. that wraps up this hour. i'm alex witt. i'll see you at noon eastern. for now, stay put, because it's time for "am joy" with my friend, joy reid. >> one of the overarching themes is that according to your reporting, everyone around the president, senior advisers, family members, every single one of them questions his intelligence and fitness for office. >> let me put a marker in the sand here. 100% of the people around him. i will tell you the one description that everyone gave, everyone has in common, they all say he's like a child. >> good morning. welcome to "am joy." welcome to 2018. while you were busy having a happy new year, clinking glasses and making resolutions, donald trump was, to borrow a favorite of his three-letter words, sad. because after the ball dropped, so did a brand-new book, here it

is, that spills all the tea about what his staff and family really think about i had mental capacity, his emotional stability and his fitness to perform his job as president. the book, "fire and fury: inside the trump white house" is the culmination of writer michael wolff's 18 months of fly on the wall access to trump's campaign and his white house. trump cannot stop obsessing over the book. last night he put it like this. michael wolff is a total loser who made up stories to sell this really boring and untruthful book. he used sloppy steve bannon who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. now sloppy steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. too bad. wolff says he has recordings and notes to back up his reporting. this morning trump's rage tweeting continued as he declared himself a stable genius. the first casualty of the book bombshell is the relationship between trump and his former

chief strategist, steve bannon who is quoted extensively in the book including calling donald trump's jr. meeting at the trump tower with a russian lawyer, treasonous. this earned an attack from trump, including that new nickname, sloppy steve and led him being dropped by rebecca mercer. all of this comes at a time when we learn lots of new details about the russian investigation. we'll have more on that later. first, i'm just sipping on all this hot book tea with my panel. here with me now are jenn kerns, tim o'brien, democratic political consultant, tara dowd. i'm trying to decide to two of the trump whisperers i will go to. ladies first. tara, you know donald trump from

th "the apprentice." the things said in the book about his intelligence, his attention span, about him being child like. were those things true of him at the time that you first got to know of him in "the apprentice." >> there was a side of donald trump that fit all of those characteristics. but there was also a side of donald trump at that time which was much more disciplined, much more focused, particularly around things he cared about. so prent w"the apprentice" was something he cared about, he put a lot of time, energy, focus on "the apprentice." i said this before, he could be charming. everything i'm seeing now, is that the side, the low attention span, the erratic, those negative things, that side has taken over. it's very clear. this book is not breaking really any new ground. it's taking all of those things and putting them in one place. but everything that is said in this book are things that people

like i have said over the course of his campaign. other people who know him have said the same thing. now it's getting focus and the reason is because it's coming from people who are his supporters. >> and people who wanted him to be president and worked towards getting him there. i want to come to you on this, tim. you are a biographer of donald trump. i want to read an excerpt from this book, "fire and fury" which people are lining up literally to get. a lot of people who donald trump does not want to know about these things will know about it. this says on trump's nightly routine, if he was not having his 6:30 dinner with steve bannon, more to his liking he was in bed at that time with a cheeseburger watching his three screens and making phone calls. the phone was his true contact point to the world. to a small group of friends who charted the rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and compared notes with one another and leaked that

information out. is that the way donald trump has operated? he needs to constantly call and get reinforcement from friends and eating in bed? >> not only that he constantly needs to call and get reinforcement from friends but that he lives an isolated existence. he doesn't like to socialize. he's never been visible on the charity circuit. he doesn't go to black tie events in manhattan. his ideal evening is to sit with a cleez buheeseburger in front tv watching sports. liz smith once said to me the only thing you need to know about donald trump is he's a 7-year-old growing old. there's a lot of truth to that. >> jen, you have people on the staff, these are people who are working for donald trump, who wanted him to be president, they are still working towards a successful presidency for him. they say insulting donald trump is the thing you could not do and the thing drawing there but for the grace of god guffaws

across the senior staff, that everybody was guilty of. for steve mnuchin and reince priebus, he was an idiot. for gary kohn he was dumb as expletive. what do you make of the fact that people are referring to donald trump as a dope and idiot. >> the biggest premise of this book that is false is that somehow like this chaos in the west wing is somehow a crime. we know of people that are ceos, entrepreneurs, inventors, people like donald trump, they love chaos. they love a difference of opinion, diversity of opinion. >> i did ver diversity of opini intelligence? would you allow somebody who was dumb, a dope, idiot, chaos to reign. does that sound like a sound

organization? >> i think people knew what they were getting. >> did they know they were getting a dope, idiot, dumb. >> one of the criticisms so far of the book has been the sourcing of mr. wolff. in his own introduction he said there were differing opinions, differing sources, and he even said he believed that some sources were not factual. >> he didn't say that. >> yes, he did. it's in writing and it's in donald trump's demand letter. >> the cease and desist letter -- >> but anybody who covered trump for a long time knows everything in this book rings true. you can go back and forth on the sourcings and methods, but the donald trump in this book is the donald trump the press has been covering for the last year, and it's the donald trump new yorkers have known for three decades. >> do the things said about donald trump in this book ring true to your reporting of this president? >> very much so. a lot of it. it's not -- it is barely even an

open secret that people closest to donald trump, including his top political advisers and senior officials in his administration think he's an idiot. that's not even an opinion. it's just a fact that they believe that and say that all the time when they have the benefit of not having him in the room. that's something that has been confirmed report after report after report over the first year of the trump presidency at the daily beast and at myriad other publications. what michael wolff is doing right now, as salacious and at times compelling his book may be, it's just basically all he's doing is confirming what is already out there. just in his own words. >> a lot of this is name calling. i go back to wolff -- >> it's their opinion of him. you have to -- this is a reporter who covers the white house. this is tara, who knows donald trump, and this is tim o'brien who is a biographer of donald trump who are all telling you the people around donald trump to a person believe him to be

unintelligent and an idiot and in some cases to be impaired. do you know donald trump personally? >> i do. i don't find him to be an idiot. >> you're alone in this. >> no. this is their opinion. everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether they're a member of the cabinet or a senior staff in the white house. here's what i do know, the american people did not elect a traditional republican or a traditional candidate. they intentionally sent donald trump to washington to blow up the boxes and drain the swamp. we're suggesting through this book by michael wolff that somehow chaos in the west wing is an unknown thing? look at the clinton years. we had the monica lewinsky scandal -- >> this is not typical chaos. >> we've seen it before. >> no we have not seen anything like this before. i think it's fair to say we have never seen anything like this. i'll let you guys in. >> i wanted to make a point. one of the big issues for trump

is that he is surrounded by a bunch of mercenaries. if he's all of these negative things, why are these people working for him? they're all mercenaries. these are people advancing their oeb own agenda. they have been leaking from day one from the campaign into the white house, they've been leaking every single day. all of this stuff we know, all of these leaks are coming from inside the white house. these are not coming from outside sources. so, when you're surrounded by messaries -- i worked in the do governor's office, but these people want somebody they can take advantage of. >> go ahead. >> for as much as the president and the white house like to bash the -- what they would call the fake news media, what the press had to say about donald trump, in analysis, opinion, reporting, as rough as it has been, it's

nothing compared to what his own advisers and senior officials say about him when he's not in the room. that's a fact. your guest might have a different opinion about it. but there's not that many people who would agree with her on that point, both publicly and privately except for, save, the president of the united states himself, who has been ranting on the internet this morning. >> y yes, he has. about. >> how genius he is and how perfectly okay his head is. for the president of the united states, i'm not exaggerating when i say i cannot think of a single person in this country who cares about media feuds or media gossip more than this president. that's been true for a long time before he entered the white house. honestly, this book is tailor made for his specific obsessions. >> tim, i want to get to that. part of the reason it seems michael wolff was able to ingratiate himself, he is from the hollywood reporter, donald

trump is obsessed with hollywood and being liked. >> mike set himself up as a trump friendly voice, and trump gave him access. >> i want to ask you this, this is one of the more disturbing things we heard about donald trump from the people around him. it says -- this is from the hollywood reporter write-up about the book that michael wolff did. it used to be inside of 30 minutes he would repeat word for word and expression for expression the same three stories. now it was within ten minutes. indeed many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions. he couldn't stop saying something. at mar-a-lago, a heavily made up trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends this is not suggests just eccentricity but impairment. >> we can go -- the impairment thing awaits more evidence. no question he's profoundly narcissistic and wildly

insecure. he has spent his whole life creating an alternate reality for himself. one of the reasons he was an effective candidate and good salesman is he focuses on a few things and beats on thos relentlessly. and he's telling himself these same myths. any time anyone pokes his intellect, mental stability, wealth, success, how attractive he is to women, he goes ballistic. >> he's doing it on twitter this morning. you have seen his speeches. he meanders. his mind meanders all over the place. he can't stay on topic. if he's repeating things over and over again, used to be 30 minutes, now ten, couldn't recognize old friends, no concern on your part that there might be impairment here? the american people did not -- the majority of the american people voted for the other candidate. even the minority who voted for donald trump i'm sure didn't vote for somebody who was impaired or wanted somebody

impaired. >> this suggestion that donald trump did not recognize old friends at a new year's eve party. he met thousands and thousands of people. >> but they're not all his friends. >> in a busy room, you're greeting people. >> you don't have any concern -- donald trump -- the tweeting this morning, this sort of series of tweets about how i'm so smart, i'm so intelligent, none of that concerns you? >> the tweeting is a side show. it has been -- >> the behavior. >> these allegations that he's unfit to be president, he's mentally unstable -- >> 100% of the people who work for him believe that. >> not 100%. >> michael wolff said every single person who works for him believe he's unfit. >> michael wolff also said he had opposing sources. he felt some sources were not completely truthful to him. >> he did not say that. >> yes, he did. >> trump can do what every other president has done. submit himself to a physician's

exam and make the results of the exam public. >> why should he have to do that? >> because every other president has. >> it's a question of his mental stability. >> i would caution every psychiatrist on this -- >> 27 of them -- 27 of them are on record. >> they warn people against diagnosing people they have not examined. >> i don't think it benefits anybody here who doesn't have a medical degree to play arm chair physician or psychiatrist. but i wanted to make a simple point, could you imagine what the right would be doing to barack obama if there was a hint of this focus on barack obama's mental health during the administration? it's insane. we don't have to prefend aboten it. >> that very thing was done to hillary clinton during the campaign. there was all of this speculation. >> about her health. >> the right did that to the

enth degree. >> why isn't it proper right now to question whether or not the president of the united states is stable? >> we have to go. we have to go. thank you. appreciate you. happy new year. up next, the latest on jeff sessions attempt to smear james comey and more. >> i'm smart like everybody said. not dumb, but smart and i want respect! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how,

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with respect to the russia investigation, we treated it like we did with the clinton investigation. we didn't say a word about it until months into it. the only thing we confirmed about this is the same thing with the clinton investigation, we are investigating. we won't say another peep about it until we're done. two days after comey's testimony last may, an aide to attorney general jeff sessions asked a congressional staff member whether he had damaging information about mr. comey. the attorney general wanted one negative article a day in the news media about mr. comey, according to a person with n knowledge of the meeting. a spokesperson says that meeting did not happen. at the time trump was enraged

that sessions distanced himself from the investigation. joining me now is former justice department spokesperson, matthew miller. former u.s. attorney, joyce vance, and fbi double agent, naveet jamal. the idea of the attorney general of the united states sending a staffer to congress looking for dirt on the fbi director, we talked about this, you and i talked about this before, we talked about it 24 hours ago, how unprecedented is that? how disturbed should we be by that? >> yeah. i'll leave the criminal violation piece to joyce. just the fact that he's the attorney general, the head of that department, supposed to be looking out for the employees of that department, supposed to be protecting them, defending them, in this case he seems to be acting like a campaign opposition researcher, sending operatives out trying to dig up dirt on comey and have them

placed into the media. that will have huge ramifications for him to lead the department. not just because of this anecdo anecdote, but it's the latest in a series of jeff sessions not doing his job as attorney general. when the president has come under attack, he has not stood up to defend the men and women of the department, and not only has he not stood up to defend them but he's one of the people going out trying to further that narrative and advance that narrative. it will be hard for him to lead the career men and women of the department going forward. >> joyce, on the question of whether what he did is not just distasteful but potentially an element of obstruction of justice. adam schiff said that suggested they wanted to build a case publicly to fire comey. if this was part of an effort to conceal the real motive for firing comey, that's pertinent to obstruction of justice.

your thoughts? >> one thing for sure, if eric holder tried to do something like this when jim comey was his director of the fbi, there would have been called for holder's head and a criminal investigation opened. that said, i think we don't know quite enough about the facts yet to determine whether there's criminal liability. it is certainly possible. obstruction of justice here would require a construct motivation to curtail an investigation. it would have to be a pending legal proceeding. so, our layperson's understanding of what obstruction is is different than proving these elements of a federal crime. that's a little bit more technical and difficult. we'll have to watch these facts unfold. but it is certainly worth watching. >> naveed, the other element of the reporting we're getting on jeff sessions, the "new york times" reported that sessions was essentially -- his recusal, that donald trump tried to stop it using don mcgahn, his white

house counsel. here's a bhit from the "new yor times" piece. donald trump gave firm instructions in march, stop jeff sessions from recusing himself from the justice department investigation's into whether trump's associates helped a russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election. mr. trump asked where is my roy cohn. what do you make of that? is that consciousness on donald trump's part in your view if jeff sessions wasn't there to protect him that the russiagate scandal could hurt him in a legal sense? >> i think that's right.

joy, i think the dye was cast with donald trump when he refused to release his tax returns during the campaign. this is someone who has gone to great len lengths to not be transparent. as a former ceo he views his position in the white house as that of a ceo. those in the white house work for him, not for the constitution or the american people. the concern he probably has, and i think it's a legitimate concern, as the russian investigation goes forward, as they look at his behavior and activity that predates his time in the white house, time as a private citizen, there's real concern. there should be real concern as to what will be uncovered. my goodness, a president still yet to release his tax returns, that's someone -- that's the sign of someone who has something to hide. i think he really resents and is probably legitimately worried about anyone and anything looking into his past and actions. >> matthew, you have donald

trump personally interviewing u.s. attorney candidate. you have him on the record, jim comey on the record saying he asked for a personal ledge of loyalty. he seems to be trying to position himself to be protected and it seems to be explicitly asked the attorney general of the united states to protect him. what does that tell you? >> it tells you that he views the justice department not as the -- the attorney general not as the chief law enforcement, but people that exist to protect him. i'll say not just to protect him but also go after his political enemies. that's what he sees the justice department as, his personal protectors and antagonists to go after his personal attackers. he wants them to be his political thiefdom that will carry out the practices or the consequences are for the rule of

law going forward in this country. >> joyce, how concerned should we be at the seeming willingness of the attorney general to go along with this scheme? he seems to be willing in some ways to do donald trump's bidding to go after his political enemies to investigate his former political opponent, who is now a private citizen, hillary clinton. he's not defending the men and women in the fbi. he's allowing them to have to turn over their text messages to the devin nunes witch hunt against the fbi. should we be concerned that the attorney general is a little too willing to go along with donald trump's vision of him as his roy cohn? >> there's so much wrong going on here that it's almost difficult to know where to start. i can't help but to remember when sally yates was in front of congress for her confirmation hearing to be the deputy attorney general, and yef session jeff sessions questioned her and asked her if she was sure she

would be willing to stand up to the president if he gave her an unconstitutional order. he made her promise that's what she would do during her confirmation hearing. yet he himself has been unwilling to deliver on a similar promise on behalf of the american people. he's engaging in behavior contrary to the role of the attorney general. who as matt points out is the chief law enforcement officer in the country, who shouldn't reopen cases or open cases because the president wants them to go on president cal witch hupolitical witchhunts. >> naveed, you are a double agent, how similar is donald trump's vision similar to a putin-like vision? >> donald trump is the easiest mark that the russians could try to hope to recruit.

when you try to recruit people, you look for someone who can be easily manipulated. donald trump fits that bill. he's the perfect mark for the russians. >> matt miller will be back in the next hour. thank you guys. up next, how paul ryan is changing his tune on the congressional russian investigation. stay with us. [ gasps, laughs ] you ever feel like... cliché foil characters scheming against a top insurer for no reason? nah. so, why don't we like flo? she has the name your price tool, and we want it. but why? why don't we actually do any work? why do you only own one suit? it's just the way it is, underdeveloped office character. you're right. thanks, bill.

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these russian investigations will take their course. we need to find out exactly what they did to our country, how and why they did it and prevent it from happening in the future and let these career professionals at the doj do their job. >> paul ryan's hands-off approach on the russian investigation may be changing. the house speaker met wednesday with rod rosenstein and chris ray. they wantedly want lryan to nar scope of subpoenas. nunes has demanded that documents be turned over in connection with the dossier. ryan reportedly sided with nunes over the doj. now nunes says that he will have access to all the documents he

requested. the dodj has not commented on that characterization. joining me is malcolm nance, sarah kendzior and scott dworkin. scott, nunes briefed the trump campaign on intelligence matters, he was on the transition team and he fielded calls from foreign leaders trying to reach michael flynn, so it's possible that nunes's conversations were recorded. how is it that he now gets access to all of these documents with which he can pursue his investigation of fusion gps? >> trump opens up the door for corruption. so it becomes more normalized. even though this is not normal.

it's tough to believe that somebody like speaker ryan, who i used to have respect for, would step out and defend nunes when he came out and said nunes said he would recuse thihimself and now it turns out he's a liar. i used to trust him thachlhim. that trust no longer exists. i'm not sure where we will find a patriot within the party, i'm not sure any are left. it's terrifying to see somebody like paul ryan step out and go against our justice system and side with a traitor like devin nunes. it's unbelievable at this point. >> malcolm, this is somebody who was not just an incidental member of the trump team, he was on the executive committee of the trump transition team, nunes was.

he had that position where he was sort of running intel between his contacts in the nsc and the intelligence agencies and the white house. how is it possible that somebody like devin nunes is allowed to see whatever intelligence he wants, backup information he wants, and use that to persecute a former british spy who is on our side? >> well, he does hold the position as the chair on the house intelligence committee. he has -- he's authorized to have access to that information. he can do what he wants with that information. speaker ryan has now backed him up and shown he has confidence in his position as committee chairman. that being said, if he were to use that intelligence, any information to carry out a witch hunt or to carry out any type of investigation with the specific intent to block or obstruct justice in the mueller investigation, that could expose

devin nunes to obstruction of justice charges himself. key be an indicted or unindicted co-conspirator if it turns out he's using his position and his electoral office to thwart a national counterintelligence investigation and to stop the justice department from doing their job. i don't know what's in devin nunes's mind. i will give him the benefit of the doubt. he is a politician, he wants to play politics, that's great. if he takes that step to where he's an active participant in blocking information or trying to discredit witnesses in this national counterintelligence investigation, i think he is setting himself up to a dangerous position. >> sara, you study authoritarian states, this is your field of study. it's hard for people to understand why someone like devin nunes, maybe he knew donald trump before, but would have such fierce loyalty to donald trump that he seems to be

conducting his own count counter-investigation to go after donald trump's enemies and exculpate him from the russian investigation. it is logical someone would do that if the only person he's trying to clear is donald trump or an indication that he's worried about his own exposure because, again, he was part of the campaign. >> i think it's more likely the latter, he's worried about himself. throughout the process, nunes never operated as a watchdog, he's been a lapdog. in march he expressed some shame and contrition for his actions because they had been outed addreas inappropriate. now we are entering a new era of shamelessness. they started out stonewalling and ignoring the investigation, then they were denying anything occurred, now they're in a blatantly partisan process of trying to flip this thing on its head, trying to say, yes, there were bad things at the fbi, baz things with russia, but it was

the democrats, hillary clinton, christopher steele, they're creating villains out of the people who tried to stop this process and stop collusion and corruption within our government. so, you snoknow, that's a danges thing to witness. >> you have republican senators who have asked the department of justice to weigh charges against christopher steele, the author of the dossier that drives donald trump so crazy, a source says the referral stems from one statement steele made to the fbi about the timing of discussions with journalists about the contents of the dossier, so nothing to do with alleged lying to the fbi. you have people like lindsey graham saying they want to investigation a former intelligence officer from our closest ally in the world, great britain. what is going on here? >> it's interesting that they would go after him like that. because we trusted this guy for decades. as a british intel officer, i believe he did a lot of work

with russia. we trusted that intelligence. we worked with the uk. so i am astounded by the fact they're basically attacking british intelligence services at this point. but at the same time, they're attacking our own. why wouldn't they attack other countries now? if they're going to working they will probably spread this out through europe and their intelligence services and try to say it's proof as conspiracy against the trump administration, the trump campaign, and conspiring against the united states. >> you also have, sarah, what seems to be, at least to the layperson, the company hired hired by a republican conservative, then passed on to the democrats, the dnc, and you have now had -- this is what fusion gps themselves said. they said we found widespread evidence that mr. trump and his organization worked with a wide array of dubious russians that often raised questions about

money laundering. likewise these deals don't seem to interest congress. after a year of investigations into donald trump's ties to rush sharks the only person republicans seek to accuse of wrongdoing is the one who reported on these matters to law enforcement, publicizing a criminal referral based on classified information, raises serious questions on whether this letter is nothing more than another attempt to discredit government sources. >> the government is on fire and they're yelling at the people pulling the fire alarm. they asked for greater transparency, that's important, because i think a lot of things are getting lost in this discussion. the magnitude of these crimes is so great. you have money laundering, you have potentially treason. you have obstruction of justice. you also have crimes that go

back something like 30 years in terms of engagements with various russian nationalists, oligarchs. and steele in his dossier put that into spperspective, and showed the connection. that needs to be laid out as clearly as possible to the american people. i think all the information needs to be out there. a lot of it is already in the public domain. a lot of the most damming things have come straight from trump's mouth, from tweets and e-mails that donald trump jr. posted online. it's out there, but it needs to be out there in an official capacity. it's something that should be discussed through hearings and through other venues for the public. >> indeed. fusion gps, the two founders, did 21 hours of congressional testimony and they asked for it all to be released. malcolm, similar question that i asked to sarah. can you conceive of a reason, of partisanship alone of being the

explanation for why so many republicans who are in positions of authority n investiga, in in authority, seemingly going out of their way to defend donald trump by what looks like pers cutie i persecuting the messengers here? is it just partisanship at work? should we be thinking more darkly? >> i can't recall who said this on twitter, but it was a brilliant statement where they said the constitution and this system of government was designed to confront and restrarestra restrain tyrannical leaders, but not designed to work without a working congress and separation of powers. we have a serious problem here. >> indeed. thank you all. coming up in our next hour, trump inches us closer to an authoritarian state and the iron stash is looking to unseat one

paul ryan joins us live. more after the break. from the very beginning ...

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you say he was at mar-a-lago and didn't recognize lifelong friends. >> i will quote steve bannon.

he's lost it. >> steve bannon's unfiltered attacks in "fire & fury" have incensed his biggest backers. rebecca mercer says, quote, my family and i have not communicated with bannon for many months and have provided no support to his political agenda. can bannon survive without the mercers' money? i'll let you answer that question. can bannon survive without the mercers? >> no. i don't think so that he can. at the end of the day what gave steve bannon the pralatform he' had is deep pockets. candidates would want to meet with bannon to get his blessing because they knew with his blessing came major financial support from the mercers. with those things gone, the trust of the president and the

mercers' paycheck, what does he have to offer anybody right now? nobody's going to want to have anything to do with him. i think what steve didn't understand is people weren't enamored with steve bannon. what they saw was access to other people that had more valuable things to give. i think steve's waking up seeing that he's kind of all alone on an yieisland, that it wasn't ab him this entire time at all. >> he thought he was going to run for president. he thought in 2020 he'd be the president of the united states. do you think that arrogance might be seeping away at this point? >> i think he's facing a moment of humility here. there's no question that his ego, being on the cover of time magazine, getting cobilling in these books, he thought instead of being the kingmaker, he could become the king. he's finding out that's not the

case. any voter, any normal american person, they have never asked their congressman are you with steve bannon. what they ask is, are you with donald trump. that's why the fight is not even close between trump and bannon. >> that was the way fire & and fury describes their relationship, that trump had no real relationship with the mercers. he'd only had a few conversations with bob mercer, who mostly talked in mono syllabl syllables. trump didn't resist. he only expressed vast incomprehension at why anyone would want to do that. do you suspect that kellyanne conway will drop him too? >> i think that everyone sees the writing on the wall here,

that steve -- he's a dead man walking. it's almost like we're about to witness a mob hit. everyone's just waiting for that trigger to be pulled. everyone, all the bannon allies, i don't see too many folks defending him right now. he's literally on an island and he's brought it all on himself with his arrogance, the way he demeans people, the bully mentality that he has, the bombastic charismatic, trying to mimic donald trump almost, it's put him in this position. >> thank you. coming up, trump's ongoing attempt to imprison his critics dictator style.

when you look at the hillary clinton investigation, it was -- you know, i've been saying it for a long time. that was a rigged system, folks. >> good morning. for man a year after republican leaders in congress promised to investigate russian interference in the 2016 election, they have suggested criminal charges for the first time. so who do they want charged? the person who tried to expose russia's interference, of course. that person is christopher stee steele. the author of the explosive trump russia dossier.

they said they had reason to believe that steele lied with federal authorities about his contact with reporters regarding information in the dossier. meanwhile the justice department is yet again investigating hillary clinton. new reports say that under attorney general jeff sessions the department has launch add any inquiry into the clinton foundation, though an official told nbc news the investigation has been going on for months. joining me now is editor in chief of the national memo and author "of the hunting of the president." joe, here we are again with the clintons back in the crosshairs of republicans who want essentially to make real donald trump's "lock her up" chants during the campaign. what do you make of it? >> this is the third time that i know of that the clinton foundation has been investigated by republicans. you know, the first time is in

my last book "man of the world" about clinton's post presidency was after he pardoned mark rich in 2001. the fbi, mary jo white, who he had appointed, opened an investigation of that pardon to see whether donations of the clinton foundation had somehow influenced that pardon of mark rich. that investigation continued under jim comey, who then became the u.s. attorney for the southern district before he went to washington. and it went on for four years. they subpoenaed hundreds of documents, found no wrongdoing at all. and then the bush administration went onto work with the clinton foundation in providing aids medication to millions of people. they must have given it a clean bill of health. now you flash forward. donald trump wants to distract from the russia investigation, i

guess maybe wants to make people forget that he ran one of the most crooked foundations that anyone's ever seen that used tax exempt money to buy portraits of him and pay off the florida attorney general with a contribution that was illegal. nobody's ever found the clinton foundation to have done anything like that and i don't believe they will now. you know, this investigation is political, and i think the justice department professionals know that. i think jeff sessions is doing this to save his own skin with the president somehow. but it's not going to go anywhere. >> you know, i should point out that among the donors to the clinton foundation was donald trump. >> yes. lots of republicans supported the clinton foundation in the past. they would come to clinton global initiative. john mccain spoke there, mitt romney spoke there. they all believed the foundation was doing good work-up unt up ue

moment that hillary clinton ran for president. you're going to find that there's -- if they look again at the foundation, they're going to find there's no substance to these accusations. >> stay with us. i want to bring in tim kerns from the washington examiner. curt bardella and matthew miller. matt, i'm going to go to you first. i've said many times my late father was from the congo. one of the features of some governments that are not so savory around the world is that when you run against the ruling regime, you wind up in prison for it. that is not typically the way the united states has operated. but now we see donald trump, who had lock her up chants going through his campaign, encouraging on twitter the justice department to go after

hillary clinton, his former political rival. your thoughts on that? >> i think it's really important that we find out how this investigation began. under most defensive scenario for the justice department, some employee found some new piece of information that led them to believe there's criminal predicate to open a new investigation. under least defensive scenario, jeff sessions ordered this investigation up from washington. the problem is, no matter how it started, it's incredible tainted by the president's constant remarks, his constant urging of the department of justice to bring this case. there's a gray area where an fbi agent or assistant u.s. attorney sees something that maybe is a little bit new, maybe looks a little rough, probably won't lead to charges, but they know the way to be promoted in this justice department is to open an investigation into hillary clinton. that is the way that donald trump's public calls and public pressure on the justice department have infected anything that relates to hillary

clinton and have tainted any kind of investigation related to her from the very beginning. >> not only that, but we also know in the current cycle of clinton investigation mania, clinton cash was the source of the original accusations. the most recent accusations against the clinton foundation. of course, clinton cash being the product of steve bannon's business partner. and they launched this idea. they put this book out that was full of all sorts of wide accusations against the clintons. the "new york times" ran an excerpt of it and we were off to the races. it's hard to imagine this isn't the fruits of that poison tree. >> this stemmed from something that steve bannon started that was funded by the mercers to create a narrative to take down hillary clinton during the campaign. the overarches idea is that the justice department investigation in 2018 would stem from the

president tweeting about his political rival off information from a book that was created by steve bannon and the mercers is one of the most -- it's a slippery and dangerous slope to create the precedent that the president of the united states can order at any time a criminal investigation into one of his political adversaries. this is the united states of america. this might happen in other places in the world. and in those places we have often looked at them and judged them and come down on them and pounded our chest and said we're better than that, we're different. freedom is alive and well. and for all of those platitudes that we see so often, particularly from republicans, where are they right now? why are they helping and aiding and abetting in the erosion of these important principles that we could have free and fair election, that we could have people run against one another without the fear of the government coming down on them

later if they lose. this is a terrible thing that's happening right now. >> i disagree with him on this. the reason that we know this about hillary clinton is because during the course of the russia investigation, we know now and it's been exposed that there was an extreme environment of political bias at both the fbi and the doj and that during that time period that hillary clinton was last being investigated, she may have been given a pass due to this political bias. >> for the director to come out 11 days before the election and probably throw the election to donald trump by publicly announcing an investigation against her, how does jim comey essentially throwing the election in some ways to donald trump by announcing this reopening investigation against her, how was that biassed in her favor? >> look -- >> donald trump said the reason he fired comey was because comey was so incredibly unfair to hillary clinton. >> right. we know that comey watered down

the statements. >> how duo you know that? >> this has come out. >> come from where? >> what is your source on that? >> this is the documents that the congressional committees have -- >> what source? what committee? you can't just quote things out of thin air. >> i'm not sure which committee offhand. >> there is no evidence of that. i've been following russia gate since last july. there is no such thing. >> we know that both the "new york times" on the left and the daily caller foundation on the right have both reported there have been numerous cases where there may have been a pay to play -- >> clinton cash reported that. the "new york times," much to their discredit in a lot of people's opinion, ran exemcerpt of it. you wrote a piece that said, why should there be so much

attention on trump when clinton got away with worse. it's a -- >> it's meant to target a couple of things. one is the scandal machine, that the mueller investigation is tainted, that they should be focusing on hillary clinton and they've overlooked her. and that, in fact, the entire trump russia investigation was founded off of the steele d dossier, which we now know not to be a case. a trump campaign operative was loose-lipped, bragged to an australian diplomat that the trump campaign was getting dirt from russia. the irony in all of this is that on capitol hill congressional committees that have spent a year saying they were going to take names and take scalps if there was any wrongdoing are

first public referral for a criminal prosecution is against chris steele, the author of the steele dossier. all of this is an effort to undermine the viability of the mueller investigation and feed the media notion, i think primarily from right wing media like sean hannity that this is a witch hunt, just like the president says. >> if hillary clinton -- if the popular vote had carried -- she did win by 3 million votes. and her justice department had opened up a criminal investigation of donald trump, what would you have said about that? >> if there's any "there" there, i think it's worth looking into. that's what the russia investigation is. you have obama era hold overs who are participating in this as we speak. >> you think the russia investigation is about obama hold overs? >> i certainly do. >> are you troubled by the fact that it does appear that

multiple members of the trump campaign had contact with russia and lied? >> i'm troubled by the fact that you have a senior fbi agent peter stroke who wrote the introduction to the russia investigation, exchanged 10,000 text messages showing his extreme political bias against donald trump. >> and against bernie sanders and eric holder. >> and in favor of hillary clinton. and he may have discussed in andrew mccabe's office some, quote, unquote, insurance policy that they could enact. >> that is not correct. that was an expression of concern that donald trump's campaign might have been tainted by involvement with russia and that they were concerned about it. that talking point doesn't help your side of the argument. joe, you've been through this before, this kind of use of the clintons is sort of typical, right? this is what they're sort of useful for. >> yeah. it sells to the boobs out there on the right. in other words, you can't go broke attacking the clintons in

a certain segment of the political market. and they do it. they keep doing it over and over again. it doesn't matter how many times they hit a drill wely well. they will hit a dry well here. who knows who might have been biassed? the fbi has seemed fairly biassed certainly in the new york office against the clintons and wanted to investigate the clinton foundation. and there has not been one iota of evidence of a real pay to play involving the clinton foundation in "clinton cash" or in where else. the "new york times" story was a joke. i'm sorry, it was a joke, because it buries way down in the bottom of the story the fact that the committee on foreign investment in the u.s. that approved the uranium one sale, which shouldn't affect u.s. uranium stocks at all, but that approved that sale, had nine members. it was chaired by the treasury department and the pentagon.

hillary clinton never attended a meeting of it. it approved that deal. the nuclear regulatory commission approved that deal. it was approved again after hillary clinton was no longer secretary of state. so the idea promoted by the "new york times" along with steve bannon and peter swietser, that somehow the russians bought influence to get that dpael eal approved is pollute nabsolute n. >> matthew, you're a spokesman at the doj. is the fbi some hot bed of liberalism? i remember it being described as trump land. you worked at the justice department. is that the case? >> no. it's not a hot bed of liberalism. the fbi's a big place. 10,000 career agents. obviously there's a wide diversity of opinion. i think generally they are conservative. the vast majority of them,

however, doesn't really matter wa the what their politics are. they're able to do their job free of politics and look at things based on facts and the law. the idea that fbi was in the tank for hillary clinton during the election is really absurd. you know, go back to the decision about whether to bring charges. we don't have time to get into the merits of it, but you can say it was a unanimous recommendation from everyone in the fbi, justice department, career officials and political officials alike that there was no basis to bring charges. that's not where that investigation ended. the investigation ended with jim comey standing up and launching attacks on hillary clinton first in his july 5th press conference that she had really no way to rebut. and then sending a letter 12 days before the election that nate silver believed and i believed tipped the election. whatever the fbi was doing with respect to the investigation, it was the fbi director's

intervention in the election that swung the election to donald trump. >> they were denying the active investigation into the trump campaign while they were confirming the investigation into hillary clinton. more after the break. i had frequent heartburn, but my doctor recommended...

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trump's justice department is now investigating hillary clinton's e-mails and the clinton foundation. these kinds of probes were shut down in 2016 for lack of evidence. my panel is back with me. the floor is yours. >> two things. i think the suggestion this is some doj rush to judgment i think is not correct. i think no one would accuse attorney general jeff sessions of rushing to judgment. >> he might. he might. >> if anything, republicans like myself think he's been a little slow to act, slow to get involved. so i don't think this is some sort of rush to judgment. secondly, i don't think this is some new york field office at the fbi in the pocket of donald trump going after the clintons. you have several reports that say there are fbi agents in little rock, the hometown of the clintons, sniffing around issues such as did the clinton foundation abuse their tax exempt status, did they

participate in a pay to play scandal. it reminds me when the old mob bosses went to jail because of tax evasion. >> that sounds like donald trump. what you just said sounds exactly like donald trump. do you think donald trump's foundation should be investigated? >> no, i don't. >> even though it's been found he used money from the foundation to pay off the attorney general in florida. what you talked about in arkansas, they were going around and doing interviews. my reading is they don't have a lot, they're just doing interviews. who's jumping in? >> joe. >> go. >> look, you know what's happening in arkansas is they've appointed a crony of mike huckabee and he's pretending to investigate this. they will find nothing there. i'd like to make a wager with jen that any criminal charges ever filed against the clinton

foundation or anybody associated with it. what do you say? >> let's do it. i'm not like mitt romney. i don't have $10,000 to lay down on a bet. >> do you want to bet there will be somebody criminally indicted in the clinton foundation? >> when there's fbi agents, folks familiar with the investigation said they were asking substantive questions. >> who? >> according to the "new york times" report. >> get me a copy of that "new york times" report. this is the tit-for-tat i think jen's side would like to be having, because what we're not doing right now is talking about donald trump. >> one of the great dangers of the trump era is the erosion of

good processes and institutional integrity in this universe of problems that surround donald trump itself. you see knit thit in that white. there's infighting. there's no trust. they can't get things done. there's a circling of the wagons where you've got now institutions like the justice department and members of congress, i think, exceeding good ethical and moral and professional procedures to do the bidding of political hit people. >> yeah. matthew, i wonder what that does then, you know, the career people at justice go into this for a reason. they could have probably made a lot more money going to work for private law firms, but they stay and work in the justice department for a reason. i wonder what that does after a while to morale if the political people are telling you, our goal now is to get hillary clinton, that is what you need to be doing, when they may be thinking there's the russia investigation

and some other things that are important. >> it's hugely damaging. you've seen a number of very senior career people who have left the department. i think precisely because in a lot of cases they don't want to participate in this kind of thing. the clinton foundation investigation is not the only thing the doj is doing with respect to hillary clinton. remember, it's not just something that came up from the fbi field office in arkansas. you also have the attorney general of the united states or the deputy attorney general reviewing whether to appoint a special prosecutor to review this uranium one deal, despite there not being one bit of evidence that's surfaced to date. prosecutors are reviewing whether to reopen the clinton e-mail case, despite not one shred of evidence that's emerged since last year. there's this pressure that the

president has put on the justice department that is having real effect where the department is altering its processes and not just rejecting president's claims out of hand and saying you need to butt out of the department, we don't review prosecutions based on what the president wants us to the, we determine them based on the facts and the law. they're picking overall these clinton cases because they've been getting pressure and want to appease him and keep their jobs. >> obviously for the consumers of this, the viewers of fox news, the people who read breitbart, this is really satisfying because it allows them to go back to a familiar place which is that the clintons are evil and not have to focus on donald trump. i wonder to what extent this fog works and whether this can prevent people on the conservative side from this and from paying attention to it. and if it works, how long does

that keep them sort of cloistered off from information that might be negative about donald trump? >> i've always observed that no one has a more unifying effect on the republican party than hillary clinton does, unfortunately. >> true. >> and so by constantly going back to this greatest hits of attacking hillary clinton, that audience eats it up. they were the ones chanting "lock her up" throughout the entire campaign. every little segments, every story online is one less to worry about. the only people who have committed criminal conduct who have admitted it are people from his administration. it's a deflection away from what's currently going on. it's a deflection away from the great book "fire & fury" that we're talking about right now that i've been reading in between commercial breaks here. ultimately it's really just smoke and mirrors.

trump knows that 2018 is going to be the year that the mueller investigation continues to hang over his head and he's looking at anything he can lay a marker down to distract from that. rest assured, the next time there's an indictment, a new corroborating witness, new testimony, all of a sudden there will be a development in this clinton investigation going on by doj. >> donald trump is very openly encouraging these investigations of hillary clinton bri. to what extent is it a danger for people to continue to satisfy him rather than somebody break it to him that, mr. president, in this country we do not use the justice department to persecute our political en y enemi enemies. is feeding him his need in any way constraining his needy ines and his need to behave in an authoritarian way. >> he is his first advisor.

he doesn't have any faith that people around him know better than he does. he makes epically bad decisions. one of the ironies in all of this irrational tweeting and constantly taking on enemies is that they're counter productive but he can't help himself because he lacks adult restraints. that's not going to change. >> i want to take issue with what tim said that there's chaos in the west wing leading to this inaction in the white house and inability to get things accomplished and it's bleeding over into capitol hill. they just passed the most significant tax reform. >> they blew it on health care. their foreign policy has been in shambles. this is not a well run white house. it's not even i.dealogical or fact observation.

this is romper room. they are apocalypsck lib -- the >> they've passed less legislation than any president in the last four or five presidents. incredibly unpopular. i want to read this before we go. this was the article that jen was referring to. just for our audience, these are agents in arkansas have interviewed people connected to the foundation whether any donations were made in exchange for political favors while hillary clinton was secretary of state. career prosecutors had shut down the investigation in 2016 for lack of evidence. it then goes on and talks about donald trump responding to his own legal problems by constantly talking about crooked hillary. it then says the justice department in a letter sent in november to the house judiciary committee said prosecutors would examine allegations that

donations to the clinton foundation were tied to a 2010 decision by the obama administration to allow the sale of uranium one as well as other issues. the very next paragraph says the following. the letter appeared to be a direct response to mr. trump's statement days earlier that he was disappointed with mr. sessions for not investigating mrs. clinton. i'm going to give the last word on this to joe. should the clintons be worried that this endless pursuit of them could end up in a third world style jailing of her just to benefit donald trump? >> i hope not, because it would mean the end of liberty in our country as we know it. if there were a predicate for a real criminal investigation of a past office holder, i think that's something that can be done, although the tradition has been in every new administration to set aside past allegations of criminal behavior by the previous administration, whether

it was torture that was illegal or the iran contra case. donald trump is setting up bad karma for himself and the people around him, because one day there will be a democratic administration and the constraints against investigating criminal behavior by the previous administration, absent any compelling reason, will be gone and it will be thanks to him. if he pardons someone, for instance, for criminal reasons to obstruct an investigation, i can tell you right now he will undergo an investigation by the next justice department, because the justice department spent years investigating bill clinton for that. so they ought to tread with caution here. >> yeah. i will note also hillary clinton's last day in office was in 2013. remember, the government turned over january 21st of 2013. statute of limitations is five years. it isn't even clear that they

could prosecute her for anything. this does feel like a witch hunt when you start to think about facts like that. thank you to the panel. fantastic panel. thank you all. next up, i will tell you all why donald trump will never find the 3 1/2 million people who illegally voted for hillary clinton. why? they never existed. magic. stay with us.

donald trump's voter fraud commission was always a sham. now it's kaput. more on that, next.

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first of all, it was rigged. i'm afraid the election's going to be rigged. so go and vote and then go check out areas, because a lot of bad things happen and we don't want to lose for that reason. so important that you get out and vote, so important that you watch other communities, because we don't want this election stolen from us. every time voter fraud occurs, it cancelled out the vote of a lawful citizen and undermines democracy. can't let that happen. >> trump transformed his campaign line the election is rigged into a real life task force in may. his presidential advisory commission was meant to unearth the alleged millions of people trump claimed voted illegally, supposedly costing him the

popular vote chr. but it didn't. and after it met just twice, trump disbanded the commission this week, blaming legal battles and the refusal of several states to turn over their voters' personal information. the commission failed to find any evidence substantiating trump's voter fraud claims. still, trump isn't dropping the issue. he claimed to have asked the department of homeland security to determine the next course of action. great to see you. let's go back to thursday and listen to chris coback, the sort of notoriously anti-voting former kansas official who was in charge of this commission. he's on fox news on thursday. >> what's happening is we had almost a dozen lawsuits filed

against the commission from democrat organizations, organizations on the left, in addition democrats on capitol hill trying to stop the commission. and this partisan obstruction was making it really hard for the staff of the commission to actually do any work because of the litigation. they were spending more time dealing with litigation than actually doing investigation. now department of homeland security will take over and the investigation will continue in the executive branch of the government, not in an open bipartisan commission. so effectively, the democrats lost their seat at the table by attacking the commission. >> so first of all, was this an open bipartisan commission and did it die because only democrats opposed it? >> so the last i checked, the organization i lead is a civil rights organization, and along with many others, we sued the commission. this commission was sued in eight different lawsuits for violations of all kinds of federal law, transparency, violations of the administrative procedure act and the case we filed for intentional racial

discrimination. that's not a partisan issue. that's a civil rights issue. those cases were filed because this commission was thrown together and created for the purpose of satisfying donald trump's belief that he lost the popular vote because there was some kind of fraud that occurred. and it worked perfectly with the intentions of people like the former kansas secretary of state, other prominent members of the commission, people who have been voter fraud fabulous for years and who have been perpetuating the myth of widespread voter fraud. and in particular they've all perpetuated the myth of widespread voter fraud under the rue bbric of the idea that lati are engaged in widespread voter fraud. if you listen to president trump during the campaign when he talked about going into those areas and before his all white

audiences and he talked about urban areas. his surrogates after the campaign also talked about this. the implication is that minority voters are cheating, they are n engaged in voter fraud. that's why these suits were filed. they disbanded the commission, but i don't think we're out of the woods. the statement of the president's spokesperson sanders was that the dhs will take this up. dhs issued a statement saying they have no plans at this moment to take up this issue. but this is a very serious matter and it's one that we predicted in our lawsuit. in our complaint we actually talked about the danger that there would be some collaboration with the department of homeland security to engage in this alleged investigation. >> indeed, you have a piece in news we newsweek saying the voter fraud

charade isn't dead yet. the intimidation in this false belief, donald trump's call to monitor polls having raised fears of intimidation, fears driving voting rights advocates and vigilantes to watch polling stations. we even had roy moore in his losing campaign in alabama claim that black people were committing voting fraud. is there still a concern at ldf that you will still see people in sort of a vigilante sense trying to police what they think is voter fraud by people of color? >> very much so. i think there are three concerns. one is the one we already talked about, which is the dhs and using this kind of cross check of different databases to try and identify illegal voters. that's already been found by experts to be not a reliable way of checking for people engaged in voting fraud because of the very common names that racial minorities tend to have th.

census data shows that racial minorities are overrepresented in the most common last names. same is true for latinos and asian americans. then there's the issue that you just talked about of the private vigilanteism of organizations sending people out on election day to intimidate and frighten people into not voting. then, of course, voter purges. that is using some of these lists and inaccurate information to purge people from lists, to purge people who haven't voted in the last election from lists. there's a case this week about whether or not it's legal for ohio to begin to purge people from lists because they haven't voted. >> we are so glad you that you remain vigilant. thank you so much for being here. coming up at the top of the

hour, a republican congressman reacts to the new book "fire & fury." here it is. and donald trump's morning tweet storm. up next, the candidate taking on paul ryan. etes. i'm trying to manage my a1c, and then i learn type 2 diabetes puts me at greater risk for heart attack or stroke. can one medicine help treat both blood sugar and cardiovascular risk? i asked my doctor. he told me about non-insulin victoza®. victoza® is not only proven to lower a1c and blood sugar, but for people with type 2 diabetes treating their cardiovascular disease, victoza® is also approved to lower the risk of major cv events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. and while not for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. (announcer) victoza® is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take victoza® if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to victoza® or any of its ingredients.

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what do you think steve bannon should do in the 2018 midterms? >> steve bannon can do what he wants. i just hope it doesn't cost us any more states like alabama. turn on president trump because he is so unpopular? >> if you look at the states where he's running in in 2018, they're states that he won. there are ten states held by democrats today that president trump won so this is about doing what's right for the american people and continuing our successes in policies. >> on friday gop leaders met with donald trump at camp david amid growing concerns that they may lose their congressional majorities in 2018. house majority leader kevin mccarthy was due to give a detailed presentation laying out how republicans can avoid the shellacking democrats received in 2010. if recent polling is any indication, it will be an uphill battle. according to a recent poll democrats lead republicans by six points on the generic congressional ballot. they need 24 seats in the house and 2 in the senate to gain a

majority and control of the committees investigating russiagate and determining the fates of medicaid, medicare, social security and obamacare. joining me now is one of the 2018 candidates looking to bring a seat back into democratic territory, randy bryce who is challenging house speaker paul ryan in wisconsin. randy bryce, otherwise known as iron stash, thank you for being here. >> happy saturday, joy. how are you doing? >> happy saturday and happy new year. i want to play a little bit of your ad. this is one of your congressional advertisements. let's play it. >> not long ago, we had something waiting for us. footsteps to follow. a trade. a promise of better times if we paid our dues. and we would do the work we love for free if the world was cheaper. but it's not. tax cuts for corporations paid for by taking away health care from people, by raising taxes on individuals. >> this is why we're going to win. this is what separates us from the other side.

we care. about everybody. and they don't. >> you know, it's interesting when i saw that ad, the first part ofmindied me of nothing more than the man of steel ad. i don't know if you saw that during the campaign but that was the make america great on behalf of donald trump. was that the same motif you were going for dooun you think that' the same effective message that he had in the rust belt in the united states? >> the effective part about it is that that's my life. that's me living it. and when donald trump tried to get that message out, it's a story he's trying to tell that it wasn't based in reality. and he was trying to -- people were affected because they felt like, you know, we were being paid attention to. he had no intent of keeping any promise that he made and people are seeing that now. you're seeing the results that we saw in virginia. what we saw in alabama. this resistance movement when we get these people to the polls, it's going to make a huge

difference. people will see right through -- they're having a lot of buyer's remorse based on donald trump and the lies that he told to get into office. my story is -- i'm sorry, go ahead. >> no, no, no, i'm sorry. i didn't mean to cut you off. go ahead. >> i was just going to say that our ad is just -- it's part of my story. it's nothing special. i'm not going out of my way and i think that's why it's resonating with people throughout the country. we're seeing more and more congressional candidates stepping up, everyday people, and we're communicating, we're talking to each other. this round we're helping to get each other's message out because we understand it's a national thing. our well-being is at stake so that's why we're helping each other. it's not every individual candidate for themselves. we're working together. >> and i want to ask you a little bit more about your background, but there is a politico piece that says that you've got internal polling showing that you're only down by six points, 46 to 40% against janesville native, paul ryan. what makes you think that you

could beat him? he's a wealthy man. he was born into money. you are, as you said, a regular guy from a blue collar background. are you even going to have the money to compete with somebody as wealthy and as powerful as the speaker of the house? >> well, he can have as much money as he wants. he's probably going to outraise us, outspend us. last quarter we did outraise him 3-1. we brought in $1.1 million and he brought in $300,000. we had another really good quarter with over $1 million on hand. this is a people powered campaign. he's neglected the district for over two years, he hasn't had a public town hall. this tax scam bill, people will learn really quick. we might save $1,000 temporarily on our taxes but when we have to pay $4,000 more for health insurance, this isn't for us, it isn't for our benefit, it's for the richest people in this country. we've been suffering too long. wer working harder and having less and less to show for it.

this is an uprising. this resistance is very well and people have had enough of these anti-worker policies that we're seeing now. >> what is the biggest issue that people talk to you about on the campaign trail? what's the most important issue to them? >> right now it's his lack of being in the area. health care is huge. with them trying to repeal the aca mandate and people are concerned. i took my dad back to -- he lives in assisted living, he has alzheimer's. on christmas eve no less. the woman taking care of him came running up and said with all of this stuff going on now, i'm not going to be able to afford to have health care. here's the woman that's taking care of my dad. he's being taken care of but the woman looking after him isn't and that's no way to live. we need to take care of the people that take care of us. >> randy bryce, i wish you luck. iron stash is the best twitter handle i can think of on twitter. appreciate it, good luck. >> thank you. have a good weekend. >> more "a.m. joy" after the break.

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camp david sometime soon, so we're going to stay on that for you. on the offense, republican senators targeting the spy behind the trump dossier. why they're taking action now and what this means for the russia investigation. after the breakup, what happens to the president's base after his split with steve bannon? plus, how far is too far? the questions raised after the president's nuclear button tweet about north korea. but, we begin the situation at camp david. we are waiting right now a briefing by the president with reporters and here he is approaching the podium as if right on cue for the top of our show. let's take a listen, everyone, to the president and to any of those who take to the podium after he finishes speaking. >> thank you very much. it's great to have you at camp david, a very special place. we started, as you know, yesterday afternoon. we had a cpl