of north korea. among his 16 other tweets yesterday describing the justice department as deep state, taking credit for airline safety, suggesting his political opponents be jailed and mocking american journalists at the same time thousands of iranians fight in the streets for the freedom of speech. good morning, it's wednesday, january 3rd, i'm catty kay in for joe and mika, battling the flu. we wish them our best. which have msnbc contributor mike barnical. national analyst joe heilemann, noah rothman and pulitzer prize winning he torrian john meacham down in nashville. we go inwith president trump's latest taunt of north korea's dictator n. his new year's eve address, kim jong-un said the whole territory is within the range of our nuclear strike and button. it is always on the desk of my

office. this is just a reality. not a threat. in response, president trump last night tweeted -- . >> well, you know, it's uncomfortable to talk about, but he puts stability on the table i think at an issue. his stability. the president of the united states, his stability. i mean, issuing a tweet like that potentially talking about nuclear war. i mean, c'mon. >> john, how intig your button? >> wow. >> it had to be said? >> it had to be said. i think it's interesting that alex with him put up that clip from that debate, because when it happened that debate, two

years ago, you saw trump talking in that way, people made the obvious references, it was a joke. and if you cast your mind forward at the time, you thought, people would in kind of a caricature way say a president, somebody on a presidential debate stage talking about his genitals the size of his package on television that person is obviously, where could that lead? he could, if he ever got in the oval office, you could be talking about nuclear war in this context. we'll people would laugh at you. of course, if he got in the oval office, we hull not behave. this was antics, this is how you get attention at a fox knew debate. here we are two years later the man is talking about the size of his button on the topic of nuclear war. i agree we mike, we have been talking about the stability of the president for a while. that's not a new topic. this re-raises the topic. we are at the point where the

convergence of his inadequacies, his anxiety, newer rows cease, his potential mental stable has now intersected with the single most dangerous issue that faces us all as humans on the planet. so, yeah, it's a little freaky. >> it's certainly fought unprecedented for a president to talk talk, issue a threat to any rocky nation, including north korea. some of donald trump's predecessor versus done that, but to the it in this language is so different. we've over the summer it already felt like he was escalating the conflict to unprecedented heights, with fire and fury and locked and loaded to threaten to wipe them off the face of the earth to respond to a dictator who likes to talk in hyperbole apocalyptic images, to have the president respond in kind with this, which is perhaps catching him or perhaps not is unnerving for a lot of people,

particularly in foreign capitals like seoul and tokyo, who are right there and programs it's fought a coincidence we are seeing at the same time, south korea and north korea have some communication for the first time in years, at the same time we see the president talk like this. >> so i think one of the problems with this is allie was are already struggling to work out how to deal with this president and are starting to think actually, we're going to try to circumvent the u.s. at the moment and this is the kind of language, this is the kind of tweet that makes them think, we're not taking this very seriously at the moment, south america not a serious player in the game at the moment this kind of language, whether it's couched in a joke or not. it's probably in part the president throws this out, it's a joke, great,ly wait to see the reaction from those commentators, they will be hot under the collar about it. but i think there is a real impact in terms of other countries thinking, you know, this is another reminder we have

to put america on hold as much as we can for next few years, because this president is not somebody who is taking serious issues in the serious way in which we need to. is there an upside? >> is there an upside? i struggle to find the upside, conservatives have been coming to terms with the president trump presidency, taking it as a whole, there is a lot to like about the presidency. some say the tweets are a distraction, something that the president does to rile people up t. most sycophant ics say they demonstrate his ability to talk over the heads of the people and appeal to the publics. when it comes to foreign policy when donald trump tweets out unverified people attacking pus littles and it results in a rile with the british government. when says we will withhold aid from pakistan, to get a concession, they respond and say

we will lodge a form am complaint in a form am setting. here as jonathan alluded to, the south korean government recently received a communication from north korea. north korea's leader in that bellicose statement on new year's eve, also issued a conciliatory statement saying we will move forward with talks. rex tillerson said you need to be quiet and we can get to the table. donald trump may be cutting himself and the united states out of the process by becoming, you know, being aggressive, himself, so these tweets have a real consequence in the real world. >> it's still a connection to normalcy here for all of our lifetimes, any president of any party who treated threats of nuclear war in anyway in a cavalier way, we have fought seen that really from republicans or democrats. anybody who treated this cavalierly would be roundly condemned by all serious people if both parties. he is not nearly being cavalier with a threat about nuclear war. he has been cavalier in a way that makes him see dewanted and

deranged and -- demeanted and deranged and our adversaries think he is a person with threats. >> that's it, john meacham, the idea of the president of the united states -- the idea that the president of the united states is taunting another unstable person in north korea, the ramifications of that along with what are they thinking about the president of the united states as catty alluded to in beijing, in world capitals? i mean, we have never been here before. >> no, we haven't. don't you remember, mike, all those jfk tweets from the missile crisis? my cigar is bigger than your cigar. no, but we've all made the point that it's like miranda in the

tempest. it's a brave new world that has such people in it. this is such a president in it. it seems to me we've almost without doubt now, which is always a dangerous thing to say, human affairs, but pretty much without doubt, we are dealing with someone who is governing for his 30 to 38% of the public. he's not interested in growing that number particularly, he's not interested in other world leaders, actually think about him. what he's interested in is what they say to him. so we're living through a kind of national experiment and narcissistic disorder and we have to figure out, you know, can there be an intervention in time or are we going to continue to have to watch this drama unfold. i fear it's the latter. >> it's always a good show when you get shakespeare on in the first couple minutes.

>> good to help you. and we're sorry about the empire. >> again. >> but we appreciate church hymn. thank you. >> as mentioned on new year's day, kim jong-un suggested talks to send a delegation to the winter olympics in south korea. yesterday, south korea proposed high level talks next tuesday to discuss this topic. this morning, south korea's communications ministry confirmed to nbc news north korea re-opened the cross-border communication channel and has made contact. yesterday before his button size tweet, president trump seemed to respond to these diplomatic overtures, tweeting -- . >> as nikki haley discussed possible sanctions yesterday at

the u.n.. >> we won't take any of the talks seriously if they don't do something to ban all nuclear weapons in north korea. we consider this to be a very reckless regime. we don't think we need a band aid. we don't think we need to smile and take a picture. we think we need to have them stop nuclear weapons and they need to stop it now. so north korea can talk with anyone they want. but the u.s. will not recognize it pr acknowledgment knowledge it until they agree to ban the nuclear weapons that they have. >> joining us now from london, live, nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely. you spent time in north korea and south korea. how easy would it be for kim jong-un to drive a wedge between south korea and america to washington's detriment in this negotiation? >> reporter: well, i think that is what he's been trying to do and that was in a way the tone of his new year's message, conciliatory towards south korea, aggressive towards the united states, trying to as you

say drive that wedge between the two and any thoughts that we had that this crisis was going to get easier that president trump might become more neutral or less provocative in 2018, well forget it. because we saw from that tweet, president trump personalizing the issue again with another rocketman taunt at that extraordinary tweet, minds you, your button is bicker than your button. but this gesture from kim jong-un in advance of the winter olympics in pyeongchang saying he will reopen dialogue and the hotline apparently has been reopened. >> that has been confirmed by south korean officials. picking up, kathy, on the point you were making earlier about the global impact of the tweets that president trump is making. you know the latest extraordinary tweet is, of course, just stating the obvious, you know, the u.s. has the world's biggest nuclear ars nam. he personally has access to the

nuclear codes and the buttons always, but remember the effect of that tweet as you said outside the united states because this isn't an issue just about presidential tone, is this really the way any head of state should be communicating? it's about its global effect. this is just anecdotal, but i have been asked repeatedly over the holiday period, if britain and on mainland europe, is there going to be a nuclear war? i would say, that itself the issue that people are most concerned about as we move into 2018. people are deeply worried this kind of tweet increases that anxiety. it's framed as the panel has been saying in such an unserious way and people across the world are saying, does the president really understand the terrible power that he has the terrible power of the button that he's tweeting about and the threats that he's making? but, yes, as on the other side of the talk and the threats of

war, we have this possibility of a tiny opening for the first time in two years, at least dialogue, even if it's about the winter olympics, between the north and the south, but going right back to your question, kathy, let's not be naive, this is exactly what kim is trying to do, drive wedge between the united states and its allies in asia, specifically near south korea. >> when if south korea, did you get a sense, any sense at all about the feeling towards possible conflict, nuclear conflict with the north among the people in south korea? do they live in daily dread, hourly dread? is it an occasional fear if they do have a fear? >> you know, it's interesting, it's almost that it's become, there's an acceptable level of threat. so people in seoul, in the metropolitan area, there are more than 20 million people living there, have lived for bell more than a decade with the

threat of tens of thousands of missiles being not just, you know, fired, but they are aimed at the seoul metropolitan area. the curious sense is that people spend a second or two seconds listening to the latest threat from pyongyang and they simply get on with the rest of their lives. i thought it was very odd. i mean, you know the anecdote of the frog in the boiling water, but the frog never actually realizes that its life is seriously in danger, because as the temperature rises, it can't sense those tiny rises in temperature until the moment when it expires. that was almost the sense that i got in seoul, that people weren't able to read the rise in temperature and it would have to be said that they were more worried, fact, by the threats that was coming, that were coming from washington than the

threats that they heard every day from kim jong-un, those they as i say, they almost dismiss. it's president trump. it's washington that they are really worried about in seoul today. >> nbc news' bill neely, thank you very much for joining us. you know, there has been a lot of reporting picking up what bill said on foreign policy and trump's interactions with the world and quite often they've pointed to the fact that foreign leaders or officials will meet with trump and feel he doesn't know the substance of what he's talking about. he doesn't know the basis, picking up on what bill was saying there, does trump really understand the seriousness of this situation and how it could escalate? >> it raises the question now, jonathan, whether you sit in beijing, you think to yourself, we wanted to resolve the thing with north korea, but you know now the president of the united states with these crazy tweets, we got to sort of maybe try to help north korea. you wonder whether they are doing that. >> first of all there is no

question, foreign leaders throughout the president's young term have had to almost take him to school. that was on the part of the president's trip to asia in the fall, part of the presentation from president xi in beijing was going through chinese history. we know in spring when the two presidents first met in mar-a-lago, xi had to give am rundown of the history of the north korea situation. president trump emerged afterwards, saying, wow, that was more complicated than i realize. and we're seeing now from the americans as these foreign capitals are trying to come to grips with this latest tweet. he continues this idea of they're not sure what voice to listen to in the american government. you hit the point with rex tillerson, that's exactly right. you are getting conflicting signals from the white house and the rest of the senior administration. >> this is my fear, is not so much that the world begins to take these tweets seriously and literally, although they are. it is that we all have developed this ability to compartment ammize the trump tweets, the

ones scripted and have gone through a vetting process and semi literal and obviously what the president thinks. we are taking those and putting the other ones in a different box and it creates a conflict not just among us but among the rest of the world as to what is the true voice of the american government and the president sometimes, it seems like somebody you requecan dismiss. >> it's not just the world. he is making headlines from iran to pakistan to the palestinians, ahead, we'll speak with a former u.s. ambassador to nato nicholas burns and former nato allied commander james stavridis about those issues. today is the deadline republicans have set for the fbi and department of justice to turn over records and provide witnesses about the trump-russia dossier. chairman devon nunez and other congressional republicans who have expressed frustration with the investigations into president trump and russia continue to allege corruption at

the fbi and have allegedly prepared a report that accuses the fbi of political corruption. yesterday the president tweeted about a report with anonymous accusation against clinton aid huma abedin. meanwhile, the founders of the research firm behind the controversial trump russia dossier are sharing what they told congress in over 21 hours of testimony and demanding that republicans set the record straight. in the "new york times" op-ed, fusion co-founder glen simpson and peter fritz they i have are being smeared.

let's bring in "new york times" reporter michael schmidt. some of this gets back to yesterday we talked about a drunken night in a bar in washington and the meeting with an australian diplomat. >> that triggered the fbi report with papadopoulos. but this idea that fusion gps is coming out in public in the new york styles saying hold on a second, chair chasing rabbits, when they should be casing

bears. how much credence do you give what fusion gps is writing here? >> reporter: well, they feel they have been long time ma'am aligned for a long time and haven't been able to defend themselves. they've finally gotten to a point to do this. in dealing with capitol hill, they are in a difficult spot. this is the first time they have been able really begin and try and tell their story of why they did what they did and it will hold up. the significant thing is my colleagues reported over the week was the fact the dossier was not the reason for the russian investigation. it was additional things that came in, in a month afterwards, that really runs in the face of some republicans' narratives who say if dossier the fake cooked up thing is the reason for the russian investigation. that's just not true. >> so, mike, let me ask a couple things, one to started with, is there any -- what is the possible explanation for why this senate judiciary committee has not actually released the

transcripts of the fusion testimony last summer? fusion has said throughout, from the time they testified to now, have been saying, you guys are free, please release this i believe charles grassley said it at the time in a town hall meeting in iowa they would do that. so what's the holdup on why the public doesn't get to see that testimony? >> i'm not sure. we haven't seen a ton of transcripts from either the house or the senate. there has not ban lot of disclosures, just a few. i think they probably don't want to set a precedence of releasing this, then they have this ongoing investigation. they are looking into different things. if they put this out, there may be things in there they are looking into, there may be things they haven't corroborate rated. they want to continue to investigate until they get to a point that they know everything in there is either true or not true ar whatever. they den waon't want to put thi out. we don't know when the senate investigation will be over.

>> they make a lot of claims in this op-ed, including the fact that they pointed congress to, for instance the deutsche bank records, they say in the op ed that congress has not taken up their advice on what to go look at, the only bank records congress subpoenaed have been the bank records of fusion gps, just on that claim and others, this a piece of propaganda or the claims they're making about what they recommended and what congress has and hasn't done, do those basically stands up to journalistic scrutiny? >> i guess two things, one i wonder how much insight they have into the investigation. i don't think they know everything that these committee versus gone after. i'm not sure about. that the other thing is i think what they're saying is look we only have the power to do so much. we are just investigators. we don't have the power of subpoena like capitol hill does, like mueller does, we tried to point them in the direction we can't get at. we can't serve deutsche bank

with a subpoena or force certain people to talk. they said, look, we took this as far as we can. the investigators need to take it further. >> hey, michael johnson, fusion gps has obviously become a bit of a bogeyman on the right, focusing on the fact that it was funded in part by the clinton campaign rather than conservative sources, seeing this year, which was obviously fusion's attempt to set this straight. do you have any sense this will have impact on the republican led committees, thank you could have helped silence the attacks from the right and the president, himself, about the dossier? >> reporter: i'm not sure that this will change anything that significantly. if anything, it sort of resurrects the issue of the dossier and sort of puts it front and center and now there is a real debate where you have them on the record talking about this my guess is it will continue to feed the republicans who have really latched onto it as their biggest talking point i don't think the republicans care a lot about the fact that a lot of what they've said here, about

the dossier is not true. they have been looking for things to latch on to as they've tried to undercut mueller's credibility. >> okay. still ahead on "morning joe," senator orrin hatch announces he is retiring. mitt romney quickly changes his location from massachusetts to utah. we'll read those tea leaves. plus, president trump adds credence to those who say he is a reality president, announcing on twitter, he will be doling out the most dishonest media awards of the year. >> i always wanted to be an award winning journalist. >> it's for you, john heilemann, john meacham is here. he has a new piece on the "new york times" on the limits of the pretticy. first a massive storm is making its way up the east coast. bill kierans is back. he has a check on the forecast. bill, any good news at all? >> not until i don't know third week of january it warms up, the cold was bad if you have. now we finally have an east

coast storm. this will be a bomb storm, a huge storm. most of it is off the coast. not all of it. let's get into the worst of it all. north florida, this is all ice, how many times have you heard ice storm in louisiana from? jacksonville to brunswick, georgia, picture those gorgeous pine trees losing their limbs. florida got much worse overnight, picturing a half an inch of ice, major problems in areas of southern georgia and coastal georgia. if that's not bad if you have, it's cold in savannah for a coating of ice, then we're calling, this is four-to-eight inches of snow. they don't have plows and salt trucks. savannah and charleston will be shut down one day or two days until they get melting. as far as the northeast goes, 7:00 a.m. thursday, it's mostly going to be a bad storm from central long island in central new england and especially eastern new england. we're going to talk about maybe about 5:00 p.m. thursday up in

maine. here's the snowfall forecast. again, d.c., philly, moo into nothing. new york city maybe a few inches, hartford to providence, to boston, six to nine inches possible in maine. the winds will howl. the biggest issue will be power outages. we will have people in cape cod to coastal main, temperatures in the single digits, without power. it's the southeast ice storm, charleston, savannah, snow, what hits new england? the big blizzard tomorrow. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> tech: at safelite autoglass

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within about 15 minutes of the president feeling compelled to contrast the american nuclear stockpile with north korea's he was tweeting about television, quote, i will be announcing the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year on monday at 5:00. subjects will cover dishonesty

and bad reporting in various categories from the fake news media, stay tuned. he floated the idea of holding a fake trophy. jonathan, are you in for this one, by the way? >> as someone who covers the white house every day, it would be an honor to be nominated for a trumpy, which i assume this will be called. i certainly hope, it is awards season, maybe there is a rose garden ceremony, you win, you go on stage and thank your editor before the orchestra plays you off. on a more serious note, it is again this president putting the media, labeling us as the opposition party in an unprecedented way, which i'm sure thrills a number of his supporters, but also continues to undermine american

institutions. >> you may have to fight harder for it. >> i want that trophy so bad. i have a trophy case at home. hard to believe, yes, i do. you put in my lig legal trophies. now i will build a whole new shelf and howe hope i can win a new trophy. >> john heilemann has a trophy case. john mooem meacham, you write this in the "new york times," donald trump and the littles of the presidency. quote -- eacham, you write this the "new york times," donald trump and the littles of the presidency. quote --

. >> i, and obviously he paid a great deal of attention to it, given his 16 tweets yesterday, it's another case of effective service of journalism for america. i do think that history tells us, which is our really our only guide here, that we have hours of a kind of national madness sometimes, fevers, hours of fear, that do fade and they fade because of the kind of mysterious connection between lead worries are in power and the people. the people who believe ultimately that the republican and sum of its parts. we are all active participants in this. so the best example i think is joe mccarthy and you don't have to go very far to see the

mccarthy trump parallels. they had the same lawyer f. you were writing a novel about this, they would edit that out because it's too improbable. but roy 1950-'54 that period. he analyzed the fall of joe mccarthy saying that ultimately the public's attention does wander. they want something new, something novel. i think trump internalized that lesson as a young man in the ''80s and then as a reality tv man and now a politician. he wants to keep the story moving. he wants to have a bright shiny object for all of us. but ultimately, i do think that one hopes that our patience will wear out. >> you know, it's just exhausting, but to have, i mean, just to return those tweets last

night. within the space of a few minutes, this manic fliting from subject to subject is any rational person would have to concern themselves with the president's mental state and nobody wants to do that. the best piece of political analysis i thought i heard was some random person on twitter wants to think of the president all the time, every day, they want to go on with their lives and can assume the government is being run by a rational, sober thinker. we can't do that. >> be i the way -- >> i wish he had that. >> we were so exhausted this morning he came on set with one black shoe and one brown shoe. he was so tired. >> no one take him seriously. >> that is not fake news. >> john meacham and michael schmidt, i will ask both of you, i can run your thoughtful caps few have them available and the thoughtful caps are necessary to ponder the question that most, well, the reality that most presidents of the united states

have at some point during their presidencies have acted to heal a nation, to bring a nation together. and yet now, we have a president whose -- many of his tweets are aimed at dividing an already well polarized nation. so the question is, to think about here, right now, at this moment is, do you worry at all about the damage being done by these tweets, by the president this far, its instability, how long it would take in history's terms to recollect into i the damage that's been done? >> well, i do worry about the tweets exacerbateing our tribalism, for a number of reasons, we have become ever more divided. we self select. we tend to elections are no longer about convincing swing voters.

they're about turning out your voters. so what i think, ultimately, that the tweets are -- the activity of the presidency is being -- is damaging. do i think that it's permanent? that's un-- that's less clear. the presidency is a resilient office, that the american people are resilient people. i think ultimately we will get through this. but it may be a while before we emerge into the sun light. i think we have to get used to the shadows for a while. schmidt. have you heard this torrent of tweets yesterday? even when he was in florida, get trigger-happy tweets, but yesterday was an enormous volume. have you heard anything about the meeting that supposedly took place between ty cobb and perhaps john dowd, i don't know if he was present and bob mueller's team in december, in late december, whether anything

that may have been talked about at that meeting and then explained to the president maybe triggered these tweets? >> reporter: well, i don't know anything about the substance of that, if there really was any "there" there about that meeting or what happened, but what we do know is the president's lawyers told him repeatedly the investigation would be over by the end of the year. they first said thanksgiving then christmas. obviously that has come and passed and the investigation is still going on. significant things have happened, his campaign chairman has been charged, his national security adviser has been charged. so if he thinks that this was going to be over, it certainly doesn't look like it's over. it will continue on. as we've seen in the past with the president when he is under stress about something, he tends to lash out in tweets. is this tied to mueller? i don't know. he did say over right after christmas he thought mueller will treat him fairly. that was the most sober tone he

has struck towards mueller. so i'm not sure what's really causing this. >> i think that was the question everyone was asking last night and this morning, what's behind this sudden torrent of tweets. it seems that often something that is causing stress in the white house precipitates an outburst like this. coming up, president trump has taken credit for the strong job market, the high stockmarket and for people saying merry christmas. now apparently the lack of fatal plane crashes last year was all him, too. "morning joe" will be right back. i wanted to know who i am and where i came from. i did my ancestrydna and i couldn't wait to get my pie chart. the most shocking result was that i'm 26% native american.

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president trump is facing backlash after taking credit for the industry posting its safest year ever in 2017. the president tweeted yesterday since taking office, i have been very strict on commercial aviation. good news, it was just reported that there were zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record. current and former aviation safety officials came out saying the president was responsible for last year's safety record, citing year's long improvements in safety and the fact that no u.s. passenger airliner had had a fatal crash since 2009.

during president obama's tenure, nbc news' peter alexander questioned white house press secretary sarah huck by sanders on whether president obama actually deserves some credit? >> look the president has raised the bar for our nation's aviation's safety and security. he certainly is very grateful. last 82er the president announced his initiative to modernize air traffic control and under his leadership the department of homeland security released enhanced security measures to ensure safer air travel. look the president is very happy there were no commercial airline deaths in 2017. we hope that trends continues well into 2018 and beyond. >> so john heilemann, he has a huge nuclear arsenal with a huge button and rescued the airline industry. not bad for a day's work, isn't snit. >> a number of people say

presidents take credit over things they don't have total control over. we haven't had a total fatality since 2009 and the faa was run by barack obama holdover from 20p 18, there were no commercial airlines in the world in 2017. donald trump has no control over global airline safety. but the key issue is the danger for all presidents when they take credit for things they have nothing to do with, do they get the blame equally for things they have nothing to do with it if a plane falls out of the sky, does he have to take the blame for that? >> when you take credit for things you have achieved, people are so enyoured for you taking credit they don't believe you anymore? >> he taps the stockmarket on a fear daily basis for record highs, as soon as let's say we have a bump in that and a decline, is he going to say, that's my fault? that seems unlikely knowing how this president works.

where he more than most is quebec to suggest he deserves the acclaim if something is going well. you are right, his supporters, some will probably believe more or less everything that he says, but there are other people on the fence saying, well, maybe the president does deserve credit for x, yoz, the isis strategy to pick an example. if he is trying to take credit for everything, it does perhaps weaken our game. >> you know what happens if the market changes? he'll blame obama. >> we should find out from bill kierans if there were more sunny days in 2017 than president obama in 2016. he can take credit for it. >> bill you have your marching orders for the break. we want you working on that. still another is stepping down from capitol hill. we lost the co-founder of geopolitical politics, "morning joe" is coming right back.

the capitol looking cold and fridgy and about to get colder and fridgier. circus is coming back in town. >> april 15th. it's an incredibly exciting time to be in politics, as we know. that show will manage to do a show in 2016 and 2017. we're excited to be back. donald trump provides a lot of fodder and these mid term elections coming up may be the most consequential mid terms in our lifetimes in terms of whether the presidency survives and what the fate of american politics is. alex wagner formerly of this network and now on nbc news, excited to welcome her. >> john meacham. >> michelle obama said the presidency doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are. for people who were thinking

that the new year would bring a different president trump, i think we learned very rapidly that that's not the case. the other is from franklin roosevelt, who said there's something about human psychology that says that people can't stand hearing the highest note in the scale played again and again. they get tired of seeing the same name in headlines. they get tired of hearing the same voice. i think somewhere in that, franklin roosevelt knew a thing or two about popular leadership. something in that is where ultimately i think this drama is going to end. >> yeah. we were talking about that earlier, less is more. michael schmidt, nothing a lot going on in the russian investigation. what are you looking at? >> along the lines of what we were just saying, how much -- i think we'll find out by the end of today how much the president's tweets still matter, what he has tweeted about in the past day is pretty, you know,

inflammatory. it will be interesting to see how other countries, other republicans, the media reacts to this. is this something that we just begin to shrug off and not take as seriously or is this something that really gets people to look at the president divenly? the other thing that i would love to know by the end of the day is what caused the tweet storm? was this simply him just clearing out his thoughts or is there really something that's pushing on him? >> michael schmidt just pointed to something truly important. the deep state department of justice reveals something within those tweets about what's on his mind. >> this tweet storm came on a day when he didn't have much on his schedule yesterday at the white house. a similarly empty schedule is on the slate for today. >> another exhausting day, you're suggesting. still ahead, new reaction to the president's tweet about the size of his nuclear button. admiral james tsvarides joins

the conversation. and hitting back at conservative critics. we'll have their revealing new op-ed. "morning joe" coming right back. we offer our price match guarantee too. and if that's not enough... we should move. our home team will help you every step of the way. still not enough? it's smaller than i'd like. we'll help you finance your dream home. it's perfect. oh, was this built on an ancient burial ground? okay... then we'll have her cleanse your house of evil spirits. we'll do anything, (spiritual chatter) seriously anything to help you get your home. ally. do it right. and my brother ray and i started searching for answers. (vo) when it's time to navigate in-home care, follow that bright star. because brightstar care earns the same accreditation as the best hospitals. and brightstar care means an rn will customize a plan that evolves with mom's changing needs.

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donald trump tells us that he is very, very smart. i'm afraid, though, when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart. >> is president trump about to hear a whole lot more from mitt

romney? the former governor in 2016 and there are new signs he has his sights set on the u.s. senate. we'll talk about that straight ahead. welcome back to "morning joe." it's wednesday, january 3rd, 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. i'm katty kay in for joe and mika. they are still fighting the flu. we send them our best. mike barnicle and noah rothman join me. talks to possibly send a delegation to the winter games in south korea. south korea proposed high-level talks next tuesday to discuss that topic and this morning, it has been confirmed to nbc news that north korea has reopened the cross border communication channel and has made contact.

president trump tweeted sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on north korea. soldiers are dangerously fleeing to south korea. rocket man now wants to talk to south korea for the first time. perhaps that is good news, perhaps not. we will see. then there was trump's other tweet of the day on north korea, taunting the north's dictator. in his new year's eve address, kim jong-un said the whole territory of the u.s. is within our range of a nuclear strike and the button is always on my desk. this is a reality not a threat. last night president trump tweeted north korean leader kim jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that i, too, have a nuclear button but it is much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works.

professor of diplomacy in international relations at the harvard kennedy of government and now the dean of fletcher school of law and diplomacy, admiral james tsvarides, analyst for nbc news and msnbc. admiral, let me start with you. is there any benefit to the united states and the president taunting kim jong-un about the size of his nuclear button? >> not in my view. it just pours fuel on a smoldering fire, katty. what we ought to be focusing on is not that nonsensical tweet but this tiny sliver of an opening diplomatically. i don't think we should completely discount it, that the north koreans and the south koreans are evidently marching toward a little bit of a seance

on the border. i think that's good news. i wouldn't overstate it. we need to continue to do the preparations for cyber, maritime operations. we need to be ready militarily. we have a tiny sliver of an opening. nonsensical tweets about how big somebody's button is is not going to get us any further on the path we need to be on, which is diplomacy. >> nick burns, you're the diplomat. you've been living in a world of diplomacy for all of your professional life. if you can, what's going on today in beijing and moscow, thinking about the latest tweets that they get from the president of the united states, including basically my button's bigger and quicker than yours? >> of course, i think what we saw yesterday with all these tweets about north korea, pakistan, palestinians, it really reduces the credibility of the american presidency and this american president. i think it can't help but strengthen the authoritarian

countries, china and russia, that want to cut the u.s. down to size. and perhaps with kim jong-un's new year's day speech, with the possibility of a meeting in the demilitarized zone with the north koreans now talking about sending athletes to the winter olympics in a month and a half in south korea. this is, i think, what secretary mattis and tillerson have wanted, some kind of opening where the temperature can be lowered and where there can be some kind of negotiations or talks to try to bring the north koreans back to their senses and to some kind of diplomatic process that would avert a war in 2018. you would think the trump administration would have we welcomed that. i bet there are cabinet members in the administration who do. the president and ambassador nikki haley poured cold water on it yesterday. i think that was a major tactical mistake by the president and ambassador haley.

>> professor, let me follow up on that exact point. how confusing is it for america's allies and their adversaries that the administration seems to be sending out conflicting signals, that they're not speaking with the same voice, that mattis or tillerson can have their hopes overruled by the president 140 characters at a time? >> this has been a problem for the trump administration, particularly on north korea, since the very start of the administration. i'm hearing, as i look at the congressional testimony of the american military leadership, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, they, of course, want to practice deterrence. they want to make sure that the sanctions are in place. we want to pressure the north koreans. north korea is the problem here. on the other hand, the professionals in the government from the state department, defense department do not think there's a viable military option for a preventive war, at least one that would not perhaps

unleash a major potentially catastrophic war in the korean peninsula. and then you have the president and now more recently ambassador haley, who have taken a much more uncompromising and tougher line. if you're north korea, i think you have to be a little bit confused by this. it does make life difficult, especially for the south korean government of president moon. he, of course, comes from a political party that has wanted to see some measure of reconciliation. he now has that opportunity. i think he has to worry, is president trump going to call him an appeaser again, which the president did several months ago. >> admiral stvaridis, this is noah rothman. the president tweeted a rather antagonistic tweet about pakistan. this tweet was followed up with the announcement that the government will withhold foreign aid, $225 million, nothing in the grand scheme of things. past administrations have dealt

with this pakistani problem by deciding to keep their toe in the water, as it were, maintain lines of communication and not alienate the government. what is the president's strategy with islamabad as you can see it? is there a strategy or is this all impulse? >> let me start by saying i spent four years as the supreme allied commander in nato in charge of the afghanistan operation. i yield to no man in my occasional frustration with pakistan and their two-sided game on that border. that is real. on the other hand, what should we do about it? as a general proposition, that kind of grandiose criticism, again, back to the tweets, calling out a nation in that kind of language from the white house, cutting the money is less the issue than the pride and the way pakistanis perceive themselves. of course, this has led to demonstrations all over pakistan. so, i'm in favor of kind of tough love with pakistan.

but i think we ought to do it in a smart way, which is criticize, in private, and work with them in public. and i think finally i would say that it's crucial that we maintain this cooperation with pakistan who themselves experience kind of a 9/11 event every six months in their nation. they have two, three, four, five, 6,000 people killed in a given year in terrorism incidents. they understand well the problems on that border. calling them out publicly as the president has done is not good strategy. >> a lot of hot spots going on in the world. things are happening at the moment and they seem to come back to this administration and the white house. the trump administration yesterday also addressed the recent unrest in iran. >> it takes great bravery for the iranian people to use the power of their voice against their government, especially when their government has a long history of murdering its own

people who dare to speak the truth. we must not be silent. the people of iran are crying out for freedom. all freedom-loving people must stand with their cause. the international community made the mistake of failing to do that in 2009. we must not make that mistake again. >> the united states supports the iranian people and we call on the regime to respect its citizens' basic right to peacefully express their desire for change. the ultimate end game would be that the citizens and the people of iran are actually given basic human rights and he certainly would like to see them stop being a state sponsor of terror. if they want to do that through current leadership, if that's possible, okay. but those are our priorities, is making sure that those principles are met. >> those remarks came hours after president trump took to twitter to once again blame president obama for the situation. trump also put iran on notice

adding, quote, the u.s. is watching. trump's tweet followed one by iran's supreme leader, ayatollah khamenei, blaming enemies of iran. public affairs told reporters yesterday the state department is communicating with people in iran via social media in an effort to, quote, encourage the protesters to continue to fight for what's right and to open up iran. ambassador burns, there's opportunity here for the united states in this moment. president trump has clearly decided to take a different tact and deliberately doing so and saying publicly he's deliberately doing so different from president obama in 2009. what could the white house do now that would be constructive in iran? >> president trump in many ways has done the right thing over the last three or four days, to speak up for the right of the

iranian protesters, to have free expression, to be heard and not have a crackdown by the iranian revolutionary guards in response. he's right to do that. a lot of people in the obama administration regret that president obama and his team weren't more supportive of the 2009 protesters. the danger for the u.s. and particularly president trump, is that if he tweets too much, if there isn't a balance of these statements, he puts himself in the center of the. that could give the regime in tehran the excuse that somehow the you state is directing these protesters. you need to have a balance here. the president is not a restrained individual. he needs to practice that here. he needs to get, katty, the europeans involved. they were silent over the new year's day weekend. you didn't hear from the high representative. muted statements yesterday balancing, warning the protesters not to get out of hand. so i think the europeans would

have actually more credibility because their trade ties with iran are much stronger than ours. finally, katty, a big policy question opening up in the middle of january. president trump has to in effect decide whether or not to waive the united states sanctions with iran to remain in compliance with the nuclear deal. i think these demonstrations are going to lead this american president probably to try to do something to end the deal. i fear that. it would be a major mistake in my judgment but i feel that's where that will head. >> that deal very popular amongst the iranian people. president trump also threatened to pull aid to the palestinians. we pay palestinians hundreds of millions a year and get no appreciation or respect. they don't even want to negotiate a peace deal. we've taken jerusalem off the table but israel, for that, would have had to pay more.

with palestinians no longer willing to talk peace why should we make any of these massive future payments to them? middle east peace talks have stalled after trump announced his decision to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel. mahmoud abbas criticized the decision, saying it's damaged trump as a peace deal broker and adding he would not accept any u.s. peace plan for the middle east. admiral, when the president there says they've taken jerusalem as an issue off the table and that ought to make negotiations easier, of course, from the palestinians' point of view the very fact of designating jerusalem as the capital of israel makes it harder for the palestinians, doesn't it, to come to the table? >> of course it does. you know, kind of the larger question here, katty, is how we work with our allies, partners and friends throughout the world. here, we've taken a policy decision on jerusalem as the

capital, which has brought together literally every other actor in the world in opposition to us with the soul exception of israel and three or four other countries. you've got the pope and vladimir putin agreeing this is not a really good idea. the climate agreement. the way we have pulled out of that. we are literally the only nation standing outside of that. you could debate the policy functionality of any of these things. but the bigger question is, how are we going to exercise american influence and create real security globally? we've got to do it with allies, partners and friends. whether we're dealing with iran, as ambassador burns just pointed out, whether we are working on north korea, whether we are trying to resolve this middle east peace process, we've got to do it through our allies, partners and friends. that, i think, is the central failing, the strategic failing of this administration. >> admiral, let me ask you, we have talked about north korea,

iran, the middle east, the palestinians, jerusalem. what is the degree of difficulty now, today, of jim mattis' job in terms of offering counsel to the president and military hot spots around the globe? what sis the degree of difficuly of his job? zblon a scale of one to t >> on a scale of 1 to 10, 15. general john kelly is in the belly of the beast every day dealing with it. these are two officers who are trying to create guardrails around this presidency and that is very hard work. i respect what both of them are doing in that process. for general mattis in particular, because he has nuclear weapons, he's got 1.5 million soldiers, sailor,

airmen, marine all around the world, he wakes up every morning thinking about them and their world and how we can create security without plunging into a war. that's a hard job at the moment. >> admiral stvaridis, ambassador burns, thank you both for joining us. still ahead on "morning j " joe," among his many, many tweets yesterday, president trump looked to divide democrats over daca. we'll get a live report ahead with key meetings with both parties on capitol hill. you're watching "morning joe." >> tech: at safelite autoglass

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you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. congressional leaders are set to meet with top white house officials today, pushing for a deal on the obama administration era bill daca. president trump is throwing fuel on the long-simmering battle with democrats on the matter. the president tweeted democrats are doing nothing for daca.

just interested in politics. daca activists and hispanics will go hard against dems, will start falling in love with republicans and their president. we are about results. house minority leader nancy pelosi and chuck schumer reportedly planning to push the white house, along with house speaker paul ryan and senate majority leader mitch mcconnell for a deal to protect thousands of young undocumented immigrants as part of a separate government spending deal. but the president commented last week that while he believes a bipartisan solution on daca is within reach, there can be no deal without his long-promised border wall, something that some top republicans are now echoing. >> i think there is an agreement that can be reached. it has to start with border security, though, and putting money in place to start building the wall, as president trump said. he campaigned on this and he won the presidency with this being a front and center issue. >> joining the table now, white house correspondent for bloomberg news, shannon

pettypiece and princeton university and columnist for "time" magazine, eddie gladden jr. thank you for joining us. eddie, how does president trump's tweet yesterday play into the kind of sensitive negotiations that are going on between top democrats and top republicans over whether they can get a deal on daca? >> remember chuck schumer and nancy pelosi pulled out of the meeting last time he tweeted like this. they have to make the -- what is the cost benefit? what is the value of meeting with trump on this issue if he's going to insist that, in effect, they could be concede to border security. if they do concede what impact will it have on the base? one thing democrats can't do is lose ground. they're wonderfully positioned

in 2018. democrats have a tendency of botching things. >> shannon, what do you hear from democrats on trading daca for border wall? >> democrats have no incentive to work with the president on this. you could say taxes and health care are complicated. sometimes it's hard for people to get their heads around those issues. the wall is simple. either you think it is a stupid idea or a vital piece of our national security. to trump supporters, they want that wall. that wall say dealbreaker. to democrats, they think that wall is one of the most ridiculous things they've ever heard. >> right but they also want to save d.r.e.a.m.ers, right? >> right but for democrats, their supporters would really lose it if we end up spending billions on a wall. >> let's go quickly to the white house. i'll come back to you in a minute, jonathan. peter alexander, you've got reporting on this, peter? >> reporter: the bottom line, obviously, as you've noted, mick

mulvaney, the budget director, will be making the trip up to the hill to meet with the democrats there. they'll be able to directly communicate this issue to those democrats. the concern here inside the white house, according to aides, is that the democratic leadership would try to use this deadline for january 19th as leverage effectively to force the issue of d.r.e.a.m.ers, to fight for new protections for d.r.e.a.m.ers, to fight deportation of those individuals. this is one of those many issues that the white house doesn't want to have to focus on specifically. they want to focus on infrastrkture. some of the president's closest aides telling me days ago they feel confident that this issue, the issue of d.r.e.a.m.ers will get resolved before march 5g9 before the deportation would go into effect.

the bottom line, katty, is how they get to that place. there's no clear path forward. >> peter alexander, thank you. mike? >> let me ask both of you. you're there almost every day, diligently covering both congress and the white house. if democrats decided okay, let's figure out a deal. let's trade, let's swap things, who would they deal with? >> mark short, legislative affairs. on the wall, i think unlike health care and taxes, where pence was a big factor in the white house driving that, you had gary cohen driving that. on the wall, trump is the one. that's what he cares about. with health care and taxes, you know, whatever. i'll sign anything. that's an exaggeration but there was an element of that. now we're getting into his turf of immigration and border security, and that's something he really cares about and has strong feelings about. >> i have a hard time seeing the

incentive for anybody to get from daca to infrastructure, essentially. enough republicans in the senate and house want a big deal on daca. democrats try to put a line in the sand over a shutdown fight in december over this issue and walked right through it because everybody wants to get this in the new year. republicans don't want to go to their voters in 2018 and say we put a trillion dollars on the table for infrastructure. how many trump supporters are there? i can't imagine that the math works out such that people will say we're going to risk this part of our base for something that doesn't appeal to very many people. >> that's right. and i think that's the calculation they're doing within the white house right now. democrats have come in. doug jones comes in today. they're newly emboldened. and you're also seeing republicans, this sort of split where we know that there is some appetite there, pushing inf

infrastructure that. will need bipartisan support. at this point there's not been much of an appetite for people to come across the aisle. the mcconnell and ryan situation is also where we want ryan who wants to work on entitlements. mcconnell has no appetite for that. lot of confusing messages. >> trump has campaigned against that. >> yeah. i'm saying -- >> let's not forget, a couple of weeks ago, a whole bunch of folks were protesting in schumer's office and to nancy pelo pelosi. if they sign in on this -- >> just the optics of that. >> republicans can call democrats obstructionists all day long. democrat supporters will say good, obstruct away. >> there's no appetite among the base. particularly after coming off -- >> doug jones coming in, saying we'll try to do things in a

bipartisan way. let's try to negotiate. i don't think that's where the base of the party is. >> they received blowback for even suggesting that. >> resist. donald trump famously asked, quote, how stupid are the people of iowa? he said that while he was in iowa, when talking about ben carson's presidential candidacy. today new numbers about how those key early state voters view the commander in chief. tomorrow alabama democrat doug jones joins "morning joe." he will be sworn in today as the newest member of the united states senate. we'll be right back. as you can clearly see, the updates you made to your plan strengthened your retirement score. so, that goal you've been saving for,

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the washington post wrote yesterday about the difficulty that president trump is having in the state of iowa. quote, unemployment has fallen to 3%. delegation to washington voted for the tax cut bill with no protests. iowans can subtract state income taxes from federal income taxes a bonus enjoyed in only five

other states. a net negative rating of 25 points despite winning that state by 10% back in 2016. meanwhile, congressional republicans fair no better when asked who iowans would support in the 2018 mid terms, 40% said they would vote for a democratic candidate while 34% would vote for a republican. joining us now, co-founder and publisher of real clear politics, tom bevin. we were talking about this in the break, the disconnect between the economic good news, unemployment being low, stock market being high. iowa, in particular, being a state where that's true because of the deductions being still eligible and yet the president being under water. how do you account for this? how long do we carry on these parallel tracks? >> that is the great question that is across the country, under 40% nationally. in iowa it's 35%. this is ache my rowcosm, real test case for republicans. this is a state that republicans

have seen great success in recently. it was a state that, you know, barack obama won twice but flipped pretty hard toward trump. they've got a republican governor there, two republican senators. so, you know, i think republicans have to figure out exactly what's going on and why donald trump, despite the fact that he has some of these successes and the economy is worrying and all that, he's not receiving the benefit from job approval rating. in that same poll it's interesting to note that the governor had a 51% approval rating, chuck grassley and the other senator had a 51% approval rating. it seems confined right now to donald trump. two of the four house seats up for election will be -- >> in the 2016 campaign i covered then candidate trump. we were in iowa all the time.

by the end, the clinton campaign had written the state off, stoppstop ed campaigning there. is there something -- is it simply the overall trends nationally or something in particular to iowa that should be sending off alarm bells in the white house, who are clearly banking on winning there again in 2020? >> that's a great question. i don't think we know exactly yet. donald trump was always an unlikely fit for iowa that, he would come in and do exceedingly well with evangelicals. that turn ed out to be his secrt weapon to success there. you've seen stories come out of iowa. "new york times" went back there a few weeks after his election to talk to folks in eastern iowa, where he won very strongly. they were still supportive of the president. what we've seen over time, and this has to be concerns to the president and republicans in general, that he has certainly -- democrats never supported him. he has lost support with

independents, who might have been sort of mildly supportive of his agenda and him. they've gone the other direction. he has lost support among republicans. 78% approval in iowa in that des moines register poll. nationally he has been higher than that. he's starting to see slippage there and that's contributing to his low numbers overall in iowa and across the country. >> let me ask you about two es, words beginning with e that might play a part in this that would be difficult to get to in a poll. the words are exhaustion and embarrassme embarrassment. do they factor into it? >> they do. interesting point from that des moines register poll, 60% of iowans said they were less energized -- they've been turned off by politics in 2017. that included 66% of independents and, i think, 60 or 55% of democrats. we've seen democrats across the country in some of these special elections be energized.

even the majority of republicans in iowa have been turned off by politics. that's another thing we've seen across the country is just fatigue. it's too much. there's too much chaos, too much news and with all the tweeting and things going on, the people have sort of turned away from, you know, politics and the daily news flow that's come through. i think that's part of it. certainly the tweeting is something that even some of trump's supporters -- hard core supporters love it. some of his softer supporters, it makes them uncomfortable. and i think they would prefer that he stop. although clearly, he's not intending to stop at all. >> let's go a little bit further. senator orrin hatch of utah will begin his 42nd and final year in the upper chamber today. the senate's most senior republican member announced his decision yesterday.

>> i've always been a fighter. i was an amateur boxer in my youth but & i've brought that spirit to washington. every good fighter knows when it's time to hang up the gloves. for me, that time is approaching. i've decided to retire at the end of this term. >> presidential nominee mitt romney, according to "the new york times," was unaware of hatch's decision and had been operating under the assumption that the senator would run again, not even bringing up the possibility of a campaign skiing on monday with friends in utah. after hatch announced his decision, he quickly changed his location from massachusetts to holiday at utah and november poll from utahpolicy.com 69% approve of romney while only 45% approve of president trump's performance. 53% disapprove. president trump had been urging

hatch to seek an eighth term and block romney, who spoke out against electing alabama u.s. senate nominee roy moore. i remember him -- when he tweeted that thing about roy moore and he was so fervent, shannon, this was a bad choice. one of the few republicans who jumped back in with roy moore, who continued to stick his neck out against roy moore. nothing about mitt romney endured him to the president or steve bannon. >> two men who clearly do not like each other. sometimes there's perception in washington that behind closed doors everybody kind of gets along and they're all at the bar after a heated debate on the floor. from every indication i get from the trump camp they really, really dislike mitt romney. i'm not plugged in with the romney camp. based on everything he says, that seems to be clear as well. two men who generally do dislike

each other. how many howe big of a thorn he would be in trump's side, if he runs and gets elected, i don't think he would necessarily be this unstoppable nemesis in washington for trump. he's still a conservative. like we've seen with other republicans, bob corker, john mccain, who speak out against the president but in the end vote for the issues they support as republicanos or conservative. i think romney will fall into that camp. he will be a boost to the establishment if elected. >> you made this point before, noah. utah becomes ground zero for the anti-trump folks in interesting sorts of ways. as we move into 2018, it's going to be interesting to see how bannon and his folks position themselves in utah and how the anti-trump current, how it takes shape in public national

discourse. >> bannon in the roy moore election, one of the final appearances, he devoted much of that speech to attacking mitt romney. >> that's right. >> he and his team made it clear they find romney an unacceptable choice in the senate. and the white house has invested a lot of this, too. the president made a trip to try to get orrin hatch to run again. we saw in the rose garden ceremony a few weeks ago, hatch's perfusive praise to the president and i think there's disappointment that he will not win again. >> house gop rules impose a three-term limit for chairman and schuster would have lost his gavel if he decided to run again. according to the examiner, he

wants to focus on working directly with president trump. he is joined by bob goodlatte, and lamar smith. how much of a problem -- you look at the numbers we ran through on iowa earlier and the republican party being under water. you combine that with the slew of retirements we're getting. which is it that worries the party more? >> i think the number of retirements on the republican side, 25 so far. 10 or 11 of those are going on to run for higher office, either the senate or governorships. obviously open seats are much tougher to defend than incumbent seats and that he can with annens republicans' hands. they're facing a tough mid term election, you know, with the trends running against them, including a president who, as we mentioned earlier, is below 40% nationally. that is a problem. obviously it's much better for them in the senate, the math,

because they don't have as much territory to defend. much less targets for democras s to pick things up. in the house republicans have to be pretty worried if things continue on the current path. we mentioned in iowa the ballot was 12 plus six. nationally it's an astronoical number. we haven't seen it that high for 20 plus years. it's a huge, huge number which indicates at least right now where things stand the country is very much leaning in favor of voting for democrats. it comes down to a binary choice, of course. republicans are facing a real headwind and it could cost them the house. >> real politics, tom bevan. thank you, tom. up next, if you're curious about the future of trumpism, our next guest says keep a close eye on college republicans.

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>> joining us now, politics

writer at "the atlantic," her new piece entitled "the future of trumpism is on campus." in many ways the debate over trump taking place among college republicans mirrors the national intra-party one. it pits young conservatives who view trump as a distraction from long-held conservative goals of shrinking government and defending family values against those who see trump's presidency and distinctive message as a much-needed adjustment of the party's priorities. during a speech to the college republican national committee in 1987 president ronald reagan called them the vanguard of the gop whose work will ensure the continual success of republican goals. but today they're unable to agree on what those goals should be. what now seems like low-stakes debates on college campuses will ultimately come to define the party's future. if trumpism has a political

future, these young people will likely be its torchbearers. let's take, for example, penn state. you have a big split between the trumpers and nontrumpers and what attempts have they made since the election reconciliation, if any? >> so, at penn state -- thank you for having me. at penn state, the attempts at reconciliation haven't really been there. i think that the college republicans are sort of doing what the college republicans are doing at ohio state and similar schools where they have trouble, is that they're getting behind trump but they're not fully embracing, you know, the maga movement as a lot of these guys described it to me. they're not fully embracing trumpism. and so the pro-trump groups, like the students for trump, the bull moose party on these campuses, they're not happy. they're really trying to get them to fall in line and say hey, this is the future of the party. please embrace these goals.

this is what the people want. there is a lot of tension there still. >> and the bull moosers are still trying to convince the nontrumpers, or are have they given up on that agenda? >> i think they're still trying to convince. i think even more than that, they're really energized. they've started their own publication on campus and they call it an alternative to the main street penn state media, called the state patriot. and they write opinion columns. they're writing news in the same way that trump sort of has this alternative media idea. and they're also -- they're supporting candidates, just like they are at ohio state, they're supporting candidates who supported trump, who were loyal to trump. not just any old republican. >> elaine, i was struck by a couple of things reading your piece. one thing that struck me, most of all, was your great in-depth reporting.

congratulations on that. >> thank you. >> the second thing that struck me was how isolated these young people seem to be, to me, to my eye. and i'm wondering, you know, if any of them -- if you felt that they were isolated.me. i was con dering wondering if t isolated. they struck me as really, really isolated through the fabric of every day american life. >> you mean the pro trump kids? >> yeah. >> i don't know. i think that they would say the opposite. i think that they think that they are speaking for the working class and i think they feel like they have maybe been isolated. like they aren't choosing to be that way. i guess i think that they would say the opposite. they want to be the voice for every man. they want to be that voice, too. but they also want to be more

inclusive. >> i agree with you in your analysis but the tell to me was one of the quotes when one of the young men that you spoke to said that they were for the working class and lower class which would indicate to me that they have no clue billion ordinary life in america. >> right. and that could totally be. i think a lot of these guys -- they don't know other kids, but trump is a guy who spoke to them. they all have sort of a basic set of reasons. but they like him and see him as a rejuvenating force for the party, even though he's an old man who is like a relic of this bygone era.

young people like bernie sanders, too. >> it's a wonderful piece. i enjoyed it. in some ways, you're making the argument that this conflict between college republicans represent in some way the canary and the mine. that's supposed to indicate something to us. what are we supposed to learn about the state of the republican party from this story that you so brilliantly laid out for us. >> thank you. i was curious, just because the reason i wrote the story, i thought how hard is it to be a young person becoming politically aware, coming of age as a conservative in this very fraught moment. and i wanted to see, are they getting behind the president. is this a sign that trumpism has a future or does everyone hate him and is trump an anomaly? i found that it's really mirroring what is happening at the national level. no one can say with any confidence, yes, the next

generation is going to back the president or back these values, but they can't say the opposite either. and i think as young people leave the party, and young people are leaving the republican party more than the democratic party, i think these kids who support trump are going to largely make up that party. and i think that's important for the anti-trump people. i think they might be disappointed. >> elaine godfried, thank you. thank you for joining us. >> one of the other interesting things that elaine touched on it there, the difference between the numbers which are suggesting that young people are moving away from the republican party and the energy that the trump republicans feel on college campuses. that's where the excitement and sense of enthusiasm is. >> i suppose i have a little more faith in the future, then,

that elaine suggested because some college republicans have some unlovely tendency to equate provocation and adopt people who doesn't have anything interesting to say but provokes a reaction in their opponents, which is satisfying. and he's a lightning rod who has more enthusiasm and that's a youthful tendency than the sloughing off. >> and college is traditionally a time to get to a shelf life into your 20s but there is a sense among the political strategists around trump to his point of, we're not going back

to the time of the regular republican party. it's going forward. the days of the establishment are different and it's certainly trump political strategists would look at these college campuses and say the time, the old times are gone. we're not going back. we are moving forward. it's going to look different and it's not going to be the party of 1992. >> you know, reading the piece, apart from donald trump and every passion that he engenders among young people is we truly at this stage in our culture need people to tour national service for young people. one year between 18 and 22 where you meet someone different and get to know a little bit more about life. >> do you meet many college republicans on campus? >> absolutely.

they are constantly inviting me to represent the left in their panels for provocation purposes. but i think we need to be mindful, remember, 59% of milli millennials voted. and alabama, 60% of millennials. that's auburn, tuscaloosa, alabama a & m and tuskogee. something really long term is happening. >> still ahead, the president started tweeting at 7:00 a.m. and didn't stop until 11:00 last night. is it time to hit the panic button? "morning joe" comes right back. with 33 individual vertebrae and 640 muscles in the human body, no two of us are alike. life made more effortless

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lack at those hands. aren't they small? i guarantee you there's no problem. >> nearly two years ago, donald trump was in a hand measuring contest with marco rubio. now he's comparing his nuclear button with the north korean dictator. he thousands of iranians are

fighting in the streets for the freedom of speech. good morning. it's wednesday, january 3rd, i'm in for joe and mika who are still battling the flu. they have my best. joining me is white house reporter and national affairs analyst and pulitzer prize historian john meacham down in nashville. we begin with the latest taunt of north korea's dit tactator. the whole territory of the u.s. is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office and this is just a reality, not a threat. in response, president trump tweeted, "north korean leader kim jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please

inform him that i, too, have a nuclear button but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his and my button works." >> well, you know, it's uncomfortable to talk about but he puts stability on the table, his stability, the president of the united states. issuing a tweet like that potentially talking about nuclear war, i mean, come on. john? >> wow. >> had to be said, right? >> had to be said. >> i think it's interesting when alex and his wisdom put up that cliff from the debate because when it happened two years ago, you saw trump talking that way. people made the reference and it was a joke and if you've cashed your mind forward at the time you thought people in al caricature way say, well, a president who would be on a

presidential debate stage talking about his genitals, the size of his package on television, that person is obviously -- where could that lead? he could end up -- he never got into the oval office. people would laugh at you. well, of course, if he ever got to the oval office, he would not behave this way. this is just antics for the campaign trail. this is how you get attention at the debate and here we are two years ago, the man is talking about the size of his button in the oval office on the topic of nuclear war. this reraises the topic of his mental health. we're at a point where a convergence of his inedadequaci, his neurosis has impacted us as

humans on the plan tet. >> it's certainly not unusual for a president to have tough talk but to do it like this, fire and fury and locked and loaded. basically threatening to wipe the regime off the face of the earth and now to respond, you know, to the north korean's threat, a dictator who likes to talk in hyperbole and apocalyptic images. and to have the president respond in kind like this, which is perhaps captured humor and perhaps not, it's unnerving for a lot of people, particularly in foreign capitals like seoul and tokyo who are right there. perhaps it's not a coincidence that we're seeing at the same time, you know, south korea and north korea have some communication for the first time in years at the same time that we see the president talk like

this. >> i think one of the problems with this is allies who are already struggling to work out how to deal with this president and are starting to think, you know what, we're going to circumvent the u.s. at the moment and this is the kind of language and tweet that makes him think, we're not taking this very seriously. america is not a serious player at the moment and this kind of language, whether it's couched in a joke or not -- and it's probably the president who throws this out and he thinks, everyone is going to froth from around the mouth and the commentators are going to get hot under the collar about it but i think there's a real impact in terms of other countries thinking this is just another reminder that we have to put america on hold as much as we can for the next few years because this president is not someone who is taking serious issues in a serious way in which we need to. is there an upside? >> you know, i struggle to find the upside. conservatives have been coming

to terms with the trump presidency, taking it as a whole and there is a lot to like. some say the tweets are a distraction and something that the president does to rile people up and they demonstrate his ability to talk over the heads of the press and over the heads of world leaders and apply to the public. when it comes to foreign policy and donald trump tweets out videos of people attacking muslims supposedly and results in a with the british government and he says we're going to withhold aid in order to exact some sort of concession from pakistan and pakistan responds formally, we're going to lodge a formal complaint and proceed as we would in a formal setting and here, as jonathan alluded to, the south korean government recently received this communication from north korea's leader on that bellicose statement on new year's eve and we're going to move forward with

talks because that's what rex tillerson wanted. donald trump may be cutting the united states out of the process by being aggressive himself. so these tweets have a real consequence in the real world. >> >> there's a any president of any party who tweets anything about war in a cavalier war, we haven't seen that and anybody who treated as cavalier in a way that makes him seem demented and adversaries think there's a serious person talking about the most serious threat that the world ever faces. >> and he's taunting somebody whose own responses are unpredictable and can be volatile.

>> that's it. and john meacham, the idea that the president of the united states is taunting another unstable person in north korea, the ramifications of that along with what are they thinking about the president of the united states as kathy alluded to in beijing, in world capitals. we've never been here before and we've all made the point that it is like miranda and the tempist. a brave new world that has a new president in it. is seems to me, without doubt now, which is always a dangerous thing to say in human affairs, but pretty much without doubt, we're dealing with someone swwh

is governing his 30 to 38% of the public. he's not interested in growing that number particularly. he's not interested in what other world leaders actually think about him. what he's interested in is what they say to him. and so we're living through a kind of national experiment and narcissistic disorder and we have to figure out and i fear it's the latter. >> thank you, john. >> and we're sorry about the empire, but we appreciate churchill. thank you. as mentioned on new year's day, kim jong-un also suggested talks to possibly send a delegation to the winter olympics in south korea. yesterday, south korea proposed

high-level talks next tuesday to discuss that topic and this morning south korea's unification ministry has confirmed to nbc news that north korea has reopened the cross-communication channel and has made contact. yesterday before his button-sized tweet, president trump seemed to respond to these diplomatic overtures, "sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on north korea. rocket man now wants to talk to south korea for the first time. perhaps that is good news. perhaps not. we will see." and u.s. ambassador nikki haley addressed the possible discussions yesterday at the u.n. >> we won't take any of the talks seriously if they don't do something to ban all nuclear weapons in north korea. we consider this to be a very reckless regime. we don't think we need a band-aid or smile and take a picture. we need to have them stop with

nuclear weapons and they need to stop it now. north korea can talk with anyone they want. the u.s. is not going to recognize or acknowledge it until they agree to ban the nuclear weapons that they have. >> joining us now from london is bill neely. you have spent time in north and south korea. how easy would it be for kim jong-un to drive a wedge between south korea and america to wark washington's detriment. >> that was his new year's message. conciliatory towards and trying to drive that wedge between the two and any thoughts that we had that this crisis was going to get easier, that president trump might become more neutral or less provocative in 2018. well, forget it, we saw

president trump personalizing the issue again with another rocket man taunt and that extraordinary taunt that my nuclear button is bigger than your nuclear button. but kim jong-un saying that he will reopen dialogue and the hotline apparently is open. that's been confirmed by south korean officials. just picking up on the point that you were making earlier about the global impacts of the tweets that president trump is making, that latest extraordinary tweet is, of course, just stating the obvious. the u.s. has the world's biggest nuclear arsenal. he personally has access to the nuclear codes and the buttons always. but remember the effect of that tweet, as you said, outside the united states because this isn't an issue just about presidential tone, is this really the way you

should be communicating. i have been asked repeatedly over the holiday period, in britain and on mainland europe, is there going to be a nuclear war? i would say that's the issue that most people are concerned about as we move into 2018. people are deeply worried that this kind of tweet just increases that anxiety because it's framed as the panel has been saying in such an unserious way and people across the world are asking, does the president really understand the terrible power of the button and the tweets that he's making. on the other side of the talk and the threats of war, we have this possibility of a tiny opening for the first time in two years of at least dialogue between the north and the south. this is exactly what kim is

trying to do, drive a wedge between the united states and its allies in asia, specifically here in south korea. >> bill, when in south korea, did you get any sense at all about the feeling of possible con tlikt? do they live in daily dread? hourly dread? >> it's almost become an acceptable level of threat. so people in seoul in the metropolitan area, they have been living there for more than a decade with the threat of tens of thousands of missiles being not just fired but aimed at the soul metropolitan area and the curious sense is that people spend a second or two seconds

listening to the latest threat from pyeongchang. they simply get on with the rest of their lives. i thought it was very odd. you know the anecdote of the frog in the boiling water. he never realizes that his life is in serious danger and can't sense the tiny rises in temperature until the moment it expires. that was almost the sense that i got in seoul, that people weren't able to reap the rise in temperature. they were more worried, in fact, by the threats that were coming from washington than the threats that they heard every day from kim jong-un. as i say, they almost dismiss. it's president trump, it's washington that they are really worried about in seoul today. >> nbc's bill neely, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," the russia investigation

is drawing deep divides not between washington and moscow but between congress and the fbi. how an issue is evolving among partisan issues. first, here's bill karins with a check on the miserable forecast. >> this is going to be an incredible day and no one alive has ever seen the amount of snow that is going to fall today. look at sleet and freezing rain all night long that continues this morning and then we move up here in savannah and charleston where it's now 28 degrees. we get a glaze of ice turning to snow later today. first with the ice forecast, this half an inch of ice from savannah down through brunswick, georgia, this is north florida and southern georgia. this doesn't happen. this is extremely rare. look at the pine tree there is

and branches falling and the cold behind. here's the historic stuff. savannah has never recorded more than 3.5 inches with any snowstorm. we have them here in the purple with 4 to 6 inches of snow. this area from savannah to charleston could get paralyzed for maybe one, two, three days. some areas have to wait until it melts. here's the forecast for new england. it's going to be a blizzard and a stay-at-home thursday for central portions of connecticut, hartford. notice that new york city is only at the two-inch mark. d.c., baltimore, it's a complete miss for you. the worst part is the winds, incredible, 65 to 69 miles per hour possible in cape cod. temperatures will be near zero and ten degrees on friday and saturday. life-threatening weather moving up the east coast. washington, d.c., this one spares you. you've just got to stay warm. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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tie day is the deadline for the fbi and department of justice to turn over records and provide witnesses about the trump/russia dossier. those who have expressed frustration continue to allege corruption at the fbi. yesterday, the president tweeted about a report with anonymous accusations against huma abedin claiming she put classified passwords into the hands of foreign clients. the department of justice must finally act. also on comey and others, a reference to the prior fbi

director. they are sharing what they told congress in 21 hours of testimony and demanding that republicans set the record straight. in a "new york times" op-ed, glenn simpson and peter fritz say they are being smeared. "republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our firm's testimony even as they selectively release details to media outlets on the far right. it's time to share what our company told investigators." fusion gps says they told investigators to look into the bank records of deutsch bank and others funding trump's work that raised questions about money laundering. as well as paul manafort's ties to put ten. christopher steele, that ex-british spy that was hired to do the work, wasn't told of the

funders and given no marching orders. they write that steele's sources in russia were not paid. and they write that they told congress they were unaware of the june 26 trump tower meeting until news reports and the russians were not steele's sources. the fbi writes that steele's russian sources reported back an extensive kremlin campaign to help elect trump and steele seeing a, quote, equipment from progress, that reported that to the fbi. they say steele later shared his intelligence with senator john mccain after the election. we don't believe the steele dossier was the trigger for the fbi's investigation into russian meddling as we told the senate judiciary committee in august, our sources say it was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports that the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the trump camp. let's bring in "new york times"

reporter michael schmidt. some of this gets back to what we talked about yesterday about the drunken night in a bar in washington and the meeting with an australian diplomat and that's what triggered the fbi report with papadopoulos. but this idea that the fusion gps is coming out now in public in "the new york times" and saying, hold on a second, they are chasing rabbits and they should be chasing bears. how much credence do you give what gps fusion is writing here? >> they feel that they have been aligned for a long time and haven't had a chance to defend themselves and they've gotten to a point where they can do this. they've been dealing with capitol hill and they have ongoing litigation. they are in a very difficult spot. this is the first time that they've really been able to try and tell their story about why, you know, they did what they did and why they think it will hold up. the significant thing is my colleagues reported over the weekend is the fact that the dossier was not the point for

the russia investigation and it came in in the months afterwards and it runs in the face of some republicans' narrative that this dossier and cooked up thing is the reason for the russia investigation and that's just not true. >> so mike, let me ask you, is there any -- what is the possible explanation for why the senate judiciary committee is not actually releasing the transcripts of the fusion testimony last summer? fusion has said throughout, from the time they did it, that they have been saying you guys are free, please release this and i believe chuck grassley said at a meeting in iowa that they would do that. so what's the holdup on why the public doesn't get to see that testimony? >> i'm not sure. we haven't seen a ton of transcripts from either the house or senate. there has not been a lot of disclosures in that area, just a few. i think they probably don't want to set a precedent of releasing this because then they have this ongoing investigation. they are looking into different

things and if they put this out, there may be things in there that they are still looking into. there may be things that they haven't corroborated it and they want to continue to investigation until they get to a point that they know it's true or not true and they don't want to be putting things out and we don't even know that it will be over. politico is digging deeper into how foreign leaders are sizing up the white house. if 2017 was the year they took measure of president trump, 2018 may be the year that they test him. susan joins us with her new piece. my experience with usaa has been excellent. they always refer to me as master sergeant. they really appreciate the military family, and it really shows.

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welcome back to "morning joe." i'm in for joe and mika. they are still sick. we hope they are feeling better. joining me is michael, jonathan, shannon pettypiece, and chair of the department of african-american studies. the u.s. has suffered its first war death of 2018. the soldier is of ft. lee, new

jersey. he was killed while fighting isis in nangarhar on new year's day. two are in stable condition and two have returned to duty. hans, what can you tell us about the fallen soldier? >> well, he's 34 years old, as you mention. he was serving there as part of the counterterrorism fight against isis. i just got off the phone with someone in kabul talking about what's taking place there. u.s. forces working with afghans are going up at a very rugged

valley and this is very rugged terrain. the big difference about this at this year is the fact that it's happening this year. and it looks like the fight is going to continuing all year, starting off and that could mean more. >> the president's tweet about pakistan a couple of years ago. they have safe haven in pakistan. >> these borders are very porous. they also have supply lines. when you look at the new strategy, the south asia strategy, they are trying to cut off a lot of funding and support for pakistan. and that's where you see the bombing and drug labs. remember, they are not going after the opium farm they ares. they are very clear about that.

what you're seeing in the eastern part of afghanistan, a good sense of what is happening on the ground, you have a fight between the u.s. and isis and isis and the taliban. you may let these two extremist groups fight it out. there's an imperative to go after isis and there's a concern that at least some of this energy that they've lost in the caliphate, maybe not necessarily manpower, could be leading from the caliphate in syria and heading towards afghanistan. guys? >> hans nichols, thank you for that. joining me now is host of the global political podcast, susan glasser. "donald trump's year of living dangerously." she writes, "trump's national security team and his allies are engaged in a silent conspiracy

of sorts to gad and constrain him. america's enemies in china and russia have taken their measure and opportunists in the middle east are taking what they can get and the america firsters have been purged from the white house staff but not from the oval office itself." susan, this is a fascinating piece. you talk about the dynamics within the white house and how they affect the presidency and kind of this disconnect between what you hear from mcmaster who is a realist and even with the strategic review which was written in the document. >> the cognitive dissonance of the trump foreign policy, you

have them asking us day in and day out to give them credit for a foreign policy that's supported by the administration but not necessarily the president itself and we've seen that in his first year in office, whether it's overruling jim mattis and secretary tillerson on things like recognizing jerusalem as a capital of israel. i was told those two leaders literally begged him not to make that decision. you now see yesterday in his tweet the consequences of that becoming clear and a rift with the palestinians and questions about how to go forward with this peace deal he's promised. i think it's a kind of schizophrenia. russia, from the very beginning of the administration, is perhaps the sharpest example of that where he has very hawkish team on russia putting together a pretty standard policy to counter russia except that no one thinks the president himself believes that he's never personally criticized putin, even to this day.

>> susan, there are many adjectives that i could use to describe your peace. sad, disturbing, scary, well-reported. for people who have not yet had the opportunity to read it could you please explain how on his foreign trip to the far east, to the nato meetings and to europe and to the middle east, that foreign leaders are now giving them history lessons and playing to his vanity, what is going on here? >> i think the goal was to take a step back and take a bigger picture look and assessment of what has gone on. trump tweeted himself right before christmas that he's met with over 100 world leaders and traveled to countries. when you dig into those meetings and talk to people who have been briefed on these encounters, the reality is often even more jarring and startling than the

public account has shown and trump has a way of alienating many of america's traditional friends and allies in these very startling -- it's not that he's undiplomatic but even in the private encounters, i reported about a meeting that got no attention at the time, a dinner that president trump had on the sidelines of the u.n. general assembly with leaders of four latin america countries and what was amazing was that he just blew these people away. they were shocked. remember when he was talking about fire and fury with north korea the first time? he also brought up the notion that he was considering the, quote, military option in venezuela. can you remember president trump randomly using about invading venezuela or attacking it in some other way? well, a month after he made that comment, it didn't get that much attention. he goes to a private dinner in new york with the latin america

leaders and he asks them again, rex, my secretary of state tells me you don't want me to use the military option in venezuela. is that right? are you sure? shouldn't i do that? and these folks were literally stunned. the word that my source who is briefed by three of the four countries used by this guy was insane. and these are basically partners and friends and allies of the united states. >> susan, it's jonathan. i think we can officially affixed the rex tillerson out the door and james mattis survived a smear campaign over the summer and he's survived but has certainly had issues with the president. what do you see happening now? how is the team around him poised to change? are there any tactics that they could be taking to either better manage the president or not be so contradicted by him, which is giving off this sort of

unsettled message to america's allies and adversaries alike. >> well, that's right. it's an important point that you made that it's not just sort of the president has one policy and there's a united team of national security advisers pushing in the other direction. i was surprised in doing the reporting to find, you know, that there is even more discord internally perhaps than we had realized and one person i spoke with said it's a snake pit and it's mattis -- sorry. not mattis but mcmaster versus tillerson and tillerson against the president and mcmaster and the president not always on the same page and this person suggested it's not a sustainable setup that they have right now so i would expect there could be changes in this. but at the same time we've been writing rex tillerson's obituary as secretary of state for months now, that may be trump's plan,

to make sure that he's the focus of attention by having this constant discord and disarray inside his administration. that's certainly how he's run his business for years and it's been true elsewhere on the white house staff, not just on the national security team but, of course, what it means is that our allies and our enemies are still confused a year in as to who speaks for the united states of america. should they pay attention to donald trump's tweets? don't pay attention to them. i don't and yet world leaders, of course, understand it gives them undiluted access to the thinking of the president of the united states. so they're paying close attention to the tweeter feed and i think we have it. >> susan glasser, a great read. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you can read the piece, politico.com. it's up there. "the guardian" has a preview of a new book coming out about the president in which steve

bannon gives an opinion of the june 26 trump tower meeting between jared kushner and trump junior. i happen to think it's all of that and you should have called the fbi immediately. bannon went on to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up in a holiday inn in manchester where your lawyers meet with these people. you never see it and you never know it because you don't need to but that's the brain trust that they had. bannon also told wolf about the investigation, quote, they are going to crack don jr. like an egg on national television. shannon, this is literally just come out. they are running these excerpts. steve bannon talking about this about the president's family and he knows it's going to get published in the book.

how did trump reconcile this? >> any idea that trump and bannon were working together, i think that idea has quickly dissipated as we saw with roy moore in alabama. he was attacking jared kushner, the president's son-in-law throughout the white house. steve bannon is not a friend of president trump. steve bannon is for himself, for his movement, for his ideologies. he's not a single loyalty president trump or his family at all. and so i think that's going to become increasingly clear. steve bannon is for himself, for his movement, for his ideologies. he's not loyal to president trump. >> this meeting took place before bannon himself came to the campaign, which was in august. he has not been shy in suggesting that the campaign was sort of off the rails before he got there. once endering the white house, he and jared kushner, you know, infamous, a lot of infighting there between the two camps which is soon after john kelly came to the white house, steve bannon was no longer in it.

but it's exactly right and yet in the contradiction of trump, trump still talks to steve bannon. >> right. >> they still do consult on political advice. they are not as tight as they used to be but in trump world, you're rarely out of it, even after something like this. >> by the way, michael wolff will be joining us on monday. up next, the drama that comes from the president's twitter feed. what is driving the markets. hey, need fast heartburn relief?

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the market has kicked 2018 the way it ended 2017 hitting new highs. let's bring in wilfred frost. >> the markets indeed this morning are set to open slightly higher after tech kicked off 2018 in the same fashion as 2017 with big gains yesterday, as you mentioned. the tech-heavy nasdaq was higher

by 1.7% closing at 7000 and nasdaq closed 28% higher and apple, google, microsoft, facebook and amazon. elsewhere, airlines became the latest companies to reward workers cutting the corporate tax rate to 21%. southwest and american airlines will give $1,000 bonuses to employees following the tax overhaul. cnbc comcast and wells fargo and fifth third bank. finally, mcdonald's is testing a new burger at seven new u.s. locations. it will be made with fresh beef instead of frozen beef and is aimed at fighting back against rivals like shake shack who already use fresh beef. guys? >> okay. wilfred, thank you. >> as opposed to plastic beef. i should have done by best but

that would have been terrible. up next, so far, president trump has tweeted 2,478 times. someone has counted it. he says it's his message directly to the people, but our next guest says he's not bypassing the media at all. we'll explain. "morning joe" comes right back. hey, you every talk to anybody about your money? yeah, i got some financial guidance a while ago. how'd that go? he kept spelling my name with an 'i' but it's bryan with a 'y.' yeah, since birth. that drives me crazy. yes. it's on all your email. yes. they should know this? yeah. the guy was my brother-in-law. that's ridiculous. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? they're amazing listeners. nice. guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you. you wto progress.move. to not just accept what you see, but imagine something new.

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let me ask you, should i keep the twitter going or not? keep it going? i think so. i think so. the enemies keep saying, oh, that's terrible. but you know, it's a way of by passioni bypassing dishonest media. >> i get very dishonest media. it's my only way that i can counteract. i have my own form of media when i can reach whether it's 90 million or 100 million. when i can reach that many people, twitter is a wonderful thing for me. i might not be here talking to you right now as president if i didn't have an honest way of getting the word out. >> president trump says he tweets so he doesn't need the press to get his message out but that is really the case? joining us now is the ceo of social flow, jim anderson. his company analyzes vast amounts of social media trends. so is the president right when he says he doesn't need the

media anymore because he has twitter? >> no. he has 46 million followers on twitter. he's very active on twitter. he did 16 or 17 tweets yesterday. the problem is less than 1% of his followers see any of those tweets. he does get some retweet action but the lion's share of his attention comes from the media. >> so from television, newspapers, whatever it is, picking it up and reairing it. >> so he's right, he does have a platform and is able to set the agenda and dictate what everybody is going to talk about over the course of the day but it's the mainstream media na covers what he says that gives him the reach. >> how do you measure that, jim, less than 1% of his followers see and read his tweets once they pop up. >> think about it, there's more than 500 million tweets that go out a day across twitter. so 16 or 17 tweets is very active for a president obviously, but out of 500 million? and, yes, he has millions and millions of followers on twitter, but people are doing other things throughout their day so the chances of you if you follow him on twitter actually seeing what he puts out are

really quite small. >> this reminds me of when you could buy a political ad or controversial political ad, air it once and get all the free media. that seems like exactly what it is except this is free and takes about 40 seconds to do. >> absolutely right. >> but what does this mean for the role of the fourth estate in our democracy generally. if trump's tweets are the tail that wax the dog -- >> we're the dog here. >> what does it mean in terms of how the media holds him accountable? because he seems to be driving content to the media over and over again so he can control the headline. >> you're absolutely right. so i think the challenge is, is how do you not take the bait. if he says something provocative and progressively more provocative, he's the president of the united states, you can't not cover it so how do you not go into that same cycle again and again where he set the agenda, you're responding to what he said. i think restraint is a very difficult thing, but that's the answer. >> so it sounds like you're elaborating or describing what would be the new normal. why would any future president or any future office seeker in

generalabooandon this mode of communication when it's so effective. >> president roosevelt started the weekly radio address and that lasted for many, many years so it's not new going straight to the american people. go back to the campaign when marco rubio tried to behave like trump and do something that wasn't authentic to his personality, it requires a bit of showmanship to pull this off and i'm not sure every candidate can do so. >> jim, luckily for you you do not spend 24 hours a day just analyzing the president's tweets but also looking at social media companies. we've had a huge amount of focus whether on congress and the parliament in the uk is looking at the role in the election. what's their future? are we going to see facebook, twitter, google, being regulated, having to have that imposed upon them because lawmakers aren't buying the argument they're going to regulate themselves sufficiently

anymore? >> i think so in some way, shape or form. these companies are among the most valuable company in the world. you don't get to behave like you did when you were a young upstart. you don't get to go around breaking things. so i think it's going to center around transparency. particularly on the paid advertisi advertising. who's buying the ads and who are they targeting those ads towards. i'll give facebook credit. facebook is out ahead of this more so than the other social networks in terms of saying we're going to give you more disclosure and transparency about who is buying ads and who they're targeted to. >> it's really a blessing and a curse for them. the curse is this new scrutiny and regulation that they're under. but the blessing is look at twitter. there was an analysis last year that if trump stopped tweeting, they would lose $2 billion in value. so for these companies, the attention they get, the free media they get from this is enormous. of course with that comes great responsibility. >> do you think, you know, two, three years from now, twitter will look and be as popular as

it is today? >> i think probably not for the simple reason that there's a cacophony of content out there. there are more and more ways for us to be distracted, whether from our smartphones, tablets, devices, screens, et cetera. so twitter, facebook, any social network is constantly fighting the challenge, particularly with the younger generation. how do i keep their attention. >> this is going to be a global issue. we started the program looking at the protests in iran and it's because of the explosion of social media we're seeing so many people out in the streets. so it's not just here in the u.s., it's everywhere. jim anderson, thanks very much for joining us. that does it for us this morning. we expect joe back tomorrow. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle with a lot to cover today, starting with pushing buttons. the president escalates his feud with north korea in a late-night tweet, boasting about the size of his nuclear button. >> this is, i think, a big step

backward. it makes the u.s. look fool sgliish. >> yes, that's the president. this as north korea opens the line to south korea for the first time in two years. and tensions in tehran after a week of deadly protests, thousands take to the streets to support the iranian regime. president trump and his administration demand action, refusing to sit on the sidelines. >> we must not be silent. the people of iran are crying out for freedom. and a california rush that isn't gold. the sale of recreational marijuana is officially under way with some high-minded businessmen looking to make it big. >> i have been working for and struggling towards this moment for my entire adult life. >> all right. weed matters. but we begin today at a crossroads in north korea. as we speak kim jong-un appears to finally be opening the door to talks with south korea. this has not happened