"new york times" launches an unbelievable interview with the president in mar-a-lago. >> perhaps an end it would seem. we have three days left i guess with another moment where the president makes news and you are sort of like, really? what? i think in some ways and kudos to michael for getting this interview, it's extraordinary it happened at all t. image of a president of the united states for a half hour at a table without the staff, in some ways a perfect image of how this president handles himself and conducts his own image. >> let's get to michael schmidt, the new york reporter that saturday down in the dining room of president trump's florida club mar-a-lago. we want to get into the substance, of course, of what you talked about. boy, there was so much ground covered. let's talk about the sessions surrounding it. how did you come upon president trump in the grill room at

mar-a-lago, yesterday? >> reporter: so he was actually at his golf club in west palm beach where he goes every day from mar-a-lago to play. he had come off the course, played with his son eric and pro golfer jim herman. they had had lunch and i had gone up and talking to him. you know, he was very proud of the tax bill at the end of the year. i think that obviously, for many reasons, probably in part because he did not have a significant legislative aco accomplishment in 2018. i said, if you want to talk about that, why don't we talk about that on the record? then when he was done with lunch, we sat down and talked one-on-one about ha. >> were you surprise, michael, there was no support staff around him? did you have to go through formal channels to get the interview? >> reporter: no, i wasn't surprised. it's been clear from the beginning of his trip, i came

down here, he hasn't really made a lot of news. it's been clear there wasn't much staff around him. this has been a lightly-staffed trip compared to, you know, when president obama would go on vacation, it seems like there was a lot more staffers around him when he would go. but you know, the president believes he is his best spokesman and i think that he rarely, as you see, when he leaves the white house to get on marine one, his hock to leave, he usually stops and talks to the president who thinks he believes he is the best person to carry out his message and it's hard for him to turn down opportunities like that. >> michael, we will get into the context. if you paint the ticket i picture for the viewers, sitting at the table in the grill room, where he's had lunch, other members around the table, people move income and out, stopping be i to say hello to the president. >> it's a fairly large room, where folks are having lunch, after they play golf, there is a

bar, they play television. a lot of folks are coming up, talking to him. i think he enjoys that banter of saying hi to the members and shaking hands and stuff. and you know he's pretty accessible in that area. there is just not a lot of folks around. i mean, he has his protection and such and, you know, i think, you know, he enjoys the most out of the stuff that he has to do as sort of getting out there and talking to folks and you know certainly the campaigning part of the political side and, you know, when you can engage with him on that level, he finds that hard to turn down. >> and talk to you, he did. let's get into what he told you, exactly, especially on the mueller probe, michael reminded the president that his attorney says said the mueller investigation will be done by thanksgiving, i think christmas, asked what they are telling him now. president trump said quote there was tremendous collusion on behalf of the russian and the democrats. there was no collusion with respect to my campaign, adding, i think i will be treated

fairly. timing wires, i can't tell you, i just don't know. but i think we'll be treated fairly. so the headline there is it makes the country look bad. also, michael, it seems reading the full transcript of your interview, he was relubtant to criticize fully bob mueller in ways others have. >> reporter: he sort of struck a different tone than he had before and certainly members of his party have more recently. i think that you know they've really had a concerted effort to go after mueller, to undercut mueller's credibility. the president said i think i'm being treated fairly by mueller, there is no reason to take any real action. >> that kind of struck me in the sense he was sort of backing off, the republicans in the

house especially have really painted mueller you know as he is basically out to get the president in this very out of control investigation. the president seemed to be ratcheting that back and sort of to strike a new tone there. you know, i don't know if that's a part of the larger strategy or if the president wants to put distance between himself and the republicans that have led this charge, i'm not sure, but he certainly, you know, was nicer about mueller than he has been before. >> michael, david ignacious has a question for you. >> michael, great scoop. i am wondering about the body language in this conversation. was it your sense that this was an angry man who was as he heads into the new year is going to be pushing hard on issues like this mueller investigation, whatever the details of what he said, or did he seem content, at rest about the tax bill? i note you had quoted him saying he was hitting the golf ball a

little less far than he used to, which didn't sound quite as angry or struggling. what did youty? >> i think that he gets very frustrated. his level of frustration didn't seem different than it's been about the russian investigation in general. i think this shan annoying terrible cloud over him at times that he blames on jeff sessions and that, but i think he has this confidence that it will come and go. at the same time, i think he sometimes thinks the more he says there is no collusion the more true that it makes it. he said time and time again in the interview, coming back to it and repeating it. in terms of nextier, i was struck by the fact that he talked a lot about doing deals with the democrats, talking about infrastructure, talking about health care. i sort of said to him, are you moving to the center here the old deal-maker here? he didn't like the idea that he was moving to the center. he said, look, i would have done

deals before, i think we can do them now, too, with the democrats. he kept on talking about that, how he thought there was a lot that could be done with them. you know, they really have done nothing together certainly legislatively or otherwise this year. he seemed to really open the door to that possibly next year. now, i'm not sure we've heard that before. he's had these meetings to check on nancy meeting, where they've come out. it seems like they will do a deal on daca and nothing has come from i. he seemed to come back to that and harp on that a lot. >> in the interview, president trump make reference to illegal activity mentioned hillary clinton's 33,000 delete e-mails. the trump asks if they should reopen that investigation. president trump responded --

after mentioning attorney jeff sessions recusal, he asked if he felt eric holder was more loyal to president obama. trump declined to talk about sessions but said, quote -- did that strike you as odd, michael? i read that less as a compliment of eric holder and more a shot at jeff session about his lack of loyalty in this matter? >> reporter: he really blames session. this has gone on for month, he blames sessions for mueller exist, if he hadn't recuse himself as he had done early this year that none of this

would have happened and there's been a long-standing expectation in the white house and folks around sexes as the russian investigation accelerates or intensifies that the president will go after sessions again. i was surprised he didn't criticize sessions more yesterday. especially because the russian investigation has. manafort has been charged, flynn is cooperating. the president simply repeated his feelings about sessions and didn't go beyond that. but there is this expectation as the russian investigation you know am sell rates here, as we see the fruits of what flynn may be cooperating about, that the president will come black to sessions. maybe even to dismiss him. i mean, there has been back and forth about whether sessions would leave all year and, you know, i still think it remains to be seen how long session will be around. >> by the way, if are you listening in the car, we are talking to "new york times" reporter michael schmidt, he had

an impromptu interview with president trump in florida. susan dell persio has a question for you. >> michael, one of the things outstanding we saw more trump has to defend himself by showing he knows more than anybody else. he said he knew more about taxes than any other person. he's the greatest cpa ever. he said he understood the health care legislation better than most people that. seems to be a weak ness. yet, we see that always juxtaposed to the fact that hes says he request do anything with the department of justice, which should act independently of the president. my question to you, a year in, does it look like donald trump is actually learning to understand the process of government or how it's functioning? it seems he's just living still in this world of i, this is how i made deals on the private sector. this is howley go forward? >>. >> reporter: i still feel in many ways he would like to fight every battle and issue in the

media, he will not let one thing go. he will get down, my guess if you casualty the press can catch him every day in a situation like that he would tangle and go on about these issues like he did yesterday. the thing about talking about the justice department, that's picking up by an architect made by some folks of accusations of things he's done as president like asking comey in the flynn investigation, as they say as the chief executive as the head of the executive branch, he can do what he wants within the executive branch and by saying to comey, he is simply examiner seizing constitutional legal authority to do what he has what he would like a. lot of people don't like that. some people think it's obstruction. others think it's a complete abuse of power of the executive branch, not the way that the interaction between the white house and the department of justice are suppose to be. but the presidency has turn thad

idea -- fuowe tur -- turned that idea on its head. if a previous president, if obama said that, that would have defined his presidency. >> this was a fascinating piece. i was struck by the end of the article where trump, in effect, said that the press has a vested interest in him. he's going to win the next four years because in some ways the press have benefitted financially from him. what did you make of that last moment in the interview? >> reporter: i think that he, you know, i think she really bent as trying to get as much good press coverage as possible and really believes he has been treated unfairly and believes that the press will event wale come around to him and that he thinks he is responsible nor a lot of the success of the press in the fact that there is so much attention that is paid to everything that he does and that

you know the press is relevant in the way that it isn't before and he wants the press to know that. he wants the press to essentially sort of thank him and you know i think he thinks that the press is probably has worse intention you know than it really does and you know that's his way of really sort of sticking it to the press and saying you know look at who you guys are. look at how unfair you guys can be. >> michael schmidt, we've only scratched the surface with this extraordinary interview. we woke you up, got you on the phone to talk us through it. thank you very much. kristen, we can talk about north korea, david, his comments as well. your assessment of what you've heard and read, ranging from russia to joe manchin to north korea and his treatment by the press. >> reporter: the thing that i heard when i looked through this -- the interview is a sense of a

president who is the opposite of a, the buck stops here president, that sort of at every turn whether it's north korea, well, that's not my fault because china is still giving them oil. or the senate race in alabama with roy moore. >> that wasn't my fault. i asked someone else in the primary. i knew he wasn't going to win. on issue after issue, the president is expressing, yeah, i know this bad thing is happening. it's not really my fault. it's someone else's fault. this is not new for him. in a way this interview seemed unsurprising, because that has been a tactic that president trump has used all along, when things are going great, he loves taking credit for them. when things are not going well, he is adept at finding someone else to blame for him. this is not a sense, i'm the president the responsibility lies with me, it's, oh, no, no, no, this is the republican party's fault, china's fault so on and so on. >> this is extraordinary the president sat down for 30

minutes and on the other hand it's donald trump and this is how he carries on business, particularly with the "new york times," often picks up the phone and calls maggie haberman, for example to spill hills guts. what did you make reading through this? >> well, first of all the president is welcome to call the associate press any time he wants. this is a president who has a need for approval. he has been driven his whole life back when he was in new york, an outer real estate developer breaking into manhattan who has thought i want to long, impress the elite in some ways. i think for him, the media, as much as he desurprises us publicly, he does see us as valuable. he understands we talk about how he feels about "time" magazine man of the year award. he understands the role the media plays. he is always looking for approval. even how he has deemed us as fake news. we see that here, we see it in a rally crowd when he is trying to

exohrt 1,500 people and can be charming in terms of talking to people and insisting he is the best cpa, he got the best tax deal done, he passed more legislation than any other president. to her point, mistakes that have happened during his tenure weren't really his fault. it's not my doing, i'm dock the right thing. it's interesting to see this, it can't be stressed enough, it's hard to imagine any other president sitting down alone with no staff no, aides, and talking for a full half an hour to a reporter. >> he did take particular -- you can see he went on and on about this allegation this criticism that he doesn't understand the details of legislation. that's where he made the comment, i understand taxes better than the greatest cpa ever could. he definitely was offended by that ongoing theme in the press and many other places and congressional republicans and democrats who say he's not

interested in the details, he wants a win. >> he wants a win. he doesn't want a success for the country. he wants a win to quote make a deal although he's only making deals with within his own party. his insecurity is overwhelming. it shines through when he says things like. that even towards the end when he says i'm going to win next year. he didn't look like most politicians which say i want to earn everyone's vote by my record. he's like i want to beat somebody else. that's what he always needs. he needs an enemy to beat. he does not have an agenda to be successful. >> so president trump took on beijing yesterday after reports indicated chinese ships have been caught in u.s. reconnaissance photo, selling oil to north korean vessels at sea. on twitter that frump wrote --

what does that mean exactly david ignacious? >> trying to parce that, he is telling the country he thinks he had a deal with the chinese leadership they would halt or severely reduce oil shipments to north korea and if they don't deliver on what he thought they promised to do in that deal, that he will then move towards very strict trade sanctions against china. i'll do what i always warned i will do. remember during the campaign when he said the chinese were raping america in terms of foreign trade. so we saw a window opened on the conversations that have taken place between trump and chinese president xi jinping and we

heard him say that, here's what my deal was. my deal was, you guys cut off the oil and i won't pound with you trade sanctions. where this goes next always with trump, it's hard to say, less than meets the eye in terms of tweets and interviews, often in terms of actual policy. >> it was fascinating reading the "new york times'" interview, hef conflicted. he said, when i went to chosen, they treated me so well. president xi treated me so well him i'm torn of what to do here. >> the on the french leaders say the state, i'm a state. and here he is saying, well the russian investigation makes the country look bad, it doesn't make the country look bad, it makes him look bad. that's not my deal. this is very personalization of him. >> i found that with regard to coin interesting, rex tillerson doesn't have any kneecaps, he

keeps taking his kneecaps out. so it's really interesting to juxtapose that claim with rex tillerson's op ed in the "new york times" the day before. so what is the policy visa vis north korea and coin. >> as a candidate he ran on this platform of being tough on china with trade. there are factions in the white house looking to label him as a currency manipulator. to this point they've held off. i was on the president's trip to asia. he faund over xi jinping while we were there, really basked in the adulation the chinese were showing him. moved by it. the white house in some ways their foreign policy strategy is the president to establish this personal rapport with leaders, thinking that is the way in to get the policy they wanted. i think we saw in this interview yesterday, a little frustration eek out be i the president even though he didn't say xi jinping by name. >> that's what's so concerning right now you have an unplanned

30-minute interview, where you are talking about foreign policy, where we know the president doesn't fully grasp all the issues around it. he hasn't been immersed in this for decades, he starts saying these things, which creates shift. people are paying attention to it. it's so dangerous. it undermines secretary tillerson and general mattis and our standing in the world because he sided the sit down after playing a round of golf with a "new york times" reporter. it should be a little more thought out or i would hope our president, the president of united states would have a more careful plan as we move forward in these dangerous times. >> he was definitely winging it in the grill room. we will have much more on that impromptu interview with the president. plus, state ahead, we will read from two columns in the washington post. one from david ig nation and one from scarborough. michelle, good morning. >> good morning, womanly, we will see that bitter blast continuing over the next several

days, nobody the next seven days. it's been cold, we have the coldest yet to come. today we are watching this clipper system to parts of the great lakes. yes, more snow to erie. maybe over 8 inches. it will have to reinforce the cold air and bring colder air. we have a wind chill warning, a wind chill advisory in new england. that's where you see the pink, it's all because of this bitter blast coming down from canada, that arctic express if you will, we will see the temperatures continuing. get used to it. get your layers, cover that exposed skin. right now, it's 14 in omaha, 9 below zero, that's what it is right now. it feels like 25 below zero. zero is the temperature in glasgow. doesn't that make you cold thinking about it? 62 in raleigh. as we go into tomorrow morning, not much better, get the bagels delivered to you. 1 degrees in chicago. 72 enin charleston. an icy mix, there, too.

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. our own john scarborough spending his vacation writing. a storm is gathering. in it he writes --

gentleman goes on, while trump's eroding of u.s. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it is his administration's undermining of the country. so kristen solstice anderson, let's go to you on this first, how dire is the situation? do you agree with joe here? . >> reporter: i think the situation is fragile. that's perhaps how i best frame it. take a look at, let's talk about what's happening in alabama very briefly, roy moore whose lost the senate election. he is now claiming the election is invalid. he lost, it's wrong, there was

fraud. this is what i think we were at risk of facing at a national level had donald trump lost the presidential in 2016. there is a sense, oh, there was voter fraud. you know, i actually won by x number of million votes. you still hear. that there are times he forgets he won the presidential election. i reworry that in 2018, if republicans face large losses and at this point a lot of the polling suggests it's not going to look good for them that if president trump looks like he is potentially at risk of having a democratic congress that may begin to want to pursue impeachment proceedings, do you really then begin to see the questioning of the validity of election period? that's this sort of -- i don't think that it's likely but if i'm thinking of a potentially really scary situation, i look at things like what's happening with roy moore in alabama, wondering, is there a chance that that sort of world view

gets brought national by a president who is line to he likes claiming, look, i'm a bicker win were than you ever could possibly have realized. >> doug jones was certified the winner yesterday, despite roy moore's protest, i'm thinking as i read joe's comments the aattacks on the fbi the leadership primarily. they say the fbi is tainted. the president said it, it's in tatters, what's the long-term impact if you go eight years on respected sturks what happens? >> i read joe's piece really closely. i think the storm really is reflected -- reflects a damage to the ecosystem of our democracy and our democracy isn't just simply about elections, right? we talk about an ecosystem, we tack about all those things that make it possible. we are talking about hyperpartisanship, the way the citizenry is divided, lack of

trust, our debates the xiz, the collapse of institutional life, what's happened with congress with the gerrymandering, with with regard to the regular order in the senate. what's happened to democratic institutions? right. then we look at the way in which the imperial presidents ups the checks and balances, we pre suppose the person that would exercise executive power would be decent and beholden to democratic norms. so the question for us the storm is reflective of something else, like compliemt change, right? although president trump got it wrong, that it's simply about bad weather, these systemic shifts that affect how the plan set warming. right. how the planet functions, so we are seeing the same things with our democracy so i'm wondering what 2018 will be, what will it look like in terms of every day ordinary people, understanding how fragile this moment is. how fragile american democracy actually is. >> you are about to find out as we turn the corner to 2018.

still ahead arc look at the biggest stories of the year as decided by nearly 3 billion tweets. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

still ahead this morning on "morning joe," year one of the trump presidency and a year of firsts on the world stage. we will take a look back on the president's trips abroad and read from david ignacious' new column. he warns president trump's divisiveness puts america at risk him all that and more when we come back.

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ends monday. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you. . >> it has been quite a first year for president trump traveling abroad. he made a lasting impression from saudi arabia to israel and nato and the g7 and trips that didn't happen, including to great britain. here to break it down from nbc global editor for digital content. cal perry. what are you looking at? what trips just out at you? >> reporter: we have the top five the saudi trip gave us the best imagery we have seen all year. this was of course with this orb. it looked kind of magic am. it was strange.

it was the saudis way to subtly tell the world, we want to rule you. on to israel, this was the first sitting president to visit the western wall. i think this probably did help him form his decision to move that united states embassy down to jerusalem or at least to announce that that was going to happen. of course that drew international condemnation from the united nations. moving on to brussels, the nato summit. look, we heard a lot of tough talk from the u.s. president on the cane trail about nato, about countries having to pay their dues. so we got a couple days of very awkward hand shakes between president trump and the french president. emanuel macron now being dubbed the white knuckle handshake. i told aymon earlier, this is how we will meet our daughter's first boyfriend the death grip, exactly. asia, i think the asia trip is important. here's y. south korea, we had this address at the national assembly. tough talk to north korea. quote, do not try us. this clearly has helped him formulate his policy across

asia. in china he closed a $250 billion trade deal. that's what the president will point to as his successes. these big trade deals. we sthau in saudi arabia as well, a deal worth more than $100 million for weapons. we can calm talk with yemen as that -- we can talk with yemen. he finished off the year in the philippines, brought duterte, the president of the phillipines is overseeing war on drugs in which more than 3,000 people have been killed, extra judicial killings, haugh manitarian groups are lauding for their viciousness him we heard the u.s. president in a phone call to president duterte before this trip saying he is doing a quote unbelievable job there in the philippines and many people speculating that maybe that spurring the phillipine president on as he continues that violent campaign t. last thing as we look towards the next year, there is a trip scheduled for london. it was supposed to be an official visit where president

trump was going to meet the queen. now it is likely going to be a working visit. he will open the u.s. embassy. >> that seems to be an atottemp avoid protests. >> and of course whether he is invited to the wedding? davgsd you write this in your piece, trump's divisiveness puts america at risk. david writes, looking for perspective on the last year. ahead, i turned to the most experienced military commanders, our country, these military leaders fear is so polarized right now that it might be difficult to mobilize the nation for war if that were necessary.

>> and this has been the question for a lot of people as you know better than i in the foreign policy community, what happens when there is a so-called real crisis that the president and the country has to respond to? >> well, 2018 may be the year in which we test that. we are headed with a collision with north korea. there is no sign that is diminishing. the president said in his interview yesterday with the "new york times," he thought he had a deal, coin was going to cut off oil exports. it hasn't happened yet t. pentagon is working to prepare military options. so the president will have a menu of things he can do if the north koreans fire additional missiles, make additional tests. there is a lot of concern at the pentagon about those options. but i come back to the thing that some of the people i respect most who have served in our military are worrying about as the year turns, which is the degree to which we are divided

as a country. countries fight well when they're together. we have a professional army. but it's almost too independent from the rest of american society. and to lead this country into a real confrontation, let's not say war, let's say a real confrontation with north korea, somehow president trump has to find the language where he speaks to more of the people and brings them into his vision of what he's doing. taking a country to the war that's as divided as this one is and pulling at the scabs, you know, making it more divided di by day, i don't think is going to be wise. so if we're heading towards a greater confrontation with north korea, i hope the president understands, he needs one country behind him. >> david on top of that you mention in your piece, if we head into this confrontation, yes, we need a united country here in the united states, but what object our relationship with countries around the world? we don't operate in a vacuum despite some of the ideas the president may have, if we are

going into a confrontation, we will need our allies. we will need to work with some people who we traditionally may have had some conflicts with before. where do we stand as a world leader and heading into those relationships, if there is such a conflict? >> the paradox to me, susan, was this was a year in which president trump improved or maintained relations with some of our near adversaries like china and russia but our relations with the traditional close partners, germany at the top of the list, britain, even australia, got worse over the year, but, let's be honest, american power is a lot bigger than the white house and the president and his tweets t. american military has a momentum. it's around the world. it has relations with 120 different militaries him similarly, our intelligence agency the cia has liaison every day in every country that matters everywhere and people

tell me those relationships are as good as ever. >> flipping it, do those countries have faith in us? >> they have faith in our military. i think they have faith in our military service. i don't hear much faith in this very erratic day-to-day of circus of tweets from the white house. no, they don't have faith in that. >> we will sneak in a quick break. when we come back we have a conversation with hans nichols. we'll be right back on "morning joe." life happens.

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i mwell, what are youe to take care odoing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios. the automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life. you or joints. something for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brain-health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

we have dealt isis one devastating defeat after another. the coalition to defeat isis has now recaptured almost 100% of the land once held by these terrorists in iraq and in syria. great job. we have a great military. we're now chasing them wherever they flee, and we will not let them into the united states. that was president trump a couple of weeks ago. joining us with a look at the war against isis this year, hans nickels. also anyone moaldene. things are objectively true here that the group lost its capital of mosul in iraq. it lost the capital of raqqah in syria. is president trump right that he's broken up and destroyed isis? >> well, the facts are on his side. isis lost territories and a lot

of fighters. the generally accepted numbers begins of the year 35,000 isis fighters. now they suspect they're around 1,000. here's the exception. the trump strategy is basically the obama strategy. buy with and through local partners. use local forces to defeat isis. they also don't have a broad strategic plan for what happens after you defeat isis and how you keep disaffected sunnis in this part of the world, how you keep them inside the political process and don't have them take up arms. the other big difference with the trump approach as opposed to the obama approach is the war seems broader. there have been 21 combat deaths or deaths in combat this year. six different countries from yemen to niger who somalia. that seems a little more aggressive under trump. and trump also expanded authorities in the horn of

africa. so that's both the horn of africa and yemen. the war there is more aggressive. >> whoever you give credit to, and probably both presidents deserve some credit, why has this worked recently in the last year or so so effectively breaking up isis? >> i think the on the ground battle field dynamics have over the course of the last several months have worked in favor of those allies. the kurds have been fighting well in syria and iraq. you also had the presence of iranian forces that worked alongside the iraqi army which tipped the balance inside iraq for that struggle and had the division inside the syrian civil war that allowed for that vacuum to exist where they were ultimately take the fight to isis. i think the point hans made is we may have won the battle inside iraq and syria but now the question is what happens with isis as a mentality and ideology. if you look at what happened in

2001 with destroying al qaeda in afghanistan, 15 years later al qaeda has branched out to al qaeda in yemen, boko haram, al s al shabaab. it's hard to say we're winning. look at egypt. they're dealing with a strong isis presence now in northern sinai, one that's carrying out attacks almost on a daily basis that we don't hear about. we may have destroyed isis as a caliphate, but we have to be mindful of the ideology spreading to other countries and what it's going to do. >> it's a fanatical ideology that doesn't require large numbers of fighters on the ground. they can serve as inspiration online. a single actor can carry out a terrorist attack because it was inspired -- he or she was inspired by isis. >> they can be inspired by isis, or they could be foreign

fighters fleeing to their home country. i think most administrations get credit for this. something that hasn't happened, they're aware of the threat, the ability of, say, someone from raqqah to go up through turkey, get into europe. but say october 2016, ash carter, the then secretary of defense going to paris. that was a big concern. they thought there would be thousands of fighters comes back to europe. that hasn't happened. what has happened is the ideologies have shifted. when you saw the attack in niger, the initial accounts were this is an isis-linked group. is there communications, transfer of funds taking place between the caliphate and raqqah and outlier groups in niger? probably not when you talk to intelligence officials and the pentagon. but the ideology is so fluid, and for porous borders, ideology can slip through easily. >> that's the view in the middle east of what donald trump has

meant as different from barack obama for we know the gulf states. we know how israel feels. the broad view of president trump. >> as you said, it depends where you sit in the middle east. in the gulf countries they'll be very warm about president trump taking a tough approach about iran. i think if you're sitting in israel, you'll be happy he's recognized jerusalem as the capital. you're probably looking at trump and saying what is he going to do in places like libya. there's a spillover affect in places. there's wait and see in terms of what trump does for ar tickulating a vision for the rest of the arab world. it's not a monolithic entity. and then you broaden it out to include places like turkey, indonesia, the philippines, those are issues that are not yet clearly defined. he seems to like strong men. i think that causes concern for people who are on the human rights side saying we want to

make sure we see progress in turkey and the philippines. thank you both very much. coming up on "morning joe," expect a, quote, unchanged donald trump in 2018. that's the lead in axios this morning. >> what was 2017. >> mike allen joins to explain that. plus much more on the president's interview on the record with no staffers present. just him and a reporter in the grow room. his thoughts on the russia investigation and his controversial view on the justice department. "morning joe" is coming right back. rley. it's a calling to not only everybody in this neighborhood in miami, but to the nation how great we are. and how great we can be. ♪ ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ i'll stand by you. ♪ and i'll never desert you.

♪ i'll stand by you.

zbljt welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, december 29th. joe and mika have the morning off. here with us, we have david ignatius, chair of the department of african american studies at princeton,

university, eddie gloud junior, susan dell pers owe, jonathan lamere and phillip bump, mike allen, and yamiche a. trump spoke about his view of robert mueller's probe and sent a different message than vocal republicans who call the investigation biassed. michael schmidt reminded the president his lawyer said the mueller investigation would be done by christmas and what they are telling him now. there was tremendous collusion on behalf of the russians and the democrats. i think i'll be treated fairly.

i don't know. i think we'll be treated fairly. the times or thor said you're not worked up about the timing? trump said well, i think it's bad for the country. the only thing that bothers me about timing, i think it's a very bad thing for the country because it makes the country look bad. so the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country. president trump also made multiple accusations of illegal activity allegedly perpetrated he says by the democrats in 2016. he mentioned the 33,000 deplele e-mails. trump said i have the right to do what i want to do with the justice department. but for purposes of hopefully thinking i'm going to be treated fairly, i've stayed uninvolved with this particular matter. after mentioning attorney general jeff sessions' decision to recuse himself from the russia investigation, they asked president trump if he felt eric holder was more loyal to obama.

he said holder protected president obama. when you look at the irs scandal, the guns for whatever, when you look at the tremendous real problems they had, not made up problems like russian collusion, when you look at the things they did, holder protected the president, and i have great respect for that. i'll be honest. i have great respect for that. yamiche, let me stop and go to you and just set the stage a little bit for what michael schmidt told us about an hour ago about an hour ago. it was at the florida golf club. it was michael smith and the president sitting at a table surrounded by members of the club popping in and saying hello to the president, talking about a wide range as we heard in the beginning, a wide range of topics from the russia investigation to north korea, talk act t talking about the media's role.

what hopped out at you? >> i think it was probably the idea that as though president trump rails against the media, this was him loving the idea of sitting down with a reporter. loving the idea of book-ending this tumultuous year. the idea that he said i can do whatever i want with the justice department, but for now i feel like i'm going to be treated fairly, that's a foreshadowing in the idea he can make the case, this is my justice department. erik holder protected president obama. jeff sessions is not protecting me so i have to make drastic moves. if i had to think of the two things that jumped out, it's the fact that he thinks the media is going to help him get a second term and fall in love with them, and two, the fact that he thinks the russia investigation will think a place where he's treated fairly. >> mike allen, you're saying

2018 is the year president trump is going to be unchained. i think he got an early start yesterday. >> yeah. and we saw that interview, the improvisation at the top. michael schmidt are you fine with me recording this. trump says yes. a sign of how quickly it came together. what axios is reporting this morning is that during 2017 there have been a lot of guardrails. gary cohn and others who are keeping the president in a more moderate place on immigration, on trade, on north korea. next year as some of those advisers depart and as we head into an election year, looking at the midterm, getting ready for 2020, officials are saying we're going to see much more. the campaign mode, hard line trump we're told within the next month to look for actions on trade, some tariffs perhaps on steel and aluminum.

the kind of things advisers have been getting postponed in 2017. >> as a candidate, president trump touted his ability to make deals but his major legislative pushes failed to win any support from democrats. president trump explained it this way in the interview with the new york times. he said we started taxes and we don't hear from the democrats. we hear bull blank from the democrats like joe manchin. he's a nice guy. he talks but doesn't do anything. let's get together and do bipartisan. good, and then you don't hear from him again. the president boasted about his knowledge of legislation saying, quote, i know more about the big bills than ever president that's ever been in office, whether it's health care or taxes. social tax especially taxes. i know taxes getter than the greatest cpa. i know the details of health care better than most. there's a lot in here. in his own special way, testifies driving a few messages. first, that the russia

investigation is a hoax. there was no collusion. he said it over and over again. he wanted people to know he didn't support roy moore, didn't think he could win. felt he had to as the head of the republican party, and that where he said he's offended that people don't think he understands policy, that he understands the way the tax bill came together and he understands health care. that he is, he says, intimately involved in the details? >> i think that last point is the message. donald trump wants to always portray himself as being the man in charge, the man who received the mandate of the american people to lead the country, who has his fingers in everything and understands what's going on. he has a vision of himself as president he's always trying to put out there. i think his insys answer tist a that he knows the details. it's complicated.

but that's still the message he's putting out there. this is what he wants to say. and the collusion, the reason donald trump is insisting about this issue, is because he sees this as an attack on his legitimacy as president. it comes down for him to how he is viewed by the american people. that's why he hits on collusion more than anything else. >> that's right. we see this all the time. remember the case he made that he did win the popular vote. we know that eats at him that he lost that to hillary clinton. the russia probe, yes, it's a threat to his standing in office currently, but more than that, it flies on his insecurity, the idea that there's a sense that he doesn't a legitimate president. you wouldn't have won it if it wasn't for moscow, that drive him mad. you see that time and time again, his need to assert i'm in command as a way to push back. >> i think it was your colleague at "the washington post" who

tweeted out he reached out to senior advisers to the president and asked what they thought about "the new york times" interview. one said new york times today? in other words, no one around trump knew this interview with one of the two leading newspapers was taking place. >> which is absolutely shocking and unbelievable from a communication shop point of view. the fact that the president went on the record for a half hour, set up policy. i mean, he talked about international relationships. domestic. he went after democrats after talking about bipartisanship. it shows that this is a white house that is still not ready for prime time. this is a president who likes prime time and doesn't care how he's viewed in prime time, but just wants to be there but is not prepared for the consequences. this is about leading a country right now, and to joe scarborough's point in his op ed today in the washington post, next year is critical, because

we have to have a government that believes -- or a country that believes in our elections, our government, that believes in our department of justice. and that president in a wide ranging interview is willing to trash everyone and everything and just promote himself. not the values of our coronet. a -- country. it's easy to throw it out like he did this interview, but there's real serious consequences for an interview like this. >> it's important we don't run past the claim that i have the right to do whatever i want to do with the justice department. >> that's a serious issue. >> i don't think any modern president would ever say anything like that. so there's a combination of not only his insecurities which we see through i'm loved, they love me, that kind of thing, but it's the combination of insecurities with autocratic impulses that are evidence in the transcripts that should cause us all to pause. and not just simply be excited that he just went on the record for 30 minutes. >> there's been a tension in terms of what the white house's

approach should be to mueller. the white house lawyers said and reassured the president, this is going to be over soon. you're going to be exonerated. there are people around the president, the steve bannons, the other people outside of the white house who say this is a threat. you need to hit back and take a more aggressive tone. to this point, for the most part, the president has not gone after mueller. i think we saw he hinted like well, i'm at least considering the other option. >> right. he wouldn't go quite far enough. >> not yet. >> mike allen, go ahead. >> one of the great things about this winging it in the grow room interview is it's like eavesdropping in the evoval office. these rants are what advisers say they hear all day and we see why it's so hard for people to bring the president bad news or convince him or reality or things that aren't true, and you see why advisers rise when they tell him what he wants to hear.

he wants to be fed, and that's why we see these very repetitious, bits in here including this idea that we would have a bipartisan tax cut if democrats wanted it. that's not how it went down as viewers know. >> one thing that the president clearly didn't seem aware of when he talked to michael schmidt yesterday is the poll numbers show that the american public is not happy with what he's doing. the president wants to be successful, thinks he dominates every day's news feed, thinks that we in the media desperately need him. he needs to look at poll numbers and election results. if the president did that, he would see this divisive rhetoric does not seem to be what the country wants right now, and maybe that would be my hope for 2018, maybe the president gets it. the public is sick of this super

partisan stuff, the president's popularity began to nose dive in february, and it's stayed pretty much flat down there around 36% support ever since. >> yeah. 36% to 41% depending on the poll you look at. and 70% in the associated press poll say we're on the wrong track. this is "the new york times" asking president trump if the justice department should reopen the investigation to hillary clinton's e-mail. he said, quote, i have the absolute right to do what i want to do with the justice department. and he basically is not doing it out of the goodness of his heart or because he wants to be treated fairly. there are so many questions we could ask about that, but just his view of his role in the white house here, sort of encapsulated right there? >> yeah. i think when you asked before, what were the two things that jumped out, i pointed to that quote because i think it in some way sounds authoritarian. i wrote a story last year

interviews people from authoritarian governments and they said they saw a lot of their old leaders in president trump. american presidents usually do not talk this way, or they do not talk this way. they don't say i can do whatever i want with the justice department, and there's also the idea that while he's holding onto hillary clinton, he's going back to president obama saying well, erik holder protected president obama. and there's in some ways no comparison to be made there. president obama didn't have this special counsel issue or the issue with whether or not his campaign had colluded with a foreign government. and here you have president trump trying to say well, i'm just doing what everyone else did, which is false. i think that the idea that he's saying that is -- i think he's setting up for 2018 where if he fires robert mueller, we can point back to this quote and say this is where we knew he was capable of doing this.

>> yamiche, whose gronewspaper landed the grill interview of the year. happy new year. >> happy new year. roll tide. ahead, president trump has suggested the media is conspireing against him. now he says journalists will be his biggest cheer leaders for his reelection, because as he sees it, they need him to boost ratings. that part of the interview is ahead. and we'll go live to hallie jackson at marmar-a-lago. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. your insurance company won't

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zbljtsdsings wi president trump expressed his confidence in 2020 saying the economy will continue to improve. he's confident about reelection because of the media. he said another reason i'm going to win another four years is because all forms of media will tank if i'm not there. without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.

without me "the new york times" will indeed be not the failing new york times but the failed new york times. they basically have to let me win, he said. and eventually probably six months before the election, they'll be loving me because they're saying please, please, don't lose, trump. okay? let's bring back in christen. christen, your company is out this morning with its annual year end overview which breaks down the twitter stories of the biggest stories of the year. >> the biggest news story of the year was donald trump. we have done this analysis going back four years. every year we find there are various topics that come and go throughout the year. we've looked at president obama, fri for instance, in past years. never has an individual dominated the online discussion about news, current events and politics like donald trump. in fact, we had to remove him from our chart this year in order to get that clearer

picture of events like what happened with the shooting in las vegas. what happened with the hurricanes. he just absolutely took over the discussion, and so when he says that he's keeping media organizations afloat, i don't know about the economics of the media industry, but i do know that when he says that he is driving the conversation, he's 100% right. >> when you look at your list here, the most talked about public figures, donald trump is pushing a billion twitter mentions. the next closest one is president obama with 164 million mentions. we talked about the biggest stories on twitter. it begins with the russia investigation. >> that's right. and so, again, when we're analyzing this and removing donald trump the individual from our analysis, we're looking at the underlying issues people are talking about. and the russia investigation is one that has been persistent across the year. while certain other things like sexual harassment popping in the news late in the year, the hurricanes popping in the news during the summer late in the

summer. health care immigration. these all have moments when they were hot topics but the russia investigation from the beginning of the year all the way through until today has remained a major piece of the conversation because it encapsulates so many things, so many individuals like mike flynn, like jim comey. it encapsulates robert mueller. there's some pieces of this that it's allowed it to dominate the discussion for an extended period of time. >> russia investigation was the leading topic among both liberals and conservatives. both interested for their own reasons. >> you've got that right. whether it's folks on the left who believe that this president and his campaign colluded with russia and that bob mueller any day now is going to find that smoking gun or it's conservatives who have expanded this topic to cover what they believe is democratic collusion with russia as you heard in the

new york times interviews, other pieces of the interview, hillary clinton and uranium one. this has gone a lot of directions. you've got folks on both sides that think this is a topic that plays to their strengths. it gets them agitated, and you've seen that reflected on the online discussion. >> conservatives and liberals evenly matched in twitter conversations leading up to 2016. now liberals twice as active as conservatives are on twitter. >> absolutely. one of the things i think is really interesting coming from a polling perspective. i do a lot of traditional polling where you call people and ask their opinions. but i think looking at digital signals like what we're seeing people talk about online, it's not a perfect representative sample, but it can tell you where the enthusiasm is. and one thing we've seen in the elections over 2017, these special elections, is increased enthusiasm and engagement on the left that has not been matched on the right. if we look at what's happening

online, that's another piece of evidence that democrats have this kind of enthusiasm and energy advantage headed into 2018. >> interesting measures there. christen, thank you as always. happy new year. >> happy new year. >> joining us from west palm beach, california, hallie jackson. good morning. before we get to the serious stuff, i'm disoriented because i don't see any dancing live t rexs like yesterday. >> i'm sorry. what can i say? that was a weird moment yesterday. i didn't know until the commercial break. yeah. i'm talking taxes, and then all of a sudden we're in jury r-- >> there were three of them. they were like can you give us a minute? so the dinosaurs nicely exited

stage left. i don't know if they're coming back today. we have a full anti-t-rex plan in the area behind me. >> they'll be back now that they're famous. let's talk about president trump gearing up to meet with leaders at camp david. >> that's the first week in january when almost everybody is back to washington. this is something we expect to see with paul ryan, mitch mcconnell, the president up in maryland hashing out their priorities. they are right now probably four or five big ones you're going to see the discussion revolve around. infrastructure, you know this is something the president has been talking about for weeks. this trillion dollar infrastructure plan. he is convinced and he said it to mike schmidt in the interview at his golf club down here yesterday, he's convinced he can get democrats and republicans to work together. he's going to have to. unlike the new tax law, republicans cannot pass an

infrastructure bill on their own. they have to get democrats on board with that if there's any chance of it moving forward. how will we know if bipartisanship is going to happen in 2018? well, a lot of it when you hear from top democrats, it's going to be how the budget deal discussions go. that is priority number two if you look at the top four here. remember, january 19th is the deadline to avoid a government shutdown. they need spending talks. they'll be happening in the next couple of weeks when president trump and the rest of the politicians who have left d.c. get back to the beltway. number three is, of course, immigration, and what happens to daca, the program that protects roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the country when they were kids. this was a huge democratic demand. chuck schumer said we're hoping now that republicans have the tax law behind them, they'll be able to come to an agreement. the president committed his pop aides and they've said they're going to try to work on something with daca. that deadline is early march.

and the fourth priority is entitlement reform. paul ryan wants to do it. the president promised not to cut medicaid and social security. that's going to be a fight you'll see either later in the spring or in the summer if it happens. >> all right. hallie jackson. we'll be watching later. hallie jackson and the h-rexs right here on msnbc. >> there's a meeting at camp david. this idea of a bipartisan push for infrastructure reform, is that a pipe dream, especially in this 2018 election year when democrats aren't going to want to give the president another legislative achievement. >> your point is the over arching point. infrastructure may be a unique democrats. i think literally every year barack obama called for an infrastructure package. but setting it aside which they may be able to find an agreement on, everything else democrats

have seen. the enthusiasm is not a function of wanting the democrats to work with donald trump. it's the opposite. they want democrats to do everything to take out donald trump. democrats will be rewarded for standing in donald trump's way. there's nothing to suggest the opposite is true, and i think the republicans who yes, they used this special tool within the senate in order to pass the tax bill on 50 votes, they're going to need to find democrat support. it's not clear where they'll find it. >> how is he going to find it if he's trashing joe manchin in a new york times interview. he does not set the stage to allow bipartisanship to exist when every time he says something negative about a democrat in every interview or tweet. >> from his point of view, he's not getting any love back. there will be no bipartisanship. >> coming up, the head of the rnc dismisses the idea that a

republican will challenge the president in 2020. we'll take you through this year's key moments of republican opposition ahead on "morning joe."

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this is one of the great privileges of my life to stand here on the white house lawn with the president of the united states who i love and appreciate so much. we're going to make this the greatest presidency that we've seen not only in a generation but maybe ever. >> that was republican senator oren hatch speak as the republicans celebrating passing their tax bill. the president said, quote, i have unbelievably great relationships with 97% of the republican congressman and senators. i love them and they love me. some republicans have been vocal in taking on the president over the course of the year. they shared some disgivings e - misgivings here on "morning joe." >> the president sounded ambivalent on nato. >> i would point out when we were attacked in 9/11, they sent their young people to fight in

afghanistan not because they were attacked but because we were attacked. >> what's happening internally at the white house. let's get everything out as quickly as possible on this russia issue. otherwise, it is going to distract from the first six, seven months of this presidency. >> when james comey was before the house intel committee, the chairman said he told him he wanted to hurry up because there was a black cloud over the administration. >> you cannot put an artificial deadline on an investigation this significant, this complex, and this important to our democracy. >> one of the glaring statements the president said yesterday that he would be honored to meet the dictator of north korea. >> i don't understand it. you and i are old enough to remember being reagan republicans, and one thing that reagan did was he praised people who stood up against dictatorships. >> why does there seem to be a

trend that this president praises tyrants in north korea, tyrants in russia, autocrats in turkey, murders in the philippines? and why -- what concern are our fellow republicans on the hill voicing at least behind the scenes about this? >> well, i think it's very disturbing. it's disturbing, because we are proud republicans and we stand for human rights. >> i think mr. comey's made some mistakes. he should have told the president when the president made the truly outrageous and unacceptable requests that he drop the or let go the michael flynn investigation. he should have said mr. president, i can't do that. and you shouldn't be asking me to do that. >> i cannot possibly imagine the president terminating bob mueller. it's not even -- it's ridiculous to even consider or talk about. i mean, it just cannot happen.

>> i'm very concerned about where the party is going and kind of the anti-immigration fervor. that's not the place the republican party wants to be in the future if we're going to be an inclusive party that speaks to a broader audience. >> does this change the way you feel about donald trump, the way he handled charlottesville? >> the judge from indiana, he mishandled the david duke debacle. there are those types of situations, he made comments. i think that has made it much more difficult for the president to deal with these kinds of situations like the one that occurred in charlottesville the other day. >> there's no doubt this president has been extremely unconventional in his approach and that has caused more chaos than i think is good for our country. >> we are excusing undignified and outrageous and reckless

speech and behavior as telling it like it is. you know, the president is not politically correct. that's not right. i think we ought to say this is speech that is reckless, and it's undignified, and until we do, we are complicit in normalizing that kind of behavior. >> i think that when you have a governing model that's about dividing the country, when it's about resentment, when you only focus on keeping your base solid to the extent of really alienating other people instead of trying to bring our nation together, to bring out the better angels in our citizens, typically presidents try to be aspirational in what they do. they try to bring out the best in our country, but that, to me, is not happening. joining us now jake sherman.

we were flattered you'd come all the way up here to do our show, until we heard why you're really here. >> i saw fish last night. they are selling out. i take pride in that being a fish fan. i think we all do across fish nation. >> are you going to all the shows? >> my wife is watch right now. i don't think so. my three-month-old put a stop on that. >> i swear we're going to talk about the republicans on capitol hill, but what's going on? there's a cult on capitol hill, it's you, bob costa, katy tur. what's the fish thing? >> this has been written about. this is not fake news. we have 67 reporters and figures in media who e-mail about fish nonsense constantly. and some people i'm not going to mention names, get it as a daily digest. i get it in realtime so i can stay connected to the people

that matter. >> there's a nice wafting smell floating over the the desk. >> false. >> good to see a journalist who continues to focus on what matters. >> that's what the american people are asking for from me. >> there were recurring characters in there. susan collins, charlie dent, but it's been a year of us watching republicans twist themselves in notes trying to not support precisely what the president has said or done in a certain situation but not coming down with wholesale criticism of their leader. >> i'm also writing a book about congress in the era of trump. i'm spending a lot of time thinking about this. if you look at the overall picture, i mean all these people are voting in line with the president. so if you ask people close to the president what they think of these criticisms, they say whatever. these are people casting their vote with the president time and time again, and they expect that he'll continue to do so.

now, i want to put a caveat on that because we're going into a month that's going to be very, very bad for the president. you talked about this earlier. an immigration deal to fix dau daca. you have spending caps. they've talked about boosting spending caps for the entire government. conservatives will not be happy with that. you have obamacare legislation coming across the floor to bolster obamacare, something republicans have promised they wouldn't do. and you also have a government funding bill that comes up in 20-something days where democrats are going to, they say, hold republicans' feet to the fire. so these criticisms might turn into opposition later this month. but make no mistake, this is going to be a very difficult month for this president. >> what was going on at the ceremony we played at the beginning of the segment. we heard oren hatch, paul ryan, all the republicans who stepped up, some who have been critical

when they thought it was called for, not just celebrating the passing of the bill but the leadership praise of president trump. were they trying to set him up like if we flatter now we can get things from you. >> they know what makes him happy. he likes to be praised, and they don't do it when they're on their own. they only do it in front of the president. they're not lining up to reporters talking about how great the president is on capitol hill. this is only when the president is in their presence. >> i just want to point out, you raise the 2018 is looming here. it certainly is the case that there is a segment of the republican party which got on board with trump out of hesitance in 2018. voted for him because he was the republican candidate. do you see to some extent that this is going to be a critical factor in 2018 and 2020 as we saw in alabama people skeptical about roy moore, will there be a

skeptical republican block of voter who is stay home in 2018 or open the door for a primary challenge? >> if you talk to people who are spending millions of dollars on 2018, they say two things. they say tax reform was the one thing we needed to win, and we're still probably going to lose the house, and cut into our margins in the senate. i was talking to somebody who was spending a lot of money on house races who told me if they lose 17 seats, that's going to be a good night. and if you think this is bad, if trump loses 17 seats in the house on a good night, governing is going to be nearly impossible between 2018 and 2020 unless he becomes a democrat. and i don't say that in a glib way. that's not out of the range of possibilities. i think if republicans lose the house, there's going to be impeachment proceedings. this is going to be a messy situation for the president. there are people who will stay home, and i think you see evidence of that not only in alabama but in local races in

new york and new hampshire and alabama. if people see more money in their paycheck, the white house says they will associate that with republicans and not democrats and vote in a midterm election for republicans. that seems to be a bank shot. >> go ahead, david. >> jake, a number of the news organizations have been reporting there may be a white house shakeup dealing with congressional registrations, there may be a broad responsibility. i'm curious what you're hearing and what difference it might make in how the white house deals with congress. >> i think this is an example -- johnny destefano who was almost on the chopping block months ago and people were openly wondering whether he would keep his job, now people are saying he's going to do four jobs at once. it seems to be a little beyond reality. i would say if johnny does take over the political operation in

the white house, that's a good thing for this president. he knows how to get things done. he knows capitol hill and he knows the campaign operation. it speaks to a broader problem. you cannot have one man doing the job of four or five men in a white house. >> best fish song is what? >> last night we heard a great no man's land into twist. and i took my friend to his first fish show. that's like seeing jordan in the mid 90s. >> oh, please. you disgraced jordan. >> people at home need to know. >> great to see you. have fun tonight. up next, how an off the cuff president by the president could help explain why he hasn't fired bob mueller. we break down the theory next on "morning joe."

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joining us from capitol hill, political correspondent, in a tash sha exploring one potential reason why president trump has not fired bob mueller, possibly because the investigation is strengthening his base and prompting members of congress to defend him. natasha, good morning, you were reading between the lines in the interview with the new york times yesterday? >> yeah. that was a comment that jumped out at me. trump said, essentially, that the investigation had strengthened his base, and prompted some great congressmen to point out this has become a witch hunt. to me this was an indication that trump has been aware of the ongoing campaign over the last few weeks by members of congress and his allies in the media to discredit bob mueller and undermine the investigation. amid speculation that he was going to fire robert mueller, he may just be saying well, maybe i don't have to because my allies

can do the drt dirty work for me. >> it's known the president, it's always us versus them, and in this case, it seems like he is as you say, setting up the mueller as the adversary, but not wanting to take that final step himself. what do you think would be the breaking point that right now, sure, he's willing to be patient and let others do the dirty work for him, what do you think would cause him to actually set in motion a chain of events that could lead to mueller's dismissal. >> trump said he expects mule tore treat him fairly. if you'll recall, something that trump has always said is a red line is if mueller delves into his finances. for example, if he started getting a subpoena from deutsche bank that targeted trump and people around him. another red line that i think could cause trump to go off the deep end would be if he started

going after his direct and immediate family. like donald trump junior or jared kushner. if there was an indictment for either one of them, that would cause donald trump to make moves to fire fire mueller. >> so tell me -- help me understand how playing to his base can be effective. it seems that not firing mueller will inspire the 38% that support him no matter what. we see this 38% support isn't really helping him in terms of his approval ratings more generally. how does this help donald trump in a substantive way? >> he thinks it is. we just saw the president tweet out that his approval rating, whether or not this is true -- i don't have the resources to fact check him. but his approval rating was the same as president obama's was in december 2009. trump really believes -- maybe it's because of the echo chamber he's exposed to every day, that his approval rating is fine. he thinks it's fine because he

is constantly appealing to his base. he's tweeted several times his base is very strong. that's his constant fallback. the idea that this is actually galvanizing his base of supporters, the russia hoax, the russia investigation, and this is actually strengthening his allies and the ability to attack the fbi, which he's been attacking since before he even took office, that to him is always going to be a net positive. >> he's talk manage the tweet about the rasmussen poll which has always had him higher than the others. natasha, thanks for your reporting. happy new year to you. >> you, too. >> jonathan, you have to go back to your piece about the 13 days in july. it's such an interesting piece about an extraordinary stretch in july that you say sort of is representative of what this year was like for the white house. and i think we left off with paul manafort getting a knock on his door? >> right. in fact, the events of the last 24 hours or so including this

interview has proved the point on this piece. these 13 days in july sort of were a breaking point for the white house and reshaped it going forward in terms of some of the senior staff changes, including john kelly arriving and reince priebus departing. we're seeing events that still have aftershocks we're sfeelg today. it was during those two weeks that the fbi showed up unannounced pre dawn and raided paul manafort's home in virginia. that seemed to take the investigation, this robert mueller investigation to a new and for the president more dangerous place. we have seen that it reached the upper realm. we've seen manafort has been indicted, we've seen flynn take a deal and the white house being very alarmed at what his cooperation level will be, and now, of course, we're still seeing the president talk yesterday about this probe, and while not willing to set off this chain reaction that would

dismiss mueller yet, i think we all suspect it could lead to a constitutional crisis, he's also still not closing the door on it. >> david, among those 13 days was the day that jonathan kelly, general kelly as chief of staff, thought to be the adult in the room with president trump. there's been some changes. has he had the impact you thought he might have over the last five or six months? >> i think he's produced a more orderly white house. i think he's reduced the kind of in and out wandering into the oval office that was characteristic of the first six months. what he hasn't done is changed the president's tweeting habits, this impulsive, almost spasmodic attempt to drive the national conversation. kelly hasn't changed it and doesn't try. when i asked senior officials about these tweets, that's not something we're going to deal with.

that's the president, he's not going to change. we have to accept that. we'll see as time goes forward whether kelly expands his authority, this new shakeup that's rumored with johnny desefo playing a broader role on the political side. we'll see more attempts by him to work with kelly, see if 2018 looks any different. >> i'll just point out, though, these 12 days, it's a great piece that really articulates a fasing period. it's not usual that several months later you get a great history. donald trump was donald trump before, donald trump is donald trump afterward. he has seemed to tamped down on some of the leaks coming out of the white house, but trump is still trum. if the republicans want to do something different next year, they're burdened by the fact that donald trump has shown no indication whatsoever he's ever going to do anything different

than he did from june 16, 2016 in the lobby of trump tower. he's donald trump and will corporate to be donald trump. unless that changes, the republicans' hands are tied. >> in terms of reigning him in, president trump did an interview in the grill room at his club without his staff knowing about it. thank you very much. we'll talk to "the new york times" reporter michael schmidt who got that impromptu interview with the president at his florida golf club yesterday. his staff caught off guard as evidenced in this tweet from "the washington post," asked fairly senior trump adviser on thoughts for "new york times" interview, the person responded, what interview? today? "morning joe" is coming right back. whoooo.

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good morning. it's friday, december 29. welcome to a special edition of "morning joe" on this last weekday of the year. joe and mika have the morning off. we have columnist and associate editor of the washington post, daiftd ignatius. chair of the african-american studies, eddie glaude junior. susan del percio. white house reporter for the associated press jonathan hemire and kristen soltis anderson. let's bring in michael schmidt, "the new york times" reporter who sat down yesterday for a surprise weighed ranging interview. before we get into what he told

you, how did this interview come together? >> was at his golf club in west palm beach where he goes every day from mar-a-lago to play. he had come off the course and played with his son eric and pro golfer jim herman. they had had lunch. i had gone up talking to him. he's very proud of the tax bill at the end of the year. i think that obviously for many reasons means a lot to him, probably in part because he did not have a significant legislative accomplishment in 2017, and that has sort of given him that. he was talking about that. i said if you want to talk about that, why don't we talk about that on the record. when he was done with lunch f, sat down and talked one-on-one about that. >> were you surprised there was no support staff around him? did you have to go through any formal channels? >> i wasn't surprised. it's been very clear from the beginning of his trip -- i came

down here to cover his trip. he hasn't really made a lot of news. it's been pretty clear there was president much staff around him. this has been a lightly staffed trip compared so when president obama had gone on vacation, seems like there was a lot more staffers around him when he would go away. the president believes he's his best spokesman. i think he rarely, as you see when he leaves the white house to get on marine one, his helicopter to leave, he usually stops and talks to the press. i think he believes he's the best person to carry out his message, and i think it's hard for him to turn down opportunities like that. >> michael, we'll get into the contents in a second. if you can paint the picture for the viewers. sitting in the table in the grill room where he's just had lunch. other members around the table, people moving in and out, stopping by the table to say hello to the president? >> yes, it's a fairly large room where folks are having lunch after they've played golf.

there's a bar, there's a television. a lot of folks are coming up and talking to him. i think he enjoys that sort of wanter, saying hi to the members and shaking hands and stuff. he's pretty accessible. there's not a lot of folks around. he has his protection and such. i think he enjoys the most out of the stuff he has to do, getting out there and talking to folks. certainly the campaigning part of the political side. when you can engage with him on that level, i think he finds that hard to turn down. >> talk to you he did. let's get into what he told you, particularly about the mueller probe. michael reminded the president that he said the mueller investigation would be done by thanksgiving, then christmas. trz responded there was tremendous collusion on behalf of the russians and the democrats. there was no collusion with respect to my campaign adding i

think i'll be treated fairly. timingwise, i just can't tell you, i don't know. i think i'll be treated fairly. michael then asked, but you're not worked up about the timing? president trump said i think it's bad for the country. the only thing that bothers me ability timing, i think it's very bad for the country because it headaches the country look bad. the sooner it's worked out, the better it is for the country. the headline is he thinks it makes the country look bad. also, michael, it seems reading the whole transcript of your interview, he was reluctant to criticize bob mueller in ways others have. >> he's certainly struck a different tone than he had before and members of the party have more recently. i this i they had a concerted effort to go after mueller and undercut mueller's credibility. the president is saying i think i'm going to be treated fairly by mueller and there's no reason to take any real action. that kind of struck me in the sense that he was sort of

backing off. the republicans in the house have really painted mueller as he's basically out to get the president in this very out-of-control investigation. the president seemed to be ratcheting that back and sort of striking a new tone there. i don't know if that's part of a larger strategy or if the president wants to put distance between himself and the republicans that have led this charge. i'm not sure. but he certainly was nicer about mueller than he was before. >> michael, david ignatius has a question for you. >> michael, great scoop. i'm just wondering about the body language in this conversation. was it your sense this was an angry man who as he heads into the new year is going to be pushing hard on issues like the mueller investigation, whatever the details of what he said, or did he seem content, at rest after the tax bill? i note you quoted him saying he was hitting the golf ball a

little less far than he used to, which didn't sound like quite as angry or struggling a man. what did you think? >> i think that he -- i think he gets very frustrated -- his level of frustration didn't seem any different than it has been about the russia investigation in general. i think he thinks this is an annoying terrible cloud that's over him at times that he blames on jeff sessions. but i think he sort of has this confidence that it will come and go. at the same time, i think he sometimes thinks the more he says there's mono collusion, he said time and time again, coming bang and repeating it. in terms of next year i was struck by the fact that he talked a lot about doing deals with the democrats, talking about infrastructure, talking about health care. i sort of said to him, are you moving to the center here? are you going to be a dealmaker. he didn't like the idea that he

was moving to the center. he said, i would have done deals before, but i think we can do them now with the democrats. he kept talking about how he thought there was a lot that could be done with them. they really have done nothing together certainly legislatively or otherwise this year. he seemed to really open the door to that possibility next year. i'm not sure -- we've heard that before. at these meetings, the chuck and nancy meetings where it comes out and it seems like they'll do a deal on something like daca and nothing has come of it. >> in the enter view president trump made multiple accusations of illegal activity allegedly perpetrated by drks in 2016. again, mentioned hillary clinton's 33,000 deleted e-mails. "the times" asked trump if the justice department should reopen the investigation. president trump responded, i have absolute right to do what i want to do with the justice department. but in purposes of hopefully

thinking i'm going to be treated fairly, i've stayed uninvolved. after jeff sessions recusing himself from the russia investigation, michael schmidt asked trump if he felt former attorney general eric holder was more loyal to president obama? trump declined to talk about sessions but said, quote, holder protected president obama, totally protected him. when you look at the irs scandal, the guns for whatever, when you look at all the tremendous real problems they had, not made-up problems like russia collusion, when you look at the things they did, holder protected the president. i have great respect. i'll be honest, i have great respect for that. >> did that strike you as odd? i read that less as a compliment of eric holder but more a slap at jeff sessions. >> he really blames sessions for the fact that mueller exists. he said if sessions hadn't recused himself from the russia investigation as he had done early this year that none of this would have happened.

there's been a long-standing expectation in the white house and among folks around sessions that as the russia investigation accelerates or intensifies that the president will go after sessions again. i was actually surprised he didn't criticize sessions more yesterday because, especially because the russia investigation has. manafort has been charged, flynn is cooperating. the president simply repeated his feelings about sessions and didn't go beyond that. but there is this expectation that as the russia investigation accelerates here, as we see the fruits of what flynn may be cooperating about, that the president will come back to sessions, maybe even to dismiss him. there's been back and forth about whether sessions would leave all year. i still think it remains to be seen about how long sessions will actually be around. >> by the way, if you're listening in the car, we're talking to "new york times" reporter michael schmidt who had an extraordinary interview with

president trump, over 30 minutes at his golf club yesterday. michael, susan del percio has a question for you. >> michael, one of the things that was outstanding is we saw more of trump's tells by showing he knows more than anybody else. he said he knew more about taxes than any other person, he's the greatest cpa ever. he said he understood the health care legislation better than most people. that seems to be a weakness. yet we saw that also juxtaposed to the fact that he said he could do whatever he want with the department of justice, which is a completely independent -- should act independently of the president. my question to you is, a year in, does it look like donald trump is actually understabegin understand the process of government or is he still living in this world that, this is how i made deals in the private sector, this is how i'll go forward? >> i stim think he feels like in many ways he would like to fight every battle and every issue that comes up in the battle,

that he's not going to let one thing go and he will get down -- my guess is that, if you caught him -- if the press could catch him every day in a situation like that, he would tangle and go on about these issues like he did yesterday. the thing about talking about the justice department, that's picking um on an argument made by some folks about accusations he's done as president, asking comey to end the flynn investigation where they say that, as the chief executive, as the head of the executive branch, he can do what he wants within the executive branch. by saying to comey, oh, will you end the flynn investigation, he's exercising constitutional legal authority he has to do what he was like. a lot of people don't like that. some people think it's obstruction. other people think it's a complete abuse of power the of the executive branch and not the way that the interaction between the white house and the department of justice are supposed to be. this presidency has sort of turned that idea on its head. now you have a president arguing

he can do whatever he wants with the justice department. where, if a previous president said that -- if obama had said that, that probably would have defined his entire presidency. >> michael, stay with us. we'll sneak in a quick break. when we come back, what president trump had to say about china. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

welcome back to "morning joe." we've been talking with michael schmidt who sat down with president trump yesterday for a 30-minute impromptu interview at the president's golf club, and eddie glaude has a question for you. eddie? >> this is a fascinating piece. i was struck by the end of the article where trump, in effect, says the press has a vested interest in him. he's going to win the next four years because in some ways the press has benefited financially. what did you make of that last moment in the interview? >> well, i think that he -- i

think he's really bent on try to get as much good press coverage as possible and really believes he has been treated unfairly and believes that the press will eventually come around to him, and that he -- he thinks he's responsible for a lot of success of the press and the fact that there is so much attention that is paid to everything that he does and that the press is relevant in a way that it isn't before. he wants the press to know that. he wants the press to essentially sort of thank him. i think that he thinks that the press probably has worse intentions than it really does, and that's his way of really sort of sticking it to the press and saying, you know, look at who you guys are and look how unfair you've been. >> michael schmidt, we've only scratched the surface with this pretty extraordinary interview. we woke you up early to get you

on the phone. we appreciate you calling to talk through it. it's fascinating. thanks very much. >> thanks for having me. president trump took on beijing after reports indicated chinese ships have been caught in u.s. reconnaissance photos selling oil . on twitter trump wrote caught red-handed. very disappointed that china is allowing oil to go into north korea. there will never be a friendly solution to the north korea problem if this continues to happen. he followed up during the interview with "the new york times" saying he's been, quote, soft on china on trade. adding oil is going into north korea. that wasn't my deal. if they don't help us with north korea, then i do what i've always said i want to do. what does that mean exactly, david ignatius? >> trying to parse that, i would say he's telling the country he thinks he had a deal with the chinese leadership that they

would halt or severely reduce oil shipments to north korea, and if they don't deliver on what he thought they promised to do in that deal, that he will then move toward very strict trade sanctions against china. i'll do what i always warned i would do. remember during the campaign he said the chinese were raping america in terms of foreign trade. so we saw a window open on the conversations that have taken place between trump and chinese president xi jinping. we heard him say, here is what my deal was, my deal was you cut off the oil and i won't pound you with trade sanctions. this goes next and always with trump, it's hard to say. but less than meets the eye in terms of tweets and interviews, often in terms of actual policy. >> it was fascinating reading "the new york times" interview. he didn't like what he saw. he said they treated me so well,

so i'm sort of torn about what to do here. >> french leaders sometimes say the state of the state. here he is saying, well, the russia investigation makes the country look bad. it doesn't make the country look bad. it makes him look bad. it's not my deal. it's a very personal personalization. >> i found that moment with regards to china really interesting. rex tillerson doesn't have any knee caps anymore, right? he keeps taking his knee caps out. it's really interesting to juxtapose that claim with rex tillerson's op ed in "the new york times" the day before. what exactly is the foreign policy? >> coming up, we'll read from joe scarborough's new "washington post" column, why he says there's every reason to believe that 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives. that's next on "morning joe."

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our own joe scarborough has a new piece in this morning's "washington post" titled "a storm is gathering." in it he writes there's every

reason to believe 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lice. the reckoning upon us follows a year mercifully drawing to a close. over that horrid year president trump has questioned legitimacy of federal judges, cast contempt on the rule of law while his campaign manager, national security adviser and foreign policy aide have been marched into federal courts. those anti democratic instincts were made all the more ominous by his praising of autocrats across the world as they were ruthlessly consolidating power. the storm is gathering and how we respond in the months ahead may determine our fate for years to go. joe goes on, while trump's eroding of u.s. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it's his administration's undermining of democrat values that poses a greater threat to our constitution and country. borrowing again from church hills, america's constitutional norms tremble in the balance as he launches attacks on first

amendment protections and law enforcement officers who refuse to be bullied. they never let their imaginations be darkened by the possibility of a compliant congress. kristen solstice anderson, let's go to you on this, how dire is the situation? do you agree with joe here? >> i think the situation is fragile. that's perhaps how i'd best frame it. let's talk about what's happening in alabama very briefly. roy moore who lost the senate election, and he's now claiming that the election is invalid. he lost and it's wrong, there was fraud. this is what we were at risk of facing at a national level had donald trump lost the presidential in 2016, that there's a sense, oh, there was voter fraud, i won by x number of million votes. there are times when it sounds like he forgets that he won the presidential election. i worry that in 2018 if

republicans face large losses, and at this point a lot of the polling suggests it's not going to look good for them, that if president trump looks like he's potentially at risk of having a democratic congress that may want to begin to pursue impeachment proceedings, do you then begin to see the questioning of the validity of elections period? that's the sort of -- i don't think it's likely, but if i'm thinking of a potentially really scary situation, i'd look at things like what's happening with roy moore in alabama wondering is there a chance that that sort of world view gets brought national by a president who is liable to -- he likes blaming other people for things and claiming, look, i'm a bigger winner than you ever could have possibly realized. coming up, is the writing on the wall for the republican party? steve kornacki says if the democratic wave washes over republicans in 2018, history will record that 2017 was full of warning signs.

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president trump tweeted this morning that he is just as popular as president obama was at this stage of his presidency. he wrote, while the fake news likes to talk about my low approval ratings, "fox & friends" just showed my rating on december 28, 2017 was approximately the same as president obama on december 28, 2009 which was 47%. this despite massive negative trump coverage and russia hoax. trump is basing his numbers off the rasmussen poll which has historically favored republicans over democrats. even as 41% approval rating which is the high end of those numbers in the nbc-"wall street journal" poll puts him below every other modern president at this point in his term. for more about those numbers we turn to national political

correspondent for nbc steve kornacki. also "for trump and republicans, these red fraction are hard to miss." also with us, conservative radio host and msnbc contributor charley sykes. steve, i want to dive in on your piece. i think it's interesting and important as we look to 2018, these red flags. we were talking about some of the early races, pompeo's seat in kansas, back to the montana race, things that have been lost in the shuffle. the flags have been there. >> when you look back at the big wave elections in midterm years, you look at what leads up to it, we're seeing the basic ingredients. one is the approval rating. when the approval rating of a president is low, that usually corresponds to big midterm losses for the party. another is what they call a generic ballot, which party would you vote for to run congress. democrats have opened up a high single digit, low double-digit

lead. historically that matches up with a wave election. you mentioned 2017 we've got a series of these special elections. trump and republicans will say, hey, all those house races, we won them. it's true. you look at kansas, montana, south carolina, georgia. in three of the four races what you saw was double-digit movement from the 2016 presidential result to the democratic column. when you start seeing that kind of movement in special elections, again, that's something at least historically that's matched up with bad midterm years. >> charley sykes, if you're a republican right now, you're not feeling good at least right now about the prospects for the midterm elections in 2018. what could change between now and then? >> well, you're feeling good about getting something done at the end of the year with the tax bill, but i agree with steve. you almost have this alignment of the planets for a wave. it was interesting, i was

looking at donald trump, the president of the united states' twitter feed this morning. what's very clear is he has created an alternative reality silo for himself. he is a bubble inside of a bubble. your question is what needs to change. well donald trump thinks things are going fine and he's prepared obviously to cherry-pick polls, outlier polls showing that things are going swimmingly. that tells me that he's not going to press the kind of panic button that i would think that republicans would want. he needs to do something to change the dynamic. the best hope, of course, is to continue riding a strong stock market in the economy. the amazing thing about these polls, and i know steve has talked about this before, is that any other president would be in the 60s with the kind of economy we have right now. the fact that donald trump is in the 30s or maybe the low 40s with an economy as strong as it is now, has got to be one of the brightest red lights flashing

for republicans. >> steve, talk a bit about this wave, this democratic momentum. what about intentional tensions. governor dean yesterday talked about the progressives have basically taken over the democratic party. i don't know if that's quite true. but there is a civil war going on. how will that affect this momentum, this wave as you see it? >> i think two things are sort of simultaneously playing out here. one, the democratic party doesn't have an heir apparent. that's going to have to emerge over the next few years. you could be looking at the most chaotic democratic process. the parallel i could find is post watergate, all the rules were up for grabs and you had 17 democrats who ran in '76. you're probably looking at a field at least that big at least in the beginning of 2020. when you look at 2018, there's a theory of politics that i tend to subscribe to, talking midterm election years, especially when

one party controls the white house, the senate and the house, the opposition party doesn't need much of a message to do well, because the message is how about a check on these guys. historically voters have liektd that. >> not only that, let's not forget in the midterm election traditionally you have a president who is trying to stay on message, working in tandem with the party. we don't know what to expect from donald trump at any given time which makes these congressional challenges where donald trump hurts them the most is on cultural issues, whether it's charlottesville, supporting roy moore, the nfl. he picks these fights, we don't know when he's going to blow up his twitter feed. that makes it very hard for any republican running in 2018 to stay focused on their own message because donald trump will just continue to drop these bombs one after another after another during the year. >> how do we square this enthusiasm gap with the fund-raising gap. the republicans seem to have a lot more money on hand than the

democrats. democrats have more success in the individual rations. how does that play outgoing forward? >> the fund raising, traditionally fund-raising plays to the party in power. when you have the white house, the senate and the house, that's it. that's game over fund-raising. i think the republicans will start to see a slowdown in fund raising for the rnc after the rnc financially decided to support roy moore. that's a tough thing for a lot of republicans to swallow. also going forward, we've also seen that on the fund-raising side, especially for congressional candidates, there's a lot of online fund-raising, crowd sourcing, ways of getting this done very quickly. and yes, it looks bad right now. i do believe in individual races the democrats for the most part where there's going to be a competitive race, they will have funding. >> charley, you're a conservative who has been tough on president trump from the beginning since his days as a candidate. i'm wondering as we approach the end of the year, what the first

year of the trump presidency has been like as compared to what your expectation of what it would be like. >> in some ways from a conservative point of view there have been wins, on the supreme court, on regulation and on taxes. on the other hand it's also been this horrifying experience watching the republican party trumpify itself and refuse to stand up whether it's to the corruption, the russian attacks, the bullying, the chronic lie of the president, the attacks on the rule of law. so you always would hope there would have been a much more viable conservative alternative to donald trump. we're going into 2018 with a republican party and a conservative movement that is completely latched to donald trump for better or for worse. again, while some conservatives are trying to rationalize and say we've got all these wins, i think 2017 is going to be remembered for all the things

that they normalized, accepted and ignored. meanwhile national security adviser h.r. mcmaster is speaking out about president trump's first year of setting foreign policy. he defines trump's foreign policy as pragmatic realism. he adds trump's unorthodox approach has moved a lot of us out of our comfort zone, me included, but suggested that's not necessarily a bad thing. he added the con ses suss view has been that engagement overseas is an unmitigated good regardless of circumstances. there are things that do not justify investments of blood and treasure. what do you make of that assessment? >> i think h.r. mcmaster is being pretty straightforward about the way donald trump has been disruptive in the way american foreign policy has been conducted. he is overturning some of our

traditional relationships, alliances. at the end of this year, i have to be honest that i think of a member of the "morning joe" family, if you will, brzezinski who passed this last year. as much as anybody who embodied this idea that america's power in the world was inseparable from his alliances, the very things that donald trump has seemed to be trying to undermine. so i think back on dr. brzezinski, his idea of what a strong america looked like, that country, that idea of strength took a bit hit in 2017. >> mika will appreciate you talking about her dad. we miss him this year. charley sykes, thank you for being with us. steve, stay with us. up next, the worst fire tragedy in new york city in a quarter isn'try. we'll go live to the scene next. it's time for sleep number's 'lowest

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at least 12 people are dead including a 1-year-old after a massive fire tore through a new york city apartment building last night. mayor bill deblasio says the blaze is the worst fire tragedy in the city in a quarter century. nbc's anne thompson has the latest. >> reporter: this morning at least a dozen people dead including four children after a massive fire ripped through this bronx, new york, apartment building. in frigid conditions more than 160 firefighters responded, battling the four-alarm blaze

that burned its way through the entire five-story building of 25 apartments. >> we've got people on the fire escape on the front of the building. we need a rush on an ambulance, we've got a 1045, a child. >> i think it's my building that's on fire. it wasn't actually my building. it was the building across the street. by the time i got downstairs, the fire escalated from one apartment to two, two almost to three. all i see is a bunch of kids on the fire escape, cold and with no jacket, no pajamas, no nothing. >> reporter: the fire creating heavy black smoke, taking firefighters nearly two hours to bring it under control as they rushed to rescue residents. >> i saw people being carried out of here today, guys. it's overwhelming. those two little kids going out with their mother and they went back upstairs and not an hour or so later, they're being wheeled out. >> fire started on the first floor, quickly spread upstairs

on this building. people died on various floors of the apartment. >> reporter: new york city mayor bill deblasio saying a tragedy the city hasn't seen in nearly 25 years. >> we're here at the scene of unspeakable tragedy in the middle of the holiday season. this will rank as one of the worst losses of life to a fire in many, many years. >> reporter: and this morning we know that the victims range in age from 1 to 63 years old. there were four children who died in this fire. their ages are 1, 2 and 7 years old. the fourth child we do not know the age of that child. four people remain in critical condition this morning. we are told they are fighting for their lives. now today investigators will try to determine what caused this fire that moved so quickly through this 100-year-old building. willie? >> anne thompson on a terrible

scene in the bronx. we were looking at some of the personal stories even this morning coming out, people looking for family members. a mother saying i carried as many children as i could to get out, but couldn't get them all out. >> a woman getting a text from her mother saying i'm stuck on the third floor, i can't get out. these are heartbreaking tales. while fire deaths are down significantly, still so heartbreaking to see these types of deaths happen in this day and age with everything we can do. chances are the cause can be from something as simple as a space heater. >> we don't want to speculate, but we saw in 2007 there was a big fire that took a lot of lives, it was space heater. so cold here in new york city, people doing anything they can to heat their apartments. we'll see what the fdny comes up with the fire. democratic doug jones certify the winner of the alabama senate race. roy moore is still yet to

concede. what's next for the so-called trump resistance. our buddy ar nan gear dhar dass. the final "morning joe" segment of 2017 live from the grill room is next. steyer: the president's national security adviser -- guilty. his campaign chairman -- under indictment. his son-in-law -- secret talks with russians. the director of the fbi -- fired. special counsel robert mueller's criminal investigation has already shown why the president should be impeached. you can send a message to your representatives at needtoimpeach.com and demand they finally take a stand. this president is not above the law.

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i'm not really a, i thought wall street guy.ns. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman?

hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade democrat doug jones has been declared the winner of the alabama u.s. senate race. despite a last-minute lawsuit filed by roy moore claiming what he called systemic election fraud. moore still refusing to concede. saying in a statement, election fraud experts across the country have agreed that this was a fraudulent election. a adding, i have stood for the truth. i have no regrets.

he has an election fraud expert that told him that. it's not a consensus view. doug jones will be sworn in on january 3rd. senator franken is scheduled to resign on tuesday, following allegations of groping and forcibly kissing women. and significant pressure from his democratic colleagues. but a poll of minnesota voters conducted just this week found that half do not want him to step down. the left leaning firm public policy polling found 50% of minnesota voters think franken should not resign. 42% believe he should go through with his decision to step aside. looking at the results by friday, 71% of democrats say franken should not resign. 52% of independents and only 1 in 5 republicans think franken should stay. 60% believe the senate ethics probe should have continued. 35% felt franken should resign immediately. 53% of minnesota voters continued to approve of the job franken is doing, including 57%

of the state's female voters. at a farewell gathering last night, senator franken fought back tears but also made the audience laugh. >> i promise you, i may be leaving the senate. but i'm not giving up my voice. we still have a lot of work to do together. on issues ranging from net neutrality to climate change. more rural broadband. you can't -- becky, you can't go wrong with rural broadband. every person in this country should have access to the internet for learning and for business and rural broadband. is what i'm saying. i'm ashamed i left it out of that part. we still have to be ready to speak out for economic justice.

and to defend the truth. >> senator franken last night in minnesota. joining us now, author and nbc news contributor an gardartis. can you just flash the pink please? man can dress on top of everything else. as part of a recent speech, he addressed the future of tolerance and inclusion in america. he said as our so sigh tociety fractures, some change makers are drawn to visions of progress that don't bother with persuasion. i'm thinking especially of those of us who live in what we regard as america. as wokeness has percolated from black resistance into the cultural mainstream it seems at times to have become a test you must pass to engage with the enlightened. either you buy our whole program, use our terms and check your privilege or you are irredeemable.

is there space among the woke for the still-waking. it's such a great question. because it has become on both sides what we're focusing on. you're with us or against us. without that element of persuasion you talk about. >> persuasion is so important and it's the kind of value that suffers in the polarized climate like today. i think resistance was incredibly important, frankly, from my point of view. this president shattered every democratic norm that people on both sides take for granted. but if the movement has done such a good job in 2017 of protecting our institutions, only protecting our institutions, i think they'll miss an opportunity. many americans are not die-hard trumpers and are not coastal elites who are fully down with the privilege-checking new america that is here. and for those people in the middle, i would hope that those who did such a great job

resisting trump also do a great job persuading them. winning them over. going into parts of this country that are scared of change. talking to men who are terrified of a gentle equal future. talking to white people who fear a coming on white majority. and not conceding that these sections of history are wrong. but being able to speak to them. understand their anxiety and win over the other side. the resistance has to become a church. a church that seeks converts. >> do you believe there has been some outreach? because it is, as you say, it has been -- here's our movement, here's who we are, here's what we represent, here are the appropriate thoughts. if you don't share them, you can't come in the church. >> this is not a monolith. there are people totally doing what i'm talking about. my favorite example from 2017 is the person who won the house of delegates seat in virginia, transgender legislature,

historic. but won by talking about route 28. >> roads. >> obsessively, as we all remember. there was a lesson in there about being able to be part of that new america, being able to represent it. and at the same time, being able to speak to people who are not fully down with that new america and slowly reel them in. >> professor, what do you make of this argument? >> i think he's absolutely on point. i'm thinking about wokeness and thinking about how it's an extension of theroux, henry david theroux. an extend of walt whitman. the idea that the problem of sleepwalking has always plagued this democracy from its beginnings. what we need in this moment i think, what i hear you say, people just willing to risk vision dreaming. and to see that democracy requires a kind of attentiveness in this moment. not a kind of purity of heart. not self-righteousness. but a kind of attemptiveness in this moment. when it seems that seriousness,

democracy itself actually, is under attack. and so i applaud this. >> there's also never been a better time for it because our politics, which has been so divisive, is now so much a part of our culture. i think that's another thing we're seeing. we're seeing people aren't just saying i never paid attention to a congressional race before, now i follow every local race there is. so because politics is becoming such a part of our culture, everyday culture, these conversations can exist in a different dynamic than just more about who are you voting for in november. and that is i think something to really take advantage of. because if we don't have these conversations, we're going to become further divided. not more united in achieving common goals. >> it's not a particularly new idea. but it has been amplified in the age of trump which is that, you know, your opponent is not just wrong, he's evil. or he's not your opponent, he's your enemy. your mortal enemy. everyone must run to their battle stations for whatever issue of the day is.

>> what susan's saying, i thought about that this year, this sort of merger of culture and politics. late-night television is something i thought about a lot. they're essentially in some ways extensions of cable news in a way you think back to johnny carson and jay leno in the old days. you didn't have in politics and culture are sort of synced up this way. one of the things that's concerned me about it just in terms of thinking about the unity of the country and trying to get everybody together, all these things we all care about, sometimes it has felt to me that we had an election where the country was pretty much down the middle. hillary clinton won more votes. donald trump won more electoral votes. but a divided country. and so much of the conversations not only are one side of that. i've wondered this year if it's ultimately serving one-half of our country and driving the other half away and creating more division. something i've worried about. i don't know what the answer is but i worried that might be one of effects of what we're seeing

now. >> can i make a suggestion, last segment of the year? go home today and think about who is someone in your life that you could persuade. whatever side of this you're on, that you could actually reach out to. maybe someone you defriended this year. who's someone you can refriend and persuade? and actually try to have a conversation about what you care about in america. what your deeper values are. and where you want to see this country go in 2018. because we're all focused on the white house. our fabric has frayed. let's refray the fabric. >> what i love about what he's saying is he's encouraging all of us to think of things larger than ourselves and our self-interest. one feeling i have at the end of the year, and expressed well by my colleague, ruth marcus as worried as i am about what's happening in the white house i never felt as strongly, passion, for my country, for its good health, for where it's going. i think a lot of people are

feeling that. and that's what you're saying. this is everybody's country. let's make it as strong as it can be. >> a lot of people have been reminded that you have to fight for it. it's not just always going to be there. >> you do have to fight for it. >> guys, thank you for being here. happy new year. you persuaded me to get a blazer with pink patches. it's already working. thank you to our viewers for an incredible tumultuous 2017. we'll see you in 2018. ayman ayman mohyeldin picks up our coverage. >> an impromptu interview. a wide-ranging conversation with "the new york times." muller will be fair. he's been too soft on china. the media needs him to win in 2020. and mentioning 16 times the word "collusion." countdown to 2018. ramping up security efforts in the wake of high-profile attacks. the nypd not