it's time for "morning joe". >> good morning, joe and mika have the morning off, i'm willie. we have former aide to george w. bush, elise jordan, we have rick tyler, former fbi special agent and contributor clint watts and national contributor carol lee. good morning, everybody, welcome. >> good morning, sam. >> all right. this month the president of the united states described the fbi as tainted and dishonest and said its reputation is in tatters. at the same time current and fbi workers has seen a surge if do nations t. association said yesterday it's received more than $140,000 in donations from more than 2,000 donors in december alone this money will

send deceased agents to college and help fbi families in need they said on social media. over the weekend, the editor of the legal news website law fare called for donations in the names of andrew mccabe and james baker after congressional republicans and the president criticized them, former cia director john brennan tweeted he had personally donated this as republicans continued their attacks including frances rooney of florida. in this exchange yesterday with halle jackson here on msnbc. >> i'm very concern thad the doj and the fbi whether you want to call it deep state or what are off the ills rails. you look at the strozic texting and the clinton research people. this mccabe guy takes donations while running for state senator.

>> congressman you called the don and fib football off the rails. fundamentally how is that something that are you okay with here. how does that not undermine the work these agencies are doing? >> i think the american people have high standards, to see those examples. >> are they living up to standards? >> those aforementioned examples are really nerve we'll be right backing to me. it undermines my confidence that the agencies don't respect the constitution and will not put the ends before the means. >> it could mean a good, clean government. >> do you think people have a good, clean government. i want to let you go, i this i the point i'm trying to get at, people say republicans are working to discred at this time department of justice and thus discredit the russian investigations. is that not what are you doing? >> no, i don't want to discredit them. i would like the sect directors and agencies purge it.

we have great lawyers here. those are the people i want the american people to see and knowing the good works are done and are kind of the good state. >> language like that, purge, purge, the department of justice? >> well, i think that mr. strozic could be purged, sure. >> clint. let me go to you want your gut reaction to that, also your reaction to the case that's been made from people like congressman rooney who say when we talk about the fbi being tainted and in tatters, they're talking about the leadership. not rank and time fbi agents like the ones who disrupted christmas day in san francisco, for example. what is your reaction to hearing that? >> yeah, i don't understand it. this is what third world countries go through their department of defense the department of justice, they pick and cheese those that aren't loyal to them. then it shades or moves the law in a very deep state kind of way actually towards the elites that are putting pressure on them.

i find it also ironic, he was talking a bltd the need for a purge the way i understand director mueller, as soon as he got indications there was anything that could be seen as bias, he removed that person from the investigation so that was already done. what i also don't understand is how this ultimately plays out for the republican party. if there is any entity in the u.s. government, this former republican leaning, it would be the fbi, there is a mix across the board, they're all cent rift, primarily, so i wonder how this plays out over time. i think these republicans think they're insulated from it because they're a very red gerrymandering states, so they don't have to deal with this, we can beat up the fbi or cia and these institutions, there is no blowback to them. i disagree. what we will see is questioning about the gop, is it about party and politics or where we putting our country first? it doesn't help us go after

terrorists. it doesn't help us get to the bottom of this investigation and calling for things a look into uranium one again, that's a waste of resources, when we are supposed to be talking about, how do we pursue criminals in the united states. i think ultimately it will blow back on the gop. >> is this to be seen as other than that concerted efforts, you put purge, tatters, tainted from the president down, testimony by mr. mccabe in front of the judiciary committee. he was grilled and had the ethics of the fbi called into question. thi this appears to be a strategy by the republicans to under 89 i mine the investigation. >> it's clearly a strategy by the white house. in their world the political campaign, when you have an open six, you, you go work with the public perception and move that perception until the president can call for him to be fired. right.

so he's not calling for him to be fired. there is an inherent contradiction. what they're saying is this is a hox. this is fake. well, if it's a hoax and fake, he should be fired, right? but they're not saying. that they're saying we're not going to fire them. at the same time, it's a hoax and a fake. they're engage income a campaign. what i found interesting about representative rooney, he lives in naples, where do law enforcement go to retire? they go to florida one, naples, ft. meyers, i imagine he will get an earful. >> elise, we talked about congress, the president. there is a conservative media helping fuel this. you put all those empties together, there is clearly a push, whether it's to get donald trump to a place where he can fire bob mueller or to undermine whatever the outcome of the mueller investigation is, there is definitely a concerted strategy here. >> this has been the, you know, since the first indictments came out. i was in wisconsin and i was doing focus groups for lord

ashcroft polls, we went around talking to wisconsin voters and overall, they thought that the indictments against paul manafort and gate archbishop witch hunt. we went to getting news from outlets not reporting on anything but the possibility this is an absolute witch hunt and out to get donald trump. >> sam. >> well, i'm struck by one person's silence in all this that's jeff sessions. he runs the department of justice under which the fbi is located. he should be speak out, these are his employees. they are under attack. yet this man has gone on an extended christmas break unlike the rest of us. i find that terrible in a way, because you do have your departments and integrity when you defend those departments. part of me can't get over the irony fx you ask any democrat about the if eb fib, circa

october of 2016, they would bemoan how james comey and the fbi hand himmed the entire 2016 elections and to be perfectly frank about it, they wouldn't be all day long, the reason i say that, in the memo to fire james comey, rod rosenstein, a push by the administration specifically said comey mishandled the clinton administration for them to turn around and say, no, no, no, in fact the fbi had their fingers on the scale for clinton and was, you know, hiding the uranium one deal, didn't do enough on her e-mails is absurd. think think we are in this weird place we are watching this obvious kubuki theater happening in front of us. we have to pretend there is a lot of merit when it is so transparentally political, it's bizarre, i do think at this point if time jeff sessions has an obligation to say something. but who knows.

>> would any administration can get upset at certain cabinets they presume to be anti-interest. the state department always perceived as more lifl i liberal t. department of defense. >> and turn around and say they were doing something. >> exactly fundament you have a purge, what you end up with is iraq cpa circa 2003. have you people ideologically in sync. this does not lead to a strong path for justice in america. >> carol lee, as you watch this approach to bob mueller, the fbi and the rhetoric that it's using, where do you, according to your reporting, suspect this is headed? i mean, we've had this conversation about whether or not the president of the united states might fire bob mueller or rod rosenstein eventually, that on the table when you talk to people in the white house? . >>. >> reporter: i think it's on the table in the sense that it's

something that people who are around the white house are concerned about, but if you look at where things were a year ago, if you step back this all started about a year ago with the president attacking the cia and intelligence community. that was front and center at that time and what we have seen over the year is that as this shifted and intensified, now he is moving to attacking the fbi, where that goes, is largely how this investigation plays out. by all signs point it to not ending any time soon. but and that it's only going to heat up. howlick quickly that moves in the coming weeks and months will depend on how the president acts. there is certainly concern on

the white house and the president, he will take some impulsive action and get really angry at one point as this heats up and make moves that people think will be politically debt victim am for him. >> it was a far out impossibility to fire james comey and he did it. >> i didn't believe it when i first heard it. >> so what do you make of the idea this could happen with bob mueller as well? >> i don't think so. you will find. >> c'mon. >> that will be a tipping point. >> really? >> he never challenges the general. he won't go over kelly, mcmaster in public. he will being away from that. i think in the mueller case as well, this would be a tipping point for senate republicans. >> even if he feels like a scared donald trump in the corner doesn't fire bob mueller? >> i think when he does that, it brings the final avalanche down on him.

the comey firing, you can get away with that, the way the parties are playing out in congress t. mueller team i don't think so. >> see, i fundamentally disagree, with the comey firing, i don't think there are norms that he feels look he needs to abide by. i think if this thing were to go on longer into 2018 as it appears very likely to do, they are already laying down the grounds for to him say, this has lasted far too long, it's a witch hunt. i'm putting an end it to. if he won't do it, i will finds someone who will. what is striking to me is how nonchalant members of congress are about this. there are pieces of legislation that will innoculate bob mueller or protect special count sell's office from the type of executive interference and they're going nowhere and no one on the hill seems to care all that much. they assume there is no way donald trump would touch this third rail that it would be unconceivable to him. the political rollback will be

so strong, there is nothing in his history that suggests he is afraid of that type of blow back. >> i think you make an important point talking congress isn't that concerned. they see it as so far out of the realm. >> it is out of the realm. it is. >> but they're thinking short term. they're thinking this is against donald trump's interests, this isn't rational. it would not be a rational pattern for him to pursue. we have seen time and time again, it's a day-to-day reality show, whatever strikes him at the moment, whatever the impulse is the right move to make. which is why it's an option on the table. >> we heard tillerson was going to be fired, he wasn't fired. her never touches mcmanus, kelly, mcmart mast -- mcmaster. >> he has boundsaries. >> i'm not sure we heard that before. >> he has moments when he is reaching. >> we have had, rick, some senate republicans on, including

bob corker who said a firing of bob mueller would cross the line and would change the dynamic completely. yeah, there are members of congress who aren't interested in protecting bob mueller. some senate republican versus said that's a bridge too far. >> that's why i put it in terms of the campaign the president is trying to undermine bob mueller and everybody around him. if it gets to the point where public opinion says, yes, this is a witch hunt. you can sure they will fire him. they're not there yet. they're moving in that direction, or if they can't fire bob mueller and he comes out with some conclusion that at least the public might reject that conclusion, some hue he's corrupt. >> that itself the game we're trying to win. >> we're going to go live to west palm beach for a preview of the president's day and mar-a-lago. plus, for orrin hatch wins a distinction in utah, not for the reasons he might have thought. we'll explain. he retweeted an editorial headline, what may have been said inside the piece. before we go to break, a bitter

arctic blast putting a deep freeze on much of the country, leaving some buried in snow. let's bring in bonnie schneiderman. what are we looking at here? >> we are looking at this arctic blast. look at this, 47 million people facing some sort of wind chill advisory, even wind chill warnings. that's because the temperatures are plummeting the way your body interprets the temperature. it's feeling fought just 5 degrees below zero. in some locations, 30 degrees below zero. this cold air is on the move. we will see it persist through the rest of the week. another is the lake effect snow. you may have heard of record snow in erie, pennsylvania. another six-to-ten inches on top of what is already on the ground him for those of you traveling in northern alabama and north georgia, watch out for glaze, a little wintry weather, ooiz ice on the roads, that's always tough in the south with rain across areas to the south of that. looking ahead to thursday the frigid morning, will work their way to the northeast. so the wind chill factor in albany will be negative 18.

as we look towards friday morning, washington, d.c., your wind chill will be 14, new york city feels like it's 5 degrees so the cold air is sticking around as i mentioned through the end of the year and straight through the weekend and including new year's. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back after this.

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. >> i'll say this for you, he's been one of the best presidents i've served under. >> mr. president, i have to say that you are living up to every, everything i thought you would. you are one heck of a leader. and we will keep fighting and make this the greatest presidency that we've seen, not only in generations but maybe ever. >> wow, that's senator orrin hatch's effusive praise of the

president over recent weeks. now the salt lake tribune has run a christmas day editorial naming hatch the utahian of the year. he responded he was quote grateful for this great christmas honor from the salt lake tribune adding he voted others to be named for it t. editorial was no honor, it has everything to do with recognizing hatch's part in mismantling monuments and utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power t. for clearly only red the he'd line, not the full piece when he tweeted his thanks. the senator's response was meant to be tongue in cheek. he does have a sense of humor. >> i'm an expert in sarcasm. >> yes, that's why i turned to you first. >> i think this is debatable. there is nothing in his tweet that suggests he was in on the joke. >> maybe it was just dry, bone dry humor. >> you can't do that anyone on twitter, you got to throw an

emoji in there, indicating are you in on the joke. there was nothing there. >> i don't see senator hatch as a big emoji guy, no. >> not in his '80s. >> if you look at the comments that senator hatch made when we came in about donald trump, it is striking for a man who has seen that much in his life, who has been in washington that long to speak in such a, forgive the term a dear leader fashion. >> he is appointing trump of an age, where he was fairly familiar with our country's history. i guess this is the tender right now, if you want to get ahead in donald trump's walk, you can tis ring and you kiss it truly. >> trump it works both way, trump is doing his best to prop up hatch. trump doesn't want mitt romney to 1 run for senate. he is doing everything to give the shift. >> that includes convincing orrin hatch to run for number six? >> six terms.

what did you make with the signing of the tax bill after passage through the senate? >> if you were willing to put your ticket aside, it was fairly fair. i think as the president, you know, he wants to feel good about himself and he didn't feel good about himself, they were trying to say, hey, let's keep these enfor fins toke. you can really feel food about legislative success. to be fair, they ended the year on a pretty high note when you look at the tax bill that they eventually got passed, they repealed the mandate on obamacare. isis is all but wiped up, so there is a -- they have ended the note on a high note. we'll see if they can keep it going. >> carol, we've heard and read reports, donald trump, he tweeted and wants to turn to infrastructure. he feels like he had from tax reform here at the end of the year s. that a realistic proposition when you look at whether or not democrats want to

help donald trump in this election year, they feel it could be a big turning point for them? >> reporter: willie, if you look at tax reform, it's hard to find an issue republicans are more united around. that was razor thin and tough to ultnatalie get passed. infrastructure just gets harder. both parties want to do it. >> that i have a number, a trillion dollars, that i have different ways they want to pay for it. if you break it down within the parties the republicans will have various views on how to pay for it, what it should look like, how to structure that and then you have to try to bring in the democrats, it just gets really hard and this is in an election year on top of that and so you know, as we all know, things tend to not get done very quickly or at all in an election year. so it's an ambitious goal, but it's one that will be far harder than anything we've seen them try to do if 2017. >> republicans historically work towing. maybe not this year, given what democrats are hoping to do in the fall. following yesterday's washington post report on america's lack of

coherence response to the information war online, two former intel-officials, exact cia director mike more relevant and mike rogge verse a new op ed that says russia never stopped its seesh attacks on the united states. they write this -- russia's information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. more relevant and rogers go on

to write -- other countries like turkey and coin are adopting the use of social media to influence other countries and the sanctions imposed in the last year have failed to check and to deter these policies. clint, this goes with what you have talked about. a lot of people talked about the investigation of what happened last year, russia continues effectively unabated to do what it was doing last year. >> yeah the kremlin playbook never stopped. for a non-election year, it's about audience sustainment and infiltration, with i is you pick an audience that you want to really cozy up to and you j you repeat what they say. that's what you see with those issues that you were talking about there. they're going to go with those narratives and keep gaining traction. when it comes to influence, they can inject those in areas they want. the most dangerous part of this is every authoritarian regime around the world, philippines, myanmar, china, we're seeing everyone take that playbook now and say this is extremely cheap.

ki manipulate almost any audience, any audience that comes into the internet through facebook or twitter, which is many of the developing countries of the world doesn't understand what new sources are, how they come through this. this makes it easier and easier, particularly less educated populations. >> are there new policies, new protections? is anything in place, based on what we learned from the intrusion into 2016 election? for people watching at home, they say, has anything changed since then? >> no, nothing's changed. i briefed around the government for the last three years. it's been sort of a hover and the bake things we can do around election and vote protection on voting machines, we haven't done that, that seems basic that both parties would want done. in terms of countering, it was republicans that sort of led that going into 2016, portman, senator portman was the republican that led that. money was allocated. it's not been spent. in the counterpropaganda space, we have done nothing wrerks on our heels. >> the thing is so viewers

understand that, the russians did a test run in ukraine on this, and they were infiltra infiltrateing public opinion there. they didt in the occupation, they continue to do it. they've done it for years. now it's very sophisticated. it's not republican and it's not democrat. it is designed to sew chaos. they are much more likely to incite race wars. it's not one side, they're making an architect on both sides of the argument and watching americans clash. every time you think a democrat a demon or you want to attack the republican as the devil a. lot of that is russia is winning. that's what they want to do to the united states. it's our institution. so we talk about the government is supposed to counteract this with some sort of rt-style, that's not what is supposed to happen. it's supposed to be our free institution and free press that will be the response to this, we're naming at it. >> we have a report in the daily beast how some of the fake accounts were meant to prop up not democrats or republicans, black lives matter protests or

anti-pro gun protests, i don't know if i would call it sophisticated. it is a viewpoint of politics that drakes down ethnic lines, it's being pushed by these russian fake accounts, what's a bit disheartening is it is being left to the social companies solely to physical out how to move -- >> the sources are the good and the bad. >> the american's resprons to it. >> yeah. >> when we get all ginned up about the other side what they're dock, we are vulnerable. >> this is the government. this isn't something the government will be able to some. it's something fundamental about where our country. they could help with regular, yeah. >> a post-facto punishment. >> we could totally give the social media enterprises just a free hand. we can't say, i mean, they have not -- >> or we request do things like not shame the fbi from a gop congressman, these are the kind of things. >> exactly. >> within they see this happen, they laugh, i know, there is a

guy smoking a cigarette somewhere outside of st st. petersburg, can you believe they're doing this? all i have to do is literally clip this segment and push it back. >> someone said, at-a-boy. >> but i mean these fisher, the idea is you take a crack, you make a chasm. in political years you focus on politics. >> it's crazy how cheap it is for them. right. barely a million dollars. >> fundamentally, it's supposed to be about stopping this. >> and they're not doing anything yet. which will be shocking to a lot of people watching this morning. coming up on "morning joe," mike huckaby is a preacher, not exactly a his torn, the comparison huckaby is making that has history buffs scratching their heads, we'll explain that. plus the reverand al sharpton joins the table when "morning joe" comes right back.

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. >> mike huckaby is comparing president trump to the iconic leaders, many his torns on twitter seem to disagree, the

former arkansas governor encouraged them to watch a film by winston churchill. he was feared by king as reckless and despised for his bluntness, he didn't retreat. we had a chamberlain for eight years, in donald trump, we have a church hymn. a member of norway's perform wasn't buying it, tweeting, quote, sure, church hymn served his country. 55 years in parliament, 31 years as a minister, nine as prime minister. he was one of history's most gift orators, end quote. joining us the host of msnbc politics nation and the network the reverend al sharpton, good to see you. >> good morning. trump is like churchill, you agree, i assume? >> well, i think the response that you read was probably could be top. i mean for huckaby to compare

him to someone leak church hymn, i didn't agree with all of churchill's policies in thinks i history and imperialism. i mean, it's an insult to churchill and it's an insult to any of us that study history and i think that not only has trump lowered the ball of the presidency, huckaby has lowered the bar of preachers that become politically involved. >> like the reverend al sharpton. >> i wasn't going to go there. >> so let's, here we are at the end of the year, rev, have you known donald trump for a long time. we're about 11 months into this. what is your assessment of the first year as we turn the quarter into 2018? is it better than you thought it was going to be? worse than you thought it was going to be? where are we with this president? >> you know, i had hopes, despite my fears that he would grow no the presidency. i have known him 35 years. we've fought more than we've agreed. we've had some areas where he supported democrats and he's

come down, actually at the national convention. i said that you grow. at various stages of my life, i have grown. you try to prove to yourself you were better tan people thought you were. but he has done the opposite to me. here's a man that has taken the presidency and reduced to name calling, reduced to trying to exercise his grudges an vengeance and he's really prided himself in becoming something that plays to a small segment of america that's hateful and that's trying to go to the past. when you think of what he did with charlottesville. when you think of the ugliness that he said even on law enforcement, i mean, you begin every day to start saying, he really is not trying to grow and be a president and do something as dark. i kind of wanted to feel that he was a guy that would say, i know know one knows i can do this, i

will be the queen's guy that shows we can be president. he has not done that he has done the opposite. >> i was struck reading the new york time's piece about the derogatory, would say haitian, and the reason it struck me, latest at night, the reason it struck me is that it kind of confirmed this idea that i had i love you the way, that trump is for better or worse stuck in this mentality that is very much reminiscent of the ''80s and '90s, a viewpoints of immigrants, haitians the reference of the magazines of those times, the cover of times magazine he seems to be fixated on. she a creature of the 1980s, haefs there in new york in the hayday so were you. i'm wondering whether you see that in him and he has been able get away from that type of mindset or something he will never break free of? >> well, let me say this i did start to become known in the

''80s, even though i was much younger than trump. are you the baby of the panel. so i just want to clear that up. '80s in new york, where he is from, queens, when people, black were being killed if queens for be figure certain neighborhoods, howard beach. he lived not far from there. i lived those marches t. ''80s was the polarized real to new yorks and he never left that new york. he never left the queens way, he and his father were sued for racial discrimination in who they wen would rent apartments to. so when you read in the "new york times," being quoted by two sources saying all haitians have aids, nigerians won't go home to their huts if we let them in the country. it speaks of a man we in new york knew at various times. now, he and the white house has denied it, but it's slightly not out of the character of what he has said and done led the fight

that we want to death penalty for five guys in central park that did this egregious despicable act of rape, they're not doing it. many of us said it was questionable. he said give them the death penalty. that's who he is. a lot of people look at civil rights in the south in the '60s in this new york in the ''80s where you had many, many incidents like howard beach and on and on and they get away with it because don't want to talk about up north kind of problems and trump symbolizes it. trump is as much a symbol of northern bigotry as you have of world southern. >> do you think that doug jones' victory in alabama is actually a triumph for race relations in america? that roy moore who had some pretty terrible views on race and openly expressed them was defeated? >> i think it is a step forward.

i think it clearly shows that there were more people in alabama that was going to vote against misogyny and race, that was never going to support it. of course, moore has challenges, because we want to see how he will be a senator and its a tight rope. he has to run again if two years. we respect diversity and families by roy moore. he became a symbol of, we're not going back to the george wallace days. i thought that was important. the question is not how far forward we're going to go, that's where we were trying to go with president obama. >> so when you look, rev, at the resistance to the trump administration that began really with the women's marching right after the inauguration all the way through and now continues with the election of doug jones, with democrats looking into 2018. there has been an energizing of the left as a reaction to donald trump. how does that take form in 2018, not just from people running in the streets, but taking office.

>> see, that's the challenge. much of this year, we seen a lot of women mobilization, immigrant mobilization, we have done a lot in the african-american communities and ministry march and other things. how do you translate that into local state races, local congressional races, national senate races? i remember when i was a kid, when i was just 13 and had just joined the civil rights movement, the year dr. king was killed, i was under reverend jesse jvenlgs i remember there was all this anti-war movement, all of the pride against racism. the fight against non-violence or self-defense, all of. that because it could not be card fated. nixon won the election, so if we have a lot of activity, with no ca coordination and targeted goals, they will triumph in our confusion. so action does not really mean activism in an effective way. we must be careful. '68 brought us nixon.

we had the same amount of activity than we do now. >> before we go, i have to ask you about these early morning workouts, are you thereon at 4:00 a.m. are you looking at is selfies in the gym. >> i wake up before dawn. >> what time do you get up? >> i work up before 4:00 i work out, get my mind together i watch "morning joe". >> what time do you go to sleep? >> that is the question. >> you don't want to know answer. >> i don't sleep in my sleep. >> good idea. >> reverend al sharpton, good to see you. up next, more on that contested virginia house race. it's now landed in court. we will have more on the center of the lawsuit. plus $284 billion. that was the total for an electric bill in a classic holiday gift. wow, we're going anchorman with some of these stories ahead on "morning joe." . it's time for sleep number's 'lowest

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scombr. >> clark. clark! >> honey, i think i know what's wrong. >> that's how our producers imagined it when one pennsylvania woman got quite the surprise when she checked her latestb electric bill. her provider penelec build her $284 billion. the minimum monthly payment came in at 28 grand. she told the local paper her eyes almost came out of her head and thought she put up her christmas lights incorrectly. the bill was fixed to reveal the

$284 bucks it comes down to a race that ended in a tie, 11,608 to 11,608. the tie brakener which the winning candidate's name would be drawn from an antique pitcher. >> c'mon. >> was supposed to be held this morning, now virginia's board of elections has put that drawing on hold as democrat shelley simons says the disputed ballot that tied the race with incumbent republican david yancey never should have been counted. simons is expected to file the legal paperwork today, the action sets up never-ending recounts t. board postponed the drawing because quote drawing names is an action of last resort. before the 2017 elections, republicans had an advantage in virginia's house of delegates. they control 50 seats the democrats have 49, with this race still to be decided. antique pitcher aside. this is a consequential recount. because it tips the balance of

power. >> first of all, i applaud your segue between the electric bill -- >> there was none. plowed right through it. >> a good structuring of segments. >> i'm still on the electric bill. >> so this is just the most absurd story i feel like. because we're talking about tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people's health care future. >> right. >> decided often one name drawn from an antique pitcher. i don't know how you define antique in this case. it's an absurd way to decide the state of the state's health welfare. this is where we are. can we arm wrestle? >> can i just say, though, i've done lots of recounts, where you have the ballots behind you. this is a -- i hate to say, republicans, sorry, i live in virginia. this is a spoiled ballot. you can't mark two candidates.

the billion lot is cancelled. >> just putting aside that, let's say they go to this absurd draw the names from an antique pitcher. i'm not again. >>. >> there has to be a better system. >> it's a tie. >> no. >> we are not going to revoke. >> why? >> time. >> it is expenses. >> we are talking about a very important leelection. >> it it is very recognizable. >> this is my ballot. >> it is really interesting. >> you have a big day coming up. new year's eve show. what goes on with them? >> we talk about the year. we talk about who the winner and losers are in the things that we

cover on sunday mornings from social justice to voltiting rig and who wins, who looses and we do a little in the immediamedia entertainment world. 8:00 sunday morning we are rolling out -- >> oh. every year. >> i had them in there pulling for you but it was a tied ballot. >> arm wrestle. >> can you give us a little tease, look into it? >> i can tell you it is done on bas basisov of did the most with social justice and who did the least. i think the president ought to get up early. he wocn in many categories.

he will watch his twitter. he is not going to be in a less than church going mood sunday morning. >> it kwowould have been the wo. >> he won the most. >> it will be huge. huge having won for the least in terms of social justice. >> before we let you go some final thoughts on president 2ru6 trump and what's ahead. >> i guess 23 yif you want to l it the take away everybody is talk about whether it is a president who will embrace the presidency in ways that have been traditional. i think we can con clus iclusiv this is a president thwho will t pivot. it will be far more consequential in terms of the russian issue heating up, the

2018 elections and i think anyone expecting that this president will change the way he has been in 2017 will not let you reboard that. >> okay. we'll let you reboard twe see behind you. coming up next new scrutiny on the june 2016 meeting at 2ru6 trump tower. nbc's andrea mitchell and katy tur join us when morning joe comes right back. when disaster strikes to one, we all get together and support each other. that's the nature of humanity. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ i'll stand by you.

♪ and i'll never desert you. ♪ i'll stand by you.

we are back. welcome back to morning joe. a beautiful live picture of our nation's capital there. politics editor, sam stein, former aid, rick tyler, clint watts, katy tur and the host of andrea mitchell reports, i have to report, andrea mitchell is on vacation and came in with us at 6:00 to be with us.

for you anything. we begin with the latest on the crisis with mechanic income. he told secretary of state rex tiller son to back off of what he called washington's aggressive rhetoric. he accused the u.s. of being responsible for educatiscalatin tensions. talks should be at the forefront rather than increasing sanctions. speaking of that the u.s. treasury department issued two sanctions believed to be involved in developing weapons of mass destruction. it follows last friday's u.n. security resolution. it includes those two men. mean while a new report says one of the four north korea soldiers was found to have anti bodies to anthrax in his system meaning he was either exposed to or

vaccinated for it. so a lot to get through there. let's go back to the beginning for a moment it is for the approach to north korea. >> rex tillerson would not be the first to be chastised and lectured to by him. he has a lot of company from his predecessors. the russians feel imboldened another has been so compliant. what the u.s. should be telling russia right now is if you want to negotiate then fine, why

don't you live up to your obligations and stop letting them carry ecm bargoed missile blocks. do what china is beginning to do. that's whole range of things russia could be doing if they wanted to be helpful. it is unclear whether tillerson can push back given the president of the united states. >> we talk about china and the negotiation. russia has a significant role to play here as well. >> yeah. they right on the border there. they have certainly not the amount of economic ties that

china has. >> so let's talk a little bit about north korea here with president trump's positioning of the united states. the rhetoric has been little rocket man. more recently we have sine seee slightly more diplomatic approach. how important is it that it could escalate to something larger than a war of words? >> i think the president says everything he wants to say. you'll want to say this back and forth. for a little while you'll pull him back and see more diplomacy and see more sanctions and more traditional routes to cap their rise. then when they lose control of

them she going go out and tweet again. there is concern obviously about north korea. when you talk to anybody in the intelligence community there is a big concern about north korea. there is a big concern. president obama warned donald trump before he went into office that north korea would be the biggest threat. it is hard to tell how seriously this administration is taking it by what comes out of the president's mouth. you don't know if they are trying to provoke something or if they want to take a diplomatic route. if he doesn't already have one he has one he can put on top of a ballistic missile and get it any where in the united states. >> we have seen mixed messages.

time and again tillerson has gone out and said something. last week tillerson said we had conversations without conditions with north korea. there doesn't seem to be a focused clear message. >> this has been tillerson's trouble trying to be the point person for our nation's diplomacy when it clearly isn't being run through the state department. donald trump said he is leaving staff unfilled around the world because he feels he alone can handle all of the nation's diploma diplomacy. she not attempting to staff up areas that are quite critical achbtd you're trying to use measures short of war. i would be curious to ask andrea, tillerson is nearing a year in office. he has survived longer than people predicted.

what are you seeing on the rex tillerson clock watch? >> he told us at a christmas party for the press. it was oeks troid nextraordinar. it was the first gesture we have seen this year. he had the traditional christmas party. he said in the coming party you'll see me more engaged or so i'm told. so that say positive sign he wants to stay at least positive for those that believe there should be come continuity and a shake-up now would not be a good thing. it is up to the president. there are a lot of reports that tillerson said if he wants to fire me he has to do it face to face. he is not going to take the firing from the chief of staff or any one else. the problem is that you a

son-in-law running middle east diplomacy and making overtures which matti and tillerson tried to fix and couldn't this mess was created by bannon. he is also a former ceo who does not to the president the way a lot of his colleagues may have. you can even notice in the first dreadful cabin meeting. everyone parades traised the le. he said something rather than doing what you played earlier or they have continued to do or paul ryan talking about his

leadership. he doesn't play that game. as we reported as you know a couple of months ago he called the president a moron. it did not go over well. it is not a way to endear yourself. >> we were in the national assembly and talking to people there. they are very alarmed by the rhetoric. nobody i talked to talked about -- they looked towards the german model as a hope that one day they will be able to unify. the united states would not take a preempt iive strike. they really believe there was a threat of a strike against north korea. >> that's the issue. there is so much confusion about what this administration wants. you have people or allies who

are saying do i listen to donald trump or listen to the ambassador that's here? who do i listen to? you're getting four or five different messages. >> what if they believe donald trump would push the trigger -- >> i'm not saying i agree with you but that's what's defined. >> i'm not sure that's what they are trying to do. that's who donald trump is. he reacts to whatever is happening around him. he did you want like being insu insulted. if he comes out and insults him he will do so on twitter.

they have con ssistently thrown lines out. we are seeing a very similar thing play out with nuclear weapons. if he can hit the united states we are not going to allow that to happen. >> and the country needs to be having right now is this concept of preventive war that hr mcmaster has floated, that preventive war could be necessary to end their nuclear weapons program. the country needs to be having that debate. a lot of people are going to die. >> or could coexist. could they get a nuclear weapon? >> we have been existing with it for decades. you know, the truth of the matter is that we have existed

with it. the question is can they develop an intercontinental technology to deliver it? >> the other is nobody believed russia or china was helping. they are playing this game, not helping. >> this month the president of the united states has described the fbi as tapted and very dishonest. at the same time a group has seen a surge in doe nations. they said yesterday it received more than $140,000 in donations for more than 2,000 donors in december alone. this as they continue their attacks on the fbi. in this exchange yesterday with jackson here on msnbc. >> i'm very concerned that the doj and the fbi are kind of off the rails. when you look at what he was texting and look at the clinton

research people and this guy's wife takes $600,000 while his wife is running for state senator? >> you just called the fbi and doj offer the rails. how is that something that you're okay with talking about here? how does that sort of undermine the work they are doing? >> i think the american people have very high standards. >> are those agencies not living up to those standards? >> those examples undermine my confidence that the agencies don't respect the constitution and will not put the ends before the means. people need a good clean government. >> do you think people don't have a good clean government? i guess those that look at kmepts like the ones you're making say they are trying to

discredit the russia investigations, is that not what you're doing? >> i don't want to discredit them. i would like to see them purge it and say we have a lotover great agents and lawyers here. those are the people i want the american people to see, not these people that are kind of the deep state. >> language like that, congressman, purge the department of justice? >> i think mr. strojic could be purged, sure. >> it sets off alarm bells. i think the distinction they are trying to make saying we want to get the people who we we can prove have some partisanship and

accept raseparate them out. people aren't making that distinction. >> i think it is completely demoralizing to the men and women of the agency. the fbi and donations that have been increased no their association is one indicator that there really is a terribly serious chilling effect on these fbi people who are basically working for the -- for robert mueller. they are the arms and legs but they are not the policymakers. there is a distinction between what they do and what mueller and prosecutors do. he was appropriately criticized for assuming that role when lynch was attorney general and not turning it over to the

deputy attorney general if she said she was by that meeting with bill clinton. he has been correctly criticized for that piece of it. that's not what the fbi directors or the men and women of the fbi do. to put them in this position and to blame them for the russia investigation is to basically try to poison the output of whatever mueller does. >> when he found out about these texts he was in fact purged. andrea touched on the moral issue. is it a bizarre moment for you to see a group of republicans going after the fbi in such a way? >> absolutely. if it were to happen i would

have thought it would be the dem chat democrats. >> that was last year. >> imagine you show up and you say hey, i heard you can help me with this nfrgs and they say no. i'm not going to help you on this. this will ultimately pivot back around in a very strange way. i don't see former fbi, cia or even military people watching

congressman hit democratic institutions and tear them down. i don't see them going for this. >> it does have a long-term impact. andrea mitchell, we know how you spend your vacations, waking up at 5:00 a.m. to be with us. >> happy holidays everyone. >> thanks. still ahead, the definitive time line on the russia investigation. we'll dig into a new report from politico that claim some are keeping their schedules a secret. we'll tell you why when we come back. you're watching "morning joe". we'll be right back.

joining us now from west palm beach florida, what's the

president up to today? >> well, not too much. overall while the president has been down here he has been doing a lot of golf and a little tw t tweeting. all of the apparatus goes with him. he is engaged in the affairs of the nation while he is here. he hit the lepngths with two professional golfers. today quiet on the schedule. it did you waoesn't mean it wilt online. every morning you look and scroll through what the president had tweeted since 5:00 in the morning. the president is here with his family. ivanka trump, jcurkushner.

i think what has raised a lot of eyebrows is the president here at his property washington journal reporting if you look at the whole year the president has spent about a third of his time at his property. that ink4r50cludes places he vi. he was in martha's vineyard in the summer. colleagues of mine covered former president bush when he was down in texas. this president made a point of hitting his predecessors who did spend time golfing and doing lee

su -- leisure activities. he will take time at his properties when he wants to take time at his properties. >> it is almost 7:30 florida time and he has not yet tweeted this morning. >> what's happening? >> i know. >> we'll talk to you later. >> coming up a new report says there's stepped up skrcrutiny oa businessman. they want to know if he is the same person that helped arrange a trump tower meeting with the president's son. we'll have those details plus our trump/russia time line when "morning joe" comes back. excuse me, are you aware of what's happening right now? we're facing 20 billion security events every day. ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks... actually, we just handled all the priority threats. you did that? we did that. really. we analyzed millions of articles and reports.

we can identify threats 50% faster. you can do that? we can do that. then do that. can we do that? we can do that.

including paul manafort and kushner. they said the house and inte

intelintell intell economies -- committees to trump jr. he said the putin ally had been presented with documents. he sited four sources that said he was asked about whether he helped organize the meeting. the sources said the panels became more interested after learning he also atopped a private dip ner las vegas here

is morning joe's defintive break down. >> we don't get it and we never have. how is it going? >> it is going well. >> do you like putin's comments about you? >> sure. >> no one has a good answer. >> it is also the perj that kills journalists and political opponents. any other would have hit this out of the park. >> at least hae's a leader. >> joe tried slowing down for emphasis. >> again, he kills skbrourjourn that don't agree with him. >> i think our country does plenty of killing also. >> he heads in every morning to

put the puzzle pieces together. what we flknow so far plighmigh explain why the pistresident se to panicked. michael cohen began a meeting. he said this as a campaign surrogate. >> there is a better chance trump might meet with putin. people want to meet with donald trump. >> i had heard that he wanted to meet with me and certain i am open to it. >> he said he discussed the deal three times with the candidate and that trump who lead in nearly every poll signed a letterov letter of inat the present tite developer, the night of the

gop's third presidential debate. >> i think my greatest weakness is that i trust people too much. i'm too trusting. >> in an e-mail trump business associate wrote to cohen about the project. he later asaid he got the e-mai

but did not reply. trump began to rack up endorsements and primary victories. >> this is a campaign. this is a movement. >> february 29th, 2016 paul manafort, a career consultant, he offered to work for free. within nine days they would have access to at least 50,000 e-mails. in a meeting with the washington post on march 21st trump

announced members of his foreign policy team. >> that very week he met in london with a russian national and ties to the kremlin. he told them he had met with the russian ambassador and putin's niece. he replied not to make any commitments and added great work. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge no person that i deal with this. >> at a national security meeting in washington he told trump, jeff sessions and others about the meeting. sessions shut down the idea. the president said he did you want remember. >> it is a very unimportant meeting. don't remember much about it.

>> a few weeks later in late april the democratic national committee picked up suspicious activity thousands of e-mails and he continued the correspondence to set up a meegt. that night trump posted huge victories in a slew of states. sessions forgot in sworn

testimony. >> i did not have communications with the russians. >> it is something he would not disclose for more than a year. reporting that kushner had three undisclosed calls threw the election in november. in may he received a payment from alexander and hinting he had a message from putin. donald trump jr. met on the sidelines of an nra event. the biggest was still to come. shortly after donald trump j rfrr. met with a british music publy cyst on the 2013 e-mail. writing that that a russian

goldstone worked for. natalia who he said had information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia, part of russia and its support. trump j rfrr. re34r5plied. after yet another primary victory trump made this promise. >> i will give a major speech on probably mopd nday of next weekd we'll discuss all of the things that have taken place with the clintons. >> on june 9th they meet with a russian lobbyist who worked for the russia billionaire and was a

subject of a federal report of foreign money move through u.s. banks and a russian translator. trump jr. denied any assistance from moscow. >> what's happening with the russians is disgusting. >> he would later have several explanations but continues to insist nothing of consequence came from it. hours after the russians left trump tower, trump responded where are your 33,000 e-mails you deleted? >> we have upcoming leaks in relation to hillary clinton. >> kushner took over the campaign's data operations. it said he brought in to target voters. that same month e-mailed

wikileaks offering to disseminate clinton related e-mails. june 19th carter page who later attended the rnc said he sent an e-mail to top campaign aids as well as foreign policy advisers to say he was headed to moscow. page later said he mentioned the trip to jeff sessions though sessions apparently forgot. >> i'm not aware of any of those activities. >> he also forgot a meeting in july. >> i did not have communications with the russians. >> he spoke with russia's deputy prime minister and reported it

back to the campaign. manafort september an e-mail to an intermediary the offer was kept secret. >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign and putinand his regime? >> no. >> it softened the position on arming ukraine against russian aggression. and it was marred by the release of thousands of thousands of stolen e-mails but trump brushed off suspected foreign involvement. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be

rewarded by our press. >> august in multiple interviews stone claimed to have a back while communicating with another hacker. on august 31st stone tweeted and made this assertion days later. i'm almost confident mr. assange has virtually every one of the e-mails that the clinton but they had deleted. >> a week of reports of secret payments from ukraine replaced by steve bannon and kellyanne conway. she asked to reach out to help organize the clinton e-mails it was releasing.

wikilae wikila wi wi wikileaks turned them down. trump continued to cast out. >> putin recently said that the hacking was a public service, do you agree? >> i don't have any opinion on it. i don't know anything about it. i don't know who hacked. you tell me who hacked. >> september 8th jeff sessions had another meeting with the russian ambassador that he forgot. on september 20th wikileaks contacted donald trump jr. hours later trump jr. responded and then according to the atlantic relayed it to members of the trump campaign.

october 1st roger stone tweeted wednesday hillary clinton is done with the hash tag wikileaks. >> i have a communication but they don't clear or tell me pla they going to do. >> trump jr. asked what's behind this wednesday leak? there was no response. >> wikileaks released the same day u.s. intelligence said disclosures were con sis at the present time -- consistent. >> wikileaks, i love wikileaks. >> he urged to share a link to share their stories. it was dishonest media.

>> you no idea. >> 17 intell military -- >> you no kbidea. >> it has lingered long beyond election day. they made these data points mump more significant. what do they suggest? coincidence, collusion? perhaps only one prosecutor knows and soon we will too. >> so that takes us up to election day. now here we are more that a year later. the fbi director was fired by the president of the united states which lead to robert mueller who slookiis looking in of this. a plea fwi former national security adviser of lying to the fbi. this creeps closer to the oval

office. what is your assessment of where this is right now? >> i think what makes sense now is this is a russian intelligence operation on all fronts. my colleague and i are watching it in social media. i think the most startling part is exceeded wilder success than they imagined. they vice president gotten all of their foreign policy objectives. it has put our country into chaos. they want us americans fighting each other. i think what this is not so much about the collusion aspect but obstructi obstruction. when you look at the investigation collusion is where we started. obstruction is where we are focused now. i think this started with how did the russians really medal with our elections? it has taken on this whole new

character. i think moving into next year what we are seeing with some of these withins are their confirming meetings and associations, what happened and we'll see steps in early january again. >> and we have seen down the list of people associated with the president forgetting to put contacts and disclosure forms. there does seem to be something about russia. >> there is a lot of memory loss. if they had nothing there then why would they not release all of the information at one time and get it over with? there is a lot of questions. they were trying to cover something up. i don't know how big it was. the bigger issue, it's not just did donald trump collude or obstruct, it's what are we going to do going forward? >> the washington post had a

great article detailing the steps that the u.s. did not take after the fall of the soviet union to make sure russian influence didn't get peddled again. putin brought is ththat up. how do we combat that against the actual spreading of fake news. how do we tell who is a real person and who is not a real person? this is an attack that can last for decades longer than donald trump ever lasts in this office. we vice president figured out an effective way going forward because we are so angry at each other. we are all in our tribes, screaming across social media and we are allowing it to divide us. it is a problem we have to figure out how to solve. we need a leader who will help us come together.

>> and that russian interference has continued completely unabated since the election of last year. still ahead, some members of president trump's cabinet appear to be going to great lepgts to keep their scheduling and activities a secret. >> the five most overloogked stories of 2017. that's when "morning joe" comes back.

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it marks a break from the policies urpd president s obama and bush. homeland security provide schedules of secretaries with few details. it notes that the treasury department began releasing weekly schedules last month. at least six cabinet departments don't release appointment calendars who discussed what they traveled. they note epa had seen a large amount of kricriticisms.

it managed to get via court order. how big after deal is this? >> i think i'm a sensitive snow flake on some of these things. the vice president was meeting with who knew at the time to craft and began a big energy p. it became a big scanned will and it encompassed the administration. that is happening across the speck tum here. they are not giving us details about who the agency has meetings with, which would give us some indication of who is helping shape policy but it extends beyond that.

the president and white house don't release schedules anymore, even though obama had done it, they were incomplete schedules but something. i would rgargue it extended to mar-a-lago, where people can pay a membership fee and get access to our president. these are basic things about who is meeting with our president, and if you are talking about draining the swamp that's the first step to take to bring transparency. >> katie, this is unusual, not something that happened in previous administrations. >> no, we are not getting much transparency from this administration when it comes to who is getting in the white house, who is talking to the epa. the list goes on and on. i mean it should alarm folks. who is influencing the people who are creating policy and rolling back regulations? do they have your interests in mind or do they have the interests of a corporation or a donor? who knows? >> we should point out through

freedom of information act journalists like yourself can get these schedules. >> yeah, and that's good, but you shouldn't have to do these steps. >> you shouldn't have to do these things. >> if the administration was confident in their agenda they should have no problem letting us know who is shaping it. >> thank you for being here. still ahead, efforts to discredit the russia investigation has one republican lawmaker calling for a purge, his term at the fbi and justice department, all while it is claimed russia is still launching cyberattacks against the united states. we'll talk about all of it on "morning joe."

♪ good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, december 27th. i'm willie geist. joe and mika have the morning off. with us we have politics editor for ""the daily beast" sam stein who has controversial views on santa claus. former aide to george w. bush white house state department, elise jordan. rick tyler. former fbi special agent and msnbc contributor clint watts. national political reporter carol lee. good morning, everybody. welcome. >> good morning. >> that was not the start i wanted. >> let's dive into it, guys. this month the president of the united states has described the fbi as tainted and very dishonest and said its reputation is in tatters. at the same time a group supporting retired and current fbi worker has seen a surge in donations. the fbi agents' association said

yesterday it received more than $140,000 from donations from more than 2,000 donors in december alone. this money will send the children of deceased agents to college and help fbi families in need, the association said on social media. over the weekend ben wittis, the editor of the news website "law fair" call for donations in the names of mccabe and baker after congressional republicans and the president kris sized them. john brennan tweeted he personally donate it. this as some republicans continue attacks on the fbi. in this exchange yesterday with hallie jackson on msnbc yesterday -- >> i'm very concerned that the doj and the fbi, whether you want to call it deep state or whatever, are off the rails. if you look at the orr guy talking to the dossier clinton

research people, and the mccabe's wife takes $600,000 from clinton-related sources while running for state senator. >> congressman, you just called the fbi and the doj off the rails. fundamentally, how is that something that you're okay with talking about here? how does that not sort of undermine the work these agencies are doing? >> i think the american people have very high standards for our government agencies, and to see people like these -- >> are those agencies living up to those standards? >> well, those aforementioned examples are really nerve-racking to he in ame and undermine my confidence that the agencies don't respect the constitution and will not put the ends before the means. people need a good, clean government. >> do you think people don't have a good, clean government? i'm going to let you go, but i guess the point i'm getting at, there are those that look at comments like the ones you are making and say republicans are working to essentially try to discredit the department of justice and thus discredit the

russia investigations. is that not what you're doing? >> i don't want to discredit them. i would like to see the directors of those agencies purge it and say, look, we have a lot of great agents and a lot of great lawyers here. those are the people i want the american people to see and know good work is being done, not the people that are kind of the deep state. >> language like that, congressman, purge, purge the department of justice? >> well, i think that mr. strzok could be purged, sure. >> clint, i'm going to go to you. your gut reaction but also to the case that's been made by people like congressman rooney when they talk about the fbi being tainted and in tatters, they're talking about people in charge, not the rank and file agents like the ones who disrupted a christmas day plot in san francisco. what is your reaction? >> i don't understand it. these is what third world

countries have, they go through and pick and choose those loyal to them and get rid of those who aren't loyal and shades and moves the law in a deep state way towards the elites putting pressure on them. i find it it also ironic because he was talking about the need for a purge, but the way i understand director mueller as soon as he got indications there was anything that could be seen as biased he removed that person from the investigation. so that was already done. what i also don't understand is how this ultimately plays out for the republican party. if there's any entity in the u.s. government that's more republican-leaning it would be the fbi. you know, there's a mix across the board but they're all centrists primarily. so i wonder how this really plays out over time. i think these republicans think they're insulated from it because they're in red gerrymandered state so they don't have to deal with it, we can beat up the fbi or cia and there's no blowback to them.

i disagree. i think we will see questioning about whether the gop is about party and politics or putting the country first, because it doesn't help out a criminal investigation, go after tourists, or calling for things like a look into uranium one which is a waste of resources when we are supposed to be talking about pursuing criminals in the united states. i think this will blow back on the gop. >> it is hard to see this as anything other than a concerted effort at this point. you put together the terms used, purged, tattered, tainted, from the president all the way down. you go to the testimony by mr. mccabe in front of the judiciary committee where he was killed and had the ethics of the fbi called into question, this appears to be a strategy by republicans to undermine the investigation. >> it is clearly a strategy by the white house. they're engaged in what in the political world we call a campaign. and when you have an opposition,

you work with the public perception and try to move that perception until the president can actually call for him to be fired, right? so he's not calling for him to be fired but they're an inherent contradiction because they're saying this is a hoax, this is fake. well, if it is a hoax and fake then he should be fired, right? but they're not saying that, we're not going to fire him but at the same time they're saying he is a hoax and a county pta. what i find interesting about representative rooney. where do agents and law enforcement go to retire? they go to naples and ft. myers. i think he will get an ear full. >> there's a conservative media that's helping fuel this. you put all of those entities together and there's clearly a push, whether it is to get donald trump to a place where he can fire bob mueller or whether it is to undermine whatever the outcome of the mueller investigation is, there is definitely a concerted strategy here. >> this has been the mo though

since the first indictments came out. i was in wisconsin, and i was doing focus groups for lord ashcroft polls. we went around talking to wisconsin it voters, and overall they thought that the indictments against paul manafort and rick gates were just a witch-hunt. we went to nevada and heard the same thing from a distinct silo of trump supporters, trump-base voters who are getting news from outlets who are not reporting on anything but the possibility that this is an absolute witch-hunt and out to get donald trump. >> sam? >> well, i'm struck by one person's silence in all of this and that's jeff sessions. i mean jeff sessions runs the department of justice under which the fbi is located and he should be speaking out. these are his employees and they're under attack, and yet this man apparently has gone on an extended christmas break unlike the rest of us. i find that, you know, terrible in a way because you do have your departments and their

integrity that you have to defend when you head those departments. and then i just -- part of me just can't get over the irony of the fact if you ask any democrat about the fbi circa 2016 they would have bemoaned how james comey and the fbi handled the entirety of the 2016 elections. to be perfectly frank about it, they wouldn't be all thatting wrote. the reason i say that is because in the memo to fire james comey, rod rosenstein -- which was a push by trump and the administration as well -- specifically said comey mishandled the clinton e-mail investigation. for them to now turn around and say, no, no, in fact the fbi had their fingers on the scale for clinton and was, you know, hiding the uranium one deal and didn't do enough on her e-mails is absurd. i think we're in this weird place where we're watching this very obvious kabuki theater happening in front of us and we have to pretend there's merit to

these complaints when in fact it is so transparently political. it is bizarre. i think at this point in time jeff sessions has an obligation to say something, but who knows where he is? >> well, any administration can get upset at certain cabinets they perceive as being anti their interests. >> but administrations don't sign memos saying they were not doing something and then say actually they were doing something. >> exactly. but if you have a purge what you end up with is a cpa circa 2003 and you have people ideologically in sync but utterly incameable pable of leat the mission at hand. this does not lead anywhere that's a strong path for justice in america. >> carol lee as you are covering the white house and watching the approach to the fbi and the rhetoric it is using, where are you according to your reporting suspect it is heading? we have had the conversation about whether or not the president might fire bob mueller

or have rob rosenstein or somebody do it for him eventually, is it on the table when you talk to people in the white house? >> i think it is on the table in the sense that it is something that people who are around the white house are concerned about, but if you look at where things were a year ago, if you step back, this all started about a year ago with the president attacking the cia and the intelligence community. that was based on the fact that that was what was front and center in terms of the russia investigation at that time. what we've seen over the year is that as this has shifted to the fbi and as the investigation has intensified, now he is moving to attacking the fbi. you know, in terms of where that goes, i think it depends largely on how long this investigation plays out. you know, by all signs point to it not ending any time soon and that it is only going to heat up, but how quickly that moves in the coming weeks and months i

think will depend on how the president acts. but there's certainly concern among people on the hill, people who observe the whoutite house, people who are close to the president that he will take impulsive action and get angry at one point as this heats up and make moves people think would be politically detrimental to him. >> yeah, clint, it was probably a long shot in a lot of people's minds he would fire the fbi director james comey, that seemed like a far-out possibility and he did. >> i didn't believe it when i first heard it. >> what do you think about the idea that this could happen with bob mueller as well? >> i don't think so. >> come on, really? >> i don't think he will. i think what you will find is that there are certain levels he won't go to. he never challenges a general. if you watch, he won't go after kelly, mcmaster in public. >> even if he feels an

existential threat to his presidency, like a scared donald trump in the corner doesn't fire bob mueller? >> i think if he does that it will turn an avalanche on him. the comey firing you could get away with it because of the way the parties are playing out in congress. the mueller team, i don't think so. >> i fundamentally disagree. with the comey firing i don't think there are norms he feels he needs to abide by. i think if this thing were to go on longer into 2018 as it appears likely to do, they are already laying down the ground work for him to say this has lasted far too long, it is a witch-hunt and i'm putting an end to it. and if rob rosenstein won't do it i will. what is striking to me as we've pointed out at ""the daily beast" is how nonchalant members of congress is. they're going nowhere and no one on the hill seems to care that

much because they assume there's no way donald trump would touch this third rail, that it would be inconceivable to them, that the political blowback would be so strong. there's nothing in his history to suggest he's afraid of that blow back. >> i think you make a point in talking about how congress don't see it as a point because they see it as so far out of the realm. they think it is against donald trump's interest, it is not rational, it wouldn't be a rational pattern for him to pursue. we have seen time and time again it is a day-to-day reality show. whatever trikes him at the moment, whatever his impulse says is the right move to make, which i think is always an option on the table. >> we heard tillerson would be fired, he wasn't fired. he never touches kelly, mcmaster, he won't go that far. i think he has certain

boundaries he won't go past. >> boundaries and donald trump, i'm not sure we heard that before. >> he has moments when he is scared and changes his mind. >> we've had, rick, some senate republicans including bob corker who said last week that firing of bob mueller would cross the line and change the dynamic completely. there are members of congress who aren't interested in protecting bob mueller, but some senate republicans have said -- >> that's why i put it in terms of a campaign. the president is trying to undermine bob mueller, the fbi and everybody that surrounds him. if it gets to the point where public opinion says, yes, this is a witch-hunt, you could be assured they would fire him. they're not there yet but that's what he is engaged in. so they're moving in that direction, or if they can't fire bob mueller and he comes out with some conclusion that at least the public might reject that conclusion because somehow he is corrupt. that's the game he is trying to win. >> still ahead on "morning joe," oren hatch seemed to like being named utahan of the year. not sure he liked the quote

about his utter lack of integrity or thirst for power. before we go to break, much of the country digging out from a blast of winter weather that brought heavy snow and frigid temperatures from the rockies to the mid east. let's bring in bonnie snyder. >> hi. look at these temperatures. 47 million americans facing dangerous wind chill today, and the problem is that it will not be short-lived. we are likely to see the cold sticking around through the end of 2017. as the cold air plunges south ward places like memphis, tennessee are feeling the cold. the wind chill is 12 degrees. feels like it is negative 21 in chicago, and a brutal wind chill further to the east. speaking of east, incredible record for erie, pennsylvania with lake-effect snow with four feet on the ground and another

six to ten inches to come. we are getting rain and wintry precipitation in north georgia. towards the end of the week the wind chill in washington, d.c. at six degrees. we will be seeing this cold werther through the final weekend of the year. new york city, your wind chill in the morning on friday will be five. look at the weekend forecast as we go into the new year. temperatures say very, very cold straight through monday. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. ♪

i say this for you, he's been one of the best presidents i've served under. >> mr. president, i have to say that you're living up to every -- everything i thought you would. you're one heck of a leader and we're going to keep fighting and

we're going to make this the greatest presidency that we've seen, not only in a generation but maybe ever. >> wow, that's some of senator hatch's effusive praise of the president over the last few weeks. now ""the salt lake tribune"" has called him the utahan of the year. he added that he voted for others to be named for it. . but the editorial was no honor. it wrote, it has everything to do with recognizing hatch's part in passing an overhaul of the nation's tax code and the utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power. some people said he clearly only read the headline but not the whole piece when he tweeted thanks, but he said the senator's response was supposed to be tongue in cheek. >> i'm an expert in sarcasm. >> you are. that's why i turn to you first.

>> i think it is debatable. nothing in his tweet suggests he was in on the joke. >> maybe it was just bone-dry humor. >> you can't do that. anyone on twitter knows sarcasm doesn't fly on twitter. you have to throw in an emoji, something to indicate you are in on the joke. >> i don't see senator hatch as a big emoji guy. >> not in his 80s. >> at least look at the comments that senator hatch made when we came in about donald trump, it is striking for a mon who has seen that much in his life, who has been in washington that long to speak in such a -- for give the term -- a dear-leader fashion. >> he is anointing donald trump the leader of the greatest generation when orrin hatch is of an age i would think he is familiar with some of the country's history. >> right. >> i guess this is the tenor right now. if you want to get ahead in donald trump's washington, you kiss the ring and you kiss it frequently. >> trump has been like -- it has worked both ways. trump is doing his best to prop up hatch because trump doesn't

want mitt romney to run for senate. >> exactly. >> is do ig anything in his power to keep it from mitt. that includes convincing orrin hatch to run for his, what is it, sixth? >> what did you think of the tax bill after passage of the senate? >> if you were willing to put your dignity aside, i think it is fairly fair. i think the president wants to feel good about himself, and they made him feel good about himself. they were trying to say, hey, let's keep these endorphins going, we could do a lot more together, you could feel about legislative success. to be fair to them, they ended the year on a pretty high note when you look at the tax bill that they eventually got passed. they repealed the mandate on obamacare, isis is all but wiped up. so there is a -- they ended on a high note. let's see if they can keep it going. >> carol, we've heard and read reports now that donald trump tweeted about it actually.

he wants to turn to infrastructure, using some of the momentum he feels like he had from tax reform here at the end of the year. is that a realistic proposition when you look at whether or not democrats want to help donald trump in this 2018 election year they feel could be a big purng poi turning point for them? >> if you look at tax reform it is hard to find an issue that republicans were more united around and that was razor thin and tough to get passed. infrastructure gets harder. both want to do it. they have a number, a trillion dollars, but different ways they want to pay for it. the republicans have various views how how to pay for it, how to structure that, and then you have to try to bring in the democrats. it gets really hard and this is an election year on top of that. so as we all know, things tend to not get done very quickly or at all in an election year. so it is an ambitious goal but one far harder than anything we

have seen them try to do in 2017. >> coming up on "morning joe," we are saukd abotalked about ta the russia investigation, but what about the overlooked stories of 2017? political ed for maitor editor joins us for that. this is electricity. ♪ this is a power plant. this is tim barckholtz. that's me! this is something he is researching at exxonmobil: using fuel cells to capture carbon emissions at power plants. this is the potential. reducing co2 emissions by up to 90%... while also producing more power. this could be big. energy lives here.

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welcome back to "morning joe." joining the conversation we've got white house correspondent for bloomberg news shannon petty piece and nbc political editor mark murray. mark is out with a piece for nbc.com looking at the five big overlooked stories of 2017. good morning to you it both. mark, let's get into your list. first is trump's big imprint on the judiciary. what are you looking at there? >> yeah, willie, to be clear these are stories that i think for any other president would have been a-1 stories their first year of the presidency. these are the ones that for the trump presidency, for all of the other stories we covered were the a-4, the a-16 stories. number one on the list is trump's imprint on the judiciary where in total 19 judicial nominations ended up winning confirmation by the senate. that's compared to 13 for barack obama in his first year.

trump ends up including kneel gorsuch to the supreme court pick as well as 12 appellate court nominations, compared to three for barack obama in his first year. that 12 for trump was the most-ever for a president in their first year in office. >> you know, shannon, that's such an important one to be on the list, because when you talk to people who are going to vote for trump a year or so ago and they didn't like all of his personal stuff, they didn't like the way he talked, they said, look, he's going to get a supreme court justice, at least one, and he's going to appoint all of these people to the bench at the other levels of the judiciary. that to me the voter would say was more important than all of the other stuff he can put out there. >> that supreme court seat was so crucial to getting so many conservatives who might traditionally not have supported trump, probably didn't in the primary, to get them to turn out and vote for him. i still hear from people, well, regardless we still got kneel gorsuch and that's something that's going to last for eight years, that is something that could last decades.

then, of course, these other judicial nominees. it is something that, again, a legacy that will outlast this presidency beyond whatever three or seven years he might have left. >> next on the list is trump's largely empty government. we talked about it in regard to the state department but it is across agencies really. >> yeah, let me run some of the numbers, willie. 262 political members of trump's administration end up winning senate confirmation, compared to between 400 and 500 for barack obama and george w. bush at this same point in time. while trump has been filling the court, he hasn't been filling his own government. this ends up mattering because these are the people who end up running the administration. they end up making the rules. they end up implementing the laws, as one expert ended up in my story there is still not a permanent irs commissioner, one that has been confirmed by the senate. there is someone who is an acting-irs commissioner.

this person will be in charge of implementing the entire tax cut legislation that was just passed and signed into law, and the fewer people that you have running your government, particularly at a political level, the harder it is to run a government. >> and, sam, the president and the white house sort of made a private sector for this, that there's a lot of fat in the government and we're trimming fat in the government, but some of these people are diplomats that could be used, for example, in the north korea/south korea consideration. >> small matters that might be nice to have expertise. the push back you get is that trump knows best, he is the best and why do you need all of the state department people. i don't want to say trump hasn't been handed a crisis because there had been foreign crises that popped on up, most notably what happened with the hurricane in puerto rico but fema has been, by and large, fairly functional. there will be at some point in time in the next couple of years a foreign crisis of a serious

magnitude that will spotlight and highlight how bare bones our government is. in that moment i think what mark points out will become an a-1 story which is we don't have a government that is fully staffed, we don't have a government with the expertise you traditionally have in these critical executive roles, and it will harm us. >> as someone who has worked in and around the state department, elise, how bothered are you by this? >> i'm incredibly distubd rbed it because you have a lot of trained professionals who are not able to execute their jobs because there might not be leadership of their bureau, of their department. look how the embassies are so stretched because your deputy chief of mission, usually always a foreign service professional, is having to act as ambassador also. so someone who normally would run the administrative side and manage the embassy is stuck doing two roles. it is a difficult conundrum. i would also point out that this is because there were not that many foreign policy loyalists

with donald trump. he did not have to distribute the campaign spoils in the form of these jobs simply because there were not that many people who signed up on board with him, and then they were incredibly rigorous in how they were vetting. and if someone was an anti-trump, if they were not fully on board, they cannot get that person who might be a republican foreign policy hand, they would not welcome them into the administration because they couldn't prove sufficient loyally. >> next on your list is one that bugs the president, and that's his approval rating. as you point out in your list, the economic numbers are strong, his approval numbers have not correlated to that. >> yeah, willie. we have given so much attention to president trump's job ratings which hovered between the mid 30s and low 40s, we've also given a lot of attention to the growing economy, the dow numbers, where the unemployment is at 4.1%. but what has been overlooked is the intersection between the two stories, and that is that the growing economy hasn't benefited

president trump's job standing, and the reason it matters is if the economy ends up going -- it slugs, it becomes a little more stagnant, what does it do for the president's standing? you know, you could also make the argument that a generic president right now with the economic numbers, the lack of a crisis, lack of a war that's going on would be around a 50% job rating. of course, what we've seen for president trump is his is between 35% and 41%. so he is underperforming what any other president would be doing with these type of economic numbers. >> shannon, this is really the argument president trump has made and now he can lump the tax reform on that, that his economic philosophy is winning over. the 70 record closes on the dow jones, unemployment at 4.1%. we've heard the litany of positive economic indicators out there. does it lift him at some point or is he mired in that 35% to 41% range? >> i mean it is possible.

but when you look at the stock market, most americans aren't invested in the stock market. most americans don't have a 401(k). we were pretty close to full employment a year ago. the people who are unemployed now, i mean it kind of depends. you know, some of those people will be chronically unemployed. are we going to get to full employment? we have not seen wage growth go up. that's something that the white house is counting on with this tax reform bill that may be giving corporations a tax cut, will push them to increase the wages they pay. that's a theory. we don't know if that's going to happen. it is something that could help. if you look back where we were a year ago, we were in a good economic situation and it didn't help lift democrats into the white house and lift more democrats into the house and the senate. while the old saying was, it is the economy, stupid, it might not hold the case depending on what the external factors are a year or three years from now. >> mark, could it be that the president's approval ratings are artificially high? >> you know, look, it is

possible. what i do think is occurring is that you end up having a certain segment of trump's base that is still with him. you have more and more people who have said that they're either, you know, an independent or who are now a democrat under most polls we have actually seen. to me the biggest story of trump's approval rating and where it is and whether you think it is too high or too low at 35% or 41%, this is the one-year first-year honeymoon period. it could be that trump defies everything, we have an international crisis or conflict that brings up his numbers. but in year one when you are usually relying on good will and a honeymoon period, he didn't get it. >> i'm going to lump together numbers four and five. the democrat's over performance in the 2017 elections. first of all, what is the democratic division you are

talking about? >> willie, it is the fact that the 2016 hillary clinton versus bernie sanders race has not hill. you have donna brazile's books that had allegations hitting hillary clinton. you ended up having hillary clinton's own books leveling some charges against bernie sanders, and democrats are united going into the 2018 mid terms, but into 2020 these stories and that conflict still will be out there and won't be resolved until the democrats have a nominee or new president. >> but, shannon, democrats are, to put it mildly, energized by what happened in virginia and alabama. i guess the question in alabama's case was they had a story about a terrible republican candidate defeated by a democrat there or does it portend something bigger for 2018? >> it is traditionally the party out of power in the white house

picks up seats to a significant level in the midterm election, but as you pointed out these special elections we have had so far have been anomalies if by nothing other than the fact you have the entire nation focused on them. you have the national media. you have nation will a money flowing into these races. i think once we get into next year's races it will normalize a lot more and come down to district by district, candidate by candidate. it is not going to be the sort of pressure-cooker type scenarios we have seen with the special elections. >> and you had president trump backing the losing candidate in both cases. shannon, thank you. marc murray, we will be looking for your story on the five overlooked stories on donald trump. the major change taking effect at some disney resorts today in the wake of october's las vegas massacre. we will explain when we come right back.

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guests at disney's grand floridian, polynesian and contemporary resorts will see a new change. reports say the hotel properties will no longer provide guests with "do not disturb" signs replacing them with "room occupied" signs. it is to ensure guest safety and allow hotel staff to reserve the right to enter the room for any purpose at least once a day after giving guests a notice before entering. the new security messages are believed to be in response to the deadly las vegas shooting that left 58 dead. however, disney has not publicly addressed why the changes are made. what is going on? >> they don't want people stockpiling weapons in the many rooms which is what was found in las vegas. he said, don't come in my room and every day was adding more weapons and ammunition. disney has outdoor concert venues, large resort-style

hotels, a great place to potentially do and i a tack like this. we don't know the residual effects of the las vegas massacre. how many tourists have not gone to places? you know, it is subtle. what if it is 1% to 5%? you want to reinforce this is a place that's secure. i think disney has taken a step. >> it is crazy instead of pushing gun laws we are asking our hotel cleaning services to become the front line of anti-gun policy. >> this is consistent with social media influence. we want the social media companies to do it, not legislators to make changes. >> still ahead on "morning joe," three major u.s. cities file a lawsuit against the department of defense. we will explain when "morning joe" comes right back.

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everything you do, everything you say matters and shapes the world around you. that's why i'm so proud to be inspired by all of you tonight. >> that was canadian prime minister justin trudeau on stage at the golden citizen festival last summer. joining us founder and ceo of global citizen. let's talk about what you have done around the world. a good year for you? what are you looking forward to in 2018. >> it has been a great year in many respects. that was prime minister trudeau making a commitment which was wonderful and you have seen

countries step up and be leaders for global develop. you've seen theresa may in britain. macron in france announced he will host a huge summit in february for global education to help race $3.1 billion for global education. in many ways the rest of the world is really stepping up. unfortunately, here in the united states president trump not so much. he's really, you know, tried to use aid as a bargaining chip. as you have seen recently, he has been threatening on the israel/palati israel/palestine to make aid as a bargaining chip. >> how does that impact, having the united states step back from that role? >> the good news is many members of congress have been champions of foreign aids. based on current levels looks like congress will continue their develops based on

2016-2017 leaves. we don't know what will happen in 2018 and obviously the mid terms will play a big part in the process. we are thankful for lindsey graham. some like bob corker who is retiring who has been a chad campbell champion for foreign aid, is retiring. we will see a reshuffle and we need to look out for that. what does good u.s. foreign policy look like? it is really three legs of the stool, of defense, diplomacy and development. if we don't invest in development, ultimately we have to spend a lot more on defense. so we really believe that the u.s. should maintain their commitment to foreign aid, maintain their commitment to the world, not retreat and put up borders and act like we can protect against the other. the world doesn't work like that. >> i'm going to have a frivolous questions because one of the most things i love about the organization are the great

artists you had play at events. a lot of people talked about stevie wonder taking a knee. it seems you get more and more critical mass as artists come, become more and more attracted to dploeglobal citizen. just talk about the dynamic with the world of culture and how important that is to spreading the kind of message that you are trying to spread on the stage of policy and politics. >> it was amazing to see stevie wonder take the knee with the black lives matter movement but also those who have taken a knee in the nfl across the united states. what we've seen on the area is central park has become an incredible hub for pop meets public policy. to see david cohen from comcast on taj with mayor bill de blasio. >> oh, my gosh! >> absolutely. and what we're seeing is alongside corporate america that's really stepping up, the

mayor's office really stepped up but you're seeing artists doing things. chris martin has made a 15-year commitment to global citizen to help us take it around the world so we have big plans for 2018 in store. demi lovato signed up as our ambassador for mental health. we're seeing more and more artists using their voice to champion the movement. we're getting 27 million global citizens engaged every single month and that's thanks to the power of the artists involved. >> it's so smart that you've systematized that. you guys have made this a part of the whole way in which you do business on a daily, monthly, weekly, yearly basis. it seems like a smart way to go about this as you try to connect to young global citizens. >> most of our young global citizens are young millenial women here in the united states. most have downloaded the global

citizen app. for them the actions that they take and the rewards that they earn are year round. if you're in kentucky and you want to see beyonce's show or you're in los angeles and you want to see bruno mars show you can do so through the global citizen app. that's been an incredible innovation. in fact we're driving more citizen action than we ever have through the festival so it's become this year-round movement. every single second of the day you've got a citizen somewhere in the united states, somewhere in the world taking action to eradicate extreme poverty. >> when's your festival next year? >> september 29. would you be part of it next year? >> we'd love to be part of it. i haven't talked to you about this so if you say new york city that -- say no, that's fine. but i think that's an incredible time. we're coming up on important elections and being completely nonpartisan here, i hope that you guys will use your power, you do a lot of extraordinary things, but to get young

millenials registered, get them out to vote. we will -- if you want to be part of a process -- >> let's do it. >> -- vote for whomever you want to vote for, just get out and vote and let's get them out voting in record numbers. whether you're a conservative, like i am and i'm worried about the national debt and washington politicians stealing from millenials, or whether you're a liberal and share my concerns that the racial inequality, how women are being treated in this administration, it seems that millenials are more tuned into this than other generations. and that would be an extraordinary way to spend 2018. also getting people engaged, involved, registered and to the voting booths. >> i think what you said, i heard you say that the election next year is probably the most important for those that were born post 1963. >> 1968. >> 1968. and i think that for us, the fact that 80% of the tickets to

global citizen have to be earned provide us with an incentive to drive citizen action across america. >> so let's do morning joe millenial vote for global citizen. thank you very much. >> happy new year. >> i'm going to counting on you to make that happen. i think it's a great project. >> i love it. >> all right, we'll be right back. >> no pressure. >> no pressure.

we spent most of the break talking about movies, right? got some lady bird over here? >> i missed it. >> you saw lady bird. >> it was good. it was good. i like -- my favorite so far has been "darkest hour," winston churchill. maybe governor huckabee could check it out. >> i think he did. we were discussing "windy city heat." if you haven't seen it, it's a 90-minute prank. it's excellent. some final thoughts on the real news going on. rick, what do you think going away here?

>> well, i think the russian involvement in elections has exploited a weakness in american society where they're able to pit americans against americans and cause chaos and i think that should concern everybody. >> what's the tipping point with how hard will the gop in their quest to keep power beat up on u.s. institutions, cia, fbi, whatever it might be, to where it starts to really hurt our country or will there be a break where you see sort of a gop break even inside that we're not going to this level. >> how do you come back from that, clint? once the fbi has been derided from the top of the government and by respected members of congress and by cable news and conservative media, is there any coming back from that? >> you've got to have a big save. you've got to stop a 9/11, you've got to prove yourself again, whether it's merited or not, and that takes years usually to do that. after 9/11 it took mueller's reform of the fbi, bringing it into an intel organization to make people have confidence in

the fbi. it took stopping 50 terrorist attacks. it took not having an attack on the homeland in over a decade. it hurts for years. >> ironically those same critics are going after bob mueller. >> what's crazy is they just stopped an attack in san francisco in the midst of all this talk of purging. who knows, there's some weird forces at play. i want to dumb it down and go full circle. what i learned today, it's time that we really step back and have a national conversation about santa claus and whether we want to idealize this type of figure. >> this is so mean. santa brought a lot of joy this year. >> not to me. >> i tried to protect you at the beginning of the show my vaguely referencing it. now you've taken the rope and done it to yourself. >> hating on santa claus, what a way to end the morning. >> you and antique pitchers can just go away. elise, what about you? >> i'm going to watch "windy city heat." i'm going to keep it low brow

and go home and watch it at your recommendation. >> an hour and a half on youtube, watch it. that ynk you all for being h us today. for now david picks up the coverage with more details on that lawsuit accusing the pentagon to of failing to report crimes to the gun database. >> hi there, i'm david gura in for stephanie ruhle this morning. dereliction of duty. three cities sue the pentagon for failing to report convictions to a gun database for 20 years allowing dangerous weapons to fall into the hands of felons. a royal rendezvous. barack obama goes one-on-one with prince harry sounding off on everything from his thoughts on leaving office to social media's ability to divide a nation. and man of steel. >> one of the dangers of the internet is that people can have entire low different realities. >> man of steel, president trump with some strong words on the campaign trail. >> when i'm