"morning joe" that's right right now. >> if he can show he did not commit obstruction of justice, he can complete his tomorrows, there are serious allegations that occurred. in america they believe no one is above the law t. president has gotten himself into this fix that is very serious. >> 18 years ago, a u.s. senator by the name of jeff connections thought it was possible for a president to commit obstruction of justice today. >> you know, i think, actually, if you look, it's what separates democracies from dictatorships. >> right. >> no man or woman are considered to be above the la. >> thank god for then senator sessions. >> we have an attorney general who understands that in america, no one or woman is above the law, even the president of the united states can obstruct justice.

>> i'm just thinking maybe jeff sessions is saying something different today. i don't know. >> no, i'm sure he's not it is interesting you look and see at the desperation. you can't say the far right. they used to be people thatped small, museum limited government. it's what used to be considered far right. now it's just the trumpests. >> and his lawyers. >> and people that work for him. what they're trying to spin around right now is crazy. they're obsessed with hillary clinton,b who lost the election over a year ago and they're doing everything they can to distract from the fact that they've got a president in donald trump who had mitted to obstruction of justice over the weekend and the entire republican political party apparatus is lining up behind someone who is, has been accused

of being a predator towards children and so they're trying to distract. it's, you know, james carvel always come on and any time you tried to talk about the clinton, he'd go, look at the bird over there look at the bird over there, he'd do anything, oh, joe, that's so funny, yeah, he had a gun over there, what about that bird over there that got blood on its wing, everybody would look at the bird, he'd distract the rest of the world from what was happening with the clintons. now you got the trump people. their version of it is, did you. doug, higry. that's their version, they really are expecting people to be distracted from the fact that the president of the united states this weekend he admitted to obstruction of justice and then john dowd, no, i wrote that. the president o'would have the law. >> he took the oath. >> richard nixon talking to david frost saying because i did it, it's not violating the law.

>> to talk about this today. shh. with us on set. >> i just started. >> we have strategist and political competenttator susan dell persio and professor at the university of michigan owe glow he's a professor, my friends. >> harold ford jr. and in walk, white house reporter for "usa today" heidi pryzbilla and willie, joe and me. continue. it's like a movie, a movie from 1950. >> can i tell you about one of the -- >> a comedy in mime. >> one of the most unintentional things that happens. did you see kellyanne conway, i was with the president, when he walked on mars. i was with the -- so yesterday, she goes on the air and says, i was with the president all day and i know that he did not tweet

that, himself. she doesn't understand that special counsel is going to be able to find out if john dowd was e-mailing, if he was texting, if he was calling before the president tweeted things out and it's just like, how stupid of them they they we are. we all know that dowd didn't dictate that. we all know that a lawyer, a personnel of law school of three days would not have used that language. it was the president. he admitted to obstruction of justice and you know that because now even dowd is going, presidents can't commit obstruction of justice. >> we've never known the president on twitter mired in legalese or deferring to his lawyers. the entire rationale for donald trump is that he goes past the media, takes his message directly to the people. >> that message has never been filtered before, i don't see why

it would have been in this particular case in that message when they say look at hillary, look at hery, they say she lied to the fbi. former director comey said in testimony she did not actually lie in that case to the fbi. >> so joe, i will jump to this story first since we're on it and my microwave told me to give you a little kellyanne this morning. >> okay. >> this morning, there seems to be a rift between donald trump another personal lawyer and white house lawyer hand himming the russia inquiry. it stems from the question whether the president's controversial tweet over the weekend that joe talked about is evidence of obstruction of justice. >> it is. >> it is. >> and whether the president can even obstruct justice in the first place. >> he can. >> yes, he k. after the president's saturday tweet that said, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to vice president and the fbi. >> he sure is a stand-up guy. >> the president's personal lawyer john dowd stepped in, claiming he was the one who wrote the tweet. not the president. are you really going to do that?

dowd then yesterday revealed the potential legal defense in the ongoing russia probe, telling nbc news it's ignorant to say the tweet admitted obstruction. dowd argued, quote -- . >> let's stop just there, ladies and gentlemen of america, we actually have now and we've had it several times in this administration, harold ford, people that say the president is not only above the law, the president is the law. steven miller is saying the president's power is not to be questioned. now the president's lawyer is saying, the president cannot obstruct justice, because he is the law. >> that is the most undemocratic, unamerican thing i have ever heard. it is richard nixon saying i

cannot break the law because i am the president. >> the two most powerful things in the constitution, one that question of war and two impea impeachment of the president. impeachment of the president means you are indicted and tried by the senate. clearly a standard in the constitution mentions it's almost kind of cuts both ways, it says you can be convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, which means politics, which means anything. mr. dowd, i hope there were no civics teachers, or kids learning civics if 3rd through 8th grade watching or reading. >> all right. we will show you ty cobb and kelly anne conway. you have 20 seconds to close your microwaves, last night ty cobb the white house lawyer handling the russia inquiry distanced himself from that argument telling nbc news i expect a fact-based exoneration that does not require that level of legal analysis, there is no strategy of which i'm aware to rely boldly on the proclamation that obstruction is always

impossible with regard to a president. and here now is kellyanne. >> does that happen a lot, where other people tweet for the president? >> yes. well, yes, in terms of the lawyers. the lawyers are the ones that understand how to put those twoots together. i was with the president saturday all day, frankly. and i know that what mr. dowd is correct. what he says is that he put it together and sent it to our director of social media. >> susan, she was with the president all day. >> she's so powerful. >> literally. literally. she was with the president literally all day and so she knows that the lawyers, because we all know the lawyers actually write donald trump's tweets for him, because he stops and says, hmm, fools rush in, let me -- >> think before i tweet. i don't want to lie.

>> i shall call counsel, c'mon, that's beyond absurd and i wonder if the hosts of the show believed her. no, they didn't, that's right. i wonder if anybody in the audience believed her, if they did believe her, we've all, we all got a bridge we'd like to sell new brooklyn. >> it seems we know president's staff and the president lives in this bubble. but that bubble is getting smaller, they're giving less and less oxygen to it. they just can't get out of their own way. this is the stories that they come with up. they want to live in those stories. >> that has worked for them for a while. but, you know, i want to go to something earlier about jim carvel saying, oh, look at the bird, the bird the distraction. he never tore down the pillars of our society, of our country. >> true, good point. >> the way that this president is. he didn't attack the fbi. he didn't attack journalists. >> he was better at it. >> at least it was a distraction, it was an honest

distraction. it wasn't fundamentally trying to discredit our media, our justice system for personal gain and that i think is just a broader conversation that is really important right now. because this president is fundamentally starting to destroy our country. >> heidi pryzbilla, in a lot of ways, this is the rhythm of what we've seen for a couple of years now, which is that donald trump, now president trump, will tweet something out and his campaign staff or now his white house staff scurrys and behind him to clean up the mess and explain it away, here's actually what he meant. in this case they're pink on somebody else, this tweet t. stakes are much highner this case. we are in the middle of this investigation. it could lead to a charge of obstruction of justice. >> we have a well beaten path, willie, for those people that intend to take the bullet for the president. that's right out the door. here's what may happen in the case of john dowd, he will potentially become a witness in this investigation, there's

going to be questions about who actually composed that tweet. it doesn't look like a tweet that even a rookie lawyer would have composed. and now we're seeing also on the talk shows that there aren't many people, even ty cobb another lawyer within the president's team defending this strategy. the only person seems to be john dowd and alan dershowitz and it makes sense now that a lot of people within the white house are concerned about the president's legal strategy when you've got the two highest profile lawyers seemingly disagreeing on what the basis of the defense is. >> it is, harold, breath taking to be a lawyer in washington, d.c. and to actually go out and make the argument that the president of the united states is above the law t. president of the united states can't obstruct justice in an investigation that pertains to his campaign first to his administration second and to him third. and you know, it's kind of hard

to climb back from that. it's kind of hard to get a job in washington, d.c. after you're branded as somebody that is actually putting forth an autocrat's defense. >> you know, kelly, i agree with you, kellyanne's comments, she didn't dispute the substance of it. she said who wrote it. one could surmise from that, she is citing on ty cobb, that indeed if the president was the author of this, the point being made this morning. but heidi's point as relate os to the legal part should not be overlooked. dowd now puts himself, because all these other people are under oath and if mueller asks, to your point, we will get to the blot to him of it. somebody has thob under oath saying yes i wroit or i didn't write it. as we've seen that's what's gotten people in trouble thus far in this investigation. >> you know, one other thing that's very important, too, legally at the end of the day, it's a distinction without a

difference because the white house has said the president's tweets are official, are the official word of the white house. official statements of the white house. >> right. >> so even if a lawyer drafted it, he didn't. >> he didn't. >> but even if he did, he put it in donald trump's name. >> right. >> donald trump sent it out. >> this is the way it works. >> it becomes the official language, just like if we release -- if somebody helped any of us with a statement, a pr statement. >> how about the -- >> and we put it out. >> sarah huckaby handers. >> it's us. it's attached to us. so there is a distinction without a difference t. only thing that dowd did by coming out and lying is he now made himself a target of special counsel and will be called in. >> and a fool, quite frankly. >> a liar. >> and a fool. >> i was going to say that argument which we should say right in front of us tells us what the white house is thinking the president could be charged with obstruction of justice. they're not saying he did not,

he cannot be charged. they're running around the back side saying this is there, this may have happened. here's our legal footing, we think, which is not a sounds one. >> they're always moving the line, you know, three, four months earlier, they said this isn't obstruction of justice because there is not an investigation. right? that's before they knew what was going on, that was the argument. now there the an investigation and now they have clearly obstructed justice, now the argument is the president cannot obstruct justice, it is for any law here in this case it's the last renew jersey of the truly desperate. >> speaking of the refuge of the truly desperate t. republicans walking the plank for rnc, my god what more can you do to this party? you are annihilateing it. >> the country. >> let alone the country. but previously to your party and your people the people who you hope will vote for you, i mean,

what's the cost? what is it worth? paul manafort's bid to be released on house arrest on bail hit a snag. >> which is unfortunate. >> a small snag, federal prosecutors -- >> i don't know if you know this or not, any time something happens on this show that makes me senator voumakes nervous. we call olag. >> the fixer. >> he's in mensing. is there still a city in russia called minsk. if there is, we call him, because he's, you know, who is better for the english language than russia? >> right. >> it's like they understand it from 30,000 feet. remember when we got arrested in turkey pack in '73? who did we call?

briti breschnev sky. manafort gets in trouble for hanging out with russians and so he decides after he has been arrested. >> out on bail. >> out on bail, what, $12 million bail. hey, i got a good idea. i'm going to call a russian to see if he can help me out. >> he was supposed to not have alcohol and not speak to russians, those are two conditions and he went for -- >> for everyone that doesn't know what we're talking about, we haven't told the story yet. federal investigators cited his recent efforts to write a piece with a man believed to be linked to russian filings, manafort and his unnamed russian co-author were writing the op ed as recently as last thursday. the government says it was written in english and the plan

was to have it published anonymously in an unknown publication. if published, prosecutors say it would have violated a gag order in the case. we are told a draft has now been filed under seal, a spokesman for manafort declined to comment. >> wow. no control. no russians. >> did he get one right? >> i think he should have gone with alcohol. maybe that's what led to the conversation. >> it's a rhetorical question. what was going through my honest to god for his own self, forget about president trump and a russian investigation, she out on bail $11 million bail with spec truckss not to do anything like this obviously, contact russians but to put anything out in the media would prejudice tis his case, he was trying to influence people. what was going through his mind,

what was he thinking? obviously, he has been in this community so much. i'm dead serious. she so connected. >> incredible. >> he has massive vets to russian oligarchs supposedly. he's been dealing in this community so long. >> that's why he goes. >> it's important to remember someone told somebody about this. everyone in the white house, beware, have you no friends, everyone is talking to law enforcement and this will be problematic going forward for you. >> monrovia. >> bottoms up, everybody. still ahead on morning joe, republicans think they've got a winner in the -- mitch mcconnell's tacit endorsement to rnc cutting threats. the golinking arms with an accused sexual predator. we'll get a live report from on the ground. first, we go to bill kierans with a check on the forecast and

more wildfires out west. >> look at these pictures behind me, these are apartment complex, hawaiian village apartment complex, just burned to the ground. think of all the people that lost their homes, you are looking at pictures of the thomas fire started late last night in santa paula. they are comparing this to the santa rosa fear, they are sake it was spreads at one point every second one football field, that's how fast it was moving. that's why we have so much devastation in the area. this is santa paula here. because of the santa ana winds, 40, 50blings-mile-per-hour gusts, it burns towards the city of ventura. 26,000 acres burned, zero percent containment. i heard reports of neighborhoods. this is one here, hillcrest and lincoln, they said 50 homes on fire in this area. all of the fire crews from the surrounding town are trying to

go to schenn e ventura high school. they're trying to save everything south of it. it's a fire containment line. so again the winds will stay strong. they will die off this afternoon, pick up again tonight again hundreds, potentially up to a thousand homes have been lost. no reports of injuries or deaths yet. how fast this fire was moving, unfortunately, the news will probably be devastated. you are watching morning joe. we'll be right back. we make sure you're in the loop at every step from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. ♪ oh and at fidelity, you'll see how all your investments are working together. because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. ♪ just remember what i said about a little bit o' soul ♪

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. >> all right. . it's 24 past the hour a. week away from election day in alabama. roy moore endorsed a key endorsement from president trump t. white house says the president wants someone in the senate who will support his agenda. roy says he tweeted him from air force one offering his full

support and telling the former alabama judge, quote, go get 'em, roy. the national committee pulled its support earlier last month is reinstating its support saying it would spend over $1 million to help moore in the final weeks of the campaign. >> susan so this is where it ends, right? this is where the republican party it, i remember writing an opf ed in february of 2016, a month into the campaign asking, so this is how the party of abraham lincoln dies? maybe i need the rewrite it. because this most definitely is how the party of abraham lincoln dies, how they're confined to a hard 30% of the electorate. >> they went from at least the president as a republican, i doubt he's a republican, running as a republican, being elected as one, to endorsing roy moore

to putting every donor on the spot as being if you give to the rnc, you are supporting an accused child molester. >> that puts the party in an impossible situation going forward, it puts its financially in a difficult position. are you about to lose me, republican party. >> that is the biggest problem that you face. now me personally, but someone like me, no, i'm not willing to give up just yet the donors stand up to get the tax break, they're not standing up to this? this is where they need to put up or shut up. it's time, i realize this morning, we have no patriots right now in our government. we don't see people standing up to do the right thing in spite of their career, ricking re-election, doing the right thing. whether it's the donor,

political class or the voting class this is, i'd like to say it's the final straw. it's probably not. it's close for a lot of people. whether do they go after this? >> you know, mika, this has an impact. this really does smr it the party down the mid until a way that donald trump did. you remember last summer we went out in the hamptons, a friend of mine wanted me to sweep out his garage again. >> i thought we did. >> do you remember, we spoke, the gentleman that watched the show, he said, i contributed in big ways to republicans my entire high. i can't do it this summer. >> my wife won't let me. >> and he pointed to his wife. he said, my wife won't let me. and my daughter won't let me. even though i really want hillary to lose, he said, if i

contributed to donald trump, they wouldn't talk to me. now, multiply that -- >> can you imagine? >> -- a hundred times over, and that gentleman and a lot of other men and women who used to give to the rnc, now understand if they give to the republican party they giving to a man accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl and banned from a shopping mall in alabama because he chased after teenagers so much when he was in his 30s. >> a new story is coming out about him? think about how that splits the party. >> it splits the party. yes, i think about that. i'm dumb founded, actually. go ahead. >> you know senator mcconnell have been on record saying these women there is no reason to believe they are speaking the truth. their mind has changed, to your

point, someone has not stood up who said from the beginning, they changed their mind because they want an extra vote on a tax bill. i think to your point about decency? who are we? what have we become when a little piecely tax bill in the scheme of things is bicker and supersedes the lack of morality and alleged criminal activity, is it that important? i think the question they are getting at. >> how about supporting a president, who all of these donors would say has obstructed justice, if it were a democrat and yet they're writing checks non-stop. i remember having a heated conversation at the mitt romney event with people that were extremely respectfulf on the system and everything else out there. but everything was about the tax cut. everything was about lowering

the rate for, 4, 5, 6% him. at some point, friends, i consider you friends, it's just not worth it. >> what more needs to happen? >> it's not worth it. >> there is a fundamental simple question for rnc and mitch mcconnell and the republican leadership. what has changed two-and-a-half weeks ago, you said i believe the women. this is abhorrent. we are pulling out of the race and yesterday when you lined up behind roy moore in alabama? what's different now? >> what does it sound like? >> a year ago. >> this sounds like when lindsey graham was calling donald trump a cook on national television saying he was unfit to be president of the united states this is when paul ryan was deeply critical of donald trump. when one republican after another in the primary process said the same thing. so it's funny.

i get slammed by people because they think that somehow we were too nice, three months before anybody voted. we were saying his muslim ban would stop me from ever voting for donald trump. i say, is this what jeremy looked like in 1933, or calling him a big ought in february 2016, he is disqualified to be president this republican party has gone the opposite direction three months before republicans voted. they said he's not qualified to be president of the united states. these republican versus moved towards him. across all the people that were so self-righteous, it's about power. the more power he gained. the more they put their views

their values on hold. roy moore is the worst example of it. >>. >> in january, they said, look, he has the general. so we have a foreign policy team. they said maybe we can work on legislation, he's not going to get involved in it. we will work behind his back. all these things have systematically fail. now they've moved to working around him to with him lock and step, that moons you buy not just the tax cut, you boo i the whole agenda. either you are with donald trump if that agenda or you are not. that's where it's time to step up. >> and be i the way on the same day they came out to support roy moore, there is another washington post story that only strengthens the veracity of the claims t.rnc's support follows from mitch mcconnell to saying on sunday the people of alabama should decide and senator orrin

hatch is quoted as saying, quote. many of the things that moore allegedly did were decades ago, so you know, it's hard. that's a decision that has to be made by the people in that state f. they make that decision, who are we to question? em? >> mitt romney weighed in, the roy moore in the u.s. senate would be a stain on the gop and the nation. lee corfman and other victims are courageous heroes. no vote, no majority is worth losing our honor or integrity, which, womanly, that's, of course the reason mitt romney has honor. he has integrity and that's exactly why donald trump is desperately trying to kill his candidacy because donald trump sees people with virtue like mitt romney as his enemy. while he embraces people that are shallow and compromised like roy moore as his allie. >> romney has been consistent. this all comes as the washington post as i mentioned published a

new report from debbie weston gibson claimed roy dated her when she was 17 and he was 34. she offered new everyday. >> i came across a card and it was a high school graduation greeting card from roy moore. happy graduation, debpy, i wanted to give you this card myself. i know you will be a december e success in anything you do, roy. >> i have known him many years ago i met until 19 young, we dated for brief time. we kissed with my consent and i'm very sad that he's decided to say he doesn't know me. he did not perpetrate sexual misconduct towards me. nor have i ever claimed. that i now know for sure she a liar. >> so what she's talking about there, miss gibson, they had a consensual r. she said she was 17, he was 34. she watched him only stage and

she said, wait a minute, not only did i know you, we dated. the relationship started when he came and spoke to her sicks class in high school. >> fantastic. >> in a way that is more compelling evidence because here you have somebody that says, listen, it was consensual. i'm not saying. >> i'm not arguing. >> that he perpetrated any crime. >> but i was 17. >> but, he's a liar. >> fyi. >> so again he's getting it from other sides. >> what will we do with internships if he wins? seriously, i will in the sunday my.. >> that would be like when i worked many, many years ago, strom thurman worked there, seriously, times have changed. you can't be grabbing at will ill 17-year-old girls. you can't have a guy in there that will do that. >> we have to say.

you probably heard it. everybody on the hymn heard if you got into an elevator with trump, he would grab you. >> sure. >> sure. at state capitals or down in d.c., there were always, you knew there were people you stayed away from. that's the way it worked when you were a young woman and things do need to change. i wonder if anyone in the white house or not standing out against him will -- >> every i won want my daughter near him. coming up, you guys are supporting him, republican party. wow! rnc. not all. they're hanging by a thread. >> let's be clear. >> rnc and president trump. >> if you give money to president trump, or you give money to the republican national committee. you are giving money to roy moore and you are endorsing everything that roy moore stand

for. it's pretty black and white. >> still ahead, another exam of a trump transition official possibly lying about what they knew with contacts with russia. we'll talk about that next on morning joe. ♪shostakovich playing ♪

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well, i feel badly for general flynn. i feel very badly. he's led a very strong life and i feel very badly, john. i will say this, hillary clinton lied many times to the fbi, nothing happened to her. flynn lied, they destroyed his life. i think it's a shame. hillary clinton on the fourth of july weekend went to the fbi not under oath, it was the most incredible thing anyone has ever seen, she lied in times, nothing happened to her. flynn lied and it's like they ruined his life. very unfair. >> boy, i tell you what, they never claimed during the campaign hillary clinton lied during that july i think it was 3rd interview. i'm going to say, i want to underline this, there are a lot of hillary clinton people out there that will remember this in a very negative way. i was outraged by the fbi

handled that i thought they went too easy on hillary clinton. i brought up repeatedly 50, 55% of americans in an abc pom said hillary clinton should have been indicted. i didn't like the fact that president obama got involved with. that et set remarks et cetera, et cetera. but nobody has come forward making the claims of the president of the united states did yesterday, she so desperate to do anything to get attention off the fact that he is most likely going to get busted for obstructing justice. nobody has come forward saying hillary clinton lied during that meeting with the fbi and even after the president of the united states went out there yesterday morning and appeared to lie to the american people about that, nobody came forward in the white house yesterday saying here are the lies that hillary clinton made when speaking to the fbi in her july 4th weekend interview, not one.

it's still, how does a president lie like that and not get hammered? the press core, we need to know. >> i will read you a quote from then director comey july 2016, quote, we have no basis to conclude that hillary clinton lied to the fbi. i have no basis for concluding she was untruthful with us, from james comey when he was director of the fbi. >> the white house provided absolutely no evidence for the president's rambling. we will not be distracted. okay. we're just not going to be distracted and other networks are talking about hillary clinton right now because it's all they got. hey, she lost last year. like what bubble do you live in? what bubble do people that watch your shows live in? what bubble? last year, she lost, she's not

president but we do have a guy who is president who tweeted this weekend in a way that pretty much set up an obstruction of justice charge. when you are not attacking hillary clinton, you are arguing the president of the united states is above the law. this is what people predicted about you. no, they wouldn't, they'd never? they predicted donald trump would be an autocrat. i know these people. they would never blindly follow donald trump. all they've done is talk about the constitution. hey, i like the constitution, too now a lot of these voters are saying if donald trump says it, it's true. we had a guy in a focus group

sha that said if jesus christ crawled down from the cross and said donald trump obstructed justice, i would need to say i need to talk to donald trump. what sad, weak, pathetic minds that believe russian bots more than they believe the traut that is right before them and what sad, sad little people who will blindly follow somebody over a cliff and believe lies. listen, there are a lot of people out there that support donald trump for a lot of different reasons. i got friend, family member, i respect them. i understand, even they when i that you can to them, yeah, i got a lot of problems with him him i'm really disturbed bis by his tweets, by him attacking the news, but, you know, i'm still with him him i'm looking for somebody you know, next ecollection, there are some

people that blindly believe everything that donald trump says and if gentleman us the christ climbs down from the cross, they will believe donald trump over jesus. >> the question i have, don't they see where this is going? it's not going to end well. so not sure why you are doing this. we will be right back with admiral james stavrides.

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with us now, the dean of the fletcher school of law and diplomacy, retired four star admiral, the chief international diplomacy expert for us. i'd love to start with a question i've had a couple other people over the past few days since the news of michael flynn came out. talk about michael flynn and what a fall from grace this is, and specifically talk about how talented this man was and what his contributions to the united states before this strange turn. >> yeah.

i'm greek american, as you know. i'm allowed to say this is a greek tragedy. mike flynn is an absolutely rock solid soldier. and you kind of have to put that into context. he went to war again and again and again. he sees the world as a threat, not opportunity. that's kind of point one. point two is i'd say mike is an intelligence officer. that's a subset within the military. it means he's not a commander. he's more a saf offictaff offic of in support. he's brilliant at this. he was my intelligence officer when i was nato commander in afghanistan as a two star. worked for me for about a year and a half. >> was he one of the best you ever worked with? >> he was the best intelligence officer i ever worked with, and so at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what happened? and all i can ascribe it to is kind of the flip side of bringing military into the

civilian world. military have a tendency to really absorb what their boss is. they tend to follow along. military is such a hierarchy culture, and i think mike was just seduced by donald trump. and i think unfortunately they didn't ruin his life that being the fbi. mike flynn made those choices and he's going to have to live with them. >> harold. >> harold ford, we've learned this morning that a u.n. diplomat, an american travelled to north korea, presumably to try to understand better the situation and diffuse the situation. i've heard you speak about north korea. a few months ago, i've heard you speak about changed circumstances. what are your expectations about what can be accomplished in north korea? >> my expectations are pretty low at this point, unfortunately. partly that's because the president himself consistently has said diplomacy won't work

here. he tweets to the secretary of state instead of picking up the phone to tell them. now, having said that, harold, you and i have had this conversation. the danger here is so extreme that i can only hope that the combination of general mattis, hopefully general mcmaster, maybe secretary tillerson who seems to be strangely absent in a lot of these conversations, maybe that will put the president on the sideline and allow diplomacy to work. because the outcome otherwise is just soho risk. >> heidi? >> the president says the fbi's reputation is in tatters. this is just the latest attack by this president on democratic institutions including the news media, including the judiciary, as well as groups like scientists, even the budget office. what connection do you see between this president's rhetoric and the risk to our democratic institutions? >> i think it's rising steadily,

and thank god for the fbi. you know, a lot of times people say to me after 37 years in the military, thank you for your service. i appreciate it. there are a lot of ways to serve this country. police, firemen, fbi agents and cia. to the fbi, i say keep clanking at donald trump like a tank. because we need to know the truth without fear or favor, we need to know the truth. i don't think the fbi's reputation is in tatters at all, and i don't think most americans do either. >> it's willie geist. i want to circle back to your initial comments about general flynn. how do you explain his entanglements with russia? you say president trump may have corrupted him. before he met president trump, he was putin's man of the year and doing paid speeches. how do you explain him getting in so deep with russia? >> i think that after a lifetime

of studying russia as an intelligence officer, you start to develop a real fascination with it. you are fascinated by these characters that you've been reading about for years. and i suspect that in addition to the money, which was clearly a part of this, michael flynn also couldn't resist the change to go to the dark tower like in lord of the rings and sit next to soron himself. i think that's what helped seduce him. both the money and the chance to really be close to someone you'd study as an antagonist for decades. >> how sad is that for you, admiral? again, i want to underline you said this is the best intelligence officer that you've ever seen. as you've seen this unfold, that's had to play heavy on your heart. >> it is heart breaking. and i'll tell you, i know who shares that feeling with me is stan mccrystal who was his direct boss in afghanistan.

stan worked for me running the nato mission, and we would often talk about mike flynn and his brilliance and his ability to go after the completely different answer than the rest of the herd. that was a wonderful quality. it's been put to ill-use under president trump, and mike is reaping the consequences of that. >> admiral, thank you for being on the show this morning. thanks. >> up next, getting closer to home. a new report this morning claims special counsel robert mueller asked deutsche bank to share information. >> i have been hearing quietly about deutsche bank for a year now. >> i've heard about the accounts. >> for a year now from people in the new york banking community. and they always have talked about deutsche bank. huh. okay. >> now those developments right ahead.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it's tuesday, december 5th. with us we have -- >> hold on a second. i have to ask willie a ask while the beautiful music plays in the background. so evan boom, manager of the yankees. a lot of people excited about it. >> i didn't see it coming. i'm excited about it. he hit one of the most important home runs in yankee history.

you remember that. >> wait. that was in 2003. >> we let you have one. >> you sure did. you let us have a big one. first time in the history of baseball that a team came back from a 3-0 deficit. >> but when you 27 or 28 tightl, you say you can have one. >> that sold a couple cards a couple years back. >> with us we have susan dellpurseo. heidi przybyla, and josh earnest, and former chair of the republican national committee michael steel. >> i am so excited. >> we're doing this just like we wrote it up. it's playing out perfectly. >> you know like the emperor walking under the death star that says it is all going as i

have foreseen as luke blows it up. he keeps saying everything is going as i've foreseen and the death star always gets blown up. >> exactly. only this time they're the ones inside blowing it up. >> they're blowing it up themselves. >> willie, getting back to the yankees, i said this at the first time. first, i think aaron boon actually inherits one of the most exciting young teams in baseball. a team so exciting that mike barnicle actually says he loves watching them now. hey, boston, mike barnicle, remember, barnicle said on "morning joe" he loved watching the yankees. >> he can't walk down the street in boston this morning. >> the yankees are going back to what made them great in the system. >> how many days until pitchers and catchers report?

>> february something. >> you want to talk? >> i do. i'm going to talk about horse back riding. >> a new report says robert mueller has asked deutsche bank to release accounts about president trump and his family. >> can we set it up, mika? every banker we talked to in new york people running it, where we would ask them during the campaign, we would say, we would always ask, what's the deal with trump? where does he get his loans? does he go to russia? we were trying to figure it out during the campaign. he came on in 2015 talking about how he loved russia and putin. they said nobody here will loan him money, but if you want to know what's going on, deutsche bank knows what's going on. >> well, maybe bob mueller is going to know too.

a report that germany's largest bank received a subpoena from mueller several weeks ago to provide information on certain money and credit transactions. the source was confirming an earlier german newspaper report. the bank which has loaned the trump organizations millions of dollars for real estate ventures said it would not comment on any of it clients. >> all right. let's talk now. we started talking about the republican party. i thought donald trump was the end of the republican party, and wrote it several times in 2016 in the washington post. but the republicans did quite well in the fall. i just wonder maybe i wrote that prediction that february 2016 prediction a little early. is it roy moore? is that where this party becomes the hard 30%? >> i think this is sort of the

beginning of that next stage for the party, because it is such a deviation from everything the party has stood for and pronounced. as i've said a couple of times, we were the party that sat in judgment of how people lived their lives and what they talked about for 30 plus years we have a superior attitude about communities of people around the country. >> social issues. >> the self-righteous social issues. now it's come home that they're backing a guy who has been caught in this situation, who is not allowed to go to malls when he was a young man because of his own behavior. they've gotten behind this and sort of excused hip. they've winked and blinked on it. and the reality of it is now you own it. so how do you go to those communities and say to people -- >> also how do you say, al franken just resign for touching women's butts over the past 20 or 30 years, i guess it's the count is up to three or four. and yet, say we're behind roy

moore? how do you say to clinton clint hillary clinton how dare you keep harvey weinstein's money? give it up. we're going to be giving allegations of molestation -- >> it's selling the moral high ground time and time again. you're not the first or only one to go early in terms of predicting the demise of the republican party. you recall my old boss used to have a phrase he used on the stump starting in the 2012 election where he talked about the fever breaking. this was a reference to this fever seizing the republican party that focussed on fighting him and not looking for ways to govern the country. he hoped in 2014 the fever would break. we thought when donald trump was the republican nominee finally

the fever did break, expect he won. >> yes, and heidi, when you look at roy moore, he could win. right? all fair? >> absolutely. >> at this point, maybe this isn't the end of the republican party. maybe this is the direction it's going in. >> mika, i wanted to point out here some important statistics that i think have been overlooked in explaining why this fever isn't breaking and why the donors are going to continue to come when they're getting their tax cuts. this poll was from about a week or two ago. it shows while 60% of the public overall public wants roy moore expelled, only 33% of republicans do. only 33%. and then you look at the numbers in alabama. this explains a lot right now. explains why the president is feeling comfortable. he is not the problem. he is the symptom. this is coming from the base. it's coming from the republican voters.

and it tells us why the president is going back in. why the rnc is going back in. and while even though roy moore may come to washington and may not be accepted in polite circles, he may even have some power, and you are seeing a shift in the rhetoric among republicans on capitol hill like john cornyn, others who only weeks ago were saying unequivocally that roy moore needed to step aside. now saying this is the will of the alabama people. there may be some ethics investigation, but we're a long ways from where we were a few weeks ago. i think as it always does in politics, it comes down to a cold calculus of looking at polling figures. >> looking at the polling figures, that's the state of american politics right now. and it's why i predict the two parties are going to employblowa million pieces. you have two-thirds of americans saying roy moore should not be seated. so there's your hard third

again. donald trump and steve bannon's hard third staking out these extreme unten sable positions, d inside the republican party it's two-thirds of the republican party. at some point the americans step forward and say we're not going to let a hard core one out of three americans determine the fate of our republic. >> all it takes is a smallish group of republicans in alabama to elect roy moore and the entire party is painted with the brush of roy moore. you are the party of roy moore. it's not just that republican and the rnc has come to support roy moore. it's the weasely way they did it which is to come out initially and say we believe the women, this cannot stand. the rnc says we're pulling out. and then in the dark of night yesterday sneaking back into the state when it's after a couple of weeks they felt like it died down and it was safe to go in

in. either you believe the women and find it outrageous or you don't. >> that's what weasels do. what the party did. if they don't have the brain power to figure out where the american people are specifically women, remember, there are constituencies out there that this party says we want. we want to be relevant in the conversation with women with african americans and all these various groups. and at the same time you take these steps and say these things that sort of create this further distance. and so it says to me they're not serious. it says to me that all of that came before was a sham. that when you heard members and the leadership go i believe the women, no, they didn't. because if that were true, you could not do this now. you could not say this now. and you could not -- >> actually, actually, the worst case scenario is this. they believe the women, but they don't care. >> that's even worse.

>> they believe the women but don't care because power is all they care about. >> and that's exactly it. the morality is gone. this is not a question of morals anymore. this is a question of what's politically expedient for the republican party. there was new drama involving deputy national security adviser mcfarland. "the new york times" reported on a december 29th e-mail in which she wrote russia as just, quote, thrown the u.s. election to donald trump. the times reports information in that same e-mail contradicts statement she made to congress about what she knew regarding michael flynn's contact with former russian ambassador kislyak. cory booker questioned mcfarland in writing in july about whether she had ever spoken to flynn about his contact with kislyak before trump took office. she replied, i am not aware of any of the issues or events

described above. but according to the e-mail exchange obtained by the times, mcfarland was aware of the december 29th phone call between the men reportedly writing hours before the conversation, quote, general flynn is talking to the russian ambassador this evening. >> wow. >> that conversation was the same day the united states sanctioned russia for mettling in america's election. it's the same conversation flynn is pleading guilty to lying to the fbi about. attempts to reach mcfarland were unsuccessful. josh, i talked about perry mason and the confession. this is sort of the smoking gun right here. it's as clear as it can be that mcfarland lied in her testimony before the senate. >> it's an open and shut case, it appears to me. look, there is still a lot of

explaining that the trump team has to do about that call between flynn and the russians. and it raises a whole bunch of questions about who in senior positions in the trump transition team, how involved they were in the directing him to make the call and what kind of deal he made the russians. it was put in public at the time when trump tweeted that putin had made a smart move by not retaliating. this is all taking place in realtime, and it was public, and there has never been a good explanation from the trump team about what was going on. >> and susan, i think also, there's just never been a good explanation, because during transitions, jared talked to the uae and the saudis and other countries. >> trump met with abe. this is a trump controversial thing. >> met early on with the leader of japan. and yet, they only lie, all of them, only lie about their

contacts with russians, and again, that's the mystery. you can't tell us that it's okay for them to meet with the russians if all of them are lying about their meetings with the russians. something is there. >> something is there, and there were so many lies about that meeting that donald trump junior had with manafort and a bunch of trump officials with the russian lawyer. there were so many lies behind it. it tells me somewhere underneath there is kind of at the kernel of this. let's not forget that was in the summer of 2016. the trump folks didn't think they were going to win. what do they want from russia? money. it goes to your lead-in. it comes to deutsche bank. and jared kushner was very concerned about a property 666 5th avenue. he's still concerned about it. i think they were trying to set themselves up for post election never thinking they were going to win, and now all of a sudden

have to figure out we won. i don't know if that's what sally yates said he had over flynn, that flynn may have been doing work for donald trump, maybe trapped in the lures of the private sector we talked about earlier. i think that's the fundamental problem is for the trump folks and now they circle and have to try to fix it. i believe the underlying crime is probably worse than the coverup. >> the list has gotten so long of people who have claimed they didn't have a meeting with the ambassador or who left something off their disclosure form, or said the meeting i had with russians was about adoption. you have to just -- to see a pattern, all of them. i don't know if it's ignorance or arrogance or a combination to say i'm going to say this thing and they'll never find out about it. >> they didn't lie about the context of the uae or the saudis or contacts with japan or the contacts of china.

they didn't lie about the contacts with everybody during the transition or the campaign, but they always lied about their contacts with russia. and i want to followup on what susan said. you know, the campaign -- trump didn't think he was going to win even on election day. >> right. >> but it was all about money. it was all about making contacts. we've said this before. but the most remarkable thing about it is that even now that he's president, it's still all about money. like, he's not sitting there thinking what barack obama or george w. bush or bill clinton or ronald reagan thought. like, what is my legacy going to be? he's thinking every day, how can i leverage this so when i get out of the white house i can make even more money? >> knowing them, i think they're shocked that the noose is tightening. i don't know if they were arrogant or incredibly unself-aware and really dumb about what the job was about,

how important it was, and how under the microscope every move you made would be. i think they just thought they'd go in there and riff through it. and i think they're shocked that the noose is tightening and that people might go to jail. >> you're exactly right. >> for the rest of their lives. >> what's gotten them where they are right now, josh, is a gross misunderstanding of the rules of washington, the laws surrounding public service and constitutional norms. coupled with the arrogance of new york developers thinking -- and i know. i talk to them. thinking people in washington were just dumb local yolkls, and they -- just get out of our way. listen, listen, you guys have

had your opportunity, and you guys -- come on. you're just a bunch of hicks in washington d.c. let the big city developers come in and we're going to show you. they wouldn't listen to anybody, and they stumbled into one possible crime after another possible crime, and then donald trump goes into his mode. he thinks taking on bob mueller is the same as taking on rosie o'donnell. i'm dead serious. >> i think that's right. >> he does. he thinks this worked with rosie o'donnell. i'll do with this comey. i'll do this with mueller. he has no idea that he's going down. >> there was always this sense, and this is something that's common in the business community. this sense that all you people in government, all of you people in public service, you get so bogged down in the bureaucratic details. why don't you cut through the muck and get business done? and to a certain extent -- >> that's like telling a brain surgeon, why don't you just get a drill and take it out.

it doesn't work like that. >> i'm not suggesting bureaucrats are perfect or always effective in being able to get the job done, but what i am saying is there is a common failure to appreciate that when you have a position of responsibility like be president of the united states, there are consequences for your actions. when you're a real estate developer and you do things that are irresponsible or you want to attack people on twitter, or you want to talk away from the negotiating table, there are no consequences for that, or if there are, you can fix them later. there are damaging consequences when you're the president and you say i'm not going to negotiate. i'm going to walk away from the negotiating table or you want to defame the fbi agents or intelligence community or the senior leadership of the united states of america. there's consequences for that. that's the biggest issue. >> they caught us on camera. i was going how you doing? >> go ahead. >> remember we warned donald trump during the transition. we had a rough 2016, but during

the transition there were a lot of people that went in that followed bob gates' advice. he's the only president we're going to have. we all need to talk, pitch in and see what we can do. you remember the warnings we gave him? two warnings. i said listen, i know you like to fight people. i'm going to tell you two area you don't fight. don't go to war with the intel community and don't go to war with the press. you can be angry with them. you can push back, but you always deep relationships with both of them. and we told them that repeatedly. what has he done? he's gone to war with the intel community and he's gone to war with the press. >> oh, joe. >> i heard that from other administrations too. >> oh, joe. >> and now later it's like okay, joe, maybe you were right. but --

>> sh. you never say that. >> but he said the very things that arrogance that you're talking about, that arrogance that so many ceos that get into politics say. you're right. they all think, come on. why do you make it so tough? you ought to just ride a horse into town and tell them what to do. >> i can solve this in a day. let me sit down at the table. >> unfortunately, it's not like a ceo and a board that he controls. >> as you did your impersonation, i thought of rex tillerson, a ceo at exxon who came in and said we're going to do this a new way, run this like a commercial enterprise. we're going to streamline it. meanwhile, we don't have ambassadors. >> we don't even have jobs in the state department. still ahead on "morning joe." >> i would also like to say that's not me on the bus.

you don't get to say that. because i was there, and the last sh mon14 months of my life been dealing with it. you dealt with it for 14 minutes and went on to be the president. he last week came out with that's not my voice on the tape. you can't say that. that is your voice. i was there. you were there. that's your voice on the tape. >> that was billy bush talking to stephen colbert last night. this morning there was bomb shell reporting to mike pence's reaction to the tape including that he was contemplating a coupe to replace donald trump. that's a nugget in a wide ranging piece on the vice president. the author joins us live. >> good picture. wow. >> plus the house freedom caucus brings drama to a vote on taxes that republican leadership thought would be stress free. we'll explain that next on "morning joe." ♪

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we're not real enthused about the two-week deal. we think any spending bill that lands three weeks before christmas isn't in favor of the taxpayers. >> republicans in the house have taken the next step toward americaing their tax bill with the senate's version. criticism by some in the party over a deal to fund the government threatened to derail the process. joining us live, peter alexander. president trump reportedly getting involved yet in keeping things on track here. what happened exactly? >> we're just four days before this deadline where they need to extend the continuing resolution or face a government shutdown. the bottom line yesterday mark meadows stepped outside the chamber while the debate was going on. took a call from the president.

he wouldn't detail the specifics but said the president did not give him ironclad commitment to extending the stopgap spending bill. about today, the president will be hosting lunch at the white house with senate republicans. that's followed up by a session with some business owners, business leaders about this topic of tax cuts specifically. it comes as the house republicans have taken this an important step toward reconciling their bill with the senate's version. it was really nearly derailed by this dramatic political stunt. more than a dozen members of meadow's freedom caucus holding back their support for the critical procedural vote. this is significant. it demonstrates the divisions within the party over their spending strategy this month. also really the strength of the freedom caucus, 30 members strong. conservatives have expressed reservations about passing a two week short term spending bill that would expire just before christmas. they want it to go a little

closer to new year's. there are concerns democrats may try to force major spending increases into the bill. in the meantime, the house speaker has named nine republican house members to the conference committee, specifically on taxes that includes the congressman kevin brady, he's the head of the tax writing ways and means committee. for her part the house democratic leader says thises the worst bill in the history of congress. >> wow. >> called it armageddon. peter, thank you. joining us from capitol hill, tim ryan of ohio. congressman, always good to see you. you've waffled in your language about the tax bill. you said it's an abhorrent scam that should be tossed into the dumpster. we know how you feel about this. what's the view from ohio on this tax bill? >> well, the fact that we're borrowing 2 $.3 trillion with a

t, primarily from china and bringing it back here to the united states and giving it to the wealthiest people in the country. every year we're going to be paying interest on the money we're borrowing and you have to tie it into the context of what china is doing with their economy and military. they're expanding their cyber capacity. they're building islands in the south china sea and doing infrastructure projects with battery powered cars, wind, solar. they're racing to the new economy with american dollars and we're going to be owing them even more than we do now. i think that's foolish. and i think we may have a sugar high in the short term. we'll see the stock market go up and so on and so forth. but i think this could trigger a depression in the united states at some point. >> a depression in the united states? you really believe that? >> a recession, i'm sorry. >> a recession in the united states. the argument from your republican colleagues who say companies in ohio get a

corporate tax break. it helps then. they grow. they hire people in your district and across the state. what do you make of that argument? >> i do think the corporate tax needs reformed. i do think the tax code needs reformed. it needs simplified. it needs to be able to help entrepreneurship and innovation. i understand the need and the desire to want to reform the tax code. it's absolutely necessary at this point. but as far as the corporate tax goes, corporate profits are higher than they have ever been. if a corporation wants to invest and they want to hire people, they have the cash right now to do it. and so if we're going to do anything with the tax code, it should be to invent vise them to invest into places like youngstown and other places have have been discorrected from globalization, getting hammered by automation. those are the places we should be encouraging through the tax code for people to invest. they're sitting on a pile of

cash. the idea they're going to invest because they have a tax break is fo foolish. it doesn't make any sense. if a company can make an investment and they could make more profit and hire more people, they're going to do that, and the tax code should in some sense incentivize that, but right now the profits are so high, they could do it now if they wanted to. >> hi, congressman. there doesn't seem to be a single entity, not the joint committee on taxation, goldman sachs or any economist you talk to who thinks this bill will do what republican leadership says it will do which is pay for itself with economic growth. so our social safety net programs are already facing critical deficits coming in the future. what effect does this have on our ability to address this, and how quickly do you think republicans are going to start to push for cuts in those programs? that's what happened with the big reagan tax cuts. there was a deal cut on social

security. >> i think you hit the nail on the head. this is part of a larger strategy to defund government, and then you're hearing it from jim jordan and some of the others in the congressional tea party caucus saying we don't have money for health insurance for poor kids. they're already starting that argument of defunding, oh, look, we don't have the money. now we can't make these domestic investments. there will be a 25 billion cut to the medicare program. it's going to affect medicare recipients getting cancer drugs. talk about hitting homes. these entitlements and health care programs, we have to deal with those issues of us having a very unhealthy country. we have half the country that has either diabetes or prediabetes. that in and of itself will sink the health care programs here in the united states. that's part of a broader

strategy we need to have in the united states that speaks to our food system, our agricultural subsidy system. it speaks to what we feed our kids in our schools. how much sugar is put, additive sugar is put in these products that give these kids in our society diabetes. that's the real strategy that we need to talk about. not just whacking medicare so cancer patients can't get their drugs. >> all right. congressman tim ryan of ohio. always good to talk to you. michael steel, this tax bill if you look at polling is not popular. >> no. >> it polls in the 20s or lower in some cases. >> what the -- >> you've heard the argument for generations it's not a new argument. i put in to the congressman, slash the corporate tax rate, businesses grow, trickle down theory of economics. what do you make of that case that's being made right now and the way the republicans are prosecuting it? >> we're in a different economic environment now. there are a lot of things about our economy that have not

followed the old tried and true rules that we have grown accustomed to. so how corporations are spending money, how they're investing money, but more importantly, how they're making that investment within their own companies with their employees is very different. polling has shown, and i think "morning joe" even pointed this out last week when it came up that the list of priorities for corporations when they get the wonderful tax benefit investing in their employees and backing the community was like 32%. this is not a priority for corporate america, because their economic reality is different. this tax bill which i have had a problem with from the beginning is not a conservative tax plan. it is not even tax reform in any iteration. it is a give away in many respects to sort of placate an old ideology about our economy that corporate america is going to behave responsibly by

investing this money in their employee's, and that's not what their incentives are. that money they get, that tax cut, is going to go to their bottom line, not yours in middle america. i think we need to be honest about that. a truly conservative tax plan in my view would actually strike that balance between corporate america with priorities set for the bottom line of rank and file. >> is it a different way of looking at it? >> i think this is a solution in search of a problem. the question about are we going to try to reform and make our corporate tax system more efficient is something that democrats and republicans were talking about to a large extent during the obama administration. there were white papers generated by the obama administration that would have put in place corporate tax reform, but it was revenue neutral. there were republicans talking about how to make it more efficient. to your point, michael, that's

not what we have here. we have a corporate tax cut. that's not what the vast majority of people who voted for donald trump thought therm they were voting for. and there was a famous exchange that jerry baker had with gary cohn. gary cohn was in front of a room full of ceos and said how many are you going to take the tax cut and invest in your companies. barely any hands went up. it was revealing about the fact that this is not going to have the impact. >> we're at the end of the first year. this is politics involved. what i'm curious to see what will happen is as the congressman said, we may get a sugar rush on this. come 2018, i don't think that's when people are going to say oh, the tax bill was horrible. they're probably not going to feel a lot of it, obviously because it applies next year. it's 2020. that's an interesting calculation that president trump's team has made. i think if anything, if the republicans did not pass this now, they really would be in

trouble come 2018. now i actually don't think it's going to hurt them that much. >> coming up -- >> is this segment finally over? >> i'm facebook live. >> my facebook live with my chickens would be better -- you going to check the analytics ohhen that and they're not going to be as good as me and my chickens in. >> she always talks about analytics. she goes i'm going to check my analytics now. >> i did a facebook live sunday morning in the robe that jared and ivanka gave me. i'm on their holiday list, and i wore the robe, and i took the robe down to the chicken house, and then i caught donald, the little black bunny with the tiny paws and held it up in the facebook live. 50,000 views already. >> she does analytics. >> i don't know what you're doing. you're never going to get the views. >> they give me a soft, intimate robe. >> i show it in the facebook live.

>> what kind of robe? >> you wear it after you get out of the shower, but you feel like you need to take a shower again. it's so weird. no. i don't get it. i take a shower, put the robe on and i'm like oh, i need to shower. how does that happen? >> oh, stop it. >> how does that happen? you're supposed to be clean. >> i got to get off here because -- >> new reporting from the atlantic. i don't have my microphone on. so mika -- >> new reporting in the atlantic that a small group of billionaires offered to a buyout to get donald trump to walk away from the presidential race. even going as far as so ask an associate to name a price. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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president trump is a believer and so i am. and we understand the role of faith in the life of this nation. >> okay. hey, listen, if you have mika on your christmas card list, you know what? you might want to take her off, because she'll just use it on facebook live. everything is a prop in a facebook live. isn't that disturbing? mika gets

gifts and uses them as props on facebook live. >> i didn't know about the robe. i didn't get a robe. she offered me one of her chickens. i declined. >> it's a big great quality robe. probably the greatest robe i've ever seen. big and plush. >> gold trim? >> no. this is from the kushner side of the family. it's simple. black and white. understated. no 12 karat gold or whatever line. they're yelling at me. do the prompter, willie. >> all right. here we go. >> this is my big break. hold on. okay. >> you got this. >> do i like okay? >> good enough. >> action. >> all right. here we go. that was the vice president. now there's new reporting that

mike pence believers, quote, heaven and earth from conspired to make him a heart beat or impeachment vote away from the presidency. we are joined to discuss a new wide ranging piece. i think it's like an 8,000 word piece coming up next on "morning joe."

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i'll do it. what? there are more than 12 words in the intro? >> okay. let's go to willie geist. >> i thought you were excellent, but i'll take it. mccay coppens, his piece is entitled "god's plan for memen". he writes no man can serve two masters but smens is giving it his all. he'll be addressing conservative

supporters at a rally. when the moment comes for him to pass on the president's well wishes, there's a chuckle that prompts knowing laughter from the attendees. it's almost as if in that brief ears to hear that he recognizes the absurdity of his situation, that he knows just what sort of man he is working for. while things look bad now, there's a grand purpose here, a plan that will manifest itself in due time. let not your hearts be troubled, he seems to be saying, i've got this. then all at once, pence is back on message. mckay, flush that out. we were talking about that knowing head nod that mike pence perfected, a little reaganesque, you ask him about a tweet trump has written or something he said that you would think is offensive, he nods his head, composes himself, delivers some sort of lukewarm or vanilla defense of the president. talk a little if you can about that dance he had to do for

what, a year and a half now. >> it is interesting. i think it gets to the core contradiction of mike pence. ever since i joined this ticket, his role is to defend trump, to apologize for him, to rationalize, justify various provocations and antics of the president while at the same time behind the scenes he is one step ahead, thinking of what comes next. people i talk to who have known him a long time say he is a lot more ambitious and calculating than he let's on in public. and that's come through at key moments behind the scenes throughout his time at trump's side. >> echos to one of the great anecdotes in the piece. you write pence considered a coup in the days after the "access hollywood" tape, coup your word there. you write within hours of the bombshell, he made it clear that he was ready to take trump's place as the party's nominee in

the wake of the "access hollywood" tape. how did that play out exactly, was he really ready to go. >> yeah. this is one of the interesting things i learned according to several republicans i talked to that are familiar with the situation. you know, it has been reported that he sent a letter to trump saying that he needed to assess whether he could stay on the ticket. but my sources say it went further than that. like you just read, made clear to rnc he was ready to take the top of the ticket, and actually during a meeting in the chaotic 48 hours following the "access hollywood" tape's release, trump met with top advisers and reince priebus then chairman of the rnc actually said in that meeting according to someone that was there that pence and condoleezza rice were good to go in terms of forming a new republican ticket. >> wow. >> that's an interesting thought, mckay. on that point, the general thinking in washington is that

there are two doors that you can go through. one is in the west wing at 1600. the other is up at the naval observatory, and that the line tends to be at least around washington a little longer heading through the door at navel observatory where the vice president lives than actually in terms of going through the west wing, in terms of getting stuff done, getting a beat down on policy. in your reporting, did you hear that, hear people speak to the other power center created by mike pence? >> yeah. no question. in fact, even people close to the president who are trump l loyalists will tell you pence was given a broad portfolio an astonishing degree of autonomy, that's because he is careful in public about showing deference and loyalty and even submission to trump. so yeah. especially i think on religious and social issues, you talk to a lot of people on the religious right, say pence is their guy in

the white house. if they take something to him, he will do his best when he thinks he can actually make a den dent to push it forward. he has pull in the administration. the question is how loyal is he to the president and will that loyalty be able to sustain the kind of constant siege that the white house is under at the moment. >> to follow up on that point is when the president sees this kind of piece that you've written, mckay, how much does that hurt pence going forward. we know you have to play to the president, if the vice president looks like he's the go to guy, does that hurt his relationship in fact with the president. >> right. we've seen this before, "new york times" reported over the summer that pence was laying ground work for a 2020 presidential campaign in case trump didn't run. remember pence put out a theatrical statement, utterly denouncing the story as disgrateful. i should note we did bring some

of this stuff in the story to pence's office and they deflini the anecdote. he was not contemplating a coup. this is what we have come to expect. the president made very clear that if you want his loyalty and his support, you have to show how loyal and supportive you are to him. so i have no doubt that this story probably might not help that relationship. >> mckay, thank you so much. we really appreciate you coming and talking about your piece on the show very much. >> thank you. >> mckay's piece is in the upcoming issue of "the atlantic." i will say this about mike pence, he is not just a favorite of the evangelical wing of the republican party, there are a lot of other republicans comforted when he talks about constitutional norms, when he talks about russia. his views on russia sound a lot like ronald reagan's views on russia. even though he is more conservative than a lot of

people in the mainstream republican party, my guess would be that they would take mike pence in a second, in a heartbeat over the situation. i also know a lot of democrats, had a lot of conversation with people that say i would take mike pence or bernie sanders right now over somebody that doesn't respect constitutional norms. >> sounds like mike pence is ready should that opportunity come up. ahead, the trump administration often has a hard time getting on the same page. now the same seems to be true concerning his lawyers and whether or not the president can be charged with obstruction of justice. we'll explain. and federal prosecutors pushing to have paul manafort remain on house arrest after learning he was working on a secret opinion piece with a person believed to have ties to russian intelligence, like within the last couple weeks. a massive wildfire in california. bill karins reports spread the average of one football field a second overnight. we'll get a live report next on "morning joe."

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if he can show he did not commit obstruction of justice he can complete his term. there are serious allegations that occurred. in america, supreme court and the american people believe no one is above the law. the president has gotten himself into this fix that is very serious. >> 18 years ago, a u.s. senator

by the name of jeff sessions thought it was possible for a president to commit obstruction of justice. >> you know, i think actually if you look, it is what separates democracies from dictatorships. no man or woman considered to be above the law. >> thank god for then senator sessions. >> that we have an attorney general who understands that in america no man or woman is above the law, even the president of the united states can obstruct justice. >> i am thinking maybe jeff sessions is saying something different today. i don't know. >> no, i'm sure he's not. i'm sure he's not. it is interesting though, you look and see the desperation of a lot of people on -- you can't even say the far right any more because the far right used to be people that really wanted small, small limited government. that's what used to be considered far right. now it is just the trumpists. >> and his lawyers.

>> and people that work for him, what they're trying to spin around right now is pretty crazy. they're obsessed with hillary clinton, somebody who lost the election over a year ago, and they're doing everything they can to distract from the fact that we have got a president in donald trump who admitted to obstruction of justice over the weekend and the entire republican political party apparatus is lining up behind someone who has been accused of being a predator towards children, and they're trying to distract. james carville would come on, any time you tried to talk about the clintons, he would be like look at the bird over there, look at the bird over there. say anything. joe, that's so funny, had a gun in his hand. what are you going to do about that bird over there with blood on its wing, and everybody would look at the bird. and he would distract the rest of the world from what was happening with the clintons.

now you have the trump people, and their version of it is duh. hillary. that's their version. they really are expecting people to be distracted from the fact that the president of the united states this weekend admitted to obstruction of justice. and then john dowd, no, i wrote that. richard nixon talking to david frost. it is not violating the law. >> we have a group to talk about this today. with us onset -- >> i just started. >> susan del percio and professor from university, former democratic congressman, harold ford junior. in washington, white house reporter for usa today, heidi

prisbilla. it is like a movie from 1950, a comedy. in mime. >> the most funny unintentional thing yesterday, did you see kellyanne conway, any time she's in front of the tv set. >> don't even. >> i was with the president when he walked on mars. i was with the president -- so yesterday she goes on the air, says i was with the president all day. and i know that he did not tweet that himself. like she doesn't understand that special counsel is going to be able to find out if john dowd was e-mailing, texting, calling before the president tweeted things out. how stupid do they think we are. we all know dowd didn't dictate that, we know a lawyer, a person

out of law school three days would not have used that language. it was the president. he admitted to obstruction of justice and you know that because now even dowd is saying presidents can't commit obstruction of justice. >> he is deferring to lawyers for what he should say. the rationale for donald trump using twitter is he goes past the media, takes his message directly to the people. that message has never been filtered before, i don't see any reason it would be in this particular case. in that message when they point and say look at hillary, look at hillary, say she lied to the fbi. former director james comey said in testimony this summer she did not actually lie in that case to the fbi. >> joe, what i am going to do is jump to this story first since we on it. my microwave told me to give you a little kelly anne. there seems to be a rift between donald trump's personal lawyer and white house lawyer handling the russian inquiry. stems from the question whether

his controversial tweet of the weekend that joe talked about is evidence of obstruction of justice. >> it is. >> it is. and whether the president can even obstruct justice in the first place. >> he can. >> yes, he can. after the president's saturday tweet that said i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. the president's personal lawyer, john dowd stepped in, claiming he was the one that wrote the tweet, not the president. you really going to do that? dowd revealed potential legal defense in the on-going russia probe, telling nbc news it is ignorant to say the tweet admitted obstruction. dowd argued the president could not obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under the constitution. >> stop right there. ladies and gentlemen of america,

we actually have now and have had it several times in this administration harold ford, people that say the president is not only above the law, the president is the law. steven miller saying the president. >> the king. >> his power is not to be questioned. now the president's lawyer saying the president cannot obstruct justice because he is the law. that's the most undemocratic, unamerican thing i have ever heard. it is richard nixon saying i cannot break the law because i am the president. >> two most powerful things in the constitution, one, declaration of war, two, impeachment of the president. that means you're indicted and tried by the senate. clearly the president and is standard in the constitution, mentions, it is both ways, you can be convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors which means politics, just about anything. mr. dowd, i hope there were no

civics teachers or kids learning from that. >> we will show you ty cobb and then kellyanne conway. you have 20 seconds to close mic micro waves. last night, handling the russian inquiry distanced himself from that argument, telling nbc news i expect a fact based exoneration that does not require that level of legal analysis. there's no staj of which i am aware to rely on the proclamation that obstruction is impossible with regard to a president. here is kellyanne. >> does that happen a lot where other people tweet for the president? >> yes, well, yes, in terms of lawyers. the lawyers are the ones that understand how to put the tweets together. i was with the president on saturday all day frankly and i know that what mr. dowd says is correct. he says that he put it together and sent it to our director of

social media. >> susan, she was with the president all day, literally. literally, she was with the president literally all day, so she knows the lawyers because we all know the lawyers actually write donald trump's tweets for him because he stops and says hmm, fools rush in. >> think before i tweet. >> let me -- >> i don't want to lie. >> i shall call counsel. come on. that's beyond absurd. i wonder if the hosts of the show believed her. no, they didn't. i wonder if anybody in the audience believed it. if they did believe her, we've all got a bridge we'd like to sell you in brooklyn. >> we know the president's staff and president live within that bubble, but the bubble is getting smaller and they're

giving less and less oxygen to it, they can't get out of their own way. this is the stories they come up with and they want to live in those stories, and that has worked for them for awhile. i want to go to something earlier you said about james cargill, saying the bird. he never tore down the country the way this president is. didn't attack the fbi. he didn't attack journalists. >> he was better at it. >> at least he was a distraction, honest distraction. it wasn't fundamentally trying to discredit our media, our justice system for personal gain. and that i think is a broader conversation that's really important now because this president is fundamentally starting to destroy our country. >> heidi, in a lot of ways this is the rhythm of what we have seen a couple of years now, that donald trump now president trump will tweet something out and his

campaign staff or now white house staff scurries around behind him to clean up the mess, explain it away, or this is what he meant. but the stakes are higher in this case. we are in the middle of this investigation. could lead to a charge of obstruction of justice. >> we have a well beaten path, willie, for a lot of people that attempted to take the bullet for the president, and that's right out the door. here's what may happen in the case of john dowd, which is that he is going to potentially become a witness in the investigation. there's going to be questions about who composed that tweet. it doesn't look like a tweet that a rookie lawyer would have composed, and now we're seeing also on the talk shows that there aren't many people even ty cobb, another lawyer within the president's team, defending this strategy. the only person seems to be john dowd and alan dershowitz. a lot of them are concerned

about his legal strategy when you have the two highest profile lawyers seemingly disagreeing on what the basis of the defense is. >> it is breathtaking, harold, to be a lawyer in washington, d.c., and to go out and make the argument that the president of the united states is above the law. that the president of the united states can't obstruct justice in an investigation that pertains to his campaign first, to his administration second, and to him third. it is hard to climb back from that, hard to get a job in washington, d.c. after you're branded as somebody putting forth an autocrat's defense. >> she didn't dispute the substance, she said who wrote it. one could surmise she's siding with ty cobb, saying if the president was the author, there's a problem which is the point made this morning.

heidi's point should not be as relates to the legal part should not be overlooked quickly. dowd puts himself in, all these other people are under oath. if mueller asks, we will get to the bottom of this, someone will be under oath with yes, i wrote it, no, i didn't. as we have seen, that's gotten people in trouble thus far. one of the main things gotten people in trouble thus far in this investigation. still ahead on "morning joe," republicans flock to roy moore's defense. in the words of orrin hatch, many of the things that he allegedly did were decades ago. so you know it is hard. we'll breakdown what could be a party defining moment. first, bill karins has more on the wildfires. >> this is devastating, will likely be the top news story of the day, maybe the week. the thomas fire.

formed last night, quickly burned 31,000 acres into city limits in venture a. want to go to jolene kent who is there with active fire and flames behind you. give us the latest. >> reporter: hey, bill, there are 150 structures damaged, 31,000 acres are burning now according to ventura county fire. you see behind me a large apartment complex, hawaiian village an hour or so collapsed and was engulfed in flames. they're working to fight that blaze. this is a wind fueled fire that continues to grow. ventura county fire estimates it will be about 50,000 acres that will burn. right now, 27,000 people have evacuated as they continue to move through that, we see major power outages that may take days to restore. bill, very serious developing situation in southern california. >> 27,000 people. one point, city of santa barbara was cut from power. their power is back on. thanks for the latest.

remember the santa rosa fire that killed a lot of people, thousands of homes burned, they said this fire was moving faster than that one, a football field a second. wonder how that's possible. 40 to 60 miles per hour winds, taking embers and blowing them about a mile. then they start new fires. imagine the firefighters helpless in those situations. once daybreak comes up, they're doing a lot of water drops. it is still burning homes and structures along the northern edge of venture a. critical fire conditions and high winds are with this region not just today but the next two days. and the final update to give you, there's a new fire just formed outside of downtown los angeles. calling that the creek fire. only 100 acres. they're going to hopefully get that under control before it is out of control. we'll give updates on the fires through the day on "morning joe" and on msnbc. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ( ♪ )

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a week away from election day in alabama. roy moore received a key endorsement yesterday from president trump. the white house says the president wants someone in the senate that will support his agenda. moore tweeted that he called him from air force one, offering his full support, and telling the former alabama judge go get them, roy. the republican national committee which pulled funding and ground support for moore earlier last month is now reinstating its support. saying they would send $1 million to help moore in the final week of his campaign. >> susan, this is where it ends. i remember writing an op-ed in february of 2016, asking is this how the party of abraham lincoln dies. maybe i need to rewrite it.

this most definitely is how the party of abraham lincoln dies. how they're confined to a hard 30% of the electorate. >> they went from the president as a republican which i always doubt he is a republican, but running as republican, being elected as one, to endorsing more and more, to now putting every donor on the spot as being if you give to the rnc, you are supporting an accused child molestation. that puts the party in an impossible situation, puts it financially in a difficult position you're about to lose me, not me personally, but someone like me. donors stand up for the tax bill. this is where they need to put up or shut up.

i realized we have no patriots, we don't see people stand up to do the right thing in spite of their career, risking re-election, doing the right thing. when are people stepping up, the donor class, political class, or just the voting class. i would love to say this was the final straw, but it is probably not. but it is getting pretty close for a lot of people. where do they go after this. >> mika, this has such impact. susan talked about donors, this does split the party down the middle in a way that donald trump, remember that is summer we went to the hamptons, first time i had been to the hamptons. friend of mine wanted me to go and sweep his garage. >> no, actually. >> donny. >> swept out his garage, then drove back in. do you remember we spoke to the gentleman that watched the show, and he said i contributed in big

ways to republicans my entire life. i can't do it this summer. >> my wife won't let me. >> and he pointed to his wife. said my wife won't let me and my daughter won't let me. even though i really want hillary to lose, he said if i contributed to donald trump, they won't talk to me. multiply that 100 times over and that gentleman and a lot of other men and women that used to give to the rnc now understand if they give to the republican party, they're giving to a man who has been accused credibly of molesting a 14-year-old girl and being banned from a shopping mall in alabama because he chased after teenagers so much when he was in his 30s. >> so much coming out about him. >> think of how it splits the party. >> splits the party, yes.

i think about that. i'm dumbfounded actually. go ahead. >> senator mcconnell and speaker ryan are on record saying they have no reason to believe these women weren't telling the truth. i guess the reason that their minds have changed on this, to your point, susan, why someone hasn't stood up and said from the beginning they believe these women, they changed their mind because they want an extra vote on a tax bill. i think to your point on decency, where are we, who are we, what have we become when a meezly tax bill is bigger, and super see supersedes lack of morality and alleged criminal activity. is it that important? >> how about mika supporting a president who clearly has obstructed justice, who all of these donors would say has obstructed justice if it were a democrat, and yet they're

writing checks nonstop. i remember having a heated conversation at a mitt romney event with people that were extremely respectful of the system and everything else out there, everything was about the tax cut. everything was about lowering the rate four, five, six percent. at some point, friends, and i consider you friends, it is just not worth it. >> what more needs to happen? >> it is just not worth it. there's a simple question for the rnc and mitch mcconnell and the rest of the republican leadership. what's changed since two and a half weeks ago where you said i believe the women and this is abhorrent and we can't stand for this and we are pulling out of the race, and yesterday when you lined up behind roy moore in alabama. what's different now? >> what does it sound like. it sounds like when lindsey graham was calling donald trump

a kook, when paul ryan was deeply critical of donald trump. and when one republican after another in the primary process said the same thing. you know, it is funny. i get slammed by people because they think that somehow we were too nice to donald trump, despite the fact in december for three months before anybody voted we were saying his muslim ban would stop me from ever voting for donald trump. i said is this what germany looked like in 1933, or calling him a bigot in february, 2016, asking is this where the republican party ends. he is disqualified to be president. this republican party has gone the opposite direction. three months before republicans voted, they said he is not qualified to be president of the united states. these republicans have actually moved towards him and moved

towards, all the people so self-righteous early on -- it is about power. the more power he gained, the more they put their views, their values on hold. and roy moore is the worst example of it. >> republicans were willing to overlook a lot or try and figure out a fundamental way to work with this president when he came into power in january. they said look, he has the general. we have foreign policy team. they said maybe we can work on ladies and gentlemen, he is not going to get involved in it, we'll work behind his back. all of these things have systematically failed and now they moved from trying to work around him to working with him, that means you buy not just a tax cut, you buy the whole agenda. either you are with donald trump in that agenda or you're not. and that's where it is time to step up. coming up on "morning joe,"

if you're paul manafort, perhaps you want to steer clear of hanging out with russians at least until the bob mueller thing wraps up. the head spinning story next on "morning joe." life happens.

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a new product. take a look at this. >> do you have trouble waking up in the morning? need an extra jolt to get out of bed? then try the all new trump tweets alarm clock, the only alarm clock that wakes you up try the trump tweets alarm clock. the only alarm clock wakes you up by reading trump's latest insane tweets that happen every day at like 6:00 a.m. >> we need roy moore to win in alabama. the russian investigation is a witch-hunt. >> the trump tweets alarm clock, crazy never sleeps. >> never sleeps. no, it doesn't actually, that's one of the issues, sleep deprivation. it has been over 24 hours since the president sent a tweet, last one was yesterday morning about what he says is the greatest witch-hunt in u.s. political history. meanwhile, paul manafort's bid to be released from house arrest while on bail hit a tiny bit of a snag.

just a little bit. federal prosecutors filed an objection yesterday citing his recent efforts to ghost write an opinion piece about his work in ukraine, but the man believe linked to russian intelligence, according to the filing, manafort and his unnamed russian co-author were writing that as recently as last thursday. the government says it was written in english, the plan was to have it published anonymously in an unknown publication. if published, it would have violated a gag order in the case. we are told that draft has been filed under seal with the court. a spokesman for manafort declined to comment. joining us now, professor from stamford, michael mcfall. and contributor mike lup ka, susan dell pursue oh and josh

earnest back as well. mr. ambassador, this little breach on the part of manafort given everything, is that bad? >> well, the grand scheme of things, i don't know where this comes down, but it is just strange, odd. anonymous op-ed with russian intelligence officer to make him look good. i don't understand the strategy there. to be honest, sounds kooky to me. >> that's one way to put it. also sounds like he was violating, i mean, how does he get first of all bail, how does he get anything he wants given he did that. why would he violate such clearly directives? >> i don't understand it at all. you would think there would be lots of ghost writers he could have approached, americans. you would think why that would be the strategy to try to help him with his legal problems, i

can think of 100 other things you might want to do, and especially reaching back, it sounds like this is his fixer, a guy he used to work with in kiev, somebody with links to russian military intelligence, of all people to be in contact with at the moment that he is in the place he is now shows incredibly bad judgment from somebody who has shown incredibly bad judgment for a long time. >> and willie, you know this is the question every step of the way during the campaign, joe kept asking, i don't get this russian thing. like ambassador mcfall, it is kooky at this point. >> we talked about general flynn and his latest plea barring gai about lying to the fbi. you want to dig to the next layer of the story. does it seem likely given how well you understand the relationship between russia and the united states that general

flynn during the transition would have gone out on his own and reached out to ambassador kislyak and discussed sanctions in a way he admitted he lied about. do you think that would be a union lateral act taken by general flynn? >> no, no way. in fact, we talked about this months ago on this show. think about, go back to that context, right? they're in the transition moment. they're starting to divvy up jobs for their new places at the white house. they don't really know who is in charge of what. i was part of the 2008 transition. i remember it vividly, who is going to be in charge of foreign policy, who is not. you're constantly looping in people, constantly checking with senior people. and by the way, i think we think now we know general flynn was out of the country, all the more so, to do that. i find it inconceivable he would have talked to ambassador kislyak. the russians of all people, remember what we knew in the fall of 2008 without being

coordinated with other people at a much more senior level. >> josh, you have familiarity with this, it was during the transition. you all were still in the white house, just imposed sanctions on russia because of meddling in the election. the phone call from flynn to kislyak took place on that very day. >> i remember when the news broke. i was in the briefing room at the white house, reporters were asking is it appropriate for the trump transition team to be making this call. my answer at the time was it depends what he said. now that we know what he said and know what they were discussing, it was clearly completely inappropriate. but i have another question for ambassador mcfall which is ambassador, mika asked you to put yourself in the position of paul manafort. i am interested in your take on the position of vladimir putin right now, sort of seeing what's happening in our country, seeing the way their interference in the last election has had a significant impact on the political debate, what is he

thinking and what is his analysis of what opportunities this created for him with his relationship with the united states. >> i think there's the public position, i am not speculating about what he is thinking privately. we haven't talked for awhile, banned from russia as a result of sanctions the obama administration put in, the tit for tat. i hosted the russian ambassador here on friday at stanford. in public, all conversations in public just for the record. and publicly, of course, they say this is a witch-hunt, this is a deep state, the good donald trump, the good president trump trying to improve relations with us, everybody else is out to get him, including people like us talking right now. privately if you think about this operation what have they done. they have helped divide america. we are now looking in. we are not debating russian foreign policy actions abroad, we almost never talk about

places like crimea or what the russians are doing in syria because of the domestic internal scandal and investigations that we're having. so that withdrawal of american power in the world, that's good for putin. he likes that. whether or not we'll have to wait to see on collusion and let's not get ahead of what we know, but in terms of that foreign policy objective, he achieved a lot. >> new report this morning claims special counsel robert mueller has asked deutsche bank, reuters reports that germany's largest bank received the subpoena from mueller several weeks ago to provide information on money and credit transactions. the source was confirming an earlier german newspaper report, the bank which loaned the trump organization millions for real estate ventures said they would

not comment on any of its clients. in a statement to bloomberg, the lenlder said deutsche bank always cooperates with investigating authorities in all countries. they declined to provide additional information. mike, your reaction and i want the ambassador's reaction to that as well. >> by the end of this day, probably going to learn how you say fake news in german. he will attack any source. mika, don't you just have the feeling that his finances have always been if not at the heart of this, very close. >> more than a feeling, yeah. >> and all these plates have been juggled so long, been in the air. eventually we're going to see them crash along with this president. >> ambassador, your reaction to that report. >> same thing. there's so much we don't know about the financial interactions between various russians, deutsche bank which is a huge bank inside russia. there's a lot of business in

russia and the trump organization. he as a candidate has deliberately tried to obfuscate that. the fact that the subpoena is out suggests that mr. mueller and his team are digging deeper into that. i suspect we're going to learn more about that. doesn't mean that that's the reason there was collusion, right? connecting that causal chain is a different matter. i just think it is inevitable, we're going to learn more about russian financing of trump, different kinds of activities, especially after 2008 when money was very hard to come by, when the trump organization was finding it hard to come by money. the russians provided that. >> ambassador michael mcfall, thank you so much. josh earnest, thank you for being on. lupica say with us. up next, as far as nancy pelosi is concerned, the end is near. >> the bill the republicans are bringing forth to go to conference is probably one of the worst bills in the history

of the united states of america. health care, the debate on health care is life, death. this is armageddon. >> wall street doesn't seem quite as concerned by the impending armageddon. we will check in with cnbc next on "morning joe."

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apple reached agreement with ireland to pay billions in back taxes. with more on the european union and tax policies. >> like you said, apple is going to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes to ireland, works out to $15.5 billion. i say finally because apple was ordered to pay the money last year and ireland actually was dragging its feet in terms of trying to collect the taxes. ireland has a policy of taxing

companies at ultra low levels in order to get them to invest in the country, so companies like apple use it as a way to minimize taxes they pay on foreign businesses. ireland likes apple in the country because they create thousands of jobs, but the eu wants taxes it is entitled to, fair enough. apple and ireland both are appealing this eu ruling. but apple will start paying money into an ireland escrow account first quarter of next year, so it is something to watch. and amazon kicking off business in australia today, the online retail giant took its first orders in the country. but there are wrinkles to iron out. there are a lot of complaints about no inventory and higher prices on the site. lots of questions about how amazon has to grow market share down under by taking a page of what they've done in the u.s., accepting little to no profit margin early onto get people to spur their sales. and facebook looking to shore up future user base, they're going to focus on kids.

it is launching a new messenger app called, wait for it, messenger kids, and what it does do different, parents control who can chat with their kids. >> no, no, no, no, no, no, no. >> i hear you. this is what they're saying. no "the ed sho no ads to click. >> no. >> and there's no app purchases that they -- >> say the ages again. what are we talking about here. >> talking about putting a fence around it around 13-year-old level. >> how young? >> this is not to say all parents should let their kids chat at 13 years old. facebook is trying to put something in place, if your kids are chatting at 13 years or younger that parents have a way to -- >> 13 is the top end. are they talking about six-year-olds? six-year-olds on facebook. >> i have a nine month old. you know this. i have a nine month old at home. i barely let her touch the ipad to watch peppa the pig.

>> mike, my kids, i have a 14-year-old who had to get off instagram because she's bombarded by so many spam accounts every day. it is dangerous even for 14, 15, 16, 18-year-olds, let alone six-year-old kids. that's sick. let me say that again. that's sick. >> my daughter is 18. i'm thinking we don't want more of this. we want less of this. we want the possibility. >> we want fences around all of it. we want regulation. >> you want to build a fence, build a fence. put a fence around that. >> it is a news organization. admit it and deal with it. >> this is a wall. by the way, a study came out a couple weeks ago. >> reaching out to six-year-olds. >> talking about how depression and suicide has skyrocketed, and it is connected with use to social media. especially among girls, young girls are especially prone to

depression because of social media. >> because the cyber bullying, it happens. at a younger age, it becomes more and more dangerous when children aren't equipped to handle it emotional. >> six-year-olds are not equipped to handle among us at hasn't thought about how different our lives would have been if all of this stuff was available to us when we were 8 and 12 and 13 and 18 years old? >> so note to facebook, no thank you, we think there are better things you could be doing with your time as you bring your company into the future. >> like be transparent for instance about who pays for ads. >> better things you can do with your time. like kids, no. >> huh-uh. >> kids don't need you. you know what we need you to do, take a look at all the problems you have, okay. and try and figure out a traipse parent way of dealing with them. up next, the president decides to shrink two national monuments in utah and has already resulted

in at least one lawsuit. "morning joe" is coming right back. from the moment you decide to move your money to the instant your new retirement account is funded. because when you know where you stand, things are just clearer. -♪ a little bit o' soul, yeah

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moment we have a temporary absence of american leadership on the issue. >> that's former president obama in paris on the decision to pull out of the paris climate accord. president trump took another step to pull back on his predecessor's environmental policies in utah yesterday where he announced plans to shrink the size of two of the state's national monuments. >> some people think that the natural resources of utah should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in washington. and guess what, they're wrong. >> the group of environmental and conservation organizations have filed suit against the president's monument changes. joining us now, filmmaker james redford. his newest film is the hbo documentary titled happening, a clean energy revolution, which debuts this monday, december the

11th. james, it's great to have you with us. want to talk about the film. but first the news out of utah. for people who aren't familiar with the story, this is not a marginal cut to the size of these monuments, this is a massive cut. and why is president trump doing it? >> well, you know, he just seems to me that the playbook is whatever president obama did, undo it. across all -- across the board. so it's just more of the same as far as i'm concerned. >> and is it 2 million acres? >> 2 million acres. >> right, they're carving a ton of land out and giving it back. is this for oil and gas speculation? what would be the rationale? >> well, it's access for recreational vehicles as well as energy extractive industries, but my feeling is with all these lawsuits going on and delays before it's implemented, if it's implemented, that ties into what i'm here. cost of extraction being what it is and the cheapening of

renewable energy, i think it's likely there will be no economic incentive to go in there by the time this thing would clear through all these lawsuits. >> let's talk about the clean energy revolution. >> happening. >> is it happening right now? how fast is it happening? can this country wean itself off old gas? >> we have the energy we need to have a clean energy future. plain and simple. it's competitive with wind in many states. the wind and solar are competitive with natural gas and coal in many states and in some cases beating it so the economic argument is there. it's scalable. you see tremendous amount of action going on at the city and state level, in spite of what's happening with the feds. >> susan. >> so we know this administration has definitely put the hamper on a lot of clean energy going forward, but it seems that it's already been in the works for so long. can perhaps the investments that corporations and others have made, is that why it's happening

now and maybe continue to go forward instead of being hampered by the president's efforts now? >> yes. look at what happened in bon this year at cup 23. the president made the statement he's going to remove us from that agreement. but i was invited by the world wildlife fund to go there with a group of business leaders, university leaders, faith leaders, state and city lawmakers and activists representing $1.3 trillion of economic power over 2,700 businesses and organizations showed up in bon to say we're still going forward with this. we're going forward, we're not going back. >> mike. >> what did people in that state think yesterday watching orrin hatch get rolled this way by the president of the united states? this guy who's devoted, what, 40 years of his life supposedly to look out for people in utah and to protect the strait and now, what, you can buy him with a

couple of seats on air force one back and forth? >> i mean, i think he probably wanted it. >> he was for it. >> i mean -- >> and so you said it was just to undo what barack obama did, but part of it also is industry, been wanting to get at these national parks for some time. >> well, you know, the oil and gas industry has really, really strong lobbying presence. they have a lot of money to spend to continue to push their interest. and, you know, if you look at it there's almost a level of desperation because it's going. increasingly, there's not going to be an economic incentive to be creating energy from coal and gas. and so what you see in some ways is almost like a death rattle of, you know, how do we prop up this tent, it's collapsing on us so -- >> happening. the hbo documentary, a clean energy revolution, debuts this monday, december 11th. james redford, thank you very much for being on.

we really appreciate it. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks, mika, thanks, joe. hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle. much to cover starting with following the money. a new report shows robert mueller focusing in on trump's wallet. and prosecutors pull their support of a bail agreement with manafort after he ghost wrote an op-ed with a russian colleague last week. as constitutional questions swirl over the president's role. >> there is a credible case of obstruction of justice against donald trump. >> coming back for more. president trump formerly endorses the candidate as the rnc gets back on board. >> i owe nothing to the gop establishment. >> all this as another moore accuser comes forward to tell her story. but alabama voters, they ain't buying it. >> i don't believe the