by listening to an thiaudiobook on audible.ame and this guy is just trying to get through the day. keeping it together. losing it. upgrade your commute. ride with audible. we have hit the top of the hour and that means i am out of time. i am keir simmons, and i will see you at noon eastern here from london. "am joy" starts right now. >> you don't believe that

surrogates from the trump campaign had communications with the russians. is that what you are saying? >> i did not and i am not aware of anybody else that did. >> good morning and welcome to "am joy." donald trump is back on the world stage this week with a trek across asia. we will have more on that in a bit. here at home the twists and turns of the russia investigation and trump's response have brought attorney general sessions into the spotlight. the testimony about his role in the trump campaign appeared to be contradicted by revelations by george papadopoulos informed sessions and trump about his connections to russia, and told carter paige he was going to russia in 2016 where we now know he met with a member of russian leadership. george papadopoulos and paige would communicate with sessions since he was the chairman of the advisory committee on which they

sat. what made less sense frankly were sessions' claims of complete ignorance on which foreign diplomats they spoke to or whether they told him they planned to travel to russia. and trump tweeting everybody is asking why the justice department and fbi is not looking into all the dishonest tea going on with crooked hillary and the democrats. if trump were to fire sessions, wouldn't that clear the way for a new ag that could fire the man in charge of the investigation. joining me now is the man that sits on the house judiciary committee. good morning to you. you have accused jeff sessions flat out of perjury and said he should absolutely resign. would you stand by that call for him to resign even if it cleared the way for donald trump to fire

robert mueller by appointing a new recused ag? >> i would. that's because the rule of law is a bipartisan issue. whether you are a democrat or republican, you want the white house to follow the rule of law and that means you can't have your top law enforcement official have violated felonies and still be in his position. it's not as if jeff sessions was caught jay walking. he was caught lying to congress under oath to order to get confirmed and that undercuts his credibility and makes it so the american people can no longer trust him and he needs to resign. >> a source close to sessions said the march 31 comments by this papadopoulos person did not leave an impression, and this is somebody familiar with jeff session's views, not sure who that is, and he shut down the claim of meeting with russia.

sessions shot it down and therefore when he was testifying to get confirmed he just did not remember. does that seem creditable to you and would that extricate him from a perjury accusation that you have made? >> not at all. sessions responded to papadopoulos' request. now for sessions to claim he was not aware of the strange credibility. then he has carter paige also telling jeff sessions he was going to go to russia. jeff sessions to me is committing perjury in plain view and cannot remain in his position. >> and al franken sent a letter here to sessions. it's requested that he please

respond in writing by friday november 10th, this coming friday. if jeff sessions does not send a response to senator franken on that question, what do you think should happen next? >> i think congress needs to hold additional hearings in the senate as well as in the house. keep in mind, this is the second time jeff sessions has committed perjury, because he said, he, himself did not have contacts with russians and he had a meeting with the russian ambassador and potentially other communications, so he's committing perjury in plain view before the american people and cannot remain in office. >> congressman ted lieu making it very plain. i want to hold you for a minute, i want to bring in our guests. i want to play for the panel the january 10th exchange between senator franken and jeff sessions and this is when he was

sitting for confirmation to be attorney general. let's play that exchange. >> if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i am not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. >> so sessions was not a surrogate for the campaign. i am sitting here looking at the political article from when donald trump named his advisory committee, jeff sessions was the chairman of the national security committee, and he was not just a surrogate. sessions says he's not aware of any of those activities. march 31, 2016. the same month jeff sessions was named chairman of the foreign policy committee, and sessions attends a meeting with papadopoulos brings up the russia contacts, and april 27th,

he attends a reception at the mayflower hotel with kislyak, and trump is in attendance. and then he has a planned trip to russia on july 19th, and then the meeting and that includes kislyak and sessions in his senate office. it seems to be there's a prima facia case here that jeff sessions has the worst memory in history because there are multiple instances where he's in the room with papadopoulos or paige or kislyak. is there a concern among republicans that he may have perjured himself beyond congressman lieu? >> we are getting two conflicting messages close to sessions and familiar with his thinking. on the one handsome people are saying he breezed passed it and they moved on quickly, and on the other hand you have people saying he forcefully shot it

down and said don't talk about this ever again, and if he forcefully shot it down then it makes you wonder how could he forgotten forgotten an exchange like that? >> yeah, and papadopoulos was referred to as the coffee boy, and he was sitting two seats away from donald trump, and the trump campaign tweeted out that they were serious on foreign policy, and papadopoulos was sent to cleveland where he was invited by the american jewish committee to speak on a panel about foreign policy, and in attendance, congressman from pennsylvania, and both members of the foreign house affairs, and bob corker of tennessee, and so it seems to have been a coffee boy who met a lot of congressmen and senators? >> yeah, and should have set off alarm bells to begin with. he lied about his model un.

the whole campaign was full of the marginal characters, and they all seem to have connections to russia. were there any trump senior campaign officials who did not have ties to russia? who did not lie about those ties? i was privileged to be a foreign policy adviser on three republican presidential campaigns, and i am sure we did not have covert meetings on the romney campaign, and we were not having meet warnings russian representatives, and if they would have come to us saying here's dirt on your opponents, and mccain or romney would have picked up the phone and called the fbi. instead, these guys would have continued to have meetings with the russians and tried to get as much dirt as they could get. and we have not even seen the whole contour of the scandal. >> that's the way that most of us who know of you have come to know of you, is you are a

foreign policy expert. this is the business you are in. have you ever heard in the circles you travel in, which are remainly foreign policy circles of george papadopoulos and carter paige, were these people known to you? >> no, they had no connections whatsoever to the mainstream of the republican foreign policy establishment which is why they were hired by the trump campaign because they concluded correctly this was a guy that was unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief, and most of us signed letters saying we opposed his candidacy from the get go, and it left george papadopoulos and mike flynn, who as we know was an unregistered foreign agent at the same time he was advising the trump campaign. these ties continue into the present day. >> as max just explained, donald

trump was not taken seriously, and he was taken as somebody that would be the barry goldwater, and he puts out this sphrae slate of people, but the question is are these people amateurs that tried to prove their worth to donald trump by approaching russian officials to try and get hillary clinton's e-mails, or are they people who seemed to have been pushed toward the donald trump campaign because the campaign needed somebody and already had the ties. you wouldn't know the answer to that to speculate on it, but which seems to have the preponderance of evidence here? >> just quickly on jeff sessions. he was -- he is a known racist and should have never been attorney general. he was not qualified to be attorney general. now we find out that he lied twice under oath in front of congress. the first time he lied we found

out he had three meetings with the russian ambassador who the u.s. intelligence agency believed he is a spy, the russian ambassador believed he was a spy and spy recruiter. here we have jeff sessions who is clearly now not a bit player but a mayor key figure in all of this, and he's now compromised as the chief law enforcement officer. one more thing i want to say here, after he lied about -- to become attorney general, he's now running the most radical right wing department of justice, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-brown. he's living his best bigoted life right now. and now everybody we are seeing, george papadopoulos, gordon, carter, this is just a band much misfits rushing to talk to russia so they can please this

president. >> i think we have breaking news we will go to for just a moment. everybody stay where you are. i will bring in ken, our national security reporter from nbc news. ken, what you have got? >> good morning, joy. i have exclusive new reporting from my colleagues. nbc news learned special counsel robert mueller has enough evidence to bring charges in his investigation of former national security adviser, michael flynn and his son. we're reporting that the special counsel is looking into mike flynn's activities on behalf of the government of turkey and examining the question of whether he took official action while he was national security adviser to facilitate the extradition of an opponent to the turkish president, a cleric who lives in the united states. >> thank you very much for that breaking news. exclusive reporting from nbc news the special counsel announced he has enough evidence

to indict not just michael flynn, but michael flynn jr., who briefly worked at the white house. i want your reaction to that first. >> it does not surprise me. keep in mind michael flynn was a shady character within the campaign. there are clear laws you can't lobby for a foreign power without first registering. that's a very simple federal law that he did not comply with. there may be other charges as well. it's not surprising. this also tells me that special counsel mueller is doing his job and looking at the evidence, and i think it's very hard now for donald trump to try to remove special mueller because nobody out there is defending michael flynn, paul manafort, or george papadopoulos. i think this is a good sign that we have democracy working in america. >> this would be an unprecedented move. the indictment of the former national security adviser of the united states. what do you suspect is going through the minds of republicans on capitol hill or in the white house right now? >> well, it's not completely

unexpected. michael flynn was always just as vulnerable as paul manafort. these were the two players mueller had his eyes on. michael flynn, his foreign lobbying that he just recently disclosed his ties to the turkish government. in march flynn's attorney went out and put out a statement to the fbi saying flynn has a story to tell, and he's eager to tell it, but he's only going to tell it in exchange for immunity. clearly that has not happened. clearly mueller has not given him immunity and he's facing the consequences. >> the january 27th infamous meeting between comey and donald trump at that meeting in which jeff sessions was ushered out of the meeting, the meeting was donald trump asking him to go easy on michael flynn. how easy should the white house

be that michael flynn and his son could face indictment? >> i think donald trump has a lot of reason to be worried because i think the odds are going up that trump is going to try and fire special counsel mueller. they are like the new untouchables, and they are building this case and getting closer and closer to the oval office with every indictment and plea deal. donald trump knows his record will not stand up to the kind of scrutiny bob mueller was subjected to. he knows it will be bad if he tries to fire him but he knows it could be worse if he doesn't fire him, because he's going after donald trump jr., and when it gets into the family, trump will have to act. republicans on capitol hill have to make it clear they will not allow trump to fire mueller. that's an impeachable offense. they need to get that message out there right now. they need to detour him to get

away from mueller the way they detoured him from getting rid of sessions. >> people that advice the president inside the west wing, we have not seen any evidence that trump is getting any contrary advice, and firing jeff sessions is a way to fire mueller or getting republicans to defund the investigation. the order of succession, the change of command at the doj, if jeff sessions were to be fired, you would go to rod rosenstein, and rosenstein indicated he will not fire bob mueller unless it's for cause. after that you get to rachel grand who is the associate attorney general and then dana boente who announced he would resign and he's still the u.s. attorney for the eastern district for virginia but indicated he will resign, so that indicates he probably would not fire bob mueller either.

what do you suspect the advice is going around the west wing. what would it normally be? if this were a normal white house, what would be the advice be? >> if it was a normal white house he would not have fired comey in the first place to have triggered the special counsel, rob mueller to be put in place on this independent investigation of russia. it goes so far of how abnormal things have been. donald trump has made it clear to the american people that think thinks the russia investigation is a hoax. i think we need to believe him. the american people needs to believe him. i think it's incumbent on congress to protect mueller's budget and that firing of mueller doesn't happen. another thing too we have not talked about, donald trump is thinking about pardoning, as we all know is he's thinking about

pardoning michael flynn or jared kushner if it gets to that. we are going to be headed into a constitutional crisis because this president is feeling the walls are closing in and this is what we have seen from him already with obstruction of justice. >> we are going to keep this panel for one second. hold on for a second. i want to go back to ken for one moment. you have additional context to the news you just broke earlier. tell us what that is. >> i want to make sure this is what everybody understands, this is an element of mike flynn and turkey. the former cia director, james wools leigh, he believed michael flynn was thinking about removing the cleric, and it looked like something close to kidnapping and he was

uncomfortable with it, and it was reported to the fbi. we are also saying in our story the fbi is look into that element of it. we are also reporting that the fbi and special counsel mueller are examining whether mike flynn took any action after he took office as national security adviser to try and oerrchestrat the removal of this cleric that lives in the pocono mountains back to turkey because turkey believed he was involved in an attempted coup there. the justice department has not been willing to extradite this man. that's in part what this investigation is about. >> it's important, ken, just to stay with you for a moment, and the story that ken just broke, the special counsel believes he has enough evidence to indict not just mike flynn but his son. there's story that michael g.

flynn accompanied him during the campaign and briefly worked on the presidential transition could be indicted separately or at the same time as his father, and the elder flynn could cut a deal in order to get an easier deal with his son. talk about that if you could. >> nbc news long reported that michael flynn, the son, is under scrutiny and under investigation by the special counsel. he was his father's chief of staff and accompanied him on the paid trip in 2015 to moscow where michael flynn sr. spoke at a russian state news media dinner on behalf of rt, and it's not entirely clear whether charges are contemplated against one or both. we are keeping that intentionally vague because we believe this is all influx and it's absolutely possible that mike flynn, feeling the pressure

that his son may be charged cuts a deal and we see no charges either this week or in the coming days. >> thank you for that reporting. we appreciate it. the breaking news again for those just tuning in, the special counsel, robert mueller's office announced it has enough evidence to bring charges against michael flynn. i want to thank our panel. up next, donald trump on his third foreign policy trip. what could go wrong? stay with us.

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donald trump is in asia but there's big news here at home. nbc news learned from multiple sources that federal investigators have enough evidence to bring charges in the investigation of trump's former national security adviser,

michael flynn and his son. earlier trump spoke to troops in japan. escalating tensions over north korea's nuclear program as well as trade and not to mention russia are expected to dominate the agenda, as trump visits japan and china and the philippines. shifting away from russia while overseas, he plans to meet with vladimir putin in vietnam later this week. joining me now is our guests. the last time donald trump was traveling, and this was his trip to europe last year in july he found himself dictating talking points aboard air force one as he was leaving germany to come back about a certain june 16th trump tower meeting when they

talked about getting dirt on hillary clinton. what do you suspect is going on onboard air force one and the conversations the state department folks would be having as they are giving them this news we just broke? >> the policy and the psychology and the politics. trump's psychology does not allow him to focus on policy on a regular good day, and that's why state department officials struggle to keep him on track, and this trip is likely to end up being a learning and hand-holding experience for donald trump, and he's not going to be able to deliver on trade negotiations or real jobs. that's the policy side. his psychology on the politics front is going to set any deals sideways because he will want to get hands on involved on any of the management and strategy. we know he has had trouble with his lawyers and jared has had

trouble with the lawyers because donald wants to get involved in the strategy, and anything that pops up he will want to get involved in everything happening. knowing he's meeting with putin towards the end of his trip is going to embolden him when he comes back to the u.s., because putin will try to work this to his advantage, and prop him up and make him feel good as he has control in the country, and will give him talking points, and same thing as the president of the philippines, he's the head of a program that killed thousands of people outside of the judicial people, and things are the things donald trump will hear before he comes back to deal with the american people on russia. >> that's context for you. let's listen to donald trump. the other context is donald

trump doesn't have a fully robust state department and he's on the world trip, but not only does he see himself as his own diplomat, and this is him earlier this week about the unfilled state department starts. >> there's a concern that the state department is undermining your agenda? >> i am a business person and i tell my people, you don't need to fill slots, don't fill them and we have some people -- >> assistant sebt secretary of state, you are not getting rid of. >> the only mattone that matter me. >> the question, is the state department undermining his agenda, and donald trump saying it doesn't matter if there's anybody there because he's the only one that matters. your thoughts? >> oh, gosh, where to begin.

he is very hampered because he doesn't have key people in place like the ambassador to south korea. secondly, he's hampered because he didn't know anything, and you can say richard nixon knew about the world and donald trump knows nothing about the world. and it's correct that trump is not going to be able to resist commenting on the latest information. remember, we left off last week as congressman lieu reminding us with trump ordering his state department, his judicial department rather and the fbi to go after his political enemies, to go after hillary clinton, which i believe is an impeachable offense. he's going to be bringing up hillary clinton again. i can imagine there's a mad scramble to get his phone away from him but that doesn't seem to work. he always has access to it. at this point you have to believe that the hooks are in to

michael flynn. he may not have a deal but by threatening to indict his son they are squeezing michael flynn. there's no separation between michael flynn and president trump and no separation between michael flynn and attorney general. the walls are closing in. he's at a trip where he is ill prepared and not going to have deliverables, and he's going to have people testing him and provoking him. what is he going to do? he's going to turn around and lash out at his domestic enemies. usually presidents traveling overseas are able to regain confidence and prestige because they are seen on the world stage. donald trump i suspect will come back weaker than when he left. >> i think that was the idea, right, when they send donald trump overseas it's an opportunity for him to acquire the presidential look he cannot acquire at home. federal investigators have

gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation against michael flynn, he would be the highest level official on the trump campaign to face such an indictment, and this is not confirmed by mueller's office, this is nbc's reporting about michael flynn and his son. this is donald trump talking about north korea. >> north korea best not make any more threats to the united states. they will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. the united states has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. >> by the way, rocket man should have been handled a long time ago. >> really quickly, this is h.r. mcmaster who was asked on

thursday if trump would tone down hit rhetoric. >> so the president will use whatever language he wants to use, obviously. >> we should not expect any modulation -- >> i don't think the president has not modulates his language. you have knnoticed that? >> even in the best of times donald trump sounds pretty deranged, so you can imagine when you turn the notch up a few points what happens at that point. anything can happen. what he has going for on this trip, all the leaders he's meeting with is propping him up and trying to shape themselves in the way shinzo abe has done skillfully over the last year yeah. all of them will try to make trump look good. the problem that comes in, if he's in a press conference or has an unscripted occasion where he talks off the cuff all bets

are off because you don't know what comes out of his mouth. he could wind up attacking the trade deal or make new threats against north korea that will increase the risk of nuclear war. you don't know what he's going to be up to. certainly the fact that he has been so distracted, and even going out on the trip he was tweeting about hillary clinton and this phoney uranium scandal. he knows, as jennifer said, he knows nothing about the issues or countries and he's focused on his own political turmoil at home, and he's increasing the thought abroad if he has any credibility to begin with. i am embarrassed to see this man as our president, but i am doubling embarrassed when he's abroad representing our country because he has no idea how to behave in a remotely

presidential fashion. >> 32% say they trust trump. you already have had shinzo abe, and donald trump according to the japan times newspaper make comments that he couldn't understand why a country of samurai warriors did not shoot down north korean missiles, and he already made that gaffe, and you have reporting that china already won in this trump era, and it has increased their leverage and power, and china has the whip hand over whatever happens in this region going forward because trump is president. >> they are going to exploit this opportunity about trump being overseas and how he's uninformed. there are several things china wants. they want u.s. troops out of south korea, and they want to not be prosecuted for theft of

international property here in the united states, and they want business, they want to be able to get the contracts to rebuild american roads and infrastructure. they are likely to be able to get most of that because donald trump is going to be distracted by his meetings with putin and the chinese are going to wine and dine him the same way did the saudis. they see it on display, on the news and on twitter. they know avoid any of the staff because they don't matter anymore. it's all about getting directly to the guy. it's not by accident that shinzo abe spent half the day golfing with donald trump because that's far more productive for reaching their goals, having fancy dinners and a state dinner, far more productive than having a business-based policy conversation. >> jennifer, i talked to max about this, too, and i will start with you. this concept of american weakness is something we have talked about it before and the consequences of it and for americans that may not pay as

much attention to foreign policy, if you could explain why this even matters? why does it matter if the president appears weak on the american stage? >> since world war ii the united states has been the superpower that held the international economic and political system together. we have not had a world war, at least not yet, thank goodness. we had a system of trade and the expansion of democracies and capitalism, and we did not sink into fascism after world war ii and that's because of the united states, we set certain rules of the road in trade and international behavior. when we don't play that role, when we seem to be cheering on the rogue states, when we give a hi-five to the president of the philippines who is engaged in extra judicial killings, that system begins to fray and fall apart. the result will be more conflict and more trade problems, and

problems for the american business community, and it will be a demolition of the rights we hold dear. for donald trump going overseas, i am old enough to remember when he said he would make the best deals, and everybody else was a moron. he makes the worst deals, all you have to do is butter him up and roll out the red carpet and he will give you what he wants. the chinese are licking their chops figuring what they can get out of him and take him for a ride. >> how much damage is done when you have the american president fake facing the potential of his former national security adviser to be indicted for having done business with the regime in turkey and try to kidnap a man living in the united states doing charter schools to ship him back to turkey, i wonder from the point of view of those

watching foreign policy from abroad, what must they be thinking? >> it's undermining everything the united states has stood for for more than seven years, and we go around the world telling other countries they need to have a free press and decrease corruption and have the rule of law and all of those things trump is undermining at home. how can you look at somebody like xi jinping and say to him don't use the chinese legal system to go after your political opponents when that's what trump is doing at home. this is everything the united states has stood for, donald trump is opposed to. i think it's leading to a loss of american credibility, to a loss of american moral authority. i don't think our democratic allies could trust us anymore. i was looking at a poll that shows the popularity of the u.s. president is down to 17% in south korea and 24% in japan from highs over 80% under

president trump. if that continues it does long-term damage to the u.s. position in the world and that damage is to our security and economy. >> at the risk of wraouruining everybody's sunday, we want to hold you here and stay nearby. coming up in the next hour, donna brazile is burning down the house. we will talk about that after the break. i can't wait for her to have that college experience that i had.

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tons of breaking news this morning.

multiple sources tell nbc news federal investigators have enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn and his son. and news this morning out of saudi arabia saudi arabia that have wide raping consequences for america and the middle east. the saudi kingdom arrested nearly a dozen members of the royal family as part of a supposed anticorruption sweep. they arrested one of the world's richest men. notably, a major critic of donald trump in recent years. the prince tweeted in december of 2015 just after then candidate trump proposed banning all muslims from traveling to the u.s., quote, you are a disgrace not only to the gop but to all america. withdraw from the u.s. presidential race as you will never win, of course. trump of course fired back dopey prince alwaleed talal wants to

control our u.s. money. can't do it when i get arrested. the arrest appears to bolster the power of the 32-year-old crown prince of saudi arabia who enjoys a warm relationship with both trump and his son jared kushner who made an unannounced trip to saudi arabia last week. his third trip to the country last year. joining us is ayman mohyeldin has a great show on this very network. so much breaking news to talk to you about. let's talk about this nbc news exclusive that there's a potential at least that michael flynn could be -- or at least that there's enough evidence to potentially indict michael flynn and his son. >> this is one of those stories where it leads to one of the united states closest allies, turkey. a lot of the stuff that involves michael flynn, two things, one was his trip where he went overseas and spoke at an event that was sponsored by russia today which is the official state sponsored media. he sat next to russian president vladimir putin.

that was something he never disclosed. that was a paid appearance. he never disclosed that to the military which, as i understand, something he was required to do. there is that legal implication. secondly, was the fact that we understand he was working on behalf of the turkish, i should be careful, business association here in the united states that has very close links to the turkish government. the turkish government was using this not directly as a lobbying arm, but using this business association to set up meetings with american businesses and what have you. michael flynn was someone in contact with that association, had meetings with them. there are questions as to whether or not he was indirectly lobbying for the turkish government here in the united states without declaring it. as we saw last week with the indictment involving paul man a for the, that was something bob mueller went after. >> for those who don't know and don't know the story, very briefly why would erdogan, the leader of turkey, want this guy who lives in pennsylvania in the

poconos extra dikted? >> this is an islamic cleric that they're saying is the master mind of a coup and they want him extradited. they've labeled him as such. the united states is not convinced by that argument. they've been reluctant to turn him over. again, as we learned, michael flynn made the argument that this islamic cleric should be handed over to the turkish government. that was something the turks wanted. >> yeah, absolutely. let's go to the other big breaking news. a ton to talk about this morning. these arrests of 11 princes in saudi arabia, what is going on here? i think people who didn't know that fox news was partly -- one of the big investors in fox news is this prince that was arrested, what is going on here? >> i think you have to take a 10,000 foot approach and look at this in the context of ten years. we had a young deputy crown prince emerge on the scene in saudi arabia. since then he has tried to consolidate power.

what we saw yesterday was perhaps the biggest attempt of him to consolidate power very quickly. he's doing so under the guise of fighting corruption. that is something that is very rampant. but he's doing this at the same time that some are saying, well, this seems to be a bit suspicious because there are people that he's gone after that he is accusing or at least others are accusing of sowing dissent within the kingdom and trying to destabilize the kingdom. the issue of succession is such an important issue in understanding saudi arabia. this is a young crown prince now. his father is the king and he moved him up the ranks very quickly over passing a lot of younger saudi royals. i think that has angered a lot. what we saw yesterday was his attempt to consolidate power by removing the head of the national guard and bringing all of the security forces under his control and at the same time going after very prominent well-known western billionaire business men and other

princesses under the guise of we're fighting corruption. it builds a lot of support in saudi arabia. these are seen as popular moves. fighting corruption and what he's doing on the side. the recent ban to let women drive has been lifted. >> yeah. >> women will be allowed to go to sports events. concerts will be allowed in saudi arabia. movie theaters are opening up. young saudis watching this crown prince are excited. others are thinking he's consolidating too much power. there's a disastrous war in yemen that he's leading. >> this is a 32-year-old guy. jared kushner's age. has good relationship be with jared kushner and trump. is it too conspiratorial if americans look at this set of circumstances, donald trump's son-in-law jared kushner who is friendly with this new ban of saudi royals. just was there. just was there. then you have these arrests that include a prominent critic of donald trump's who's been sparring with him on twitter and now you have donald trump out there touting that he wants to

see saudi aramco, which is the state owned oil company -- >> massive deal, yes. >> a huge deal. he wants to get listed in the united states. are these three things completely separate or are we seeing the saudis go after a donald trump enemy and curry favor with the american president? >> i don't think that they are separate. i don't know if it's as direct that we're going after an enemy of donald trump and so we're going to do that. what i do think it is is you have a young saudi leadership emerging on this scene. they realize they have a lot of interest with the united states as you just mentioned. one of them is the potential listing of aramco, the world's largest oil company, on the new york stock exchange which would in itself bring billions of dollars into the united states but also the fact that you have a young leadership that is trying to modernize his country, the united states is going to benefit from that economically. they want to see a modern liberal, economically and socially open saudi arabia. they're going to build on that. there's a convergence of

interest and not necessarily values but interest, they threw out the red carpet for president trump when he came to saudi arabia. they know what language he speaks. that's why they're speaking that language. >> money. >> it's kind of like you do this for me, i'll do this for you. >> deals and money. i wish we have so much more time. >> we didn't get into it. >> unbelievably. >> we'll have you back. ayman mohyeldin. do not miss him tonight on his very new show. give us the name. >> we're calling it "the breakdown." >> ayman mohyeldin. >> that's going to be the hashtag. 5:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. if you missed it, you missed it. i can't tell you what to do after you missed it. coming up, more breaking news about the investigation into michael flynn and his son. stay with us. tch me. ♪tch me. i've tried lots of things for my joint pain. now? watch me. ♪ think i'd give up showing these guys how it's done?

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that special counsel robert mueller's team has gathered enough evidence to bring charges in the investigation of former trump national security adviser michael flynn and his son. the probe into flynn is part of mueller's investigation into russian interference, but sources say investigators are also looking into flynn's lobbying work, including whether he lawn dered money or lied to federal agents about his over seas contacts. mueller's team is investigating whether flynn tried to or kes straight the removal of erdogan from the u.s. to turkey in exchange for millions of dollars. now let's bring in ken delaney who's part of the team that broke this story. let's break these down into bits. let's start with michael flynn sr. and then we'll talk about his son. is the investigation into flynn sr., ken, focused mainly on the turkey aspect of it or is it broader and does it impact the russia gate aspect? >> oh, joy, we absolutely think it's broader. of course it involves his

contacts with russian ambassador sergei kislyak. it's very much focused on his relationship with the government of turkey, the undisclosed lobbying that he did for which he was paid $530,000 and then what action he may have taken to seek to orchestrate the removal from the u.s. of this cleric. that's what's new here, we're saying that the fbi is looking into flynn's actions involving gulan and the question of whether he was offered millions of dollars in exchange for a promise to orchestrate the removal of gulan from the country. >> the spokesperson for the special counsel did not comment on this story. this is nbc's exclusive reporting. want to read you a little bit more from the story, ken, that you contributed to. michael flynn's son, michael g flynn accompanied him and briefly worked on the transition could be indicted separately or at the same time as his father

according to sources if the elder flynn, this is the key part, is willing to cooperate with investigators. it could change his own fate potentially limiting any legal consequences. this sounds to me, ken, like the prosecutors are potentially setting michael flynn up to save his son or save himself. your thoughts? >> it does sound like that, joy. that's carefully worded. there's a reason why. we believe this is a developing situation and it may well be that one or more of these men cuts a deal, in which case we would not see charges. so what we're saying is they have enough evidence to bring charges. you're absolutely right, to the extent that michael flynn, the son, is implicated here and facing criminal jeopardy, it puts huge pressure on his father. it's one thing for his father to be facing potential prison term, but the idea that his son with a young baby at home could be in trouble has got to be weighing in on the former national security adviser's thinking. >> stay with us. i want to bring in my panel, ira

hawk, max boot of the council on foreign relations, natasha bertrand, jeep never reuben and kareem jean pierre. michael flynn jr. is somebody a lot of people might remember from the campaign. he was prolific on twitter. things like pizza gate. how surprised are you in hearing that he, too, is drawn into this investigation? >> it's not surprising at all, joy. i mean, look, this brings a whole different meaning to the chant that he led of lock her up during the convention. i mean, look, joy, flynn failed multiple times to disclose his work with or for government official. now it seems like mueller is telling him, hey, either you cooperate or your son will go down. and now he has to make that decision. but it's not all that surprising. i think once manafort kind of went down on indictments on

monday, we all expected flynn to be next. >> exactly. indeed. i think flynn is somebody that, natasha, a lot of people have expected to be eventually in the cross hairs. it was that early reporting that he was openly seeking immunity in exchange for cooperation. you had donald trump saying to jim comey, go easy on flynn and telling flynn after firing him in february, stay strong and things like that. one other interesting aspect of this is jim woolsey. the fbi had this report that the cia director, jim woolsey's account to the wall street journal which he confirmed to msnbc that flynn and turkish officials discussed a plan to forcibly remove a man named fatulla gulan in september of 2016, that that, too, is being investigated now. how much consternation and concern must there be on capitol hill now? >> michael flynn is someone who has increasingly lost

credibility among republicans over the past couple of years. he was seen as a very credible figure over the obama administration. he was pushing back strongly over obama's policies in syria. >> he was the head of the defense intelligence agency? >> yes. he had a falling out in 2014. he was kicked out of the defense intelligence agency. ever since then with his kind of bizarre ties to russia, he traveled to moscow in 2015 to attend this r.t. gala. he's appeared several times to give commentary. he did some work for r.t. since then. he's lost a lot of credibility and i would not be surprised if people on the hill were now, you know, more than ever trying to distance themselves from this white house. first you have paul manafort indicted and now you have the first current or former, you know, trump foreign administration official to face charges. >> you have george papadopoulos cooperating. we don't know what that means. of this unknown band of foreign

policy advisers that were named to the trump campaign, the one person who did have some stature and a track record was michael flynn. anita, i wonder if you could describe how much consternation there is inside the foreign policy world as to what happened to this guy? he was a high flying, fast-rising star within the defense intelligence establishment when he was named to dia, turfed out in 2014. is there any sense at what went wrong from there? >> that's a great question, joy. you have to savor the irony of a guy who at the republican national convention was leading chance of lock her up is now in serious danger of getting himself locked up. this is a tragedy. i've known mike flynn back to the time when he was the chief intelligence officer in afghanistan and before that the joint operations command. he had a terrific reputation as a very good tactical intelligence officer. he was very well respected which

is why he became director of the defense intelligence agency. i have a picture in my office of me with mike flynn but then when he was fired from that job which he blamed on president obama, but which i think was the work of jim clapper, he seemed to snap. a lot of people who knew him said he seemed to snap. paling around with vladimir putin and getting engaged in the deals with turkey. it's a tragedy and disgrace. anybody who comes into the trump orbit will be tarred by the experience. >> not to mention the fact how could he not have anticipated any conversations he was having or sharing were being monitored because the russian end is being monitored? >> he read those transcripts himself when he was the director of the defense intelligence agency.

how could he be so stupid and careless? >> it's mind boggling. we have donald trump on an over seas trip in asia, an important trip given the tensions with north korea and what's going on. the last time donald trump was on an important over seas trip he found himself dictating a misleading statement for his son donald jr. and jared kushner met with folks at trump tower. i'm wondering what must be happening on air force one as he travels from country to country today? >> people are trying to intervene between him and his cell phone and it's unfortunate that's the job of senior military leaders and diplomats to keep the president away from a toy that can get him in trouble. around him are 29 business leaders on this trip. that's important to understand because underpinning all of this and trump's real goals of how he deals with foreign policy and

diplomacy are his business interests. just a few weeks ago the chinese government sent in some people to try to take back a chinese dissident. these people were here on visas. they lied. they were security officials. they violated their visas and then a hotel owner in the united states went to the white house to say the chinese would like this person back. will you give him up? this is a pattern. this is exactly what flynn was involved in. an autocratic government is trying to crack down on its people and it's trying to use business interests to try to get these people back. this not only undermines donald trump's credibility in dealing as a diplomat and standing for human rights, but it undermines the broader united states message and philosophy of what we stand for in the world, which is protecting human rights, freedom of press, freedom of speech. at this moment the united states because of donald trump looks like it stands up for personal corrupt business practices. >> you know, jennifer rubin, to make that point, you have donald trump who owns a $200,000 a head

private club who we do not know who the members are, but we keep getting little inc. -- inklings that they have little perks. donald trump is becoming more like other world leaders that are not so savory necessarily whose business interests and essentially financial interests get deeply entangled with their interest in leading their governments. it's extraordinary. >> it really is. the fee used to be 100,000. he doubled it once he became president because he can now monetize the presidency in a way that no one has ever done before. he began this trip in hawaii where he was, again, touting a trump property. no one has used the presidency to advance his own personal business interests, and there's a reason why he's getting away with it. that is that republicans don't care. they could easily stop this. they could easily pass legislation or invoke the

imolluments and prohibit him from receiving income and monies from foreign leaders but they roll over and play dead. you're right, this is becoming a banana republic, a third world dictator ship where the rule of law is supplemented. the president's financial and personal interests are above national interests and he ka vorts with people who share those rotten values, antidemocratic values. i would say as far as the flynn thing goes, we should remember how we first learned about this or how he first got in trouble, and that was potentially lying to fbi agents discovered by sally yates who then went be to the white house, the white house counsel, to rat him out and say, listen, you can't have the vooigs president of the united states going around repeating these things. flynn is lying. so he's involved every which way. he's involved in russia, he's involved in turkey and he's involved in the dishonesty that we saw from sessions, we saw

from other people in trying to conceal these russian contacts. so he's got about three pressure points and now that they have his son, they are going to pressure him and see if he coughs up some more information. >> ken, that's an important point because i think that, you know, because the turkey aspect of it is sort of an important key aspect of this reporting, it is sort of extraordinary to remember that this is the man that was the national security adviser to a presidential campaign who then became the national security adviser of the united states, incredibly high position of someone now accused of essentially making deals with foreign powers and getting paid for it while he was sitting. are these investigations p pre being named national security advisor or while he was national security adviser? >> our sources are telling us that it's absolutely both. you'll recall when the coup happened last july, flynn spoke publicly in favor of that coup.

once he began being paid by a businessman with ties to the government of turkey he completely changed his views and published an op ed on election day condemning the coup. the fbi is examining whether he took any action to try to facilitate the removal of this cleric that turkey accuses of fu fullmenting this coup. there was an attempt to have the fbi look into once again whether the justice department should extradite this person and the reply back was we just don't have the evidence to do it. that's the position of the u.s. government. a lot of questions about what flynn did while he was in the government. i also want to make a point that we ran all of our reporting past flynn's lawyer, rob kellner, and he declined to comment. did not say a word. this is the same lawyer who a while ago at within poione poin client has a story to tell and was seeking immunity. >> let's not forget it took 15 days for the trump white house

to react to sally yates's hair on fire warning. she said he was subject to black mail and should be removed. it was told to the trump transition team and that includes vice president mike pence who was informed of that as well. the circle is only widening. people had information and they didn't act on it. thank you all for staying. really appreciate it. up next, donna brazile held her first tv appearance since dropping bombs on the dnc and the hillary clinton campaign. we will discuss that next. stay with us. stay with me, mr. parker. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time... stay with me, mr. parker. ...saving time when it matters most.

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would say, donna, you're impacting our 2018. if i released it -- donna, you're impacting. george, for those of me to shut up, they told hillary to do that a couple of months ago. you know what i tell them? go to hell. the high command of brooklyn, the people making the decisions in the dnc, they didn't come to work with us. they told us to shut up and basically let them win the election. >> wow, donna brazile this morning pulled no punches of critics in her new memoir of her time as head of the dnc including a bombshell that hillary clinton's campaign controlled the pursestrings before she was officially named the nominee. she considered replacing clinton with joe biden as the nominee. joining me we have a panel. i'm going to go around the horn and ask what people think of donna brazile coming out with this information now and the

circular firing squad that it has created among republicans. i'll start with you. >> my issue is not that she's speaking out. my issue is that she's been wrong. it's been proven with reporting from msnbc.com that the memo she's talking about was not, in fact, you know, subject to the primary but it was all for the general election. and bernie, had he won the nomination, would have been able to make the same arrangement. so the fact that she's getting things wrong is a big problem. also, the fact that she would, you know, propose to thwart the democratic small d will of the people who voted for hillary clinton by replacing her because she had a fainting spell, i think that should raise a lot more alarm than i think maybe is being raised at the moment. i think if i had done half the things that she admits to in these excerpts, i'm not sure i would be telling folks. >> corrine, there are people who

support bernie sanders and are elated and using it to push the absurd idea that she rigged 50 primaries. you can't do it. more people voted for hillary clinton. that's just the fact. but this other aspect of it, this consideration that when hillary clinton fainted because she had the walking pneumonia, the idea that she would consider overturning the will of the democratic voters as the hillary for america team said on medium by replacing her and tim kaine, hillary for america folks said it is particularly troubling and puzzling that she would buy into false russian field propaganda spread by the russians and our opponent about the candidates. we're pretty tired of people who don't know the inside of our campaign and how we felt about it. that is a reference to her saying there was not a lot of joy in it.

it feels like democrats are trapped in an endless feedback loop. >> it's incredibly complicated. if we want to talk about rigged elections, we should look at the general election and russia's tampering with the election. that's that. joy, as a black young operative, donna brazile is someone that i've admired almost my entire career, my entire life and followed and many of us see her as an icon in this business, so what i did last night is i reached out to her and we actually had a conversation. i asked her what -- you know, what is -- what was the why the book, why now, and it was a brief conversation but she told me a couple of things that stuck out to me. number one is that what happened to her in 2016 hacking was worse than even the hurricane katrina, which i think says a lot because she's from louisiana as we know, she has family there. the second thing was that she really wanted to do an autopsy of the democratic party for us

to look under the hood and see what happened, especially after the results of 2016, which i think is incredibly important. you know, they say the best sunshine is the best disinfectant. so that was that part of that conversation. and then we talked about how we can't be distracted right now. you know, we have a race -- two races, two big races in new jersey and in virginia this tuesday and we really have to be focused as a party and right now we just -- we just are not. we can't just be antitrump. we have to figure out what are we for? what is the democratic party doing? how are we really uplifting our voices, the members, the people who are part of the democratic party? >> indeed. let me play one more clip to that very point that you just made. this is donna brazile talking about whether or not she regrets the book dropping right now. those of you who have written a

book, the author doesn't determine the date. she did determine the contents. here's donna brazile about regrets. >> do i regret taking on a job the second time in my life as chair of the party, cleaning up everybody's mess, taking all of the incoming, being unable to spend funds that i raised, do i regret being on the road 100% of the time, being hacked by the russians, being harassed, getting death threats? do i regret any of that? george, this was worse than hurricane katrina in terms of the emotional control. >> caton, you are a long-time operative in this business. you know every few years parties do a house cleaning. they go back, they assess what went wrong, they assess why they're not more popular with the american people, the republicans did it in the famous autopsy after barack obama was elected. do you think there is value in a

party maybe doing some house cleaning even if it's painful and even if it's on the eve of a couple of elections? >> it certainly is valuable, joy. you have to do it. it doesn't mean you're going to win or lose. in my commentary of this, i think donna's book is political rubbish. for once i'm going to take up for the clintons in that campaign. we operatives on the republican side understand who donna is. she was a big help to us getting president bush for eight years. she was the campaign manager of al gore's campaign. they weren't ready for the recount. carl roe's team was. there's always been an act between the goer are and clinto team. the clinton team deserves the right to be upset and mad and angry about this retelling of her personal events of that campaign. as far as the democrat party -- >> democratic party. >> this is -- the democratic

party, this is damaging to them in fundraising. this takes the clinton donors and puts them back on their heels who normally would give money. and i'm not trying to help the democratic party, but what i'm telling you is that this book is made -- is out to make money, and we're helping her make money today. i think there's so many disingenuous facts in there about the fundraising and elizabeth warren and bernie sanders piling on. it certainly helps republican party at this time, and i don't think there's a democratic consultant in the country that wants to do that. again, i contest a lot of the stuff is there. when you have a political operative that continues to say, i, me, not we and us, that ought to be telling to you what's in this book. >> i take it that you agree that this is good news for your side, particularly as the virginia race is imminent, the new jersey race seems like it's going to go the democrats way, but you never

know. i guess republican operatives cheering this morning? what do you think? >> we're not upset whatsoever, but at the same time the virginia race was really doomtd for ralph northam in the first place. >> gillespie is exciting. >> returning to donald trump. >> you have so much excitement among democrats because of donald trump and how he's energized them. there are tumble weeds going through ralph northam's side. then you had the latino victory ad when it was mowing down kids with a pickup truck. >> what about the ed gilles pea tact peagillespie attack ad. essentially a buy from new jersey suddenly becoming the big defender of robert lee.

>> i think we are seeing both parties. what donna bra zpil has exposed, in addition to the republican party having a civil war, the democratic party is having a civil war. they're tearing each other apart. they're helping snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. you're seeing already people blaming one another and the northam campaign about why they are going to lose on tuesday. if they somehow win, republicans will go home and say, okay, you know, this was a hard race. if northam loses you're going to see democrats go crazy. that's going to contribute to hyper partisanship. you're going to see the democrats say we need to be even more resisting republicans and be even more to the left. when you do that and you wind up having to come and have people govern, especially at the federal level and congress, you're going to see zero compromise and people are going to become more and more angry. we need to have people wanting to go and work together and not

panic when they lose a race. >> i don't think there's anybody in either party that wants to work with the other party. jemile, can you argue that point? you've had a civil war. this has just exposed it. maybe some of the other kind of messiness in terms of the finances of the dnc, operations of the dnc. this is a civil war that's public. >> part of the problem with the brazil stuff is that it's focusing on personalities. it's focusing on people who most voters don't know, don't really care about. most voters care about what they're interested in, and to that point the democrats really failed in the virginia race to this extent that they didn't really concentrate on getting out the black vote. they marched in president obama at the last minute trying to excite black voters, but the lack of outreach to black voters in virginia and every other state is a big, big problem for democrats and not one that's going to be solved with a book,

it's not one that's going to be solved with some kind of contrived autopsy. it's one that's going to be solved with hard work and investment. to this point the democrats aren't showing enough oomph. >> sounds like that's what donna brazile is saying. we'll see. thank you all. a programming note that donna brazile will join us here on "am joy" next sunday. more on the breaking news in the robert mueller investigation plus breaking news about one of the big-time billionaires who funded the trump campaign. stay with us. my experience with usaa has been excellent. they always refer to me as master sergeant.

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that's why a cutting edgeworld. university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. we do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law! lock her up. that's right. yeah, that's right. lock her up. you guys are good. you're damn right. exactly right. >> well, that taunt can come back to haunt michael flynn.

multiple sources tell nbc news that special counsel have enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation against the former national security adviser and also his son. the probe into flynn is part of mueller's investigation into russian interference. they're also looking into flynn's lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his over seas actions. they're looking at whether flynn was removing a chief rival from the u.s. to turkey in exchange for millions of dollars. just this morning, flynn's son, michael flynn jr., who's also facing potential indictment, the s -- tweeted the sjw, social justice warriors, are out in full this morning. the disappointment on your faces when i don't go to jail will be worth all your harassment. really tweeted that. stay with msnbc for the latest on this breaking news. we'll be right back. looking for balance in your digestive system?

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if you follow the web of money that fueled the trump campaign, one name that you will repeatedly run into is mercer. mainly robert mercer and his daughter rebecca. you will find the billionaire family of ultra conservative megadonors donating millions of dollars to trump. acting as benefactors to steve bannon and pouring millions of their billions into breitbart.com and bank rolling cambridge analytica. this week robert mercer made news, not with money he was giving but money he was taking away. as he announced his departure as ceo of a $50 billion hedge fund. mercer also said he'd be selling his stake in breitbart to rebecca and her two sisters and withdrawing his funding from a venture from breitbart venture.

joining me now is jane mayer, staff writer for the new yorker and author of "dark money." jane, this is a great piece in the new yorker. i recommend everybody read it. most people when they think billionaires to fund republicans, they think koch brothers. the mercers seem to have far more far reaching tentacles, everything from kellyanne conway's polling firm to donald trump. how deep are their hooks into the republican party? >> well, i mean, they are specifically the backers of trump and one of the people who worked with bob burser at renaissance technologies, man named nick patterson said to me he didn't think trump would be president without the help from the mercer family. they've poured millions into the trump project and they are, i think most interestingly, as you said, the money behind breitbart which has stirred so much did i have advice sieveness and hatred that it worked to trump's advantage in the country.

they're very close with bannon. they've really pretty much been the sponsors of his career and they are now working with bannon to try to put money behind far right candidates who will run for congress in 2018 and senate candidates to try to keep disrupting the regular old republican party and replace it with really far right trump supporters. >> and as we just showed this diagram in october of last year, this piece showed the web of connections during the campaign of robert and rebecca mercer. the mersers are funders of kellyanne conway who worked for ted cruz and switched to trump. they're the big funders behind steve bannon. talk about robert mercer's ideology. he has a lawsuit from an employee who said he said

outride racist things. what do they want out of getting control or getting influence in government? >> well, good question because one of the things that i think viewers need to know, all-americans need to know, is this family, this particular hedge fund manager who is worth so much money is trying to manipulate american politics and get what he wants but doesn't give interviews. he doesn't talk about what he wants. he's very reclusivreclusive. he's very secretive. so he's hiding what it is he really believes. i've tried endless numbers of times to get interviews with him and so has everybody else who covers this stuff but he doesn't speak. so what you have to do is piece together his views from talking to people who have known him for many years. what they tell you is he has views that are kind of off the chart, very far right, very conspiratorial minded. he believed that -- and told people that hillary clinton and bill clinton had literally

murdered people or had them murdered. he believes that. he thinks that nuclear war has some up sides because he believes that radiation that comes from nuclear bombs has health effects that are good for people. in terms of race, i mean, his views have been very upsetting for some of the people who work in the firm and know about it because he's said things like he thinks the civil rights act was the worst thing that happened in american history. and he's said things about poor americans that are -- that are basically -- his etiology is you're worth what you earn. people like himself are worth a ton more to the country because they make so much money and people who are on welfare he thinks have negative value to the country because they don't earn anything. >> wow. >> so it's a harsh and weird etiology. he's a brilliant computer scientist. this is not to take away from his math skills, but when it comes to politics, that's where he's pouring his money right

now. he's got views that i think many people would be upset about if they knew them. what happened and the reason he stepped down from his firm was the public was beginning to see more of what he thinks and people who were investors in that firm, big pension funds, began to get very, very uncomfortable with putting their money in there. >> yeah. yeah. indeed. in the statement, renaissance employees distancing themselves from the poster child of breitbart. he's caused pain and divisiveness. it was a mistake to have supported him and for several weeks i've severed all ties with him. he had ties to him that he knew who he was and happy to give him money. he's pulling out because some of his people aren't happy. jane mayer, i hope everyone reads your great new yorker piece on the mersers and your

book "dark money." >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. more "am joy" after the break. ♪ hey, bud. you need some help? no, i'm good. come on, moe. i have to go. (vo) we always trusted our subaru impreza would be there for him someday. ok. that's it. (vo) we just didn't think someday would come so fast. see ya later, moe. (vo) the subaru impreza. the longest-lasting vehicle in its class. more than a car, it's a subaru.

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three of the wisest men in washington are here to talk about their new book "one nation after trump." stay with us. in every town, ac. small businesses show their love to you. with some friendly advice, a genuine smile and a warm welcome they make your town... well, your town. that's why american express is proud to be the founding partner of small business saturday. a day where you get to return that love, because shopping small makes a big difference. so, on november 25th get up, get out, and shop small.

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will you fire jef sessions if the justice department doesn't take action against clin? >> in "one nation after trump" the authors flesh out the meeting of trump sets up in the white house. reminding us all that american

democracy was never supposed to give us a president like donald trump. now here we have the amazing authors of "one nation after trump." of first of all, i'm going to give friend privileges to e.j. and to go to him first. i think it's heart warming for people to hear how you're -- you write about these disappearing norms of american politics. does the news today that bob mueller, the nbc news report that the mueller team at least has enough information to potentially prosecute michael flynn and his son show that there is a gravity, that the political norms really are in place, the institutions still work? >> the short answer is yes, and i will always press pal

privilege, so thanks so much joy. it shows that the norms are still in place as long as donald trump doesn't try to fire mueller and gets no push back from republicans in congress. and that's one of the things we write about in the book, this decay of norms has been going on for a long time and you see it going back to the gingrich congress back in the 1990s. and that if the republicans in congress allow trump to interfere with this investigation, then we see yet another norm broken, in a very dangerous situation for our country. we do find it heartening that people are organizing on the ground. we do find it heartening that many conservative writers and intellectuals and even a few conservative politicians are speaking out against trump's abuses.

you got to be worried th-- >> great to talk to you as well. another thing that you guys talk about in the book is this donald trump sort of authoritarian impulse that he has and we have seen it again this week when he's continually calling for the justice department to investigate his former opponent hillary clinton. bob corker said this on friday after his comments about the justice department and about potentially firing jeff sessions. he said president trump's pressuring of the justice department and fbi to pursue cases against his adverb -- he was also talking about the bowbebow burg bowe bergdahl comments.

>> the old native american with the tear coming down on his cheek about how we were spoiling the environments and how the framers would have tears coming down their cheeks for what they're seeing. i'm waiting for 51 republican senators oar speaker ryan or majority leader mccarthy or any of the house republicans to join in this. trump is an authoritarian personnelity, going after your political opponents is right at the top of it. he is a cleptocrat when he spoke at one of his hotels and his spokesperson, sarah huckabee sanders did a commercial for it. he's a narcissist as we saw when he said i'm the only one responsible for the stock market changing. and all of these things fit his

personality and unfortunately as e.j. said nobody is checking this, and that's what the system is supposed to provide is checks from other institutions. >> thomas mann, thank you for being here as well. one of those checks is supposed to be the media. you guy say frutrump made the - the road to fake news with us gaved -- what do you make of the way the media responded to the singular experience of having donald trump as president? >> think of there as being two elements of the media, one is the pro trump far right media, the foxes, the limbaughs, the breitbarts, the judges, even the editorial page and they have become the vehicle by which his

fake newsi inbecomes the real n presented to his supporters. then there's the main stream media, which frankly during the campaign saw a little too much equivalence, false equivalence between the candidacies of trump and clinton, now they're doing a good investigative job, but now it's really hard to get broader attention and they're still falling back at times into the normalization of donald trump. the reality is we face now the most serious threat to american democracy since the civil war, and that sense of threat and danger ought to be front and center before the american people day after day. >> yeah, indeed. the book is "one nation after trump" and it is guide for the

perplexed the disillusioned and the not yet deported. it turn s in the end to things you can actually do about it. next time i hope you're in person when we have these guys back on the show. >> thanks. >> happy sunday, guys, that's our show for the day, keep it here on msnbc for the latest. fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink.

breaking news, nbc news has learned that federal investigators have gained enough evidence to bring charges against donald trump's national security advisor and his son according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. it's high noon in the