you know what and goes on to describe that he took part in this kind of activity. there's voluminous evidence that he did so. so this is just another sign of how degraded our national conversation has become by this president. >> well, i'm glad for ours, though. jonathan, sophia, thanks so much. that is a wrap of this hour of "msnbc live." i'm alex witt. right now it is time for "a.m. joy" with my friend, joy reid. you simply cannot think that bowing a godly, a true, a trustworthy, a valiant leader on the principles of the bible -- >> he stands on the premise that when you come to take our rights, you spit in the face of god. >> you need to send the strongest message possible to the powers that be. alabama will not bow. alabama will not kiss the ring

of political hacks who have sold their souls to the devil to maintain their political power. >> good morning and welcome to "a.m. joy." one hour from now a group of alabama faith and moral leaders joined by reverend barber will come together to condemn senate candidate roy moore over multiple allegations of sexual predatory behavior toward vulnerable teenage girls when he was in his 30s, as well as a policy agenda that these faith leaders say attacks vulnerable communities. we'll talk with bishop barber later in the show. and what you'll hear from those voices on the religious left will stand in stark contrast to what we heard this week from the religious right. after evangelical leaders in alabama stood with roy moore, offering their full-throated support for a man facing mounting allegations of a pattern of trying to enter into sexual relationships with teenage girls when he was a powerful prosecutor. standing with him, even as the

list of accusers grew to nine women, going on the record to claim moore targeted them with unwanted sexual advances, including sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl and the sexual assault of a girl who was 16. those religious leaders are preaching to a choir that's largely in harmony with their support for the former alabama chief justice, who was driven out of office twice for violating his oath of office and who now seeks to replace attorney general jefferson sessions in the united states senate. half the adults in the state of alabama identify as evangelical christians and a new poll released this week from jmc analytics found that nearly 40% of self-declared alabama evangelicals say the sexual misconduct allegations against moore make them more likely to support him, not less. the support for an accused child predator appears to mark a moment of religious moral ambiguity for some conservative

evangelicals, it's entirely consistent with their politics. after all, this is the same group who overwhelmingly supported donald trump for president, even after they heard him say this. >> i'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- i just start kissing them, it's like a magnet. i don't even wait. and when you're a star, they let you do them. you can do anything. grab them by the [ bleep ]. >> joining me now, frank schaefer, author of "letter to lucy, a manifest of creative redemption in the age of trump, fascism and lies," sarah rumf and mark burnes. pastor burns, i'm going to start with you. as of now nine women have accused roy moore of sexual misconduct against them when they were children in alabama. how do you explain the continued support for him, including from self-described evangelicals in that state? >> well, joy, first of all, i'm

always happy to be here on your show. let me just say this, i have always openly condemned any type of sexual misconduct that if anyone were to be found guilty of such actions, i would believe would be unfit for office. now, reference to the victims or the alleged victims, you know, unfortunately there is no real way to identify whether they are being truthful or being coerced or they have been used as political pawns. there is no real way to identify that. i do think that they should be heard. i do think that their voice 345r matters, but i also think that the voice of roy moore matters as well. as i've stated before, it is very suspicious that this would have taken place during this time. i also note that unfortunately we are living in a society where

you are now becoming guilty until proven innocent, when that's not how america is set up. and people think -- you know, i'm here defending roy moore. i'm not defending roy moore, i'm defending due process. i'd like to believe that if you were ever accused of something that you know that you did not do, thank you would -- the people that are accusing you, you would believe people are treating you the same way that you would want to be treated if you were in that case, which is give you the benefit of the doubt. look at the people who have surrounded you who also have proven history of doing good and doing well and for the good of the people. and so that's really all we have to go on. i really like to believe that this will be played out not in the public media but be voted by the people of alabama. >> i'm quite sure i'll never be accused of preying on teenage girls. have you ever known anybody

who's bnz accused by nine different people of preying on teenage girls and been banned from a shopping mall because of a history of predatory behavior? do you know anyone ever accused of nine different people of preying on teenage girls sexually? >> let me just answer that if i can, briefly. first of all, it is proven that the gadsden mall manager said that this story of him being banned from the mall is a false story. >> i've never seen any evidence of that. >> it is 100% proved. >> have you ever heard of anyone being accused of nine women -- >> joy, let me say this. >> -- of preying on them when they were teenagers? >> you don't have to be akooufd of sexual morality. you can be accused of anything. >> no, no, no. of sexual morality, do you know of any other man that you've ever dealt with who's been accused by nine different people

or by any number of people of preying on them when they were teenage girls? you make it sound as if this is something that happens all the time. >> well, i personally have never known anybody that has been accused of sexual immorality. but the thing that i'm saying is we need to also understand, we need to be wise with due process. >> what due process could there be? >> we want all of our candidates to be morality, but morality is not the only qualification for leadership? >> oh, it's not? >> we are discovering that throughout the history of the bible, throughout the scriptures, we discover god had used so many immoral people. we love the psalms of david but also know that the same person who wrote those psalms of david was also a murderer and an adulterer. he had issue. he was a liar. >> that's interesting. >> jesus was the only perfect man that ever walked the earth.

even dr. martin luther king discovered that there could have been some possible infidelity. that did not disqualify him from leading us to the promised land and so i'm not saying that roy moore is guilty or innocent, i'm only simply saying let us listen to the facts. >> let me ask a question. hold on a second. we have three other guests. as a pastor, do you counsel your parishioners that morality is not a necessary ingredient for leadership? is that what you preach for your church? because you just said it doesn't matter. >> you have just taken what i said out of context. i did not say morality is not important. >> but immorality is not qualifying for leadership in your view? >> if that was the case, all of us would be disqualified. >> i don't think all of us have been accused of sexually molesting children. >> the bible says we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god.

i have been an immoral man. even after i was saved, i have fallen by the wayside but by the grace of jesus i'm still here. >> let me go to pastor aaron bernard and get your response to the theology just expressed. >> i'm a little surprised. it is true that the bible is filled with leaders who had flaws, but to say that morality doesn't hold as part of the standard by which we judge someone that we're going to give power to is an expression of the crisis that we're in as a nation. the thing that separates the situation with judge moore from everything else or this candidate moore from everything else is that what's being exposed are immoral social norms that have been neglected and ignored and have been responsible for the exploitation of women for a long time in our

culture. it's being uncovered. and to say that we're downgrading our values and lowering our standards so that we turn a blind eye to these things, that's a problem that has to be addressed in our society. >> and, frank schaefer, i want to go to you on this. first of all, i want to play alan keys, who is one of the people who showed up to support roy moore and get very angry with the media for bringing this up at all. this is what alan keys had to say to reporters after the event. and i believe this was women supporting roy moore was the event. here's alan keys afterwards. >> asked and answered, again and again. he could answer that question a thousand times. and if a thousand accusations were made, he could answer every one a thousand times. and you would prove yourself a liar. >> frank schaefer, you know, there were a lot of very angry supporters of roy moore there essentially accusing the media

of attacking roy moore and saying it's all lies. all these women are lying and being used by moore's opponents. i think a lot of americans are looking at what's happening in alabama with consternation. can you make sense of what's going on down there? >> well, let me broaden the framework a little bit. you know, i grew up in an evangelical home. my father, francis schaefer, became an international evangelical leader. i remember being with dad one time when billy graham was sitting down having tea with him telling dad i will never, ever endorse a candidate again because i'm so shocked at what nixon told me about his anti-semitism and profanity that he's been caught with on tapes. he was crying, he was confessing, he was asking me to pray for him. i listened to the tapes and i told him why did i ever support you. now that's billy graham with nixon. fast forward to our own era. franklin graham defending donald

trump, grabbing women by the crotch and saying, well, we all sin. i just want to tell you something. in my short lifetime of 65 years, and i'm long out of the evangelical movement and i talk about the journey in the book "letter to lucy," if i my dad and old-time evangelicals came back, or even billy graham, i knew him personally. he came to our house and would stay, his daughter and i just had breakfast down in north carolina a few months ago. he was shocked at nixon's profanity and wondered why he had supported him. look at franklin graham, look at jerry falwell jr., look at ralph reed, the movers and shakers of the politicizing of evangelicalism. let me tell you what's happened in my lifetime. evangelical white american christianity is now a revelistic religion. my dad used to always rail with relativistic situational ethics.

that was the talk back when i was a kid and he was holding forth on these issues. who is now the propagator of situational ethics? a guest on your show saying moral rectitude is not a qualification that's necessary for leadership. let me just say one other thing. there's a huge difference between the psalms, i just want to stick up for good ole king david, when he wrote them all in pen tent confession in tears for his sins asking god to forgive him, not only admitting what he had done but spending a lifetime of poetry writing about the horror that he looked back on his own failings with. that's a far cry from donald trump who said he would sue any woman who said he had done anything, denied anything or roy moore supporter even worse calling god as their kind of witness to his innocence up against nine living flesh and blood women. the evangelicals are expert at

discounting women's points of views anyway. and if you look at the literal interpretation of the bible, of st. paul telling you, and this is not a paraphrase, it's literal. women should sit down and shut up in church and not be heard from. and not just church, any situation, and be in obedience to your husband. that is the context in which these good women of alabama are standing up supporting not just roy moore but an entires so -- sociological system. during the apartheid area, you could have 20 black witnesses talking about it and none of them counted. evangelicals treat women that way, discount what they say and now are preaching moral relativism. i just want that to sink into the audience, moral relativism being preached from

evangelicals. how the world is now upside down. >> i don't want to discount the voice of the woman we have on our panel. we do have an evangelical christian woman here. how do you explain, because there are women standing there supporting roy moore, including the governor of alabama. how do you explain that to people who may be looking at that and saying what is going on here? >> well, while i am very opposed to roy moore, if i were an alabama voter, i wouldn't be voting for him, let me say that from the outset. but i am sympathetic to some degree of the situation that these christian voters find themselves in because in the situation from a conservative christian perspective, there has been a lot of -- years and years of media bias. look, there's media bias on both sides. and that makes it easy to discount news you don't like. and the media on both sides plays up on that. i mean i see all the channels pick on each other and the different slants that people take, but what we have now is roy moore's defenders are

attempting to make a lot of noise around the edges of this story and trying to draw attention away from the heart of it. the heart of it is that roy moore admits knowing a number of these women. he admits that he dated teenage girls. one of the prosecutors, a woman who worked with him during this time, has said on the record that he was known to date teenage girls. his denials of what has gone on are confusing and contradictory. as far as innocent until proven guilty, those are constitutional standards that we apply in courts of law when the government is trying to deny you life, liberty or your property. that's not what we do when we're voting. the voters of alabama are intelligent people. what i beg people to do is look at what roy moore himself has said and what he himself has admitted, what people have said on the record and you use your own judgment who is credible. these women are getting death

threats and harassment. there is no benefit to -- there's no real good benefit from coming forward and getting all of this heat on you and all of this pressure unless you feel morally compelled to tell the truth. >> yeah, indeed. >> joy -- >> give me a second, pastor. we're going to take a break. when we come back, we'll let everybody else back in. we have much more of this conversation after a quick break. my experience with usaa has been excellent. they always refer to me as master sergeant. they really appreciate the military family, and it really shows. we've got auto insurance, homeowners insurance. had an accident with a vehicle, i actually called usaa before we called the police. usaa was there hands-on very quick very prompt. i feel like we're being handled as people that actually have a genuine need. we're the webber family and we are usaa members for life. usaa, get your insurance quote today. if you can train oxford to sit...

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did you stop beating your wife? answer yes or no. i said yes or no. you don't have an answer for it because it's a logical fallacy. sir, you are a clown. >> you are to ask questions about the issues. >> they don't care about doing that. >> the issues about our country. you are not asked to ask personal questions about mr. moore. we wanted to hear what he had to say about the issues, and you did not allow it because you are the fake lying news from the swamp. >> that was the scene thursday when roy moore defenders confronted members of the media after an event where evangelical conservatives stood in support of moore. pastor a.r. bernard, sara rumpf and others are with me. >> what she said about women are now coming forth, it's more that it's the climate for it.

history is not written by the victims, it's written by the victors. history is written by those in power. but during the course of time when those who have been oppressed emerge the positions of power, like women, they begin to re-evaluate the narrative and that's what's happening. 40 years ago, women couldn't say a thing. it was a social norm in that culture to keep quiet and just turn a blind eye. here it is 30, 40 years later. women are empowered, in positions of strength and are now coming out and saying we cannot allow this to continue. i'm surprised we even have a conversation about the role of morality in leadership. how can we and me as a pastor even take on the notion that i can be in a position of leadership and have people respect me as a moral leader in a religious context when i put that aside and say, well, it's okay, i can do what i want. >> pastor burns, how do you answer that? >> i wanted to be clear as i stated in the last segment, i

did not say that morality was not important, what i said was it wasn't the only quality. leadership and faith goes along as my good friend, pastor jeffers said, it goes along with being a good leader. >> hold on just a second. one moment, hold on, hold on. i'm going to let you back in. you're not a lawyer, you're not a judge. you're not here to judge whether or not in a court of law roy moore would be found guilty after nine women accused him of sexually molesting children. we have you on because you're a pastor. what your job is in theory is to provide a moral framework for the people who go to your church and listen to you. how can you say that in your moral framework, you're not here to adjudicate the case, but you're saying that morality is not the only important thing. aren't you a moral leader? like isn't that what you're supposed to be advocating for, for moral leadership? >> joy, if an accuser came to me, and i've had them come and i've prayed with them and

ministered to them and counselled them through the process, the first step -- my first obligation is to lead my family. that's my first focus is to lead mark burns' family. second is to lead my church, my congregation. i'll say this across the board. as a pastor, as a leader, my first goal if an accuser came to me to be ministered and to be counselled is to first discover what do we need to do to start the healing process within that individual. >> roy moore isn't asking for redemption or healing, he's denying he did it. >> we're not talking about roy moore right now. we're talking about the accused because it's all connected. the fact of the matter is we need to be asking ourself, joy, between roy moore and the accusers, who is more credible, a person that has had years of experience, years of walking publicly and then these new -- >> you don't find them credible? >> these new nine women?

i'm only simply saying -- >> you're telling me that you don't find -- you find roy moore more credible than them? >> you've got to let me finish. >> you've got to be quick. we have limited time. >> as long as you're talking, i can't answer. >> do you find these women less credible than roy moore? very simple. >> i do find the fact that roy moore has served faithfully for over 40 years publicly in public office and these women had plenty of opportunity, plenty of opportunities, joy, to come out and it is suspicious when you -- and i think the great people of alabama are realizing that, which is why the majority of alabamians are still going to vote for roy moore, even the governor, even the women that stepped up and said we're still supporting roy moore, because their understanding, it is extremely suspicious that this is all coming out after he's become the candidate for -- >> we have a woman on this

panel. you can't filibuster the whole segment. sarah, you just had a pastor, pastor mark burns say these women because they're new, because no one has ever heard of them, because they're not famous and roy moore has been in public life for a very long time, including when he was a prosecutor calling the high school to get a girl out of trig class that he wanted to date. >> you say that like it's fact, joy, that's the problem. >> it's not your turn, give me a chance here. >> go, sarah. >> you can't say it like it's fact that's all i'm saying. >> these women did not come forward, "the washington post" reporters were in town after roy moore won the primary because it was a newsworthy special election in the trump era what's going to happen. that is legitimate for them to be there. they heard the rumors. they started asking people. they asked more people and asked more people and that eventually led them to people who knew women who had dated roy moore. they talked to these women. the women all said they were reluctant to come forward at

first. then when they were multiple stories, they were will to tell their stories on the record. that is why the story came out now. these women were not plotting or waiting. there's no conspiracy here. the women's and reporters' stories are all on the record and all matches up. second, the idea that we're going to discredit these women because they don't have the prominence of roy moore, that is how roy moore and harvey weinstein and bill o'reilly and all the rest of these predators have been getting away with it for so long because they were in a position of power and the women were afraid of social and professional and cultural consequences. if you look at -- >> that's not what i said. >> -- every one of these stories, roy moore is going after girls that were more vulnerable. a lot of them were from broken homes. if a man came around me when i was a teenager, it would not have gone well with his interactions with my father. >> i want to play another group of another women who were also

not known who also felt empowered to come forward after they heard other women telling their stories and these are the accusers of donald trump. >> it was at that time where he turned to me and embraced me and gave me a kiss on the lips. >> when we entered the room, he grabbed each of us tightly in a hug and kissed each one of us without asking permission. >> he then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me again very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast. >> he pushed me up against the wall and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again. >> the person on my right who unbeknownst to me at that time was donald trump put their hand up my skirt. he did touch my vagina through my underwear, absolutely. >> frank schaefer, you know, when there are this many women who don't know each other coming forward and accusing a man of sexual misconduct, one would think that just the volume of them gives credibility to each. they're being empowered by each

other to come forward. have you ever heard or known of a man who's had multiple accu accusers come forward and accuse them of sexual misconduct and they be completely innocent of it? does it make sense to you? >> no, not at all. one thing i've never heard of is a man accused by this many people, that white evangelical christians 83% of them, then go out and vote for because they have traded a lust for power and revenge on what they regard as a liberal elite for the least vistage of moral principle. i'm a man that lived in the '70s. i was a movie director of crappy movies in hollywood for four years. i lived in the movie business and so forth. you know, i have not lived a sheltered life after i left the evangelical world. even in hollywood, when someone comes forward like harvey weinstein or whatever, who makes excuses saying, well, those were

the days and that's how is was. look, i went to a boys school. those were not the days. jerks, creeps behavior like this. we have a creep for a president. and one thing that i think we just need to make very clear, what a sad day that we're sitting here on television talking together about a time of history when spiritual revival and any real sense of spirituality, decency and goodness is so far away, we are parsing the details, comparing a president who is sitting in office right now in the oval office, not even to mention the russia connection, the fact that his family is a family of scam artists with basically accusations coming out the kazoo of everything from money laundering to handing the chinese sweetheart deals because you're related to the president, forget all that. we're sitting here talking with a couple of pastors and the son of an evangelical leader about who put whose hand up some

someone's skirt on an airplane. who fondled a teenager. look, i get up every day and care for three grandchildren of mine, ages 9, 7 and 3. they are my heart, all right. i am trying to send them into a world that is so bankrupt in our country now of spiritual value and morality that i despair. that's the real essence of where we are today. despair at what's happened. >> all right. well, unfortunately i am out of time. i wish i had more time. thank you to pastor a.r. bernard, frank schaefer, sarah rumpf, pastor mark burns. appreciate you coming. coming up, much more on the alabama senate race. stay with us.

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accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger

who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it. when we come back, we weigh the democrats' chances of prevailing in the alabama senate race. stay with us.

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number one, these allegations are credible. >> i have no reason to doubt these young women. >> i believe the women, yes. >> there are now nine women who have gone on the record to claim alabama senate candidate roy moore targeted them with unwanted sexual advances, actions that 51 republican senators have either denounced or partially criticized. only senator rand paul of kentucky has yet to offer public comment. much like the nation's tauop republican, donald trump, who avoided whether senator moore should drop out but was quick to comment on senator al franken. one year after the infamous "access hollywood" tape of trump, bragging about kissing

women out their consent and groping them. unlike trump, alabama's republican party put out a statement thursday that the party, quote, supports judge roy moore as our nominee, unquote. joining me now jen kearns, cornell belcher, author of "a black man in the white house" and jimmy williams, post of the podcast decode d.c. thank you, all. i'm going to come to jen first, my friend here at the table. the polling has been all over the place. the real clear politics average has doug jones squeakily up like 0.2 over roy moore. there's a fox news poll that has a wider margin for jones up eight. do you believe those polls? >> no, i don't. i think a lot of people don't believe the polls anymore, especially after the 2016 elections that showed hillary clinton was leading up until the night of the election when she wasn't anymore. >> half the day of the election too. >> that's right. i think this is part of this culture of what trump calls the fake news and fake polls.

i think people are very distrustful, whether it's of the gop establishment, on the democrat side people are a little skeptical -- on the democratic side also that struggle between the establishment and the grassroots and people are a little distrustful of pollsters. so this particular race has been quite interesting. you have about a ten-point spread. you've had roy moore up about ten points in some polls. you have had them neck in neck in some other polls and now you see jones actually pulling ahead slightly. so this will be interesting. this is what makes this race so interesting in addition to these recent allegations. i really do believe it's anyone's race at this point. >> it's interesting. so, jimmy, you've had the national republican senatorial committee drop roy moore. a republican poll showed moore 12 points down. you've had the rnc cut roy moore off, according to politico on thursday acti

thursday, and say they're actually done. so i guess it's not surprising that roy moore's response has been to essentially run against the republican establishment. in a lot of ways even more than he's running against doug jones, his opponent. does that surprise you and do you think it will work? >> well, he was running against the republican establishment before that when he did have boots on the ground. rnc staffers were on the ground in alabama. they had a joint fund-raising pac agreement with roy moore, despite the fact that they are the establishment and who basically controls the funding for that? mitch mcconnell. who has roy moore been railing against and at his last presser railed against? mitch mcconnell. who is steve bannon railing against? mitch mcconnell. so this idea that the republican establishment wasn't with him, they were beyond with him despite roy moore railing against them. now that they're not, what is roy moore doing? he is digging in deeper. and he doesn't care. he is not holding fund-raisers, he is not holding actual press

conferences. he is just speaking before religious leaders and staying within the comfort -- the comfortable confines of a religious community down there. i get that, makes sense. what that means for election day, i have absolutely no idea and i agree with who came before me. i don't predict anymore, especially after 2016. i wouldn't be surprised by either outcome, i really wouldn't at this point. but december 12th is a long time away and a lot can happen between now and then. that's for sure. >> come on, jimmy williams, you correctly predicted georgia 6 when all the democrats were enthusiastic. i'm going to come back and let you think about whether you want to walk away from predictions. cornell, i'm going to come to you. the other thing that you've seen on the roy moore side, and we don't really know who this is from, but this is a robo call that's being used ostensibly in support of roy moore and it is a very strange tact. it's somebody impersonating a

"washington post" reporter. >> hi, this is bernie bern stiem, i'm a reporter for "the washington post." calling to find out if anyone at this address is a female between the ages of 54 to 57 years old willing to make damaging remarks about candidate roy moore for a reward of between $5,000 and $7,000. we will not be fully investigated get these claims, however, we will make a written report. >> bernie bernstein? cornell -- >> that kind of drips of anti-semitism and sort of the outsiders and the yankee piece. it's really sort of trying to muddy the waters and say, look, and throw us off the scent of this thing, right. i've got to go back a couple things. one is talking about polling and why this race is so hard to predict. as a pollster i have to talk about this, joy, i'm sorry. the truth of the matter is, most of the national polling around the hillary clinton and donald trump race actually wasn't

wrong. the two-way was wrong. most of the national polling she was at 47%, 48%. in the end that's where she was. our narrative around the race was wrong. the polling all over was not wrong. it was better than it was in 2012 when i was working for obama public polling. now, what makes it so difficult, joy, is what we saw in virginia and that's what's happening across the country with democratic enthusiasm. look, we had a great democratic ticket in virginia. the governor there, our nominee there, got more votes than anyone in modern history. he was a great guy but there's something else going on, right. you see this movement, this organic grassroots movement which makes polling models very difficult. you had african-americans performing in virginia at presidential year rates. in no one's model did they have that. that's where you get some issues with the polling.

right now in alabama, it's a difficult place to poll because who's going to turn out. >> right. >> do you have republicans suppression, their turnout drops down because of what's happening or do you have it in fact evangelicals go up because of what's happening and do you have african-americans who don't -- typically don't participate at really high rates in alabama because it's such a -- it's not a swing state at all, right? >> yeah. >> do you have them turning out at higher rates and that changes the dynamics. i wouldn't be surprised at all if the race is close and polling is all over the place, because it depends on who in fact you think the electorate is going, to and we don't know who the electorate is going to be. >> really quick lightning rounding of i'm going to make you guys give me a prediction. who do you think wins this race, jen? >> i think it is roy moore's to win given the demographics of alabama. i will say this, we do know that gloria allred, her specialty is bringing up october surprises. in this case it's a november

surprise. i'm from california, i've seen this happen in the case of 2003 then candidate governor schwarzenegger was accused of some of the same things. >> but you believe these women, right? >> look, i believe these are very troubling. i'm going to echo what dianne feinstein the democratic senator said, which is in that case it was up to the voters of california she said on the "today" show. look, i believe the best place for this to be adjudicated is in a court of law, not in the court of public opinion. at a political conference, which is what gloria allred is infamous for. >> you gave me your opinion. jimmy williams, predict. >> first of all, the statute of limitations in alabama is over, so this will be adjudicated but not in a court of law and it will be adjudicated by voters. i think the voters will pick roy moore. >> they can still file civil court. >> here we go. we've got you guys for a legal segment another time. cornell. >> low turnout election for republicans.

doug wins it by a hair. >> wow. we've got one outlier. this is going to be very interesting. i'm going to have you guys all back to see if you were right now that i forced you to give predictions, thank you all for being here, appreciate you. coming up in our next hour, donald trump's tax increase on the middle class and jared kushner's failing memory. more "a.m. joy" after the break. plan or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

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just moments from now, alabama faith leaders will call upon the state's voters to reject senate candidate roy moore. among them, my next guest, bishop wipitc bishop barber. i'm wondering if you had a chance to hear what some of the evangelical christian supporters of roy moore were saying yesterday, essentially accusing the media of telling lies and attacking him. what is your response to that? >> thank you, joy. i've come here by invitation. we were actually here anyway for the poor people's campaign planning. faith leaders here are really concerns that when conversations

about evangelicals, we keep hearing from people who claim to be evangelical but are more extreme religionists. i heard them say stay out of his personal business and talk about the issues. well, let's talk about the issues. there are over 900,000 people who are poor in alabama. nothing that roy moore has done in his candidacy has been to help the poor. he actually supports a tax reform that will hurt the poor. let's talk about his record. he's been wrong on one of the segregation laws on the books. he has supported programs that would hurt children, that would take health care from families. he's been on the wrong side of treating immigrants proper and treating lgbt community proper. his positions don't line up with true orthodox evangelicalism. we have to challenge that. your audience will see white ministers standing with back ministers, people who are

evangelicals, but normally they would not call themselves evangelical in the sense of white evangelical. they would call themselves christian. to be a christian means you care for the poor, the prbroken, the immigrant, the stranger and those on the margin. >> you wrote a piece. you called it the unbearable hypocrisy of roy moore's christian rhetoric. do you feel that those who, as you just said, are calling themselves evangelicals -- we just had pastor mark burns on who said that even as a moral leader, sort of moral perfection is not a fundamentally necessary quality in a leader, citing others who have had flaws in the past. do you think that is correct theology. >> no, it isn't. perfection is not. we all stand under grace. we all have our flaws.

but that's not what we're talking about here. it's amazing how those who say that now, then they turn and and want to be the very people in people's personal lives, want to be the very people who criticize people. i wonder if obama, for instance, had told one of the laws that trump has told, where they would be standing. the scripture is very clear about politics. jesus, his first sermon said to be truly evangelical is to be concerned about the poor and the broken and the hurting. roy moore has not done that and he's simply trying to hold this christian viewpoint, but it is not christianity. it is an extreme form of religionism and we must challenge it. up next, the republican plan to take money out of your pocket.

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this is nothing short of extraordinary. getting 227 members to agree on something as complicate d. this country has not rewritten its tax code since 1986. the powers of the status quo in this town are so strong. yet 227 men and women of this congress broke through that today. paul ryan inched closer to

his long time dream of reshaping the federal government in the image of an ayn rand novel. it was the house's most significant vote since the obamacare repeal in may, which ultimately failed in senate. >> this is about giving hard working taxpayers bigger paychecks. this is about giving those families who are struggling peace of mind. it's about getting this economy to grow faster so we get bigger wages, more jobs and we put america in the droiiver's seat the global economy once again. >> whether it's the house's version or the snaenate version what the tax plan is about is taking money from the poor to give to the richest. the tax would raise taxes in most households making 10,000 to 70,000 a year over the next

decade. those making more than 100,000 a year would continue to see their taxes reduced. the bill would repeal the obamacare mandate requiring everyone to have health insurance. eliminating that mandate would lead to 13 million fewer americans having health insurance. also republicans can use the savings from lower spending on health care for things like corporate tax cuts, which the republican plan makes permanent. unlike the middle class tax cuts, which would be temporary. it benefits .2% of the richest households in america and even a tax break for the owners of private jets, all paid for by tax increases on working class americans. joining me is bruce bartlett. bruce, we were on lawrence o'donnell's show the other night when he said this was the most draconian tax increase on ordinary americans and the biggest tax cut on the rich ever in history. do you agree with that

assessment? >> that's exactly correct. certainly there have been large tax increases on everyday americans, especially during world war ii. but at the same time taxes were increased even more on the waem thin -- wealthy. there's never been a tax cut in american history in which taxes were raised on the poor to benefit the wealthy. in fact, i don't know of any other country that has done anything remotely like this. >> is there any economic justification for permanently lowering the corporate tax rate and increasing taxes on low income americans? is there any economic justification for it? >> there's a perfectly good justification for fixing the corporate side of the tax code, but it absolutely must be done in a revenue neutral manner by getting rid of corporate tax loopholes not by raising taxes on individuals.

this is perverse. it's insane. for the life of me, i don't understand why people aren't marching in the streets against this thing. >> i want to talk about deficits. it used to be that republicans care ad a lot about deficits. there's been independent studies on what this tax plan does to the deficit. it shows that it actually red e reduces revenues by $1.5-1.7 trillion. and adds 1.4 trillion dollar to the deficit by 2027. >> right now we have the highest corporate tax on effort, generating almost no revenue because people avoid the tax by moving factories to ireland. if we fix that and make the u.s. an attractive place again that is going to employee a hole in the deficit, it's just not economically rational. >> what do you make of what he

said? >> kevin's a friend of mine, so i won't call him a liar to his face, but this is all total b.s. it's made up out of whole cloth. like i said, for one thing, he's lying when he says we have the highest corporate tax rate, because he's looking only at the statutory rate. the effective rate once you take into account tax exemptions and so on that corporations have, is about average for other countries of our size. and he's still insisting that the day we cut the corporate tax rate, you know, wages are going to suddenly jump up, when there's absolutely no historical evidence whatsoever that will happen. we cut the corporate tax rate by 12 percentage points in 1986. does anybody remember a big pay raise in 1987 or 1988? no. because wages, in fact, fell. i'm not saying there's a cause

and effect relationship, but the argument kevin is making is just full of holes. >> you were working in republican politics and administrations when trickle down economics was it for the republican party. >> the argument that was made back in 1981 was that we needed to increase the production of goods and services because we had high inflation. but the idea that you would get any benefit whatsoever because of rich people going out and buying second and third yachts is just ludicrous. besides, it would be morally abhorrent if that were the case. the people who are most likely to spend are people living from hand to mouth. namely, the poor and the middle class, who need every penny they get and will immediately go out and spend it. rich people are just going to save the money and that's not

even going to do any good because interest rates are already rock bottom. >> stay with us. i want to add into our discussion our panel. tara, you're a small business owner. if you were to receive an enormous corporate tax cut, would that immediately spur you to hire more people and raise the wages of those you're already employing? >> two things, joy. i am not going to receive a big tax cut because i'm a small business owner. actually my tax wills go up under the house and senate plan. so that's number one. and many small business owners across this country will see their taxes increase. that's something that's not getting enough attention. particularly given the fact that small business owners are where the job creation occurs. we are the job creators, not the large corporations who are getting the tax cuts. also, the major myth is that if

you give a company a tax cut, they're going to go out and hire people. that's just false. people hire for demand. i am not going to hire if i don't have a reason to hire someone. this is a major myth. it's a huge lie. companies that are larger, on average in the best economies shed jobs because they get to a point where there's diminishing returns and they no longer grow and no longer need to actually hire people. and that's a kaufman foundation research that speaks to that. >> whmeanwhile because of what these taxes would do to the deficit the cbo has sent a letter explaining how the rules, the pay-go rules in congress would trigger medicare cuts if, in fact, this tax bill was passed. they said without enacting subsequent legislation to offset

this -- the pay go law limit reductions to medicare, meaning if this goes through, congress is going to have to cut into medicare. >> yes. that's exactly right. it's remarkable there's no cry over this deficit increase that we just were talking about. you can rest assured that if this goes through, that will then start and then there will be a great demand, not only for the sequestration to take effect and the ut ccuts to medicare. i think even the social security program would be back on the table for ways to reduce spending or that program entirely. this is, joy, in essence a movement toward the complete corporate takeover of this country. one of the things that just this past week was reported on was

the fact that the next nomination for the appointee for hhs secretary is come straight out of the pharmaceutical industry. not only that, but he has been treasurer of an organization that has been advocating the complete privatization of medicare for many years. this is just part of that total piece. >> it does seem that people are catching onto what happens. this bill actually raises tuition on graduate students. right now there's a rule that allows graduate students to w s waive the grants they get. this bill would force them to count it. it would essentially make it more expensive to go to school for people who are not rich. the american people have figured this out. quinnipiac has found that the republican tax plan, 35% of people believe it will raise their taxes. only 16% think it would reduce

their taxes. you're on the activism side of this equation. is there going to be the same cry against this tax cut for the rich that would include medicare and likely medicaid cuts? >> yes, i truly believe that. because the moment on the senate side they added the repeal or the taking away of vital parts of aca, they made this bill which was already unpopular. the only thing that's more unpopular than this was trumpcare. the reason why is because both of those bills really hurt everyday people, the vast majority of people. not only is this going to hurt people who want to pay for their children to go to college, but also mortgage deduction. it takes that away. child tax credit, takes that away. this is a piece of legislation that is truly, just when you think that republicans can't go

any lower, they found a way to do that. it is immoral and shame fuful w they're trying to do here for a small percentage of americans, the rich, the wealthy, corporations. that's all this does. it's going to give 1.5 to the deficit. this is paul ryan's kind of been salivating over this to really go after entitlements, to cut medicare, to even go after social security. that's the other component of this too. all for what? for their donors, so they can make sure their donors get a tax break and regular people get nothing. >> rick mulvaney believes that social security disability benefits are welfare. they want to cut that too. part of why republicans, even though they know this is unpopular, if they're in a blue

state -- or even states like georgia are going to see huge tax increase because of them getting rid of the deductibility of state income taxes. there is this tax pledge. you talk about this, that republicans take this pledge to oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax for individuals and businesses to oppose any net reduction in credits. how does that pledge impact the behavior of republicans? >> well, the plan, which was devised by my friend nor quistis to ratchet down the size of government until it's small enough to drown it in a bathtub. those are his words. you've got a system here where they are intentionally increasing the budget deficit by 1.5 trillion and then pretending there are no offsetting effects. the minute the ink is dry on

this legislation, you're going to see not only the automatic cuts that you already talked about, but there are $4 trillion of cuts to medicare and social security in the republican budget. they're going to suddenly notice the deficit is a problem. but they will not under any circumstances undo the tax cut that caused the deficit to increase because the pledge makes it impossible for them to do so. therefore, all of the reduction in the deficit will come from spending. >> indeed. do you think this thing is going to pass? >> i hope not. i think as bruce said, there should be people marching in the street because this is so bad for middle class americans and people who are of low income. let's hope not. let's hope we may be saved by people like susan collins and a few others who see the impact this will have on real

americans. coming up, the bishop william barber joins alabama faith leaders to call for voters there to reject roy moore. you're looking at live pictures of atlanta. we will be bringing you that shortly. later the property thickens for jared kushner. so the the broom said, "sorry i'm late. i over-swept." [ laughter ] yes, even the awkward among us deserve some laughter. and while it's okay to nibble in public, a lady only dines in private. try the name your price tool from progressive. it gives you options based on your budget. uh-oh. discussing finances is a big no-no. what, i'm helping her save money! shh! men are talking. that's it, i'm out. taking the meatballs. and my brother ray and i started searching for answers. (vo) when it's time to navigate in-home care, follow that bright star.

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what is happening right now in alabama matters for the soul of the nation.

just like the march across the pet t pettis bridge mattered. some want us to stay out of alabama, but the good people of alabama have invited people to come. let me just say for the record, money from all over the country isn't staying out of alabama. we're coming into alabama, we other joining brothers and sisters in alabama. our word to anyone is anyone who has any influence must help blacks, progressive whites, latinos, gay, straight, christian, muslims, jews and all who want to move our country forward. get out and vote like you have never voted before. this is no time to retreat. >> that is bishop william barber speaking in birmingham alabama right now with a gathering of faith leaders in opposition to roy moore. there's another candidate in the race, democrat doug jones.

who in a normal moral universe would be considered an american hero. he was a child when the church in birmingham was bombed, killing four black preteen girls between 11-14, a crime that galvanized the civil rights movement. it was jones who brought charges against two of the klu klux klan members responsible for that m booing and won convictions against them in 2010 and too. jones wrote, i may have the honor of serving alabama as your senator, but the most important thing i have done is prosecutoring those clansmen. in a normal moral universe, he would be a shoo-in. but in this universe, he's in a tight race with a man who was allegedly banned from a mall for

terrorizing teenage girls. it is strange that a place like alabama would not hold up doug jones is kind of a beacon. does it confound you that he is still struggling to get a lead against someone like roy moore? >> let me be clear. racism is not just in the south. it is in every state in this country. >> absolutely. >> this country was founded on the backbone of racism and will continue to, sadly, for a long time to come. secondly, look, this is going to be about turnout. this is going to be in 2017 in a special election in a southern state with a little known candidate with the word democrat behind his name and a very well-known candidate who is not only in the media in alabama and birmingham and mobile, but all over the country. and that's going to galvanize his people. they're going to come out for him. his base is not under any

circumstances going to let this go. now, the question is -- and this takes me back to tuesday of last week -- what will democrats, independent minded people and republicans who are fed up with this do about it? and will they turn out? i was in birmingham, alabama, about a month ago, month and a half ago. there's a place in birmingham that is a very wealthy, all white, mountainbrook. it's beautiful. it's stunning. lots of old mansions. i didn't see a single roy moore yard sign. all i saw were doug jones yard signs. let me be really clear. these are republican voters. >> right. >> i don't think that's a prediction, but i can tell you that if, in fact, doug jones can win this race, it's going to be because democrats, yes, did show up, but a lot of republicans who are not of the evangelical nature who don't bury their hands into christian sand every

day who show up and vote for the democrat. unlike the state's sitting governor, because she can't imagine the idea of a democrat running or winning a senate seat or any other seat for that matter. but i think there's a bigger problem here, which is sexual molestation doesn't know political parties. i think both parties should take a hard long inner look at what they're doing about it. democrats should do better than republicans when it comes to this and force their own members to pony up and be forthright and do the right thing. republicans, they're just going to go out and vote for this guy because he's got an r by his name and he's a christian. that tells you everything you need to know about the two political parties. >> the governor of alabama talked about the fact she believes -- it is very true what similar knee wi

jimmy williams said, that the south does not have a lock on history. but it does have a peculiar relationship with voters. has the democratic party done enough to try to galvanize and create more voters essentially on their side in a state like alabama? >> i think they need to do a lot more, joy. alabama is an interesting state. the african-american majority is there for democrats, but we have to go out and get them. we have to do voter registration. we have to inspire them and let them know that we are here for them and that we are here for their interests in order for them to come out and vote. the thing about doug jones is, like you said in normal times he would be a hero. he prosecuted klansmen when no one else was. he has made this race competitive even before we found out that roy moore was a pedophile. before all this news broke out

about roy moore, he was a bigot and a racist. roy moore was not having an easy time of it already. and we're talking about an alabama senate race that doug jones was able to make competitive. and he is a great candidate. he is passionate and he has to figure out -- and i think he is -- how to get that african-american majority out there. and that's going to be really key and important in this race. >> by the way, i just want to remind you that what we're looking at is faith leaders from alabama joined by a friend of the show bishop william barber speaking out against roy moore. i want to play for you the governor of alabama talking about this dichotomy that we've spoken about today on the show of believing the women and yet still standing behind roy moore because of politics. take a listen. >> i will cast my ballot on

december 12th. i do believe that the nominee of the party is the one i ole vote for. i believe in the republican party and what we stand for. and most important, we need to have a republican in the united states senate. >> do you believe any of the women that have brought akizations against roy moore? >> i certainly have no reason to disbelieve any of them. the timing is a little curious, but at the same time i have no reason to disbelieve them. there is never an excuse for or rationale for sexual misconduct or sexual abuse. it bothers me. but at the same time, the united states senate needs to have, in my opinion, a majority of republican votes. >> tara, you do political strategy for a living. how do you combat that? if she's saying it bothers her, what she's hearing about roy moore but she is voting for him anyway. >> that's just stunning. one of the things that's not

getting enough attention is the fact that the right has been primed for decades to believe they are at war with democrats, at war with liberals. so for a lot of people on the right -- and i think her sentiments really embody this dynamic. a lot of people on the right believe that there's nothing worse than the democrat, like there's no crime worse than being a democrat. demand's come from talk radio, cable news, all this messaging, ads. it's been done over decades. it's been done effectively. and i think what you see is how effectively that's been done. that's something that democrats have to recognize. it's just going to be a barrier that i think is not going to be overcome any time soon if we're ever going to overcome it. where doug jones has an opportunity is that if he gets 35% of the white vote and a huge black turnout he will win this election and that's where the focus should be. >> it ama's amazing a few decad

ago it was literally the opposite. all the african-americans were republicans, the white voters were democrats. history and politics are fascina fascinating. up next, a potential problem for michael flynn, another one. coming up tomorrow, the creator of the broadway sensation "hamilton." lin-manuel miranda joins me live to talk about puerto rico, still struggling after two months. mike and i are both veterans, both served in the navy. i do outrank my husband, not just being in the military, but at home. she thinks she's the boss. she only had me by one grade. we bought our first home together in 2010.

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the president this morning is basking in praise for doing nothing. retweeting gratitude after trump reversed course and said he would not allow the importation of elephant hunting trophies, at least for now. just to recap, trump is taking credit for not trying to destroy one more piece of the obama leg sle legacy. constipated?

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this week the russia-gate story dove deeper into the mission impossible genre. when we learned that a turkish iranian gold trader was quietly removed from prison and is cooperating with federal prosecutors. the man is close to turkish president erdogan. legal expergts say prosecutors

may be seeking cooperation. they are investigating whether erdogan offered flynn $15 million to kidnap a man. let's bring in paul butler. explain to us who is this gold trader and how does he relate to michael flynn? >> sure. he was born in iran but grew up in turkey. he essentially made a lot of money helping turkey and iran evade sanctions with the blessing of senior turkish and iranian officials. that's really the key to this case. normally turkey might not care about some random citizen. but the case was at the core of the turkish scandascandal.

they found prescribes abribes a corruption. that's why erdogan is keen on having him released and that's why he may have talked to michael flynn about a way to make that happen. >> i guess the idea is for him to be able to get out of conf e confineme confinement, the idea is that he was cooking up a scheme with michael flynn to kidnap another guy. >> it's a crazy scheme. the story is just as crazy. this guy was fighting tooth and nail. he hired rudy giuliani to go talk to the turkish government about how to broker a diplomatic deal that would allow him to skip out of jail and not actually go on trial. and now last week we learned that during that december meeting in which they talked at the $15 million kidnapping plot for a turkish clerk isish cler

pennsylvania. >> he actually runs a bunch of charter schools. he lives in the poconos but he's a cleric with a movement in turkey. and erdogan thinks he plotted the coup against him. >> it's a very complicated story. erdogan and gulan were allies, then they had a falling out. since then everything that goes wrong is automatically his fault. the turkish state run media was blaming the case saying they were in cahoots. >> rudy giuliani. let's listen to the congresswoman from california. she's actually questioning jeff sessions, our attorney general, on tuesday during the house oversight hearing about flynn and this case. >> did you know that flynn was working for the turkish

government while acting as a r surrogate for the trump campaign. >> i don't believe i had information to that effect. >> did you know he was working for the turkish government at any point after the election? >> i don't believe so. >> i'm going to come to you on this, paul. jeff sessions was the leader of the trump transition team. he's claiming he had no knowledge of flynn possibly being on the payroll of the turkish government to kidnap a u.s. resident, send him back to turkey and cutting this deal where this person may actually be talking to the fbi. is jeff sessions in any trouble over the flynn case? and how much trouble? >> sessions answered his questions at the hearing in a very lawyerly way. in a way that makes people not like lawyers because it seems like he's evasive. he's not fully answering the question. michael flynn -- i'm thinking about valentine's day this year, president trump met with then fbi director comey and said can you see your way clear to giving

michael flynn a break. joy, if president trump knew then what we all know now, that flynn was a double agent, that at the time that he was in consideration to be the national security director, that he was also talking about kidnapping the guy for $15 million, then that's president trump's exposure. we've been thinking about obstruction of justice. but if he's trying to thwart an investigation about whether someone's a double agent at time he's working for the government, i haven't talked about treason before but we're getting close to that. >> jeff sessions was the head of their national security advisory team. it was chris christie and mike pence who were head of the transition. everyone is pleading ignorance. >> again, they're either ignorant or willfully dishonest. either way president trump has placed the american people in an untenable position. we can keep an attorney general who has a loose relationship with the truth or we can get rid of him and open the door to

trump selecting a new attorney general who will stop the russia investigation. >> she's continuing to question jeff sessions in this house oversight hearing about the sort of really insane flynn potential plot. take a listen. >> you did not know that the fbi was requested to conduct a new review of turkey's 2016 extradition request for mr. gulan? >> the fbi was -- >> did you know about that? >> i'm aware that the turkish government continued to press the federal government with regard to seeking the return of mr. gulan to turkey. >> did you know -- >> our department had a role to play in that, although i'm not

at liberty to discuss the details of that. >> will jeff sessions be able to hide behind not being at liberty to discuss details when it comes to what he knew and when he knew it regarding michael flynn's activities once he became national security adviser? >> that depends on how hard congress pushes to get the information. he's obviously not answering her question. and when he does answer the questions, he is not answering truthfully. we have a lot of undisclosed foreign agents running all over washington infiltrating our government. this is why we had the act of 1938. it was a threat to our national security. this is a threat to our national security today. the justice department is tolerating it. jeff sessions last night at the federal society dinner was cracking jokes about the russians. he thinks it's funny.

it's not funny and this does amount to treason. we cannot tolerate it. we've got to sort this out fast. >> you referenced those jokes. this is jeff sessions at the federalist society in a speech just yesterday. this is jeff sessions telling jokes. >> but i just was thinking, you know, i should -- is ambassador kislyak in the room? [ laughter ]. >> before i get started here -- any russians? [ laughter ] [ applause ]. >> anybody been to russia? [ laughter ]. >> got a cousin in russia or

something. >> jill sh you wei'm asking you in the water gate administration. do you recall any members of the nixon investigation finding that to be funny? >> no, i don't. i don't think this was particularly funny either, because it's nothing to be laughing about. i think the more important question is what did the president know and when did he know it. that was a watergate question of great importance. and here it is too, because if the president likely knew about the investigation into the turkish connections of flynn, whether he knew about the kidnapping potential of gulan or just the fact that he had an unregistered foreign agent working on his national security team is a very important question and could change the dynamics of the or instructibst justice into a potentially

treasonous investigation. >> we will see where this goes. up next, jared kushner on the hot seat again.

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were raised in march, i have been consistent in saying that i was eager to share any information i have with the investigating bodies and i have done so today. the record and documents i have voluntarily provided will show that all of my actions were proper and occurred in the normal course of events of a very unique campaign. >> jared kushner's assurances that he is complying with the senate judiciary committee's russia investigation are coming into question again. a letter was written to kushner's lawyer saying that he failed to turn over an e-mail about a russian back door overture and dinner invite. sources tell nbc news the invite involved a putin linked banker with ties to organized crime and that kushner rebuffed the request. kushner also failed to hand over an e-mail about contact with

wikileaks in 2016. let's talk wikileaks for a second. you have wikileaks reaching out to donald trump jr. in this secret they're doing is counselling donald trump to dispute the results of the election, saying hey, you should release these e-mails in a certain way and donald trump jr. is open at certain points to these overtures. what does this tell us about wikileaks? >> well, you know, wikileaks has always been in my estimation a laundromat for russian intelligence. we've said this from the first days that they started releasing things. it's one thing to get that information from the russians and go out and use yourselves as a conconduit, but to feel so confident that the white house is on your side, that you would actually now open a second front and directly communicate with them in order to further channelize the information that you're using that was stolen and

to get that team, you know, essentially to act as your surrogate. i mean julian assange is bold, but now when you see this, you're going to be talking about the trump campaign is not just complicit in these activities, but they're in active communications and actively working with them. granted, they didn't say everything and come back all time, but you started seeing effects. julian assange would send an e-mail. but what he asked for would come into play in the campaign. >> absolutely. even down to the fact, sara, that these direct messages which don jr. released himself, he went ahead and released his correspondence the times he responded. but even when he didn't reply back, he would sometimes do it. wikileaks said, hey, you should let us release your correspondence and instead he just released them himself. so it did seem in certain instances he was responding to the instructions or the suggestions even if he wasn't responding to them.

wikileaks has gotten away for quite some time with presenting itself as a transparency organization. in your view, was it ever or did it change into something else over time? >> maybe in the very beginning there were people involved with wikileaks who did see it as an organization that was trying to bring radical transparency to governments. but it was always in balance, it always focused on more free governments. the more closed a government was, the less likely it was to be targeted by wikileaks and that includes governments like russia. i think over time we've seen people move away from wikileaks. people who worked with assange no longer wanted to work for him once it became clear that this was at best politically motivated trolling that backed authoritarian regimes and white supremacists and at worst a front for russian intelligence. so that's what i believe it is now. i think that that became clear over the course of the campaign. of course it's clear that they were backing donald trump and trying to help him win in part

to benefit the russian government. >> and in part even with the wikileaks back door communications suggesting, hey, maybe if he wins, donald trump should suggest julian assange should be the ambassador for the u.s. to australia. >> to send a shot across the bow of the government of australia. saying wikileaks has worked for me, has facilitated the trump campaign. we want you to know where wikileaks stands. you know, that's very bold. but you have to understand, julian assange, let's take the perception that he's operating as a junior spy for russian intelligence. he now knows that that information based on the hundred and some ought -- 140 some times donald trump said wikileaks, i love wikileaks, he saw himself as a power player in the white house's machinations in this election. once they were elected there, he saw himself as technically a virtual ambassador of information. we're seeing all these things

play together. when we talk about donald trump jr. you're going to find out this plays even deeper. >> because the contacts with donald trump jr. were obviously direct. let's talk a little bit about jared kushner. an e-mail chain described alexander torshun who's close to vladimir putin as wanting trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a national rifle association convention in louisville, kentucky, in may of 2016. the e-mail also suggests torshin was seeking to meet with high-level campaign officials and may have had a message for trump from putin. so this is really directly attempting to contact members of the trump family right up until the convention. what do you make of that? >> that's not surprising because they already had contact with torshin. this is somebody that's been in their social circle for a long time, in terms of their business ties in real estate and campaign ties. trump met with torshin at an nra convention in 2015 and then he

met with donald trump jr. in 2016. kushner's lawyer responded saying, oh, we don't necessarily know anything about this guy. jared took a pass on him. that's very doubtful that jared did not know about this, because he's been running in these circles with ivanka, these oligarchs, these russian billionaires. you know, they have been in collaboration for a very long time. a time that precedes the campaign. i really doubt the credibility of that statement. >> it's hard to say you don't know about e-mails when you're forwarding them. malcolm, sarah, you're all stars. thank you very much. and that is our show for today. there's more "a.m. joy" tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern live from washington, d.c. lin-manuel miranda will join me ahead of the unity march for puerto rico. you do not want to miss it. stay right here. my experience with usaa has been excellent.

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that is our show for today. thank you for joining us. "a.m. joy" returns tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern. and now alex witt who is not throwing away her shot. >> we are total hamilton geeks. >> a little bit. >> i cannot wait for tomorrow. >> so excited. >> joy reid, thank you so much. a good day to all of you. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. high noon just about here in the east, 9:00 a.m. out of the west. here's what's happening. the plot thickens. a senate panel says jared kushner failed to turn over e-mails involving wikileaks and an offer to contact someone in

russia. roy moore fallout. dueling sides with public events today. the women supporting him also speak out. some of the things they say about his accusers may shock you. >> in your writings, you say that research led you to ask whether or not moscow was blackmailing president trump. what made you suspicious of that? >> and the answer ahead. the reaction of that portion of my interview with the author of a new book about russia, alleged trump campaign collusion and spies. and the tax cut clash on capitol hill. will a bill reach the president's desk before christmas? all that is next. a heated battle going between supporters and opponents of embattled alabama senate candidate roy moore. just last hour in birmingham, reverend william barber led a contingent of clergy to stand against moore. meanwhile moore's wife and a group of women held a rally yesterday to condemn his accusers. maya rodriguez is in birmingha