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

controversial extension of that pipeline known as the keystone xl. and kay ivy said she plans to vote for embattled candidate roy moore. she said she has no reason disbelieve the women but wants to vote for moore to help the gop keep control of the senate. new this morning on the russia investigation, sources telling nbc news during the campaign a banker with ties to vladimir putin reached out to jared kushner about setting up a meeting with president trump as well as a high-level campaign official on the sidelines of the nra convention last may. in overture was part of an e-mail chain kushner failed to disclose to congressional investigators. they are also trying to figure out how the banker ended up seated next to donald trump jr. during a private dinner at the nra convention. kushner is pushing back that his client has not been forth coming accepteding a letter about that

e-mail exchange. he respond to an official at the time saying pass on this. a lot of people come claiming to carry messages. ken delaney has more. ken. >> reporter: the significance of this is really two-fold. one, it's another example of jared kushner being accused of failing to disclose, failing to be forth right. bottom line, it's another high-level russian with ties to vladimir putin circling around this campaign, seeing awe high-level meeting, proposing a meeting between trump and putin, causing robert mule tore take a hard look. >> let's bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor. barbara, with a good morning to you. i'm curious what you make of the argument that some were not disclosed because kushner did not have contact either with the russian banker or with

wikileaks. what's your reaction? >> well, my reaction is they're not acting like people innocent and truly interested in investigators getting to the bottom of the role of russia in interfering with our election. instead, they're acting defensive about their own liability. wouldn't we want the president and his inner circle helping investigators understand what the efforts of the russians were? it's not so much how they responded but how does russia go about making outreaches and overtures so we can avoid it in the future and one who would want to be helpful said i didn't do anything wrong but here's how they came at me. unless they are asked is a precise question in a precise way, they don't disclose, which i think is problematic. >> here's the gist of what he had to say. >> i don't recall. >> i don't recall it. >> i don't recall that. >> i do not recall such a conversation. >> i don't recall ever being

made aware of that before. >> so he also spoke yesterday at the conservative federalist society. here's a snippet of some of his off-the-cuff remarks. >> is ambassador kizlyak in the room? before i get started here. any russians? >> so he goes from i don't recall to making jokes about it. what kind of message is the attorney general sending about this investigation and how do you think it will be received? >> i have great respect for the position of attorney general. when he belittles the kinds of questions he's being asked, it diminishes the position of the attorney general. i think in that room where he was surrounded by people who are friendly, they laughed raucously. but i think he was lulled into forgetting cameras are rolling and the whole world is watching. it is disappointing to see the attorney general ridiculing the

investigation about something as serious as russian interference in our elections. >> how problematic is the consistent i don't recall, i can't recall. >> certainly people don't remember everything. he is asked about things said at meetings 18 months ago. and i think people use their common sense to judge whether someone is lying or not. that's what an investigator is looking for. is this the kind of thing you might remember or is this something that might follow through the cracks. something you had for dinner on tuesday three weeks ago you probably don't remember. but this is the third rail, something you don't touch. it strikes me as the kind of thing that one would remember. to say consistently he doesn't recall. but then when i read about it i do remember and i did the right thing, at some point confidence begins to erode in those answers. >> politico is reporting that hope hicks is being prepared to be interviewed.

what does this signal to you? that it is getting closer to the inner circle? >> it is difficult to say when it's coming to an end. you found when i investigated complex cases, a lot of times when you interviewed someone cho you thought was close to the end, they tell you about five other people that you need to investigate further. the whole interview suggests that robert mueller is still interested in investigating obstruction of justice by the president. she was there when they compiled the statement about the meeting that donald trump jr. and jared kushner had with russians in june 2016. there are a number of different things she seems to have access to. these are things she wants to follow up on. >> was she part of the meetings with james comey as well? >> it appears she may have been involved in discussing some of the letters. he will want to ask her about

that first letter authored but steven miller, the decision that was made and how it was publicly reported. it seems she could be someone who was a confidante of the president as he was going through the decision making process. it will be interesting to see whether they exert executive privilege. >> barbara, always good to talk to you. thanks so much. >> thanks very much. why the democrat on the house budget committee calls the gop budget a house horror show. and charlestie dent will be here to defend his vote for the week.

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>> order. >> that was orrin hatch and sherrod brown during a heated exchange this week of the republicans new tax plan. it came hours after house republicans passed their own version. joining me in studio, john yarmouth, ranking member of the budget committee. you're usually down south. good to see you. let's talk about the back and forth you just listened to. what kind of tax proposal do you get the sense of what we have seen this week? >> they will have trouble. this exclusion of state and local taxes, the deduction is a really difficult thing for them. it will cost them votes. it has cost votes in the house. but if they don't eliminate that deduction they can't make the numbers work. and they have several examples in the tax bill, refusal to

allow people to deduct interest on student loans, those type of things. really, really difficult. that argument we've had, the same one that sherrod and orrin had. and the republicans still insist on saying this is all focused on middleclass americans, and it's not. the numbers are overwhelmingly compelling. this will benefit mostly wealthy corporations. >> so what is the best you can hope for out of this bill? an overwhelming sense of dread, or are there pieces of it that you can support? >> there are always pieces you can support. many are in favor of doubling the standard deduction. we can support a reduction in the corporate tax rate. president obama was going to support going to 28% from 35. but when you take away state and local tax deductions, when you give all these preferences, when you make the personal tax

exemptions temporary and make the others permanent, it is is clear there is a balance towards the rich. >> let's move to impeachment efforts of president trump. you recently signed on to support a bill to do so. what are these and how did you get to this point? >> well, the one that actually convinced me to sign on involved the president threatening to take tv station licenses away because of content. >> that perked up my ears too. >> that is impeachable when you use government to sensor media. the other ones involve emollients clause, benefiting personally from his office, undermining democracy in a variety of ways. i didn't think necessarily those were impeachable yet. certainly something we could consider. when you use the government to threaten the media, that is impeachable. >> you said the word yet.

house democratic leaders some believe talk is very premature at this point. you see something to it. you signed on at this point. is it risky politically speaking? is there a down side to this? >> well, there is. and i don't plan to go around campaigning on this. i don't think the majority of the democratic caucus in congress supports impeachment at this point. i know our leadership doesn't want to talk about it. >> for political reasons? >> i think largely for political reasons. the risk that you excite the republican base and get them riled up. right now we have awe huge energy advantage throughout the country. we're not going to be talking about it. we know it would be futile because we can't pass an impeachment resolution being in the minority. and i don't think we want to say if you give us the majority next year that's the first thing we will do. that is far from anybody's top priority. >> let's move to to kirsten

gillibrand who thinks clinton should have resigned in the wake of the monica lewinsky. how did you react when you heard that? >> you know, i reacted like bill clinton paid a huge price for his reprehensible conduct. he was up peached. his reputation was severely damaged. i don't know what purpose there is no litigating that 20 years later. the sad thing is a lot of people haven't learned from that incident and still face these situations in which there is i guess now a presumption of credibility on women coming forward to report harassment. that's really, really good. there was not 20 years. she basically said there was a different time in that respect. and i think it has. my biggest fear is we don't learn from it. secondly, that we lump all these cases together and give them

some kind of parody when they're not at all. >> right. >> what roy moore is alleged to have done is far worse than what any of these others have. >> and al franken, you heard calls from him to resign. >> i don't think he ought to resign unless president trump resigns. >> you see your point. always good to see you. >> thanks, alex. >> thank you so much. enjoy the harvard/yale game. >> go bulldogs! >> some of the things moore's accusers say may shock you and their reaction next. r. didn't know i was allergic to ibuprofen. and i had fallen asleep... (scrappy barks) (amanda) he was totally freaked out, digging and pawing at me. and when i woke up i realized that i was in anaphylaxis and went to the emergency room. i don't know what i would do if he wasn't there. he's the best boy. (vo) through the subaru share the love event, we've helped the ascpa save nearly forty thousand animals so far. get a new subaru and we'll donate two hundred fifty dollars more to help those in need. (amanda) ♪ put a little love in your heart. ♪

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do you not believe the accounts of these women? >> no, i do not believe. i just believe it was something that was made up that they were probably paid to do that. >> i question what is in it for these women who are saying these things? i don't believe it. >> every time we have been around him, he speaks the truth,

biblical principles and up holds god. if he did something he was not supposed to he would definitely let it out and tell everyone. >> he faces a growing number of muss conduct allegations. moore's that senate seat until they lay him in that box on the ground him joining me is a former director for the clinton campaign, now for sirius xm. jill watkins, white house aide to president george w. bush and msnbc political analyst. good to start our saturday with you. ladies first, your view on roy moore's politics aside s. there any room for you that these women are driving support for him? >> it's hard to listen women say they don't believe another woman's stories, but there is some sort of precedent to this right? women internalize misogyny and sexism. so sometimes women will say we

don't believe the women or they will victim blame other women who have victimized because it actually makes us feel safer to say, i'm smarter than that woman, or that woman must be making it up. it's a default response, a defense mechanism. i think in terms of the cultural conversation, i believe women. i think she should start there. we are not in a court of law, we are talking of somebody running for a serious position in the united states senate and to we have a bar of entry? is it important to make sure that we are electing people who do not have these types of allegations in their background? i think we should start having that bar be the case for people we elect to higher office. >> and rick, how do you explain the continuing support for roy moore? >> to the word hypocrite is a greek word that means actor. it comes from a very familiar term with christians to wear a mask t. reason they don't see roy moore in this way, he wears

a mask when he's around them. he acts in a different way when he is pursuing these teenage girls. now you have eight accounts of people that know each other. it's important to remember when a victim of sexual assault or harassment, often the victim thinks it's them, how am i to come out as powerful against roy moore, who is one of the most popular in alabama. when the dam breaks, like in the harvey weinstein, it's why they come forward at once, it's not a grand conspiracy is because the women feel empowered that i wasn't the only one. he victimized many people and i'm going to tell my story. >> what about the few polls that show doug jones leading roy moore? you have one poll has him ahead by five, another by eight. first of all, do you believe the polls and if roy moore wins, do you think gop senators will

force him out? >> well, i think that the good thing about america is that people are free to do what they think is the right thing to do. maybe those polls, if they're correct, show people are doing the right thing by voting for doug jones, even if they're not democrats, at the end of the day, i think it's important for americans to go in there into the ballot booth to exercise their right to vote and do the right thing. roy moore would do the right thing if he apologized to the people he abused and step aside. that would be the best thing to do. i know it's an embarrassing and hard thing to do, but al franken, at least, did the right thing this weekend, partly stepping forward right away saying, you know, what i did is wrong. i am sorry and if there is an investigation, yes, i ought to be investigated. >> welcome that. >> that's the right thing to do. >> yeah. >> but i think that republicans might censure it. >> this is all going back to the

remarks levied against donald trump. >> his hands were all over me. he started encroaching on my space. he was like an octopus. it was like he had six arms, he was all over the place. >> he then walked up to me and reached his right arm and grabbed my right arm. then his hand touched the right inside of my breast. >> the person on my right, who unbeknownst to me at that time was donald trump put their hands up my skirt. >> so the resurfacing of this issue, rick, for the president and the white house, how bad is it for the president? how is the white house handling it? >> well, it's terrible for the white house t. president is no moral authority to speak ability al franken and anybody else. the fact that he mocked al franken. al franken is a democrat. al franken came up quickly. they released, what i would say

insufficient apology, but at least they got out quickly with it. that was their intent. then he came out with what i would consider a very sufficient policy, seems e seemed very contrite. i wrote a personal letter to the victim out loud. that's a very important concept. now it remains to be seen if there are other accusers. >> that would be an important distinction between al franken and donald trump and roy moore, both roy moore and donald trump, there's an established pattern as the victims come forward. the victims don't have anything to gain. they only have something. many choose to forget it. >> you know, senior gillibrand said bill clinton should have resigned, this ignited hypocrisy from a number of people, hillary clinton and my colleague asked her about that interview airing

if full on sunday night on casey d.c. that's a part of that. >> it's ridiculous and he's wrong, bill clinton did very important things in this country. my point is about this conversation we are having today. we need to have the highest standards for elected leaders. we have to change what is happening throughout society. we have tie lou people to tell their stories. >> you know, zerlina, you worked for the hillary clinton campaign. is gil grand in the right or angering democrats? >> in the right. i interviewed her about the topic of gender violence. she has spain to a number of survivors over the past four-to-five years, so she understands this issue. she is right to say, times have changed since the '90s. we understand this issue in an entirely different way than the '90s than the time when anita hill testified and clarence

thomas was on the supreme court. so we are at a moment now, we believe women that come forward. we try to hold men accountable or attempt to. i think that what's happening right now in this cultural shift that's happening in real time, it's very accelerated. the harvey weinstein story broke less than two months ago. so this is an act sell rated moment where we're not sure where to go from here in terms of account ability for elected politicians and people in hollywood. but i think every single man listening to the sound of my voice should probably reflect on how they treat women and how they've treated women in the past. this is not just a conversation for famous people. >> joe, real quickly, should al franken resign? >> i don't think he should resign. i think it's wise he should let himself be investigated. i like the fact that he apologized, wrote a personal note. that's the right thing to do. it's a start. it's the beginning of the healing process. >> zerlina, rick, joe, thank you

so much could there be a silent majority of alabamas not admitting they will not vote for moore? we have answers in the next hour.