or health association across state lines to buy insurance. this would bring enormous leverage to bringing down prices. it would also bring protection to individuals who feel left out, hung out to dry, basically. if you and your spouse buy insurance by yourself and your spouse gets sick, you'll be punished by the insurance industry. if these individuals can join large groups across state lines, i think they'll get protection, less expensive insurance and it will solve a lot of problems we have in the individual market. i think trump can do this on his own. >> are you suggesting an executive order of some kind, senator? >> there was a law passed in the 1970s called the arisa law. it already allows corporations -- if my

corporation is in 20 different states, i can already buy insurance across state lines. it's called large group arisa. it's a self-insured type of insurance, but it's the insurance people liked the most and it's had the least rise in premiums. it's about 30% of the market. it already exists. what i'm doing is trying to let individuals get into that marketplace and this would be an enormous advantage. i think it would be an expansive addition of who can form an association. >> is this an idea you presented to the president? >> on multiple occasions. i spoke with the secretary of labor on it. they're enthusiastic about it, but i think graham-cassidy frankly distracted us. the good thing about my proposal, it costs zero dollars. i don't think people on the left are going to hate it. it basically is legalizing the ability of consumers to collectively come together to bargain for cheaper prices. we need to do this because the insurance companies have all the power. if you watched any of the debate

recently over this, both left and right think insurance companies have too much power. how do we get power to the consumer? let the consumer organize. >> do you have concerns, though, senator, something that's been raised by some of your colleagues, particularly john mccain, about the abandonment of regular order, and that is to go through the process of hearings and a vote to get such a major piece of legislation through and not just doing it by executive order and reshaping a piece of the economy? >> right. well, i don't think this is going to add something, it's going to legalize the choice of consumers to get together, so i'm not too worried about the president looking at this law. with regard to regular order, and should we talk about things together, yeah, i think there is room for that, and i think that part of the reason the country has been at such odds with each other is democrats passed obamacare with only democrat votes. if republicans undo it, we'll have the same sort of situation. and i also think that what i really objected to about this whole idea of graham-cassidy was it had nothing to do with repealing obamacare. all it did was reshuffle the

money from republican states to democrat states, and as soon as the democrats got back into power, they would reshuffle the money back to democrat states. it was not a fix. >> so walk us through 2018, the second chance in obamacare repeal. how should it look? how many votes are needed? can they write the same rules on reconciliation to not require the 60-plus votes? kind of walk us through the next step of repeal. >> well, you know, i think the next thing will be tax reform, hopefully a tax cut to help us thrive as an economy. and i think after that, yes, we can readdress health care at any point in time. i think there will continue to be bipartisan hearings as well on this. and i think there is some ideas, like my idea of health associations, that we could actually pass laws to expand the definition as well, and i think there could be bipartisan support for that, because mine doesn't necessarily displace the current system, mine allows people an exit ramp to get out

of the individual market, to get into group market and get cheaper insurance. >> senator, the president -- i'm just looking down here -- tweeted a few minutes ago, we will have the votes for health care but not for the reconciliation deadline of friday after which we need 60 for filibuster rule. you just said something he could do independent of congress, but he's still hoping to get something like graham-cassidy through. aren't those two at odds with each other? >> i think the filibuster is neither here nor there because we only had 50 votes last time and it didn't get to 50. they sent over a team from the white house. we told them we would accept a narrower version of graham-cassidy that included expansion of health safety accounts and repeal of the mandates that made you pay a tax if you don't buy insurance as well as some entitlement reform. we did like a good percentage of

the bill, but nobody could get their you-know-what together to figure out how you get people together to get the votes. it needs more than that. i had very little discussion with the other senators promoting this bill because they just sort of decided not to negotiate. and if they want to get all the votes, they're going to have to come and talk about how we can make the bill more acceptable to everybody on the republican side. >> senator paul, this is josh earnest here. i wanted to ask you a question about the big political story on the day. on the democratic side, there's been a lot of talk about how nancy pelosi was a little bit of a drag on democratic candidates in the special elections we saw this year. it's clear in this recent election that your fellow k kentuckian was a drain on the special election there. i was wondering about the mood of your colleagues in the republican conference. is there dissatisfaction with senator mcconnell, is there concern that he could be a

millstone around the neck of your colleagues like rick heller or jeff flake who themselves are facing tough elections this year. >> i don't think people like being told what to do by anybody. i think primarily alabama voters don't want to be told what to do and they resist outsiders telling them what to do. i think that's true in a lot of different states so that's probably the take-home message there. as far as whether any one person is to blame, i think people are unhappy we didn't keep our promise, which is repeal, but i don't necessarily blame that on senator mcconnell. he blamed it on all the repeal. but i think the people who voted for repeal in 2015 do need to go back to their states and explain to people why they couldn't vote for an identical bill in 2017 that they voted for in 2015. >> yesterday president trump talked again about what he called the second option when he said it was one to use and

that's military force against north korea but still exploring diplomatic channels like the pressure he put on chinese banks just last week through the state department. what other ideas have we not exhausted? what would do you? >> i think we haven't found what works because we still have a standoff and a real problem. i think the rhetoric needs to be ratcheted down. i'm a big fan of the acidities trap and i think you've had him on. he talks about the rising power and some of it is respect. we want china to help us with north korea. i think they have the ability to. but the mood in washington has been, let's slap more sanctions on china and let's tell them they've got to do what we want them to do. well, a rising power wants to be treated with more equality and more with respect, and i think one way to treat china with respect is to say, yes, we need your help, and guess what, we'd like you to be part of the solution in korea, and if you

could convince north korea to completely dismantle their program, what if we have china as a peacekeeping force in korea, have them be part of a pea peacekeeping force of them giving up their weapons. when president obama attacked libya, he sent a message to the world and said, if you give up your nuclear weapons, we may still topple you. north korea took that to heart and that's a problem. >> so you're talking about putting chinese troops along the dmz with american troops, and you believe that would put enough pressure on china. give china something that would allow them to put pressure on north korea, that north korea would completely give up its nuclear program? >> it may or may not work. we need more ideas and a discussion of it. i'm n i'm talking about doing it in

exchange for china's program. i think china wants to make sure north korea won't invade china if there's forces there. it's a way to go to china with respect and ask them for their help as opposed to saying to china, if you don't do what we say, we'll put more pressure on your banks. they're a rising superpower and we need to treat them as such if we want to get things from them. we need to treat them with respect. >> we'll see what the president thinks about that idea and we'll look for news out of the white house with health care. senator paul rand in kentucky, thanks very much. coming up, congressman eric swalwell says president trump's approach to north korea is akin to making bar room threats. he joins us next on "morning joe." knowing where you stand has never been easier.

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welcome back to "morning

joe." joining us now, house committee on intelligence, congressman eric swalwell of california. good to see you. >> good morning. >> i want to talk to something we asked adam schiff about and that's the testimony of robert stone before your committee. what did you learn from him that you didn't know before to the extent you can disclose it, and did you find him to be a forthcoming witness? >> no, i did not find him to be forthc forthcoming. one of the central questions around robert stone is who was he communicating with at wikileaks at the time russia was interfering with our election and dropping hacked e-mails to the american public. mr. stone refused to say who that was. he said he wasn't there under subpoena, he was there voluntarily, and unless he was under subpoena, he wouldn't even consider giving that name. for somebody who has accused the dnc and others about not being forthcoming about this hack, he certainly did not show a willingness to want to help his country understand what happened

in the last election. >> will we see him back before your committee soon, subpoenaed? >> that's a question for republicans. democrats want him to come back under subpoena. if we're going to conduct a serious investigation, we're going to set the terms of how witnesses answer questions, not the witnesses. >> did you get the sense yesterday that the republicans wanted him to answer the questions and there may, in fact, be a subpoena? >> i did. there was a mutual frustration around this issue, and again, the precedent that we could be setting is that witnesses just come in and they start setting their own rules about what they'll answer and what they won't, and then everybody has to come in under subpoena and you really don't want to go that route. >> so in his testimony, stone said he was communicating with someone who are intelligence services identified as a russian through an intermediary and stone was asking that russian, through the intermediary, to retweet a post of his. who is that russian? do we have any idea who that was

or what their connection is? >> we know from the public report that louucifer 2.0 is wh the intermediary is. he was a russian connected to the russian intelligence services, and as you see through the limited exchanges robert stone has released, he is asking lucifer 2.0 to release material where he's attacking hillary clinton and lucifer 2.0 is releasing damaging information that they have. so you have robert stone working with a russian. they're asking people to do something and they're working to undermine the election. so the question that remains is was this a witting or unwitting relationship? if he's going to not tell us who the russian was, we'll have to subpoena him and put him back in the chair. >> richard blumenthal yesterday said publicly that he was 99% sure that manafort and flynn

would be brought under criminal charges. does that jibe with what you're finding in your investigation? >> well, you know, what i have seen just as a lawyer, and i'm not even talking about classified information, is that you have two people who failed to disclose a lot of information with respect to their contacts with russia, whether it's personal, political or financial, and it looks like bob mueller and the team are getting closer. but we're conducting our own investigation into manafort and flynn and would love to have them come before the committee as well. >> congressman, this is josh earnest. are you satisfied with the degree of coordination with the department of justice as they conduct their own investigation? do you feel like they're sharing as much information as they can so you can do your job as well? >> i'm satisfied. i believe they have a different responsibility. we don't want to get in the way or disrupt their investigation, but we're also a separate branch of government and we have a duty to the american people. so, you know, we expect them to hold a lot of information close to the vest. because you don't want witnesses

to necessarily understand or hear what other witnesses are saying so that they can cook up a story or work around what others have testified to. so i'm satisfied with that. what i'm not satisfied with is i don't believe we're demonstrating the same curiosity or dogged determination to find out what happened as bob mueller has, and i think we should all be moving at the same pace here. >> congressman eric swalwell, i wanted to talk north korea with you. we're up against the clock. come back soon and we'll talk about. coming up next, new reporting this morning says president trump at war with just about everybody has started physically mocking senators john mccain and mitch mcconnell. we'll explain next on "morning joe." kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life.

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lethargic body language. for mccain, president trump imitates that famous thumbs down gesture when the arizona republican who's battling brain cancer killed health care reform back in july. we've got host of "the bill press show" bill press, brian sullivan and susan page. >> so where are we, bill press? where's the republican party when roy moore beats even the president's choice and democrats dianne feinstein are not considered sufficiently loyal to the cause? >> let's get to the democrats second. i think to borrow a phrase from our buddy mark halperin, i thought yesterday was a real game-changer. look at what happened. it's stunning. in one day, donald trump, mitch mcconnell lose alabama to roy moore, who's going to be, to say the least, a wild card when he gets to the senate, which i think he will. and secondly, they lose a total

folly of going after repealing health care again after they lost it the first time, wisely decided move on to tax reform, infrastructure. instead they got suckered into going back to repeal again. lose it again. and then bob corker says he's not going to run again, which is a real loss in the sanity, if you will, in the senate. i think the party is in total disarray. they're not going to get infrastructure done in my judgment, they're not going to get tax reform done, so their soul accomplishment for 2017 will be neil gorsuch on the supreme court, and they control all three branches of government. >> and they have a monopoly of power and can't get anything done. susan page, kasie hunt told us earlier this morning that washington -- trump's washington is an absolutely miserable place for elected republicans. can you expand on that? >> you know, not just for elected republicans. the only thing bipartisan going on in washington right now is the disruption in both parties. the energy in both parties is with the fire brands.

the establishment on both the democratic side and the republican side face all these challenges in their home states. this is something that incumbents, by the way, are noticing. and bob corker is not going to be the last incumbent to decide it's just not worth running again and sticking around when the whole government is so dysfunctional and in so much turmoil. and with the inability to get just about anything done. >> so tax reform, the president is going to indianapolis today, brian sullivan. he'd like to turn the page away from the health care failure and hopefully get something done by the end of the year on tax reform. what's the plan? >> a lot of questions in there, willie. this will be the fourth stab at tax reform. hopefully more than a napkin is what we're going to get because we've gotten one-pagers and five paragraph ones before. here's what's expected. seven individual tax brackets going down to three, maybe a phantom fourth. the highest individual rate 39% to 35.

corporate 35 to 20. pass-through cap. some of the wild cards, will we get a big repatriation, trillions in a one-time tax break. double the standard deduction, your middle class tax cut as they sell it and blue state payback. the way they want to pay for this is eliminating federal and state local tax reductions from your federal deduction which means high tax, high income states, i.e., ones that voted for clinton, will lose a massive deduction. the blue state payback. because we need higher taxes in new jersey. >> and in connecticut because we only pay 55% of our salary to governments on all levels. >> are you moving to florida, joe? >> my children love connecticut. i'm in connecticut. can you imagine that, you pay -- you're in california or new york, you're paying 55% of your taxes and you're going to have to pay even more moving forward.

this is the sort of thing that has made democrats republicans for a long time. >> oh, yeah. good friends of ours have moved down to your home state of florida just for that very reason. you know what, maybe i ought to be more worried because i'm in that bracket but i'm not because i don't think they can get this thing done, i really don't. they don't have a plan, they don't have a bill, brian knows, and they have been working on it for how long. >> since early last year with a better way. paul ryan's plan. >> exactly. and it's no longer tax reform. they're just talking about tax cuts, tax cuts. i don't think they have got the votes. i'm not losing any sleep over it. >> josh. >> i agree with that because there are plenty of republican congressman from california, from new york, that wouldn't be eager to see that blue state payback that you talked about. brian, i think your first point is the most important, which is we have not seen from trump deepen gaugement on the details so it's hard for people to

coalesce around a central idea when you're talking about something as complicated as this. so it has not proved to be a successful strategy for dealing with health care, tax reform or tax cuts are more complicated than that and they seem to be trying to run the same play. >> susan page, now reports that the infrastructure plan has been drafted up in such a way that is sure to keep democrats away. so failure on health care, failure on tax reform, failure on infrastructure. >> and you know, bill press said that republicans will be going back to their voters with just one achievement and that would be neil gorsuch on the supreme court. they'll have had to bolster the affordable care act and they may well be having to defend a deal that institutionalizes it by legislation. the daca program, if president trump moves ahead with a compromise that involves congressional democrats to protect the d.r.e.a.m. error ee.

they may have to strengthen the things they promised to undo. >> you're writing about obamacare, the failure to repeal obamacare. is that dead? the president tweeted again today that we don't have the votes for reconciliation but we will have the votes. hang in there. rand paul said they're going an entirely different way, maybe some type of executive action out of the white house. why do they keep beating the dead horse? >> i think that it is very hard to see a path ahead for republicans to pass something on health care because there's not only a procedural problem in trying to get a deal that involves reconciliation so that you can avoid a democratic filibuster, there's not an agreement among republicans about what to do, about what to do, for instance, protections for pre-existing medical conditions or medicaid funding and expanded medicaid funding, so i don't see a way until the next midterm election for republicans to get something through. after the next midterm election, the odds are things will be worse for republicans in the congress, not better. >> all right, thank you so much. great low appreciate it,

everybody. we want to mention that mika is going to be on "new york live" at 11:30 this morning. host jacque reid and sarah gore will be talking about know your value. >> that's a good show. >> stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. we'll see you tomorrow. >> thanks, joe. hey, there, i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning we have got a lot to cover, starting with tired of winning. president trump couldn't get his base behind senator luther strange, and alabama republicans chose roy moore, a former judge who thinks homosexuality should be illegal. >> i'm not going into issues tonight. i'm going to celebrate this victory. >> yeah, that wasn't a joke. and health care fails yet again, so where is the president turning next? tax reform, with promises his own plan might not actually keep. >> we will cut taxes tremendously for the middle class. not jus