not the best way to curry favor with anybody. >> it's important that he was furious when these reports first came out that bannon was quoted as saying that, that an act rat depiction? >> i think curious, disgusted would fit when you make such outrageous claims and completely false claims against the president, his administration and his family. >> for months, separate those two moments, now, president bush's legal team accuse the president's son of treasotreaso. that's the start of it. welcome, it's "morning joe." it's january 4th. i'm sorry i picked a day where there is so little to talk about. i guess we can talk about alabama. i few they were going to win. well, i guess that's about -- wait, we got a book to talk about. we also have some news.

just as i was watching everybody try to pick this apart, i saw a lot of people on tv, i read a lot of column, people were seizing on the gossip. some of the more salacious entries, the fact that donald trump doesn't read. well, you know, we told you that a week first half ago, we asked him. do you ever read, donald, after the first debate? these are tidbits, and, yes, the washington media is going to just go crazy over them. but let's break this down really quickly before we open up to guests. just so you know what this means. you now have the president of the united states and the people that were around him during the campaign at the beginning of his administration one by one falling. you have the national security adviser the man who spent more time with donald trump during the campaign than anybody else

who has now pled guilty and is cooperating with the fesd against donald trump and the administration. have you the campaign chairman during the rnc, who 45d its door busted opened by the fbi, was arrested and now is facing years if prison. you have the man that donald trump told the washington post was one of his two top foreign policy advisers, also arrested also pleading guilty, also cooperating with the feds. also apparently the reason why this entire investigation began when he was drunk and talking to the australian ambassador to the brits and then finally, you have donald trump's final campaign manager and the person who was his political strategist and the

man who was one of his two top people in the white house who is now openly accusing, by the way, has been since march. this isn't just steve bannon angry, talking after he was fired i was hearing this back in march. we were telling you as much as we could on the air about it, when he was going after members of the administration. have you steve bannon now accusing the president of the united states and his people of treason, also calling them liars. we have with us to talk about this and so much more today national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc nick heilemann, republican communication strategist rick tyler, the editor of bloomberg "business week" megan murphy, the contributing editor at the

"weekly standard" and columnist at the new york post, a man who will have nothing to say about this, john fedoris. the former chief of staff cia national security analyst jeremy bash and nbc news capital correspondent and the host of casey d.c. right here on msnbc. casey hunt. mika who is under the weather this morning and the flu is going around here. but i want to start, john insteadoris with a tweet yesterday which was if 20% of this is accurate, perk, what were you thinking? what did you do? >> look the problem with the book, this "fire and fury" book by michael wolf, a long time journal writer on topics from the first dot-com mofsz to

rupert murdock to the entertainment business, an entertainment writer played it fast and loose, doesn't source himself well, speculation is talked about in exactly the same way that actual facts that he's gathered to talk about. you cannot sort out the gossip from the fact him it's very difficult. this is clearly going to be a problem with this book. having said that, the portrait of otherive pro-- other improvisetory chaos t. portrait is so horrifying that any impression over the last month, even though most of what we read is about six months ago. but any portrait that we read in the last month or any sense we have in the last month the ship is being righted and policy is

being made and more serious efforts will be made on dealing with the iran protests and stuff like that. it's almost impossible to get back in the mindset 2018 might be a better year. >> it's serious, it's just serious for people inside the white house. john heilemann, you are actually a perfect person to talk to here. you and your former person mark halperin every presidential year since 2008 have done a deep dive into all of these campaigns. and i remember talking to you guys in march and prip april and hearing things coming down the track, not specifically, but what, in my conversations with you and my conversations with people inside the white house and my conversations with everybody involved i've got to say this book rings true on just

about everything that i read, of all the things mika and i have known about trump over the past ten, 11 years, what we knew over the past 12 to 4 months, what we few after we stopped talking to him, again, i haven't read anything in here other than possibly the john bainor an next dote that didn't ring true to me, everything else does, it follows everything that all of my sources have been telling me for 12 months now, what about y you? >> well, there is so much to say about this effort. i will not embrideer much on what he said about michael wolf. there will be enough discussion over sourcing methods of this book and probably a lot of pushback from some members of the people who are quoted in the book about the ways in which their material got presented. i'll leave it at that. i think there will be some discussion of it. having said that, i think that

there is a reason why the book has made an impression so quickly, it does ring true, a lot of people who reported out of this white house, including me. as a piece of the metta news the bannon stuff is extraordinary, it signifies that bannon one of the rare people in the white house who has not been tarred by the russia investigation has made a determination that the white house, that donald trump is going down and that he believes the place to be historically toblg be on the r side of history is to be criticizing the president, his children, in the starkest possible tones. the notion invoking treason, unpatriotic. his motivations are not pure. he has long-time grudges against people, especially jared kushner and ivanka trump. it's interesting --

>> yeah, hold on one second. i want to stop you there, and again set up the timing of this as you continue that, because you bring up a good point. bannon has a grudge. okay. but what's important here is as you know, as other people that have reported on bannon, though, i would guess anybody that has a good working relationship with the white house knows, steve bannon started talking about elements of this russia investigation in march before it was even on the front pages of the "new york time's" or the washington post. he started saying these people were going down in march. when i first heard it in march. i was scratching my head. does that, wait, what does don jr. have to do with russia? so. >> right. >> he was at the height of his power when he was warning journalist, all these people are going down. >> i think it's worth saying some of the things he is talking about in the june meeting, he

was not in the campaign at the time. she not a witness. he is speculating on some level, some of the most important speculation you can imagine. again, it's as many up to me interesting about the judgment he was making during the first 200 days of the trump administration, while he was in the white house, he was already starting to make claims for a book that would come out some months later that would put him in this position as having been critical of people in the white house because he already saw where things were going, which dominos were falk and how he saw this playing out. the most striking commentary in the book. again some may be have been offered on the record and in other circumstances, you may hear these sources come forward and dispute it in the days ahead, but the consistency of the picture of the people closest to the president of the united states all thinking he should not be president. he would not be president when

they got into the white house thinking that he was not just inequipped, ill equipped for the job, incapable of doing the job, not mentally competent for the job t. number of phrases people use for stupid, for a moron, for an idiot. the cabinet secretary, the top people in the white house infantalizing the president of the united states. these are not his enemies, these are people that work for him. the array and the assessments all consistent of the closest people to the president working with him as being essentially a child. it's just that is a devastating portrait. again, one putting aside questions of michael wolf as a journalist that raise true to people who spent time over the last year talking to people inside this white house, that is i think a killing more straight for a lot of people. as i say, these are not democrats, fought liberals, people that want to destroy donald trump. they're the people closest to

him. >> well, it's down in palestiniant now. this is something that most journalists in washington, d.c. have been talking to republicans on capitol hill have heard. he's a child. he's got no attention span. he reads nothing. bob corkerer saying they're running an adult day care center there. >> that sort of a talk you heard from senior republicans has been confirmed by a lot of people. we've all heard it, nobody had the guts to say it on the record. of course, some people will push back. if you are katie walsh, what are you going to say if you are quoted saying he acts like a child. of course, there will be people that will say, oh, no, i didn't say that way. or no, it rings true, whether katie walsh said it or not. which i'm sure she did, but if she didn't, 30 about people did. have you the gary cohn memo, absolutely devastating, saying things we heard about before.

we will get back to that portion in a second. jeremy bash, let's just talk about the law the prosecution, if are you a prosecutor and are you looking at this situation, you are looking at a cast of characterers that one by one by one are turning on the president of the united states and all the president's men and all the president's women, right now, it's looking like of the loyalists around donald trump, it's now boiled down to trump and his children who are still loyal to him. what is the impact of having the national security adviser who spent more time complaining in 2016 and seen as the guy that trump trusted to have around him the most, now cooperating with the feds. what does it mean to have the campaign manager now, of course, if trouble with the feds, possibly facing a lifetime if jamie? what does it mean when you have

one of his top foreign policy guys now cooperating with the fbi and now you have his final campaign manager, his top political strategist accusing the president and all the president's men and women of treason? what does that do nor the prosecutor? >> yeah, first and foremost, there is no loyalty within the trump inner circle. >> that is clear by bannon's comments in this account even as john and others noted. only 20% is accurate. so the prosecutor can peck apart insideers, really, donald trump's world pivoted and turned for the worst on december 3rd of last year when mike flynn pleaded guilty. because on that day, his, a member of his inner circle, long-time loyalists, someone the president turned loyalty for, he is cooperating, offering everyday and testimony against the mr. president.

to your point earlier, joe, bannon clearly gave this interview or series before december 3rd. so whether he knew the president was quote going down or not, he knew something a long time before mike flynn pleaded guilty. so i think this does not auger well for the president's legal strategy. i think bannon has a first-hand knowledge of is the firing of comey. i'm sure bob mueller will be talking to him and many other around him about what he saw what he knows about that specific issue. >> casey hunt, we have been watching over the past month a sad and pathetic display, my words, obviously, not yours. because you have to work with these people, from some junior republican members of the house to try to besmurnlg the reputation of the fbi, try to attack bob mueller, try to claim that this is nothing but a witch hunt. you now have steve bannon, a guy that they all would have had their arms around and had their

thumbs up taking pictures two days ago, now, steve bannon is talking about treason, what is the impact on well, not just this also the news that it was papadopoulos' loose lips that started the fbi investigation and not what jim jordan and others were claiming before? what does all of this news do to their pathetic attempt to attack the men and women of the fbi and what's been the white house response? >> well, joe, i think that that's clearly what the thing that is most animating, the president and the white house, whether it's from an emotional or practical investigation hanging over the president of the united states, now all of a sudden unof his top advisers has given it more credibility. so, of course, late last night, a lawyer for president trump and his campaign sent a cease and desist letter to former white

house strategist steve bannon. the letter accused bannon of briefing his employment with the campaign about trump and his family to michael wolff, quote making disparaging and in some cases outright disparaging statements to wolff and the trump campaign. they say his actions quote give rise to numerous legal claims including defamation by libel and slander and breach of his written confidentiality and fawn-disparagement agreement with our clients. liam action is imminent t. trump campaign threatened legal action without following through on multiple occasions preechlt according to against the "new york times" and against women accusing then candidate trump of sexual misconduct. bannon so far has not responded to those developments overnight. but, of course, earlier in the day the president responded in a

ballisticering statement about steve bannon. he says, quote, steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. now that he is on his own, steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as i make it look. steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. yet steve had everything to do with the loss of a senate seat in alabama. steve doesn't represent my base. he's only in it for himself. steve pre tends to be at war with the media, yet, he spent his time at the white house leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. it is the only thing he does well. steve was rarely in one-on-one meeting with me and only pre tends to have had influence to fool a few people with no access and no clue, whom he helped write phony books him like me,

many republicans love the united states of america and are helping to finally take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down. joe, that, when i read that statement yesterday, i have never seen anything like it. >> no, never seen anything like it. i don't really know where to saturday. of course, it's not if only, if only somebody had warned him about taking steve bannon into the white house. if only, if only someone had warned him about letting michael flynn be his national security adviser, if only -- i'll just stop there. this is a lean i love the most, donald trump attacking steve bannon saying quote he's only in it for himself. ha ha. that's chris matthew's laugh.

that is so rich. he's only in it for himself. and yesterday, apparently, lawyers in washington, d.c. were able to get their clients to waste a lot of money. manafort now suing bob mueller. lots of luck on that, fem larks lots of luck on donald trump suing steve bannon. you can talk about that or what's your bigger take away on all the news that came flooding out yesterday? >> well, gentleman, thinking of that scene in the "godfather" where fredo is out fishing and somebody cuts his neck from behind. so when i read that statement from the president, that's the first thing i thought of. i have never seen anything if presidential politics that is remotely like that anywhere. it's astonishing. this is a president and wolff's telling who is surrounded by people who hate him and hate each other and don't respect him. it is hard to imagine the first

six years or a year in the white house, with that much disdain for a guy in the oval office. it is impossible for a presidency to function in those positions. we are seeing this presidency does not function in an orderly way. it's very good news for bob mueller, by the way. and if he wants to kind of paee his people apart, boy, he has a lot to work with. >> he has a lot to work with. you are talking about the white house and again for those of us reporting on the white house, none of this is shock. we may be stunned by how harsh steve bannon went after the president and all of his people t. actual news is not that hard. but one of the more jarring memos that came out was from gary coo ohn.

casey, tell us exactly about that memo and what he said. >> sure. michael wolff's book alleges that senior staffers at the white house have low opinions of the president's intelligence. there are many creative words. quote, trump didn't read. he didn't really even skimp. if it was print, it may not exist. some believe for all practical purposes, he was no more than semi lit ralt. for steve mnuchin and reince priebus, he was an idiot, for gary cohn, he was dumb as bloompg blank. wolff also writes this, in april, an e-mail originally copied to more than a dozen people went into far wider cirque lakes when it was forwarded and reforwarded. purporting to represent the views of gary cohn and quite sui singly summarizing the white

house. quote -- a senior white house official tells nbc news cohn never wrote

such an e-mail and claims about his thinking in the book are 100% untrue. joe. >> which, of course, they would say. 100% untrue. 57% untrue, but there is literally nothing attributed to gary cohn in this book. he feels the opposite. entire, impure. >> yeah, exactly. megan, hi, he doesn't read. he didn't read. i remember one time in a let's just say a tense meeting with donald trump. i actually afterite after the first debate. okay, we disagreed on his performance. i thought it was horrible. he thought it was the greatest performance debate ever. don, let me ask you a question. do you read? he stared back at me and made mika a little nervous for me to be insulting the guy.

i go, do you read? if somebody wrote you a one-page memo, and wrote a one-page memo for every issue, could you read it? and he lifted up his bible, his childhood bible. he goes, of course, i read. that was the wrong book for him to hold up to say he read it. but there has been a question of whether this guy can read, whether he does read and inside the white house, again, we've all heard these, he refuses anything. he gets board after about 15 seconds, even people talking to him. inside that memo, it was reportedly described as an e-mail from gary cohn to his boss the chief executive of gold man sax, that's what's caused a lot of consternation inside gold man sax and people pushing back saying gary wouldn't have

written that e-mail. they aren't in communication, they aren't e-mail buddies, the main point is the same, these are the kind of things you are hearing, whether every allegation, every piece of information is, fact, true, what's said is an act rat quote. the question of how engaged she, of what his family members are doing. what they know when they make these stramt i statements, these tweets. this is incredibly serious stuff. if this is, in fact the state of the white house, which everybody knows that it is, what is gary cohn still doing will? is tax reform getting through a comprehensive package really worth this? if this is an act rat summary of what companions are like in there or a constant state of shock and horror, where inarguably. officials are in a constant state of shock and horror, cannot get him to do the simplest of things can not get only the engaged on serious

policy issues, whether that's iran, north korea, syria, is this really a place where they want to be doing the work? do they think they will be able to leave this white house with their heads held high? it's a question i think that too many of them are running away from and aren't being called on the carpet for, regardless of what this administration says about it as well. >> so the question, though, isen na what you want? if have you this portrait of a barely functional president, you at least want to know that there are two or three or four people in there who recognize it's fairly functional? >> no, who are keeping the ship of state, you know, from flipping entirely over in the water. you need a mcmaster there. you need a jim mattis who is not in the white house, obviously, but you need grown-ups around who can make sure -- >> 1 run the day care center? >> someone has to run the day care center.

otherwise. >> how do you think they're doing, john? >> i think they're great. what would you have otherwise? that's the question. we don't really know. the fact that they did finally get a tax cut through. people may not like it as policy, it's a thing that happened. one thing that happened. and gary cohn had a role in that. you see what i'm saying, in the ends if one thing bo say people are accomplished outsiders who are trying to work there should flee because it's so awful, that's their own personal decision as a matter of serving the public of the united states, that would seem to me -- >> do you think steve mnuchin and gary cohn are there to serve the united states? >> no, i'm saying, are you saying they should get out of there, because it's so terrible. i don't care if it's terrible for them or not, if they are minimally competent, that is a good thing for the country. i don't know that they are. i'm saying the last thing you want to do is say what the hell

are you doing there, get out of there, if they have the ability to have a sane meeting, you know. >> even on the margin. so. >> foreign leaders because he walks out of the room. you want a charlotte mcmasters there. >> now, let me bring in. >> keep going and discuss the seven points that we have to discuss here. that's a good thing for the country. not a bad thing for the country. >> so rec eiler, so, here's a horrible choice that you have. if you are gary cohn and you are surrounded by children and you've run goldman sachs or if you are hr mcmaster and you have been studying this and living this your entire life or if you are general kelly and you have sacrificed a son, and you are served your entire life. this country, or if you are general mattis and you know that

we could be in a nuclear war with north korea or at least a conventional war on the korean peninsula, that could kill half a million people in less than a week t. horrible choice you have to make is do i stay here and work with this wild who behaves like an ar gant fool, behaves like a baby, again, if you believe everything that's said in this book. my assertions, of course, but do you stay as a service to this country. despite the fact that it is the worst job you've ever had and it is the worst job you will ever have and i do put steve mnuchin in another category, i think he loves going to ft. knox with his bride and looking at the vernal equinox whatever they look at while she is wearing her cruella deville outfit. >> babying the money.

but. it's different for cohn and mcmaster and dina powell and others. >> that's a terrible e terrible truth. what if you are sitting there and you know it only gets worse, it's the decision you make. >> it's the country. you have to recognize this whole thing chris is not withstanding. let's say 20% of this is true, live by the tabloid, die by the tabloid, i'll xep donald trump's premise, which is donald trump wasn't supposed to win, if you start from that perspective, everything makes sense, right? everything michael flynn did up until that point working for the turks, not exposing all that all of that would have been fine if donald trump lost. all those things make sense. he wasn't supposed to win. he did win. it's like a joke that went too far the thing that made me upset is the complicity of the own

party and destroying its own party. they put someone, invested into donald trump, becoming president and destroying the republican party brands and now steve bannon who will have a lot more explaining to do has to explain why he was inconsistent because he got iced out. bannon clearly got iced out. he wants revenge. he wants to carve a niche for himself, so in a sense for critics of the trump administration, now ban isn't on my side. i don't know what to make of it. >> bannon again, what's remarkable about this is bannon was talking this way while he was at the height of his power inside the white house. it's pretty incredible stuff. are you right. what we've also said this for over a year-and-a-half, donald trump did not expect to win. melania trump did not expect him to win. there is a part. >> where she was promised he wouldn't win. >> he was promised. he kept promising her she

wouldn't win. they thought this was going to be a great money-making venture. and he was in a state of shock when he found out that he won the electoral college. well, wooer just scratching the surface on this we got a lot more on the revelations and michael wolff's new books and also everything else that's going on, by the way, michael will be our guest on monday on "morning joe." you are watching "morning joe," we'll be right back. whoooo.

looking for a hotel that fits... ...your budget? tripadvisor now searches over... ...200 sites to find you the... ...hotel you want at the lowest price. grazi, gino! find a price that fits. tripadvisor. what is this? when we love someone, we want to do right by them. but some things we can't control like snoring. (snoring) introducing theravent anti-snore strips. clinically shown to reduce snoring. theravent. the answer is right under your nose.

clinically shown to reduce snoring. discover card. i justis this for real?match, yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover.

we know life can be hectic. that's why, at xfinity, we've been working hard to simplify your experiences with us. now, with instant text and email updates, you'll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels, so you don't miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you're looking for - because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. and here's this revelation in the trump-wolff book saga, akios mike allen, mike would know this, is reporting author michael wolff has quote tapes to back up quotes in his book. dozens of hours of them. among the sources that he taped reportedly are steve bannon and white house deputy chief of staff katie walsh.

we will be talking to jonathan swan of axios next. john heilemann, again, this is for people tuning in right now, didn't see our first 30-91 minute sessionment. >> that may have been broken a recor record. >> the whole first hour of the show, projectically? >> yeah, i will want to hear from top white house reporters, people like you covering this story for you know two years maggie haberman with the times, peter baker of course with the "times" our own halle jackson of abc. i i don't expect we will hear a lot of people saying that they're shocked by any of this. >> no, i think one of the interesting things, we were discussing this off camera is that you know the anatomy of this book is fascinating.

if you will recall, after the trump administration took office, you had michael wolff on this show and other shows attacking anti-trumpers, he said months kind of on television taking on people critical of the administration and then wrote a very sophisticated and compelling profile of steve bannon in the "hollywood reporter" that endeared him to bannon and got am level of access se white house. he had a long-term relationship as michael is a big player in new york journalism and knows a lot of people in new york society for a long time. he apparently insinuated himself with access, someone hanging around, he says in the book he added a semi couch in the west wing. he was someone asaw at the white house. so he had a lot of this access, now he's turned and stuck the

shiv into all of his sources, including trump. >> isn't it a surprise? >> sorry. >> isn't eight surprise? i was shocked in the first place when michael wolf started hasn'ting out in the trump white house. i was shocked when donald trump was giving him access, for donald trump not to say that michael wolff had access is a ballot faced lie. every reporter inside that white house is asking the same question, why is donald trump trusting michael wolf to write a pro trump book? it's what never made sense to me. >> it is you know again a student of the history of michael wolff journalism would have count cemented some caution on the part of the white house in dealing with him, whether he was going to turn out to be a pro trump chronicleer. on the other hand, i think it's interesting, i'm sure he has these tapes and some of the quotes are accurate. we are hearing from sources they

believe they were off the record when they were taped. so then the question is going to be who wins that fight over attribution terms. that's an architect for insiders and the question is, are the quotes accurate or fought, whether sources feel betrayed or not. if the quotes are accurate. he may ends up winning that fight. >> again, the bottom line for this, for what matters most in washington probably in america, the fact that steve bannon is chief strategist and another campaign manager has been kicked out, has been saying the trump team is up to their necks and called it treeson, you don't feed a tape recorder for that one. when we come back, we are going to be talking to jonathan swan from axious about that report about the tapes.

"morning joe" returns in a minute. i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended... ...prilosec otc 7 years ago,

5 years ago, last week. just 1 pill each morning, 24 hours and zero heartburn. it's been the number 1 doctor recommended brand for 10... ...straight years, and it's still recommended today. use as directed. 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. (woman) because dad made us promise we'd keep mom at home. (vo) call 844-4-brightstar for your free home care planning guide.

a look at the white house this morning, i'm sure things are interesting inside there already. 6:45 a.m. let's bring in jonathan swan

from akios, jonathan, thank you so much for being with us today. nick confessori with the "new york times" has the first question. nick. >> jonathan, good morning. my question is why this and why now from bannon? as recently as a few months ago, we saw him on "60 minutes" saying the russia investigation is a waste of time. now he is talking about treason. what is changed? what is his motivation for nuking the entire west wingsmr well, you sounds like some of his allies asking me that question yesterday. why would he do this? it is a question that people close to him can't understand and i think it's incredibly stupid. it's something he has been saying privately by the by a. none of this is stuff he wasn't saying privately for months. the new thing is he said it on the record, but one little wrinkle i would add which sort of helps you understand bannon's psychology and how he thinks about himself, bannon has told more than one person close to him that if trump is impeached,

he will run in a republican primary in 2020 against mike pence. he thinks he could get more support among eadvantage gel cals than pence. this sounds crazy, it is true, bannon denies it, i am telling from you my own reporting, multiple sources, take it to the bank, he has said this. >> jonathan, i want to ask you, too, what the washington post is reporting, too, about rebecca mercer and the perser family pooling tear money, where does that leave them? you said there in terms with other candidates, he doesn't have the cash to back it up? >> they were already, bob mercer put out a pretty extraordinary statement, he's a billionaire hedge fund operate contractor from new york, bannon's primary sponsor for a long time now, a huge investors in breitbart. he put out an extraordinary statement distancing himself from steve bannon. so this is something that has been rolling out for a couple of

months now, the mercers, i think, resented being tied to everything that steve bannon was doing and being implicated in all of his schemes and ideas. >> okay, so, jonathan, the thing about bannon is a lot of these people are trying to impute machiavellian motives, doing this with wolff, there may be a counternarrative that she a hebellous big mouth. he lost his job at the white house, because he gave an interview to robert cutner of the american prospect which he claimed we were going to start a trade war with china. this i think is a follow on to that. the bannon of the man pulling the strings in the republican party in the conservative movement is belied by his own personal kind of stupid psychotic conduct. >> i think it's reasonable the idea that there is some four

dimensional chess going on here and bannon has an end game that none of russ aware of. he's thinking five moves ahead. i mean, give me a break. give me a break. >> i think something else is going on here, which is the mercers have cut him off, trump is now suing him on the mba. breitbart will cut him loose, because a war between trump, breitbart for him he is a -- the head of breitbart being the key an tag nis of trump, breitbart will become under pressure to cut bannon loose. bannon could be completely without resources in a matter of days. i mean, he's going to have to hire a lawyer, defend himself against this if this goes forward this mba suit. this is pretty savage counterattacking it seems to me. >> i think it is a big asterisk in tbd whether trump follows

through on the threat. obviously, he has a history of doing this. the actual times-followed through on the threat of litigation is small. more broadly, your point is right about breitbart. i don't think there is any you're right about breitbart. i don't think there's any danger of being kicked out of breitbart, but if you look add the comments section yesterday, one of the things that steve did that angered a lot of people he would consider his base was he went after don junior who is very popular among the breitbart leadership, and junior pointed out the breitbart commenters were turning on steve bannon. when he's lost the comment section, you're in a tough spot. >> all right. jonathan with axios, thank you so much. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you know what's interesting act both of these characters,

jeremy? you have in donald trump a day trader who never -- he's just not it in for the long game. you can see that with his twitter feed. and the same thing with steve bannon, so you never know what's going to be coming next in their personal relationship. but, again, you do know that bob mueller and his team have to be looking at these treasonous remarks and figuring out the next best move. what do you think that is for bob mueller and the investigation? >> well, they may want to reinterview steve bannon and find out a little more about what he heard when he was inside the transition and the campaign and the white house about the june 2016 trump tower meeting, and though bannon has had kind of conflicting public accounts of whether he thinks the russia investigation is proper or not, to the earlier conversation, this is really the first time we've hard him on the record about money laundering and

financial transactions between the trump organization and people in the russia federation. this is an area where bob mueller will focus as he follows the money. >> meghan, what's on the cover of bloomberg business week this week? >> i'm glad you asked. it's a harrowing tale of what we really should be talking more about which is immigrant workers in the country who are literally risking life and limb in 2018 still on the third shift making less than $12 an hour in slaughter houses doing the jobs that so many american workers will not do. and really the harrowing conditions they face still in this day and age. it is a must read. i wish we were talking more about the conditions that ordinary people on the front lines really are facing. >> all right. meghan murphy, thank you so much. greatly appreciate you being with us. coming up next, we're going to be talking act more on the bomb

shell book from michael wolf including what was described as a, quote, realtime example of denial and coverup on the part of the president of the united states. plus the justice department dismisses the new lawsuit from paul manafort as frivolous because it is. we'll talk to matthew miller to get his take. plus the newly sworn in senator from alabama, democrat doug jones will be with us from capitol hill. "morning joe" coming right back. this is something that i'm

really passionate about- i really want to help. i was on my way out of this life. there are patients out there that don't have a lot of time. finally, it was like the sun rose again and i was going to start fighting back now. when those patients come to me and say, "you saved my life...." my life was saved by a two week old targeted therapy drug. that's what really drives me to- to save lives. of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now our queen c4 mattress is only $1199, save $400. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you.

going somewhere? whoooo. here's some advice. tripadvisor now searches more... ...than 200 booking sites - to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30%. trust this bird's words.

tripadvisor. i'm not really a, i thought wall street guy.ns. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade

i think steve bannon is donald trump's brain. i mean, i think it's a very, very important fundamental, close relationship, and i think it's a relationship that will be at the center of the next stage of the trump revolution, if you

will. >> that was author michael wolf on msnbc days after the 2016 presidential election. wolf spent the following months inside the white house and what he reports in his new book about trump has actually torn apart the trump/bannon relationship. in fact, i think it's safe to say it has torn it to shreds. it's probably irreparable. welcome to "morning joe." with us we have national affairs analyst john heilemann, nicholas confessore, rick tyler, john badoritz, mike barnicle, kasie hunt, and peggy newnan.

peggy, let's start with you. this book is unprecedented for many reasons. for me, one of the more fascinating parts of the book is he says things that everybody has been saying inside the white house and on capitol hill in republican and media circles, but off the record. michael wolf gets it on the record, and now the entire political world is shocked that there's gambling going on at this establishment. what's your take away? >> well, i think this is kind of a historic moment. we've never had one year into a presidency, a story quite like this. and from a man who was essentially the architect or at least the person who had a theory of the case in the 2016 campaign who helped build the

sort of intellectual infrastructure of the trump campaign who said, you know, it's about nationalism. it's about a worker's party. it's populism, and now one year later after the election, he has come forward and said essentially this was all a fraud. it's all unsound. it was a branding exercise gone wrong. so this is extraordinary. i was trying to think last night of some great architect of the wilson campaign, woodrow wilson's campaign, colonel house or someone who worked for fdr and was one of his architects. it's like they turn on their president. so that is most extraordinary. i'll tell you something else this book touches on, i think, joe. people have a tendency, and by people, i mean me, people have a tendency to look at a certain

mess sometimes, say in a white house, and simply assume it's a little better than you think. it's a little more normal, it's more stable. the wolf book paints a portrait that makes you think it is worse than i thought. and that, i guess, is my big attack aw take away on it. >> mike barnicle, again, we've said this for an hour, there are going to be many debates about quotes and were they attributed correctly? were they supposed to be off the record? these facts are facts we've all heard off the record from people who worked for donald trump and also republicans on the hill, but one thing not in dispute now are all of donald trump's closest aides and advisers during the campaign. other than family members, they're all in their own way working with bob mueller now. you have the national security adviser mike flynn who was closer to him than anybody else

on the campaign. traveled with him more than anybody else. he said they kept those two close together because he kept donald trump calm. he's pled guilty and is cooperating with the feds. papadopoulos who donald trump said was one of his two top foreign policy advisers to the washington post, pled guilty and is now cooperating with the feds. you have paul manafort arrested, probably facing a lifetime in jail, dragged into a federal courthouse, and then you have the campaign manager that replaced him, and the guy that was really his campaign adviser, campaign consultant, campaign guru steve bannon who is now accusing donald trump and his team of committing treasonous actions. the walls are closing in, and i find it hard to believe that this isn't a very difficult blow

for the trump administration and their battle against bob mueller. >> joe, the white house now no longer has staff members. the white house now has only witnesses. every member of the white house staff is a witness, a potential witness. and this book is just one more element that we've been treated to as a nation over the past several months, and this week's susan glass's piece in politico outlining what foreign leaders think about the president of the united states adds to what we've been reading in excerpts in michael wolf's book. you know, but it's not about the book. and it's not about susan glass's piece in politico so much as it's about the nation. we now have a per pond rans of evidence that the president of the united states donald trump is unfit to be president. if this were a jury trial with all the evidence that's been

piled up over the months, anecdotal evidence, there would be a directed verdict, and you wonder at the end of the day after reading all of this stuff and hearing all of this stuff for months and everyone here on this panel, you specifically, joe, more than most have heard it. after hearing all of this, you wonder where is the republican party? where are the leaders of the party? >> where is the republican party? you're right. and mike barnicle, i have heard it. i've heard it for 18 to 24 months. i've heard it from people that were at the top of trump's campaign. i've heard even during the campaign that he was unfit to be president of the united states from people at the top of his campaign. we've all heard it from cabinet members. we've all heard it from republicans on capitol hill. top republicans on capitol hill. so it's a great question.

where is the republican party when you look at the book, you look at what has been said on the record now for the first time, and there's not a single fortune 500 company that would have kept this man on as a ceo or coo. there's not a single service organization. there's not a single high school football team that would allow a guy like this to be their head football coach given all of this information. so the question is what is the trigger for republicans on capitol hill to stop slavishly bowing down to a man who everybody knows and i mean everybody that deals with him knows is unfit to be president of the united states? and casey, i have to go to you with that question. what do the republicans on capitol hill who have been defending donald trump, what do they say today when the evidence is overwhelming and it's now in

print the very things they've been saying off the record is now being shouted from the mountain tops? >> you know, joe, i have to play devil's advocate a little bit on this. i think what bannon has done on the record is actually something that's going to push republicans on capitol hill a little bit closer to the president. i mean, for mitch mcconnell, if you look at the -- i would call it shade he threw at steve bannon yesterday on his twitter feed. and you read the president's statement about it, this is a situation where what was emerging as steve bannon essentially carrying the trump mantle into the midterms has now essentially been removed. his money is poshltentially gon. the comments are on the record. he can't go to mcconnell and say you need to vote for my candidate. in some ways steve bannon -- i'm amazed, i thought it could never

have, essentially pushing mcconnell and donald trump closer together and giving them more of a united front into the midterms. >> well, if mcconnell wants to be associated with a man that doesn't read whose closest people say is a blithering idiot, is a man that won't even -- is briefed on the constitution but starts to fade after the fourth amendment, then good luck for mitch mcconnell. >> i think he thinks his republican is going to be around a lot longer than president trump. i think that's the calculation. >> maybe, and i'm sure he's been minority leader before, so he'll be prepared to be minority leader in january of 2019. let's bring in right now the senator doug jones of the great state of alabama. senator, i could talk to you about a lot of things right now. it's great to have you, but i just have to start with what you know i'm going to start about. didn't we look good against clemson on monday night?

>> we did. that was a team on a mission the other night, joe, and i think they're going to carry that right into the game on monday. >> yeah. all sec go crimson tide against the bulldogs. what was your take away from your win from a state that you and i both love? was it in part that the great people of alabama decided to put country above party? >> i believe that that's part of it. quite frankly, we had also seen some enthusiasm after the november elections. we saw some enthusiasm and generated a lot of incredible energy out there of people wanting change. people realizing elections have consequences. and i think a part of that has to be also putting country above party and making sure that people voted on issues. we focussed on issues throughout the campaign. we focussed on what we call the kitchen table issues and people responded. even if they didn't agree with

everything, people wanted to talk about the issues that mean most to them every day. that was a large part of why we were successful. >> now, you're going to be pulled by a lot of people in washington d.c. you'll be pulled about as far left as possible. i know you are who you are, but as you go around to town hall meetings, how much are you going to listen to the people of alabama and make sure you're not in lock step with them but that you actually are a united states senator that represents the values of the people of alabama? >> well, i think that's critical. i've made a promise during the campaign. i said it yesterday after i was sworn in, that i think a role of the senator is as much of two roles. you have to reason and learn from your constituents. learn what they're hurting about, what they're concerned about. and the other part is to use your office to try to educate folks. i'm going to try to do that as

much. i don't want to dodge people. i don't want to run from folks like we've seen in the last couple of years. i think the only way to be effective is to be out there, talk to people. we may not agree. we're not going to agree on everything, but i want to listen to concerns. i think that's what people are looking for most. somebody that's going to care about them, listen to their concerns and they know i was raised in politics by senator howl heflan from alabama. he taught me how to listen and reflect alabama. that's what i hope to do. i think it's going to be a tug of war both ways from my both. >> can you name a major issue where you think you'll be able to work with richard shelby and other republicans in the senate to do something that may not be popular with your democratic base or popular with democrats in washington but will be more popular with the people back in your home state? >> i don't know if there's one specific issue that stands out right now. washington is kind of almost the -- what's the issue of the

day? every day there's something new that pops up. i want to get involved in the chip program and try to see if we can get that funded. it means a lot to 150 kids in alabama. i know there will be infrastructure bills over the spring and summer. the one thing about senator shelby. i've known him for so long, since he was a state senator, and i was at the university of alabama. we're going to work well together and try to do the things for the state whether it's on the budget in trying to bring the military money in to alabama like we've had such a success at in the last few years. i think there's a number of things, but as we sit here today and we're going forward, you know, it's going to see -- we're going to have to see what pops up. every day is new around here. every week is new. >> all right. doug jones, thank you so much for being with us. greatly appreciate it. congratulations, and roll tide. >> roll tide. thank you, joe. >> all right. we'll talk to you soon. kasie, let's go back to the news

of the day. more revelations from the book. >> indeed. white house deputy chief of staff katie walsh painted the trump white house as totally aimless in her comments to wolf who wrote, quote, trump observed walsh, had a set of beliefs and impulses, much of them on his mind for many years. some of them fairly contradictory, and little of them fitting legislative or political conventions or form. hence, she and everyone else was translating a set of desires and urges into a program. a process that required a lot of guess work. it was, said walsh, quote, like trying to figure out what a child wants. and this about jared kushner. in early march walsh confronted him and demanded just give me the three things the president wants to focus on, the three priorities of this white house. yes, said kushner, wholly without an answer. we should probably have that

conversation. you think? and this morning mike allen is reported michael wolf has tapes to back up quotes in his book. dozens of hours of them. among the sources he reportedly taped are steve bannon and katie walsh. >> yeah. john, this was an ongoing concern of people inside the white house, especially the first two or three months they had a guy that didn't expect to be president of the united states, who didn't know anything about being president of the united states. who didn't know anything about policy. really was a guy that just watched tv and talked to the tv about policy, and they were supposed to figure out a way to come up with legislative programs, and there was nobody running operations inside of there. it really was a directionless ship. >> right. take the beginning of the year and the end of the year. the beginning of the year,

health care, and if anybody is responsible for the fact that the republicans torpedoed themselves on health care, it was trump who kept saying i don't like this approach. i don't want that. you shouldn't do this. you shouldn't do that, and left paul ryan in particular with no road to follow. no path to follow. every time he moved, trump would put a block in his way. go to the end of the year. tax reform. somehow despite all this chaos, trump seemed to have learned the thing he needed to do was stay out of it. let the house and the senate come up with the deal, and then sign it, and then take credit for it. imagine a year in which trump had not done to himself what he did with health care, and you have despite all the chaos, despite katie walsh's terrors and fears and horrors, you would have had a situation in which you would have had a much more successful political year.

it's possible that after the events that are korchronicled i michael wolf's book, that trump learned not to launch a nuclear war at his own policy. that's the one take away that might be a mild positive for the republicans. >> one of the things i was thinking as the read the excerpt and connected to what john says is that early on in the trump white house from the campaign through the early days of the white house, there was a sense when you saw the colorful staffers and the crazy interviews they had and all the intensity and the president tweeting. there was a sense it was a bunch of bandits in a way, like an island of misfit toys, i think is the phrase, that they were kind of unique, original. they wound up in terms of history, accidentally together, and they were bouncing all over the place. that continued for a long time,

really, in this white house. it moderated somewhat, but i think they pretty much finished the first year more or less the way they started, with simply a lot of chaos and lack of direction and sophistication. >> nick. >> part of the chaos, i think is in the trump white house and the trump presidency is full of different people who came in with their own agenda and thought they were going to ride trump to pass that thing for gary cohn who was cutting taxes on corporations. for mike pence it was a path to the presidency. for steve bannon, a worker's party. these were their ideas and they spent a lot of time trying to make them trump's ideas. sometimes if they succeeded, but it's not like most white houses where the president knows what he wants to do and the entire structure is there to help him accomplish what he wants to do.

to facilitate. >> yawn, you had no program to push, but more importantly, you had people in the white house who told me during the campaign, listen, we don't expect him to win. truth be known, we don't really want him to win. you heard the same thing. our goal is to make sure he doesn't get blown out. if he loses by two, we may hold on to the senate. if he loses by nine or ten, we lose everything. so they didn't even want him to win. they just wanted to keep it close enough to protect the house and the senate for republicans. so they get in there, and what you see in this book is what we all know. there is no loyalty to donald trump, and there is no loyalty from donald trump to anybody else. so i guess this shouldn't be surprising that it's turned out this way. >> yes. i say to my friends, john and peggy who are trying to find positiveness in this book, i

appreciate their efforts, but the -- i think john, to your point, for the reason that health care failed was that the republican party was intellectually bankrupt and donald trump was assured they had a replacement and a plan for what they were going to do with obamacare, and they didn't have one. his interventions were not helpful, but the fundamental problem was republicans said they had something ready to go and they did not. what they had at the end of the year was budget tax cut. republicans know how to do that. they had tax cut plans in the hopper for years and years. they passed one. they're good at passing tax cuts. they're not good at reforming an american economy. all donald trump learned was at the beginning of the year no one controlled him in the white house. and at the end of the year kelly was able to say to him if you just let the republicans do what they know how to do which is cut

taxes for the wealthy and corporations, you'll get a victory you need, and trump was smart enough to see that he should listen to that advice and not having learned a little bit of the lesson that his interventions at the beginning of the year weren't helpful. whether trump intervened or not in health care, the health care thing was going nowhere, and i just want to go back to the original points of before. when are republicans going to finally turn on donald trump when they read this book? kasie made this point, it's going to push republicans closer to donald trump. to me, again, that illustrates and highlights the total moral intellectual and programmatic bankruptcy of the party at this point, that this book, i get mcconnell doesn't like bannon, but looking at this book that the republican leadership is going to use this as an excuse to cling to donald trump on the grand arc of history is an

embarrassment. >> i think kasie's point is without bannon there as a force looking to target sitting republicans in primaries, that the republican party will have a more normal election season and still get wiped out in november. i don't think there's much question about that, at least in the house. but the second point i want to make is you're missing the greek tragic aspect. there were people, trump people in the republican party in december who were like thank god, i think we've gotten over the hump here. good things are happening. this is the end of that. any delusion that somehow we were on a new footing in year two is gone. that is totally gone now. and your worries about their moral bankruptcy are well-founded. >> once again, we're talking about this book, and all of the anecdotal evidence in the book. the largest story, i believe, is we are now a nation in peril. we have hot spots throughout the

globe in the far east and in north korea and afghanistan and yemen and saudi arabia. we have relationships with different countries that are in peril because of the incompetence of the president of the united states of dealing with foreign leaders. i think that's the largest story. >> it is. while the michael wolf book story is going on, i can't help but think the real story is tweets at the dictator of north korea in which the president of the united states says my button is bigger than your button. reducing the idea of nuclear conflict and the damage and catastrophe it would bring to one liners on a social media platform. my curiosity, i'd throw it open to anybody, would be how does the trumpian core, which i hear

from a great deal, 35% of the country, how do they respond to the michael wolf book and the revelations? and also to the sense of uneasiness about wow, we're joking about nuclear weapons. is that perhaps not fun? >> i mean, it's a great question, peggy. i think the whole question of republican bankruptcy moral bankruptcy was answered a long time ago. it didn't take this book by michael wolf to push the republicans over the edge. everybody already knew about it. and as far as trump supporters go, i suppose some may be moved by this because they saw steve bannon as donald trump's top zi disciple, and perhaps that peels off some of the support. you go to what donald trump said during the campaign, he should shoot somebody in the middle of the fifth knew and a certain

segment of supporters would be for him. i think we're going to find that to be the case. rick tyler, i want to follow up on what mike barnicle said. we're not only a nation in peril. we're a world in peril. you see what's going on in north korea and the president is threatening war. you have protests in iran that actually would give a same stable commander in chief some opportunities that barack obama passed on in 2009, and you look at the question of china, and the question will be asked again ten years from now who lost china, and there cab ln be a lof answers but there is no doubt that china is the greatest on the world stage, either here or across the world, that china is the biggest beneficiary of donald trump's presidency. what he is doing, what he has been doing since he first got

into office, what he'll continue to do is doing nothing but strengthening our chief rival of the 21st century and so the question is how long do republicans, how long does your party, how long does my -- former party did back and allow this man to not only destroy the party but do things on the world stage that are going to impact us for a generation to come? >> let me make several points. one, this book is a lot of utterance. i haven't read it. the only news is bannon has turned on trump. it's like he's trying to hasten his demise because he's implicated him in knowing about the russia meetings. your point on world leadership

is important. the united states is supposed to be the example to the world what freedom looks like and have others desire it. so when people are in the streets and in tehran, they're supposed to be looking to the united states for moral leadership and some sort of support. and what example are we giving them? and so who is going to fill the vacuum? i think china is a good candidate. they've tried -- they're trying to fill the vacuum. when does the republican party turn? when they get wiped out. that's what happens. if they get wiped out in 2018, the republicans will turn on donald trump, and i think both point where they will impeach him and get 67% of the vote in the snenate wipe out. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll go live to a white house in massive damage control. peter alexander will join us with the latest details on that,

and a new ban on cell phones in the west wing. it's like a middle school. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when you combine ancestry's dna test with its historical records... ...you could learn you're from ireland...

...donegal, ireland... ...and your ancestor was a fisherman. with blue eyes. just like you. begin your journey at ancestry.com

hey, need fast try cool mint zantac. it releases a cooling sensation in your mouth and throat. zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. nexium can take 24 hours. try cool mint zantac. no pill relieves heartburn faster. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember.

let's go to the white house. obviously a very dull beat this morning. nbc news's peter alexander taking up another language just to pass the time. between your italian lessons, the white house obviously on the attack in the wake of these allegations by steve bannon and michael wolf's book. it's not just steve bannon allegations. it's allegations from the entire west wing about a dysfunctional white house and a president who doesn't read. i guess the white house is back in attack mode. >> reporter: that's right. we'll get into the letter sent by the president's lawyer to steve bannon. we're hearing from bannon himself responding to what's

taken place over the course of the last 24 hours this morning on xm radio. he's trying to poo poo the situation. he says in part there is no one we think higher of than president trump in the agenda. let's not let the left wing media stir it up. he said we're as tight on this agenda as we've ever been. donald trump and the folks at breitbart, the show, and the website. well, that may be how bannon sees it, but it's not the way the president here sees it. the concern for him is what he views as something deeply personal going not after just him but his son, his son-in-law, his daughter. we pressed sarah huckabee sanders on this during the briefing. here's part of how she characterized their view. take a listen. >> i would certainly think that

going after the president's son in an absolutely outrageous and unprecedented way is probably not the best way to curry favor with anybody. >> it's been reported he was furious when the reports first came out that bannon was quoted as saying what he was. is that an accurate depiction? >> i think furious, disgusted would probably get when you make such outrageous claims and completely false claims against the president, his administration, and his family. >> so in a situation that is classic trump this morning, joe, it's notable that we now have new details from one of the president's attorneys about a cease and desist letter that's been sent to steve bannon accusing him of breaking the nondisclosure agreement he has. it doesn't say he made it up. it's he disclosed it. the attorney says that legal action is imminent. what's also notable is this morning we've confirmed sarah

huckabee sanders providing a statement that beginning next week the white house is going to enforce a ban on personal cell phones, cell phone use by staffers and guests inside the west wing. in other words, you can't even bring those personal devices into the west wing as it's described by the white house. they say the concern is focussed on security. but obviously there's a lot of sensitivity right now given what's taken place in the last 24 hours and particularly the fact that investigative journalist author michael wolf of the book "fire and fury" says he recorded hours of conversation, some of which are said to have taken place at the west wing. >> all right. peter alexander, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. the headline from that report, steve bannon saying nothing to see here, move along. we'll talk about that coming up. also former justice department spokesperson matthew miller is standing by. i'm going to give him a chance to talk about telling us what

his take is on the legal implications from steve bannon's claim about the trump team, and russia. "morning joe" coming right back. (burke) at farmers, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even a swing set standoff. and we covered it, july first, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ 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. (woman) because dad made us promise we'd keep mom at home. (vo) call 844-4-brightstar for your free home care planning guide.

peggy, sudden fame inside

the white house is a funny thing. as i was hearing steve bannon, hearing what steve bannon was saying this morning, that oh, this is much to do about nothing. make america great again. a lot of people in middle america might say how can you serve this guy and then just start yapping when they turn on a tape recorder and now go back to saying -- i was reminded and i know you'll remember this. david stockman talking to william of the atlantic in 1981 and he did the same thing. he drew david stockman in. he turned on that tape recorder and stockman just started talking and couldn't stop. by the time that "atlantic" piece was done, it was devastating to the reagan administration. >> true. >> talk about that and how some people given sudden game in

washington and the white house actually get outside of themselves. >> yeah. sometimes in life somebody cuts a tape recorder on before you and says but what did you really think and you think wow, somebody cares what i think. and you start going to town. so that's part of it. let me tell you something that's different about stockman and grider and that story. it was all serious, and it was about policy. it was about whether reagan economic policy was promising and sturdy or was, nfin fact. it didn't attack reagan's character or the character of the men around him. the indictment right now of bannon to trump is personal, rather incendiary. money launders, deutsche bank,

revealing in some way that is petty is the wrong word, but they're going at the character and nature, bannon is going at the character and nature of the president for him to say this morning nothing to see here, move on. my gosh, it's all great, we're going to make america great again as if this didn't happen is very strange. it's like a bunch of us are talking about bannon and trump and are they getting a divorce, and who gets custody of the base, and he's just saying no children. we're not fighting at all. it's strange. >> it is strange. and mike barnicle, i know we're focusing on bannon and everybody else is focusing on bannon, but there isn't steve bannon versus donald trump battle. this appears to be the entire white house, and the entire world versus donald trump's ability to be president of the united states. it's not just trump's -- not

just bannon's words. it's katie walsh's words. it's gary cohn's words. it's his cabinet member's words. it's republicans in congress. i mean, there is a universal understanding that on january the 4th, 2018, and there has been this understanding for a year, that donald trump is ill-fit to be president of the united states. there's been this understanding for several years. and yet it's now all out in black and white. and people are actually shocked by it when the republican party should not be shocked by it. again, i'll say what's most devastating at the end to donald trump is he has yet another insider saying there's more than meets the eye on russia, and a lot meets the eye. >> yeah. joe, i mean, the preponderance of evidence is not just in this book. it was there on election eve when people reacted with stunned

amazement, and i think some fear for the country going forward from election day onward as so what this administration would be like. we now know. we live it and see it every day. it's a dangerous element. and your reference is staff members talking about what's going on. one of the things that's going on, and bannon cited it in michael wolf's book, is the idea, the disparagement of other staff members, the chaos and the internal civil wars in that white house. at one point in michael wolf's book, steve bannon is referencing what donald trump thinks about sally yates, a noble heroic figure who had the courage to go into the white house and say hey, you'd better watch out for mike flynn. he is subject to blackmail. >> here's a word to describe

sally yates, that probably shouldn't use any time, and i will tell you as someone who works with sally yates, i was shaking with anger when i read it yesterday. sally yates is one of the most talented, most courageous, classiest, smartest prosecuters of her generation. she was an obama administration appointee, but in her holdover time, what i think donald trump has always missed about the warning about mike flynn. he was watching out for him. she was trying to warn them they had someone in their midst who would embarrass the white house and potentially compromise the white house. not only did they ignore it. they turned on her. i think it's a sign, like everything else in the book, this president -- not just the president but all the people around him, weren't really ready to run the government when they took office. i think in the last year we've seen they haven't gotten any better at it.

>> matt, with the snake pit in this white house as described in the book with the rivalries and competing agendas, how does that affect the investigation into russian and into the finance of the trump family? what opening does it open for the special counsel? >> when you're an investigator as bob mueller and you're trying to penetrate an investigation, whether it's a corporation under investigation or whether it's a mafia family or a drug trafficking cartel, you're looking for people who might not be happy with the leadership and who are willing to talk to you about what's really going on inside that organization. when you look at this book, you see that everyone from cabinet secretaries to staffers to members of donald trump's family are willing to talk about him and willing to talk about him in disparaging ways. and that's just with a reporter who is coming in the door asking questions who doesn't have any real leverage over these people or their future. compare to that bob mueller who

when he talks to people has likely read their e-mails, knows what they've said to other witnesses and has leverage over them. if you're him and come with prosecuter's tools and you have people willing to talk about their co-workers and the president this way, you're pushing on an open door. >> look at the structure of the mueller team. he's been pretty quiet. if you look at the players involved and what they're doing in the indictment so far, what do you think he's leading? is this about russia of collusion or this heading more toward money laundering? >> i think it's all of the above. if you look at the team he put together, he has prosecuters with expertise from across the landscape. he has money laundering experts, russia experts, national security and counterintelligence ek perts. he's divided up this piece. you see different people.

i think he's looking at all of these threats. the big question we don't really know yet is how much he's looking at donald trump's finances before he ran for president and whether there are any ties with russia that predate the campaign. there have been a lot of speculations about that. he sent subpoenas to deutsche bank. we don't know the answer. >> it's a fascinating thing. one thing i'll quickly say. in the last couple days you have strands that have come together literally on the same day that you have the founders of the guys who run founders gps who said we told the congress it's about money laundering. it's about deutsche bank, on that same day you have this, steve bannon, the reports from the michael wolf book of steve bannon saying the same thing to michael wolf, and those strands coming together, this notion that the russians, there's a theory that the russians saw trump as a useful idiot, and it

sounds like people in the white house thought the same thing. the streams are coming together and painting a picture that is not just obviously unflattering but one that seems kind of ominous. >> one of the things about reading that op ed by the founders of fusion gps as well as some of their work is for all the focus on the salacious elements of the dossier, the things that were most important for donald trump's business dealings he's had with russians who have bought not just the russian government but russians who have bought his condos and been accused of money laundering. there is a long financial history. i think if mueller is looking at that as one of the pieces of the investigation, there is a fertile field for him to plow through. >> there certainly is, and there's also a very fertile field in finding old video clips of donald trump and everyone close to him claiming that trump

had no business dealings with russians or at least very minimal business dealings with russians, obviously, that too is a lie. matthew miller, thank you for being with us. coming up next on "morning joe," there's been a lot of troubling news lately, but "time" is trying to look on the bright side of the fence. we'll explain that straight ahead. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication, this is humira.

this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further irreversible damage. this is humira helping me reach for more. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira works for many adults. it targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com. this is humira at work.

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. john, as we've been saying this morning, a lot of sugar here that people in the news can get a sugar high off of, but there's also some meat that's going to have an impact for some time to come. of all the revelations over the past 24 hours that you've learned of, what do you think we're going to still be talking about, grappling with six months from now? >> i think -- we talked earlier on the show about the kind of extraordinary portrait of how not just steve bannon, but all

the people around donald trump think he's unfit for office, in the sense that he's an idiot, incompetent and so on. there's a corollary to that that's powerful. peggy can attest to this, you think this is a great man, he's a leader, i'm going to work for him to serve him and serve the country. that's not how most of these people looked at donald trump. they not only thought he was unfit for office and think he's unfit for office and think he's too dumb to be president, but they see him as a vehicle for their ambitions, their agenda. he's a vehicle, not a leader that they follow. they're looking at him in a kind of condescending patronizing way, and i think that is, again, along with the picture of him that he's not smart enough to be president, that's as damning as any notion in the book, the notion that these people are using him for their own agendas. >> it is damning. you talk about the admiration.

kasie, people that worked for ronald reagan admired him when they worked for him, admire him in his memory still today. bush 41, you have people who will actually start tearing up when they talk about the greatness they believe of that man. bush 43, even after katrina and other problems, people today that worked for him still have such kind, warm regard for him and will still defend him. of course, barack obama, such respect. you don't hear that from people inside the white house, outside the white house or on capitol hill. how does donald trump survive, let's say, a possible impeachment vote next year? >> i don't, i think we're still a little ways out to be able to predict something like that, but i think your point about respect is well taken. that's i think thrown into sharp relief with this book. this is the fundamental difference around the ump presidency in washington and across the country, is how he

approaches the office. we haven't even talked about the details in the book, about how president trump approached inauguration day and unhappy with staying in the blair house across the street from the white house and participating in those traditions, and how he was fighting with melania and unhappy through that entire day that i think really captures -- it's an anecdote that illuminates the broader point here, that he's really fundamentally changed the respect that americans have had for the office of the presidency. i think for many people even on capitol hill the question is, is that damage irreparable? >> angry on his own inaugural day because he didn't have enough a-list stars showing up. that says it all. coming up, remember when the white house was outraged over this? >> this issue of busing voters in to new hampshire is widely known by anyone who has worked in new hampshire politics.

it's very real, it's very serious. this morning on this show is not the venue for me to lay out all the evidence, but i can tell you this, voter fraud is a serious problem in this country. that's the story we should be talking about. and i'm prepared to go on any show, anywhere, any time and repeat it and say the president of the united states is correct 100%. >> well, you just made those declarations. for the record, you have provided zero evidence -- >> well, now, of course, the president has shut down that signature commission investigating fraud and he's tweeting about that this morning. plus three months ago, donald trump said that steve bannon has, quote, been a friend of mine for a long time, but now he's dismissing him as no more than a staffer who, quote, has nothing to do with me or my presidency. we're going to be having more developments in the new developments over this bombshell book including new reaction from steve bannon this morning. nothing to see here, move along,

move along. that's what bannon is saying at least. that's not the real story. we'll give it to you when "morning joe" returns. ♪

it's time for sleep number's 'lowest prices of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting.

and snoring? does your bed do that? it's the lowest prices of the season on the queen c4 mattress with adjustable comfort on both sides. now only $1199, save $400. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you. we've got a book to talk about. we also have some news. as i was watching everybody try to pick this apart, i saw a lot of people on tv, read a lot of columns. people were seizing on the gossip, some of the more salacious entries, the fact that donald trump doesn't read.

well, you know, we told you that a year and a half ago, that we actually asked him, do you ever read, donald? do you ever reid, after the first debate? these are tidbits. yes, washington media is going to just go crazy over them. but let's break this down really quick already before we open up to guests just so you know what this means. you now have the president of the united states and the people that were around him during the campaign at the beginning of his administration one by one falling. you have the national security adviser, the man who spent more time with donald trump during the campaign than anybody else who has now pled guilty and cooperating with the feds against donald trump and the administration. you have the campaign chairman during the rnc who was -- had his door busted open by the fbi,

was arrested and now is facing years in prison. you have the man that donald trump told "the washington post" was one of his two top foreign policy advisers, also arrested, also pleading guilty, also cooperating with the feds. also apparently the reason why this entire investigation began when he was drunk and talking to the australian ambassador to the brits. and then finally, you have donald trump's final campaign manager and the person who was his political strategist and the man who was one of his two top people in the white house who is now openly accusing -- and by the way, has been since march. this isn't just steve bannon

ang angry, talking after he was fired. i was hearing this back in march, and we were telling you as much as we could on the air about it, when he was going after members of the administration. you have steve bannon now accusing the president of the united states and his people of treason. also calling them liars. we have with us to talk about this and so much more today national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilemann, political writer for "the new york times" nick confessore, republican communication strategist rick tyler, editor of bloomberg business week megan murphy, the editor of "commentary magazine" and columnist at the "new york post," a man who will have absolutely nothing to say about this, john fig hornets. former chief of staff at the cia, now an nbc news national security analyst jeremy bash and nbc news capitol hill kponlt and

host of kasie dc right here on nbc, kasie hunt. mika is under the weather this morning. it seems to be going around here. i want to start, john, with a tweet you sent yesterday which is if 20% of this, if just 20% of this is accurate, america, what were you thinking? what did you do? >> the problem with the book, this "fire and fury" become by michael wolf, a long time journalist and writer from all sorts of topics from the first dot com boom to rupert murdock, the entertainment business, michael is a very good writer, very entertaining writer, plays it fast and loose, doesn't source himself well, speculates in his talks about exactly the same way that actually facts

that he's gathered are talked about. you cannot sort out the gossip from the fact. it's very difficult. this is clearly going to be a problem with this book. having said that, the portrait of utter improve sorry chaos, the excerpt from "new york magazine," the portrait is so horrifying that any impressionable -- even though most of what we read is about six months ago, any portrait we read in the last month that the ship is being righted and policy is being made and more serious efforts are being made on dealing with the iran protests and stuff like that. it's almost impossible to get back in the mindset that 2018 really might be a better year. 2018 might be a serious year.

>> it's serious. it's just serious for people inside the white house. john heilemann, you actually are the perfect person to talk to, you and your former partner mark halperin every presidential year since 2008 have done a deep dive into all these campaigns. i remember talking to you guys back in march and april and hearing about some of the things that were coming down the track, not specifically, but in my conversations with you and my conversations with people in the white house and conversations with everybody involved. i'm going to say this book rings true on just about everything that i read. of all the things mika and i have known about trump over the past ten or 11 years, what we've known over the past 12 to 24 months, what we knew after we stopped talking to him, again, i vice president read anything in

here other than possibly that john boehner anecdote that didn't ring true to me. everything else does. it follows everything that all my sources have been telling me for 12 months now. what about you? >> well, there's so much to say about this effort. i will not embroider on what john pod horlts just said about michael wolf. there will be mush to say about sourcing on this book and probably from people quoted in the book about the ways in which their material got presented. i'll leave it at that. i think there's going to be some discussion of it. having said that, i think that there is -- the reason why the book has made such an impression so quickly is it does ring true to a lot of people who have reported closely on this white house including me. as a piece of meta news, the bannon stuff is sort of extraordinary. what it signifies on some level is that bannon, who is one of

the rare people in the white house, who has not been tarred by the russia investigation, has made a determination that the white house -- that donald trump is going down, and that he believes that the place to be historically, to be on the right side of history is to be criticizing the president, the president's children, the closest people to the president besides himself in the starkest possible terms. the notion he's been bilking the phrase of treason and unpatriotic. bannon's motivations here are not pure. he has long-time grudges against some of these people, especially jared kushner and ivanka trump. >> that said, john, hold on one second. i want to stop you there and again set up the timing of this as you continue that. you bring up a good point. bannon has a grudge, but what's important here is, as you know, as other people that have

reported on bannon know, i would guess anybody that has a good working relationship with the white house knows, steve bannon started talking about elements of this russia investigation in march, before it was even on the front pages of "the new york times" or "the washington post." he started saying these people were going down in march. and when i first heard it in march, i was scratching my head, wait, what does don junior have to do with russia? he was at the height of his power when he was warning journalists all these people are going down. >> i think what you're saying, some of the things he was talking about, the june meeting, he was not in the trump campaign. he's not a firsthand witness to that meeting. he's speculating, obviously some of the most informed speculation you can imagine. it's interesting about the judgment he was making during the first 200 days of the trump administration while he was still in the white house, he was

already starting to make claims for a book that would come out some months later that would put him in this position, as having been critical of people in the white house because he already saw where things were going, which dominos were falling and how he thought this was going to work out. the second thing i'll say and then i'll finish, the most striking thing, there's so much devastating commentary in this book. again, some of it may be -- may have been offered on the record. some offered in other circumstances. you may hear sources come forward and dispute it in the days ahead. but the consistency of the picture of the people closest to the president of the united states all thinking he should not be president. he would not be president. when they got into the white house thinking that he was not just ill-equipped for the job, incapable of doing the job, not mentally competent for the job, the number of phrases that people around him use for stupid, for a moron, for an

idiot, again, the cabinet secretaries, the top people in the white house infant lizing the president of the united states. these are not his enemies, these are the people that work for him. the array of quotations in the book and the assessments all consistent of the closest people of the president, working with him, essentially being a child. that's a devastating portrait and again i think one, putting aside questions of michael wolf as a journalist, that rings true to people who have spent time over the last year talking to people working inside this white house. that's a chilling port rat for a lot of people. these are not democrats, not liberals, not people who want to destroy trump. it's the people who work closely with him. >> it's something most people have been talking to republicans on capitol hill have heard, he's a child. he's got no attention span, he reads nothing. bob corker saying they're

running an adult day care center there. that sort of talk that you've heard from senior republicans has actually now been confirmed in this book by a lot of people. we've all heard it, but nobody had the guts to say it on the record. of course, some people are going to push back. if you're katie walsh, what are you going to say if you're quoted saying he acts like a child? of course there are going to be people who say no, i didn't say it that way. it rings true. whether katie walsh said it or not, which i'm sure she did, but if she didn't, 30 other people did. you have the gary kohn memo, only saying things we've all heard about before. we'll get back to that portion in a second. jeremy bash, i want to go to you and let's talk about the law. let's talk about the prosecution. if you're a prosecutor and you're looking at this situation. you're looking at a cast of characters that one by one by one are turning on the president

of the united states, and all the president's men and all the president's women. right now it's looking like, of the loyalists that were around donald trump, it's now boiled down to basically trump and his children who are still loyal to him. what is the impact of having the national security adviser who spent more time with him on planes campaigning in 2016 and was seen as the guy trump trusted to have around him the most now cooperating with the feds. what does it mean to have the campaign manager possibly facing a lifetime in jail? what does it mean when you have his -- one of his top foreign policy guys now cooperating with the phish. now you have his final campaign manager, his top political strategist accusing the president and all the president's men and women of

treason? what does that do for the prosecutor? >> first and foremost there is no loyalty within the trump inner circle. that's clear by bannon's comments in this account even, as john commented, even if 20% is accurate. the prosecutor can play them against each other. really, joe, i think donald trump's world pivoted and turned for the worse in december of last year when mike flynn pleaded guilty. on that day a member of his most inner circle, one of his long-time loyalists, someone the president tried to show loyalty towards, he turned states evidence and is cooperating offering evidence and testimony against the president. to your point earlier, joe, bannon clearly gave this interview or these series of interviews before december 3rd. whether he knew the president was, quote, going down or not, he knew something a long time before mike flynn even pleaded guilty. i think this was not auger well

for the president's legal strategy. i think bannon does have a firsthand knowledge of the firing of comey. i'm sure bob mueller will be talking to him and many others around him about what he saw, what he knows about that specific issue. still ahead, much more on this bombshell book. president trump has been called a lot of things by a lot of people. some of the worst apparently came from top members of his own administration. we'll be talking about that and much more coming up next. first, here is bill karins with a check on the big storm that is raging up the east coast. bill, man, it is looking bad out there. >> the impacts are increasing with the wind, the waves and eventually high tides in cape cod, maine, at noon. he could get major flooding. the peak of the storm, intensified all night long. nor'easter is the official terminology. you're hearing a lot of people calling it a bomb of a storm because it did increase rapidly in intensity. moderate to heavy ban of snow in

the new jersey store. d.c. is just about done. now the really heavy snow is moving over long island into southern connecticut, rhode island and really increasing now just south of boston. about 35 million people are in what we call winter storm warnings. when we get the high winds with the heavy snow, 8 million people under blizzard warnings. the warnings are along the maryland shoreline, delaware shoreline, on long island. winds are picking up. blizzard conditions approaching areas south of boston, rhode island and the mass coast. here is the snowfall forecast, d.c., baltimore and philadelphia, not a lot for you. philly only two to three more inches. new york city around four inches. hartford six to ten. boston looks like the possibility of a foot, maybe more than a foot in some spots. here is how we're pinpointing it. d.c., an inch on the ground. no more for you. philly two to four. hartford, boston, providence, you'll the ones shoveling a lot more.

the wind is probably going to be a bigger story and the cold than the snow. current wind gusts, 40 to 50-mile-per-hour range in numerous coastal areas. as we go through the afternoon, watch what happens on cape cod, 58 to 60. could even get gusts close to 70 miles per hour. huge travel impacts i-95. new york city, roads quickly deteriorating as we go home this afternoon. about four to six inches on the ground. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. lant... that's a whole different ballgame. i was in shock. i am very proud of the development of drugs that can prevent the rejection and prevent the recurrence of the original disease. i never felt i was going to die. we know so much about transplantation. and we're living longer. you cannot help but be inspired by the opportunities that a transplant would offer. my donor's mom says "you were meant to carry his story".

tripadvisor compares prices from over 200 booking sites to time to bask... in low prices! find the right hotel for you at the lowest price. refreshing, isn't it?. tripadvisor. they appear out of nowhere. my secret visitors. hallucinations and delusions. the unknown parts of living with parkinson's. what plots they unfold, but only in my mind. over 50% of people with parkinson's will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. if your loved one is experiencing these symptoms, talk to your parkinson's specialist. there are treatment options that can help. my visitors should be the ones i want to see.

replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says, "you picked the wrong insurance plan." no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car plus depreciation. liberty mutual insurance.

welcome back to "morning joe." we've been talking about the many revelations from a new book about the white house including devastating critiques from some of the president's own top team members. kasie hunt is going to take us through some of that. kasie. >> joe, michael wolff's book, much of which has not been confirmed by nbc news alleges senior staffers at the white house have low opinions of the president's intelligence.

quote, trump didn't read. he didn't really even skim. if it was printed, might as well not exist. some believed that for all practical purposes he was no more than semi literal. for steve mnuchin and reince priebus, he was an idiot. for gary cohn, he was dump as blank. wolff also writes this, an e-mail copied to more than a dozen people went into wider circulation when it was forwarded and reforwarded purported to represent the views of gary cohn and quite succinctly representing the appalled sense in much of the white house. the e-mail said, quote, it's worse than you can imagine. an idiot surrounded by clowns. trump won't read anything, not one-page members, not the brief policy papers, nothing. he gets up halfway through meetings with world leaders because he's bored. his staff is no better.

kushner is an entitled baby who knows nothing. bannon is an arrogant expletive who thinks he's smarter than he is. trump is less a person than a collection of terrible traits. no one will survive the first year but his family. i hate the work, but i feel i need to stay because i'm the only person there with a clue what he's doing. the reason so few jobs has been filled is that they only accept people who pass ridiculous purity tests, even for mid-level policy making jobs where the people will never see the light of day. i'm in a constant state of shock and horror. a senior white house official tells nbc news that cohn never wrote such an e-mail and claims in the book are 100% untrue. joe? >> which of course they would say. >> 100% untrue. not 97% untrue. literally nothing attributed to

gary cohn in this book -- he feels exactly the opposite, his love for the president is pure. >> exactly. megan, he doesn't read. he didn't read. i remember one time in a -- let's just say a tense meeting with donald trump i actually after -- i think it was right after the first debate, i said -- of course, we disagreed on his performance. i thought it was horrible. he thought it was the greatest debate performance ever. i said donald, let me ask you a question, do you read? do you read? it made mika nervous, for me to be insulting this guy. >> this is verbatim. if somebody wrote you a one-page memo for every issue, could you read it? and he lifted up his bible, his

childhood bible. he goes, of course i read. that was the wrong book for him to hold up to say he read it. but there has been a question on whether this guy can read, whether he does read, and inside the white house, again, weave all heard these complaints. he refuses to read anything. he gets bored after about 15 seconds of even people talking to him. >> a little bit of palace intrigue about that gary cohn memo kasie was discussing, it was purportedly described as an e-mail from cohn to the chief executive of goldman sachs. it caused consternation inside goldman sachs saying gary would never have written that communication. they aren't e-mail buddies. the main point is the same, these are the kind of things you're hearing regardless of whether every allegation, every piece of information was true, was said, is an accurate quote. the question of whether he

reads, how engaged he is, the question of what his family members are doing, the question of what they know when they make these statements and tweets. this is incredibly serious stuff. i also want to flip this on its head. if this is, in fact, the state of the white house whichever one around this table knows that it is, what is gary cohn still doing there. is tax reform, getting through a tax reform comprehensive package, really worth it? if this is an accurate summary of what things are like in there, a constant state of shock and horror. inarguably, so many people, senior administration officials are in a constant state of shock and horror. can't get him to do the simplest of things, read one-page members, can't get him to be engaged on serious policy issues, whether iran, north korea, syria, ad infinitum. do they they they'll be able to leave the white house with their heads held high because they passed a comprehensive tax reform package?

it's something so many are running away from regardless of what the book says. >> coming up on "morning joe," there are plenty of revelations in the book. will the special counsel's office soon with chatting with steve bannon? we'll try to get the answer to that question when "morning joe" returns. feast your eyes on new banquet mega bowls, and you're looking at a mouthful. piled high with good eats, like creamy mashed potatoes, corn, and shredded cheese under a savory blanket of home-style gravy. you might think it's over, but it's not. because we rounded up crispy hunks of all white meat chicken, fried 'em country-like and loaded them on top for an impressive 19 grams of protein. now that's mega.

but what i see here never ceases to amaze me: change. i see it in their eyes. it happens when people connect with nature, with culture, with each other. day after day i'm the first to see change. to see people go out, and come back new. princess cruises. the best premium cruise line. 7-day caribbean cruises from $599. at ally, we created a savings account with a great rate. but if that's not enough, our app helps monitor your spending too. and if that's not enough to help you save, we could start a carpool. look at this traffic. don't worry. ok, if that's not enough we'll start a trainpool. oh i have a meeting in five minutes. and if that's still not enough... i got it. we'll just create a shortcut. we'll do anything, seriously anything to help you save. ally. do it right. talking 4th quarter? yes.

steyer: the president's national security adviser -- guilty. his campaign chairman -- under indictment. his son-in-law -- secret talks with russians. the director of the fbi -- fired. special counsel robert mueller's criminal investigation has already shown why the president should be impeached. you can send a message to your representatives at needtoimpeach.com and demand they finally take a stand. this president is not above the law.

. let's focus on the agenda. there's nobody we think higher of sthan president trump and the agenda. let's not left the left wing media stir that up. don't worry about us in the maga agenda, president trump, we're as tight on this and en the. there will be no daylight between the agenda, donald trump, this show and the website. >> that was steve bannon speaking on the radio this morning. kasie hunt, there's another revelation in the trump wolff book saga. again, another one? >> author michael wolff just posted a column on the hollywood reporter titled "you can't make this, expletive, up." my year inside the trump's insane white house. he talks about how the president is increasingly repeated

stories. it used to be inside of 30 minutes he'd repeat word for word and expression for expression the same three stories. that was within ten minutes. many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions. he just couldn't stop saying something. he also notes, have trump's staffers, allies and family, quote, came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job. wolff ends with this troubling kicker, quote, at mar-a-lago just before the new year, a heavily made-up trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends. happy first anniversary of the trump administration. mike, we've said so many times this morning, we don't even know where to start. this really paints a potentially troubling picture of a president in some level of distress. >> i think we can drop the adjective "potentially" from

that. it is a troubling picture. john, we were discussing earlier during the break that a lot of what we're talking about today we could have been talking about six months ago, eight months ago. >> he's repeating himself and we repeat ourselves. the dynamic we've seen here has been present in this presidency from the outset. i'm struck by something. peggy, in 2005 you wrote a column about president bush where you said president bush had started to cease listening to people, that he was delivering long monologuing and repeating himself and losing some sense of touch with the people and his staff and everything like that. the accelerated nature of this presidency in which it almost feels like we're in the fifth or sixth year of the presidency even though it's one year, i'm reminded -- i don't think that meant there was any form of mental degeneration in george w. bush's spirit, but the isolation of the white house and the necessary sort of solacism that takes over every presidency, do

you see any parallels, historical parallels? >> i remember the column you speak of and i do think presidents, when they've been for a while operating every day under a high-stakes atmosphere with half the world saying they're a saint and the other half saying, no, they're a devil, the craziness of the presidency will make you crazy unless you're on the most extraordinary even keel. that having been said, i do not perceive from a far donald trump acting too different now from the way he started out in january one year ago. there is, forgive me, an an tick screw ball quality that i see. i don't see a big change. maybe i'm missing something. >> i don't know if you're missing anything at all. the perception we have of donald

trump is one thing. the perception that the world has of donald trump and thus the united states is quite another. joining us now, fellow in global and comparative politics at the london school of politics, brian klaas. we've been talking all morning long anti michael wolff's new book and the anecdotal evidence. none of it is shockingly new. we've heard it before from other people. but the role of the united states and the world seems to be a bit larger when you stop, pump the brakes on the book and think about the impact of the presidency and the impression a president makes on other countries. what does it tell you about this president? >> well, abroad everyone is seeing the dysfunctional chaos we're talking about here and in the united states. the government by chaos that has become donald trump's presidency affects our relationships around the world, how allies perceive

it. they see america as an erratic partner that is no longer reliable. as people have different takes on how president trump is behaving, whether they agree with his policy agenda, the view from abroad is unified in the sense that trump is weakening america, an erratic player and not someone allies think is reliable. that threatens our security whether you're republican or democrat. i think it's something we don't debate quite enough. >> brian, joe scarborough here. this is something that obviously you have been tracking from the very beginning, what about donald trump not only being erratic but also denigrating democratic norms and values in the united states while up lifting leaders in china when they crack down on dissent or in turkey or across the globe? how does this portrait, this richer portrait of donald trump fit in with that? >> well, i think you've got two

angles here. obviously there's the attacks on democracy and democratic norms at home with the constant attacks on the press, the divided rule, demonizing minorities, politicizing rule of law, calling to jail his opponent, nepotism, all these things. people pay attention to the example set by the u.s. president. they try to figure out what they can get away with in palaces around the world based on how the president is behaving. if you have somebody watching trump denigrate fake news all the time, are you really going to think twice about jailing an opponent in a banana republic abroad? no. that's why we've seen the highest numbers of reporters jailed globally in 2017. i'm afraid that trend will continue as people look at donald trump for signals and see thisser rat sichl and this authoritarian impulses. >> when you think about -- obviously people are focused on north korea because of the tweets this week. there's also the situation

unfolding in iran right now. just think about the places as you survey the globe, where the instability, broadly speaking in the white house, the instability particularly in the oval office, where are the places you're most concerned that on the ground there could be negative implications and impacts from that? >> well, obviously north korea is a big one because miscalculation is a huge risk with er rat sichl. you also have a real splintering of the western alliance that holds the global order together because of how people look at donald trump. the goal of vladimir putin is not simply to enhance trump. it's to drive a wedge between america and its western allies to weaken that global order. in that regard it's been hugely successful. that's where we have to think about the long-term implications of trump as willingly pulling america's leadership role down, china is picking up the pieces of that splintering global order, that's where this has real long-term consequences.

it's not just about the democrat-republican debates we typically have in american politics. >> brian klaas, as always, thank you so much for being with us. we really do appreciate it. john podhoretz, i want to go back to this excerpt in "the hollywood reporter" about donald trump repeating the same stories over and over and over again. it's something i brought up talking to somebody that was extraordinarily close to donald trump during the campaign, actually talking about the belief around the campaign with the people at the top of the campaign that donald trump was in the early stages of dementia. what they were saying back in the summer of 2016, the spring of 2016 said he repeated the same stories over and over and over again, and that he was on a loop. it was disturbing even during the campaign last year.

whoa ear hearing now the situation has gotten even worse. >> he is 70 years old. that's not wildly old. we all know people of that age who are not demented who are capable of repeating themselves. i am myself, i'm only in my mid 50s, forgetting 20 minutes after i tell a story, sometimes i'll do it again. i think going that way, that's dangerous in some sense because you're raising the stakes so high when you analyze someone's behavior that way. when people are inclined to narcissim, don't really care if they're repeating themselves over and over again. there is the argument made by some of his weird defenders like scott adams, the dill bert guy, that some of this is a form of prop gan diesing, like when he says no collusion 19 times, the real purpose of it isn't to ex-expose his own dementia but

drill into people's heads that there was no collusion by using the phrase over and over and over again. that's not a deliberate strat y strategy, but it is an approach, hammering something home when he has one point to make. >> certainly as a new yorker you've known, been around or at least seen donald trump in new york media for most of your life. do you think donald trump is well, do you think he is mentally the same person today that he was five years ago, that he was 15 years ago, that he was 25 years ago? >> i think he's more like than not like. i met him in the late 1980s, and he doesn't sound to me appreciably different today from the way he sounded then. it's the same kind of blow-hard, self-important, catskills tone, the comedian way you talk without telling jokes. that has always been his manner.

it doesn't seem any different now to me. >> wow. okay. we will show you some side by side tapes -- >> i heard about that. i'm not denying it. my own personal experience is he's the same intolerable person now that he was then. >> intolerable, different type of intolerable. coming up next, president trump is up and tweeting this morning about america's, quote, rigged election system. if it's rigged, why did he disban h disband his signature commission on voter fraud. that's next on "morning joe."

♪ [speaking french] ♪ this is what our version of financial planning looks like. tomorrow's important, but, this officially completes his education. spend you life living. find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com.

you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! while saving for the things you wof your daily routine, so why treat your mouth any differently? complete the job with listerine® help prevent plaque, early gum disease, bad breath and kill up to 99.9% of germs.

listerine® bring out the bold™

by the way, get your flu shot. president trump shut down his signature commission to investigate voter fraud. he formed the commission last may after claiming millions voted illegally in the 2016

election. he lost to hillary clinton by over 3 million votes in the popular vote. it's something he could never get past. that and crowd sizes occupied that mind of his. he's started coming up with this scam, suggesting over 3 million people voted illegally. so they were going to do this commission. now they're not doing the commission because there's really no story to tell there. the white house released the following statement on the decision to disband the panel writing in part, this, despite substantial evidence of voter fraud -- not true -- many states have refused to provide the presidential advisory commission on election integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry. a little after 6:00 a.m. this morning, trump tweeted the following, as americans you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form for almost everything you do, except when it comes to the most

important thing, voting for the people that run your country. push hard for voter identification. rick tyler, your thoughts on the crisis that is no crisis and has never been a crisis. >> some of my republican and conservative friends will hate me for saying this, but the american election system is actually one of the safest systems now. the reason is you have all the local municipalities in charge of their own elections. this is neighbor to neighbor. people come in to their local voting place. the integrity to protect the vote is there. the commission is going in some discretion that some would say we need to nationalize the vote and nationalize the count to keep it safe. we need to do just the opposite. >> just the opposite. >> the idea that there's voter fraud of 3 million which was based on an analog, a calculation based on one count extrapolated out to the united

states, they came up with a number of 3 million missing votes. trump heard about it, oh, my gosh, we've got to fix it. it's all because it fit his narrative that he lost the popular vote to hillary clinton. that he couldn't stand. keep it the way it is. it works well. let's not miss it up. >> take florida, for instance, 67 supervisors of elections force 67 counts. they do it their own way in those counties. it's impossible for the russians to figure out how to fix elections in every county because it's not centralized in a way that donald trump wants to centralize it. let's go now to business before the bell. this morning we have a look at the billion dollar pot business in california. on new year's day california joined a growing list of states that legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational use. msnbc correspondent jacob soboroff reports on one california town that's turning

to pot to try to dig out of bankruptcy. >> reporter: in 2001, the town of desert hot springs went bankrupt. it's been struggling ever since and you're seeing here is they've zoned light industrial to be cannabis friendly. >> reporter: greta has a consulting business in desert hot springs that helps companies open facilities like this new $7 million marijuana grow house. >> let's do the math. one room. >> times 84. >> 84 pounds. >> times $2,000 a pound. >> times $2,000 a pound. times 12. is $2.16 million. >> times each room will turn four times. >> times four times. so that is $8.64 million of cannabis every single year? >> your lips to god's ears. >> how much tax revenue? >> over $300,000 a year. >> 300,000 bucks just from this building? >> yes. >> reporter: the cannabis

industry's already had an impact on one aspect of life in desert hot springs. real estate prices. >> a couple of years ago, they were probably purchased for around 60,000 an acre. >> reporter: 60,000 an acre. >> and now you'd be lucky if you can find one for $1 million. >> reporter: $1 million an acre. >> undeveloped. >> reporter: in the middle of the desert. >> that's what i'll telling you. >> reporter: one of carter's clients, a group of marine corps veterans, is building a grow house to be staffed by veteran. you got your approval today? >> yes. >> reporter: so it's happening? >> we're moving in. >> reporter: this is a veteran owned cannabis business? >> marine corps veteran owned. >> reporter: so you're betting on these guys they're going to succeed. but you're not betting on everybody here? >> i'm all in with these guys. >> reporter: but the odds in california's new recreational pot industry, naz any gold rush,

are against you. >> from lessons we learned from other state, the failure rate's very high. 70% the first year. >> reporter: it looks like a gold rush but it might not be for everybody? >> that's right. >> reporter: all right. coming up next, "time" magazine is looking for the silver lining and 's what been the slew of bad news already this year. by the way, get your flu shot. see that's funny, i thought you traded options. i'm not really a wall street guy. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade

with other bad news out there, "time" magazine is turning its new cover over to the optimist. the special issue is guest edited by philanthropist and microsoft founder bill gates. the first get editor in "time" magazine's 94 year history. with us now, "times" editor and chief edward fellsonthal. i'm optimistic by the end of

this segment, i will say your last name correctly. and so perhaps i should have written something in the magazine. it's a great idea. you know, i've been noticing over the past couple of weeks that there is good news out there. i mean, democracy. we're worried about autocrats rising up but actually democracy is at an all-time high around the globe. there are a lot of good things happening that we don't report on. talk about your issue. >> you know, it is a little hard to get your head around in the year that began with the fight over the size of nuclear buttons. but the point of the issue is if you look at the sweep of history, even recent history, and you look at the data, which of course where bill gates focus, the world on the whole is getting better for the reasons you just mentioned, joe, but also, you know, the kid on the cover of our magazine, the headline is why you should

celebrate this child's fifth birthday. we have over 25 years cut in half the number of children who die before they're 5. this is a 5-year-old boy in ethiopia, who gates met when he was 2 years old and he just turned 5. >> what's it like to work with bill gates when he's editing your magazine? >> the most optimistic moment -- he came in the office. we worked with him. he curated the issue. he chose the contributors. helped us with the cover and the cover language. the most optimistic moment for us editors was he's obviously a guy who thinks a lot about how technology's reshaping our business and he talked about the trend toward personalization of the news and seeing what your friends chose for you and he said at the end of this, he came to believe that having an editor is a great thing.

and we agree. but it was great. we worked with them. began over the summer. worked with them over a few months period. intentionally chose the gippi g beginning of the year as a time to take note of this broad change in society. >> so where's bill gates on the oxford comma? >> we copy edited. >> often a really bad moment is the predicate for a better moment. we see that with the me too moment. the revelations of misbehavior and assault by men are terrifying. they've created something incredibly powerful. what stories are in this issue about the way forward on me too? >> well, melinda gates writes not just about me too but growth in grassroots women's movements. the power of women. she talks about layman bagota who helped bring peace to

liber liberia. bill also in his opening letter talks about me too and there's obviously, and he notes this and we note this throughout the issue. part of the point is taking note of the problems that remain. looking at progress that has been made and what we can learn from the progress what's working and what isn't. >> all right, edward fellsonthal -- >> come on, joe. >> i said it, fellsonthal. thank you so much for being with us. i told you we had a reason to be optimistic. greatly appreciate it. let's do some quick final thoughts. peggy, final thoughts this morning. >> it will be interesting the next few days to see pushback, what kind of pushback on the michael wolff book. what were his methods. was it on the record, off the

record. is this a trustworthy portrait. >> john, last thoughts. >> still watching iran. one thing you have to say is the administration i think has said and taken the right tone so far in iran and that would be really nice if they could continue to do that in the midst of the horror. >> final thoughts, mike? >> getting away from the book and going to elements of this magazine. there are several column cuts in the magazine, portrayals of doctors around the world and in india and nigeria and we should think about doctors here every day who make a difference in people's lives. it's why people want to come to the united states of america. >> yes, john, final thoughts. >> someone just asked the quote on twitter as to whether mike barnacle and i are related, the answer is tbd, not sure, we're going to do some dna testing and see if this over and see if there's linkages we don't know about. >> thank you for that. kacie hunt.

>> looks like we'll hear from mitch mcconnell on camera today. curious to know if he's going to twist the night in bannon or kind of pass, take the high road and let it go. >> nick, final thoughts? >> we're all doomed. happy new year. >> thanks, nick. >> the case for optimism. as winston churchill said, doom marches on. with those happy thoughts behind us, let's go to stephanie ruhle right now who's going to take us through the next hour or so with the news. stephanie. >> thanks so much, joe. we are not doomed. god bless america. good morning. i'm stephanie ruhle. fire and fury. the white house hits back after michael wolff's bombshell new book portraits the west wing as chaotic. >> i was asked to talk to him and i refused. >> trump's lawyers take aim at steve bannon. as the president says, his