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. morning, glory, america. i'm hugh hewitt. we kick off saturday morning with a look back at the week that was and the week ahead. joining me is "the boston globe"'s annie lynn sky, daily beast laughlin march kay and sun minute kim and francesco chambers. it's a great morning. not because everyone's last name is in the first half of the alphabet. frances francesca, you just came back from abroad.

what is the biggest story of the week? >> the president's five-day nation's trip to asia. i want to zero in on china. i think the relationship between the united states and china is very, very important. and president trump seems to have a love/hate relationship with president xi jinping in china. he he has very warm rapport when it comes to can xi. they rolled out the red carpet. with china, they're trade abusers, they have stolen our wealth, stolen our jobs, our intellectual property. even more knew answered than that we saw him on the trip saying one thing. then he got to china and they did this great forbidden city tour, a great welcome and he backed off a little bit and said china is not to blame. it is past administrations. got bad reviews over that.

a >> annie, swallows the china trip. what is it? >> in my mind you go back to north carolina and his base. they did a focus group in north carolina where it turned out only one in ten were willing to defend donald trump. you never see any sort of cracking. >> what do you put it down to? >> embarrassment. so many people said they were embarrassed by this president. these are republicans. the focus group included democrats, republicans, and independents. republican women were the ones that said they could think of no other word that embarrassed them. this is where you have the hard 35% that we always talk about that will back him. and you begin to wonder whether that's beginning to soften.

>> what's your story of the week? >> taxes, taxes, taxes. earlier this week the house passed their own tax overhaul package. they have plenty of cushion room there. the senate finance committee cleared their legislation and we'll expect it to have it on the floor after thanksgiving. so on the tax front, this was a pretty good week for republicans. but it only does get harder from here. there is already trouble brewing among a block of senate republicans who are concerned about the deficit or concerned about how the tax bill treats small businesses or some who don't like the fact that now we have a health care fight in the mix. so it will be very interesting to see if mitch mcconnell can cobble the 50 votes. >> it is the tax system. it is two years in the making. it's the campaign, the economy. laughlin, where do you come down? >> i think it is the sexual

assault against al franken. it has a much broader appeal among the american public. in the post weinstein era, this is the first penetration of congress in national politics. coming as it did the same week we learned there's been $15 million in payouts to sexual is harassment and assault victims on capitol hill, i think this is a snowballing story in the political world. and it's also happening in front of the back drop of the alabama senate race. and roy moore, the republican candidate who has been accused of some very serious -- everything from sexual assault and attempted rape. so i think that is a very big political story in itself. so you are transposing what is a national story in all of these different arenas in american public life front and center. >> so the panel is intentionally weighted to young women

journalists because this story has overwhelmed everything on my radio show. i would like to ask each of you. how are you reacting? do you think the franken story goes anywhere, or does he stay in the senate and they find a way to not open the door to old allegations? >> i think it's unclear the path forward. i think it can depends if more women come forward with this. the senate ethics committee has not confirmed they are investigating. again, there are concerns about investigating conduct that happened before you were a senator. if there are more stories, more shoes that drop, the pressure from not just republicans but democrats will certainly grow. and i think we just saw the snowballing of the sexual is harassment stories this week from the house hearing where we heard these powerful stories from female lawmakers. this story is not going away. >> francesca, i was watching the sarah huckabee sanders briefing

where she tried to cut out inquiries into the president. he did not do it. that's different from al franken. >> this is going to continue to be an issue at the white house. i agree, lachlan, that this is a very difficult story. i do think this will continue. and i think that the president's involvement in the story is something we should look at. and the fact that he is staying on the sidelines and he didn't want to get involved -- >> on roy moore. >> but not on al franken. he is a hypocrite and he's attacking him on twitter. but roy moore is the leader of the republican party, the highest ranking elected republican, and he is now drawing himself out and saying the people of alabama should decide. and i do think that is a very interesting tact for the leader of the republican party to take. >> is that tenable for the president and his team to say al franken is in column b and i'm

in column a and the two shall not cross? >> well, he is walking a line with roy moore. with this president everything he seems to be tenable. he seems to be able to prance over all of these sorts of lines and it doesn't matter. with a different president, maybe not. it is sort of stunning on roy moore he hasn't backed him the way he said he would in the primary. he said he would come in and be a big supporter. you're not seeing that. >> is it tenable, lachlan? >> i hate to boil this down to rank politics. but the democrats are in a mortenable position from a public relations standpoint. he resigns, they appoint a successor. then they can call for some sort of sanction against him. when it comes to a senate ethics investigation, look back to david vitter when it was determined the this was

presenate tenure. >> i had completely forgotten vitter. >> it is is much easier for folks like chuck schumer or kirsten gillibrand knowing it might not produce much and even if it does, he will just be released by a democrat. >> excellent summary. stay right there. we will be back with the most important person not named donald this week.

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welcome back. i'm hugh hewitt. monday through friday you can hear me on salem radio network 6:00 to 9:00 east coast. saturday is mornings i'm here on msnbc with the fastest half hour in cable. annie lynn sky, lachlan march

kay a kay. who is the most important person not named trump? >> my pick is senator isakson, chairman of the senate ethics committee which might get pretty busy pretty quickly. they are reexamining the events around bob menendez's indictment. they have confirmed that. we have the franken issue with mitch mcconnell calling for an ethics investigation. nothing confirmed as of yet. mitch mcconnell said if roy moore is elected december 12th, he would immediately face ethics proceedings. >> those are closed hearings, right? >> very secretive panel. six members equally divided.

a sleepy committee but about to get pretty busy. >> the most important person not named donald. >> it was a tossout between xi jinping and ivanka trump. i think she is very important because he is spending a special envoy to north korea. very is huge story. however, i'm going with ivanka trump because she has been making quite a splash on the global stage recently. she was in japan before her father got there. she didn't stay for the rest of the trip. she was the welcome wagon of a hearing with shinzo abe. now she is going to india. i will be there. >> am i right that ivanka trump met with prime minister abe before the president became the president when he was president-elect. >> yes. . it was very controversial. when abe came to trump tower she was in the meeting.

he talked about this on the trip. really funny story. we all thought, hraorbgs it was so knocks to meet with him before you're the president. he told at the dinner how he told abe he could come visit him any time. and he took it seriously, showed up in the united states. he said what am i supposed to do, say go home? he said they had a rocky start to the relationship but became splendid friends. >> annie, the most important person not named trump. >> i'm going with the guy you maybe haven't heard of, doug jones. he is running against roy moore. he supports transgender rights. >> abortion rights absolutist. >> yeah. he's pro-choice. a and he is also pulling 10 points ahead of the republican. >> is he worried about the hashtag write-in movement?

that got started this weekend. >> he probably -- he should be. i was down in alabama this week. they are running a stealth campaign. can they run down the clock for the next four weeks. >> write in nick saban. >> the most important person not named donald trump? >> former virginia governor bob muck donald whose successful appeal of his corruption conviction is still reverberating throughout national politics, most recently in the mistrial of senator bob menendez. we heard after that mistrial announcement that the jury was deadlocked but apparently 10 of the 12 jurors wanted to acquit him. only two thought he was guilty, which i thought was stunning watching the proceedings of the trial. >> have you ever sat on a jury? >> i have on not. >> i have. you can never underestimate how they run a jury.

>> convicting him shows how difficult it is to prove official corruption in a federal court these days. that is directly a result of mcdonald's appeal. you have to have someone saying give me money and i will do this for you. and the other person says, okay, here's your money. >> it helps to have it on tape. because i'm host, a cheat. three of them. they all have personal animus to president trump and they all need to vote for the tax bill to get out of the senate. my quick roundtable is do you think the tax bill gets out because the three senators don't like the president and ron johnson doesn't like the bill? does it make it out of the senate? >> i don't know. i really don't know. there is so many different circles on of concern that if you add them all up, it definitely does not pass. some objections seem moveable.

both the leadership and ron johnson said they want to work to get jobs, yes. but the problem is to fix the small business tax issue that he raised, it's going to cost a lot of money which is going to draw ire from the deficit hawks. >> corker. >> the cork or crowd and joining is the deficit hawks. todd young in indiana. >> francesca? >> i'm not sure. it costs a lot of money. some of the lawmakers are upset about salt. i don't know. >> state and local income tax. >> i don't think it will be a personal animus to donald trump. this is a huge opportunity for them to get something done before they leave for christmas. >> 90 seconds.

what do you think? >> the hard form, no. i don't see where the votes are. the way the bill is written right now, there are 12 different republicans who said to some degree that they are strongly against a piece of it. if you count the numbers and look at the public statements. >> lachlan? i agree. jeff flake and bob corker, they want to demonstrate, and i think they are sincere in demonstrating their differences are generally not on policy. and i think they do want tax reform to get done. especially a libertarian minded guy like flake. i think it comes down to pence just because i want to see that happen. >> i think it gets through because it is catastrophic and politically a market crash. we are not done. we will be back with what washington, d.c. is or should be reading after this.

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morning of young journalist hot shots. i always ask what they should be reading. but first i'll go. "the cartel" by don winslow. i was at the airport and by accident i forgot my ipad at home so i had to buy it. it grabbed me by the lapels and has not let me go. i would recommend it very highly. read a good story about the story. how about you? >> well, first of all, my real reading material is making my way through the tax bill, first. but aside from that, as a lighter read i picked up "the beltway bible" by elliott nelson. it is hilarious en sighencyclop. >> h.r. mcmaster "dereliction of

duty." it gets insight into what he might be getting behind the scenes. it is certainly the book that i am going to be reading as we cross back through asia again. lots of time to read on 14-hour flights. >> annie? >> i'm reading jack hakken skwrer's book "true gentlemen ". it is is fraternity sae. the deadliest fraternity in the country. they have had the most deaths than any other fraternity. he goes deep to figure out what the influences are and what is some of the solutions could be too. >> ohio state suspended every fraternity at the ohio state university. and i know good saes and the

stories about bad saes. is it redeemable? >> i think it is. that's one of the nice things about it. if you look at sort of the broader national folks who are on the boards of these fraternities, i think they have a chance and an opportunity to get more involved in the local level. the liability is becoming so insane i think that will change the minds. the bottom line is adults need to get involved. >> i'm a sucker for washington history. i want to read the new one on grant. he won a pulitzer for washing n washington, so i decided i should knock that out first. with he think of this larger than life, stoic figure. it is fascinating. he was a very temperamental often angry, emotional person.

he worked very hard to build and project the image. that is a great lesson for modern politics and modern media where personality is often larger than life to the detriment not just of our larger political system but to the individual. >> embarrassing question for d.c. beltway people, have you been to vernon? >> yes. >> how often. >> just once. >> annie. >> yes. but just once. >> just one time but i've been. >> when i was a child i did all the visits. vice president biden has awe new book out. it's on my list. joe biden is very much the guy i would like to vote for if they were not a democrat. i just like joe biden so i want to read his book. have you found your way to it yet? >> it is definitely on my list. i haven't found my way through it. >> so many books right now. i'm still trying to make my way through "shattered" is, people. >> he might be running for

president. >> i haven't gotten to it yet. >> not biden. you wrote a piece about robert lighthauser from ashtabula, ohio, where all four grandparents and my patients are from. >> the trump administration is finding unusual allies on the left who felt alienated bow 'bama trade policies. >> navarro, does he have a substantive role? >> no, he does. he is sitting in on a lot of these meetings. he is very much the white house point person. >> have you spent time with peter? >> personally, no. >> would-be mayor of san diego, anti-china trade expert and now -- the last of the original

gang. >> he was just on that trip. >> thank you. lachlan, francesca, annie, sun is. see you next week saturday morning here on msnbc. before i had the shooting, burning of diabetic nerve pain these feet... liked to style my dog as a kid... and were pumped to open my own salon. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and she prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions,

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and get the power back on. it's an amazing feeling turning those lights back on. be informed about outages in your area. sign up for outage alerts at pge.com/outagealerts. together, we're building a better california. good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc headquarters in new york at the half hour. here's what we're watching for you. amid outcry from wildlife activists, president trump delayed lifting a ban of imports from big game trophies from africa. the president tweeted that the policy had been under study for years and he will review the issue with zinke. the operator of the keystone pop line said the 210,000 gallon oil leak is under control and poses no threat to the public. thursday's spill comes just days before a state vote on the