the example of those whose final act was to sacrifice themselves for those they loved should inspire all of us to show more love every day for the people who grace our lives. >> that was president trump. as the investigation into the shooting is unfolding, we're finding out more things that are leading to more questions at every turn. the sheriff saying yesterday that the killer actually prepared an escape plan. that he could have only pulled off alone if he had been quote a super hero. also this morning, the president of the united states firing back

over the report that rex tillerson had to be talked out of re-signing and while he praised the president yesterday he did not deny the report that he once referred to the president and will clean it up a little bit for you here as a moron. the heads of the senate intel committee say they can't rule out collusion. that's collusion between the russians and donald trump's political campaign. we have all of that and much, much more straight ahead. good morning. it's thursday, october 5th and welcome to morning joe. mika has the morning off but with us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor washington anchor for bbc world

news america. national political reporter for nbc news. >> we are learning some new details. he probably had some kind of assistance now. the sheriff said steve paddock prepared an elaborate escape plan but suggested only a super hero could have pulled it off alone. we also know now that the shooter rented a room overlooking another music festival the weekend before.

her attorney spoke out yesterday on her behalf. >> never said anything to me or took any action that i was aware of that i understood in anyway to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen. it never occurred to me in anyway whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone. >> president trump travelled to las vegas yesterday. met with survivors, law enforcement and hospital staff. the president and first lady met with patients and posed for photographs. he promised survivors that he would, quote, be there for them and for those that lost loved ones that he would never leave their side. he also took time to commend the

hospital staff for their work treating hundreds of patients. >> i have to tell you it makes you very proud to be an american when you see the job that they have done and people that would not be around today are up there and they'll be leaving the hospital in a week or two weeks or five weeks and in some cases, even in a few days. it's amazing. more than a few hours and you would have never believed it so i just want to congratulate everybody. it's incredible. incredible what you have done. we met quite a few people and they're lucky to be here. >> what message do you have? >> we're with you 100%. in fact, i invited a lot of them over to the white house. if you're ever in washington come on over to the oval office and they're all saying we want to do it. and believe me i'll be there for them. >> if you're in washington come on over. the president also praised first responders and law enforcement for their bravery.

>> you showed the world and the world is watching. something like that can take place for hours and hours and hours and you can figure it out and you should be very proud. >> you know, even as they start to piece together what happened in the final days the idea that it may have been some kind of other venue or dummy run the big question still remains what was there in this guy's background that could have perhaps raised some sort of red flag? what was the motive and we're all looking for that to say how can we look around at future events potentially and see if there are red flags behind them. >> we're going to be looking for a very long time. obviously they're digging through everything they can find in this man's back grown and it seems they'll never really fully uncover that mystery. just like we may not fully uncover the mystery of donald trump.

there you had the president yesterday actually showing strength. actually playing the role of comforter in chief. the contrast was marked from how he was after charlottesville, how he was certainly in puerto rico but yesterday he didn't embarrass himself. he wasn't self-consumed and he didn't rub salt in the wounds of people who were hurting already as he has unfortunately over the past several weeks which i suppose you could say makes the tragedy of this presidency even greater that this man actually could, if he could restrain himself and behave like a normal human being and a normal president as he exhibited yesterday that he was capable for at least one 24 hour period of doing that he wouldn't be

causing the damage that he's causing and we could actually be worried about north korea. >> yeah, joe. it's pretty bizarre that we are breathing a sigh of relief that the president acted normally yesterday in front of the wounded and hurt and grief stricken in the situation that none of us are used to or used to it on a smaller scale but the scale of what happened in las vegas is still overwhelming and we should take the time perhaps to point out that in las vegas we have seen a model of communication from sheriff lomabrdo. every day, multiple times a day which has been quite amazing and clare fi clarifying. it's one of the best police departments in the country. they have certainly shown that from the moment the first shots

rang out. yesterday, of course, also much talk about rex tillerson and it started on this program, carol lee coming on with her exclusive nbc news report and it was such a blockbuster report. it's like when mika said she was talking halfway through a certain show she said uh-oh i provoked him and the tweet came. carol lee was doing hard reporting and carol should have seen it coming like a freight train coming out of the mist. come it did. the tweets came but a lot of news around that tweet and that's of course rex tillerson saying he's not going anywhere. at least for now. >> this is the trump administration being like the trump administration we know rather than the president we see in vegas. the administration blasted back against that nbc news exclusive

report yesterday about secretary of state rex tillerson's private fury about his treatment at the hands of president trump. it says tillerson was on the verge of re-signing this past summer which lead to an intervention. there's also the assertion that tillerson openly disparaged the president referring to him as a moron of a july meeting at the pentagon. tillerson made a surprise announcement before the press yesterday and then engaged with reporters. something he has rarely done since taking office. >> the vice president has never had to persuade me to remain the secretary of state because i have never considered leaving this post. i serve at the appointment of the president and i'm here as long as the president feels i can be useful to achieving his objectives. let me tell you what i learned about this president that i did not know before taking this

office. he loves this country. he puts americans and america first. he's smart. he demands results where ever he goes and he holds those around him accountable for whether they have done the job he's asked them to do. while i'm new to washington, i have learned there's some that try to sew dissension to advance their agenda by tearing others apart in an effort to undermine president trump's own agenda. i do not and i will not operate that way and the same applies to everyone on my team at the state department. president trump and his administration will keep moving forward as one team with one mission doing great things for the united states of america to make america great again. >> can you address the main headline of this story that you called the president a moron? and if not where do you think

these reports. >> this is what i don't understand about washington. i'm not from this place. but the places i come from, we don't deal with that kind of petty nonsense and it is intended to do nothing but divide people and i'm just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration. >> listen carefully. while tillerson did not personally issue a denial of calling the president a moron later in the day his spokesperson did. >> the secretary does not use that type of language. the secretary did not use that type of language to speak about the president of the united states. he does not use that language to speak about anyone so i hope that that clarifies. >> he never said it. >> he did not say that. >> you know, there's a lot of different ways we could look at what rex tillerson did there. some people will look at it and say it's shameful. i tell you what i saw and i suspect you probably saw the same thing too. that was not a guy that was

quivering nervous at the podium going oh my god i hope i get this right or else i'm going to be fired because as we talked about yesterday with andrea mitchell, he doesn't care. he's an independent force on his own. he doesn't like the job. he doesn't need the job. he's doing the job because he thinks he loves his country and believes he needs to serve it whether people think he's doing a good yjob or not. i saw a guy yesterday who certainly, and this is all speculation but based on knowledge of how he works in washington, certainly talked to james mattis and i'm sure talks to general kelly and at the end decided, you know what, okay guys, i'll stay here. i know, as bob corker said i know that we may be the only

people standing between, you know, this president and even more chaos. >> yeah, joe. that was a thoroughly humiliating performance by secretary of state tillerson. forced to stand up there and literally, it's as if someone -- you and i have sat next to someone for ten years. so it's as if someone asks me -- >> why wouldn't you count that. those are the most important years. no passport required. only common sense allowed. you just put an asterisk by the glory years of american television. that's like telling paul mccartney you've been playing music for all of those years if you juan to county the 7 or 8 years you played with the beatles it's even longer. >> someone says tell me about joe and i say the following, let me tell you, i have known this man for 13 or 14 years.

he loves his country. he puts america. he's smart. i mean, if rex tillerson had the relationship with the president of the united states that you would hope that a secretary of state would have with the president of the united states he wouldn't be reading off a script to describe that relationship. he would know it. he would live it and we now have an age. carol is here, richard haass is here, they can all speak to it. we're now part of a problem where usually it's the house or senate democrats complaining about policy differences in the administration but now it's policy differences between the president and the secretary of state and the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. it's crazy time. >> it may be but thank god that

none of them and nikki haley are not paroding the steve ban nnon wing of the white house and you're talking sense. let's talk about your reporting. first of all, i have to say, i think it's humiliating actually to the president of the united states because everybody knows that you're reporting is right. you got it -- and i'm not just saying that because you're here. we all know that happened. you have all of the sources and yet the president of the united states can't fire the guy for some reason he is still there this time 24 hours ago i'm sure a lot of people didn't think he was going to be there. but talk about the story the president tweeted out attacking your story. everybody was attacking your sources. what can you tell us 24 hours later? >> well, i can tell you that we certainly stand by the story and

this was a story that we extensively reported. we talked to a dozen people for the story. there were 7 independent senior administration officials that said that rex tillerson indeed intended to re-sign this summer and despite what the secretary said yesterday and we spoke with three separate administration officials who were -- who said that the tillerson called the president a moron. some of them overheard him actually say that so, you know, this is not some fake news report and the thing about the president's tweet that, look, if he were to admit that this story is accurate, which it is, then he would have to fire rex tillerson. there would be no other choice and i think right now it's a waiting game. how long does rex tillerson stick around? how long does donald trump put up with this? but even if he does stay around he's almost like, it's hard to see him being effective and this relationship is not likely to at

all be repaired. it's been rocky. and part of that is because you have that sort of ceo versus ceo. you have two people that feel like they have always been in charge. they have always called their own shots and president trump opportunity like to have checks on his authority whether it's congress or courts or his own aids and tillerson doesn't like to be a subordinate and that's been a disastrous recipe for this relationship and it's america's foreign policy is stuck in the middle of all of that. >> yeah and you know, there's also something else that generals have that sometimes ceos do not have. it depends on how a ceo gets to the top of the corporation but all yen rahagenerals begin as l grunts and they spend a good bit of their careers having to be

sir, yes, sir to the person above them. by the time you become a two star general or three star general you have been around the block and figured out how to work within the chain of command so it's not quite as hard for secretary mattis or general kelly to deal with the difficult superior as it would be say the ceo of exxon mobil. >> fair enough but it's also fair to say that people like the two yen rahagenerals you mentioa career in government. it's hard to go and think that the skill set that worked for you there transfers into governments that doesn't. we see it with rex tillerson and others when he was unsuccessful treasurer.

and reorganizing the state department at the time the world is unraveling. the biggest issue is the president. in order for any secretary of state to be successful the world cannot see daylight between him and his boss. he is the voice of the united states and whatever else you think about rex tillerson, no one in the world can possibly think he is the authority voice of the united states. not when he is meeting with officials and the president of the united states is tweeting he is wasting his time and diplomacy has no place here. unless the president is going tone able him to succeed he cannot succeed so the real question is not how long he stays in a job or whether he re-signs it's whether this president is prepared to make rex tillerson or his successor viable and unless you back it up and cool it on tweeting and give them the resources and approve the personnel. unless you fill american

embassies with am bass doris. unless you think hard about the role of others at the white house detracting from the authority of the secretary of state no person in this job can succeed. >> a few things in this administration and we talked about it just a minute or two ago, it's not just rex tillerson. there's daylight between secretary mattis and president trump on the iran deal. there's daylight between rex tillerson of course and the president of the united states on north korea. there's daylight between nikki haley, the president of the united states on everything from news, sports and weather to, you name it on just about everything. it's from the very beginning nikki haley has been running what most people have assumed has been an independent foreign policy that is traditionally republican but bears no resemblance to what the president of the united states

is saying and i just wonder again whether we're looking at a bad, a good cop-bad cop routine where we heard leaks over the weekend that the president was telling everybody just relax i'm being the bad cop. mike pence on russia. mike pence talks like ronald reagan when he is in the baltic states. he says exactly what you or i would want this administration to say. at some point, 8 months in, it can't be an accident at a all of these policy leaders inside the administration are towing the same line. it just happens to be a line that's differ from the president's bluster. >> the difference there joe is good cop, bad cop is choreographed. i don't think there's anything about this is choreographed. the national security council process, the interagency process isn't working.

he simply doesn't have the authority. the president is not willing to subject himself to the discipline of orderly governance. >> but richard, do you think richard if the president didn't know that the secretary of defense was going to say it's in america's best interest, don't you think we would have already heard about that battle brewing? i just, again, it happens every day. >> yeah. i don't think this president wants to take on the secretary of defense. also the secretary of defense has troops in the field. he has military and people in uniform staffing the pentagon. he's in a much stronger position than the secretary of state that doesn't have that bureaucratic or resource base and i just think this president is wary of taking on general mattis or chairman of the joint chiefs.

rex tillerson is flying much more out there solo and made it worse on himself. he has a bad hand but he played it badly. he hasn't staffed up his department and hasn't fought for resources. his focus has been on issues like reorganizing the state department rather than creating a national and international consensus on behalf of what foreign policy he thinks the united states ought to be conducting. >> much more to talk about on that topic and talking about it throughout the morning. we'll be bringing andrea mitchell back to us in the next hour and also a clarification, before we get to break, yesterday we ran a sound bite of the mayor of san juan. her back was not camera in a noisey room. it's hard to hear but now we have a more accurate verbate of what she said. she told the president, sir, it's all about saving lives,

it's not about politics. maybe he didn't hear that. still ahead on morning joe, we have an open question on whether anyone in the trump campaign colluded with russia. and that's according to the senate's top two leaders on the intel committee. more from their revealing news conference straight ahead. but first here's bill with a check on what could yet be another hurricane. >> yeah. your friends from pensacola through mobile, all the way to louisiana are closely watching this one. it's off the coast, still a tropical depression. it hasn't gotten better organized so that's fantastic. only 72 hours before it gets to the northern gulf coast. that's not a lot of time and there's land in the way. that's why we're not thinking it's going to be the beast of storm like the others we have been tracking. don't focus on the red line but the cone does go from about panama city, pensacola through

mobile all southern portions of mississippi and back toward almost central louisiana. making land fall as a low end category 1 hurricane. wind damage and storm surge near the center and to the right of the center where ever it comes on shore. that will be the key question and will it surprise us and intensify more than expected? we'll find that out tomorrow. also in florida this is a tropical wave moving through. and on and off especially miami and through the keys where they're still recovering from irma. the rest of country looks nice today. warm conditions, texas to the northeast. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. kevin, meet your father. kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin

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so yesterday the intel committee, the chairman had a pretty big press conference and

had revealing information about the state of the russian investigation. what can you tell us about it? >> we might be thinking about things hurricanes, vegas, after conducting more than 100 interviews in their investigation they say it's still an open question whether anyone in the trump campaign cooperated with russia to influence the 2016 election. senators provided an update on their probe into russian interference yesterday and issued a warning about the upcoming elections. >> the russian intelligence service is determined, clever, and i recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously as we move into this november's election and as we move into preparation for the 2018 election. >> the russian active measures efforts did not end on election day and we need to be on guard. one of the things that is

particularly troubling to both of us is the fact that it's become evident that 21 states electoral systems were not all penetrated but there was at least, there was at least trying to open the door. >> well, they have reached a conclusion. the senators also addressed financial and personal ties between president trump's campaign and associates. parts were corroborated but then they quote, hit a wall. >> though we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild backwards up to a certain date getting past that point has been some what impossible and i say this because i don't think we're going to find any intelligence

products that unlock that key to prejune of 2016. >> now reuters reports that special council bob mueller has taken over investigations of the dossier. meanwhile we're learning more about russia's use of facebook to interfere in the election. a quarter of the 2,400 ads linked to russia targeted specific states including wisconsin and michigan that ended up of course flipping for donald trump as well as florida and ohio. the russians also targeted state with high profile incidents of violence between police and african americans states and ads were also planted in red states like texas, alabama, and mississippi. last month facebook revealed that groups linked to russia spent $100,000 on election ads. both book and twitter agreed to

testify now before the senate intelligence committee investigating moscow's election interference. just looking at the states they chose, either somebody on the russian side or somebody here is giving them a good take on how to use their money. >> a good take on how to use their money and if you look at the content of the advertisements at least some of them you have seen out there already, it's also somebody that's pretty aware of how to target, what bells to ring. it certainly looks like they had the help of americans who might know how to campaign and how to win elections. i'm wondering, mike, if you heard mark warner, what the ranking member of the intel committee said yesterday. that is that he wanted to see all the facebook ads that the russians ran or people linked to russian groups ran and said we have a right to see that as

americans. to see how the russians tried to influence our elections. now this is something we don't need to get from the trump white house. this is something we don't need to get from mueller's office. this is something that facebook can put out there and if mark zuckerberg is really on this pr campaign and taking out full page advertisements in the new york times he can probably help in his pr push and get some good will by just being transparent. throwing it all on the table and say these are all the ads that russia or russian backed groups took out on book during the 2016 election trying to sway american democracy. >> well, joe, i mean, mark zuckerberg and facebook have been dragged kicking and screaming to the edge of transparency for about two or three months. at first they were living in denial and public denial that we had nothing to do with this.

we didn't know this was going on but now there's a reality and another reality that occurred for a lot of people. all the boys and girls out there watching. you saw a republican and mark warner a democrat standing shoulder to shoulder talking about an issue that effects the entire nation, our country and i don't know about you but it was encouraging to finally see some sense of bipartisanship in this polarized town where you live. >> it was and they genuinely seem to agree and be working together dh is a stark contrast to the house intelligence investigation which seems to not even be in the game. the thing that struck me is when they were talking about the need to protect the electoral systems they talked about how vulnerable our presidential elections are that all you would have to do is take two or three states and figure out how to pick them off and create chaos there and you can really alter, the same way

you could alter a house race by picking a couple of jurisdiction counts. so it's not just 2018, it's 2020 and they also highlighted that there's so much work to do before these elections which seem pretty much around the corner. >> because of the electoral college, carol is right, it's -- you can find out easily what counties to target, what subjections of the counties to target without breaking a sweat you can get all of the information online. that causes a real problem. but i was surprised yesterday that richard did not deny that they were still investigating claims of collusion and also they were not dismitssing the information inside that infamous

dossier. >> i had two take aways. one is with the russians. cyber now is right thereupon with military power and energy as their principle tools of expanding russian influence. on collusion, i have a slightly different view which is how hard it's going to be to prove. you can't rule it out but to rule it in is going to take a degree of specificity that i think can be difficult. but i think what we saw with congress is they have run up against their limits. they can't rule it out and they can't rule it in. it can bring more to bear to the investigation than they can. >> we shall he. obviously he has a lot more power to do that thn they do. >> are rex tillerson's days numbered? we'll be asking nicholas burn what is he thinks. and andrea mitchell will once again join the conversation. morning joe coming right back.

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secretary tillerson,

secretary mattis and chief of staff kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos and i support them very much. ends up not being supported in a way that i would hope a secretary of state would be supportive and that's just from my vantage point but i have never -- i have no knowledge of the comments or anything else. he's in a very trying situation, trying to solve many of the world's problems a lot of times without the kind of support and help i'd like to see him how. >> why do they think the chaos comes from? joining us former state department spokesman, nicholas burns. professor of international relations at the harvard school of government. if you put together with a you heard from secretary tillerson

and with a you heard bob corker saying about the administration, what is your reaction to this? >> well, i guess i would say this, it's an extraordinary situation when the secretary of state has to hold a press conference in essence to say he's not re-signing and on the saudi issue as secretary tillerson has done he's in a weakened position. think about how to be a successful secretary of state. they had a very close trusting relationship with true man. baker with bush, condi rice with george w. bush. when she went to meet vladimir putin they knew she spoke for the president. but tillerson is not in that situation when the president has taken issue with him on north korea. he's weakened and it's a sorry situation and i should say this, donald trump has caused this situation. it's not rex tillerson's

problem. it's more the problem of the president of the united states not understanding how to be effected himself as the commander in chief. >> so ambassador burns we are where we are. what is the best case scenario. is the best case scenario rex tillerson leaving which of course under normal circumstances he would? and us basically rolling the dice on whether steve bannon acolyte would be our next secretary of state. we heard some of the names floating earlier during the transition or having rex tillerson hold on knowing that he's working closely with secretary mattis every day. >> at a normal time you'd have to say he would have to re-sign but this is not a normal time and the president has the north korea crisis on the front burner. he has to go to asia in november and have tough meetings with xi. it's better for the president and the country that secretary

tillerson stay. i think he and secretary mattis, they're the block force preventing president trump from doing real damage to this country if you think about the challenging we face. >> if you are in government, and you were tillerson and talking to mattis and kelly and mechacmr what would be your request to say if you want us to succeed here's what we need you to do and stop doing. what would be on your list. >> i think sits right question to ask and the person that needs to make this happen and can is general kelly. he's the chief of staff. apparently he can speak truth to power to donald trump. he has to go into the oval office and maybe he already has to say mr. president you cannot weaken your foreign policy. the secretary of state the way you have done it.

you're weakening yourself in the process. it's that kind of conversation but i don't know where president trump is going to be. we'll receive it well or keep it to in a certain way. he lost his national security adviser. peter baker layed this out in the new york times this morning. this is a chaotic administration. >> and nick, have to congratulate you because i thought your immediate answer to richard's question was going to be walk into the oval office and say re-sign but you didn't. you proceeded forward. but let me ask you, we just heard coming into this segment. we heard bob corker with his free at last, free at last speech pointing out incredible divisions in this administration. could you please, for the people watching, explain the significance of the split between secretary tillerson,

secretary mattis and apparently general mcmaster on one side and the president of the united states on the other side with regard to renewing the iran agreement next week. >> well, again, it's a kind of situation we really haven't seen in a half century in washington going all the way back in people's memories. the president has to make a big decision. are we staying with the iran nuclear deal negotiated by president obama or not and over the last week secretary mattis, general dunford and the secretary of state all said we have to stay with this. we may not like this deal in all it's respects but they understand if we walk away the iranians will be the winners here. not the united states. none of our allies t british, the french, the germans will walk out with us but you have the president of the united states determined to do something to separate us. i can't remember a situation.

on one of the most important issues facing the country there's so much between the president and his senior cabinet officers that appear to be united against him with the issue. >> with exception of his representative of the united nations because nikki haley came out of a speech a few weeks ago calling for desert fireworks ka -- decertification. >> does he see this as a team or a reflection on one person. >> yeah. does he see it politically? internationally, globally? or a personal affront. >> is it about him or this team working together. >> ambassador, thank you for yoining us th joining us this morning. the door is open to making a slight change to gun policy. what's the likelihood of doing the bare minimum on this issue. morning joe is back in a moment. in the future,

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since we have you here, we haven't had a chance -- >> i'm not speaking about anything off topic. thank you. >> he does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances. we wanted to get him on camera on that, but he refused to talk about that. back to you. >> what -- >> you ever do that to me again [ bleep ]. >> isn't that special? that was former kommcongressman michael grim threatening a reporter after the reporter actually asked him about an investigation into his campaign finances. he eventually did not -- decided

not to throw the reporter off a balcony and he decided to give up his house seat after pleading guilty to tax fraud and serving 7 months in prison. now he may be headed back to the white house with the help of steve bannon. bannon has actually endorsed african-american for new york's 11th district. grim met with bannon in his washington d.c. home on wednesday and after the meeting, grim posted on twitter a picture of himself and steve bannon writing, quote, game on. steve bannon, of course, no stranger to the midterm battle ground races after backing the alabama winner, a former judge. he was kicked out of the judiciary in alabama two times. and now we're trying to -- steve bannon is trying to actually get

somebody that's been imprisoned in this race for staten island. mike barnicle, i guess this is steve bannon's game? we get people that have been disgraced in the past, and anybody that i guess like roy moore, two times kicked off the court, and so maybe that makes him even more of an outsider than luther strange who voted with donald trump 99% of the time. >> it's hard for me to figure out the impact of a steve bannon endorsement of grim on staten island. i would be willing to guesstimate if you walked through staten island and asked people who steve bannon was, one or two people might know. he's not on the average staten island citizen. he's obviously a focal point of

us and of people in the news media and in washington d.c., but we're watching massively overblown ego in action here in steve bannon. >> katty kay, if we can get breitbart and mercer money behind the candidates, maybe mercers want to put money behind judges that have been taken out twice. make mercers want to endorse those types of candidates. and bannon tries to paint himself as a king maker. >> it's a badge of political purity he stamps down in alabama and perhaps with grim. my question starts with why is this guy running for congress again. after everything he did and everything he said going to prison. do something else. do we need him back in congress? >> well, we'll see what staten island voters think. and coming up, pete williams is going to join us with new

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the example of those whose final act was to sacrifice themselves for those they loved should inspire all of us to show more love every day for the people who grace our lives. >> president trump visits las vegas yesterday. and some of the hundreds of victims from america's latest shooting spree. one of the biggest questions today, did the gunman from help in hatching his mass murder? we'll get the latest from our justice correspondent pete williams in a minute. welcome back to "morning joe." with us we have mike barnicle, katty kay, carol lee, and with us now we have former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner and political correspondent for "beside insider" natasha

bertrand, and also robert costa who is the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. how willie and i end every week excitedly in front of our television sets. we'll have an update on the las vegas investigation in a minute. katty, first so much swirl ing around the white house and state department yesterday. i know it's shocking, but more turmoil inside the trump administration. it was laid bare yesterday in a series of public events. >> who would have thought that was possible? >> my god, i know. >> who knows? the trump administration blasted back against trils's private fury about his treatment at the hands of president trump. the report says tillerson was on the verge of resigning this summer which led to an

intervention by mike pence and other high-ranking administration officials. that was also the assertion backed by three sources that tillerson openly disparaged the president referring to him as a moron after a july meeting at the pentagon. tillerson made a surprise announcement before the press yesterday and then engaged with reporters. something he's rarely done since taking office. >> the vice president has never had to persuade me to remain as secretary of state, because i have never considered leaving this post. i serve at the appointment of the president, and i am here for as long as the president feels i can be useful to achieving his objectives. let me tell you what i've learned about this president whom i did not know before taking this office. he loves his country. he puts americans and america first. he's smart. he demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether

they've done the job he's asked them to do. while i'm new to washington, i have learned that there are some who try to sew dissension to advance their own agenda by tearing others part in an effort to undermine president trump's agenda. i do not, and i will not operate that way. and the same applies to everyone on my team here at the state department. president trump and his administration will keep moving forward as one team with one mission, doing great things for the united states of america to make america great again. >> reporter: could you address the main headline that you called the president a moron. if not -- >> i'm not going to deal with petty stuff like that. this is what i don't understand about washington. again, i'm not from this place. but the places i come from, we don't deal with that kind of petty nonsense. it is intended to do nothing but

divide people. i'm not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration. >> all right. well, rex tillerson has proven in the past he's very good at answering just the questions that he wants to answer, and we saw that certainly after charlottesville when he was on fox news sunday, and he told chris wallace when pressed on whether he agreed with the president on what he'd said after charlottesville, that the president speaks for himself. and basically himself only. bob costa, no answer yesterday from the secretary of state on the specific question. of course, his spokesperson clarified it later he never did call the president a moron. but obviously both gentlemen have decided that it's in their best interest to stay put at least for a little while. the president and the secretary of state. what can you tell us? >> this is yet another chapter in an uneasy relationship

between the secretary of state. he's an outsider. but he's an outsider not only to washington but to president trump's inner circle and so many of the president's confidants have told me this has been a point of tension since day one. they did not expect secretary tillerson so last more than a year, a year and a half as secretary of state. he's been frustrated by the experience in general. but he does have many key allies in the foreign policy community, and he is seen as someone who offers a bit of a different perspective on some of the deals whether it's the iran nuclear deal or when it comes to having some kind of interaction with north korea. so there's some people like senator corker, chairman of the foreign relations committee who like to have him there. there's not a move to push him out at the moment. >> and carol lee, what can you tell us about your reporting a day later? obviously the white house pushed back hard yesterday, called it fake news. what can you tell us 24 hours later about the original story as it ran and the followups that

you did yesterday? >> well, we, of course, stand by our original story which said that secretary tillerson in july his frustrated had mounted and that secretary mattis and then homeland security secretary john kel kelly intervened. after that mike pence came in, gave him what was described as a pep talk and said you need to move forward in a way in which you're on board with the president's agenda. the white house obviously we expected them to push back on that. they denied it before we ran the story. but we are very confident. our source, we spoke with a dozen people for the story. i think yesterday i talked to a white house official after secretary tillerson's remarks and this person said i was willing to give secretary tillerson the benefit of the doubt, but he very clearly did, in fact, call the president a moron, or he would have answered

that question, and i think the big question now is what happens with the relationship and it's not just a palace intrigue story, while it's interesting. this has significant consequences for u.s. foreign policy, and if these two can't work it out, and in some way that makes this a functional business like relationship, then it's going to get very complicated, because as we've been talking about there's a number of significant high stakes crises in the world whether it's north korea or the iran nuclear deal, but it's not clear this is a relationship that is reparable. >> so carol, let me ask you and also bob costa, if we can get them on the split screen, and i'll ask both of you, what you've heard about this relationship with -- between tillerson and the president of the united states. also about how jared kushner plays into this during the transition into the early months of the administration. both donald trump and jared kushner believed that the

secretary of state was just going to be a figure head for the most part, that it would be kushner that would be the de facto secretary of state doing all the deals. they have since pushed back on that in the last month or two saying that's no longer their operating theory. what can you tell us about this and whether jared kushner sees rex tillerson as somebody to gets in the way of him making deals or whether, in fact, nobody sees jarod as a de facto secretary of state anymore? >> what we're watching, joe, is the reapplication of kushner's influence in the administration to other places. it was almost overpowering at first in the minds of some cabinet officials i've spoken to because of the vacuum at the beginning of the administration, kushner was able to have his if i thinker prints over much of domestic and foreign policy.

there was concern early on at the department of homeland security, was kushner having too heavy of a hand in particular with the middle east peace process. now kushner has stepped back. he has different challenges facing him with the investigations, with his own role within the white house. he, himself, has tried to step back f. but the cabinet officials like tillerson, tillerson has gotten more control of his own tight knit inner circle over foggy bottom, not just trying to push kushner out of the circle but just trying to have control, to have control of the department he runs. >> and i'd also add that's true, that there was a very -- it's almost front-loaded in that there was -- kushner had a heavy hand early on. and i think they've tried to kind of fix that and give tillerson a little more space. in some ways the damage was already done and it hasn't necessarily worked. the other thing is we've been talking about bob corker. despite his words, tillerson

doesn't have that many friends on the hill. they said they can't get him to return their phone calls. he doesn't respond to their letters. that's establishment republicans, people like bob corker and lindsey graham, and so if the president does distance himself from him, from tillerson in a significant way, who does he turn to? maybe he has bob corker now given his comments yesterday, but he hasn't really built relationships anywhere. >> and this has been a complaint steve rattner of rex tillerson from the start, whether you talk to people inside the white house or people on the hill, whether you talk to people in the diplomatic community. rex tillerson has not operated like secretaries of states. forget about dealing with people on the hill which you have to deal with. mika told the story hundreds of times when people have asked about her father when he was national security adviser. he had republicans as a democrat, over to his house having dinner almost on a weekly

basis, maybe twice a week on the weekends. the kids were all over and everybody was playing. and he was constantly working the hill, constantly working all agencies, because that's the only way you operate. i've heard reports for several months that people cheering for rex tillerson say he doesn't even deal with people inside the state department. he's got his small little group of people. he stays in his office. he stays in his wing, and he's extraordinarily isolated from anybody else, even at state. tell people since you've worked in government and been around government for so long, how impossible it is to get things done in washington d.c. and to be effective if you are basically putting yourself in bubble wrap because you don't want to deal with human beings that work in washington? >> well, this is where when you bring somebody in from the private sector who has been a ceo and you suddenly plunk them

down in washington where he said yesterday, this is not a place that i'm from, it's kind of like mission impossible. the record of ceos coming to washington is like about 0 for 10 or something like that. i remember when paul o'neal came and walked around the treasury and asked people about workplace safety. workplace safety may have been a big deal at alcoa, but it's not at treasurer. the worst is you get a staple caught in your finger. so that's a little bit like rex tillerson. he says he wants to reorganize the state department. it needs reorganizing, but it hasn't happened. he's moving slowly. he's used to operating a command and control isolated environment where he sits atop the exxon mobil building issuing orders. it's been a tough situation. i would also mention one of the things that hasn't gotten quite as much attention in this conversation that i think is -- needs to. he was off in china trying to deal with the north korea thing, and last weekend donald trump sent out a tweet saying don't

bother. leave rocket man to me. it's hard to operate when you're being undermined by your own leader. he says yesterday he doesn't want to talk about petty nonsense, but he works for a guy who spends a lot of his days discussing petty nonsense. >> the other thing i would say is that here we are nine months in and he's still standing up in the state department and says several times, i'm new to washington. i didn't understand. i think after a bit, the i'm naive, i didn't get it, he should have got it and understood the job and understood the way the city works. if he didn't, that's his problem. that's on him. >> katty, let me ask the table here. everybody chime in. how many examples are there of ceos from top companies in washington d.c. doing well when -- top companies from

across the country, fortune 500 ceos doing well when they go to washington d.c. working in cabinets? give us -- give some examples other than mike barnicle the goldman sachs executives that always run the treasury department. >> it's almost impossible. steve pointed out a reality of a ceo going into government. a ceo runs a company. he bounce things off selected members of your board of directors. keep your key members happy. government is different. you have to have collie jalty. i would be willing to bet you this morning, right now, that more republicans and democrats in the senate especially, have heard more from joe biden in the last nine months than they've heard from rex tillerson. you can't operate this way. >> even the goldman sachs guys, bob reuben served first in the white house at the nec. hank paulson was in the government under a prior republican administration.

they had an idea of how they worked. they weren't blind into this kind of a situation. >> this is the big experiment. can you elect people with no experience and bring them in and they translate their outside experience to running government. it doesn't seem to be working. >> there's clearly rex tillerson coming from exxon, coming in with an arrogance and lack of humility because he's a global ceo. it doesn't work in government. okay. let's get the latest on the story from las vegas. we are learning details about the gunman in the shooting there. police believe he probably had some kind of assistance. the sheriff who oversees the department said he prepared an escape plan but suggested only a super hero could have pulled it off alone. he rented a room the weekend before. police wouldn't address speculation that it might have been his original target or he

was conducting a dry run. meanwhile officials say his companion spent most of yesterday answering questions from the fbi after returning to the united states from the philippines late on tuesday. a senior law enforcement official tells us danly was cooperative and there is no sign that she had anything to do with the massacre. joining us now is pete williams. pete, what's the latest on stephen paddock's girlfriend and what she might have told the fbi. >> she told them what her lawyer said publicly after. she insists she had no idea he was planning a violent attack. she says that she worried when he gave her a plane ticket and said why don't you go home and visit your relatives in the philippines and then wired her several thousand dollars of up to $100,000. she said she thought she thought

that meant he was going to leave her. the sisters said she wanted her out of the way so she could carry out the attack. she said she looked forward to many more years with him. >> and did we learn anything more about that stockpile of arms and where they came from? >> well, yes. what they tell us is that he's actually started buying weapons 35 years ago. he's had a long interest in guns. he bought them in nevada, utah, california and texas as he lived around the country. but that a year ago he started to rapidly buy lots of assault rifles. most of the guns that he owns, three quarters of them, roughly, he bought in the past year. they want to know what was going on in his life a year ago that caused him to suddenly start arming himself up. >> pete, i was talking to a couple of people yesterday who are slowly beginning to climb the ladder of the investigation. it's going to be a long, slow

ladder to climb, i'm told. what have you heard from your sources about tracking the digital trail on this guy, and the interview process? but the digital trail specifically, text messages, facebook, if there is, instagram if there is. >> the last part is apparently there isn't. he didn't seem to have much of a social media presence or any social media presence. perhaps not unusual for somebody who is 64, but it wasn't anything that caught on with him ever. but they do hope that because so far they found nothing in the searches of his car, of the hotel room, of the houses that he owned, nothing has shown up in those places that would offer any kind of perspective on why he did this. they hope there's something in his cell phone, in his tablet, in his computer, that will give the answer, they're just starting to go through that. this is a long-involved process.

so far nothing has stood out. >> pete, thank you for joining us. after conducting more than 100 interviews in their investigation, the bipartisan leaders of the senate intelligence committee say it's still an open question whether anyone in the trump campaign cooperated with russia to influence the 2016 election. senators burr and warner provided an update in their probe to the interveerns by russia. while they haven't reached a conclusion, they addressed an alleged personal dies between trump campaign and his associates. chairman burr suggested parts of the dossier were corroborate bud then they hit a wall. and now reuters reports special counc counsel bob mueller has taken over the probe of the dossier. meanwhile president trump said this on twitter. why isn't the senate intel

committee looking into the fake news networks in our country to see why so much of our news is just made up? fake. natasha, when you listened to burr and warner yesterday, what struck you as the headline out of that news conference in terms of what they've learned and what they're looking into. >> to me after 100 interviews, almost nine months now of investigating russia's interference in the election and possible collusion between the campaign and moscow, they have not been able to clear the trump campaign of collusion. they're still investigating it. they said they have tremendous amount of documents to look through. they have about 25 people that they still have to interview this month alone. about all this, and if you look more on the right side of the aisle, there are many of trump supporters saying the main headline is actually that there was no collusion. but that in my mind is not on accurate way to look at it. in my mind, i saw it as they still have a lot of work to do

to determine whether or not that's the case. >> bob costa, we have a tweet this morning, the president of the united states still denying there's any wrong doing in russia, or any reason for the intel committee to investigate. why isn't the senate intel committee looking into the fake news networks in our country to see why so much of the news is just made up, fake? of course, i could explain why that's a chilling quote, but it's made far less chilling by the fact that the president tweets out such nonsense every day. but in normal times, as we always say, the president of the united states trying to get congress to investigate news organizations would cause concern. here, though, none. but he's still, bob, still basically saying the russian story is fake news despite the fact that he's had people that

ran his campaign and have their front doors basically knocked down, and are in the middle of investigations that most likely will lead to indictments. >> politically speaking, you could see how the white house and the president himself are going after these congressional committees. they're being advised privately, i'm told, by their lawyers to avoid tangling with robert mueller for a variety of legal reasons. because of that the president sees an opportunity with the congressional committees which are really working on a bipartisan in a bipartisan way in particular with the senate. you see the senators yesterday working together, burr and warner, democrat and republican. these are not going to be the committees or the entities that really target possible obstruction of justice or something like that. they're trying to paint a broader picture about whether there was collusion, what it looked like and looking at the bigger picture when it comes to social media companies and how

russia was able to likely influence the election in various ways through those kind of corporations and buying advertising. that irritates the president as we see from his tweets, but people close to him say he can't stand the idea that the congressional families are members are bringing up family to testify. >> let's talk about the facebook ads. the states they were targeting. maybe they should have told hillary clinton they needed to target michigan and wisconsin a bit more closely. you look at that map and the issues that were raised in some of those ads, the divisive political issues. what does it tell you about the sophistication of the people behind the ads? >> so my experts i've spoken to have told me that it would be inaccurate to say it would require a really high degree of sophistication by the russians to figure out which states were swing states and which states to

target. this is information that's readily available on the internet. they understand moreover, what kinds of topics and issues in the united states are incredibly divisive. issues like race and immigration. that being said, it is notable that they knew to target swing states and voters for that matter, that would have been particularly vulnerable to falling for the fake news, propagan propaganda. i think now what we need to see from facebook is the ads. facebook has said originally that they could not release them because of the senate intelligence committee investigation. well, the chairman of the committee said yesterday we welcome for facebook to release the ads if they want. now facebook is saying they can't release the ads because of bob mueller's investigation. i think people are eager to see what the ads were, especially since while millions of people saw them during the election. >> it sounds the country is so divided we've an open booking making ourselves more of a target for people who want to

spread the make afake ads, righ? >> yeah. mike, you're right about facebook. right after the election, zuckerberg claiming that it was just absolutely ridiculous that anybody would suggest that the russians interfered with our election process through facebook. and then he slowly but surely dragged kicking and screaming to this position, and then doing his focus groups with ohio families that voted for donald trump, and we move forward, and then he's doing the state of facebook address a couple of weeks ago. i mean, all of that is just nonsense. all of that is a garbage. none of that matters if he doesn't show some more transparency and, again, he said, well, i can't show you what ads the russians bought. and i can't show you that, because we've got the senate intel committee going. they said no, you can show it. that's fine. put it all out on the table. be transparent. he's saying we can't because of

bob mueller. i mean, got nothing against duckerberg. i don't know him zuckerberg. i don't know him. this is a bit of advice. if you want to run for president one day, or if you want to be liked, whatever you are trying to do right now and what you've been trying to do for the past six months, transparency is key. let americans see the ads. put it out there. this is exactly what we said of hillary clinton at that u.n. press conference so many -- it seems like so many years ago. she finished it up and we said you know what? we said it. go back and look at the tape. we said this is going to be a problem, and the problem is going to follow her if she acts like clintons always act. get it all out there now. it's the same thing with zuckerberg. he needs to get it out there now and stop listening to his lawyers and let americans see the ads that the russians bought

on facebook. >> two problems, joe. one problem is those ads should have been issued. they should have been out. we should have seen them months ago. the second problem is clearly with mark zuckerberg. he is not aware enough of himself to be aware that he should be more transparent. i mean, it's just -- it's just mind boggling. >> now. >> he should be embarrassed. >> it really is. >> natasha, thank you. bob costa, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," andrea mitchel will join us with her reporting on the toxic relationship between rex tillerson and the white house. plus senator chris coons and a new report that claims that ivanka and donald trump junior were close to being charged with felony fraud, but a campaign contribution from donald trump's lawyer to cy vance may have

contributed in getting that possible indictment thrown out when cy vance overruled his prosecuters. we'll tell you what happened there. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. woman: every year we take a girl's trip. remember nashville? both: kimchi bbq! amazing honky-tonk! i can't believe you got us tickets! i did. i didn't pay for anything. (sigh) you never do. send me what i owe. i've got it. i mean, you did find money to buy those boots.

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show me fall tv. check out the best of the best hand-picked fall shows on xfinity x1, online, and the xfinity stream app. thirsty? with us now a member of both foreign ress and judiciary committee, and also andrea mitchel. andrea, we'll start with your latest reporting on rex tillerson. yesterday we were talking act ways that if they were going to get out of this and continue working together, that he'd march out and say that he never made that comment. that's exactly what he did, and the president doubled down by talking about fake news. now he wants congress to investigate fake news outlets because a cabinet member called

him, well, a moron. that's the g-rated version of it. what did you learn yesterday in your reporting of this. >> the fact they tried to patch this over, having a rare meeting with reporters, all of that just glosses over what really is a toxic relationship. and i think the only reason that rex tillerson has not been fired by the president is at this stage with all the other exits from the administration, it would be politically untenable, and especially with all of the challenges the crises around the world, to have the president pushing out his secretary of state. you talked earlier about any examples of whether or not a ceo had ever fit into the cabinet at this kind of high level, and one that comes to mind is george schultz. he had had government experience. he had been at the treasury and the labor department and in previous cabinets and sub cabinet official and an academic, so he was not in that

corporate exxon mobile world. but he had succeeded at a very high level, of course, in a major global company. >> so andrea, you say toxic. obviously very strong word. a toxic relationship. give us an example, and does that go both ways? do both of these men loathe each other? >> it is extraordinary that it has come to this pass, because there was an affinity there, the president admiring people successful and wealthy and people who have done well in business, ceo to ceo. maybe they're too similar in a way, but the fact that rex tillerson is fact-based and really has been very dismissive and shocked by some of the foreign policy statements that the president makes, it's significant that when he did call himmoron, you clean id it up, it was after an afghanistan briefing the day

before where the president compared trying to rebuild afghanistan with how the owner of the 21 club rebuilt his restaurant. the next day it was after a meeting with a national security officials, his close allies in the tank. it was a that that he used that phrase. there's been a lot of white house. the white house has been leaking continuously officials dismissing tillerson and giving detailing about all the conflicts and the fact that the president doesn't like the way he speaks back to him, and even his demeanor, the way he sits in meetings tells you this is not going to end well. the one thing he has going for him that foreign policy establishment both parties, senator corker is a great example, torn between the fact that they rejected his budget. they added $11 billion to his budget in the markup saying he was undermining national security with his budget.

but the foreign policy establishment sees tillerson, mattis, kelly, mcmaster, as the bull work against what could be worse chaos, as corker said. at the same time he has few allies on the hill and none at the state department which is paralyzed by this. >> all right. andrea mitchel, thank you for being with us today. we appreciate the update. let's go to chris coons. senator coons, respond, if you will, to the chaos swirling around the state department over the past 24 hours and also the comments of your colleague, senator bob corker, who is a straight shooter. and said what a lot of republicans -- he said publicly what most republicans tell me privately. >> i'm less concerned about what private disagreement tillerson and trump had than with their public disagreements. it's vital our secretary of state be able to speak with our

allies and adversaries and have them know he speaks for the president and the united states. so when secretary tillerson goes out to undertake a difficult and delicate diplomacy about north korea, for example, and the president undercuts him with a tweet saying he's wasting his him, or when secretary tillerson tries to advance a tough budget that cuts more than is wise and the senate rejects it on a bipartisan basis, these are both difficulties that secretary tillerson has faced. it's not surprising to me that he and president trump aren't very close and warm. because they're both big men, big personalities. they've been successful ceos in business and so the chemistry hasn't exactly gelled between them. to me it's less about the private disagreement than about whether our secretary of state can advance our national security interests through diplomacy. >> there are a couple of pieces to this. one is tillerson's relationship

to the president and the other is til's job as secretary where jobs are unfilled and we know the situation over there. do you believe at this point that secretary tillerson should leave for either or both of those reasons? do you think he's past the point of being able to be effective? >> i think that's a decision that the secretary and the president need to reach. i am gravely concerned about morale in the state department, about unfilled senior positions as i mentioned, the conflict that we have emerging with north korea is probably top of his list, yet, we don't have an assistant secretary of state for east asia. we don't have an ambassador to south korea. there's not eve an nominee for those positions. there's lots of places around the world where some of the most senior positions in the state department, we don't have anyone in front of the foreign relations committee nominated. that's who does the diplomacy. i think there are structural challenges making it hard for

the state department to do its job, and i think that secretary tillerson needs to look closely at whether or not he's able to make a difference and able to move forward in what is his important role in this administration. >> okay. we have to leave it there. senator, thank you very much. so much on your plate on both the intelligence side and on the judiciary side as well. we'll hear from you more on that at some other time as well. coming up, we'll talk to two of the reporters who broke the story about the time that ivanka and don junior were being investigated for felony fraud and how their father's long-time lawyer may have intervened. we're back in a moment. ♪

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to an invest of how ivanka ivanka and don trump allegedly lied and how a criminal investigation was dropped after a trump lawyer stepped in. with us now andrea bernstein.

also with us jessie isinger. they're out with a new article written together with the new yorker that openly questions whether president trump's two eldest children used political contributions to avoid a criminal indictment. andrea, perhaps in a case like this it's hard to say we found the smoking gun. that said, kasowitz gives a $25,000 donation to manhattan's d.a. the case is dropped, and then supposedly i guess the money is given back but then a bigger check is written after the case is dropped. is that right? >> yes. that is the fact. i think what's important to understand about this case is

that it went on for two years and senior prosecuters felt the e-mail evidence they uncovered, e-mail evidence we weren't able to see but that was described to us in which the trump children are coordinating the false stories and telling buyers because they're inflating the value of those condos. so these e-mails in which they say that. another one in which they say don't worry, no one will ever find out about this because the only people who know are on the e-mail, are what is keying the prosecuters in the office to believe there was a very case-worth pursuing on the trumps. it went very far until the point at which kasowitz came in and the case was dropped. there were problems. there was a complicated cases. the victims decided not to cooperate midway. it was a white collars wh case.

it was compelling to go enough to go on for two years. >> the question that's usually asked in these sort of -- other than following the money and seeing where the contributions came, and the timing in dropping the case, one of the most damning things in these sorts of cases would be when a d.a. after meeting with somebody politically connected decided to overrule prosecuters who worked in his or her office. did that happen here? >> yes. >> did vance overrule the prosecuter's relatiocommendatio? >> that's the most troubling. not just the line prosecuter, and line prosecuters fall in love with their cases, but his super visor, and then his supervisor, and then his supervisor. all the way up the chain the

d.a.'s office, the people are believing in this case. they want to bring this to indictment. they're escalating it as andrea said. they're working to impanel a special grand jury and have witnesses, and then the meeting with kasowitz happens, and there's an admission the meeting is questionable because he gives the money back. then the meeting happens, and the investigation seems to trail off and die at that point, and then three months later vance makes the ruling overruling his prosecuters. >> okay. let's get some reaction. we've had some reaction to this reporting. the manhattan district attorney's office issued a statement following the report confirming the investigation and offering an explanation about why prosecution was declined. quote, this was a two-year investigation that never produced sufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution. during the investigation the luxury apartment purchases reversed course and took the position that the sellers had not committed any crime against

them. no outside attorney influenced any decision in this matter. and attorney marc kasowitz said his do nations to vance were unrelated to the case. he said, quote, i donated to the campaign because i was and remain extremely impressed by him as a person of impeccable integrity. as a brilliant lawyer and as public servant with creative ideas and tremendous ability. kasowitz wrote i have never made a contribution to anyone's campaigning including cy vance's as a quid pro quo for anything. joe, there's a response to the reporting that the buyer saying there had been no crime committed against him. that's interesting. why did they put that down? >> it was without a doubt an impediment to the case. the facts are the settlement happened in which the buyer said we're not going to cooperate. we're refusing to cooperate unless we're subpoenaed, and by the way, the attorney sent a

letter which would have to be introduced at trial that said i don't think it's a crime. that's a problem. the fact is even after that, there was a belief -- >> we don't know why they did that. we don't know what the we don't know what the conversations were with the defendants. >> they received almost everything they asked for. they got their money from the trump team. so their lawyer was finished. he made the settlement. that was part of what the trumps got out of that settlement. nine months go by before the case is dropped. during that whole time there was very serious discussion about should they continue. now, as for the contributions, we don't know what the trumps knew about kasowitz's contribution. we know what donald trump says about his own contributions which he said in a debate in 2015, which is i give so that when i want something, they will listen to me. that's a paraphrase, but that is what he said. that is his philosophy of contributions. again, we don't know about the

discussion between him and kasowitz. >> first of all, in an age when newspapers are dying across the country and investigative reporting is dying as a result of veterans leaving with buyouts and everything, congratulations on the partnership. it's a way forward for a lot of investigative reporting in a lot of different areas. in this specific case, you have two trump children. you have a lot of e-mails that they're writing. it almost sounds familiar to today. you a lot of e-mails. you have a russian involved and you have evidence of deception on the part of the two children. is this the route of the charges that were brought against them or potentially under indictment for, that they were telling people in this building down by the hudson -- >> holland tunnel. >> holland tunnel, that the building was 40%, 50% filled, 30% filled when it was largely empty? is this the root of the charges, the deception? >> absolutely.

in a white collar case you have to prove intent. very hard to prove. it's not like a murder where the crime has been obviously committed. the e-mails demonstrated intent in the belief of the prosecutors because they were coordinating their lies. they knew they were lies. not only that, it has to be material. it has to matter to people. what was happening here is they were not able to sell this white elephant because it wasn't just very expensive condos. they were very expensive condos that were actually also hotel rooms, you could only be in there 120 days. it was a difficult sale. they were having major problems and were going to have to return the money to buyers and the whole thing was going to collapse. >> they lied. >> there was motive -- they certainly lied. vance thought they lied. >> he told us. >> there was not a question that they lied. the question was, was it material which seems to have been, and did they coordinate and did they have intent to lie? >> just to come back to this question about the settlement,

how would you prosecute a case where a material part of the case which is the injustice done to the buyers of the condos are now saying nothing bad was done to them, they're happy, it was resolve sats factory. i think they got all but 15% of their money back. >> all but 10%. >> the issue is, could you have compelled them to? could you have brought in the person who defended that and said what did you demand here and why? why did you offer this? could there have been a more aggressive sense. what which do know is that senior level prosecutors in the office still thought the evidence was strong. this is one of the reasons why we stuck with this story, because the fact that these people whose job it is to decide this thought that even with that problem, we want to keep moving forward because we think this evidence is so compelling. >> all right. you can go online to read the full piece. it is a fascinating read.

again, there's so many things that are damning here, if you look at the fact that the prosecutors who worked under the d.a. wanted to move forward with the case, the d.a. met donald trump's personal lawyer who had given money and i guarantee you they talked back and forth. we may not know exactly what that was, but it wasn't a mistake that donald trump sent kasowitz over to talk to the d.a. the d.a. then dropped the case, then gave back the money to kasowitz and then later took kasowitz's money again after i guess he thought the coast was clear. it's pretty darn damning. anyway, thank you very much andrea for being with us, justin, thank you as well. great reporting. it's going to be interesting to see where the story goes from here. coming up next, president trump says the time to discuss gun

policy will come later on. remember right after 9/11, that's what we said. we said we can't talk about terrorism right now, why don't we wait four or five years. actually that isn't the way it worked then and it's not the way it should work now. donald trump is saying let's not talk about it now. does it mean that he's also willing to consider changes to american law down the road? we have a live report from the white house straight ahead. ♪ in the future, a nation's technology will determine its power. in its economy, in medicine,

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our souls are stricken with grief for every american who lost a husband or a wife, a mother or a father, a son or a daughter. we know that your sorrow feels endless. we stand together to help you carry your pain. you're not alone. we will never leave your side. >> that was president trump speaking yesterday in las vegas after meeting with law

enforcement, hospital staff and survivors of sunday's shooting massacre. as the investigation into the shooting is unfolding, we're finding out more things that are leading to more questions at every turn. the sheriff saying yesterday that the killer actually prepared an elaborate escape plan, that he could have only pulled off alone if he had been, quote, a superhero. also this morning, the president of the united states firing back at nbc news over the report that rex tillerson had to be talked out of resigning, and while the secretary of state praised the president yesterday, he did not deny the report that he once referred to the president -- we'll clean it up for you a little bit here -- as a moron. the big question now is whether other world leaders will believe that the secretary of state still speaks for the president of the united states, plus news this morning, the russia

investigation. after interviewing more than 100 people and reviewing 100,000 documents, the heads of the senate intel committee say they can't rule out collusion, and that's collusion, of course, between the russians and donald trump's political campaign. we've got all that and much, much more straight ahead. good morning. it's thursday, october 5th, and welcome to "morning joe." mika has the morning off. with us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle, washington anchor for "bbc world news america" katty kay, national political reporter for nbc news carol lee, and the president of the council on foreign relations and author of the book "a world in disarray" richard haass. we're going to get to all the tillerson fallout and everything else in just a minute. but first, katty is going to bring us up to speed on the las vegas investigation. katty. >> it's interesting, joe, we are learning new details about the gunman in that massacre. police believe he probably had

some kind of assistance now. the sheriff who oversees the city's police department says stephen paddock prepared an elaborate escape plan but suggested only a superhero could have actually pulled it off alone. we also know the shooter rented a room overlooking another music festival the weekend before. police couldn't address speculation, though, that it might have been his original target or that he was conducting some kind of a dry run. meanwhile officials say his cam upon i don't know spent yesterday answering questions from the fbi. a senior law enforcement official tells nbc news that danley was cooperative and there was no sign that she had anything to do with the massacre. her attorney spoke out yesterday on her behalf. >> he never said anything to me or took any actions that i was aware of that i understood in any way to be a warning that

something horrible like this was going to happen. it never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone. >> president trump traveled to las vegas yesterday, met with survivors, law enforcement and hospital staff. the president and first lady met with patients and posed for photographs. he promised survivors that he'd, quote, be there for them, and to those who lost loved ones that he'd never leave their side. he also took time to commend the hospital staff at university medical center for their work treating hundreds of patients. >> i have to tell you it makes you very proud to be an american when you see the job that they've done, and people that would not be around today are up there and they'll be leaving the hospital in a week or two weeks or five weeks, and in some cases, even in a few days. it's amazing. i want to congratulate everybody. it's incredible.

incredible what you've done. we met quite a few people. believe me, they're very lucky to be here. >> what message do you have for them, mr. president? >> i think the only message i with say is we're with you 1 00. in fact, i invited them over to the white house. i said if you're in washington, come over to the oval office. they all said how do we do it. believe me, we'll be there for them. >> thement also praised first responders and law enforcement for their bravery. >> you showed the world and the world is watching, and you showed what professionalism is all about. something like that can take place for hours and hours and hours and you can't figure it out. you should be very proud, sheriff. >> joe, even as they start to piece together what happened in those final days, the idea there may have been some kind of other venue or dummy run, the big question still remains, what was

there in this guy's background that could have perhaps raised some sort of red flag, what was the motive. we're all looking for that to say how can we look around at future events potentially and see if there are red flags behind them. >> we're going to be looking for a very long time. obviously they're digging through everything they can find in this man's background, and it seems they'll never really fully uncover that mystery. just like we may not fully uncover the mystery of donald trump. you had the president yesterday actually showing restraint, actually playing the role of comforter in chief. the contrast was marked from how he was after charlottesville, how he was certainly in puerto rico. but yesterday he didn't embarrass himself. he wasn't self-consumed, and he didn't rub salt in the wounds of people who were hurting already

as he has unfortunately, mike barnicle, over the past several weeks which i suppose you can say makes the tragedy of this presidency even greater that this man actually could -- if he could restrain himself and behave like a normal human being and a normal president, as he exhibited yesterday that he was capable for at least one 24-hour period of doing that, he wouldn't be causing the damage that he's causing and we could actually be worried about north korea. >> it's pretty bizarre that we're heaving a sigh of relief on how the president acted yesterday in the situation that none of us are used to. we're used to it on a smaller scale. the scale of what happened in las vegas is still overwhelm in.

we should take the time perhaps to point out that in las vegas we've seen a model of communication in an age where we get very little clear communication from washington. we've seen a model of communication in las vegas from sheriff lombardo every day, multiple times a day, which has been quite amazing and clarifying. >> still ahead on "morning joe," yesterday rex tillerson described the president as, quote, smart. back in july he reportedly called him a moron. what's changed? we'll get more from carol lee who helped break that story for nbc. you're watching noe"morning joe" you're watching noe"morning joe" we'll be right back. kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life. kevin, how's your mom?

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blasted back against that nbc exclusive report yesterday about secretary of state rex tillerson's private fury about his treatment at the hands of president trump. the report says tillerson was on the verge of resigning last summer which sources say lead to an enter veengs by vice president mike pence and other high ranking administration officials. there's also the assertion backed by three sources that tillerson openly disparaged the president, referring to him as a moron after a july meeting at the pentagon. tillerson made a surprise announcement before the press yesterday and then engaged with reporters, something he rarely has done since taking office. >> the vice president has never had to persuade me to remain as secretary of state because i have never considered leaving this post. i serve at the appointment of the president, and i'm here for as long as the president feels i can be useful to achieving his objectives. >> let me tell you what i've learned about this president whom i did not know before

taking this office. he loves this country. he puts americans and america first. he's smart. he demands results wherever he goes, and he holds those around him accountable for whether they've done the job he's asked them to do. >> while i'm new to washington, i have learned that there are some that try to sow desense in an effort to upped mine president trump's own agenda. i do not and i will not operate that way. and the same applies to ever win on my team here at the state department. president trump and his administration will keep moving forward as one team with one mission, doing great things for the united states of america to make america great again. >> can you address the main headline of this story, that you called the president a moron? and if not, where do you think

these reports -- >> i'm not going to deal with petty stuff like that. this is what i don't understand about washington. again, i'm not from this place. the places i come from, we don't deal with that kind of petty nonsense. it's intended to do nothing but divide people. i'm just not going to be part of an effort to divide this administration. >> listen carefully. while tillerson did not personally issue a denial of calling the president a moron, later in the day, his spokesperson did. >> the secretary does not use that type of language. the secretary did not use that type of language to speak about the president of the united states. he does not use that language to speak about anyone. i hope that clarifies -- >> he never said that? >> he did not say that. >> carol lee, the president tweeted out attacking your story. everybody was attacking your sources. what can you tell us 24 hours later? >> i can tell you we certainly stand by the story.

this is a story we extensively reported. we talked to a dozen people of this story. there were seven independent senior officials that said rex tillerson indeed intended to resign this summer. despite what the secretary said yesterday, and we spoke with three separate senior administration officials who were -- who said that tillerson called the president a moron, some of them overheard him actually say that. so this is not some fake news report, and the thing about the president's tweet, look, if he were to admit that this story is accurate, which it is, then we would have to fire rex tillerson. there would be no other choice. and i think right now it's just kind of a waiting game, how long does rex tillerson stick around, how long does donald trump put up with this? even if he does stay around, he's sort of -- it's hard to see him being effective, and this relationship is not likely at

all to be repaired. it's been rocky. part of that is because you have this ceo versus ceo. you have two people who feel like they've always been in charge, always called their own shots. president trump doesn't like to have checks on his authority, whether it's congress or courts or his own aides. tillerson doesn't like much to be a subordinate. that has been kind of a disastrous recipe for this relationship. richard haass can speak to this, but it's america's foreign policy that's stuck in the middle of all this. >> richard, there's also something else that generals have that sometimes ceos do not have. it depends on how a ceo gets to the top of the corporation. but all generals begin as lowly grunts, and they spend a good bit of their careers having to be obsequious to the person

above them. and certainly -- not obsequious, but certainly "sir, yes, sir." by the time you become a two star general, a three star general, you've been around the block and you figured out how to work within a chain of command. it's not quite as hard for secretary mattis or general kelly to deal with a difficult superior as it would be, say, the ceo of exxonmobil. >> fair enough. i think it's also fair to say, joe, that people like the two generals that you just mentioned, had a career in government. i think it's awfully hard to go from corporate america and think that the skill set that worked for you there transfers into government. it doesn't. we've seen it not juch with rex tillerson but others. paul india when he was unsuccessful secretary of the treasu treasury. we can question the secretary of state's focus on reorganizing the state department at a time the world is unraveling.

but i think the bigger issue is the president. in order for any secretary of state to be successful, the world cannot see daylight between him and his boss. people have to believe that when the secretary of state speaks, he is the authoritative voice of the united states. whatever else you think about rex tillerson, no one in the world can possibly think they is the authoritative voice of the united states, not when he's meeting with chinese officials and the president of the united states is tweeting that he's wasting his time and diplomacy has no place here. unless the president is going to enable rex tillerson to succeed, he cannot succeed. the real question to me, and carol put her finger on it, not how long he stays in the job or when he resigns, it's whether the president plans to make rex tillerson or his successor viable. unless you back him up, unless you cool it on the tweeting, unless you give the resources, approval all the personnel, unless you fill american embassys with ambassadors, unless you think hard about the

role of others at the white house who are detracting from the authority of the secretary of state, no person in this job can kuck seed. >> coming up on "morning joe," where does the russia investigation stand today? president trump says it's case closed. the top two senators say it's anything bust. the latest on capitol hill straight ahead here on "morning joe." first, here is bill karins who has a check on some dangerous weather. >> thanks, joe. the national hurricane center has officially named tropical storm nate. this is a storm that will eventually be in the gulf coast three days from now. the million dollar question is how strong can nate get by the time it gets here? right now it's a very weak storm, only 40-mile-per-hour winds, heavy rain, possibility of flooding and mudslides in areas of eastern nick rawa and honduras. tomorrow is when it gets back over the waters of the caribbean. are tomorrow is the key day. i'll cross my fingers to pray it doesn't get stronger than

expected. here is the forecast path. this is the 5:00 a.m. advisory. the hurricane center thinks it could become a category 1 hurricane and predicts it to make landfall between pensacola, panama city, mobile, biloxi, all the way through new orleans. somewhere in that range. don't focus on the center line. we're 72 hours out. this will shift. i wouldn't be surprised if it weakens a little bit. both models keep it most likely as only a tropical storm. both don't think the storm will get itself organized, too much dry air in the way. we're hoping that happens. we're thinking that's the most likely scenario at this time. we've got 72 hours to watch it. now is the time to make sure you have everything in your hurricane kits just in case nate surprises us tomorrow and intensifies a little more than expected. there's beautiful weather out

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yesterday there was information about the russian investigation. what can you think about it? >> we might be thinking about other things, hurricanes, vegas president don't forget this is happening in the background. after conducting more than 100 interviews, the bipartisan leaders of the senate intelligence committee says it's still an open question whether anyone in the trump campaign cooperated with russian. senators burr and warner provided an update on the probe yesterday and issued a warning about the upcoming elections. >> the russian intelligence service is determined, clever and i recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously as we move into this november's election and as we begin preparation for the 2018

election. >> the russian actor measured efforts did not end on election day. we need to be on guard. one of the things that's particularly troubling to both of us is the fact that, it's become evident that 21 states electoral systems were not all penetrated, but there was at least trying to open the door. >> they haven't reached a conclusion. the senate has also addressed the does yeah kbield by a former british spy which alleged financial and personal ties between trz's campaign and associates. then they, quote, hit a wall. >> though we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild backwards the steel dossier up to a certain

date, getting past that point has been somewhat impossible and i say this because i don't think we're going to find any intelligence products that unlock that key to create june of '16. >> reuters reports special counsel bob mueller has taken over investigations of the dossier according to three different sources with knowledge of that probe. meanwhile, we're also learning more about russians using facebook to interfere in the election. it turns out about a quarter of the 3,400 ads lenninged to russia targeted specific states, including traditionally democratic strongholds like wisconsin and michigan that ended up flipping for donald trump as well as battleground states of florida and ohio. ads were also planted in red states like texas, alabama and

mississippi. last month facebook revealed that groups linked to russia spent $100,000 on election ads. both facebook and twitter have agreed to testify before the senate intelligence committee investigating moscow's election interference. just looking at the states that they chose, either somebody in the russian side or they had links with somebody here was giving them a pretty good take on how to use their money. >> pretty good take on how to use their money, and also, if you look at the content of the advertisements, at least some you've seen out there already, it's also somebody that's pretty darn aware of how to target, what bells to ring i. certainly looks like they had the help of americans who might know how to campaign and how to win elections. i'm wondering, mike, if you heard mark warner, what the ranking member of the intel committee said yesterday, that is that he wanted to see all the

facebook ads ha the russians ran or people linked to russian groups ran, and he said we have a right to see that as americans, to see how the russians tried to influence our elections. this is something we don't need to get from the trump white house. this is something we don't need to get from mueller's office. this is something that facebook can put out there. and if mark zuckerberg is on this pr campaign and taking out full-page advertisements in "the new york times," he can probably help in his pr push and get some good will by just being transparent, throwing it all on the table and saying these are all the ads that russia or russian-backed groups took out on facebook during the 2016 election trying to sway american democracy. >> well, joe, mark zuckerberg and facebook have been dragged

kicking and screaming to the edge of transparency over two or three month. at first they were living in denial and public denial that we had nothing to do with this, we didn't know this was going on, we're not sure this was going on. now the reality is done. there's another reality that occurred yesterday i think for a lot of people, all the boys and girls out there watching, you saw dick burr, a republican and mark warner, a democrat standing shoulder to shoulder talking about an issue that affects the entire nation, our country. >> coming up next on "morning joe," we'll be going live to the white house on the heels of the president's trip to las vegas. did it sway his views on gun policy? highly doubtful. "morning joe" will talk about that when we return.

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it's 8:34 on the east coast. joining us from the white house nbc white house correspondent peter alexander.

president trump will be spending a second day going after nbc news. tell us all about it. >> reporter: picking up where he left off yesterday. the good news is the president is watching. the bad news is this morning, as you'll see on twitter, he appears to be calling on congress to investigate the free press for stories that he doesn't like. here is what he's tweeted over the course of the morning. why isn't the senate intel committee looking into the fake news networks in our country to see why so much of our news is just made up, fake. of course the senate intel committee heavily consumed by focusing on the russia investigation. he also writes rex tillerson never threatened to resign. is fake news put out by nbc news. low news and reporting standards, no verification from me. it's true the president didn't comment to nbc news before we reported, but we did speak to multiple senior administration officials including officials who work here at the white house. as for rex tillerson, he's going to be meeting today early this morning, just about an hour from now, hour and a half from now with the first meeting of the

revived national space council. he'll be side by side with vice president mike pence trying to show all these teams, the secretary of state and the white house are on one page going for wort. all of this going forward following the president's trip yesterday to las vegas where he's generally getting praise for the job he did showing compassion and empathy behind closed doors, meeting with not just first responders but also some of the survivors, the victims of that awful shooting that took place earlier this week in las vegas. as for the conversation about restrictions, new restrictions on gun rights, gun laws in this country, the president effectively said that now is not the time for that conversation. what's notable is we did hear from one of his top advisers, his counselor kellyanne conway who said they heard from lawmakers that they weren't really familiar with those baum stocks, the device used by the shooter in las vegas to help turn the semi-automatic weapon more like an automatic weapon,

so they would shoot more quickly. they are open to more thoughtful conversations on the topic. ron johnson saying he would support a ban of that kind. the country open to having this conversation. the question is, is the president? >> we'll' how far it goes when it gets into the realm of the nra. peter alexander, thank you. joining us author and columnist for the "new york daily news," mike lupica, radio contributor, msnbc contributor and author of "how the right lost its mind," susan page and nbc news capitol hill correspondent katy hunt. i guess they'd like them to stop looking at what russia was doing and look at what news organizations are doing. >> unbelievable. actually it's not unbelievable. sadly, this is something you might expect of the president of

the united states who is ig narnt of american history and ignorant of the role the free press has played in the role of america over the past 240 years or so. charlie sykes, even for this president, to be calling on the united states congress, the intel committee to investigate the free press, the very people who reported him for news stories that he doesn't like while he churns out false narratives by the day. >> here is a president who gets some of nis news from the "national enquirer" and hangs out with alex jones. i think it's interesting that, is he suggesting we have a senate investigation into whether or not his secretary of state called him a moron? is that really what he wants? also this comes one day after we were sitting around doing heavy breathing about donald trump being the heeler in chief. how long did that last? was it one day?

he reads a script of freeing us together and everybody goes, okay, donald trump is now growing into the office of the presidency, and it took, what, 18 hours for him to go on a tweet storm about fake news? >> 18 hours. kasie hunt on the hill, you've got a lot of republican lawmakers who say we can't talk about anything pertaining to the shooting. we must be respectful, we've got to stay away from it. wait a second, this bump stock issue, that looks pretty popular, let's start talking about that right now. it seems they want to talk about what they want to talk about, but they don't want to talk about what's politically unpopular right now. >> joe, there's been a lot of headlines in the last 4 hours saying, hey, congress might be open to doing something on guns after all these times when they weren't. i just would like to offer a little bit of reality check here. you're right, a lot of people had no idea what bump stocks were and who have responded to

questions by saying, hey, let's look into this, let's have a hearing. the dynamics of this issue and the playbook gun advocates use is very well worn and you can already see it playing out. the national rifle association has a pretty good understanding of how to deal with this politically, they'll step out of the spotlight after offering prayers and condolences, you're hearing people say we'll talk about this later, it's premature right now. the reality is the urgency around the issue will fade and the gun advocacy groups will still be paying attention. the nra in recent years has come under pressure from the association of the gun owners of america. i would think of them as the donald trump to jeb bush, they are putting more and more pressure on these members of congress. as this issue states, you've seen democrats come under pressure, many of them from

rural red states where gun culture is really strong. i at this point don't see a shift in these realities. the bump stock is different. the atf actually made a ruling about these modifications. they said this is legal, this doesn't violate the united states' overall ban on automatic weapons. one republican congressman from chicago, from suburban chicago has said, hey, atf, you should change that ruling. i don't think that's necessarily out of the realm of possibility, although it would take action from the trump administration. we already heard what steve bannon has said out loud about what might happen if the president were to go down this kind of a road. maybe we'll see something different, but i just feel like i've seen this movie before and we all kind of already know how it ends. >> mike lupica, there's no easy quick fixes when it comes to gun

regulation. there's no legislative magic wand to wave that could stop a lot of these attacks, a lot of these slaughters. that said, i find it interesting the supreme court -- united states supreme court saw -- listened to a case on gerrymandering about how at least in wisconsin and actually we could say across the country in the united states of america, that the concept of one person one vote actually is under attack by this extreme gerrymandering. what's a better example than the fact that 90% of americans support background checks and yet you can't find one republican elected official, elected in those gerrymandered districts, not one -- maybe peter king on long island, maybe one or two, but the vast majority, overwhelming majority don't support a position that

90% of americans support, which i think is one of the best examples of how these gerrymandered districts get in the way of legitimate representation. >> there's one branch of the government that never has a problem with gerrymandering, and that's the national rifle association. joe, there's this bendal stiff notion now that the nra isn't as powerful as the left wants you to believe. it makes your head want to explode every time you hear, in the aftermath of vegas, this isn't the day to talk about gun control. well, you always want to say to those people, pick a day, you pick that day and then we'll have this conversation. the idea now that they're going to rouse themselves to action on bump stocks, that is putting a band-aid on a broken leg. there's so much more that could be done because, joe, how does anybody think that the laws we have are working in this country? mark kelly stood next to

gabrielle giffords and said who thinks our gun laws are too strong? a united states congresswoman having a meet and greet one saturday morning in tucson morning and somebody came in and put a bullet in her head. >> susan page, again, the nra obviously is very strong. they've contributed millions and millions of dollars, not only to donald trump but to a lot of republicans. but most of their power i believe at least coms from the fact that you do have gerrymandered districts that are cut up in such a way that that 10% that doesn't support background checks, the 35% that doesn't support a limitation on assault-style weapons, those voices are -- have become far more predominant because these gerrymandered districts actually are cut up in a way where their voices in a primary are mayor mount. >> joe, that's true. one other factor that i think

affects this. for a lot of gun rights advocates this is a voting issue for them. they will not support a candidate who doesn't agree with them on that, but when you think about gun control advocates, that i are often willing to support a candidate who agrees with them on other issues but differs with them on this. if you want to talk solutions, extreme gerrymandering would be something that would make a difference. we did see in the court arguments there seemed to be a willingness to explore this extreme gerrymandering in a different way than the court has acted previously on more traditional gerrymandering. there's something else that makes a difference and that's jungle primaries in california and elsewhere which makes members of congress less likely to be held hostage by either the most liberal democrats or the most conservative republicans. >> joe, it might be time to use a little imagination in this effort to do something about guns, and that would be stop focusing on the handgun or the

rifle. focus on the gun owner. everybody in america -- nearly everybody in america owns a car. when you own a car, you have to register a car. when you have children about to drive a car, you have to pay an extra premium on your insurance. if you want to buy a gun, a handgun, a long gun, if you want buy 49 of them, feel free. but you're also going to have to buy an insurance policy, minimum of, say, $25 grand to cover the legal cost. if you don't buy the insurance policy, you don't get the gun. let's do that. >> charlie sykes, the numbers are pretty remarkable when you look at gun ownership and you also look at the percentage of people who commit crimes with guns they purchased. we look at these big incidences which are just absolutely horrific, and it's something that obviously shocks the nation and makes us all stop.

it's always been that way. go back to university of texas shooter. but it's a day-in, day-out shootings in chicago, the killings all across america that make you look at a statistic like the one i saw before that said something like 3 or 4% of the crimes that are committed with a gun are committed by people who purchased that gun, legal owners of that gun. it's the gun trafficking that accounts for 95, 96, 97% of the murders. that wasn't the case here. no doubt about it. there's also another statistic that says 3, 4, 5% of americans own the majority of those 300 million guns in america. >> i think we need to have a reality check here. this issue is one of the reasons why donald trump won in ohio, michigan and wisconsin. that's a political reality. also, understand that the power of the nra is not just the money, it is the culture.

they have made this part of the culture war that for a lot of the nra supporters, the gun right supporters, it's not about gun regulation, it's not about public safety. it's about sort of the tribal identity, this is a cultural signal. any time there's talk about gun restriction, there's going to be immense pushback. but you cannot overstate the tlaul in which the nra -- i'm skeptical about the bump stock ban. they may talk about it. home state senator ron johnson said he's open to it. well, give that a few minutes. we'll see when the nra comes out of the bunker and basically explain, look, we built our brand on absolutism. this is an organization that has taken the most extreme, absolute position on everything i've tangled with. their position is basically do not give an inch on anything. common sense solutions which may

make sense to 90% of the voters, when it comes up against this -- the nra ideology, stands no chance. >> when the nra did appear to be giving an inch, gun owners of america, again on the far right -- i think susan brought this up -- pressured them in such a case. you are right, charlie, whether you're in wisconsin or michigan or pennsylvania or ohio or northwest florida, for a lot of people there, if you hold the positions that george w. bush held, that ronald reagan held on background checks, again, there's this lutis absolutism, cultural signaling that says you can't even be -- in florida they passed laws where you can take guns to work. your get upset of someone you're working with, sure, you can bring a handgun in to work and

nobody can say anything about it. again, pushing the boundaries. kasie hunt, thank you so much. everybody else, stay with us, we'll be right back. next, the mayor of san juan reacts reacts to the president tossing rolls of paper towels to the fine people in puerto rico. that's next on "good morning joe" liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance helped him to fix his flat so he could get home safely. my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. don't worry - i know what a lug wrench is, dad. is this a lug wrench? maybe? you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. nature's bounty knows healthy cholesterol starts in your gut. so we made cardio-health, an innovative way to support healthy cholesterol containing lrc, a probiotic strain that helps you metabolize dietary cholesterol. because we all want to be healthy

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he's here with the latest issue, "las vegas nightmare." it has a new feature on puerto rico. in the news on that, it's been just over two weeks since hurricane maria hit puerto rico, skpch of t and much of the island, as we know, is still in the dark. the president visited puerto rico on tuesday after he criticized the mayor of san juan on twitter. people were critical of the president's visit. >> throwing paper towels at people? that doesn't show a lot of sensitivity. he can attack me all he wants. bring it on. i'm here. as long as it gets the message out that we are thirsty, that we are hungry, that we need supplies. >> and as the "washington post" reports, the puerto rico that president trump saw during his four-hour visit on tuesday was that of gated communities largely spared by the hurricane.

the post says just 10 miles south of where the president visited, he would have found homes blown off their foundations with twisted metal roofs scattered across the ground and a sense of desperation among residents there. meanwhile a new report from usa today found that donations in the wake of hurricane maria are lagging compared to other storms. the red cross collected $350 million for people affected by harvey, 45 million for irma victims, only 9 million so far for maria. according to the "new york times," in the wake of hurricane maria, drug officials are working to fix a shortage of drugs and puerto rico's leading exports. there is a disconnect between what the president saw when he went there, the desperation of the mayor of san juan and whether aid is finally starting to get there.

the red cross collections are staggering in light of what they're willing to give the island. >> i think the larger issue for washington and for the president in the coming days as fema addresses the critical situation on the ground is going to be, what do we do about puerto rico in the long term? they're suffering under $74 billion in debt, and the real question that's going to determine how that island gets back up on its feet is what we do about that challenge. so the political fighting that you're seeing between trump and the mayor is really kind of a prelude for the battle that washington is going to have over what to do about that massive debt load that that island is carrying. >> susan, i'm wondering what you think about the numbers that we just put up on the screen. if we could put them again on the contributions for the three hurricanes. 350 million for harvey, 45 million donations on irma, 9

million from maria. now, there is a couple different things going on here, i would think. one is storm exhaustion and lack of resources and people get tired and they don't have the resources to volunteer or contribute. but how much of it do you think is locked into the idea that a lot of americans don't realize that people in puerto rico are american citizens? >> that's been one of the remarkable things we've seen in the aftermath of this storm, and i think that probably is a factor. but, you know, you talk about presidential leadership. i don't know if you saw this, but last night the five former presidents announced they were going to do a fundraising concert at texas a&m where the bush library is on october 21st. all of them will be there in an effort to raise money for all the hurricane victims. you think about what a difference presidents can make.

presidents can make a big difference in trying to focus the public on what our obligations are to our fellow citizens. >> masima, i was just wondering, when you do another cover on another shooting in america, do you do so believing you're just shouting at the ocean, as we all do, all of us who have been writing about guns especially since newtown? do you think there will be one piece of legislation that will do anything to slow down the gun show that this country has become? >> well, i think that's the question. what we've seen in vegas that's different here is military scale slaughter. and what allowed that was these bump stocks, we're finding now. it's nine rounds per second, more than 400 rounds per minute into a crowd of 22,000 people. so that's what produces the number that breaks the record that shocks the conscience and that produces those images. so the question is, ultimately where do we draw the line?

that's a political question and it's for americans and representatives whether or not that finally is enough to at least make a small dent in this narrow hold on the populiace tht the gun lobby has. i'm actually optimistic that there might be some symbolic movement on that front. >> if, in the wake of sandy hook nothing happens, why would you think that after that massacre that anything would be different after las vegas? >> well, the question is we've drawn the line on, say, grenade launchers. we all agree that people shouldn't have grenade launchers widely available to them. now that we see that automatic-like fire can be unleashed on a crowd, can we agree that that is something that's beyond the limit? especially when, frankly, a lot of gun enthusiasts find these

bump stocks not central to what they're interested in with their guns. >> thank you very much. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. stephanie? >> good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. we're covering the portrait of a murder. >> potentially the worst domestic attack in united states history. >> hotel room booked overlooking the venue. 60 pounds of explosives, 30 guns bought in the last year alone, and the question if this man acted alone. >> he had to have some help at some point. >> looking for answers. the senate intel committee discloses its findings on russia meddling in the election. here is the big question about the trump campaign's involvement. it still remains. >> the issue of collusion is still open. and staying or going? a dia